McCain's Citizenship and Eligibility

According to Drudge, the NYT is about to release an article questioning John McCain's eligibility to be President because he was born outside the United States (he was born in a military base in the Canal Zone).

It had me worried for a moment, but I tracked this down. Article II, Section 1(5) provides that only a "natural born citizen" is eligible to be president. The Constitution does not define the term "natural born citizen." Amendment XIV, of course, provides that persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States, we can use common sense to inform us that such persons fall within the definition of "natural born citizen." McCain was not born in the United States so he is not a born 14th Amendment citizen. He is, however, a born statutory citizen:

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: ... (e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person

8 USC 1401.

Citizenship was automatic at birth in his case; to me that counts as "natural born."

First Scientology, Now NADER!!!!

Not my politics, but this is just too good!




Note: for anyone who didn't get the reference:

Discouraged by the Primaries

This is going to be a little bit of a non-PC rant, so I apologize in advance.

I'm not happy with the way the GOP primary is going so far. I'm especially irritated this time around because this has been the first presidential election I can remember where I actually liked a candidate. That doesn't mean I was 100% behind him, but favorable enough that it didn't feel like a lesser of two (or six) evils situation. And that felt really good. But alas, it looks like we're headed for more of the same.

I liked Thompson (who announced yesterday that he is dropping out). He campaigned horribly and had a hard time getting his message across, but eventually in addition to just having "good feelings" about him I started to understand his "conservative principles" agenda in a more concrete way, rather than the vague statements he campaigned on. I appreciated that Thompson was not conspicuously religious, which for someone who emphasizes his conservatism was remarkable. Conservatism to him meant strong defense, strong economy, and placing greater trust in the people rather than expecting government to take care of everyone. He did not spend much time on "moral majority" type "values." On issues, I considered Thompson the strongest on foreign policy, although I thought he was a bit too into the "war" model where it started to bleed into domestic policy.

Things are not looking good for Giuliani. It seems he forgot something fundamental about the way Americans think: as Patton said (according to the movie anyway, I have no idea if he really said that), "America hates a loser." No one cares that he's conceding states he can't win to focus on Florida. They just see him coming in below Paul and think "loser." So his national numbers have slipped. And now he's probably going to lose Florida to McCain and maybe Huckabee or Romney too, and if that happens he's done for. Giuliani is definitely my favored pick. Strong on defense, lots of executive experience--with great results, and most importantly for me, moderate on social issues. That's not about electability to me--it's the key feature I need in a Republican to feel like the candidate represents me and not the enemy.

I really think that if Giuliani goes down, it's back to a lesser of evils contest. Huckabee I won't consider for a second; he doesn't have the fortitude to make the hard calls and do what's right (he's a pussy), he knows dick about foreign relations, and he's got a shitty record as governor. So it's between Romney and McCain. I don't like either.

McCain is probably the BEST candidate with respect to many of the liberty issues associated with the war on terror, and on top of that he "gets" the global aspect of the fight was well as his top competitors. But he has poor ethical judgment. He's the last person out of all of them I trust to wield the veto responsibly, and by responsibly, I mean with gusto. I want a president who is going to give Congress the finger and shut them down to keep them from eroding our freedom. McCain isn't that guy--not only did he vote for the laws that eroded our freedom, he fucking authored them! And then there was his attempt to solve the immigration issue without regard for the ethical boundary of ensuring that no one was to receive a benefit for breaking the law or an incentive to break it. The power of the veto needs to be weilded by someone who knows where to draw the line in the sand, not by someone who says "let's make a deal." And maybe this is going too far, but I can't help but think that maybe the reason he's willing to make a deal and do wrong is because it is politically advantageous---the last think I want in November is a choice between two Clintons.

And then there's Romney. Strong conservative, yeah yeah. But a bit of a boilerplate candidate who says what he needs to. My biggest problem is who's behalf he's running on--the social conservatives. And that's not something I can get behind. At all. I'm fucking tired of them. I'm tired of their attempts to make the entire world safe for children (or for adults with a stick up their asses). I'm tired of them arguing by mystical authority instead of thinking for themselves. I'm tired of the bigotry. I'm tired of them putting the Party on the wrong side of the new frontier of the civil rights movement, a sin which history will not forgive. I'm tired of the conspicuous piety. I'm tired of the scapegoating. And I'm downright pissed off about their unceasing attempts to use the coercive power of the government to impose their values and way of life on everybody else, when those "values" have nothing to do with any concept of rights or ethics but are grounded solely in a "morality" derived from their inability to consider for one moment that people who are different are human beings too.

I'm tired of not having a major party that represents me. I know there are plenty of libertarian-leaning Republicans feel the same way too, but yet it seems that this small but active faction of zealots have been at the wheel. I desperately want the tables to turn. I want them to be the politically marginalized faction of the Party. I want them to feel disenfranchised and isolated. I hope they feel the government is out of their hands and they just give up. Stay home. So we can have at least ONE party that believes that people should be free to live their own lives in their own way, and so we turn to a politics of thinking and deliberating instead of one that celebrates ignorance.

Come on Rudy, you can still pull it off....

BSG is coming back!

I'm hearing April 4. The bad news is that IIRC only 10 episodes are completed, and with the writer's strike ongoing, we can expect that the midseason hiatus will be a tradition not only continued, but expanded upon.

Hype posted a teaser (mild spoilers). Be prepared for significant casualties....

Update on the Disposition of the F-15C Fleet

Direct Link

Video report link

The short version is that the E models are fine, but the C models have a manufacturing defect that is going to send about 1/3 of them to the scrap heap. Meanwhile we have to task F-15Es, F-16s, F/A-18, and F-22s to pick up the slack, diverting them from training or operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No word yet on how this affects Japan, Saudi Arabia, or other states flying F-15s.

The part that aggravates me is that we've never had a realistic replacement plan for the F-15. The F-22 was always an ambitious "super-fighter" project that no one should have thought was going to become our front line air-to-air workhorse. The final bill came out to $180M per plane. A fighter is "supposed" to cost $20-$60 million. Would it have been so difficult to have a few squadrons of 22s for high intensity work while building a fleet of "normal" high-performance fighters at around $50-80M a pop for the meat and potatoes work? Or could we at least have continued production of the 15 until we had something else ready to go, so we could phase out the older ones as new ones are built? No, we had to arrogantly bank on the 22.

So now what? The F-35 won't have the speed or range to do what the F-15 does. We won't restart production on the -15. And we have no other designs. So we're pretty much screwed, and we're screwed at a time when 4th and 5th generation fighters are finding their way to potentially hostile states like China, North Korea, and Iran (and those planes, IIRC, tend to cost in the $30-40M range, so we should expect to see a lot of them).

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Air Force investigation of the crash last fall of an F-15C Eagle concluded that a defective metal beam in the frame cracked, causing it to disintegrate during flight.

In a report being released Thursday, obtained in advance by The Associated Press, Air Force investigators said they had found the sole reason for the accident was the faulty support beam, called a longeron, which failed to meet the manufacturer's specifications.

The investigation was led by Air Force Col. William Wignall. Video Watch animation and audio from F-15 crash »

"The accident investigation board president (Wignall) found, by clear and convincing evidence, the cause of this accident was a failure of the upper right longeron, a critical support structure in the F-15C aircraft," the report says.

About 20 minutes after takeoff from an airfield near St. Louis on November 2, the forward fuselage of Maj. Stephen Stilwell's $42 million F-15C Eagle shook violently and then broke apart 18,000 feet above the ground. Stilwell, his left shoulder dislocated and his left arm shattered, barely had time to safely eject as pieces of his aircraft tumbled from the sky over the Missouri countryside.

More troubling, however, are the results of a parallel examination finding as many as 163 of the workhorse aircraft also have flawed support beams, or longerons. The aircraft remain grounded as the Air Force continues to search for how serious the problem is and whether extensive, costly repairs are needed. Another 19 of the aircraft have yet to be inspected and also remain grounded.

Nearly 260 of the A through D model F-15s, first fielded in the mid-1970s, were returned to flight status Tuesday following fleet-wide inspections.

The twin-engine aircraft are used primarily for homeland security and are a key link in the nation's air defense network.

"Two November, my world really changed," Air Force Gen. John Corley, head of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, said at a Pentagon news conference. "And it changed in a catastrophic way."

