Friday, February 27, 2004

Have a good One, W-D





I am sorry to report that Whatever-Dude is closing it's doors. I've enjoyed their freestyle pop-culture commentary since I first happened upon their Creed massacre a few years ago, at a time when Scott Stap's Eddie-Vedder-wannabe-warble was causing me severe emotional distress. As a rule, the gang filtered in more than a little of the kind of hapless leftism that was a requirement for coolness pre-9/11, but they served as an excellent microcosm of my generation's insistence on applying High Art ideals to Pop Art product, and of mixing an educated vocabulary with dick-and-fart jokes. In honor of their passing, I invite you to read this exemplar: "I Am Jack's Younger Self": The Secret Connections between "Fight Club" and "Calvin and Hobbes" REVEALED!

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Oy.





And the morons make the ADL seem right. "The Jews Killed the Lord Jesus." Talk about missing the point.

"Y'all Look Alike To Me."





The Miami Herald broke the story, and Instapundit picked it up. The blogosphere owes it to itself to hound Rep. Brown with as much fury as it did Trent Lott. What she said was worse than what Lott said by any objective standard. This woman is a racist, and we need to make that clear. I am especially extending this invitation to the leftward-leaning blogs. NRO and Andrew Sullivan were on the forefront of the charge to oust Lott from his leadership position. Sully's still hyperventilating over FMA, but I think this is a fine opportunity for the left to renounce double-standards. Skeptical, old man, I'm looking at you.

More Strategery, Redux





Greenspan addressed the elephant in the living room yesterday, calling for cuts in Social Security benefits to address the federal defecit. I expect that to happen right around the time I expect small primates to ascend the heavens from my rectum, but it's the kind of statement that jars a public already dealing with many big issues (on thing about this election, it's definitely going to be about something) My liberal pal at Skeptical Notion is already making "cut taxes for the rich, cut benefits for the elderly" hay out of it. I take his point.


But, as Greenspan said, Social Security is going to start running out of money sooner than we think. The system cannot go on as currently devised. I'm starting to sound like scratched vinyl, but the Democrats have NO PLAN to deal with this (I'm sorry, but "we're gonna lock the money away in a big box" is not a plan). The Republican plan is, keep SS as devised for those already retired or about to do so, and let the rest of us have personal accounts to be invested and managed similar to a 401(k). We can argue about the details of this, but I'm convinced that it's the way to go. Greenspan is merely underlining the reasons why, in language we're likely to notice.


All of which reminds me of a post I made back in August, in which I speculated that Bush's fiscal flamboyance was a means of bringing this issue to a head, "forcing Atlas to shrug," as I put it. The entitlement empire is far and away the biggest drain on our public finances. It's getting bigger and bigger and bigger, year by year. Perhaps now, with even Democrats arguing about fiscal restraint, we can finally do something about it. Strategery? Maybe...

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

People Are Still Having Sex, Redux





Reuters says that half of all Americans can expect to get an STD by age 25. The solution, something new and exciting, a bold beacon of hope in these dark times: "medically accurate information on condoms."


Hooray. We're saved.


I'm positive you've heard this spiel before: "Although abstaining from sexual activity is guaranteed to prevent STDs, some adolescents and virtually all young adults will eventually choose to have sex," quoth Sharon Camp of the Guttmacher Institute, in a statement on the news. "Before they do, they need realistic sex education that teaches them how to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies."


So the thing that's guarunteed to prevent STD's and unwanted pregnancies, we're not going to push that. We need something more "realistic," which is to say, something more risky and, therefore, guarunteed to result in at least some STD's and unplanned pregnancies. Super!


She goes on: "It is essential to have medically accurate information about condoms and other contraceptive methods, and guidance on how to access appropriate prevention, testing and treatment services."


Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me! Is it...a)condoms work best if you use something else with them, like spermacide, and b) look in the phone book under "Free Clinic"?


