baldilocks

Lesson Learned

It appears that the military won't be having any more incidents like the one in which Jessica Lynch was taken captive. Guess the “brave Iraqi resistance” will have to go back to ambushing lone soldiers or shooting at soldiers who aren't able to shoot back. Or maybe they’ll have to go back to blowing up innocents to get these kinds of numbers:

SAMARRA, Iraq — American forces killed 46 Iraqis and captured eight others Sunday who were trying to ambush them in the northern city of Samarra

Looks like the Geneva Convention may apply.

Many of the dead Iraqi attackers were found wearing uniforms of the Fedayeen (search), a militia loyal to Saddam Hussein, according to Lt. Col. William MacDonald of the 4th Infantry Division.

Was Iraq a signatory? If so, would the Fedayeen fall under that agreement? Talk to me, lawyers.

Loaded for Bear

More Republicans/conservatives here in Cali than you ever thought possible, eh? I’ve re-added the individually-listed members of the Bear Flag League to this page. Justene has the weekend roundup of the “Left” Coast.

Run, Jesse, Run!

Many, if not most, black Americans have been onto the antics of Jesse Jackson for quite some time. Finally, some of that disgust is making it to the major media.

November 25, 2003 — A Loop rally demanding more jobs for young black men turned into a protest against the leadership of Reverend Jesse Jackson. [SNIP]

"We are tired of coming here to voice our opinion when we got African-American people sitting at the table and saying they represent our interests and playing this puppet game," said one protester.[SNIP]

"They lashed out at Dr. King, they lashed out at Nelson Mandela, they lashed out at Jesus, so all of those who fight for change become the object of frustration," said Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rainbow-Push Coalition.

Get off the Cross, Jesse. Jesus died so you wouldn’t have to.

I once got into the usual discussion about “black leaders” in which Jackson was held up as Exhibit A. I disputed the assertion that black Americans held this man up as a leader and said that it was white guilt that had created the Jesse Jackson persona and problem. After all, black-owned corporations aren’t being shaken down by Jackson for hush money.

Jesse Jackson is white America’s problem.

How about this: the next corporation that finds itself in Jackson’s crosshairs grows some testicles and says “sue us.” Yes, you, too, can be free at last.

MilBlogs Roundup

Dave at Better Living Through Blogging has a rule about houseguests. I’m saying, “amen, brother.”

The Night Before Kicking A** from sgt hook.

The Paratrooper of Love reminds us that we only have a few more days to send some love to the troops in Iraq in time for Christmas.

One of the Psychotic Duo is learning the fundies about some psychotic members of a certain group.

The ArmyWife’s fighting half isn’t coming home on leave yet. Go help her keep her chin up.

Major Pain has a turkey adventure that rivals that infamous WKRP episode. “Oh the humanity!”

The Doc advises you tripods to regularly inspect the jewels for flaws.

And, the Atheist Soldier, ironically, reminds us of our blessings and his.

More later.

Curses, Foiled Again!

Here's what I like about the [president’s Baghdad] trip. It's going to make liberals scream like a bear trap just closed on their privates. –Steve H. of Little Tiny Lies

And it is extremely entertaining to read/listen to.

Matthew Yglesias:

Consider, however, whether you think that the leaders of the Democratic Party would have been wildly opposed to taking a little Thanksgiving-time trip of their own to pose with the troops for photo ops. Seems to me that they would love to have done that. But they weren't invited.

Perhaps Matt missed Senator Hillary Clinton’s Thanksgiving-time “photo op” with the troops in Afghanistan. Understandable, what with it being overshadowed by the president’s little surprise and all. That said, I wonder whether the senator needed an engraved invitation from GWB to go. Knowing her persona, I doubt it. To be fair to the senator: what she did was just as honorable as the presidential deeds of the day, but it's not the same in scope. There’s only one Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces and she ain’t it.

I’ll even go out on a limb and say that most of the troops would rather see the Big Guy, rather than any senator or representative. Why? First, because the president is the one who sent them in the first place. Oh sure, the congress people voted for it, but the president had the final word.

And, secondly, because most of the military loves GWB, make no mistake about that. We didn’t see soldiers in Afghanistan whooping, hollering and jumping up and down when Senator Clinton walked into the DINFAC in Kabul (or wherever it was).

