20041216
20041213
Quote for the day
Roughly $822 million was spent in support of President Bush in 2004, compared to $925 million spent on behalf of Sen. John Kerry.
So much for two of the fundamental lies behind campaign-finance reform. One, that McCain-Feingold, or any other piece of legislation, can "get money out of politics." Two, that "money rules." It turns out that sometimes, strangely enough, elections are decided by voters weighing the issues and making up their minds based on the candidates' positions.
Ryan Sager at Tech Central Station.
We at WUTT! have asserted the latter point for some time. Nice to be proved right in a big race that counts.
Though it certainly helps, money can't buy an election. It's necessary but not sufficient.
20041212
Addition to Wish List
One more thing I want to add to my Beggars-Would-Ride wishlist, of things that are achievable but not available for immediate purchase:
I want somebody to offer to recycle old, intermittent, half-lighting strings of Christmas lights. There's too much valuable copper in there for this sh1t to just get shlepped off to a landfill. We're about to ditch a few hundred feet of them because half of the light and they are virtually immune to troubleshooting.
The bulbs can be ground and melted into glass cullet to fill out concrete park benches. The plastic, well, it's probably as valuable as the copper, kilo for kilo, and it could make nice Tyvek envelopes for FedEx someday if it were recovered. The problem, as usual, is identifying what kind of plastic it is so it can be recycled effectively, even if in some cases recycling translates into removal of halogens prior to conversion to Number 2 Diesel fuel.
Here's your bumper sticker:
My Huge SUV burns otherwise-unusable recycled plastics
I want somebody to offer to recycle old, intermittent, half-lighting strings of Christmas lights. There's too much valuable copper in there for this sh1t to just get shlepped off to a landfill. We're about to ditch a few hundred feet of them because half of the light and they are virtually immune to troubleshooting.
The bulbs can be ground and melted into glass cullet to fill out concrete park benches. The plastic, well, it's probably as valuable as the copper, kilo for kilo, and it could make nice Tyvek envelopes for FedEx someday if it were recovered. The problem, as usual, is identifying what kind of plastic it is so it can be recycled effectively, even if in some cases recycling translates into removal of halogens prior to conversion to Number 2 Diesel fuel.
Here's your bumper sticker:
20041203
My new email signature block will read:
"This email message is certified free of slogans, quotes, special backgrounds, special stationeries, digital images, and unusual fonts, in accordance with Air Force Instruction 33-119, Air Force Messaging."
Somebody in the headshed must have objected when he saw a subordinate's email signature was neater-looking than his, and put his Corfam down hard.
Another proud tradition done in just like nose art. Bummer.
A guarantee to deploy
I can't leave this a draft forever. Rather than hack at it further, I release it to the wild.
When I enlisted in the Air National Guard in 1981, I was viewing it as a way to avoid the brewing Central Asian mess. President Carter had pulled the US out of the Olympics in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. I didn't want to go to war. Stupid long-haired me.
Since joining, I settled myself down and matured real fast, and reread the contract. I stayed in the Guard because I felt good about what I was doing, to the point that I wanted to deploy so I could prove my worth.
The first invasion of Iraq came and went, and I was not deployed. I completed 20 years of service and received my letter, allowing me to retire. I had time left on my contract, but small children in the house. I seriously contemplated retirement, but I was also unemployed as a civilian, and not dealing well with that fact. The Guard was the only income I had.
When the WTC and the Pentagon were attacked, that desire to deploy became more urgent, and was finally fulfilled. Just days after accepting a new position with a civilian employer, the phone call came---on my cell, as I was headed to Logan Airport from the job site. I was at Cheyenne the following morning, with bags packed.
* * * *
Phil Carter prompts me to post this as I read his post, "Not your Father's National Guard."
The Total Force policy was fully in place when I enlisted. The unit that recruited me was a small truck-mobile radar unit that was Checkered-Flagged to Germany, later to Turkey. After Desert Storm, the whole concept of designating a deployment location in advance was scrapped and the Air Expeditionary Force concept took its place. I can be sent anywhere, and am more likely to go as a unit-type code---small teams to perform specific functions, such as fire-fighting, earthmoving, or in my case NBC defense. I'd deploy only with the swinging d1cks to my immediate left and right, as a team, flight or squadron, not as an entire wing.
Parted out like a junked car. One of the Air Guard's strengths, in my opinion, is that we have less churn, less turnover of personnel than our active duty counterparts. We know each other better, have trained together longer, and have turned that to our advantage. AEFs undermined that advantage by splitting us up and mixing us with other forces whose level of training is different. My criticism of AEF has softened somewhat, now that I've gone through it, because it achieves what it sought to do, to even the deployment burden across a career field.