The Air Force's fleet of 224 newer F-15E Strike Eagles, which are used in Iraq and Afghanistan, do not have the structural problem. Those jets, whose role is more oriented toward ground attack missions, were temporarily grounded after Stilwell's crash, but returned to service shortly thereafter.

The older F-15s are stationed at many so-called "alert" sites around the country, where planes and pilots stand ready to take off at a moment's notice to intercept hijacked airliners and guard protected airspace.

Among the Air Force's other workhorse fighter jets is the F-16, which performs multiple roles, including air-to-air combat and air-to-ground attack. It entered the operational fleet in 1979.

With the F-15s temporarily grounded, F-16s and other aircraft are pulled away from their regular duties to fill the gaps. That makes it difficult for the Air Force to accomplish its mission and leaves Air Force pilots unable to train properly.

"This is systemic," Corley said.

The longeron helps support the cockpit and strengthen the jet as it moves through high-stress maneuvers while traveling hundreds of miles per hour.

Analysis of recovered parts from Stilwell's jet identified a crack in the beam near the fuselage that investigators say grew over time and was not detected during regular maintenance of the aircraft.

In the report, Wignall said that prior to Stilwell's flight, "no inspection requirements existed for detecting a crack in the longeron."

The F-15A through D models were built by McDonnell Douglas. That company merged with defense manufacturing giant Boeing in August 1997.

Company spokeswoman Patricia Frost said Boeing representatives have not seen Wignall's final report and could not comment on it.

"However, we are working with the U.S. Air Force to analyze the data gathered from fleet-wide inspections," Frost said. "Once all of the data have been analyzed, a need for further inspection or repair can be determined."

No decision has been reached as to whether Boeing might be liable for the repairs, which could cost as much as $500,000 per aircraft.

"This is the starting point for looking into that question," said Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, a senior Air Force acquisition official. "I'm not going to speculate."

The F-22 Raptor, a stealth aircraft intended to replace the F-15, is being fielded but in smaller numbers than initially planned. The Pentagon has said it will buy just 183 Raptors due to their high cost, but members of Congress are pressing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to buy more. A single Raptor costs about $160 million, according to the Air Force.

The Air Force has said it needs 381 of the F-22s.

Corley did not endorse more F-22s as the solution to the F-15 problems. But he indicated buying more F-15s would not be the Air Force's preference.

"It was the best of breed at its time," said Corley, who was an F-15 instructor pilot in 1979. "It's not anymore."
advertisement

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, said it may make more sense to retire the older F-15s rather than fix them. Due to their age, another part could fail even after the longerons are repaired.

"This is an aircraft that was designed during the Nixon administration," Thompson said. "It doesn't seem sensible to be making fixes so late in the game."

Not only did he not kill himself...

...but that was a good landing!

If Pete and Kristina jumped off a bridge, would I?

67% Mitt Romney
62% Fred Thompson
61% John McCain
59% Ron Paul
56% Mike Huckabee
55% Tom Tancredo
52% Rudy Giuliani
50% Bill Richardson
46% Chris Dodd
44% Joe Biden
42% Hillary Clinton
41% Mike Gravel
39% Barack Obama
39% John Edwards
38% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

I don't think this quiz registered my distaste for social conservatism very well.

Net Assessment of the United States

This is a STRATFOR article posted on one of the forums I frequent. It's a very astute neo-realist assessment, far better than anything you'll hear through normal channels, although I think at times it tries to use realism beyond the limits of its usefulness. A good read, nevertheless.

Net Assessment: United States
Stratfor Today » December 31, 2007 | 2343 GMT

Brendan Smialowski

There are those who say that perception is reality. Geopolitics teaches the exact opposite: There is a fundamental reality to national power, and the passing passions of the public have only a transitory effect on things. In order to see the permanent things, it is important to tune out the noise and focus on the reality. That is always hard, but nowhere more so than in the United States, where the noise is incredibly loud, quite insistent, and profoundly contradictory and changeable. Long dissertations can and should be written on the dynamics of public opinion in the United States. For Stratfor, the root of these contradictions is in the dynamism of the United States. You can look at the United States and be awed by its dynamic power, and terrified by it at the same time.

All nations have complex psyches, but the American is particularly complex, contradictory and divisive. It is torn between two poles: dread and hubris. They alternate and compete and tear at each other. Neither dominates. They are both just there, tied to each other. The dread comes from a feeling of impending doom, the hubris from constantly overcoming it.

Hubris is built into American history. The American republic was founded to be an exemplary regime, one that should be emulated. This sense of exceptionality was buttressed by the doctrine of manifest destiny, the idea that the United States in due course would dominate the continent. Americans pushed inward to discover verdant horizons filled with riches one after another, indelibly impressing upon them that life was supposed to get better and that setbacks were somehow unnatural. It is hard not to be an economic superpower when you effectively have an entire continent to yourself, and it is especially hard not to be a global economic hegemon once you’ve tamed that continent and use it as a base from which to push out. But the greatest driver for American hubris was the extraordinary economic success of the United States, and in particular its extraordinary technological achievements. There is a sense that there is nothing that the United States cannot achieve — and no limits to American power.

But underlying this extraordinary self-confidence is a sense of dread. To understand the dread, we have to understand the 1930s. The 1920s were a time of apparent peace and prosperity: World War I was over, and the United States was secure and prosperous. The market crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression, imprinted itself on the American psyche. There is a perpetual fear that underneath the apparent prosperity of our time, economic catastrophe lurks. It is a sense that well-being masks a deep economic sickness. Part of the American psyche is braced for disaster.

This dread also has roots in Pearl Harbor, and the belief that it and the war that followed for the United States was the result of complacency and inattentiveness. Some argued that the war was caused by America’s failure to join the League of Nations. Others claimed that the fault lay in the failure to act decisively to stop Hitler and Tojo before they accumulated too much power. In either case, the American psyche is filled with a dread of the world, that the smallest threat might blossom into world war, and that failure to act early and decisively will bring another catastrophe. At the same time, from Washington’s farewell address to failures in Vietnam or Iraq, there has been the fear that American entanglement with the world is not merely dangerous, but it is the path to catastrophe.

This fault line consistently polarizes American politics, dividing it between those who overestimate American power and those who underestimate it. In domestic politics, every boom brings claims that the United States has created a New Economy that has abolished the business cycle. Every shift in the business cycle brings out the faction that believes the collapse of the American economy is just over the horizon. Sometimes, the same people say both things within months of each other.

The purpose of a net assessment is not to measure such perceptions, but to try to benchmark military, economic and political reality, treating the United States as if it were a foreign country. We begin by “being stupid”: that is, by stating the obvious and building from it, rather than beginning with complex theories. In looking at the United States, two obvious facts come to light.

First, the United States controls all of the oceans in the world. No nation in human history has controlled the oceans so absolutely. That means the United States has the potential to control, if it wishes, the flow of goods through the world’s oceans — which is the majority of international trade. Since World War II, the United States has used this power selectively. In general, it has used its extraordinary naval superiority to guarantee free navigation, because international trade has been one of the foundations of American prosperity. But it has occasionally used its power as a tool to shape foreign affairs or to punish antagonistic powers. Control of the oceans also means that the United States can invade other countries, and that — unless Canada or Mexico became much more powerful than they are now — other countries cannot invade the United States.

Second, no economy in the world is as large as the American economy. In 2006, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States was about $13.2 trillion. That is 27.5 percent of all goods and services produced in the world for that year, and it is larger than the combined GDPs of the next four countries — Japan, Germany, China and the United Kingdom. In spite of de-industrialization, industrial production in the United States was $2.1 trillion, equal to Japan’s, China’s and Germany’s industrial production combined. You can argue with the numbers, and weight them any number of ways, but the fact is that the United States is economically huge, staggeringly so. Everything from trade deficits to subprime mortgage crises must be weighed against the sheer size of the American economy and the fact that it is and has been expanding.

If you begin by being stupid instead of sophisticated, you are immediately struck by the enormity of American military power, based particularly on its naval power and its economic power, which in turn is based on the size and relative balance of the economy. The United States is the 2,000-pound gorilla of the international system. That means blows that would demolish other nations are absorbed with relative ease by the United States, while at the same time drawing howls of anguish that would lead you to assume the United States is on the eve of destruction. That much military and economic power does not collapse very easily or quickly.