And here’s this gem in the Washington Post:

But Philip Taubman, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, said that "in this day and age, there should have been a way to take more reporters. People are perfectly capable of maintaining a confidence for security reasons. It's a bad precedent." Once White House officials "decided to do a stealth trip, they bought into a whole series of things that are questionable."

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, criticized the White House correspondents who made the trip without spilling the secret. "That's just not kosher," he said. "Reporters are in the business of telling the truth. They can't decide it's okay to lie sometimes because it serves a larger truth or good cause."

So there should have been more reporters on the trip because reporters are good at keeping secrets, but a good reporter would never keep a secret.

(Perhaps Taubman and Rosenstiel should have compared notes so that their incredibly stupid statements would have at least not contradicted each other.)

At least some Democrats and Leftists acknowledge that the trip was a bold and generous move. Or so I hear.

(Thanks to commenter Crimson Oath and to Dean)

Talk to the Hand

The president refuses to take questions from the press during his surprise Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad. It was all about the troops.

*****
Tee-hee! Heads are exploding all over Democraticunderground.com. You know, for a guy reputed to be of less than average intelligence, President Bush sure knows how to tick off the leftists.

The Short List

I’m thankful I’m not….

• Mark Morford
• Hillary Clinton (overshadowed again)
• A member of the British Political Cartoon Society
• Living in Montgomery County Maryland with a kid attending public school
• Stephen King (poor guy)
• French
• Hungry
• Cold
• Oppressed

Sneaky

The POTUS is in Iraq.

I thought all those reports of him being in Crawford seemed a little off. They'd mention that he was spending Thanksgiving with wife, children and parents, but there were no pictures.

Nice OPSEC.

What's Next?

No more master/slave in the machinery, eh? What’s next in the PC world? Is Nabisco going to have to start calling these

something else?

(Thanks to Donnie)

Fat Chance

I was feeling a bit lazy this morning. A few aches and pains were nagging at me, so I contemplated skipping today’s workout. Then I turned on the TV, switched to FoxNews and saw an 800 pound woman who is suing the federal government. I was outta here.

The woman is receiving disability payments because she’s so obese that she cannot work. She suing the government because she requested a new apartment that was, er, more suitable to her needs (read: big enough for a woman who is nearly six times the weight of a normal-sized woman)and they didn't get it done fast enough for Her Majesty's liking. Though the government is now modifying her original apartment to suit her disability, she said that she’s still suing them in order to “teach them a lesson.”

Well. I wonder if the Federal government will learn the real lesson.

It’s easy to make fun of and get angry at people like this woman, but lazy scumbags are a fact of life. (Some of them aren’t even morbidly obese or even incredibly lazy.) However, if the government wanted to solve this creature's actual problem (and their own, in this case), the first step would be to recognize that the size of this woman’s apartment isn’t the problem.

It’s the size of the woman that’s the real problem.

The woman is on disability because, with her 800 plus pounds, she simply cannot move. What I wonder is this: instead of subsidizing the modification of her apartment, wouldn’t a long-term solution be better, say, subsidizing a gastric bypass operation? She certainly, er, qualifies weight-wise. Such a solution would also have the benefit of getting her off disability—assuming she has no other disabling conditions--and get her back to work.

If such people must be the beneficiaries of the tax-payers’ largess, is it too much to ask that real solutions to real problems be implemented?

NOTE: If anyone can find the link to this story, please send it to me.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the story. (Darn it, no pic. This one has to be seen to be appreciated.)

She has to call emergency services to be able to go anywhere.

(Ith, you are the best!)

Playtime Suspended

Today I’m wasting perfect good key strokes on that regularly-scheduled research paper due each Monday. An example of my topics: “Explain what situations are appropriate for each type of secondary storage device.” Zzzzz. You get the idea. It’s amazing how you can pop out 600 words for your blog in twenty minutes, but that research paper is like pulling toenails. :-)

Everyone’s got to pay those dues sooner or later.

The Un-French

Are there still World War Two era Japanese soldiers that haven’t heard the news? According to the Scotsman, there are a number of good adherents to the Bushido Code hiding out in the Philippine mountains.

Poor guys. Could you envision having lived an entire life under such total delusion, only to come back to a version of Tokyo beyond your dreams and darn near get run over by a Lexus as you hobble across the unimaginable street on the strength of your bamboo cane?

Sad.