On the Army side, the "parting out" is not as feasible. This means that entire units, built and equipped for a specific Army function such as air-defense artillery, would be repurposed for another function that was needed downrange more urgently, such as military police. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that.
But the AEF concept did make it more likely to deploy if one had a specialty that was needed down range, or that was in short supply in the first place. The more urgent the need, the more likely and frequent the deployment. The tradeoff is shorter and more fixed deployment durations: 90 days, now grown to 120, with a "hard" wall of 179 days at station at any one time without SECAF waiver. In contrast, Army rotations, Guard or active, start at 180 days.
I nearly ended up going to Afghanistan anyway, though 20 years later. I was within a few hundred km of it. And I will almost certainly deploy again.
When I enlisted in the Air National Guard in 1981, I was viewing it as a way to avoid the brewing Central Asian mess. President Carter had pulled the US out of the Olympics in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. I didn't want to go to war. Stupid long-haired me.
Since joining, I settled myself down and matured real fast, and reread the contract. I stayed in the Guard because I felt good about what I was doing, to the point that I wanted to deploy so I could prove my worth.
The first invasion of Iraq came and went, and I was not deployed. I completed 20 years of service and received my letter, allowing me to retire. I had time left on my contract, but small children in the house. I seriously contemplated retirement, but I was also unemployed as a civilian, and not dealing well with that fact. The Guard was the only income I had.
When the WTC and the Pentagon were attacked, that desire to deploy became more urgent, and was finally fulfilled. Just days after accepting a new position with a civilian employer, the phone call came---on my cell, as I was headed to Logan Airport from the job site. I was at Cheyenne the following morning, with bags packed.
* * * *
Phil Carter prompts me to post this as I read his post, "Not your Father's National Guard."
My father served in the Army Reserve during the early 1960s as a way to pay for college; it was then, and is now, an honorable way to serve. But you can't compare service then in the Guard with service now, because of the policy changes adopted by the military which made the National Guard an integral part of America's warfighting force.
The Total Force policy was fully in place when I enlisted. The unit that recruited me was a small truck-mobile radar unit that was Checkered-Flagged to Germany, later to Turkey. After Desert Storm, the whole concept of designating a deployment location in advance was scrapped and the Air Expeditionary Force concept took its place. I can be sent anywhere, and am more likely to go as a unit-type code---small teams to perform specific functions, such as fire-fighting, earthmoving, or in my case NBC defense. I'd deploy only with the swinging d1cks to my immediate left and right, as a team, flight or squadron, not as an entire wing.
Parted out like a junked car. One of the Air Guard's strengths, in my opinion, is that we have less churn, less turnover of personnel than our active duty counterparts. We know each other better, have trained together longer, and have turned that to our advantage. AEFs undermined that advantage by splitting us up and mixing us with other forces whose level of training is different. My criticism of AEF has softened somewhat, now that I've gone through it, because it achieves what it sought to do, to even the deployment burden across a career field.
On the Army side, the "parting out" is not as feasible. This means that entire units, built and equipped for a specific Army function such as air-defense artillery, would be repurposed for another function that was needed downrange more urgently, such as military police. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that.
But the AEF concept did make it more likely to deploy if one had a specialty that was needed down range, or that was in short supply in the first place. The more urgent the need, the more likely and frequent the deployment. The tradeoff is shorter and more fixed deployment durations: 90 days, now grown to 120, with a "hard" wall of 179 days at station at any one time without SECAF waiver. In contrast, Army rotations, Guard or active, start at 180 days.
I nearly ended up going to Afghanistan anyway, though 20 years later. I was within a few hundred km of it. And I will almost certainly deploy again.
20041121
20041115
tech support question for Mac OS X geeks
My iRiver H120 no longer mounts on our G4 running Mac OS X 10.2.8. When I connect it to the Mac's USB, it beachballs for a while, then warns that the drive is unrecognizable and unable to mount, and would I like to format it?
Apple's support site mentions that a command might be missing from the hostconfig file, disabling it from automatically mounting removable drives. Yes, this command was missing (how did it get lost in the first place?), and now that's fixed and the player still doesn't mount.
In fact, I get that same "unrecognizable volume" warning days later, when I log back in. It's as if something is still asserting the presence of the player after it's been removed from the USB port. Even power-cycling doesn't remove the "ghost" player.
iRiver hasn't gotten back to me. Apple's vast support site has only one article on unrecognizable volumes and I've already doen what it advises. I now have to use Win2k to load up my player and frankly that sucks.