The United States has two simple strategic goals. The first is to protect itself physically from attack to ensure its economy continues to flourish. Attacks against the United States are unpleasant, but invasion by a foreign power is catastrophic. Therefore the second goal is to maintain control of the seas. So long as the oceans are controlled by the U.S. Navy — and barring nuclear attack — the physical protection of the United States is assured. Therefore the United States has two interests. The first is preventing other nations from challenging American naval hegemony. The second is preventing other nations from acquiring nuclear weapons, and intimidating those who already have them.

The best way to prevent a challenge by another fleet is to make certain the fleet is never built. The best way to do that is to prevent the rise of regional hegemons, particularly in Eurasia, that are secure enough to build navies. The American strategy in Eurasia is the same as Britain’s in Europe — maintain the balance of power so that no power or coalition of powers can rise up as a challenger. The United States, rhetoric aside, has no interest in Eurasia except for maintaining the balance of power — or failing that, creating chaos.

The United States intervenes periodically in Eurasia, and elsewhere. Its goals appear to be incoherent and its explanations make little sense, but its purpose is single-minded. The United States does not want to see any major, stable power emerge in Eurasia that could, in the long term, threaten American interests either by building a naval challenge or a nuclear one. As powers emerge, the United States follows a three-stage program. First, provide aid to weaker powers to contain and undermine emerging hegemons. Second, create more formal arrangements with these powers. Finally, if necessary, send relatively small numbers of U.S. troops to Eurasia to block major powers and destabilize regions.

The basic global situation can be described simply. The United States has overwhelming power. It is using that power to try to prevent the emergence of any competing powers. It is therefore constantly engaged in interventions on a political, economic and military level. The rest of the world is seeking to limit and control the United States. No nation can do it alone, and therefore there is a constant attempt to create coalitions to contain the United States. So far, these coalitions have tended to fail, because potential members can be leveraged out of the coalition by American threats or incentives. Nevertheless, between constant American intrusions and constant attempts to contain American power, the world appears to be disorderly and dangerous. It might well be dangerous, but it has far more logic and order than it might appear.

U.S. Foreign Policy
The latest American foreign policy actions began after 9/11. Al Qaeda posed two challenges to the United States. The first was the threat of follow-on attacks, potentially including limited nuclear attacks. The second and more strategic threat was al Qaeda’s overall goal, which was to recreate an Islamic caliphate. Put in an American context, al Qaeda wanted to create a transnational “Islamic” state that, by definition, would in the long run be able to threaten U.S. power. The American response was complex. Its immediate goal was the destruction of al Qaeda. Its longer-term goal was the disruption of the Islamic world. The two missions overlapped but were not identical. The first involved a direct assault against al Qaeda’s command-and-control facilities: the invasion of Afghanistan. The second was an intrusion into the Islamic world designed to disrupt it without interfering with the flow of oil from the region.

U.S. grand strategy has historically operated by splitting enemy coalitions and partnering with the weaker partner. Thus, in World War II, the United States sided with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany after their alliance collapsed. During the Cold War, the United States sided with Communist China against the Soviet Union after the Sino-Soviet split. Following that basic strategy, the United States first sided with and then manipulated the Sunni-Shiite split. In all these cases the goal was to disrupt and prevent the formation of a coalition that could threaten the United States.

Looked at from 50,000 feet, that was the result of the invasion of Iraq. It set the Sunnis and Shia against each other. Whether this idea was subjectively in the minds of American planners at the time is not really relevant. That it played out the U.S. model in foreign policy is what matters. The invasion of Iraq resulted in chaos. About 3,000 American troops were killed, a small number compared to previous multiyear, multidivisional wars. Not only did the Islamic world fail to coalesce into a single entity, but its basic fault line, Sunnis versus Shia, erupted into a civil war in Iraq. That civil war disrupted the threats of coalition formation and of the emergence of regional hegemons. It did create chaos. That chaos provided a solution to American strategic problems, while U.S. intelligence dealt with the lesser issue of breaking up al Qaeda.

The U.S. interest in the Islamic world at the moment is to reduce military operations and use the existing internal tension among Muslims to achieve American military ends. The reason for reducing military operations is geopolitical, and it hinges on Russia.

The total number of U.S. casualties in Iraq is relatively small, but the level of effort, relative to available resources, has essentially consumed most of America’s ground capabilities. The United States has not substantially increased the size of its army since the invasion of Iraq. There were three reasons for this. First, the United States did not anticipate the level of resistance. Second, rhetoric aside, U.S. strategy was focused on disruption, not nation-building, and a larger force was not needed for that. Third, the global geopolitical situation did not appear to require U.S. forces elsewhere. Therefore, Washington chose not to pay the price for a larger force.

The geopolitical situation has changed. The U.S. absorption in the Islamic world has opened the door for a more assertive Russia, which is engaged in creating a regional sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union. Following the American grand strategy of preventing the emergence of Eurasian regional powers, the United States must now put itself in a position to disrupt and/or contain Russia. With U.S. forces tied down in the Islamic world, there are no reserves for this mission. The United States is therefore engaged in a process of attempting to reduce its presence in the Islamic world, while repositioning to deal with the Russians.

The process of disengagement is enormously complex. Having allied with the Shia (including Iran) to disrupt al Qaeda, the United States now has shifted its stance toward the Sunnis and against the Shia, and particularly Iran. The U.S. interest is to re-create the balance of power that was disrupted with the invasion of Iraq. To do this, the United States must simultaneously create a balance in Iraq and induce Iran not to disrupt it, but without making Iran too powerful. This is delicate surgery and it makes the United States appear inconsistent. The recent contretemps over the National Intelligence Estimate — and the resulting inevitable public uproar — is part of the process of the U.S. rebalancing its policy in the region.

The Iraqi situation is now less threatening than the situation to the east. In Afghanistan, the United States and NATO have about 50,000 troops facing a resurgent Taliban. No military solution is possible given the correlation of forces. Therefore a political solution is needed in which an accommodation is reached with the Taliban, or with parts of the Taliban. There are recent indications, including the expulsion of EU and U.N. diplomats from Afghanistan for negotiating with the Taliban, that this process is under way. For the United States, there is no problem with a Taliban government, or with Taliban participation in a coalition government, so long as al Qaeda is not provided sanctuary for training and planning. The United States is trying to shape the situation in Afghanistan so those parts of the Taliban that participate in government will have a vested interest in opposing al Qaeda.

Pakistan obviously plays a role in this, since Afghanistan is to some extent an extension of Pakistan. The United States has an interest in a stable Pakistan, but it can live with a chaotic Pakistan provided its nuclear weapons are safeguarded and the chaos is contained within Pakistan. Given the situation in Afghanistan, this cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, American strategy must be to support Pakistan’s military in stabilizing the country, while paying lip service to democratic reform.

The United States has achieved its two major goals in the Islamic world. First, al Qaeda has been sufficiently disrupted that it has not mounted a successful operation in the United States for six years. Second, any possibility of an integrated Islamic multinational state — always an unlikely scenario — has been made even more unlikely by disruptive and destabilizing American strategies. In the end, the United States did not need to create a stable nation in Iraq, it simply had to use Iraq to disrupt the Islamic world. The United States did not need to win, it needed the Islamic world to lose. When you look at the Islamic world six years after 9/11, it is sufficient to say that it is no closer to unity than it was then, at the cost of a fraction of the American lives that were spent in Vietnam or Korea.

Thus, the United States at the moment is transitioning its foreign policy from an obsessive focus on the Islamic world to a primary focus on Russia. The Russians, in turn, are engaged in two actions. First, they are doing what they can to keep the Americans locked into the Islamic world by encouraging Iran while carefully trying not to provoke the United States excessively. Second, they are trying to form coalitions with other major powers — Europe and China — to block the United States. The Russians are facing an uphill battle because no one wants to alienate a major economic power like the United States. But the longer the Americans remain focused on the Islamic world, the more opportunities there are. Therefore, for Washington, reducing U.S. involvement in the Islamic world will be acceptable so long as it leaves the Muslims divided and in relative balance. The goal is reduction, not exit — and pursuing this goal explains the complexities of U.S. foreign policy at this point, as well as the high level of noise in the public arena, where passions run high.