(Thanks to Tiger)

A Modest Roundup

From the Mexican border to the border of another foreign country (just kidding, Oregonians), from the Desert to the Sea™, Patrick makes the rounds of the Bear Flag League.

More on the Lileks-Pax dust-up: the Lion roars.

Blessings come to those that bless others.

Venomous Kate informs us that living in Hawaii isn’t always paradise.

Vicky at Liquid Courage has an interesting post about a Saudi TV show. The show's premise is a critique of the treatment of women in that country (surprise!).

As we know, Saudi women can be jailed for going out in public without a male escort. But, sometimes, one just isn’t available. Perhaps Saudi women who have no male escort and want to go for a shopping spree at Ridayh Mall should substitute Misters Smith and Wesson for escort purposes. Just a thought.

Guns, butter and Mozart from Steve H.

And Cynthia bids farewell from blogging. It happens. Godspeed and don’t be a stranger, good lady.

While the Gittin's Good

Sometimes, it seems that the more humble types “choose” to take their leave from the mortal coil under cover of the death of a more incandescent star. Like slipping out the door of a raucous party before the cops come.

Like Mother Teresa, who died in the immediate wake of the world-wide mourning of the accidental death of Princess Diana, the great novelist C.S. Lewis got out of Dodge quietly. He died November 22, 1963, a date more widely known for the assassination of a beloved American president.

Joseph Loconte pens an excellent tribute to Lewis.

(Thanks to James of Outside the Beltway)

Simple

James Lileks didn’t criticize Iraqi blogger Salam Pax for not standing up to Saddam. Lileks criticized Pax for whinily nitpicking at those who did stand up to Saddam. Why is this distinction such a difficult concept for some to grasp?

(Thanks to Matthew Stinson)

I'm So Confused

Okay, Leftists, get it straight. Is President Bush an elitist scion of a rich family, born to the best of everything, ever looking for the hand up from his upper crust backers? Or is he a bumbling clod who wouldn’t know a place setting from a place kicker? Help us get a handle on this Bushitler™; this diabolical idiot-savant who manages to recall the spirit of one of history's worst fiends by halting the creation of mass graves of women and children instead of filling them up. And making the Queen of England laugh to boot!

Wednesday night's state dinner alone presented numerous quandaries for Bush. As did the 168 other guests, Bush had seven different 50-year-old crystal wine glasses before him -- and he doesn't even drink. Then there were his three forks, three knives and two spoons, not counting the two itty-bitty spoons for the mustard and the salt (or is it sugar?). How was a man whose own official menus feature comfort food such as brisket and cornbread to know that a menu of "Delice de Fletan Roti aux Herbes" is nothing more dangerous than halibut?

Thanks

My gratitude goes to the various great writers who have linked to my tirades.

Creature Watch

Still no sign of the Thing That Should Have Been Arrested Years Ago.

Mike's made a Run for the Border.™ Bet.

UPDATE: Oh well.

Going Quietly

Last week, at Michael Williams’ blog, I got into a discussion with him about Jessica Lynch and the photos of her, supposedly purchased by Larry Flynt. Basically, we were having a nice, civil argument about whether women should bear the burden for past indiscretions any more than men.

Today, I read an article about Monica Lewinsky. It seems that she’s having a bit of trouble getting a date. Understandable.

(Note: I only mentioned the two women in the same breath because the Lewinsky article reminded me of the discussion. Otherwise, there’s no basis for comparison. Lewinsky is famous because of her indiscretion. Lynch is not; only serving honorably in the military and surviving capture by the enemy allowed her private life to become known.)

I submit that it’s not Lewinsky’s past (necessarily) that’s the problem here—though it will be for some time, to some extent--but her need to remain in the public eye. If Lewinsky would just take a page from a certain lady named Donna Rice (now Donna Rice-Hughes), and quietly get on with her life, perhaps she would find a good guy who’s willing to not hold her past against her.

However, the very fact that Lewinsky is complaining about it in GQ Magazine makes me doubt that she’ll figure this out anytime soon.

Where Massa Clinton At?

Here’s a copy of a letter I e-mailed last year to Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press in response to her September 2002 editorial “Nobody’s Like Bill [Clinton, that is]—Let’s Get Him Back.”

*****

You're Number One!

A GI salutes an AP photographer.

(Thanks to LGF)

Monday's Here

And everyone's PO'd. I suppose something will happen eventually to get me there (again).