Is there really anyone out there who hasn't gotten the "safe sex" message by now? It hasn't changed for the whole of my lifetime: DON'T DO IT*






*but if you do, put a rubber on your willie, but be sure to get tested anyway, cause you never know, and if parts start to itch and ooze in ways that no loving God ever intended, be a sport and stop shagging the co-eds at the club until we can give you a shot, huh? Remember, you're being RESPONSIBLE!




Why do we have to keep having this conversation? If there were a whole smorgasbord of diseases which caused infertility, cervical cancer, warts and sores, immune system failure, and death, and it was caused by wearing flannel shirts, you know damn well that these chuckledheads would be picketing Congress until the Second Coming demanding an all-inclusive Flannel Ban. The fact that lumberjacks and retro-grunge rockers might insist on wearing flannel anyway would avail them naught. There wouldn't be a stitch of flannel from sea to shining sea, because the "risk" would be "too great." Even one flannel-related death would be too many.


But because it's sex, we have to hem and haw and give in before we fight, because patting ourselves on the back about how hip and un-hung-up we are is far more important than the health of the next generation. Deep down, we've come to accept the idea that the sex drive is our master, that it will not be gainsaid, it cannot be contained in a useful structure, and that only self-flagellating reactionaries would even want it to be.


Well, guess what? When we taught young people to keep in in their pants until they got married, we didn't have a 50% infection rate. We didn't get the 50% infection rate until we spent a few decades saying it was okay to have sex whenever the hell you got a willing soul and a sea room. We aren't going to undo the 50% infection rate until we start shouting from the rooftops that if you have sex outside a committed relationship, you're taking your life into your hands.


Because here's the flip side of "But they're gonna do it anyway, even if we tell them abstinence works,": They know that condoms and the rest of it work, too. They don't use them anyway. They cost money and take time and energy. Unsafe sex is free.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

There will always be a Tsar





Vlad has fired his cabinet. You know, I always thought he was shady, from the moment he assumed the Presidency from Yeltsin on the last day of the last century (remember that bolt from the blue?). The continued trend since Putin took over seems to have been absorbing more and more power into the hands of the Fearless Leader. Some things just don't change.

What Happens When an Invincible Force Meets an Immovable Object?





So the Prez has come down on the "Do Nothing" side of the marriage question. They're saying the courts forced him into this. It's an interesting situation. The courts feel obligated to right a percieved wrong countenanced by the tyranny of the majority, the political branches feel obligated to stop the courts from forcing societal change unsupported by the people. Who's right?


Like I said, this is only half the marriage issue as far as I'm concerned. But it may be to the good to move this debate out of the courts and into the legislatures. We might start to have a truly substantial debate on the subject, not about what the other side is going to do if X, Y, and Z happen. We can finally decide what we, as a people, want the law to be.


Of course, it's still using the federal hammer to swat what's determinedly not a federal issue. This is the problem with Big Government Conservatism. Instead of letting each state decide for itself, we're going to have the states collectively decide for the entire nation. A function of our wired-in, constantly-demanding-solution society.

Quote for the Day





Empty talk about jobs won't get anybody hired.


-President Bush, yesterday at the RGA.



Just remember that all this talk about "job creation" or "job loss" as a matter of praise or blame to the presidency is bogus. Kerry's not going to "create jobs" anymore than Bush "lost them" (or "remade them," if that starts happening more). Market economies expand and contract according to their own cycles.

Monday, February 23, 2004

Don't be a Nader Hater





Look, I'd like nothing better than to see the Democratic party founder on its inconsistencies, but I don't seriously see Nader polling the votes he did in 2000. The press is dead set against him; we're already well into campaign season, and he's not going after the Green Party nod. The man's just delusional enough to believe that he'll take votes away from Bush. He's Lyndon LaRouche for the new generation. Pay him no mind.

Friday, February 20, 2004

"The Government Has One View of America, but the People Have Another."





Guess which kind of Iranian said that?




A) reformist politician



B) angry student radical



C) CIA-sponsored troublemaker



D) Revolutionary Guard




The answer, of course, by the law of rhetorical surprise, is D (link via Instapundit). That's a big sign for me. When your home garrison doesn't want to fight for you, you're screwed. Ask Louis or Nicholas.








