Counting the cost

You know, I could just read Fark and it would provide plenty enough fodder for this blog. Check out this article regarding a wall built along US 441 near Gainesville, Florida, in order to keep animals off the road:

While the wall has reduced the number of road kill, there is a price to pay. What’s that costing you 3 point 6 million dollars? We asked Busscher if there were some taxpayers that said geez, 3 point 6 million dollars to stop road kill.

Dunno why they used the word "point" instead of just writing "3.6 million" but, whatever. My first reaction was, "you gotta be kidding." I then started watching the associated video (of which this article is actually a transcript) and I started thinking about the possible benefits of this wall besides keeping little critters safe. The report actually ended up mentioning one of them which is that fewer animals on the road means it's less likely someone will swerve to avoid one and potentially cause an accident. Another benefit that the report didn't mention is the reduction in cleanup costs due to fewer road kills (assuming they actually clean them up and not leave them to decompose on their own).

At the end of the report is this note:

While there is no doubt animals crossing the highway present problems, some people we talked to asked why the D.O.T. didn’t erect a less expensive fence instead of building 3.6 million dollar wall. The D.O.T. in charge of the area says a fence would not work because it would be in need of repair and animals might get through.

However the D.O.T. spokesman in charge of Alligator Alley says a fence is all the keeps the gators from the traffic in that area of the state and nothing else is needed because the fence works perfectly fine.

If all you're concerned about is alligators, then a fence is fine. But in this case they're dealing with small animals, such as frogs and snakes, as well as large and a fence wouldn't be enough. And they're right about the maintenance issue. This concrete wall is much more durable than a fence of any kind and will probably cost less to maintain over the long run.

After watching the report and upon further reflection, I'm inclined to give the Florida D.O.T. the benefit of the doubt. This wall may actually be worth the money, both in reducing actual costs due to reduced cleanup and accidents, and in improving the appearance of the road. It's obvious someone put some thought into its design and they certainly didn't rush into building it. I would like to see a study done in, say, five years detailing the total cost of the wall (original construction and maintenance) vs. the cost savings. That would then serve as a factor when deciding whether or not to build such walls along other stretches of highway.

Censorship...not.

Via Fark comes the link to this article (to which they applied their "Dumbass" label):

DECORAH, Iowa - The president of a company that owns movie theaters in Iowa and Nebraska is refusing to show director Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

R.L. Fridley, owner of Des Moines-based Fridley Theatres, says the controversial documentary incites terrorism.

Fridley said in an e-mail message to company managers that the company does not "play political propaganda films from either the right or the left."

"Our country is in a war against an enemy who would destroy our way of life, our culture and kill our people," Fridley wrote. "These barbarians have shown through (the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001) and the recent beheadings that they will stop at nothing. I believe this film emboldens them and divides our country even more."

I don't know how big a deal will be made of this; so far I haven't seen any mention of this on the major news sites. But I bet that fans of Moore's film, and the left in general, will probably call this yet another example of censorship.

That is, of course, total bunk. On the one hand, there is preventing someone from publishing their works or preventing people from having access to those works. On the other hand is choosing not to facilitate the publishing of or access to those works. The first is censorship. The second is not and is entirely legal. This man owns these theaters; it is his right to determine which movies will and will not be shown in them. He is under no obligation whatsoever to show a particular film. It doesn't matter at all what his reasons are. In this case, he has decided that the film emboldens terrorists (and I would tend to agree with him though, keep in mind, I haven't seen it), and he does not want it shown in his theaters. And, to be fair, he has also stated that his theaters will not show propaganda films from the left or the right. In other cases, the decision is based purely on business concerns (see: Air America). It doesn't matter what the reason is, this man is a private businessman and he cannot be forced to show a movie that he does not want to, whether it's Fahrenheit 9/11 or Spider-Man 2.

It's the same thing as happened after Natalie Maines said what she said about the President and many radio stations stopped playing the Dixie Chicks' music. They had the right to play or not play whatever songs they wanted (unless, as I've noted before, they had a contract to do so; I've never heard that there was any such contract). People had a right to buy or not to buy their CD's. Exercising that right is not censorship. It's freedom of choice.

Desecration

Via Emperor Misha I comes the link to this article at the Washington Times. Misha has already done his usual job of commentary but I thought this was the money quote:

U.S. commanders, as The Post reported, designated all Shi'ite holy sites in these Sadr battlegrounds to be "exclusion zones," sites where fire — American fire, anyway — was effectively verboten. That is, it didn't matter that the Sadr forces had transformed religious buildings into munitions dumps. Americans were under orders not to return fire unless they could see their attackers, which was nearly impossible under the circumstances. (emphasis mine)

It's not our soldiers who are desecrating these holy sites. It's the terrorists and other insurgents who are doing so by hauling their weapons into those buildings and then firing those weapons from the shelter they provide.

Our policy toward mosques and other holy sites should continue to be the same as it is now, provided that our enemies are not using them for weapon storage and as shelter when firing on our forces. If they do, on the other hand, then all bets are off. They are now legitimate military targets and we should have no compunction against busting through walls with tanks or shelling them with artillery. We've done so once that I know of. I haven't heard that we've continued with that policy or not. If not, then we should do so immediately.

The media will play this up, of course. Therefore, the point that our enemies are the ones defiling those sites must be made strongly by our military commanders and the administration. And don't forget to make the point that it helps save the lives of our soldiers. Those who oppose that will be revealing something about themselves that they may not want made visible.

Socialism/Collectivism on parade

According to this article:

Residents of King County, Wash., will only be able to build on 10 percent of their land, according to a new law being considered by the county government, which, if enacted, will be the most restrictive land use law in the nation.

Known as the 65-10 Rule (search), it calls for landowners to set aside 65 percent of their property and keep it in its natural, vegetative state. According to the rule, nothing can be built on this land, and if a tree is cut down, for example, it must be replanted. Building anything is out of the question.

Well, tell you what, if I can only build on 10% of my land, then I should only have to pay 10% of the property tax.

This is a clear violation of property rights. It smacks of Communism, pure and simple:

But supporters and environmentalists say personal property rights do not trump the rights of a larger community to save the eco-system.

I agree with a couple of responses to this I've already read. If they want to preserve the land, they should buy it and then they can do whatever you want with it, or not as the case may be.

Real strength, true humanity

Via GeekWithA.45 comes the link to this post over at Right Thinking Girl.

Sean does not like it when I call him a 9/11 Victim. He tells me he's not a victim. His coworkers who died were victims. His wife of ten years was a victim. He was just there when it happened.

Go read the whole thing, then dry your eyes as I did. This is real, folks. Real people facing the aftermath of that terrible day. It's not easy, but they're managing. In time, the pain will recede, but will never truly be gone. We all have our scars and this will likely be the largest of many that they will bear for their entire lives.

One kind of victory over those who commit acts of terror will be for the armed forces of the US and our allies to hunt them down and destroy them and those who support them. Another kind will be for those whose lives have been devastated to rise up, rebuild those lives anew, and live them, always with the memory of the past, but an eye toward the future. The terrorists seek to crush our spirit but the American spirit, the human spirit, will always be alive. It may be scarred but it will be vital.

We will never forget and we will hunt down those who perpetrate such acts and mete out the justice they so richly deserve. But we will also not let their acts destroy us for, ultimately, that is the result they crave the most. And it is the one we will always deny them.

Comrade Clinton speaks

From this article at SFGate.com, via Spoons.

"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." (emphasis mine)

If that isn't a damn near perfect definition of Communism, I have this nice bridge in San Francisco I'd like to sell you.

Every time they open their mouths, they reveal more and more their true color. Hint: it ain't white nor blue.

Camisas marrones

Seems Al Gore gave a speech:

In an hour-long address punctuated by polite laughter and applause, Gore also accused the Bush administration of working closely "with a network of 'rapid response' digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for 'undermining support for our troops.'"

The GeekWithA.45 comments:

REAL brown shirts were absolutely despicable, beating jews in the street, burning synagogues, destroying livelihoods. If I were to find real brownshirts, or their modern equivalent engaged in those sorts of activities today, I would find myself morally obliged to oppose them with all necessary force and vigor, even if it meant a side trip to crack open the armory.

How fucking dare Gore call me a brown shirt. That is DERANGED. (emphasis in original)

Kim du Toit has his say:

I bitterly resent your puerile attempts to demonize me, and my political beliefs, by associating them with Nazism. I especially resent your slimy innuendo that I, as a conservative blogger and one of the "digital Brownshirts" you referred to, am in thrall to some kind of Republican puppeteer who pulls my strings each day and tells me which Republican talking-points to cover.

