Guard bummer
My trips to Cheyenne are coming to an end. I will spend a few weeks this summer to read Hank the Cowdog to my girls, take a few road trips, work with a few rifles, and start job-hunting.
I will be temping for another entity beginning midsummer, on a military pay status known as MPA (translation not available at this writing). That means a new Schlumberger combined access card with all the bennies, and a new stack of business cards. The insiders' term is Guard-bumming, or working on a succession of active duty or manday periods rather than holding down a continuous job.
During that time, though, I will be sleeping in my own bed, continuing to read Hank to Firstborn and Middlechild, and developing the resume.
20030514
Clandestine Mobile Media Access Platform update
The Dell notebook's 6GB drive has been scrubbed clean and reloaded with Lycoris.
Am blogging through Mozilla at the moment.
A few hardware items remain to be cleared up, namely the CD-ROM and the detachable floppy. All else seems to be tits.
Then a repartition and an installation of Win98 or 2k to run the stuff I really bought this platform for in the first place.
The Dell notebook's 6GB drive has been scrubbed clean and reloaded with Lycoris.
Am blogging through Mozilla at the moment.
A few hardware items remain to be cleared up, namely the CD-ROM and the detachable floppy. All else seems to be tits.
Then a repartition and an installation of Win98 or 2k to run the stuff I really bought this platform for in the first place.
20030511
While I'm at it
Hearty agreement with Will Baude about attempts to amend Senate rules governing the filibuster.
Emphasis mine. The Senate as a legislative body is supposed to put a specific minority, the population of a smaller state, on equal footing with those of larger states. The filibuster is one form of leverage to accomplish that end.
The filibuster ain't broke.
Hearty agreement with Will Baude about attempts to amend Senate rules governing the filibuster.
. . . after nine days, any filibuster can be broken by 51 votes. Even if the time limit were double or triple that, I think that this completely obliterates the purpose of the filibuster rule. Let us be clear about something. The filibuster was not designed to ensure "full and fair debate".
Emphasis mine. The Senate as a legislative body is supposed to put a specific minority, the population of a smaller state, on equal footing with those of larger states. The filibuster is one form of leverage to accomplish that end.
The filibuster ain't broke.
Less than optimistic
In fact, I'm full-blown ambivalent about the prospects of Silveira v Lockyer if it goes on to the Supreme Court.
If conflicting Circuit court rulings on the Second Amendment force the Supremes to rule on the question of whether it protects an individual right, they will probably find a way to answer that yes, the Second Amendment is an individual right, but that it can be so thoroughly circumscribed by State and Federal law as to have no meaning.
The ruling would have to discuss the purpose of the Second Amendment, which is a reset button. Judge Kozinski's description of the right protected (not granted) by this amendment, necessarily puts a choice before any other judge who must rule upon it. What judge would rule that a person has a right to challenge with force a hypothetically tyrannical government that might be paying that judge's salary?
What judge would rule that a person has a right that therefore pre-exists the government?
What judge would rule that people should be allowed to make arrangements today, in case of a possible tomorrow "where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees"? What judge would admit that he or she could someday be cowardly or irrelevant?
What judge would rule that the great unwashed masses have an explicit right to access a reset button that could put all them out of their robes, their chambers, their jobs?
I admit that I know few judges, and only a handful of attorneys. Like most people I've had unkind things to say about them as a class, until I needed one, and since recanted on those unkind utterances. But are there many more judges whose opinions agree with Kozinski's? Are there many judges and lawyers who can visualize a time or a circumstance wherein a Doomsday provision would be needed?
If there are, I owe them apologies and gratitude. And pose a further question: what would it take? what would make a judge reach for that reset button himself? I know, I know, courts examine specific real cases and will not rule on hypotheticals.
Side note: Kozinski's dissent is also the first place I have seen a convincing distinction between a State's power and so-called States' rights.
In fact, I'm full-blown ambivalent about the prospects of Silveira v Lockyer if it goes on to the Supreme Court.
If conflicting Circuit court rulings on the Second Amendment force the Supremes to rule on the question of whether it protects an individual right, they will probably find a way to answer that yes, the Second Amendment is an individual right, but that it can be so thoroughly circumscribed by State and Federal law as to have no meaning.
The ruling would have to discuss the purpose of the Second Amendment, which is a reset button. Judge Kozinski's description of the right protected (not granted) by this amendment, necessarily puts a choice before any other judge who must rule upon it. What judge would rule that a person has a right to challenge with force a hypothetically tyrannical government that might be paying that judge's salary?
What judge would rule that a person has a right that therefore pre-exists the government?