Goodbye, Sweetheart; Hello, Vietnam





FrontPage runs an email from a Marine vet that questions Kerry's military record. All summed up in this knife-point:


Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Japanese destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early and requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress. In that election, he finds out war heroes don't sell well in Massachsetts in 1970, so he reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and has Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting. A few years later he winds up in the Senate himself, where he votes against every major defense bill and says the CIA is irrelevant after the Berlin Wall came down. He votes against the Gulf War (a big political mistake since that turned out well), then decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq -- but that didn't fare as well with the Democrats, so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.
.

All of this may become irrelevant if Edwards busts a move. But I've never like John Kerry to begin with, and it's more than a little interesting to see how quickly vets are willing to tell him to shove off.

Beg the LAW-uhd For Forgiveness...





As a rule, Evangelical Protestants and I are not pals. First of all, I don't like fundies, even if you do hold the same God as I do. Second of all, I have serious issues with Calvinist theology and the overall wateriness of the Protestant outlook (Here's a historical note: the Church didn't start putting together the canon of the New Testament until 200 AD, long after anyone who knew Jesus was dead. Therefore, they relied on TRADITION to determine what got in. Therefore, Sola Scriptura is bunk). Finally, they're the kind of Christians that lead people to mock Christianity (well them and the priests that like the young boys).


But more to the point, they've become as irritating and self-involved a lobby as any on the left. The Washington Times reports that Evangelicals and Social conservatives are annoyed at Bush to the point of sitting the election out. Does anyone remember when people voted for the interests of the country as a whole, rather than the interests of their thrice-damned legislative agenda? Do the angry Prods not realize that the President has been a trifle busy these past three years? Once again, I go to Lileks, from yesterday's post:

Oh, sure, Bush is fine on the foreign affairs stuff, and yes, there's a partial-birth abortion law, and the tax cuts were nice, and come to think of it, Sept. 11 wasn't followed by blow after blow after blow, for some reason. The nation endures, at least at press time. But that's hardly enough. Where's that bill requiring 60-foot Ten Commandments monuments in every capitol rotunda? Let Kerry win. Teach the GOP a lesson, it will.


I expect this kind of crap from ACT UP and Greenpeace and other little scream clubs that refuse to look at their goals within the context of a larger world. But religion is supposed to offer a sense of perspective, a sense that the fullest Truth is above and beyond you. These Pharisaical wankers are going to take themselves out of the game because the going hasn't been smooth enough for their liking. Good thing Jesus never thought of that.


On the other hand, I should be ashamed of myself for being surprised. After all, when it comes to creating schisms, nobody's better than a Protestant.

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Commence Au Festival!





Matt is back, and well am I glad (although his lament for Dean's fall seems to long for a Bush/Dukakis reprise. Remember, old sport, the people want weather-and-sports candidates). He approves of my marriage blathering, which pleases me greatly. And he's a much better St. Joe's Alum than I am. I've been a terrifying slacker about following the Hawks on their UNDEFEATED SEASON, BABY!

Yes, Drill Seargent!





I knew Sgt. Stryker from before his blogger days, when we were both posters on various Star Wars geek boards (ah, the halcyon days of yore...when "Sidious is NOT Palpatine!" was the annoying argument to deal with). So it's a matter of no small negligence that I haven't linked him yet. I've added him today because his canonical list of Jesus Movies is required reading for anyone bored with the hooha over "the Passion." Welcome aboard, Sarge.

I think I'm Becoming Repetitive...





But then, this is what tends to happen when, basically, nothing new is happening. Things are still blowing up in Iraq every now and then. We haven't decided what to do with our marriage laws. No one's been nominated for the Presidency yet (which won't stop anyone from writing and polling about November). We are...awaiting events.


I take comfort in the fact that it isn't just me. Lileks, for example, repeats his earlier argument of "Who Would Our Enemies Like to Win the Election?" to the nth degree. Heck, if this gets around enough, it might become a "meme".