Any ideas? Zapping parameter RAM?
Apple's support site mentions that a command might be missing from the hostconfig file, disabling it from automatically mounting removable drives. Yes, this command was missing (how did it get lost in the first place?), and now that's fixed and the player still doesn't mount.
In fact, I get that same "unrecognizable volume" warning days later, when I log back in. It's as if something is still asserting the presence of the player after it's been removed from the USB port. Even power-cycling doesn't remove the "ghost" player.
iRiver hasn't gotten back to me. Apple's vast support site has only one article on unrecognizable volumes and I've already doen what it advises. I now have to use Win2k to load up my player and frankly that sucks.
Any ideas? Zapping parameter RAM?
20041112
The ZSU23-4 had a partner
I don't think I mentioned the other vehicle that was parked beside the ZSU23-4.
It is amphibious (there were propeller housings and thrust diverters on the rear), it has six pneumatic tires, and a radar or two or more on top. It looked like the kind of vehicle that would travel with a pack of ZSU23-4's, to provide search radar and direct the fire of all of those 23mm cannon.
Here's a look at the front, with buddy Doug. I had to crank the brightness and contrast to compensate for bad hangar lighting.
Starboard side:
Can anybody put a name to this unit?
It is amphibious (there were propeller housings and thrust diverters on the rear), it has six pneumatic tires, and a radar or two or more on top. It looked like the kind of vehicle that would travel with a pack of ZSU23-4's, to provide search radar and direct the fire of all of those 23mm cannon.
Here's a look at the front, with buddy Doug. I had to crank the brightness and contrast to compensate for bad hangar lighting.
Starboard side:
Can anybody put a name to this unit?
20041111
G T squared
Boy is now bringing home the same kinds of notes that marked the beginning of Middlechild's saga.
After a brief consult with the teacher, we think he's also Gifted. He'll be harder to handle than Middlechild, though, because he's big and fast and immune to pain.
God have mercy on us all. At least we're catching this one early.
After a brief consult with the teacher, we think he's also Gifted. He'll be harder to handle than Middlechild, though, because he's big and fast and immune to pain.
God have mercy on us all. At least we're catching this one early.
This should erase all doubt
All right, Gun Lobby, listen carefully. Libertarians have been explaining for years now that there are unmistakable similarities between the War on Drugs and the War on Guns. You discounted us as dope-smoking libertines.
And you drug law reformers, you didn't listen very well either to our pleas to find common cause with the gun lobby. You dismissed us as bigoted rednecks.
Publicola pointed me to Says Uncle, who links to this petition by the Justice Department to reverse a Ninth Circuit ruling regarding home assembly of a full-auto firearm.
The petition says, in effect, that if the Federal government can legislate against private ownership of a home-made full-auto, they can legislate against simple possession of marijuana. The Federal government's lawyers are claiming that it is irrelevant that either the parts of the gun, or the seeds of the marijuana, were not transferred through interstate commerce---they have the power to pass and enforce legislation against it. The petition mentions a medicinal marijuana case and asks the Supreme Court to make a connection between their firearm case and the marijuana case:
The Department of Justice agrees with us kooky libertarians that there is (at least one) limit to Federal power, that this one limit pertains equally to Federal firearm laws as well as to drug laws, and oh, by the way, they want to remove that limit.
I can see some relevance to the Betamax decision as well; more on that later.
They understand that these two issues are intertwined, that a Federal win on one will give them the framework for a win on the other.
Do you?
And you drug law reformers, you didn't listen very well either to our pleas to find common cause with the gun lobby. You dismissed us as bigoted rednecks.
Publicola pointed me to Says Uncle, who links to this petition by the Justice Department to reverse a Ninth Circuit ruling regarding home assembly of a full-auto firearm.
The petition says, in effect, that if the Federal government can legislate against private ownership of a home-made full-auto, they can legislate against simple possession of marijuana. The Federal government's lawyers are claiming that it is irrelevant that either the parts of the gun, or the seeds of the marijuana, were not transferred through interstate commerce---they have the power to pass and enforce legislation against it. The petition mentions a medicinal marijuana case and asks the Supreme Court to make a connection between their firearm case and the marijuana case:
"A holding that Section 922(o) is unconstitutional as applied to the possession of “homemade” machineguns raises an important issue that may ultimately warrant review by this Court. Plenary review in this case, however,
would be premature at this time. On June 28, 2004, the Court granted certiorari in Ashcroft v. Raich,
No. 03-1454 (to be argued Nov. 29, 2004), which involves an analogous as-applied constitutional challenge
to the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 801 et seq. Accordingly, the petition should be held pending this
Court’s decision in Raich and then disposed of as appropriate in light of that decision."