What judge would rule that people should be allowed to make arrangements today, in case of a possible tomorrow "where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees"? What judge would admit that he or she could someday be cowardly or irrelevant?
What judge would rule that the great unwashed masses have an explicit right to access a reset button that could put all them out of their robes, their chambers, their jobs?
I admit that I know few judges, and only a handful of attorneys. Like most people I've had unkind things to say about them as a class, until I needed one, and since recanted on those unkind utterances. But are there many more judges whose opinions agree with Kozinski's? Are there many judges and lawyers who can visualize a time or a circumstance wherein a Doomsday provision would be needed?
If there are, I owe them apologies and gratitude. And pose a further question: what would it take? what would make a judge reach for that reset button himself? I know, I know, courts examine specific real cases and will not rule on hypotheticals.
Side note: Kozinski's dissent is also the first place I have seen a convincing distinction between a State's power and so-called States' rights.
20030510
Spam haiku
Found on the Gunsite email list. More at www.spamhaiku.com.
The other white meat
square meal in a can
The raven quietly contemplates
Found on the Gunsite email list. More at www.spamhaiku.com.
20030503
Viddy well, O my brothers
This passage caught my eye, in an article describing the impact of the massively multiplayer online game:
So I offer some observations.
Put these all together and what might they spell? Massively-parallel multiplayer games have evolved to the point that a player's actions have consequences that the player may not notice immediately. Among those consequences, a bad reputation. People who do not value, therefore do not cultivate, a good reputation will become life's losers.
By engaging in role-play on this scale, with real people at the millions of distant ends of the game, he will learn real-world values, but in a way that he can afford to lose a few times, come to understand why he lost, and not suffer (or cause) real violence or hardship. She would learn that by giving someone else enough rope to hang himself, she fastens the other end of the rope to herself.
The kid may also learn what many ordinary adults (including many therapists) have not: cultivating and protecting one's reputation by serving others is not tantamount to kissing ass, castration, or selling out. It demands bravery, singlemindedness, and an erotic drive; if more adolescents and teens saw this, they would perhaps be more enthusiastic about growing up and being responsible.
The "unpacking of the face," can make this game therapeutic, can intervene with those troubled juveniles who misinterpret the face. As a game, the kid will likely stay with it longer than he would with interacting with real people. As the game unfolds, the kid learns better to interpret others' emotions and intent, and to work towards longer-term goals; he or she might also benefit from a choreographed "replay" of the poorer decisions and the consequences that they precipitated.
A massively-parallel multiplayer approach is preferable to one manipulated by few people or only one person, even if that one person is a credentialed therapist, because it would better mirror the real world the kid will (re)join. Even some bad actors should be admitted, because we can't keep them out of the real world. Let the therapist moderate, not create, this world.
This is just a thought, of course, and I do not claim it as my own. Many libertarians would find the idea chilling, like the Lodovico Technique made warm and fuzzy by hiding it behind a StarWars videogame, and handing the joystick to the subject. But as a parent, I can sympathize with parents who somehow failed to intervene in the right way, at the right time.
This passage caught my eye, in an article describing the impact of the massively multiplayer online game:
Unlike single-player games, these virtual environments don't go into cryogenic suspension in your absence. Events transpire. Battles are fought. Rivalries flare. Alliances are formed. In a world that can't be flicked on and off, actions have lasting consequences, both narrative and social.
As players build ther characters, accruing strength and skill with experience, they also build reputations and relationships. Survival depends on whom you know, and how much they trust you, rather than simply on the weapons you're carrying. Success depends less upon combat skills than on social interactions.
So I offer some observations.
- Parents of children who have immersed themselves in Dungeons and Dragons fear that role-play games are corrupting them. Even those who dispute that role-play games corrupt children strongly agree that role-play can modify behavior.
- Children who misinterpret facial expressions tend towards violence and delinquency. They perceive threats where there are none, making them more prone to violence; they receive stress and dissatisfaction from human company. Prenatal exposure to alcohol is a culprit, though I suspect that other, non-organic causes exist, and under controlled circumstances it may be unlearned, even if organic in origin.
- The free market relies as much on one maintaining one's reputation, as on one having recourse to unfair dealers through the courts. Businessmen who deal unfairly or without goodwill get fewer and less valuable deals, even if they operate well within the boundaries of the law. To prosper, one must be trusted and one must trust.
Put these all together and what might they spell? Massively-parallel multiplayer games have evolved to the point that a player's actions have consequences that the player may not notice immediately. Among those consequences, a bad reputation. People who do not value, therefore do not cultivate, a good reputation will become life's losers.