So when I read this admission that the Bush Doctrine seems to be working (Link via Instapundit), I find myself saying "Good, Grasshopper." And then I find myself repeating myself:




OfCourseIt'sWorking*ching*


MerelyArrestingBinLadenAndDoingNothingAgainstStatesThatSponsorTerrorWouldBeAWasteOfBloodAndTreasure*ching*


WeAreCuttingTheLegsFromUnderneathTerrorists*ching*


SaddamRepresentedThe"RootCause"OfTerrorism*ching*


GettingRidOfHimGivesDemocracyAChanceToEnterTheArabWorld*ching*


WMD'sAreAMinorPartOfThePicture*ching*


TheDemocratsAreTooAfraidOfBeingUnpopularToBeSeriousAboutFightingTerror*ching*




There. Glad I got that out of my system.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

How Do You Define "Redefine"?





I've been doing a bit of pondering, again, on marriage and gays and whatnot. The concept still makes me uncomfortable, mostly because of that reflex grumble that conservatives know well: the "My God, is there nothing they won't change?" (Yes, Social Security and tort laws). But that reflex is not an argument, so I've had to sit and think. A couple of points crossed my mind:




1. Permitting same-sex unions constitutes a redefinition of what marriage means. Marriage has always meant opposite-sex unions. It has never meant anything else. To suggest that allowing the term "marriage" to mean same-sex unions as well is not redefining the term is ludicrous on its face. The only relevant question is "why is marriage defined to mean this?"


2. Marriage isn't sacred anymore. We have, as a society, forgotten the answer to the previously posed question. The divorce rate in this country is a standing refutation of all attempts to claim that granting legal status to homosexual unions would destroy the institution. The fact is, marriage has already been redefined, from an institution whose primary focus is the raising of children to an institution whose primary focus is the personal happiness of those involved in the union. As long as that definition remains in effect, there is no legitimate reason to exclude gays, who have the right to pursue happiness. A truly conservative movement to preserve marriage would seek to undo this definition and establish the traditional one: that the primary purpose of marriage is to create and protect the young. This is the only legitimate reason to grant married couples legal priveleges denied to single people. We have forgotten this. The consequences of our unlearning this are everywhere. Gays desiring final acceptance by this stamp of government approval is entirely understandable. They're only trying to do what the rest of us are.


3. If this is true, then there can be no reason to deny Mormons or other polyamorists the freedom to marry as they choose. If marriage is a right, not a social institution with a committed purpose, then denying the right for a polyamorist to marry who he pleases has no rationale. It could only be a reflection of our society's Christian monogamist tradition, the very same tradition that would exclude homosexual unions. It will take but a few decades "consciousness-raising" for this minority to be placated as well.


4. If all of the above happens, we will have redefined "marriage" to mean whatever those involved want it to mean. The suggestion that a "lifelong commitment" is the binding thread behind these different varieties is difficult to argue. The only thing these unions will have in common is that they will have a piece of paper signed by the state, saying they are married. There is no compulsion on anyone in any of these situations to preserve this status, nor any consequences for ending it. It is inevitable that people should begin to wonder why we do any of this in the first place.




Solutions to this dilemna are several:




1. Do nothing. Keep marriage as it is and be content that it's good enough, so long as the deviates don't get to play. This smacks of hypocrisy, of Britneyism. It won't play. There are enough people who will find this unfair.


2. Open the doors, and damn the torpedoes. Let gays marry gays, and let polyamorists marry polyamorists. See what happens. It might turn out to mean nothing. Or it might lead us to wonder why things are still more decadent. Or we might not notice that things are so.


3. Re-redefine marriage as a covenant of personal responsibility, aimed at the raising of the next generation. The "covenant marriage" options available in some states is a good first step in this. But conservatives need to get back on the subject of divorce and start proposing solutions to turn it around. Mandatory pre-marital counseling and legal requirements to seek counseling before a divorce can be obtained can do much, I suspect, without necessarily restricting the grounds for divorce (although that should be looked into as well). In general, we must talk more about strengthening marriage and less about not weakening it.




I am of course interested in other ideas. Throw down, if you got any.