The Department of Justice agrees with us kooky libertarians that there is (at least one) limit to Federal power, that this one limit pertains equally to Federal firearm laws as well as to drug laws, and oh, by the way, they want to remove that limit.
I can see some relevance to the Betamax decision as well; more on that later.
They understand that these two issues are intertwined, that a Federal win on one will give them the framework for a win on the other.
Do you?
20041110
How's he on the Second?
Anybody have a feel for how Gonzales has ruled on RKBA issues? He served on the Texas Supreme Court, so he should have some sort of track record that indicates how he'd behave in this respect.
I admit that in some respects I was hopeful for Ashcroft, strictly on RKBA issues. He showed promise but didn't follow through.
I'd like to know whether Gonzales has similar inclinations on this topic. Being a friend of W doesn't bode well. But Napolitano on Fox seems to like him.
I admit that in some respects I was hopeful for Ashcroft, strictly on RKBA issues. He showed promise but didn't follow through.
I'd like to know whether Gonzales has similar inclinations on this topic. Being a friend of W doesn't bode well. But Napolitano on Fox seems to like him.
20041108
Cabinet reshuffle?
President Bush is considering adjustments to his cabinet?
Great! Start with booting Mineta.
Great! Start with booting Mineta.
20041028
Offline
Am offline for a while, but had a moment to post, with this question:
Who out here is good at identifying Soviet armored vehicles? I swear to God I was standing next to a ZSU23-4.
Update: Here are two frames.
Looks like mounts for 4 23mm cannon, with case ejection chutes and coolant lines, on the front of the rectangular turret.
Six roadwheels, evenly spaced except for the frontmost, no return rollers. Two reloading hatches on the side of the hull. See again the rectangular turret.
Yup. A ZSU23-4. Compare with photos and (French language) description here.
Who out here is good at identifying Soviet armored vehicles? I swear to God I was standing next to a ZSU23-4.
Update: Here are two frames.
Looks like mounts for 4 23mm cannon, with case ejection chutes and coolant lines, on the front of the rectangular turret.
Six roadwheels, evenly spaced except for the frontmost, no return rollers. Two reloading hatches on the side of the hull. See again the rectangular turret.
Yup. A ZSU23-4. Compare with photos and (French language) description here.
20041014
Quote for the day
For most of us, America wasn't our first choice as much as it was
our last chance.
Varifrank. HT to James Rummel.
20041011
Red-headed stepson of RMBR
For your enjoyment, a sampler of some of the best weblogging the Front Range has to offer. Please pardon any typos I failed to catch: I'm typing with 8-month-old Toad in my lap.
As to be expected, election season figures prominently among the submissions by Rocky Mountain bloggers in this Roundup:
- White Dog draws our attention to Bill Whittle's two-part essay on the value of rhetorical skill vice the message, with respect to the Presidential election. Shall one vote for style, or for substance, given that between the two major-party candidates one cannot have both? Choose well.
- Dave disputes Josh Claybourn, arguing that the Republic is healthier when more people vote, rather than fewer, more-informed people vote.
- RMBR founder Walter In Denver argues from experience that the validity of our elections is at greater risk from inaccuracy than from fraud.
- BigSkyDave challenges the good Senator Kerry on who constitutes a threat to US security. Or world peace. Whatever.
Elsewhere:
- The Speculist offers a meta-roundup, headquartered in the Front Range but collecting contributions from faraway corners of the Republic. Raptors, privately-operated space flight, wickedfast computers, improved popcorn, and cancer-sniffing dogs.
- Jed at FreedomSight reminisces about the quintessential ban
ned-able book. I got my copy. I don't need it---I have it merely to remind myself that I can have it.
- Publicola fisks an essay defending the Empire, even if it did make the trains run on time, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
- Your host offers his proposal to deploy high-speed internet service everywhere. We'll have to destroy the internet to save it. Always a downside.
Stop the Presses! A late entrant petitions to be included. We are fair and evenhanded to a fault.
- Bob at We The Free waxes Lettermanlike with Top Ten debating points. Though I dispute Bob's use of the term liberal . . .