Dean, deep in the throws of nicotine withdrawal, makes a resounding denunciation of the God of the Bible.

The Rev. Donald Sensing, in response, posts a fascinating missive from a few months ago on the concept of Hell.

Mr. Lion helpfully posts a Twelve-Step program for Leftists (note to Mr. Lion: a Leftie is someone who writes, eats, throws with the left hand, like me!!!)

Xrql has more on the Infotel situation: the text of the letter sent to Justene Adamec of Calbog. Today is also Talk Lyk Yur Guffenor Dey. (Glückwunsch, Ah-nuld!)

Prometheus 6 posts an article from the San Francisco Chronicle’s website on the horrid misconduct of the San Francisco County Sherriff’s Department.

What's Up With That?

Nothing on the front pages of the New York Times' or the Washington Post's or the Los Angeles Times' web sites about the big Osama-Saddam memo. You'd think they'd want to write something about it if only to trash it. But then again, that would lead to too many hits for the New York Post's, FoxNews and the Weekly Standard's sites. Can't have the masses being contaminated by a little conservatism, no sirree.

Maybe my search skills are insufficient. Help me out, here. Seriously, I'd love to be wrong about this.

Brain and Brain! What is Brain?

Watch your backs, all you white racists! Or should I say your medullas? (Or wherever attitudes are stored. Heck, I'm no brain surgeon, as I'm sure most of you would agree.)

Brain scan 'identifies race bias among white people'

Next thing you know, they’ll be putting some sort of Trekian anti-racist mind-control device in your head! “Oh it’s just a cure for migraines. Really.”

Wonder if the good scientists at Dartmouth asked any members of *other* races to volunteer for this experiment?

(Thanks to Marty in VA)

Injustice Alert

Justene Adamec of Calblog is being legally threatened by a company called Infotel Publications. It seems that she was unjustly billed by this company and blogged about it. The company is not suing her because of the blog post, but because of the subsequent commentary made by others. (Justene has turned off the comments to the original post.)

Justene also happens to be a lawyer, so I’m sure she’s got the big guns out, but shining light on cockroaches usually sends them scurrying for the dark.

(Thanks to various members of the Bear Flag League)

UPDATE: Xrql's got the 4-1-1.

Southern Men

From Kim du Toit:

What's next? Pigs flying? President Bush getting 40% of the black American vote?

(Thanks to Mrs. du Toit)

Osama-Saddam Connection

Geez! Ya think? A marriage made in...somewhere.

(Thanks all around the Mulberry Bush)

AFTERTHOUGHT: I certainly hope that this memo was sent through the proper declassification gauntlet. Otherwise, the "leaker" should be brought up on charges. Just because I like what I see doesn't mean that I think that the rules apply only to those that don't agree with my point of view.

UPDATE: The DOD disagrees with the conclusions, but not the premises. And, as I feared, it may be an unauthorized "leak."

(Thanks to Atrios)

Yes, I'm Still Ranting

At least Ted Rall is honest about how he feels about American troops.

After posting my rant about the GWB-AWOL crock of feces, I began to flesh out why the repetition of this Lie gets me so wound up and it’s this: the Left, in pretending that it actually cares about military members, consistently insults our collective intelligence.

The Left, with its continuous assertion that President Bush “dodged the draft” in the seventies, has this as its goal: to drive a wedge between the president and his natural constituency, the military. Implicit in this goal is the assumption that the military is populated by ignoramuses who don’t read, don’t pay attention to what’s going on in the world, and are as obsessed by “class warfare” as the Left is.

It does this by counting on several facts:

• A good portion of military personnel come from hardworking, blue-collar families
• Suggesting that the president, a member of a rich family, may have received perks due to his connections sits very hard on the average military member
• Few Active Duty military members know how service in the Guard and Reserve works (I didn’t when I switched from AD to Reserve)
• Even fewer civilians know the foregoing

But what really torqued me off was this: in their eagerness to discredit the president’s service record, no one on the Left even bothered to do their homework on Guard/Reserve service regulations. All the Left wanted to do is make the president appear to have bypassed the rules, using the perception of favoritism.