The Boy Wonder Wins...Almost





John Edwards. Smiley, twangy, smooth John Edwards. Clinton all over again, and a trial lawyer to boot. Bleah.

Plus ca Change....





Watch Haiti explode...again.


Folks, I think this time we ought to let the Haitians handle their own affairs. They've been doing this since L'Overture. Unless we plan on taking the country over, installing a Procurator/Ambassador, and engaging in a new bout of nation-building, we oughtn't bother. It's their country, and revolt might do some good. Or it might not. But it's hard to see how letting them alone could make it any worse.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Run Away!





Bucketloads of busy today, and tommorrow. Probably no blogging. And the weekend's out, because I'll be back in New York with my Valentine. Basically, see you Tuesday.

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Janet's New Album Cover





(via Drudge)







Boy, am I tired of being right all the time.

House GOP Considers Spending Revolt





On the one hand, this isn't the best time for this to happen, for the President. On the other, it's about time they started acting like Republicans. I must assume all their useful pork is fixed in.

Backpedal, Kerry, Backpedal





Observe what happens when Bush authorized the release of his National Guard pay records:

"I just don't have any comment on it," Kerry told reporters between campaign stops in Tennessee and Virginia, which were holding their primaries Tuesday night. "It's not an issue that I chose to create. It's not my record that's at issue and I don't have any questions about it."


Does that mean we aren't goint to hear any more about You and Your Brave Band of (raping, murdering, crop-destroying, according to Kerry) Brothers vs. Dubya's Full Metal Dinner Jacket?


Wouldn't that be nice?

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Hallibugaboo





Rich Lowry lays out the argument against accusing the Bush administration of shadiness with regard to Halliburton and Iraq (link via Lileks). According to Lowry, Halliburton's subsidiary Brown & Root won a competitive bid for the LOGCAP (LOGistical Civil Augmentation Program) contract in 2001, a multi-year contract to provide material support to the military in whatever capacity required in the event of a military intervention abroad. The same company had previously done work for the military in putting out the Iraqi oil fires after the First Gulf War in 1991.


Knowing that Rich Lowry is an unabashed conservative and supporter of Bush and the War, I determined to snoop a little further. The Army maintains a profoundly ugly web page explaining in bureau-corporo-babble what it is that LOGCAP contractors do (Here it is, and don't say I didn't warn you). I saved the LOGCAP History graph on the page and enlarged it to the point of legibility, and it bears out Lowry's claim: Brown & Root held the contract from 1992-1996, then lost it to DYNCORP, then got it back in 2001. Lowry says that President Clinton awarded B & R a special no-bid contract to work in the Balkans, even though DYNCORP had the contract. I was unable to verify this, but that's because my brain started to smack me between the eyes in an effort to avoid looking at US Army web design any longer.


So Halliburton had the contract during Clinton's first term, and regained it during Bush's. That means they would have continued to have the contract regardless of whether the Iraq War happened. No one's accused Clinton of chumminess with Halliburton or setting its foreign policy to please Halliburton's bottom line. But this is because Clinton's Vice-President wasn't a former head of the company (although Gore's reinventing-government panel did have only good things to say about Halliburton's performance). So what exactly is Cheney's current relationship with Halliburton?


Lowry points out that the Vice-President still recieves deferred compensation from the firm. In trying to figure out what this means, I slummed over to the company's site. I found out that Cheney resigned his position as Chairman and CEO during the summer of 2000 after agreeing to become Bush's running mate. I also found a Washington Post article dated November 6, 2003 and written by Steven Kelman, Clinton's former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, stating that the likelihood of a political appointee or official influencing civil service members is next to nil. Kelman goes on to say that accusations of this kind are detrimental to the delivery of cost-efficient goods and services for government needs, and that he was an opponent of the Iraq war.


But that still doesn't define "deferred compensation". A bit of googling has led me to believe that it involves non-salary savings plans, stock options and the like, which makes sense. I doubt Cheney would have left one of the world's biggest oil companies without a parachute of some kind. Whether that means he'll make any actual money out of the Iraq war is more doubtful. After all, according to Kelman, companies rarely profit as much from public contracts as they do from private ones (Halliburton's 3rd quarter profits from Iraq turn out to be a modest 3.7%). And despite all the supposed cronyism, Halliburton's stock price has fluctuated between 30 and 18 dollars per share over the course of the last 52 weeks.