20041010
I really don't deserve her
My wife lets me spend most of the day converting antelope into sausage or corned antelope, with the enthusiastic assistance of The Cabinet Man (thanks, TCM).
She and I discuss What Not To Wear as it would apply to her, in the abstract. She really is the kind of woman to whom I could say, "that makes you look fat," and live to not regret it.
Then I discover that she's a closet Farscape fan. I ask her to watch the library for Babylon 5 DVDs. She says "OK."
I am not worthy of her. I'll keep her just the same.
She and I discuss What Not To Wear as it would apply to her, in the abstract. She really is the kind of woman to whom I could say, "that makes you look fat," and live to not regret it.
Then I discover that she's a closet Farscape fan. I ask her to watch the library for Babylon 5 DVDs. She says "OK."
I am not worthy of her. I'll keep her just the same.
20041008
For the Children!
Little Green Footballs asks: Were there plans in the works for a Beslan-like massacre in San Diego?
It doesn't matter whether plans actually existed, or whether a threat was truly posed---they didn't, as the article to which LGF links clearly states. It does not matter. The mere discovery of materials discussing public school security, in the abstract, in the possession of a person engaged in armed conflict against Coalition forces in the Middle East, is enough to contemplate for the moment. It crossed their minds.
Incidentally, a few weeks ago I posted a prediction on this sort of thing happening at StrategyPage's prediction market, though I thought Europe a more likely place for it to occur.
I'm not a particularly bright or well-spoken or uniquely malicious person, and it crossed my mind.
Now take a deep breath and one looong step backward to see the bigger picture.
Public schools are not the only vulnerable public spaces in America. They represent a tiny fraction of them all. Add day care centers, nursing homes, and churches. Then add shopping malls. Then keep on adding.
We can't put armed guards and concertina wire around them all. We can't put automatically locked doors and ID card swipers at all the entrances to them.
My day job is on a military base. I know what it's like to work in facilities that protect themselves like that, 24/7. It is incredibly expensive, incredibly slow, and it brings out the worst in people who think they are smarter than you. I can work like that but I will not live like that, and I won't ask my neighbors or teach my kids to live like that either. Our economy cannot survive it and our national character will not tolerate it.
Still, the threat exists to my neighbors and my kids, even though the most evidence for that threat is a CD-ROM found in Iraq, burnt with a pdf pulled from an open web page. What measures we take to counter that threat must be consistent with the national character we have chosen for ourselves, and otherwise be within our reach.
My Googling skills are failing me in seeking one politician's exhortations that we must not change the way we live, but to change the way the other bastards live. We are indeed doing the latter, at great expense and sacrifice, but it will not be enough. In some way we will have to change how we live, but it will not be in the direction of C-wire and ID badges. These measures simply wrap defensive layers around what remains a vulnerability.
I would rather deny any adversary his ultimate goal, by erasing that vulnerability and giving up some or all of the layers of defense surrounding it. This will have to be a change in attitudes first, then laws second, but little or no money need be spent publicly to bring it about.
I assert this without apology. We will remain vulnerable as long as it is not commonplace for people in public to be armed, able to protect themselves and the innocent among them.
As I have argued in other spaces, the present conflict will not be over until our servicemen begin to bring home Persian wives. That represents the "change how the other bastards live" aspect of the solution.
But it is only half of the solution. The other half will be signaled by, for instance:
Deny our philosophical enemies their ultimate goal by encouraging their victims to fight back. Celebrate the armed virtue.
The objection will be raised that we would be changing how we live. I concede that. But we would be changing toward a lifestyle of fewer fences and alarms and locked doors, fewer face-commparing cameras and identity badges, more economic prosperity, more confidence in oneself. We would be transferring our uncertainties to those who have taken advantage of our uncertainty.
Those who view human life through the lens of class should welcome the erasure of boundaries between the protected, protecting, and unprotected classes. Increasingly, this is the only stratification that matters, if we are to regard one another as equals before the law.
I do not present this as a complete solution, for no solution can be complete. It does not speak to concerns that jihadis will obtain a nuclear explosive, or smallpox, for example. But those contingencies are best addressed by military force over the course of weeks, months, and years.
The seizure of a school or a church by jihadis, on our own soil, which surely has been contemplated by our enemies, can be thwarted only in seconds, by the spontaneous and violent reaction of the people who were in that school or church at the moment it occurs.
It doesn't matter whether plans actually existed, or whether a threat was truly posed---they didn't, as the article to which LGF links clearly states. It does not matter. The mere discovery of materials discussing public school security, in the abstract, in the possession of a person engaged in armed conflict against Coalition forces in the Middle East, is enough to contemplate for the moment. It crossed their minds.