It is an outright lie. (emphasis in original)

Howard Veit expounds on this:

Gore is accusing Republicans of the same tactics as used by the SS. They terrorized all political meetings beating up attendees and in many cases the speakers themselves. In February of 1927 the "Brown Shirts" armed with blackjacks, brass knuckles, rubber truncheons, walking sticks, and beer bottles broke up a huge meeting of the Communist Party with violence that resulted in hundreds of serious injuries.

So when Gore and many others call you and I "Brown Shirts" they are accusing us of thug politics. The kind that is being practiced every day on college campuses throughout our country and encouraged by the Democratic Party.

My blog is lame compared to The GeekWithA.45's. It is absolutely pathetic next to Kim's and Howard's mighty virtual voices. And yet Gore doubtless would include me in his characterization. Well here's my response to that:

I categorically reject this label. You have insulted me and many others with an appellation that is not only incorrect, but obscene. You have equated us with one of the greatest evils this world has ever known. In so doing, you also denigrate the experiences of those who suffered at the hands of the real brown shirts, and the Nazi's they served. I add my voice to those that say we will not let this stand. We hold opinions that differ from yours but we advocate and fight for freedom, something the real brown shirts sought to crush under their boots. Even if you hadn't already, you have now crossed the line between debate and vicious attack and I denounce you for it.

In contrast, I present you with an example of behavior that would have made the real brown shirts proud (via Baldilocks and others):

(Jun. 25) -- The highly anticipated film, Fahrenheit 9/11, came with more than just controversy at one Las Vegas movie theatre. Moviegoer, Richard Streeter, was one of the many who made his way to a theatre to see what the hype was about. After viewing the film, he was greeted outside the theatre by members of the Las Vegas MoveOn.org.

The group was handing out leaflets on the importance of the film. Streeter voiced his view on the movie, "I made the comment, apples and oranges -- Kerry, Bush -- one's no better than the other. You really ain't got much of a choice. This guy comes up to me and says, 'Oh yeah?' " Streeter was then spat on by the same man.

He attempted to call police to report the incident when he was told not to, "A guy standing next to him said why don't you drop it. I said, 'No, I'm calling the police. I'm exercising my right as a citizen, I've been assaulted.'"

But the horror kept on growing for Streeter as he walked to his car on the phone with police, "This guy turns, and totally by surprise takes his hand and bam! It was a big guy. Shoved me onto the ground, I hit my head." A police report has been filed.

And this isn't the first. I blogged about a similar incident back in January involving Al Franken.

The GeekWithA.45 sums up my thoughts, and I'm sure those of many others as well when he says:

So, who's the fucking brown shirts?

From today's Federalist digest

Kerry, by his own account, violated the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer, and he further stands in violation of Article three, Section three of the U.S. Constitution.

Upon entering the Navy in 1966, John Kerry signed a six-year contract (plus a six-month extension during wartime) and an Officer Candidate contract for five years of active duty and active Naval Reserve. This indicates that Kerry was clearly a commissioned officer at the time of his 1970 meeting with NVA Communists in Paris -- in direct violation of the UCMJ's Article 104 part 904, and U.S. Code 18 U.S.C. 953. That meeting, and Kerry's subsequent coddling of Communists while leading mass protests against our military in the year that followed, also place him in direct violation of our Constitution's Article three, Section three, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare. (As General Vo Nguyen Giap is his witness....)

Thus, we refer our readers to the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, which states, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President ... having previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

It is for this reason -- for his record of giving aid and comfort to the enemy while a member of the U.S. Armed Forces in violation of his oath -- that we insist John Kerry resign his seat in the U.S. Senate. He has dishonored his family, dishonored his state and dishonored our nation. He is not fit for public office at any level of government, much less, the highest office in the land. John Kerry should resign.

I must be doing something right

Dunno if this classifies as a troll but, if so, it's my first one.

In the comments to this post, someone going by the name Planet B left what constitutes the first real dissenting comment on this blog. Since it's the first, I'll go ahead and address it point by point below. I'm sure I won't do nearly as good a job as, say, Misha but I'm going to give it my best shot.

He starts off with:

just ran across your site while googling others. it looks nice but i had to laugh reading this one.

I'm glad you took the time to stop by and thanks for the compliment on the site. I don't know if you were referring to the content, the site design, or both, but it's appreciated. I guess I should also be glad that the post in question provided you some amusement value though, I assure you, it was the last thing I intended that post to do. It was a rant, pure and simple, driven by the rage I felt at those cowards sawing the head off yet another non-combatant.

He continues:

ooooh, EVIL! ugga bugga. apparently you cannot see the evil of George W. Bush and his minions.

I'm actually not blind to certain things that Bush and his administration are doing. My personal jury is still out about the so-called PATRIOT Act, for example (though Democrats must take responsibility for passing it along with Republicans). I've heard good arguments both supporting and opposing it. I agree that there may be potential for abuse, but I've yet to hear of any pattern of same and I do think that the greater cooperation between law-enforcement agencies it enables is probably a good thing. Other things that Bush is doing that I don't like mainly revolve around him growing the size and scope of the federal government like he was a Democrat. Signing McCain-Feingold (presumably hoping, in vain as it turned out, that the SCOTUS would strike it down), and the Medicare drug benefit are two concrete examples of this behavior.

Of course, what you're actually referring to is probably that Bush is the reincarnation of Hitler and we're living in the Fourth Reich. This despite the absence of jackbooted thugs dragging away all who protest the administration and stuffing them in concentration camps, or outright "disappearing" them. Do you really think that a fascist dictator like many on the left imagine Bush to be would allow the kinds of demonstrations that have taken place in cities all over the country ever since the administration started talking about invading Iraq?

May I remind you of the proper name of the Ba'ath party: The Arab National Socialist Party. What other National Socialist Party have you heard of? Yep.

He then goes on to say:

you should know a little history too. the US has been supporting dictatorships (including Hussein) and genocides since the second world war.

This is an old, tired argument. Yes, we did provide some support to Saddam during his war with Iran. The reason for this was because Iran was considered worse than Iraq at the time. It really was a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. Every time the US has supported a dictatorial regime it was to work against an even worse one.

What people who make this argument don't seem to get is that they're effectively saying, "We helped Saddam get where he was, therefore we should have left him alone." Wouldn't it be more reasonable to say, "We made a mistake and it's up to us to correct it?" I mean, if I screw up and spill dangerous chemicals on my property, isn't it my responsibility to clean them up before they get into the water supply? Or do I say, "Well, it's my fault but I'm not going to do anything about it; it's someone else's problem," and then go into my house while the lawn dies, then the trees, then me and my neighbors?

He concludes:

one beheading (or even three or a hundred) doesn't alleviate our own complicity in the evil of the world.

Assuming that we are, as you say, complicit in the evil of the world, then I agree. But that isn't the point. The point is that these people (and I use the term loosely) committed atrocities and will continue to do so if left unchecked. Do we let them do so just because we have done bad things ourselves at some point in the past?

I shouldn't have to bring this up, but I'm gonna anyway. You see the US as complicit in the evil in the world. You forget that the US is responsible for helping to defeat two of the greatest evils this world has ever known: imperial Fascism and imperial Communism. And we're working on the third. We have provided more in foreign aid to other countries than any other nation; it would not surprise me if it were more than all other nations combined. The advances in medicine and technology that have come from this country have greatly benefited the entire world. I defy you to say that we have done no good, or even that our good does not outweigh any bad. Does doing good excuse having done evil? No, but having done evil does not invalidate the good either.

Unsurprisingly, Planet B did not leave an email address or URL. If he, or she, reads this and would like to continue the discussion, then by all means I'd be happy to do so.

The thought occurs....

Many of those who oppose the war do so in part because they believe the United States is trying to create an empire and take over the world. The truth is that the United States is the only power in history with the capability to rule the world that has simply refused to do so. Many of them also believe that the president is trying to implement a Christian theocracy in this country, despite the clear prohibition of this in the First Amendment. Any attempt to legislate such a theocracy, or impose it by presidential fiat, would be struck down by the Supreme Court, not to mention fought vigorously by most of the very conservatives the left thinks want it to come about. It's one thing to recognize the influence of religion, especially Christianity, in shaping our nation and the ideals it represents, and there's nothing wrong with our elected officials, and those that they appoint, to acknowledge the role that their faith has in shaping their beliefs and actions. To do otherwise would be dishonest. It's quite another thing to elevate religious doctrine above the law of the land. Just remember it's freedom *of* religion, not freedom *from* religion. And this means all religions, not just Christianity.