Behind the noise, however, is this fact: The global situation for the United States has not changed since before 9/11. America remains in control of the world’s oceans. The jihadist strategic threat has not solidified, although the possibility of terrorism cannot be discounted. The emerging Russian challenge is not trivial, but the Russians have a long way to go before they would pose a significant threat to American interests. Another potential threat, China, is contained by its own economic interests, while lesser powers are not of immediate significance. American global pre-eminence remains intact and the jihadist threat has been disrupted for now. This leaves residual threats to the United States, but no strategic threats.

Economics
Capitalism requires business cycles and business cycles require recessions. During the culmination of a business cycle, when interest rates are low and excess cash is looking for opportunities to invest, substantial inefficiencies creep into the economy. As these inefficiencies and irrationalities become more pronounced, the cost of money rises, liquidity problems occur and irrationalities are destroyed. This is a painful process, but one without which capitalism could not succeed. When recessions are systematically avoided by political means, as happened in Japan and the rest of East Asia, and as is happening in China now, inefficiencies and irrationalities tend to pyramid. The longer the business cycle is delayed, the more explosive the outcome.

Historically, the business cycle in the United States has tended to average about six years in length. The United States last had a recession in 2000, seven years ago — so, by historical standards, it is time for another recession. But the 2000 recession occurred eight years after the previous one, so the time between recessions might be expanding. Six years or nine years makes little difference. There will be recessions because they discipline the economy and we are entering a period in which a recession is possible. When or how a recession happens matters little, so long as the markets on occasion have discipline forced back upon them.

In the most recent case, the irrationality that entered the system had to do with subprime mortgages. Put differently, money lenders gave loans to people who could not pay them back, and sold those loans to third parties who were so attracted by the long-term return that they failed to consider whether they would ever realize that return. Large pools of money thrown off by a booming economy had to find investment vehicles, and so investors bought the loans. Some of the more optimistic among these investors not only bought the loans but also borrowed against them to buy more loans. This is the oldest story in the book.

The loans were backed by real assets: houses. This is the good news and the bad news. The good news is that, in the long run, the bad loans are mitigated by the sale of these homes. The bad news is that as these houses are sold, housing prices will go down as supply increases. Home prices frequently go down. During the mid-1990s, for example, California home prices dropped sharply. However, there is an odd folk belief that housing prices always rise and that declining prices are unnatural and devastating. They hurt, of course, but California survived the declines in the 1990s and so will the United States today.

In an economy that annually produces in excess of $13 trillion in wealth, neither the subprime crisis nor a decline in housing prices represents a substantial threat. Nevertheless, given the culture of dread that we have discussed, there is a sense that this is simply the beginning of a meltdown in the American economy. It is certainly devastating major financial institutions, although not nearly as badly as the tech crash of 2000 or the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s devastated their sectors. It is having some effect on the financial system, although not nearly as much as one might think, given the level of angst expressed. And it is having a limited effect on the economy.

A liquidity crisis means a shortage of money, in which demand outstrips supply and the cost of money rises. There are, of course, those who are frozen out of the market — the same people to whom money should not have been lent in the first place, plus some businesses on shaky ground. This is simply the financial system rebalancing itself. But neither the equity nor the money markets are behaving as if we are on the verge of a recession any time soon.

Indeed — and here sentiment does matter, at least in the short run — it would appear that a recession is unlikely in the immediate future. Normally, recessions occur when sentiment is irrationally optimistic (recall the New Economy craziness in the late 1990s). What we are seeing now is economic growth, stable interest rates and equity markets, and profound anxiety over the future of the financial system. That is not how an economy looks six months or a year before a depression. Those who believe that major economic disaster is just around the corner have acted on that belief and the markets have already discounted that belief. It would certainly be reasonable for there to be a recession shortly, but we do not see the signs for it.

To the contrary, we see a major stabilizing force, the inflow of money into the American economy from what we might call the dollar bloc. During the period of European imperialism, one of the characteristics was politically enforced currency blocs (sterling, franc, etc.) that tied colonial economies to the mother country. We are now seeing, at least temporarily, a variation on that theme with a dollar bloc, which goes beyond the dollar’s role as a reserve currency.

For a decade, China has been running massive trade surpluses with the United States. Much of that surplus remained as cash reserves because the Chinese economy was unable to absorb it. Partly in order to stabilize currencies and partly to control their own economy, the Chinese have pegged their currency against the dollar, varying the theme a bit lately but staying well within that paradigm. The linking of the Chinese economy to the American led to the linking of the two currencies. It also created a pool of excess money that was most conservatively invested in the United States.

With the run up in the price of oil, another pool of surplus money that cannot be absorbed in native economies has emerged among the oil producers of the Arabian Peninsula. This reserve also is linked to the dollar, since oil prices are dollar-denominated. Given long-term oil contracts and the structure of markets, shifting away from the dollar would be complex and time consuming. It will not happen — particularly because the Arabs, already having lost on the dollar’s decline, might get hit twice if it rises. They are protected by remaining in the dollar bloc.

Those two massive pools of money, tightly linked to the dollar in a number of ways, are stabilizing the American financial system — and American financial institutions — by taking advantage of the weakness to buy assets. Historically (that is, before World War I), the United States was a creditor nation and a net importer of capital. That did not represent weakness. Rather, it represented the global market’s sense that the United States presented major economic opportunities. The structure of the dollar bloc would indicate a partial and probably temporary return to this model.

One must always remember the U.S. GDP — $13.2 trillion — in measuring any number. Both the annual debt and the total national debt must be viewed against this number, as well as the more troubling trade deficit. The $13.2 trillion can absorb damage and imbalances that smaller economies could not handle. We would expect a recession in the next couple of years simply based on the time since the last period of negative growth, but we tend to think that it is not quite here yet. But, even if it were, it would simply be a normal part of the business cycle, of no significant concern.

Net Assessment
The operative term for the United States is “huge.” The size of its economy and the control of the world’s oceans are the two pillars of American power, and they are intimately connected. So long as the United States has more than 25 percent of the world’s GDP and dominates the oceans, what the world thinks of it, or what it thinks of itself, is of little consequence. Power is power and those two simple, obvious facts trump all sophisticated theorizing.

Nothing that has happened in the Middle East, or in Vietnam a generation ago or in Korea a generation before that, can change the objective foundations of American power. Indeed, on close examination, what appears to be irrational behavior by the United States makes a great deal of sense in this context. A nation this powerful can take extreme risks, suffer substantial failures, engage in irrational activity and get away with it. But, in fact, regardless of perception, American risks are calculated, the failures are more apparent than real and the irrational activity is more rational than it might appear. Presidents and pundits might not fully understand what they are doing or thinking, but in a nation of more than 300 million people, policy is shaped by impersonal forces more than by leaders or public opinion. Explaining how that works is for another time.

The magnitude of American power can only be seen by stepping back. Then the weaknesses are placed into context and diminish in significance. A net assessment is designed to do that. It is designed to consider the United States “on the whole.” And in considering the United States on the whole, we are struck by two facts: massive power and cultural bipolar disorder. But the essence of geopolitics is that culture follows power; as the United States matures, its cultural bipolarity will subside.

Some will say that this net assessment is an America-centric, chauvinistic evaluation of the United States, making it appear more powerful, more important and more clever than it is. But in our view, this is not an America-centric analysis. Rather, it is the recognition that the world itself is now, and has been since 1992, America-centric. The United States is, in fact, more powerful than it appears, more important to the international system than many appreciate and, if not clever, certainly not as stupid as some would think. It is not as powerful as some fantasize. Iraq has proved that. It is not nearly as weak as some would believe. Iraq has proved that as well.

The United States is a powerful, complex and in many ways tortured society. But it is the only global power — and, as such, it is the nation all others must reckon with.

What Really Matters to Voters

Well, How Does It End?

I was talking with some guys on Teamspeak earlier tonight, and one of them found it necessary to share this link with the rest of us. The name of the site was 'cupgirls,' which I think might have been aka '2girls1cup.' I managed to get through about 5 seconds before having to turn it off, and I had to put off dinner until nearly 1am.

But just a few minutes ago, curiosity finally got the better of me and I decided I was going to endure through all of it. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

So in the final seconds, a voice from off camera asks the girls, "So, what do you think we should name the video?" And one of them finishes wiping her face and says, "The Aristocrats!"