Faster, Please





Michael Ledeen, the biggest Iran-hawk you can find today (the title above is his mantra and sign-off to every essay on the subject) re-interprets yesterday's intelligence coup. I've been suspecting and saying for some time (although not here) that the mullarchy in Iran may collapse of its own weight. But I've read some about revolutions, and I know the inescapable First Rule of Revolution: the Tyrant has to blink first. So far, the mullahs haven't. But I don't see things getting less volatile in Persia, especially if Iraqi self-government becomes a reality. It may take only the tiniest loss of morale to make the wretched fundamentalists collapse.




Incidentally, I meant to mention how the story is being spun to add another Log to the bonfire of "Bush Lied!" See, the fact that al Qaeda isn't winning recruits among the people couldn't possibly mean that our effort is successful. No, it must mean that it was never worth fighting in the first place, because Iraqis and al Qaeda were never connected in the first place (implicit in this is the assumption that we should only fight al Qaeda, because none of the other organizations have attacked us yet. We have to take this hydra head by head, or the UN might not like us), because Bush. Is. Evil.




Fortunately, Instapundit has all the details for me, so I don't have to mention it.




Woops, too late.

Monday, February 09, 2004

A Terrorist Cell of One





Good news: even the Iraqi rebels aren' t interested in Bin Laden's war, according to a piece of intelligence revealed today. This is promising for several reasons: 1) It shows how little unity there is in the jihadist cause, 2) It means that folk are having serious doubts about this Bin Laden character, and whether he can beat the Americans. They thought we would run, and we have not. When elections happen in Iraq, things could get interesting.

The Exciting New Week





My plan is to get an essay on here about Black History Month, but I'm going to spend a few days getting it together. I will mention this about the Bush Interview™: he has never been a debater, and never will be one. He has always been tediously on-message. This is his major weakness as a candidate. For that reason, I'm surprised he chose a format that would underline them, and unsurprised that his appearance didn't impress (though there are many opinions on whether he did so). Hopefully this is the beginning of the shift into Campaign Mode, and as soon as the Primaries wind down, the old boy will start crisscrossing the nation, making his argument in more supportive venues.

Friday, February 06, 2004

I Ran So Far Away, Couldn't Get Away...





Lileks has inspired me again, this time with his songs and memories of the 80's bleat. I have followed a path with regard to 80's music that runs similar to the old Path of Faith: listening, unlistening, and understanding. When I was a skinny lad in Annapolis, I watched the 80's on MTV, not feeling any particualar affinity for what I was hearing, not knowing what other options their where. When I was a snot-nosed teen and young adult, I rebelled against the New Wave and called a flashy, wussy bourgeois pile of suck, and clung to my British Invasion and Punk records as "real music."


Then I saw 24 Hour Party People, and listened to "Personal Jesus" about 23 trillion times during the run of Getting Away With Murder (the director was a big Depeche Mode fan). Then I threw down on both Joy Division albums. I now see the bleakness, the ennui, as the logical step after the abortive Punk revolt. I can now add some of the better New Wave bands as part of my ever-expanding palette.


But Poison still sucks.

Oh, That Other War, Again





Thirty people died on the Moscow subway this morning. Chechen terrorists are suspected. Meanwhile the anti-war left sticks its fingers in its ears and goes "LA LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING LA LA LA," and fails to construct signs and web sites declaring Putin a grave threat to world peace.

Thursday, February 05, 2004

It's the WAR, Stupid





Lileks hits it on the head. No, I'm not talking about Patrick Stewart. I could care less about an actor's assessment of the wisdom of space travel, and less still about a bunch of feckless D&D retreads going "Oh, Jean-Luc, How could you!" about it.