By engaging in role-play on this scale, with real people at the millions of distant ends of the game, he will learn real-world values, but in a way that he can afford to lose a few times, come to understand why he lost, and not suffer (or cause) real violence or hardship. She would learn that by giving someone else enough rope to hang himself, she fastens the other end of the rope to herself.
The kid may also learn what many ordinary adults (including many therapists) have not: cultivating and protecting one's reputation by serving others is not tantamount to kissing ass, castration, or selling out. It demands bravery, singlemindedness, and an erotic drive; if more adolescents and teens saw this, they would perhaps be more enthusiastic about growing up and being responsible.
The "unpacking of the face," can make this game therapeutic, can intervene with those troubled juveniles who misinterpret the face. As a game, the kid will likely stay with it longer than he would with interacting with real people. As the game unfolds, the kid learns better to interpret others' emotions and intent, and to work towards longer-term goals; he or she might also benefit from a choreographed "replay" of the poorer decisions and the consequences that they precipitated.
A massively-parallel multiplayer approach is preferable to one manipulated by few people or only one person, even if that one person is a credentialed therapist, because it would better mirror the real world the kid will (re)join. Even some bad actors should be admitted, because we can't keep them out of the real world. Let the therapist moderate, not create, this world.
This is just a thought, of course, and I do not claim it as my own. Many libertarians would find the idea chilling, like the Lodovico Technique made warm and fuzzy by hiding it behind a StarWars videogame, and handing the joystick to the subject. But as a parent, I can sympathize with parents who somehow failed to intervene in the right way, at the right time.
20030424
Aaahhhh, much better
Your correspondent has upgraded the Clandestine Mobile Media Access Platform, aka notebook computer, from a Jurassic-era Compaq Pentium at 66 to a refurbished Dell Latitude, PIII at 500, thanks to a quick drive to Fort Collins. Was leery about the Windows XP, but it seems not to have stolen my soul just yet. It's busy deducing my Social Security number for later upload to its Master.
Aaaaarrrrghh, WTF?
The URL for my blog today returns a web page for Aaron's Bible. Maybe they found Raed . . . .
Your correspondent has upgraded the Clandestine Mobile Media Access Platform, aka notebook computer, from a Jurassic-era Compaq Pentium at 66 to a refurbished Dell Latitude, PIII at 500, thanks to a quick drive to Fort Collins. Was leery about the Windows XP, but it seems not to have stolen my soul just yet. It's busy deducing my Social Security number for later upload to its Master.
Aaaaarrrrghh, WTF?
The URL for my blog today returns a web page for Aaron's Bible. Maybe they found Raed . . . .
20030418
Unintended mirror site
With a tip of the hat to Swen, your correspondent has found that WUTT, among other blogs, has a mirror site in Japan.
With a tip of the hat to Swen, your correspondent has found that WUTT, among other blogs, has a mirror site in Japan.
David Brin, please call your office
A proposal for ubiquitous webcam surveillance reminds me of Brin's Transparent Society.
Found via Instapundit.
A proposal for ubiquitous webcam surveillance reminds me of Brin's Transparent Society.
Found via Instapundit.
20030416
Bigger than my britches
Your correspondent is inserting Weblog Meta Data Initiative meta tags into WeckUpToThees! just for grins. Wish me luck, hope I don't munge the template again.
Your correspondent is inserting Weblog Meta Data Initiative meta tags into WeckUpToThees! just for grins. Wish me luck, hope I don't munge the template again.
20030415
Could this be the beginning of a personnel reform?
Rummy suggests reforms in the assignment policies of military officers. Did he read, was he influenced by, Path to Victory?
Mmmmmmmaybe.
We'll know for sure if, some years onward, the policy of "up-and-out" is replaced by "up-or-stay." I see the spectacle weekly, of effective, determined, fit professional men and women who can't juggle themselves into a "slot" that allows them to make lieutenant colonel, even slots in units or responsibilities they do not enjoy, and consequently are contemplating retirement. These are people my age, hell, even younger than I am. We ought to find a way to keep these people in uniform, doing what they like and what they do well.
Rummy's apparent distaste for zero-defects philosophy is also refreshing.
One possible downside:
Rumor has it that Rummy has some "issues" with Reservists. They are harder to mobilize because they, er, have civilian jobs and commitments and mortgages and such. Most of us would have no quarrel with a restructuring that takes us away from private life less often than has been the case for the last decade.
But the DoD's present heavy dependence on reservists is intentional, a lesson learned from Vietnam. If mobilization incurs a widespread social and economic impact, our leaders will be less prone to overseas adventurism. Our experience in Iraq seems to bear this out, that in Kosovo far less so. Would the United States be safer or richer if it were "easier" to go to war?