Armed Civilian Saves "over 100 lives"

CNS News reported this today:

CNSNews.com) - Many people are expressing relief that a volunteer security guard used her own gun to stop a man on a shooting spree Sunday. "She probably saved over 100 lives," the Brady Boyd, the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, said on Monday. The female guard, a church member dressed in plain clothes, killed the gunman after he opened fire at the mega-church. Boyd said she "rushed toward the attacker and took him down in the hallway" as he entered the building. The shooting erupted around 1 p.m., at the end of a service, when 7,000 people were either inside the New Life Church or just leaving. "He was just walking and shooting," the Denver Post quoted one witness as saying. The gunman, still unidentified, shot at least eight people, killing two teenage sisters, the pastor said. The girls were 16 and 18 years old. Their father, also shot, is listed in father condition. The gunman is believed to be the same young man who shot and killed two people earlier the same day at a missionary training center in suburban Denver. In that case, the gunman opened fire, reportedly after he was refused permission to spend the night at the missionary center. The gunman was described as skinny, in his 20s, about 6 feet tall and dressed in black, police said. KUSA-TV reported that the gunman was wearing a "tactical helmet and body armor." The church's pastor said the New Life Church "prepared in advance" for a possible attack, after hearing about the shooting at the missionary training center.

First of all, I'd really like to know this woman's name, as her conduct puts her right up there with Liviu Librescu and Joel Myrick. She deserves some major recognition.

Second of all, I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out the absurdness of the argument we often hear from the "antis" about how having armed good guys (or girls, as the case may be) around will make things worse. All this talk about the danger of crossfires leading to more deaths is pure BS. The simple fact of the matter is that a bullet aimed at you is far more likely to kill you than a bullet aimed at someone else. Thus, if the perp is allowed to carry on with impunity, you're going to have more people get shot, and they will get shot in worse places. If you shoot back at the perp, sure, there are more bullets flying around in that moment, but they don't have "your" name on it they way the perp's bullets will, and there is also a very good chance that the whole incident doesn't last as long as the perp was counting on. Those "extra" bullets tend to incapacitate the perp (as in this case), or at the very "worst," pin the perp down, preventing him from effectively engaging other innocents.


Alternate Link (The CNS feed will probably be gone in a few hours.)

Now I have an excuse...

Full Link

A German research published in New England Journal of Medicine and Weekly World News said that men staring at women's breasts in fact prolong their lives with years.

"Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female such as Baywatch actress Pamela Lee is equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out," said author Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist.

The team led by Weatherby was made up of researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany, and found this results after monitoring for 5 years the health of 200 male subjects, half of whom were asked to look at busty females daily, while the other half had to abstain from doing so.

For five years, the boob oglers presented a lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and decreased risk of coronary artery disease.
.
.
.
She said that this was as healthy as going to the gym for 30 minutes daily and prolonged a man's life by five years.

"We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years." said Weatherby.

Unfortunately, I have no excuse not to study, so off I go....

Heller Made a Funny

One day, I hope that I too can crack jokes while petitioning the Supreme Court for Cert.

"Indeed, the whole point of enshrining certain rights in a constitution is to ensure that the liberties they protect not be subject to competing, evolving - and often, as in this case, misinformed - policy views of government officials. And if policy benefits could be invoked to ignore constitutional provisions delegating power to the government, this Court would soon be asked to adjudicate the existence of everything from the postal monopoly to the income tax."
(emphasis added)
District of Columbia v. Heller
2007 WL 2962912
Brief in response to petition for cert.

Nip/Tuck Made Me Google this....

(The part about pineapple juice)

So I thought I'd share what I found.

Super Spunk Smoothie

1 cup pineapple, fresh or canned
1 banana, frozen
1 cup apple juice
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 TBS honey
Optional ingredients: 1 raw egg white, 2 TBS wheat germ, 2 TBS flax seed, 1 shot wheatgrass juice

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Drink immediately. Repeat daily for best results.

If we can't have them....

I'd love to find out what, if any, excuse these two ass clowns can give us that means they shouldn't be tried for treason. I'd also like to know what those parts were worth on the black market, since that sum is apparently all a soul or two is worth these days.

The Nerdiest Thing I've Done In My Life

I've combined the two nerdiest things imaginable into one huge amalgam of NERD.

But I think it's sort of funny.

The pictures are a little cumbersome for the blog, so I'll just link to the forum they're posted on.

Yes, It Is Child Porn

I'm really beginning to hate the media. Wait, who am I kidding, I'm way past beginning.

This latest rant is brought on by the Elton John fiasco involving a photograph entitled "Klara And Edda Belly-Dancing" that was seized by police because it was kiddie porn. John defends himself by stating that it's been exhibited in many countries, the implication being that it is art. Well, I don't know what the child porn laws are in Britain, but here in the US that is no defense, nor should it be. When it comes to laws suppressing expression, it shouldn't matter one whit what anyone thinks about the content. What does matter is almost unique to child porn--that a person who is unable to understand what he/she is getting into, and who therefore cannot consent, is being exploited to create it. And that's exactly what happened here.

But if you read the news reports, you'd think the police were just overreacting to something innocent. this article describes the photograph as "depicting two naked girls." Another article provided a bit more detail, mentioning that one of the children's "legs were apart." That's not really enough to make a judgment about whether the photo is exploitative, and the absence of any reference to anything worse suggests innocence. Obviously, since the press is aware that the photo is probably illegal, I don't expect them to post the photo in the story, but in lieu of that, they should at least provide enough of a description for the reader to be able to make an informed judgment. "We report, you decide," right?

Well, it's on the net for anyone who wants to find it (hopefully not for much longer), but I will not link it. But I'll fill in the details the press is leaving out. One of the girls isn't actually naked. She is, however, down to her underwear, and is standing over the other girl, directly over her face, legs apart. The other girl is completely naked, on her knees, spread eagle--completely and overtly exposed to the camera--leaning all the way back (essentially lying on her back, but with her shins tucked under her rather than being completely supine). Those are the facts.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on here. The kids obviously had no idea what was going on. The photographer, on the other hand, knew exactly what she was doing. John's defenders are going blue in the face yelling about how it's not sexual, not erotic, it's just innocent children playing. Well guess what, that's exactly what child porn is, because children don't any any sexuality, it isn't erotic to the (normal) viewer, and the children don't understand what's happening! The only question that matters is whether the children could have consented to having this photo taken. It's not a question of taste or artistic value. The answer is obvious.

I just hope US authorities go after the photographer, who is of course the real criminal. John's defense that it is widely regarded as art isn't relevant to whether it is child porn, but I think it has implications with respect to notice that are mitigating at least. It's not fair that he should be the one paying for this, or at least, he should not be paying the highest price.

The Women of BSG (The Most Awesome Trailer Ever!)

Well, not really a trailer. There is some new stuff in there though

Rednecks Have More Fun

"Water Skiing"




I think I need to try this--the Redneck Rocket Launcher!

Iran: A Prediction

If we go to war with Iran,
And If that war takes the form of a sustained air campaign directed against their nuclear facilities,
I offer the following prediction:

The effectiveness of our cruise missiles will be substantially impaired against high-priority targets such as air defense hubs, airfields, and the strategic objectives themselves (the nuke sites). This ineffectiveness will be due to local point defenses, such as the SA-15 (aka, Tor-M1), and to a lack of penetration of hardened targets. This ineffectiveness will also be limited by the Iranian military's resources and priorites; in other words, lower priority targets may not be well-defended and will be vulnerable to cruise missile attack.

The overall effect of this will be that manned aircraft will have to fly the sorties to take out high-priority targets early in the conflict, and that most targets eventually hit by cruise missiles will be those which could have been hit by a manned aircraft with little to no risk to the crew. Cruise missiles will not have fulfilled their strategic purpose.

Benchmarks of Success

With the testimony of General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker taking place this week, I've become a bit of a news junkie once again. And inevitably, after forcing myself to listen to the talking heads, I get a little miffed with the crap that they spew forth.

There's plenty of talking points with reference to Iraq that I'd like to counter-spew on, but there is one that outweighs all others, and that is this nonsensical focus on these so-called "benchmarks."