I mean Lileks' assessment of John Kerry and the Dem's 60's cocoon. Here's the knife-point:


I’m waiting for an ad that simply puts the matter plainly: who do you think Al Qaeda wants to win the election? Who do you think will make Syria relax? Who do you think Hezbollah worries about more? Who would Iran want to deal with when it comes to its nuclear program – Cowboy Bush or “Send in the bribed French inspectors” Kerry? Which candidate would our enemies prefer?


This is one reason why, no matter how much the budget balloons under Dubya, he's got my vote. The Democrats simply do not take terrorism seriously, as a grave threat to our society, as a despicable evil to be fought. As far as they're concerned, 9-11 is like, so three years ago. Their response to it has become a mantra: Of-course-it-was-tragic-and-our-hearts-go-out-to-the-victims-but-it's-time-to-move-on-and-it's-just-too-depressing-and-what-are-you-some-kind-of-warmonger?


Guess what? It's not time to move on. It's not time to hand things over to Kofi Annan. It's not time to let the Arab states hide behind the fig leaf of international law while they feed the terrorists and send them after infidels. It's time to clean house, to give the Arabs a chance to throw off their masters and start fresh, to direct their piercing minds to their own backyards. Until that happens, the Osamas will never be caught.


None of the Democrats see this. Dean and Kerry mouth about "not pulling out," to show how manly they are in their manliness, but there's been nary a word from either so far about what their strategy is for defeating terror. They may have mentioned the UN. They seem to be riding on the proposition that of course they can come up with an amazing, counter-intuitive tactic for undermining Islamofascism. Why, they're Democrats, aren't they? Do you see a cowboy hat anywhere? All right, then.


Yeah, I'm plenty not happy about Medicare and the rising tide of deficits, and I'm more than a little irritated by Bush jumping in on issues that I think don't belong in the federal brief. But I do not believe any of the Democrats' blather on fiscal discipline, and they have no plan on dealing with Social Security or any of the rest of the entitlement mess. The government may not be getting smaller under this administration, but it will never happen while a donkey is in the White House. They don't believe in that, and so will not summon the courage to make it happen. I'm disappointed in Bush in some ways, but not so much that any Democrat offers salve to me. If that makes me a partisan warmonger with the blinders on to you, so be it. But to me, this election is about whether this nation can prove wrong every Pharisee who says that we are too weak and frightened and self-absorbed to fight for ourselves. That makes the choice easy.

Methinks the Lady Doth Protest Too Much





In my cynical moments, I wonder if Janet Jackson has an album due to be released in the next six months, for which last weekend's flesh-popping was but the initial media storm (no publicity is bad publicity, right?). I might try to find out, but that would require far more caring about a Janet Jackson album than I'm willing to do, and far, far more caring about her aging, floppy bosom than I'm willing to do.


Janet Jackson doesn't strike me as being much of an actress. She gives off that same elfin deer-in-headlights gaze on camera as her brother does. So I don't think she could pull off being as surprised as she looks when Justin Timberlake committed "wardrobe malfunction." I'm perfectly willing to believe that the mammary exposure was accidental (I could be wrong about this, but if we actually think otherwise, let's have a full-fledged investigation and then deal with the consequences).


Believing that, I find all the kerfuffle about it excessive and not a little hypocritical. Has Michael Powell ever watched MTV? Howard Stern? Did he catch the VH1 expos? on all the famous chicks making out with other famous chicks? If he thinks Janet Jackson's nipple is the most inappropriate thing kids are exposed to, he's out of his mind.


Ah, but we can't do anything about any of those. Free expression and all that. So we get ourselves all tizzied out about the narrow range of inappropriateness that crosses the line into illegality and pat ourselves on the back that we're fighting the good fight "for the children." And then the fat kid in the neighborhood sings a songs about how we're a big fat stupid bitch, in D minor.


In fairness, prime-time TV is supposed to be a safe haven for family entertainment. But I'd find that argument a lot more convincing if more parents weren't letting their kids stay up past prime-time, letting them be out at all hours, letting them watch all the R-rated sex and violence as they can get their hands on. If Baby Boomer parenting continues into the next generation, no amount of squeaky-clean television is going to save the kids. And if parents return to the old practice of setting boundaries and meaning it, J-J's nip will remain the silly novelty it is.