Our enemies, on the other hand, make no secret of their desire to conquer the world in the name of their god and their religion, and either kill us all, enslave us, or force us to convert. If left to their own devices, they will continue to work toward this end until they succeed. They want the restoration of the Caliphate, a theocratic dictatorship, ruled over by the religious elite. Under their rule there would be no freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to peaceably assemble, freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances, etc. In short, the freedoms we take for granted in this country would all be swept away. Women would be subjugated. Gays and lesbians would be persecuted, if not executed outright. All of the social progress of the last century would be reversed and we would be plunged back into the middle ages.

Those that believe that no one power should rule the world, let alone one based on religion, would do well to reconsider just who they are supporting in this conflict.

How many more?

How many more innocent people must be murdered before everyone recognizes just what kind of evil we're fighting?

South Korea confirmed Tuesday that one of its citizens, held hostage in Iraq, had been beheaded in spite of promises of an extended deadline to meet his captors' demands.

The South Korean foreign ministry issued a statement confirming that businessman Kim Sun-il had been killed by his kidnappers, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency.

Like before, they murdered their captive just like they said they would. Just. Like. They. Said. They. Would. When are people going to start taking them at their word when they say they want to kill us all in the name of their twisted god? There is no negotiating with them. There is no appeasing them. The only sure way to keep them from killing more innocents is to kill them first. We're working to make the Middle East a place that no longer produces this type of animal but it will take years, decades even, maybe longer. For now, we must do what needs to be done to prevent these butchers from slaughtering more innocent people, people who are only there trying to help. And the only way to prevent them from killing again is to hunt them down and exterminate them with extremem prejudice. We have people who are very good at this type of job. We should let them go and do what they do best.

These people and their religion of death are the antithesis of all that is good in the world. They have declared war on us, they do so over and over with every barbaric act, with every kidnapping, with every beheading. We must make war on them such as they have never conceived. They are a cancer and we must be the surgeon, cutting away the malignancy while leaving the healthy tissue intact. They have proven by their actions that they will do what they say they will, that they will not be dissuaded. Anybody who thinks that further negotiation or appeasement will produce a different result than it has in the past is deluding themselves. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a classic definition of insanity.

It's time to become sane again, people.

What Clinton is about

As anyone even remotely tuned into the news knows by now, the autobiography of Bill Clinton, titled "My Life," will be available tomorrow. The media blitz is already underway. However, it looks like not all of the media is totally gaga over this book. The New York Times online review says:

The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.

Hat tip to Neal Boortz for the link. Speaking of which, he once again lays out his theory of why Clinton is releasing the book now, and also doing something else that may surprise some:

Bill Clinton says he does not believe that President Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons, but out of a belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction were unaccounted for. In other words, Slick Willie is backing President Bush over Iraq.

As for why he is doing these things, Boortz says that it's all part of the plan to put Hillary in the White House as soon as possible. I agree with the reasoning, provided the motivation is correct. But I had forgotten one thing which has to do with what happens if Kerry wins in both 2004 and 2008. I figured that, if he won in 2004, Hillary would have to wait until 2012, but no later, since Kerry would be the nominee in 2008. What I forgot was that, if Kerry wins in 2008 also, then his VP would likely be the nominee in 2012, thereby pushing out Hillary's run to 2016 or even 2020.

I can't *prove* that the Clintons are deliberately trying to sabotage Kerry's campaign. It's an educated guess based on extrapolation of their previous behavior and their known desire to make Hillary the first woman president. But I do think the probability that it's true is rather high. The theory is certainly consistent with the facts.

Standing to comment

Senator Kerry, in his bid for the presidency, has relied a great deal on his military service as justification for his fitness to serve in the Oval Office. Many who oppose the war in Iraq have criticized many of the proponents of the war for being willing to commit troops to the war, where some have died and more will follow, even though they themselves have not served in the military.

I myself have not served in the military. Well, that's not precisely true but that's a story for another time. Suffice to say that I don't consider myself to have served and most people would agree. So, given that, what standing do I have to support the commitment of troops, and the sacrifice that some will inevitably make, in the war in Iraq? Why should my opinion count for anything?

My answer to this is that I have the same standing as every other citizen who supported the wars that the United States has fought in the past, citizens who had never served in the military. The very fact of my citizenship gives me the right to opine about the foreign policy of the United States and the use of its military forces. This is not the world Heinlein described in Starship Troopers (and if you've only seen the movie, go read the book), where only those who have served in the military get to vote.

I would ask those people who have never served, who also oppose the war: What standing do you have to your opinion on whether or not we commit our military? If you deny my opinion any weight, you must also deny the same to your opinion. You can't have it both ways.

Stun guns

Via GeekWithA.45 comes this article in New Scientist about new nonlethal weapons.

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.

At present, commercial stun guns target one person at a time, and work only at close quarters. The new breed of non-lethal weapons can be used on many people at once and operate over far greater distances.

Sounds good, right? Better than a machine gun. Of course, not everyone agrees:

But human rights groups are appalled by the fact that no independent safety tests have been carried out, and by their potential for indiscriminate use.

The article goes on to describe some of the new developments in this area. Then it revisits the subject of the previous excerpt:

But the advent of wireless stun weapons has horrified human rights groups. Robin Coupland of the Red Cross says they risk becoming a new instrument of torture. And Brian Wood of Amnesty International says the long-range stun guns could "inflict pain and other suffering on innocent bystanders".

And there are safety concerns. Of the 30,000 times US police officers have fired Tasers, in 40 instances people stunned by them later died. The deaths have been attributed to factors such as overdoses of drugs and alcohol, or fighting with officers, rather than the electric shock.

Once again it's Happy Fun Math Time, boys and girls! Lessee, 40 out of 30,000 is 0.13 percent. Yes, that's thirteen hundredths of a percent, or thirteen ten-thousandths of the total. What are the other ways that the police can disable someone who is violently resisting arrest? They can club him with their nightsticks, they can dogpile on top of him, they can shoot him, etc. Pretty much any way they do it is going to involve some sort of physical restraint and probably violent physical contact. How many arrestees involved in such incidents later die for some reason? I'm willing to bet it's more than 0.13 percent.

In a statement, Taser International chief Rick Smith said: "In every single case the medical examiner has attributed the direct cause of death to causes other than the Taser." Amnesty is not convinced, however, and wants an independent study of the effects of all existing and emerging electric-shock weapons.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to learn about the possible effects of such weapons, but let's not go overboard either. If it can be shown easily that they're safer for the police and for the target than other existing methods, we should put them into use.

More on the USS Carter

In an earlier post, I commented on the naming of the Navy's latest and final Seawolf submarine after former President Jimmy Carter. Harvey of Bad Example left a comment to the effect that Carter served honorably in the Navy and was assigned to the original USS Seawolf. In this post, Harvey expands on why he thinks the name is fitting:

He graduated from the Naval Academy, and he was one of the few officers chosen by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to help develop the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Program. You've probably never heard of Rickover, but suffice it to say that he was to the Nuke Program what Patton was to the European Theater during WWII.

...

During his time as a Nuke, Carter was attached to one of the first nuclear submarines, the USS Seawolf - the first of a class of ships, the last of which is now being christened with his name some 50 years later. Considering that he was there at the beginning, it's fitting that his name should be attached to the ending.

And considering that Carter is the ONLY President who ever qualified to command a submarine, it is doubly fitting.

As one of the commenters to that post stated:

What is truly enlightening about your rant is that it shows *exactly* what the "bush=hitler" crowd cannot do. They cannot make a distinction between a person, their actions, and the results.

If you thought as they do, his military service would be irrelevant because he had done _something_ (anything, it doesn't matter what) that you didn't agree with. Therefore, his entire career and all his creations were for shit.

Now that I know this (and I would have found it out for myself with a modicum of effort, go lazy me), I agree with Harvey that the name is fitting. Having served in the Navy himself, I respect Harvey and his opinion in such matters greatly. The naming of the new boat honors Carter's service in the Navy and I look forward to hearing great things from the USS Jimmy Carter and its crew. Here is an article that provides some additional detail about this newest addition to the US fleet.

Democratic quotes about Saddam's WMD's

I was poking around Snopes and came across this page. It's a list of many quotes by Democratic leaders regarding Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. It lists the quotes and says:

All of the quotes listed above are substantially correct reproductions of statements made by various Democratic leaders regarding Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's acquisition or possession of weapons of mass destruction. However, some of the quotes are truncated, and context is provided for none of them — several of these quotes were offered in the course of statements that clearly indicated the speaker was decidedly against unilateral military intervention in Iraq by the U.S. Moreover, several of the quotes offered antedate the four nights of airstrikes unleashed against Iraq by U.S. and British forces during Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, after which Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) announced the action had been successful in "degrad[ing] Saddam Hussein's ability to deliver chemical, biological and nuclear weapons."