Let me be absolutely clear on this point. There is only ONE benchmark that matters in Iraq. One, and that's it. And that benchmark is the legitimacy of the democratically elected government. That legitimacy is what Al-Qaida and opportunistic warlords are trying to undermine; to cause it to crumble and be replaced by something more to their liking. Success in counterinsurgency means preventing that from happening. All other goals in counterinsurgency are subordinate to this goal.

Yet, when the pundits spout off about the "benchmarks," there is no context--no reference how these supposed failures indicate that our strategy is failing. In fact, even the majority of the media covering the story don't even bother to tell you exactly what the benchmarks are. Well, here they are, on page 3 of this pdf.

The Iraqi government's failure to achieve many of these benchmarks is significant, to a point. But taken in context, they don't mean we're losing. This list is all about legislative progress... legislative progress expected of a parliamentary system in a time when the population doesn't even know for sure what sort of state they want Iraq to be! We Americans couldn't even get our first Constitution to work at all before we had to throw in the towel and start again, and to this day our Congress doesn't get much done. And that's without a war going on during the drafting and in a 2-party system! Yet somehow we expect the legislature in Iraq to crank out crucial law after law with all the efficiency of an assembly line? Get real... That isn't a sign that we're losing---it's NORMAL, especially under the circumstances.

To be sure, effectiveness of a government is important to establishing and maintaining its legitimacy; and this is especially true in cultures used to more authoritarian forms of government. The benchmarks do matter--but the way that matter is that they are a sign that could indicate that the people might become frustrated with the government and turn away from it. And turning away could simply mean electing different representatives, or amending the constitution to fix the problem. It isn't necessarily indicative of the rejection of democratic rule in favor of theocracy, or even the rejection of national rule in favor of breaking the state along sectarian lines. To evaluate our strategy, you need to look at other signs that factor into the one benchmark that matters--legitimacy.

Those factors are mentioned all over Ambassador Crocker's testimony, but apparently no one was listening. The gains in the security situation are reviving Iraqi markets and their economy. Local businesses are being simulated and employment is rising. Foreign direct investment is on the rise. 74 states have pledged economic assistance to Iraq. Oil revenues are being shared, even without the benchmarked legislation going through. Informal reconciliation is taking place with the reintegration of former insurgents into the Iraqi security forces--also without the benchmarked legislation on amnesty being passed yet. Most strikingly, the people of Anbar overwhelmingly rejected Al-Qaeda and volunteered to work with the coalition to remove them, and AQ is being broadly rejected overall. Al-Sadr has reigned in the Mahdi army in response to the backlash against the targeting of worshippers and Iranian meddling.

Not all signs are positive. Particularly troubling to me is the electricity situation (also mentioned in Crocker's testimony), the stagnation in the training of Iraqi forces (from General Patraeus's tables), and the polls indicating (1)that the Iraqi public considered life to have gotten worse during that surge; and (2) that the people were divided about 53-47% as to whether US forces should stay or leave (respectively). Those indicators say at least as much about legitimacy as the failure of the central government to enact certain legislation.

In the greater scheme of counterinsurgency, political gains should follow institutional and economic gains, and institutional and economic gains should follow military gains. The military gains are definitely happening; you'd have to really stick your head in the sand not to see that at this point. Economic and institutional indicators appear largely positive. Political gains are occurring mostly at the local level, while progress is lacking at the national level. With the new strategy in place less than a year, and the surge in full swing only a few months, it's very encouraging to see many second-order and some third-order effects already. The data at this point overwhelmingly indicates that the strategy is working.

Which shouldn't be too surprising. General Patraeus, after all, literally did write the book on counterinsurgency. Success is mostly a matter of taking back the initiative we gave away to the insurgency by having our heads up our asses when the occupation began. It would appear from the military situation that the initiative is ours, and the rest will flow from that.

You Can Never Wish Harm Upon Your First Love

Well, it now appears that the international community is buckling while Iran is more stubborn than ever. As long as our intelligence community continues to believe the purpose of Iran's nuclear program is the development of nuclear weapons, war is looking very likely. The most likely form such a war would take is an air campaign that would probably last 1-2 weeks.

Quite frankly, I'm horrified. But not because Iran can hurt us more in Iraq (they're already doing about all they can clandestinely; we'd clean their chronometers in open warfare so really things can't get any worse) and not because they have a fearsome air defense network (and they do). I just worry about the horrible atrocities that may be forced upon our aviators--some of the "newer" (but certainly not younger) F/A-18E crews, in particular.

Iran has a halfway decent air force. Most of its aircraft are obsolete. Some are top rate. I'm sure any MiG-29s sent up against us will prove to be worthy prey for our Hornets and Eagles, and the aviators and pilots (respectively) fortunate enough to have had the privilege of meeting the Fulcrum in battle and skilled enough to emerge victorious will come home heroes.

But what about Iran's Tomcats? We retired ours mainly because they were a bitch to keep flying. There is a good chance that nearly all of Iran's F-14s are simply no longer airworthy. I hope this is true of all of them; that they all died quietly in their sleep, gently drifting away. And to those that are still flying---please, please let them meet their end at the hands of a B-2, as if mercifully garroted while in their hangars in the middle of the night.

But not at the hands of our fighter pilots. It would be a war crime to ask one of our own to commit such an unnatural, heinous abomination. She may be wearing the uniform of the enemy--and it looks horrible on her--but she's still beautiful and still one of our own.
I know if it was a MiG-29 in that TD box, the warble-ey buzz of the heater in my ear would be the most joyous sound imaginable. But it pains me to think about what would be going through the heads of our aviators if they heard that sound while locked onto an F-14. It would be god-awful, blood curdling, nauseating, and worse--it would be hatefulness manifest in a compression wave. Because the very thought of a figure so beautiful, so heroic, being torn asunder, doused in flames, spiraling hopelessly toward the ground with all the grace of a wounded elephant, is hateful.

I don't think I could do it. I don't see how I could live with myself afterward if I had to. And I hope beyond hope that our finest are not put in that position.

Let her go gracefully.

Ann Coulter Just Isn't Funny Anymore

I have to admit, somewhat shamefully, that there was a time that I liked Ann Coulter. But then I read her first book... well, the first half of it anyways. I couldn't bring myself to continue. She's just so negative and abrasive. Not that there is anything wrong with trashing democrats, but her style is just so unconstructive that I don't find anything useful in anything she says. It's as if she feels that because her enemies get away with talking that much shit, that it's OK for her to do it. She has become what she beheld (as Cavil would say), and as such, is as worthless in public dialogue as the democrats she despises so much.

Henry Rollins has a much less polite way of saying this though. And much more entertaining. Be warned though, this video is NOT for everyone.

So what was all the fuss about, again? (Padilla)

If you haven't heard, Jose Padilla has just been convicted. By a civilian court.

See? The system works just fine. Sure, you may not be able to use some sources you would otherwise been able to, but that's a small price to pay to keep some semblance of the rule of law in place.

Seriously, that whole idea where the executive gets to declare anyone inside the US an enemy combattant and disappear him/her can NEVER be the way it works in this country. I don't know what the hell the administration was thinking, and I'm glad that the Court agrees. I only regret that the administration blinked and backed down before we could get a ruling.

It's sure not like the Good Old Days

Only a Jackass Would Delete this Scene

Free Love in Bloomington

So I was feeling like shit today [Friday] (the price I pay for getting drunk off 151 on a worknight), but I gathered up the will to drag myself off the couch and go to Hairbanger's. Great show--as always--and it was good to see the 0L's beginning to integrate with us. One thing about me though, is as much as I like good shows, I fucking hate crowds. I hate having the mob press in on me, and I hate it when people try to walk through me instead of around me while they're on their way to wherever. To me, the crowd is really one single entity instead of individuals. Unless, of course, you do something to stand out.

Halfway through the show, we moved up to close to the stage, and I started to get a bit more relaxed and into the mood. And, I started to notice a certain regularity in the incidental contact I was getting from the stern quarter. Hmmm. Worth a glance. So I quickly survey the scene. There's a dancing couple right up against my back and they're pretty into it. The girl is OK looking, and the guy is a dirty long-haired hippie in a tank top. Ew. So anyways, I evaluate the situation to be accidental, albeit repeated, contact from an apparently drunk girl. No big deal. And as the night goes on, I notice that others around me are getting "bumped" into as well, but I'm clearly getting the brunt of it, and the duration of the contact is getting longer. At one point, I turned around and made eye contact with her. She smiled and said something--I couldn't hear, but I assumed to apologize--so I just said it's cool and directed my attention back to my group and the band. But immediately after, she backed into me again. This continues for a few minutes, and the contact is lasting long enough that we are clearly out of the "bump" side of the spectrum and into the "grind" side. I'm slightly annoyed, but not really, because there are much worse things that could happen to me than having a girl grind her ass against mine. But it's awkward because I can't really reciprocate, because she's obviously with this dirty hippie guy...............