“See? He’s really not one of you. He thinks he’s better than you are. He’ll send you out to die, but he wouldn’t do it himself.” As if the Left actually gave a rat’s hairy behind about the average grunt doing the fighting and dying. As if their actual and ideological parents didn’t refer to Vietnam vets as baby-killers upon the vets’ homecoming. As if they wouldn’t do it today too if the specter of a citizen-led beat down didn’t loom on the horizon.

After seeing the bogus AWOL assertion twice here on my blog, I finally got tired of it.

*****

Oh, and this crap:

“We want the troops to come home where they’ll be safe.” If we wanted to be safe, we would have stayed home in South Central LA (snort) or stayed home and gotten one of those nice jobs in one of those nice tall office buildings in Lower Manhattan.

Leaving aside that 9/11 resoundingly disproved the assertion that one is “safe” here, this last is the most condescending, hypocritical crap that I’ve heard said about American troops in Iraq. Since the abolition of the Draft a generation ago, American military personnel have volunteered to fight America’s wars. It’s called free will. But the Left thinks the military is populated by people too stupid to choose how to live their own lives.

I guess many members of the Left think the military is made up of barely literate yokels from Middle and Southern America or barely literate thugs/thugettes from America’s inner cities. Us dumb “rednecks” and “darkies” couldn’t possibly have a handle on the intricacies of Fascism, Imperialism, and Nazism, since all we read are comic books.

We couldn’t possibly have joined up or stayed in the military as a result of informed, principled decision making, made after a detailed evaluation of history and/or present day world events. We couldn’t possibly have been well-informed and come to a conclusion that is different from that of the Left. We all must be dumb and/or ignorant.

Well here’s a dumb/ignorant suggestion I have for those on the Left who keep attempting to play military personnel for suckers: BITE ME! And after you do that, you can go back to your regularly scheduled spewing of new Big Lies, whatever they may be. It's your right to do so.

(Thanks to Michael J. Totten, among others)

LTC West

The good-guy meter is pinging on this one. A guy's gotta be a good one when his ex-wife says nice things about him in public.

Don’t forget about LTC Allen West.

(Thanks to Spoons and Kim du Toit)

TB

Again with This Bovine Excrement

I try to keep my formidable temper in check here, like a good little hostess should, but if you want to see my head explode, let some knucklehead uninformed person mention the Big George W. Bush Lie to me: the “AWOL” nonsense. In my comments section about “chickenhawks” from Sharon:

oh and George Bush: Air National Guard, managed to disappear for the last 18 months of his enlistment. Can you say AWOL?

So instead of being lazy and comparing the Big Lie to “the natural by-product of a bull's digestive system” (Thank you, Paul Jané), allow me to enlighten the woefully misinformed with a few facts.

AWOL stands for Absent Without Official Leave. You know what that means, right? Apparently, some don’t, so let me define it in--obviously necessary--a more plain English: it means that you are gone from your place of military duty without official permission. Who gives that official permission? Why, the commander of your unit, natch.

This works differently in Guard and Reserve Units than it does in Active Duty units. Since AD personnel belong to the military 24/7/365, you must have a darn good reason to be gone for longer than your accrued leave time (30 days per year; at least the last time I checked).

Since Guard personnel and Reservists are only required to be on duty for two days a month and only required to serve a minimum of two weeks of active duty per year, they don’t accrue leave. They also have more leeway when it comes to periods of absence. (This last depends on many things: job, manning level, mission, etc.)

Additionally, if the Guardsman/Reservist attends a service school--such as pilot training--during a given year, part of the time in school can serve as his/her two weeks of active duty or part of it can be used as the two days of duty for a given month.

Also, if a member has served enough time to retire and has applied to do so—six months between application and bye-bye date--he/she doesn’t have to come back to his/her unit at all after that (though I did).

And, on top of that, if the member wants to take an extended period of absence from his/her duty for any reason—family, school, work in a political campaign, or just because he/she needs a break—he/she can do it with the unit commander’s permission. That’s it. That’s all that’s required. Not a flocking act of Congress, not some monetary exchange in a back room somewhere.

I know this, because I did it. Yes, little bald-headed black chicks can take a break from the Reserves if they want to, just like rich white guys. And I kept my money--and my virtue, such as it is--in my pocket when I did it.

Ain’t America great?

So please peddle the AWOL shizam somewhere else. This is not the place.

MORE RANTING: Could someone explain to me how someone "dodges the draft" by joining the military? That's more than tortured logic. That's logic dropped into Saddam's People Shredder.