Since only "some of the quotes are truncated," that means the rest were not. Since only "several of these quotes were offered in the course of statements that clearly indicated the speaker was decidedly against unilateral military intervention in Iraq by the U.S." it stands to reason that the rest were not. Since only "several of the quotes offered antedate the four nights of airstrikes... in December 1998," the rest did not. And "degrade" does not equate to "eliminate." Even if the quotes were taken out of context, that doesn't mean the people who said those words didn't believe that Saddam had WMD's.

See, here's the deal. The critics of the war in Iraq, or as I think of it, the Iraq campaign in the war against terrorism, are now saying there never were any WMD's. Yet, all these Democratic leaders at one time believed that he had them (and if they didn't then they were lying at the time). It's one thing to say that he had them, but that it wasn't justification for war. It's another thing to say he had them, then turn around and say he didn't just because we haven't found stockpiles of them yet and you don't like the guy running the show, and then say the war was unjustified because Bush lied. The first would require integrity. The second only requires the ability to change your tune to fit your agenda and the willingness to insult my intelligence.

Elbow room

Via the Dread Emperor Misha I comes this tidbit. Misha says pretty much everything I would say but I did want to point out this one item:

One of the attackers complained that the 180 square meter apartment he had been given was too small for him and his wife. "Soon we will have children and this apartment would be too small," he told the UN staff.

It's Happy Fun Math Time boys and girls! A meter is about 39 inches, a bit longer than a yard. If you work it out, a square meter is about 1.17 square yards, or about 10.56 square feet. If you multiply that by 180, you get about 1900 square feet (just as Misha notes).

This guy is upset that he and his wife will be forced to live in a 1900 square foot apartment. Oh the horror! As a point of comparison, my townhouse, which has two bedrooms, is almost 1300 square feet. It's plenty big enough for myself and the Techno-Geekette (well, she's as much a Literary-Geekette but Techno-Geekette fits better with the name of this blog) and our two cats. We also have a friend who stays in the second bedroom one or two nights a week as his office is about a hundred miles from his house. The main problem is finding room for all our crap, which admittedly needs to be pared down some. But it's sufficient and we're not complaining. If we were to have a child, we'd want more room eventually but this house would still fit.

This asshole has over 600 more square feet, easily enough for a bedroom (or two) and a bathroom. Easily enough for a family of three, especially as he's unlikely to have as much crap to find room for. And he's unsatisfied? When the alternative is to have *nothing?* When he's getting it *for free?* It boggles the mind!

How much is "enough?"

From the New York Post Online:

Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw work for different networks but agree one thing — coverage of Ronald Reagan's death has been excessive, they say.

Excessive? The man died less than a week ago, he was a very important figure in American history, and you say it's excessive.

"Even though everybody is respectful and wants to pay homage to the president, life does go on," Rather told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"There is other news, like the reality of Iraq," said the "CBS Evening News" anchor. "It got very short shrift this weekend."

The reality of Iraq, in this case, means only the negative events and none of the positive. Gotta keep hammering Abu Ghraib down our throats, doncha know.

Neal Boortz has it exactly right. The media, in general, is trying to do everything they can to get their boy Kerry elected this November. They can deny their bias all they want but their denials ring hollow against the mounting evidence. Here's an example. If it in any way hurts Bush and/or Republicans, milk it for all it's worth. If it makes them look good in any way, shape, or form, bury it deep. In this case, we're remembering one of the greatest presidents of the last century, who was a Republican and espoused classic conservative values. People like Brokaw, Jennings, and Rather want to cut that short so they can get back to the business of trashing the current president. John Hawkins at Right Wing News has more to say on the subject as does the ever-irascible Kim du Toit.

And here's the kicker:

"Once the herd starts moving in one direction, it's very hard to turn it, even slightly," Rather said. "Nationally, the herd has grown tremendously."

Watch it, Dan. Your liberal-elitist condescension of the American people is showing.

No blood for oil

Yep. And that's exactly how it turned out.

Iraqi officials said yesterday that the interim government has assumed full control of the country's oil industry before the June 30 turnover of sovereignty from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

"Today, the most important natural resource has been returned to Iraqis to serve all Iraqis," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said. "I'm pleased to announce that full sovereignty and full control on oil industry has been handed over to the oil ministry today and to the new Iraqi government as of today."

Actually, it would be naive to think that oil has absolutely nothing to do with it. But it's really a part of the larger picture, not just the war in Iraq. One of the goals is to remove oil as a source of funding for terrorism. Saddam was funding terrorism, using profits from oil sales that were being funneled from the so-called Oil for Food program. Now that the oil reserves of Iraq are out of his hands, this goal has been partially achieved. It is hoped that the government that results in Iraq from our efforts will be friendly toward us. But I believe that they should be selling us their oil for a fair price and using the profits from those sales to rebuild their country. Although I do think it would be nice for some of those profits to be used to offset our costs in liberating Iraq from Saddam, and the costs we've incurred so far in reconstruction (sort of like treating those costs as a "loan" to Iraq), I'm not going to insist on it. Besides, US oil companies are most likely going to be involved with exploiting the oil resources anyway which will contribute to our economy just as it contributes to Iraq's.

It's also true that we currently depend on oil from the Middle East since we can't produce enough from our own wells and refineries to fulfill demand. The more I think and read about this issue, the more I agree with those who say that the first step in weaning ourselves from Middle East oil is to build more refineries and tap the ANWR. Alternative energy sources will be great if we develop them, and I encourage such research. But availability of such sources on the scale required are far enough in the future that increasing domestic petroleum production is necessary if we are to accomplish the goal relatively soon.

Reagan on faith

"If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in common, and would this not, indeed, bring them closer, and is this not to be desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue may not be tolerant at all. When John Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he said that his church would not dictate his Presidency any more than he would speak for his church. Just so, and proper. But John Kennedy was speaking in an America in which the role of religion -- and by that I mean the role of all churches -- was secure. Abortion was not a political issue. Prayer was not a political issue. The right of church schools to operate was not a political issue. And it was broadly acknowledged that religious leaders had a right and a duty to speak out on the issues of the day. They held a place of respect, and a politician who spoke to or of them with a lack of respect would not long survive in the political arena. It was acknowledged then that religion held a special place, occupied a special territory in the hearts of the citizenry. The climate has changed greatly since then. And since it has, it logically follows that religion needs defenders against those who care only for the interests of the state. ... The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims. We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions. I submit to you that the tolerant society is open to and encouraging of all religions. And this does not weaken us; it strengthens us. ... You know, if we look back through history to all those great civilizations, those great nations that rose up to even world dominance and then deteriorated, declined, and fell, we find they all had one thing in common. One of the significant forerunners of their fall was their turning away from their God. ... Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." -- Ronald Reagan, Prayer Breakfast, 1984

Many have vilified Reagan because of his faith. They think that he sought to impose that faith on the country. Reagan was informed by his faith, it is true. How could he not be? If you believe something, you cannot deny those beliefs in your words and actions or else you don't really believe it, or you are a hypocrite. Reagan understood that faith is a fundamental part of being human. If you read the book Contact by Carl Sagan, a secular humanist, or even watch the movie based on that book, you can see that even he felt the same way.

The government shall impose no religion on the people. It shall not elevate any religion higher than any other. To do so rightly invites dissolution of that government, by arms if necessary. But to ask members of the government to behave as if they do not believe the things they do, to act as if they are not Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, Pagans, Taoists, Atheists, etc. is no different than asking any of you to do the same. I do not say that one should be blinded by his or her faith; quite the opposite. One should keep an open mind and not reject ideas out of hand. But do not ignore or deny your faith either. It is part of who you are, and part of what makes you human.

True colors

Michael Feingold, writing in the Village Voice, has this to say:

No U.S. president, I expect, will ever appoint a Secretary of the Imagination. But if such a cabinet post ever were created, and Richard Foreman weren't immediately appointed to it, you'd know that the Republicans were in power. Republicans don't believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don't give a hoot about human beings, either can't or won't. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm. (emphasis mine -RR)

And the first sentence of the next paragraph reads thus:

This opinion is presumably not shared by Foreman; you can gauge the breadth of his imaginative compassion from his willingness to extend it even toward George W. Bush, idiot scion of a genetically criminal family that should have been sterilized three generations ago.