Girl grinding on me...not an accident...but still dancing with her date? Still dancing with the dirty hippie. Wait, hippie--

...And then it hits me.*




Ew.

So now I have to try not to wonder too much about why they apparently thought I was a comparatively good bet.

Sigh. Fucking hippies.

*To better illustrate this moment, recall the scene from The Hunt for Red October where Jack is shaving and thinking aloud, trying to figure out how Ramius intends to deal with the crew that are not defecting with him: "...they'd have to want to get off. How do you get a crew to want to get off a submarine? How do you get a crew to want to get off a nuclear sub---?"

Razor is coming!!!

Jack, I want to transfer a detachment of marines to Galactica, and I want you to hand pick them. Completely reliable. Completely loyal. Razors.

Resurrection Ship, Pt. I.

It's going to be very nice to see Admiral Cain again. And with a name like Razor, with the meaning that the term carries, it's going to be one hell of a ride. Apparently the episodes/movie/telemovie/whatever is going to span a rather large timeframe, but it seems obvious that at least some of it will be dedicated to the story of the Pegasus before it met up with Galactica. The Pegasus crew was interesting, to say the least. On the outside, they had the look of a well-polished, well-disciplined, professional military machine. But when you got right down to it, they were more of a barbarian horde than a military unit, in the sense that we use the word. The fabric that held them together wasn't discipline, duty, or honor. It was fear, and rage. Cain nurtured that emotion, and then directed it to suit her purposes...or what she thought were humanity's purposes.

My prediction is that Cain and Adama aren't going to be as different as we think they are. Both of them had to face a situation where they thought they would lose control, and they knew the stakes were too high to allow that to happen. Both of them resorted to manipulating the emotions of the people to give themselves a fighting chance. Adama chose hope--and he had to lie to create it. Cain chose fear and rage. Two sides of the same coin, really. The difference is that control through fear gives you a lot more latitude with the measures you can take before your leadership is compromised, and using rage requires there to be outlets to prevent that rage from compromising your own control. Not everyone wants to go, or is even capable of going, that far. Adama wasn't. Roslin wasn't. Cain was.

And of course, there was a price to be paid for that style of leadership. It cost them their humanity. But it's not an answer to paint the world in black and white and condemn Cain and the Pegasus for that, because--and this is what I love about Ron Moore--there is no right answer. In spite of how distasteful Cain was, the fact of the matter was that the fleet really was safer with her than without her. There is no way in hell that there ever would have been an occupation under Cain--because there wouldn't have been any democracy. We've been raised to believe absolutely in democracy, but the truth is that democracy led to the wrong result, and the consequences of that mistake were staggering, and could have cost everything.

I think Razor is going to continue to challenge our values and assumptions, and once it has torn down that facade, it's going to tell a very different story about how people have stepped up to face the challenges of war, replete with great triumphs and terrible costs (some of which we already know about...the Scylla comes to mind).

Now I just have to wait until November....

Yet Another Video Post

Natural Predation at its Finest

Sorry, no imbed allowed on this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g5BoU8dKZ4

This is just a great clip all around. It's got everything. An ambush. A takedown. A counterattack and reversal of fortune. And even a surprising little twist in the middle--too bad us soon to be lawyers couldn't help them sort it out, though. I really thought the lions had earned an a property right they could have sued upon....

Closer than I'll ever need to get

The most shocking thing about this besides how insane these guys are is how small the funnel appeared to be on the ground. I thought even these "ropes" were pretty big on the ground, but then again, this is the first video I've seen that was actually close enough to provide an accurate sense of scale.

PS: For anyone who wants to do this, please approach from the side or behind, not from the front. These guys were fucking DUMB.

Crappy Video.....Awesome Lyrics

Well, I was down in Southern Watch
Flyin' my F-16
When lead called for a picture
And AWACS called back clean
But I saw a contact on my scope
and it was runnin' hot
And although I wasn't targeted
I went ahead and shot
.
.
.
Now oil's a buck a barrel
And it's all because of me
'Cause I'm the motherfucker
That started World War III.

For Pete, Amanda, RJ, and Blake

The Rifleman's Insight

Without me, my rifle is useless.


Without my rifle, I am useless.

Heroes

One of the most aggravating things about colossal crimes is that the person least deserving of recognition is just about the only person who gets any. The Joel Myricks of the world deserve more credit than the Dylan Klebolds. Let's reverse the trend.

Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, was a professor of engineering at VT. When the shooting started outside his classroom, Professor Librescu barricaded the door, preventing the shooter from entering the classroom as his students escaped out the windows. The perp fired through the door, fatally wounding Librescu. Let him be remembered.

The Mea Culpa: An Obsolete Ritual?

When this whole Imus thing started up, I didn't think it would be something that would get my attention. I don't have any particular interest in the show, and I'm not the least bit surprised that someone who makes a living off throwing insults around went too far. It was just one more case of someone making a major gaffe in public, pissing people off, and humiliating himself. Given that this was a racially-charged gaffe, it wasn't the least bit surprising that those leading the charge would not be satisfied by anything less than Imus' termination. What grabbed me were comments in a story to the effect that the public apology was becoming irrelevant in general. Two samples:

"I don't care about an apology," said Angela Burt-Murray, editor in chief of Essence magazine. "You're not a child on the playground. You're an adult who needs to take responsibility for his actions. And there need to be consequences."

This, to me, is an instant gratification culture gone mad. To Burt-Murray, I ask, What qualifies as 'taking responsibility' for the words one has spoken? In my mind, taking responsibility usually means righting whatever wrongs have been inflicted on others, and accepting the consequences you have created for yourself. When the wrongful act is speech, and when the wrong inflicted is offense, what means other than an apology is needed to right it? It's not like there is a physical injury to remedy by, say, paying someone's medical bills, or property damage to be remedied by replacing or repairing said property. And to the extent that the wrong inflicted is a harmful idea propagated through society, what remedy besides negating that idea is necessary? For most speech-related "offenses," a public mea culpa should right the wrongs caused.

Which brings me to consequences... Apparently, when Burt-Murray says "consequences," she means artificial rather than natural. After all, the natural consequences are the harms caused by the conduct, both to the individual and the injured. In this case, the consequences are Imus' humiliation, a loss of audience and revenue for his program, private offense, and, perhaps, a public harm flowing through the marketplace of ideas. Now, in the case that the offender is able to remedy the harm caused to others, what role do artificial consequences have to play? I argue none. The function of artificial consequences should be, to borrow economic lingo, to internalize externalities. If it was the case that someone committed a wrong upon others that s/he did not, or could not, remedy his/herself, then artificial consequences should be imposed to close the gap (E.g., an action in tort against someone who did not pay up). By forcing would-be wrongful actors to pay face the costs of their actions, the wrongful conduct is deterred. That should be enough. Going beyond that level of consequence is simply vindictive, and that's why this comment bothers me. It isn't about righting a wrong--by definition, it's punitive. And when the implied consequence sought is the termination of one's employment, the punishment quite simply does not fit the "crime," so this is outside the realm of deterrence. It's being done just to hurt him. It's anger, not reason.

Cohen was careful to note that there ARE times when apologies are meaningful. When you're in a fight, for example, and you say something hurtful at the height of passion, your apology means something.

Or when your apology has real meaning, such as recent official apologies for slavery by the Virginia Legislature and the North Carolina Senate.

Or when the person apologizing shows real, undeniable remorse and a clear intention never to repeat a similar offense again. Few people believe that about Imus, Cohen says.

This snip came after a few paragraphs about how meaningless public apologies are. The last part of this almost makes sense, but I question why it is only an "intention" of not repeating the conduct that is necessary. A meaningful apology to me is one that leaves the injured person with no doubt that the conduct will not occur again. After all, the recipient has an interest in preventing harm to him/herself, but has no interest in a 3rd party's mental state. With this criticism in mind, I'll now go to the beginning of these remarks.