Found via Donald Sensing.
Aside: even the Gray Lady has a smidgen of difficulty with homonyms.
That would be "rein."
The armed services "make a terrible mistake" by "having so many people skip along the tops of the waves in a job and serve in it 12, 15, 18, 24 months and be gone," he said. "They spend the first six months saying hello to everybody, the next six months trying to learn the job and the last six months leaving. I like people to be in a job long enough that they make mistakes, see their mistakes, clean up their own mistakes before they go on to make mistakes somewhere else."
Rummy suggests reforms in the assignment policies of military officers. Did he read, was he influenced by, Path to Victory?
Mr. Rumsfeld has made no secret that he views his personnel decisions as equally significant to changes he may bring to weapons procurement strategic doctrine
Mmmmmmmaybe.
We'll know for sure if, some years onward, the policy of "up-and-out" is replaced by "up-or-stay." I see the spectacle weekly, of effective, determined, fit professional men and women who can't juggle themselves into a "slot" that allows them to make lieutenant colonel, even slots in units or responsibilities they do not enjoy, and consequently are contemplating retirement. These are people my age, hell, even younger than I am. We ought to find a way to keep these people in uniform, doing what they like and what they do well.
Rummy's apparent distaste for zero-defects philosophy is also refreshing.
One possible downside:
Reservists could opt for specialties that guarantee more active service time and mobilization if that fit their lives; others . . . would be confident of less time on active duty beyond the weekend a month and two weeks a year of training now.
Rumor has it that Rummy has some "issues" with Reservists. They are harder to mobilize because they, er, have civilian jobs and commitments and mortgages and such. Most of us would have no quarrel with a restructuring that takes us away from private life less often than has been the case for the last decade.
But the DoD's present heavy dependence on reservists is intentional, a lesson learned from Vietnam. If mobilization incurs a widespread social and economic impact, our leaders will be less prone to overseas adventurism. Our experience in Iraq seems to bear this out, that in Kosovo far less so. Would the United States be safer or richer if it were "easier" to go to war?
Found via Donald Sensing.
Aside: even the Gray Lady has a smidgen of difficulty with homonyms.
The idea of merging personnel, which was viewed by some officers as an attempt to reign in the independent analysis of the military's Joint Staff, is not in the proposed legislation.
That would be "rein."
20030414
some folks swear by 'em
Please sign a petition to convince Uncle Sugar to sell those piles of M14 rifles to the civilian marksmanship program instead of having Uncle pay contractors to cut them in half with torches and haul the scrap away.
Please sign a petition to convince Uncle Sugar to sell those piles of M14 rifles to the civilian marksmanship program instead of having Uncle pay contractors to cut them in half with torches and haul the scrap away.
unusual places for a Red Label ad
Has anyone else noticed that Sturm, Ruger and Company have been advertising in general readership publications?
OK, so American Spectator is not exactly as widely read as Time. Still, it's not a "gun" mag.
Has anyone else noticed that Sturm, Ruger and Company have been advertising in general readership publications?
OK, so American Spectator is not exactly as widely read as Time. Still, it's not a "gun" mag.
20030408
A government program to arm everyone
Megan Mcardle asks, "if guns are widely available in Iraq, how come they've got this nasty dictatorship?" Please read her post and the comments.
Please keep coming back to this: it did work the one time we tried it. We are as sure as we can be in retrospect that had we not been armed competitively with our rulers, we would not have achieved independence.
Iraq's experience does not disprove that assertion, nor those of the disarmament lobby.
Break break . . .
One more reason, if more were needed, to not allow the United Nations to administer Iraq after Saddam's fall: what civilian gun ownership exists there today surely would end.
Megan Mcardle asks, "if guns are widely available in Iraq, how come they've got this nasty dictatorship?" Please read her post and the comments.
- Civil arms are necessary, but not sufficient, for liberty. Megan and commenters conclude that people have to believe that armed struggle will have a chance to succeed before they'll try it.
- What constitutes "widespread" gun ownership is in the eye of the beholder. I don't agree that it's impossible to quantify gun ownership in Iraq in a meaningful comparison with that in the US or elsewhere. Of course, the news coverage of Iraqi gun ownership does not attempt honest quantification.
- Clearly the falling regime made sure that its friends had more, or better; this regime was also expert at knowing who its friends, enemies, and even fence-sitters, were. And where they were, and what they were saying.
Please keep coming back to this: it did work the one time we tried it. We are as sure as we can be in retrospect that had we not been armed competitively with our rulers, we would not have achieved independence.