Let's see... calling for large scale extermination of a significant portion of the population, the belief in "genetic criminality" and the advocacy of forced sterilization. Where oh where have we heard that before? It would not surprise me if he hypocritically accuses the Republicans and the Bush administration of trying to implement the very ideology that his own words embody.

Given his words here, if he really wants to see a Nazi, all he has to do is look in the mirror.

And then there were two

In my post on Ronald Reagan passing, I mentioned that he was the only man I know of who has had a Navy ship named after him while he was still alive. There may have been others, but I don't know of any. Well, not until now. The Navy's latest Seawolf submarine, the last of it's class, will be named after the man who preceeded Ronald Reagan, former President Jimmy Carter.

Many on the right have vilified Carter for his performance as President, and for what he's done since. I give him the benefit of the doubt and think he's probably a good man who tried to do what he thought was right, but he just didn't have the wisdom and/or was misguided. Time will tell how well the submarine that will bear his name will perform.

Something tells me that we're never going to see a USS William Jefferson Clinton.

More reactions

For a good list of those whose words I cannot hope to match, go here.

I present, a Fisking

A friend of mine, in his LiveJournal, brought this post at Philosoraptor to my attention. According to said friend, this post is, "at least a semi-even-handed look at why bin Laden might want John Kerry to win in November... and why he might not." I read it for myself and here was the response I posted in my friend's comments.
-------------

The administration has trotted out its newest sophistry.

Just because the administration is saying it, doesn't mean it's not a legitimate concern.

Many Republicans honestly believe that Bush would be more effective against terrorism than Kerry would be, and they think that al Qaeda knows this.

I'd say he's been pretty effective so far. No further attacks on US soil, Libya and Pakistan cooperating like never before, and the very real possibility that Iran will undergo popular revolution against the mullahcracy.

This administration was so eaten up with derision for the Clinton administration that it ignored their warnings about al Qaeda. They ignored their own PDBs indicating that an attack in the U.S. was imminent, and consequently did nothing to prevent 9/11.

My understanding was that the outgoing Clinton administration didn't emphasize the threat from Bin Laden much at all. Also, the PDB's in question were not at all specific and certainly couldn't be construed to provide enough info to prevent 9/11. In my opinion, it was a complex system which failed in several places that allowed it to take place. A system which, by the way, Bush inherited from the Clinton administration (though, admittedly, I don't think it's much better, if at all).

Then the administration squandered the good will the rest of the world had for us after 9/11, alienating our allies and, in fact, the rest of the world by—among other things—attacking Iraq on obviously trumped-up charges about WMDs, and by announcing that anyone who wasn’t with us was against us.

What a good portion of the world (i.e. Europe) was thinking was not so much "We're with you in your hour of need," but more like "See what your arrogance has wrought? Now be good children and listen to your betters." When Article 5 of the NATO charter was invoked, it was used, in effect, to say, "Yes, this attack on you is an attack on us all. Therefore, we get to say how you respond."

The charges were not trumped up. Saddam had WMD's. He'd used them on his own people. He had not accounted for the destruction of weapons that it was *known* by the UN that he had. *Everybody*, including Democrats in Congress, said he had such weapons. All the evidence indicated that he had them. If Bush lied, so did everybody else. If there really weren't any weapons, then *everybody*, not just the administration, was fooled.

And, again, if the country we ultimately attacked had merely been unconnected with bin Laden in any way, this action would have merely been tragically idiotic. But no. The Bush administration allowed bin Laden to escape so that we could attack one of bin Laden’s enemies, the man bin Laden himself called “a bad Muslim.”

More and more evidence of connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda are coming to light. Whatever Bin Laden said about Hussein, they were connected, and recent evidence suggests a connection between Saddam and one or more of the 9/11 hijackers . This is not to say that Saddam had a hand in 9/11, but he may have been at least aware of the plans for something big.

I doubt that any reasonable person could have predicted that 2004 would find bin Laden still at large, al Qaeda largely intact and deluged with recruits, our allies resentful and distant, and America deeply divided. And this is not yet even to mention the fact that polls show that most Iraqis see us as occupiers rather than liberators, and that picture and videotapes showing torture of Iraqi prisoners by American troops are almost guaranteed to make that situation worse.

Our allies are resentful because we didn't come to heel like they wanted us to. Not to mention the growing scandal surrounding the Oil-for-Food program and many of those very same "allies." More and more it appears that they didn't want us to invade Iraq at least in part because they didn't want this information brought to light.

As for those polls he mentions, I haven't seen any and he doesn't provide links. If you read the troops' own words, though, it's clear that many Iraqis are glad we're there and glad Saddam is gone. We hear the news out of the remaining hotspots and virtually nothing from the rest of the country, at least in the mainstream media. Media bias, whether intentional or not, is becoming increasingly clear.

So when the Bushies say or—as they more often do—slyly suggest that bin Laden will try to influence the election in order to remove Bush from office, I suggest we remind them of the facts above. Even if bin Laden is dumb enough to think that Bush is more dangerous to him than Kerry would be, let us hope that the American people are not.

As I've shown, these "facts" are dubious. Nevertheless, what I've written doesn't prove that Bush would be more dangerous to Bin Laden than Kerry. I'm just saying that what he's written hasn't proven the opposite.
----------------

In addition, I'd like to add that I personally believe that Bush is more dangerous to terrorists than Kerry. Especially given Kerry's stated intentions of involving the UN to a greater degree in the decisions on how to proceed. Should Kerry be elected, it would not surprise me to find that the reality of future events is not as bad as many of the dire predictions of Bush supporters. I accept the very real possibility that Kerry is currently pandering to the extreme and vocal left that appears to form the core of his support base. Nevertheless, when faced with a choice between Bush, who spends like a Democrat but is tougher on terrorism than any of his predecessors, or Kerry, who is a Democrat and will certainly try to spend even more than Bush (except on the military of course), but will probably not be as tough on terrorism, I'm afraid I once again must go with the man I think will a better job at one of the few things the President is actually authorized to do by the Constitution: protect the country.

Farewell and Godspeed

I doubt that anyone reading this isn't already aware of the passing of Ronald Wilson Reagan, former Governor of California and the 40th President of the United States of America.

Others have already posted words which I cannot hope to match. Yet I feel I must say something to mark the passing of this great man.

When he was President, I was too young and ignorant of politics to understand just how great a President he was. My political views were largely those of my parents, who were staunch Republicans. Now that I've had what I call my "political awakening," I can look back and understand that he was perhaps the greatest President of the 20th century. Under his watch, the seeds of the end of the Soviet Union, and with it the Cold War, were firmly rooted in world history. He presided over unprecedented reductions in taxes and government spending. He comforted a nation when seven Americans gave their lives in the pursuit of the final frontier. Above all, he made us feel good again about being Americans. He had faith and hope in America and in humanity but wasn't afraid to call a spade a spade and fight for the cause of Freedom. Our enemies knew this, after all the hostages in Iran were released as soon as he took office.

He was especially a friend of the military. He knew that for America to be secure, it had to be strong. He is the only man I know of who was honored by having a ship named after him while he was still alive. And not just any ship, but one of the greatest warships that has ever graced the seas of this world, a Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carrier.

It is perhaps fitting that he leaves this world on the day before the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the liberation of a continent from tyranny. The men who fought that day helped save the world, and President Reagan fought to keep that world from falling into a new darkness and bring it back into the light. This nation and the world owe him a debt of gratitude that is awesome in its scale. Farewell, Gipper. This world is far richer for your life and we will always remember what you did for us.

Child deaths in movies

On the way home from work today my brain randomly latched onto how the deaths of children are portrayed in movies, assuming such deaths are portrayed at all. The way I see it, we consider the death of a child to be of greater import, and more disturbing, than that of an adult, or even a teenager. After all, we see teenagers get whacked all the time in slasher flicks, but never pre-teen children. Yet, sometimes childrens' deaths are portrayed in movies, though how they are portrayed varies. I would say that, usually, it's as a dramatic element which leads to some sort of conflict. For example, a married couple's child dies and they have trouble reconciling themselves to the fact that he or she is gone. The marriage starts falling apart and this provides the dramatic hook that drives the plot.

But occasionally a child's death is portrayed for the shock value. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I came up with three movies which I think fit this description.

"The Beastmaster" (1982)
In this low-budget, but generally well-done sword and sorcery flick, the main bad guy is Maax (pronounced may-ax), played by Rip Torn. He is the leader of a religious cult whose members are fanatically devoted, willing even to commit suicide at his command. During one scene, he is presiding over a worship ritual and commands his minions to go out into the crowd and bring him a child. The first child is brought to him, he raises the boy above his head, and then throws him into a large bonfire as a sacrifice to his god. The second child is saved by the eagle companion of the titular hero and much derring-do ensues.