The examples of meaningful apologies this guy gives are bunk. An apology for something done at the height of passion will be meaningless in most situations. Take Michael "Kramer" Richards, for example. Looking at his breakdown/rant, it's hard not to conclude that those were his true feelings that came out, and that he was suppressing them in public until the "real Kramer" broke through the shell. We don't consider him to be genuinely remorseful, because we think he really meant what he said. We also don't have any confidence that he won't engage in any racist conduct in the future for the same reason. Your typical domestic "fight" isn't much different--those are suppressed feelings coming out too. The speaker might be sorry about having said what he/she did, but a retraction of the statement itself would be a lie in the vast majority of cases.

And as for an official apology from a legislative body, all I can say is 'what the hell are you smoking?' How can the public remarks of any politician be understood to be 'genuine remorse' rather than political interest? How can any person be genuinely remorseful about something someone else did? What meaning does an assurance that something won't happen again mean when the people we did it are long dead, and the legal system that permitted it had been altered long ago? To quote an old chain letter, "he's not familiar with the problem."

As for myself, I think that the public apology deserves to have a role in our society, especially since so many of the harms society gripes about are emotional, rather than tangible. Emotional harms can't be remedied by compensation, nor can they be remedied by revenge. If an emotional harm is significant enough for us to pay attention, the best that can be done is for us to have an assurance that it won't happen again. Having a public apology to "dissect" for significance and sincerity is the best way to get that assurance.

(But as for conduct resulting in tangible harms, then yes, talk is cheap. Pay up.)

Doll Face

Doll Face

Too cool not to share. Even if it's a little cliche at this point, it's a really original way to send the message (at least I think so).

Buy the Sizzler, close the Straits

It's bad enough when your principal adversary develops a weapon that threatens your most important assets. It's even worse when that (former) adversary sells that weapon to likely future adversaries, and when similar weapons in development are likely to be widely exported. But when the Navy is unwilling to do anything to ensure that it can counter this threat at some point in the future, it's just beyond disturbing.

I'm absolutely shocked at this article, which states that the Navy has declined to allocate funds to develop it's own versions of these weapons to use in testing to develop a countermeasure. Apparently, they've got too much of a hard-on for their new shipbuilding projects to deal with the cold, hard reality of the fact that we are vulnerable now, and that we are becoming more vulnerable every year. Having a new carrier class or destroyer class won't change that fact... our enemies will just have newer, more expensive targets to blast away.

Misguided Outrage

In response to the sentiment being expressed by some on the blogonets that the fine American institution of drinking to excess at universities is to blame for the despicable conduct of one individual:



[For the record: To the extent that this is a response to Doug, it is limited only to the sentiment expressed by his rationale, and does not reach the issue of how he allocates his own resources.]

[For another record: spot the scene that shouldn't have been included and tell me what it is, where it's from, and why, and you win a cookie!]

[And for another record: I also object to the suggestion that people, in their ordinary social interactions, should be "lovable." What a bunch of peace, love, and happiness tree-hugging hippie crap! Oh, and so I don't disapoint those waiting for the Kevin Smith reference--you love the cock!]

So this makes sense to anyone stumbling in here, a "short" recap:

Steven broke Dizzy's nose by applying some kind of force (there's a dispute about whether it was a "punch," "hit," or something else (not that how it it characterized should make a difference to anyone but the neanderthals. See, e.g., comments 12-13.)) in an apparently drunken dare. Steven, instead of apologizing profusely and offering to pay all her medical expenses, made fun of Diz on her blog and on Facebook, which served no function other than to make himself look even worse and to piss off the person who is in the position to press charges and/or seek action from the law school administration.

Then, Doug overreacted and decided to use this one person's behavior as a reason not to throw a party this year--calling irresponsible drinking the "proximate cause" of the incident. Apparently, Doug forgot the "intervening human act" part of proximate cause from Torts, but I digress... Then, sensing that the time was right for even broader blame-slinging, Corey commented (and this is so ridiculous that I'll post it in its entirety)

Stop drinking. It is boring as hell. You are all smarter and more lovable when sober.

In general, this law school has disappointed my optimistic 1L expectations about student engagement with each other on problems of law, politics, and society. People were drunk at my orientation and I should have known then. I found hope in the few wonderful people I met on my way out the door so I stayed. (Even though not all of them did.)

All my friends have provided the counterweight that kept me here and kept me optimistic. And to be honest, the excessive drinking the rest of you did actually helped me, because see... I was studying and spending time with people I love instead.

But if people are going to hit each other and then get ugly over it, then I am done, out. May I have my diploma please?

And yes, this is moralizing, and might anger many. But maybe some moralizing is called for. People are getting hurt.

Peace and better luck next semester for those who have to stay.

Pete has already weighed in on this nonsense.

Words Fail Me

Please remain in your seats until the end.

Boston Follow-up

This is too good not to share.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1741589

Boston: The Stupidest City on Earth

"So we've got a huge terrorist plot theory and a serial hoaxer theory. Top notch!"


Most of us have probably seen the headlines by now about how the Boston PD managed to mistake an [Adult Swim] guerrilla marketing campaign for a citywide terrorist bomb plot.

Yesterday, this was funny. You figure some stupid residents saw one of these things and called the police without pausing for a moment to think...and of course the police had to follow up on it at first. The punchline, of course, was that after they responded to the first "device," they didn't stop. These fucktards kept at it all day, shutting down the city and causing a major panic. As someone who wasn't inconvenienced by their fuckup and who doesn't pay taxes to them, this is hilarious to me. The fact that this same campaign was carried out in (I think) 9 cities makes it even funnier. (It's also solid empirical evidence that Boston is collectively stupider than those other cities.)

But by last night, they started calling this a "hoax." That's right. Not their mistake, but a hoax. Who are they kidding? American Heritage Dictionary defines "hoax" as "an act intended to deceive or trick." Was deception the intent? Is it reasonable, even for a moment, to believe that the marketers intended to promote their programming by making people think there were bombs planted in the city? Or might there be a more reasonable explanation, say, to get people asking about who the depicted characters were and thus increasing viewership? Of course not. So, there's one of two things going on here. Either these guys are SOOOOO dumb that they assume that because they thought these were bombs, that it must necessarily mean that the intent was for them to believe they were bombs (i.e., they're too dumb to realize that they're dumb enough to be wrong unless they were tricked), or to give them a little more credit, this is a deliberate CYA strategy intended to draw attention away from the incompetence of city hall and the PD.

And now this morning, it gets even less funny. These fucktards are going so far to cover for their own mistakes as to arrest and charge the two guys that posted the ads, and are planning on going after Turner as well. Charge them with what, exactly? Apparently, they are using this statute:

a) Whoever possesses, transports, uses or places or causes another to knowingly or unknowingly possess, transport, use or place any hoax device or hoax substance with the intent to cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort to any person or group of persons shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Which, appropriately enough, has this definition:

(b) For the purposes of this section, the term "hoax device" shall mean any device that would cause a person reasonably to believe that such device is an infernal machine. For the purposes of this section, the term "infernal machine" shall mean any device for endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both, by fire or explosion, whether or not contrived to ignite or explode automatically.

I've added emphasis to make the impropriety of this charge immediately obvious. First of all, there is an explicit intent requirement. Which makes sense, considering that the definition of hoax includes intent. And just as damning in my opinion, is the reasonableness requirement. There's no way in hell that a reasonable person would believe these ads to be IED's. You look at the BS that comes up in the news reports, and they mention that it had "wires," "circuit boards," and "batteries." Shit, so does my cell phone and my laptop. If I set one of those down somewhere, am I committing a hoax? Don't leave our old VCR for the garbage truck! That's a "roadside bomb hoax!" There are of course, at least two important ways to distinguish an actual explosive device from other electronic devices: the presence of explosives and detonators. A reasonable person would only believe an electronic device to be an explosive if he/she saw such a component (or something that appeared to be such a component). Of course, these ads had nothing of the sort. Still, I have to admit that people are fucking stupid and it's entirely possible that the court might get 12 people whose heads are up their proverbial asses. Even so, there is NO WAY they can get around the intent requirement. No good faith argument, no probable cause. And to me, that means if this doesn't get dropped, someone needs to be disbarred.

Cool video of the "suspects" setting Boston up the bomb.