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.
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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....