UPDATE: (February 4, 2004) To make any further comments on this post, go here.

ChickenHawk--It's What's for Dinner

What is a “chickenhawk” and why should the appellation exist at all? Why should those who’ve never served in the military recuse themselves from advocating any military action that this country takes or may take in the future?

If the “chickenhawk” meme is a justifiable one, conversely, does that mean that all of the legion non-veteran 60s protesters of the Vietnam War also had no legitimate opinion to offer on the subject? Heck, what did they know about being a soldier? Right?

Does that mean that all of legion non-veteran critics and protestors of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom are talking out of their nether regions? (Now, now. Whether they are or not is beside the point.)

If it is justifiable to lob the “chickenhawk” bomb at the non-veteran advocates of the present war, then anti-war people like Tom Tomorrow should likewise catch big fat juicy pieces of this type of shrapnel.

Or, better yet, no one should be berated as a “chickenhawk” for supporting the war, nor should its critics be automatically labeled unpatriotic. Not in this country.

It is the right, better yet, the duty of the American citizen to give his/her opinion—by vote, letter, e-mail, blog, and (sigh), yes, protest--to elected officials on any actions taken by the government. (To get the pertinent facts on these actions before venturing an opinion, of course, is best, but not required. Just wear a flame-retardant suit.)

However, I submit that most of the hurlers of the “chickenhawk” insult are:

• Those who are against the war, and/or
• Those who have never served in the military, and/or
• Those who would never serve in the military, or
• Those who have served in the military, but were given the boot, and thus have a beef

Oh, and Tom? Were I to be petty, I would tell you that while you were here at home drawing pretty pictures criticizing anything and everything, this girl was out defending you right to do so. But I won’t say that, since I'm above that sort of thing. ;-)

(Thanks to Citizen Smash and Dean Esmay)

An Imperfect Storm

It never rains in California? Yeah, right. It’s pouring here right now, thunder and lightning to boot. The electricity has cut out on me twice in mid surf. I think I’ll take that as a hint. See you later.

They're Still With Us...

...as long as we remember them.

(Thanks to Patterico)

Taps

My old friend Marty posted about the passing of a lady he and I both knew when stationed in Germany. I didn’t know Tammi Clifford or her husband, 'Cliff,' very well back then, but when Marty said that she had succumbed to cancer last week, I was stunned nonetheless.

Tamera, wife of James, mother of four children (one deceased) was laid to rest this past Saturday with full military honors.

God rest your soul, good lady.

Talk to the Deity of the Blogosphere

Allah's allowing comments in Da House. This will be frighteningly amusing and frightening.

Be Merry When You Eat and Drink

John Hawkins at Right Wing News takes a poll among rightish bloggers, asking with whom in history or in present they would share a meal.

The usual suspects abound: Jesus, Shakespeare, Ayn Rand, FDR. Zzzzz.

Now I’m all for learning from the great thinkers and doers in history, but when I go out to eat with someone, I want to laugh and have fun, as well as enjoy my meal. I want to joke around as well as have those Great Intellectual Conversations. I want to Laugh Loud and invite dirty looks from the other patrons. And I want to inspire loud laughter in return, if possible.

Who would I like to dine with?

• Frank Zappa (in military intel circles, rumor has it that he was one of us; I know those guys are fun)
• Benjamin Franklin (brilliant and knew how to party as well)
• Donald Rumsfeld (a guy that devastatingly funny in public is probably a riot in private)
• Dinah Washington (a kindred spirit)
• Derek Jeter (MMMM. Okay, forget what I said about athletes)
• Laura Ingraham (that girl is hilarious; we’d be pointing and laughing at people all evening)
• Stevie Wonder (have you ever seen this guy on a talk show? Oh my God, what a funny guy; plus I wouldn’t have to obsess too much about how I looked)
• Stephen King (another funny guy; horror and humor are an intoxicating mix)
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (a guy that can keep a sense of humor after spending time in a Soviet gulag has got to be a great dinner companion)
• Okay, well, Jesus (the wine wouldn’t stop flowing until He knew I’d had enough)

BlogRoll

No, I haven't deleted some of you, good readers. Since my main blogroll was getting rather large and unwieldy, I decided to shorten it and set it to display at random.

Who Cares?