Incidentally, a few weeks ago I posted a prediction on this sort of thing happening at StrategyPage's prediction market, though I thought Europe a more likely place for it to occur.
I'm not a particularly bright or well-spoken or uniquely malicious person, and it crossed my mind.
Now take a deep breath and one looong step backward to see the bigger picture.
Public schools are not the only vulnerable public spaces in America. They represent a tiny fraction of them all. Add day care centers, nursing homes, and churches. Then add shopping malls. Then keep on adding.
We can't put armed guards and concertina wire around them all. We can't put automatically locked doors and ID card swipers at all the entrances to them.
My day job is on a military base. I know what it's like to work in facilities that protect themselves like that, 24/7. It is incredibly expensive, incredibly slow, and it brings out the worst in people who think they are smarter than you. I can work like that but I will not live like that, and I won't ask my neighbors or teach my kids to live like that either. Our economy cannot survive it and our national character will not tolerate it.
Still, the threat exists to my neighbors and my kids, even though the most evidence for that threat is a CD-ROM found in Iraq, burnt with a pdf pulled from an open web page. What measures we take to counter that threat must be consistent with the national character we have chosen for ourselves, and otherwise be within our reach.
My Googling skills are failing me in seeking one politician's exhortations that we must not change the way we live, but to change the way the other bastards live. We are indeed doing the latter, at great expense and sacrifice, but it will not be enough. In some way we will have to change how we live, but it will not be in the direction of C-wire and ID badges. These measures simply wrap defensive layers around what remains a vulnerability.
I would rather deny any adversary his ultimate goal, by erasing that vulnerability and giving up some or all of the layers of defense surrounding it. This will have to be a change in attitudes first, then laws second, but little or no money need be spent publicly to bring it about.
I assert this without apology. We will remain vulnerable as long as it is not commonplace for people in public to be armed, able to protect themselves and the innocent among them.
As I have argued in other spaces, the present conflict will not be over until our servicemen begin to bring home Persian wives. That represents the "change how the other bastards live" aspect of the solution.
But it is only half of the solution. The other half will be signaled by, for instance:
- being able to buy targets at Target, and a brick of .22LR while you're at it;
- turning on TLC to see Paige Davis or Bob Vila advise a young couple on renovating a rifle on This Old Mauser;
- the high school yearbook photos show a larger trap shooting team than basketball team;
- an adult showing anxiety around firearms will earn the same contempt we express today for a man who beats his wife, or the same pity we express to one who lacks the capacity to wipe one's own bottom.
Deny our philosophical enemies their ultimate goal by encouraging their victims to fight back. Celebrate the armed virtue.
The objection will be raised that we would be changing how we live. I concede that. But we would be changing toward a lifestyle of fewer fences and alarms and locked doors, fewer face-commparing cameras and identity badges, more economic prosperity, more confidence in oneself. We would be transferring our uncertainties to those who have taken advantage of our uncertainty.
Those who view human life through the lens of class should welcome the erasure of boundaries between the protected, protecting, and unprotected classes. Increasingly, this is the only stratification that matters, if we are to regard one another as equals before the law.
I do not present this as a complete solution, for no solution can be complete. It does not speak to concerns that jihadis will obtain a nuclear explosive, or smallpox, for example. But those contingencies are best addressed by military force over the course of weeks, months, and years.
The seizure of a school or a church by jihadis, on our own soil, which surely has been contemplated by our enemies, can be thwarted only in seconds, by the spontaneous and violent reaction of the people who were in that school or church at the moment it occurs.
20041007
Roundup!
Walter has graciously agreed to let me host the latest Rocky Mountain Blog Roundup.
Please send me a link to your best recent post---sorry, only one post per blogger---with a brief description of it and yourself. Deadline forthcoming.
Deadline 1700 hours Mountain, 10 October for publication on Columbus Day.
20041005
Quote for the day
The U.S. military---particularly at the level of NCOs, who are the guardians of its culture and traditions---is a world of beer, cigarettes, instant coffee, and chewing tobacco. It is composed of people who hunt, drive pickups, use profanity as an element of ordinary speech and yet have a simple, sure, demonstrative belief in the Almighty.
Robert Kaplan in Atlantic Monthly. Hat Tip to Lexington Green at ChicagoBoyz.
Robert Kaplan in Atlantic Monthly. Hat Tip to Lexington Green at ChicagoBoyz.
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