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.....





Read the "victim's" own account of events in the story of the assault by Bob Novak on a heckler. Now read this. Which of these things is not like the other?




Holy Lobster Bisque, Batman!





I'm a Crunchy Crustacean! Oh joyous day!

Fun With The BBC





My new link is to a blog called Live from Brussels. The image is his own design. Two can play this "Liar, Liar" game.

The Spender





It's become a matter of faith in certain circles that Bush is Fiscal Responsibility's enemy No. 1 (My God, he's even lending the UN money! The filthy unilateralist!). I'm beginning to wonder if that charge is inflated, or at any rate, misplaced. Over the weekend, Bush sent a $2.4 billion budget to Congress that cuts spending in 7 of the 15 Cabinet departments. You can charge him with tokenism if you want to, but he's still cutting spending. Show me any of the Democratic candidates who plan to balance the budget by cutting domestic spending. All of them want to cut military spending and raise taxes (or "remove the fiscally irresponsible Bush tax cut" if you believe wording it thus means the affected taxpayer won't be giving more money to the government than currenty). So it would seem that the President is making fiscal priorities that are at least arguably conservative.


Next point: it's become a safer bet than the Super Bowl that the budget Congress will send to the President will be bigger than the one Bush has proposed. No one's even suggesting that Congress will pass a $2 billion or less budget. It is, after all, an election year. So we have a situation where the President proposes a budget that is probably too big, the Congress passes a budget that is going to be bigger still, and Congressional leaders blame the President. This is akin to an employee blaming his taking money from the till on the fact that the store owner doesn't balance his checkbook properly.


Finally, Tom Daschle said something very illuminating (and I will even grant that he meant to do so, though perhaps not in the way he intended). "We could eliminate all of our defense spending and discretionary spending and still have a deficit of over $100 billion," said Daschle. And he's right. So what's the solution, Tom? If cutting the defense spending, and cutting the discretionary spending won't make the nut, what spending should we cut?

Now For Something Completely Different





A poem dedicated to a certain special someone:



Water from your Spring


What was in that candle's light

that opened and consumed me so quickly?


Come back, my friend! The form of our love

is not a created form.


Nothing can help me but that beauty.

There was a dawn I remember


when my soul heard something

from your soul. I drank water


from your spring and felt

the current take me.




-Jelalludin Rumi

Hail, the Conquering Hero





So...John Kerry. Senator. Veteran. Policy wonk. Likely nominee. Already stacking up 53-46% against Bush in the CNN poll.


*Yawn*


Sorry, where was I?

Monday, February 02, 2004

FOOTBALL!





Nine years ago, I wrote in my unviersity newspaper a flamboyant assault on the TV overkill that went with Super Bowl XXIX (You remember, the last great 49ers blow-out). I mocked the endless pre-game show, the warbling Anthem singers, the painful halftime specials, everything. I was plenty nasty. Last night's extravaganza was worse in every respect: All-day coverage and analysis of NOTHING HAPPENING, tedious pre-game concert by a half-conscious Aerosmith, repulsive "tribute" to the Columbia astronauts, etc., etc. But I came away happier, because the game was so much better: a brusiing defensive battle in the first half gave way to an offensive slugfest in the second half, and the game was won in the last 8 seconds. Another competitive, watchable Super Bowl, of the kind we usually didn't get in the period of the 49er's ascendency.


It got me thinking: Why do we have all that other crap? Why did we have to MTV the Super Bowl? Is any footbal fan going to NOT watch the Big Game? No. Is any non-football fan going to watch it no matter how much they gussy it up? No. So can anyone defend this pre-and-post-game garbage? Can we just watch the game?

Sunday, February 01, 2004

"One Man's Suicide Bomber is Another Man's Freedom Fighter"





So we have been told by those who get queasy when they hear declarative statements as to morality. Well now Muslims are suicide-bombing other Muslims. I wonder if this will make anyone in the Middle East consider if suicide-bombing is a moral or effective means of achieving political change?


I'm guessing not.