In this case, the death of the child serves a purpose in showing that Maax is irredeemably evil and ruthless. It was still somewhat gratuitous in that the point could have been made almost as well by having the first child be the one that was saved.

"Maximum Overdrive" (1986)
In this mediocre thriller written and directed by Stephen King, the machines of the world go on a rampage after the earth passes through the tail of a comet. The first part of the movie deals with how the machines go nuts and start killing everyone they can. One scene shows a little league baseball team whose coach is killed by a soft drink vending machine that fires a can at him so hard it visibly dents his head. One of the kids is out in a grassy area when a rampaging steamroller crashes through some nearby bushes and runs him over.

This one pretty much only served to show that the machines were indiscriminate in their killing. It didn't really advance the plot any.

"The Blob" (1988)
This remake of the 1958 original is understandably more gory and violent than its predecessor. During one scene, the main female character and her kid brother (I think), along with the kid's young friend, are trying to escape the Blob which has just consumed a large portion of a movie theater's audience. They're underground in a flooded room of some kind and the friend is trailing behind the other two when he is suddenly yanked backward and under the water. A few seconds later he reappears, engulfed by the translucent blob, and is being visibly dissolved and absorbed by the creature.

Of the three, this one shocked me the most as it was the most obviously violent. The other two involved fairly quick deaths which were not graphically portrayed but this one was much more protracted and you saw the kid as he was being consumed. It was also pretty gratuitous although it did serve a small purpose. After he watched his friend die, the kid brother said that he'd never sneak into the theater again.

For the most part, though, the unwritten taboo against showing the violent deaths of children is observed in the movies and on television. That's probably part of the reason it seems so shocking when a movie actually does show such a death. Still, I hope I never get to the point where such a portrayal fails to shock and disturb me.

Nice and to the point

Dale Franks, writing at QandO, succinctly defines the fallacy that underlies pure pacifism:

In the interwar years of the 20s and 30s, and idea grew that, because the Great War was foolish, senseless, solved nothing, and proved nothing, that all wars are senseless in the same way. Now, in Europe, and, sadly, much of America, a similar feeling has developed. In many ways, this is completely understandable, yet, as Boot points out, it ignores an inconvenient, but hugely important fact.
No matter how much you desire peace, you will not have it if you are opposed by an enemy who desires war. (emphasis mine -RR)

There are people out there that desire our destruction. They will not be appeased, and they will not stop unless one of the following happens:

1. We die.


2. We submit and become dhimmi.


3. We convert to their brand of Islam.


4. They realize that they simply cannot win, that they are responsible for their own failure and not us, and that their brand of fascism is a dead-end.


5. They die.

Of these, the last is the most likely. What we are attempting to do in Iraq is part of a plan to bring about option 4. Or, rather, to bring about a change in the culture of the region so that the culture, in general, chooses option 4. In a sense, we're trying to kill one culture and allow a healthier one to take it's place. We won't be able to kill every "Islamo-fascist" that exists and there will certainly continue to be those who cling to that ideology even if we are successful. The idea is to change the fundamental character of the region so that it doesn't tend to produce such people anymore.

But, for now, we are faced with an implacable enemy. All are kind words mean nothing to them, except as signs of our weakness and decadence. We will continue to say those words because we are, at heart, a kind and generous people. But we must also answer their violent actions with violence of our own because that is the only thing they truly respect and fear. They expected us to roll over and die after September 11. Imagine their shock when we did the opposite and took out both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. We must make sure that we don't backslide into the old ways of appeasement and ineffectual response but continue to take the fight to these enemies until either option 4 or 5 is brought about.

That's not it at all

According to this short article at Time.com:

Neil Noesen, a relief pharmacist at the Kmart in Menomonie, Wis., was the only person on duty one day in 2002 when a woman came in to refill her prescription for the contraceptive Loestrin FE. According to a complaint filed by the Wisconsin department of regulation and licensing, Noesen refused because of his religious opposition to birth control. He also declined to transfer the prescription to a nearby pharmacy and refused once again when the woman returned to the store with police. The prescription was filled several days later by the managing pharmacist. But Noesen was accused of unprofessional conduct and will face an administrative law judge on June 22. Antiabortion groups are urging Wisconsin officials not to punish Noesen. He and his attorney did not comment.

I don't have a problem with him refusing to fill the prescription on moral grounds. What I do have the problem with is his refusal to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy. When he did that, he crossed the line and attempted to impose his morality on someone else. He committed an ethical breach and for that he should be fired and his license revoked.

Later in the article:

Laws are vague on the subject. But two states, South Dakota and Arkansas, have passed laws that explicitly protect pharmacists who refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions on moral or religious grounds. Similar legislation has been introduced in 13 other states. Karen Brauer, who says she was fired by Kmart in 1996 for refusing to fill a birth-control prescription and is now president of Pharmacists for Life, says such laws are needed. "Pharmacists are being expected to do things that they do not believe they should do," she says. Counters Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood: "The question here is whose conscience counts. This is about a woman's most fundamental right of choosing when to have a child."

This doesn't have anything to do with the right to choose when to have a child so much as it has to do with a man who refused to perform the tasks which are a requirement of his employment. If he doesn't want to fill birth-control prescriptions, fine. But he needs to inform his employer who will then decide whether or not to continue to employ him. If he remains employed then he should either be teamed with someone else who will fill the prescriptions, or be required as a condition of his continued employment to transfer any such prescriptions to another pharmacy without question. If I were to tell my boss that I had a moral compunction against using computers, do you think I'd stay employed where I am very long?

The way I see it, if you are in a profession where you are likely to be required to do something that you consider immoral and will refuse to do, you ought to be looking for a different career.

I have seen it, and it is good

I have finished watching the entire series of Firefly. After watching it, I only have one thing to say:

What were those idiots at Fox thinking?

Okay, I do have more to say. The show is good. It's not good in the way Babylon 5 was good, but rather it was good in the way Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series, not the movie) was good. Of course, since the creator of Buffy, Joss Whedon, was the creator of Firefly, that's no surprise at all.

Firefly was a bit more serious than Buffy but it had its light moments. What it also had was clever dialog, engaging plots, very interesting characters, and a universe that provided almost unlimited storytelling potential, even when focusing on the crew of a single spaceship.

An example of dialog:

Wash: Psychic? Sounds like something out of science fiction.
Zoë: We live on a spaceship, dear.
Wash: So?

For those unfamiliar with the show, it is, quite literally, a space western. It takes place mostly on frontier worlds where people do ride horses, farm, and raise cattle since they're tried and true methods of surviving until the world is built up enough to support the more advanced technology. After all, what good is your robot farm implement if there aren't any repair shops for several parsecs?

Fox clearly didn't know what kind of a gem they had on their hands. They aired the episodes out of sequence, which is bad in this case since there is considerable continuity between them. Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation pretty much stand alone, with a few exceptions, but Firefly should be viewed in the proper order or there will be some confusion.

Fortunately, a feature film is in the works. The reaction to the show's cancellation, and the sales of the series on DVD no doubt got somebody's attention. I'm hoping that this leads to a resumption of the series, though it would probably fare better on UPN or WB, which both did a good job of handling Joss's other two series Buffy and Angel.

I'm not saying anything which hasn't been said before, though. For a much more thorough review, see this page.

That'll be the day

Oh this is rich.

This weekend, millions of Americans will go see The Day After Tomorrow -- the movie the White House doesn't want you to see.

You will note, of course, the COMPLETE AND UTTER LACK OF SUPPORTING INFORMATION FOR THIS CLAIM. The movie the White House doesn't want you to see. Since when? Since it makes for a good slogan, that's when.

At least they admit that it is an exaggerated story. Of course, then they state, "...but it will leave people wondering, 'Could this really happen?'" I'm certainly not wondering. I know the answer is a resounding "NO!" I leave the minimal effort at locating the information that thoroughly debunks this movie as an exercise for the reader. Nevertheless, some people will be taken in by this, and these are the people MoveOn and the Democrats in general are targeting. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Fark summed it up perfectly: "Moveon.org endorses The Day After Tomorrow as the movie the White House doesn't want you to see. Tin-foil hats selling like waffles."

Flying the flag

Boy, Fark sure is a goldmine, innit?

Here we have the story of an elderly gentleman who is living in a retirement community. Seems he has been hanging the flag of the United States off of his balcony every day since September 11, 2001. However, the community has a "policy against residents having exterior hangings such as windsocks, wind chimes, planters and flags."