With all of this hoo-hah over Howard Dean's remarks concerning guys in pick up trucks with Confederate battle flags on it, I'm struck by those who invest so much effort in being offended by the display of this flag.

If every person who has one of these flags magically gets rid of it today, what will be accomplished? Is everything going to suddenly be all right in the sphere of race relations? Will all discrimination (on both sides) go *poof* and suddenly be gone?

And the most important question: will the disappearance of the Confederate battle flag put money in my pocket?

Cobb's comment in this post got me to thinking. I wonder what would happen if I put a Confederate flag sticker on my car? Maybe I'll put an NAACP sticker right next to it.

People of the Lie

With apologies to M. Scott Peck.

You know them, as do I. They are the people who have become so used to lying to get what they want that they actually believe their own lies and think you’re the one that's crazy for not believing them also. I know a few people like this. I was even married to one.

There are some people that put the cart in front of the horse; the conclusion is made first, then the premises are twisted to fit that conclusion.

Self-serving ideas are formed—to justify what they want--and these ideas become “fact” to them. Then, when those who have the horse-cart thing in the correct order try to show them that their cart is missing a wheel, has a hole in the bottom, or is made of rotting wood, they shut their ears and say “la-la-la-la-la.”

Or maybe a situation occurs, maybe an argument or maybe one of adversity, in which both you and that person participated.

When the person recounts the story, however, the pertinent facts are missing. Or, even if the facts do appear in the recount, they are so twisted that you don’t even recognize that it’s the same event. They are twisted, of course, in that person’s favor and to make you look like the bad guy.

Though you were there too, you find yourself wondering if maybe it was you who forgot what really happened. But only for a moment. Then you realize who or, rather, what you are dealing with.

You point out the “forgotten” facts to the person. Even if they still have a sliver of honesty left in them to acknowledge that they got the telling of the facts wrong, they will still make everything your fault.

“I did this because I know that you would have, too.” This, without giving an example of when you did the same thing.

“I did this because you did this.” The “this” will turn out to be something totally innocuous or even something that the two of you had agreed upon at the time. You throw up your hands.

They want whatever it is they want, the truth be damned. Their wants override any notions of honor, fidelity and morality.

You know what these people are called. Sociopaths.

I will admit to exhibiting some sociopathic behavior in my younger days. But, at some point, I realized that I was hurting people. At some point, I grew up; perhaps after bearing the brunt of others’ sociopathy. And it is a matter of growing up. After all, what are little babies but cute little bundled-up squalling psychopaths?

Beware of these people, these babies that have grown taller, but have never grown up. Some will merely become a blip in your rearview mirror—if you’re fortunate. It’s the ones that won’t go away, the ones that have the power to affect change for the worst on a large scale that are the problem. You have to keep an eye, or perhaps something more lethal, on these.

The Horror, the Horror

Sadly, this old lady recognizes the list in the last part of this post only too well.

You Never Can Tell

I posted this in Donnie’s comments regarding the Confederate flag.

*****

Back when I bought my first car in the early eighties, I was still rather inattentive as to how much gas was in it. One day, I ran out of gas. (This was on Lowry AFB, CO.)

I kept trying to flag people down. A little over a dozen cars passed me by. More than half of the motorists were black.

Suddenly, a white guy driving a pick up truck with the Stars and Bars in the back window stops. He’s wearing a cowboy hat. The truck plates were from a southern state (don't remember which).

The guy gets out and says, "Kin ah hep yew, ma'am?" I told him my plight. Of course he's got a gas can. He goes to the gas station, gets some gas and brings it back. He wouldn't let me touch the can and he refused any money from me, though I offered twice.

God bless him, wherever he is.

Sons of Unmarried Mothers

There's a singular word for that title.

Though I ranted about this in my post “Black Men Behaving Badly” a couple of months back, after reading Kim du Toit’s excellent screed on the de-masculinization of American men, I felt the need to do it again.

I don’t normally frequent either his or Mrs. du Toit’s site, though I’ve looked both over a time or two. After so many links around the blogosphere to Kim’s rant, both sites are down. However, today Mrs. du Toit’s site today is back up, at least the front page shell. There, she makes this observation:

Men create and defend societies. Women civilize them.

Men have been holding up their end of the bargain. We women have dropped the ball entirely.

We can, must, and will do better.

Target hit. (I think I'll check out the Mrs' site a little more thoroughly after it comes back up.)