Iraq's experience does not disprove that assertion, nor those of the disarmament lobby.
Break break . . .
The United Nations has drafted a confidential blueprint for administering [post-Saddam] Iraq.
One more reason, if more were needed, to not allow the United Nations to administer Iraq after Saddam's fall: what civilian gun ownership exists there today surely would end.
20030407
I have a dream, continued
Why have, or should, the United States undertaken this task of ending the nexus between Church and State power?
We may not have invented it, but we were the first to get it to work. We are the antithesis of the Church-State. Though we are disposed to leave people alone, our determination to be left alone places us naturally in opposition to Men of the One Book.
Why have, or should, the United States undertaken this task of ending the nexus between Church and State power?
We may not have invented it, but we were the first to get it to work. We are the antithesis of the Church-State. Though we are disposed to leave people alone, our determination to be left alone places us naturally in opposition to Men of the One Book.
Timeo hominem unius libri or, I have a dream
Agree or disagree:
The United States is, or ought to be, engaged in a campaign to defeat religious fanaticism where it wields secular power. This campaign has military dimensions as well as philosophical and political. The political dimensions will be articulated backward through time to roots that will include reverence and gratitude for Islam's turn as a custodian of Western thought, and forward to the day when any man or woman can claim Western thought as his or her birthright.
The military and philosophical dimensions of the campaign will demonstrate that the secular world functions according to rules that can be observed or deduced from it, and that those who ignore secular observations and deductions in favor of a One Book will fail or die, at the hands of those who master the rules rather than ignore them.
The present phase of the campaign appears then to be almost a violation of the overall campaign as framed here. Perhaps it is a mere stepping stone. Iraq is the center of gravity of the danger, and at the same time probably the most secular place in that center of gravity, where this campaign has at least a toehold, a snowball's chance of taking root.
The Men of One Book, though they and their Books are many, must be shown that they will not be tolerated as anointed, unquestioned holders of the reins of state power.
Extra credit for alert readers who can still see a shred of religious faith in the foregoing.
Agree or disagree:
- The United States is not engaged in a military campaign to liberate the people of Iraq from a hated secular tyrant. That may be a collateral benefit but it is not the goal of the campaign.
- The United States is not engaged in a military campaign to eliminate a first-tier source of weapons of mass destruction. That is also a collateral benefit but again is not the goal.
- The United States is not engaged in a military campaign to topple Al-Qaeda. Though these critters appear to be present in Iraq and have benefited from the regime that is about to topple, Al-Qaeda is mostly already toppled in their former seat of power. Fragments of their organization surely persist both in Afghanistan and scattered throughout the Islamic world, and they may still possess the resources and organization to mount an attack on the scale of the World Trade Center attack.
- The United States is not engaged in a military campaign to topple Islam. Devoted WUTT readers (both of them) may complete this paragraph as an exercise of their superb wits.
- The United States is not engaged in a military campaign to topple radical or fundamental Islam. Too much attention on the "Islam" part, to the extent that it distracts from the true and deserving goal.
The United States is, or ought to be, engaged in a campaign to defeat religious fanaticism where it wields secular power. This campaign has military dimensions as well as philosophical and political. The political dimensions will be articulated backward through time to roots that will include reverence and gratitude for Islam's turn as a custodian of Western thought, and forward to the day when any man or woman can claim Western thought as his or her birthright.
The military and philosophical dimensions of the campaign will demonstrate that the secular world functions according to rules that can be observed or deduced from it, and that those who ignore secular observations and deductions in favor of a One Book will fail or die, at the hands of those who master the rules rather than ignore them.
The present phase of the campaign appears then to be almost a violation of the overall campaign as framed here. Perhaps it is a mere stepping stone. Iraq is the center of gravity of the danger, and at the same time probably the most secular place in that center of gravity, where this campaign has at least a toehold, a snowball's chance of taking root.
The Men of One Book, though they and their Books are many, must be shown that they will not be tolerated as anointed, unquestioned holders of the reins of state power.
Extra credit for alert readers who can still see a shred of religious faith in the foregoing.
Quote of the day
Donald Vandergriff, The Path to Victory, p424.
Obviously, the army must strive to include a diverse population of Americans in its ranks, but forced diversity only polarizes the armed forces and the society they are sworn to protect. Diversity programs create an atmosphere of unfairness, which in turn undercuts trust. As part of the overall reform, the army must take a long-range look at diversity. Entrance into the officer corps, school and command selections, and promotions should be based on one standard: the need to win in combat.
Donald Vandergriff, The Path to Victory, p424.
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