An interesting irony is that the man, Donald Lamp, is the father-in-law of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

While I question the need for this policy (I'm assuming there's a reason for it but I can't think of one right off-hand), nevertheless it applies to everyone equally and doesn't make any exceptions. Therefore, reluctantly, I must agree with the apartment manager that he should take down the flag until and unless an exception is granted, or the policy otherwise revised to allow it. It is private property and, unless there are laws granting apartment residents the right to hang flags and other things off their balconies, the community has the right to regulate what goes on there.

I recommend that the community's board of directors re-examine this policy as soon as possible.

Uh, excuse me?

From this article:

A woman accused of bringing a gun to a girls softball game says she had no intention of using the weapon. Instead, Rhonda Smith claims she put it in her purse for protection.

Hmmm.... On the basis of this paragraph alone I'm inclined to side with Ms. Smith. Let's read on, shall we? Seems Ms. Smith became involved with an argument with another fan attending the game:

"This man was sitting beside me. He said, ugha! ugha! ugha! nothing. I said 'excuse me?' I said from what I gather you don't think our kids should score. Why?" asked Rhonda Smith.

Rhonda Smith was cheering her daughter's team when she says a fan on the opposing side began taunting her. "He told me you need to shut up."

I took the liberty of correcting an apparent typo, and the quote here isn't completely clear but it sounds like a man who was rooting for the opposing team told Ms. Smith that she needed to stop cheering for her daughter's team. It doesn't say just what Ms. Smith was shouting in support of her team but, unless it was liberally laced with profanity and/or she was shouting it through a bullhorn, telling her to stop cheering for her daughter just flies in the face of the whole purpose of having these events. Moving on:

Smith says the two exchanged words, then she went for help. "I was scared, upset. I was kind of angry that this team will do anything to beat us because we were first place last year and they were last place," says Smith.

I don't know if telling you to "shut up" qualifies as "do(ing) anything" but I get the impression here that there was more going on than just this incident. What happened next clearly shows that Ms. Smith felt personally threatened, and also feared for her daughter's safety:

Smith asked to have the man removed from the game but says nobody would do anything to help her. That's when she walked to the parking lot and picked up a case wrapped in a white towel. Inside the black case was a 380-caliber pistol.

Smith says she put it inside her purse, zipped it up and headed back to the game.

"I was thinking about the safety of my baby because like I said, I never seen this man before."

Predictable results followed:

But police say Smith shouldn't have had the gun at the game even though she had a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

"This behavior is not going to be tolerated," commented Lt. John Bradford with the Decatur Police Department.

Okay, police say she shouldn't have had the gun there. But was it *illegal*? If there was no law specifically banning firearms from that venue, then what she did was totally legal as she had a concealed weapon permit. Finally we have:

Smith admits what she did was wrong but says she never meant for things to go this far. "I'm sincerely sorry. I made a bad judgement call but I was afraid. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't. My life is over. My life as I knew it is over. I will never be the same again."

Rhonda Smith has been banned from all city park and rec softball games. The sheriff's department also revoked her pistol permit.

Saying her life is over is a bit extreme, unless she's now a total social outcast and can't show her face among the backward masses that would have to be occupying her home town for that to be the case. In which case I would suggest that she move as quickly as possible to a state and community that recognizes the right to self-defense. It is true, however, that she will likely be unable to obtain a concealed weapon permit anywhere else since this will be on her record.*

I do have one question. How did the police find out she had the gun? Was she searched or did she draw it while at the game? If she was searched, why was that done? If she drew it, why did she do so? Was she physically threatened? The article does not say. In this case, we don't know the complete story. If she pulled out the gun and started brandishing it about, then she was indeed foolish and deserves the punishment she got. However, if that were the case, I have absolutely zero doubt that it would have been mentioned prominently in this article. My guess is that she did not draw the gun, except possibly in a defensive situation. If she didn't, somehow the police found out about it. In any case, nobody was hurt. She didn't hurt anyone, she did no harm. She clearly felt that she and/or her daughter were in danger and she took steps to provide their defense should it prove necessary. I would need to know more to be more definitive. What I can say, though, is that if she didn't break the law, then she should not have any legal sanction brought against her.


* I have a friend who cannot obtain a concealed pistol license (which is what we call it here in Washington State) because, some years back, she was pulled over on her motorcycle in Arizona. The officer found a small quantity of marijuana on the motorcycle. However, although she was arrested, she was never charged, let alone convicted. Yet the mere presence of the arrest on her record prevents her from obtaining the permit.

Purpose

So I've been doing this weblog for almost nine months now. Has it accomplished anything? I don't know. I'd like to think that at least one or two people have come here, read what I've written, and then had something to think about for a time. There are so many other blogs out there that I'm just one more voice in the crowd, shouting for attention. What do I wish to accomplish with it?

To be honest, I want to make a difference, no matter how small. In a sense, I've already been successful since this experience has made a difference in my life. Has it made a difference for anyone else? I don't know. There have been less than ten comments made since I set up commenting, and only one trackback. I spread trackbacks around when I can and it does drive some traffic this way. However, most traffic comes by way of search engines and there are noticeable spikes when big-news events happen and I write about them. These people probably don't know what they're going to get when they click that link in a Google or Yahoo search results page. Do any of them look at the words I've written and think, "He's got a point?" Or do they take one look, recoil in horror and immediately click their browsers' back buttons? Who can say?

Lately the frequency of posts has been lower. One reason is that I've been businer but another is that, whenever I hear about something I want to write about, I find that others have already written what I'm thinking and often have done it better. I could just post links to their writings but I don't want this to be a linking blog. I want to contribute original material to the discussions of the day. To be honest, I don't know how people like Misha, Mike, or Harvey do it. I look at their blogs, and many others, and wonder if there's any reason for me to continue doing this. Sometimes I just feel redundant.

But I do want to continue, regardless. I do want to be a source of original material so there will likely continue to be a relatively low frequency of posting. I'll probably start to diversify my topics more and not just focus on politics and the war. Only time will tell if I am successful.

All I ask is that, if you come here, and you read my words, and they've made a difference to you, please let me know. Even if they only give you something to think about, or even if they pissed you off, drop a comment and let me know. After all, when it comes down to it, I think that's the reason most bloggers do what they do....

We just want to be heard.

Enterprise season finale

Coming into the episode, I hadn't heard that Enterprise had been renewed for another season. I had heard rumors that it could be canceled but nothing concrete. After watching, it was immediately apparent that they were planning for another season. It ended with a cliffhanger in the now-classic Trek tradition.

Warning: Some spoilers will follow so don't read further if you haven't seen it yet and want to go into it cold.

The idea of having a season-long story arc is unprecedented in Trek. Other shows, notably Babylon 5, have proved that it can be done but Trek has, so far, shied away from long arcs. There have been overarching storylines, like the Dominion War in Deep Space 9, but not all of the episodes dealt directly with that plot. This season has been pretty much focused on the main plot. I think it was well done in that they were able to craft a story that fit into the time frame, and advance it in regular steps that more or less made sense. On that aspect, I give Enterprise good marks.

As has been a recurring theme since Enterprise debuted, time travel factored heavily in the entire story arc. Time travel in Trek has been hit or miss. Sometimes it's done very well, other times it falls flat. What bothers me about how it's handled in Enterprise is that Captain Archer is going to have so much knowledge of future events that it can't help but affect his actions going forward. The writers have been pretty consistent in having the Captain do what he thinks is right, even though Daniels has said he shouldn't do it. This final episode is no different. Daniels urges the Captain not to lead the strike team on the Xindi weapon but Archer basically tells him to take a hike and send him back to his own time. He believes the present is more important than a possible future and acts accordingly. Nevertheless, he still has this knowledge and it will give him certain advantages. Hopefully the writers will address this and handle it effectively and realistically.

The final fight scene was well done. The look on the reptilian's face just before the limpet bomb on his shoulder goes off was priceless, as was Archer's expression just before he stepped around the column to shield himself from the blast. Scott Bakula is one the most underrated actors in Hollywood in my opinion; anyone who enjoyed his work on Quantum Leap will likely agree with me. (My mother once commented that Scott was the first male actor she's ever seen who realistically portrayed being pregnant. Being a mother of three, she would know.)

The character of Hoshi really went through a tough time, too. Some nice work by Linda Park. She's a very sensitive character and it makes perfect sense that she would feel great remorse over helping the reptilians decrypt the arming codes, despite the fact that she had no choice. Her inner strength became apparent as she successfully resisted the drugs they gave her for a time, only succumbing when they gave her a second dose that nobody could have resisted. Again, we have an opportunity for the writers to continue this character's development.