Just the Pinging Stuff, Ma'am

Why I’m not married.

Dean, as usual, stirs up the hornet’s nest by asking what atheists have contributed to the welfare of man.

Send your words of support to LTC Allen B. West.

And now for the big one. Yellowcake? Nope. Plame? Nope. Military casualty rates? Nope. Boykin? Nope. West? Nope. None of it worked well enough to demonize President Bush in the eyes of the majority of American voters.

Now it gets uglier than even I thought possible: intelligence. Why don’t the Senate Democrats just go hand the stuff over to the remnants of the Baath Party? Yes, I know the memo specifies that declassified information be used. So what?

Why this is an outrage, outside of it being petty, anti-American, and, IMO, treasonous:

1. Anything that may help the administration may be still classified and, therefore, unusable as a defense unless the Bush administration wants to go even lower than the Democrats. Doubtful, since I don’t think that’s possible.

2. This declassified information could give clues to information that still is classified. One plus one equals two.

Would the Republicans do the same thing in the same situation? Den Beste tells us that at least one didn’t.

The Mars and the Venus of It

I once quipped to one of my male friends that, had I been born male, I would have been a homosexual. Of course he took in the sexual way in which men say this when they mention the fantasy of being born female. But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant it in a wholly female manner: Had I been born male, I would likely be a homosexual or one of those heterosexual, eternally single ‘cads’ simply because women drive me nuts, for the most part.

I’ve rarely had a close female friend. I’m not saying that it’s my failing or that of the rest of womankind. I’d say, neither. I just have different interests than many women. I find the interests of many women to be sleep-inducing. And they find mine and my way of looking at things, well, weird.

Fun in the South

It looks like a good time was had by all at the Jawja Blogger Meet. I would have loved to have attended and brought back the days of the crazy, drunken philosophizing of my youth, but I couldn’t see myself explaining to my aunt where I was going.

“You’re going where to get drunk with who?”

It’s sad when a fortyish woman can’t face up to a little wigging out from the parental unit. :-)

Worst One Yet

This is horrifying:

FALLUJAH, Iraq — A U.S. Chinook helicopter (search) believed to be carrying troops to their R&R leaves was shot down as it headed for Baghdad airport on Sunday, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 21, the U.S. command said.

As is this:

Also Sunday, two American civilians and one soldier were killed in a pair of attacks in Fallujah and Baghdad.

Many prayers go to the families of the fallen.

Question: Is this the type of thing Lt. Colonel Allen B. West was trying to prevent?

Scary Story

I know I'm a day late, but this one is really scary. Real-life ghoul stories always are.

A few years back, I was driving home from my reserve unit on a late Sunday afternoon. The seventy-mile trip was normally uneventful outside of the usual crazy California drivers. But this one was different.

One of my close friends/co-workers happened to live in LA at the time and, on this day, we left about the same time. This was unusual in itself, given both of our unpredictable workloads: one or both of us often stayed late.

So we drove close to each other, with me in front. At the time, I had a cell phone, so we yakked on the phone a bit, then we hung up and drove.

About ten minutes after we hung up, a van cuts me off. I swore a bit, then slowed down to get off of its rear. The van slows down too. So I change lanes and slow down to avoid what I think is just another of the myriad California idiots. The van, light blue with no side or back windows, changes lanes to get in front of me again. It slows down.

My friend calls me back: “What is this mf’s problem?

Me: (shaken) I don’t know.

Friend: Pull over. And whatever you do, stay in the car!

I pull over to the shoulder and, sure enough, the van pulls over some 100 feet in front of me. My friend pulls over behind me. I’m nervous as a cat as I watch the scenario unfold.

I see the driver’s side door of the van open. A man with dark hair, maybe latino, starts to get out. Then his eyes widen. He jumps back in and speeds off. The van goes over on two wheels, nearly turning over getting out of there. Dust is flying up all over the place. I look in my left mirror and see my friend approaching my window.

I guess a tall, imposing black man wearing BDUs (my friend) was a bit more than the van-driver bargained for.

I still wonder to this day what that guy was going to do and who else was in the van. I was obviously military (wearing ‘blues,’ blouse and skirt). Was it an attempted pervert hit or an attempted military hit? Or was it racial? Or some combination thereof? I don’t know and I’m very happy not to have found out.