Jolene Blalock turned in a nice performance. She's doing a good job of showing us a Vulcan who is not entirely in control of her emotions but is struggling to keep them in check as much as possible. Her slight fluctuations in voice and facial expression are slight but noticeable and convey her character's inner struggle effectively and with subtlety.

And Shran just rules.

As for the story, I think they did a pretty good job of wrapping it up. The new alliance between the humanoid, arboreal, and aquatic races of the Xindi and the Enterprise crew makes sense given the events up to that point. I didn't have to suspend my disbelief very much when it came to the final fight and the destruction of the weapon. The episode kept my interest and there weren't any "You've gotta be kidding!" moments. In all, pretty well executed.

And then there's the cliffhanger ending. Of course, I was pretty sure that Archer had survived somehow. But the story took a 90-degree turn away from everything by throwing the Enterprise back to the 1940's during WWII. And of course we have Nazis, this time with an officer who is some type of alien. It's going to be interesting to see how this turns out but I have this creeping dread that Enterprise just jumped the shark in a big way. I'll watch it, though. It's Star Trek, after all, and bad Trek is still usually worth watching (with a couple notable exceptions, such as the execrable "Threshold" episode of Star Trek: Voyager).

Lileks gets Moore

I was perusing the last couple Bleats and I ran across the following in yesterday's missive:

I’m working on a column about “Farhenheit 911.” Found this quote from Moore’s own site, from April 14. That’s the infamous entry where he wrote “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win.”

Noted. He also wrote: “I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.

Sacrificing American blood to earn God’s favor? Sound like anyone you know?

Despicable.

Does anyone still wonder why so many of us stand in awe of James Lileks?

Saw a bumper sticker today

I've seen it a couple of times before. It says, "Peace is patriotic."

I wanted to reply, "So is defending your country against an enemy that is determined to destroy it."

Sometimes I feel like Kyle Reese as portrayed by Michael Biehn in the original Terminator:

"Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." (thanks to IMDB)

Until we are dead. Or until they are, whichever comes first. Fortunately, terrorists are human and not nearly as indestructible as a terminator machine.

Shoot all the clowns

The sub-title of this piece by Michael Moran at MSNBC.com is, "When the going gets tough, the messenger gets shot."

This implies that the messenger, in this case the media, is impartially delivering the news and that he is being shot because the news is bad.

Wrong-o. We're upset because there's both good news and bad news and the media is only delivering the bad. And it's doing so in such a way as to make President Bush and his administration look as bad as possible.

Imagine if Phedippedes, after having run back to Athens from the Battle of Marathon, had said, "The Persians forced back the center of our line and we lost 192 men, including Archon Callimachus," but forgot to mention that the Greeks had won the battle and routed the Persians who were, even now sailing to Athens to attack directly and get some payback for their 6000 dead. (The Greek army returned from Marathon in time to forestall the attack.)

Stephen Den Beste has more here.

The Charge of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade

There is little I can add to what has already been said by Misha, Serenity, and Steve Silver about this article in the New York Press. But I do want to add a couple of things:

When news of the Berg video hit Washington during a hearing on the prison abuse, newly energized Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum leapt up to announce, "If anyone wants to know what we're fighting and why we're fighting this war on terror, this is a good example of it." As with Lieberman's previous remarks, nobody thought to remind the senator that 9/11 and the "war on terror" have no reality-based connection to the mess we've created in Iraq. Nor did anyone mention that Berg's killers explicitly cited the humiliations of Abu Ghraib before cutting off the lad's head.

Misha has already addressed the connection between terrorists and Iraq. When it comes to the reason Berg's murderers did what they did, Abu Ghraib was just a convenient excuse. The reason they killed him was not in retaliation, but rather to shock and horrify the American people in an attempt to sway political opinion away from support for the war. They knew we'd feel bad about Abu Ghraib and they hoped to build on that. But if it hadn't happened, they would have found something else to blame it on. It may sound cold but there was nothing short of rescue that would have saved his life.

Which isn't to say Berg didn't die a horrific death. The point is that his death brings zero moral clarity to the invasion or the occupation. It does not justify some amorphous "war on terror," or dilute the meaning of Abu Ghraib. The lesson of Nick Berg is much more simple and timeless: Don't invade other people's countries and mess with their women. If you do, heads are gonna roll.

Earlier he pointed out how Berg's death was relatively quick. Now it's horrific. Only the latter is correct. I watched the video; there was nothing quick about it. Decapitation by guillotine is quick. Sawing your head off, over the space of about a minute, is not.

It is true that, by itself, Berg's murder doesn't justify the entire war on terror. However, that murder is just another thread in an entire tapestry of behavior that provides ample justification. Much larger threads, of course, include but are not limited to 9-11, the Madrid train bombings, the Bali disco bombing, and the attack on the USS Cole. Or did he forget all those? And the war on terror is not at all amorphous. It's rather concrete if you ask me. Afghanistan and Iraq are two battlefields in that war. There will be others, though most will hopefully be fought, not with weapons, but with ideas.

I don't mean to say I told you so but....

One of the justifications given for invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power was that he still had weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical and or biological weapons, as well as the potential to create nuclear weapons at some point in the future. The fact that he had chemical weapons in the past is beyond dispute, thousands of dead Kurds can attest to that. Since invading, some evidence of WMD's has been found. Now there is more concrete proof. Odds are, if you're reading this blog, you already know about this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent recently exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday.

Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas was also recently discovered.

One response I've heard from opponents of the war is along the lines of, "Big deal. That's only one or two shells. It's not a stockpile." Yeah, well a very small dose of sarin is lethal. The shell contained enough that, if it were distributed effectively, it could kill thousands of people. Let me repeat that: thousands of people.

The round was an old "binary-type" shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.

Fortunately for our guys...

He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited.

The shell had no markings. It appears the binary sarin agents didn't mix, which is why there weren't serious injuries from the initial explosion, a U.S. official told Fox News.

Yeah, it's just two shells but does anyone seriously believe that's all there is? This guy doesn't:

Gazi George, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist under Saddam's regime, told Fox News he believes many similar weapons stockpiled by the former regime were either buried underground or transported to Syria. He noted that the airport where the device was detonated is on the way to Baghdad from the Syrian border.

George said the finding likely will be the first in a series of discoveries of such weapons.

"Saddam is the type who will not store those materials in a military warehouse. He's gonna store them either underground, or, as I said, lots of them have gone west to Syria and are being brought back with the insurgencies," George told Fox News. "It is difficult to look in areas that are not obvious to the military's eyes.

"I'm sure they're going to find more once time passes," he continued, saying one year is not enough for the survey group or the military to find the weapons.

The theory that large amounts of Hussein's stock of weapons were moved to Syria, or through Syria to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. The current finds are certainly consistent with this theory. Not proof positive, to be sure, but supportive.

Hat tip to Mike for the link.

You've gotta be kidding, right?

Unfortunately, the answer to that rhetorical question is depressingly false. Via multiple sources comes this:

US athletes told to cool it at Olympics

We're so worried about how the rest of the world thinks about us. The more I hear about crap like this, the more I realize that nobody should do anything they don't want to solely to make someone like them. For example, when it comes to my relationships with other people, I'm going to be who I am and if they don't like me, then so be it. Naturally I'm not going to go out of my way to cheese them off, but I'm not going to hide who I am and pretend to be someone else just to get their approval. I'm not going to refuse to celebrate when I think there's something worth celebrating. I'm going to exult in victory if I'm victorious. Sure, I'll be gracious about it, and I'm certainly not going to ram it down my opponents' throats and trash talk them. But I'm not going to keep it inside either.

If a US athelete is victorious and wants to show his pride in his achievement and the country that helped make it possible, he or she should be able to, just as any athelete from any country should. (Personally, I can't wait until the day I see an Iraqi athelete running around the stadium wearing a medal and waving the flag of Iraq.) What's wrong with that?

GeekWithA.45 states it succintly:

Hiding light under a bushel is a fruitless gesture, and no one will ever gain or regain respect for America by noting how subdued and restrained the decorum of our athletes is.

People who hate us will boo and jeer (and kill) on ANY pretext, and this is blaming the victim political correctivism of the worst sort.

America's athletes should not hold themselves to any different standard of behavior than any other country's.

Whether it's on the scale of interpersonal relationships at school or the workplace, or the scale of international relations, it still comes down to the difference between tact and political correctness.