Grim's Hall

The Boy Scouts & the Gentleman

Commenter Ron Fox wrote an extensive piece on the Boy Scouts on one of the posts below. I thought it deserved a place on the full page:

As I've commented before, I've been a Scout leader the last 12 years. I've had a lot of experience observing boys and their behavior, and observing their mothers and their interaction with their mothers. Boys are loud, impulsive, physical, and difficult to control, especially if you are not 6' 2" and over 250 pounds with a voice that carries though a brick wall. The Scouting program deals with this by 1) making sure the boys have plenty of physical activity, 2) having them learn mostly by doing, not by listening or watching, 3) using other boys that the Scouts themselves elected as leaders, and 4) tolerating a certain level of disorder and mistakes.

There are a significant number of mothers who don't like this. Fathers tend to mostly go along with the "boys will be boys" philosophy, but the mothers want boys to be nice and quiet, pay attention, and not take physical risks. Just like they were when they were kids. I have had a lot of mothers question my philosophy. When we take the kids rock climbing, which I describe to the parents as "We're going to take your kids, tie them to ropes, and hang them 70 feet in the air over rocks", the mothers often don't even want to hear us describe it, never mind consider joining us. Just as well, since many of them are far too heavy and out of shape to be able to climb up to the top of the cliffs (although our Committee Chair is a notable exception). And we actually have had parents hold their kids out of our trips because it sounded too dangerous to them - we just had one kid who had to stay home from our rafting trip because Mom somehow divined that the currents in the river (that are 6 hours away by car and that I'll bet she's never seen in her life) would be too strong. Nevermind that the whole rest of the Troop went, and that we've been going up there for 3 years; we obviously don't know what we're talking about. Kids like that will quit the program out of shame.

Now, there are numerous mothers who, willingly or not, recognize that their sons have to be boys in order to become men. But there's a lot who don't. They are smothering their kids. They start literally screaming at me when I let the kids play dodgeball and one gets smacked by a ball thrown by a boy a foot taller and 50 pounds heavier than he is. They don't realize that when the kid realizes that he didn't die, he becomes a little braver. They hold him close instead of shoving him out the door, and then wonder why he calls home crying homesick from summer camp his 4th year at camp, when he's 14 or 15.

And should their son insist on being a boy, they drug it out of him, often because the school finds boys harder to control than girls and use drugs to turn the boys into girls. The concept that perhaps they should adapt their teaching methods to fit the pupils, instead of vice versa, seems to escape them.

That captures a great deal of what is wrong with modern education. I would like to see a method of education that teaches boys in just that fashion: and one that returns to the classical notion of education. It should focus on reading the great works in their original languages, which means learning a fair amount of Greek, Latin, and French as well as Early Modern English. It should involve a heavy does of physical education, including boxing, riflemanship, ropework, and other practical skills according to the boys' interest.

It should involve mathematics heavily, and history taught in three cycles from childhood through the end of high school: a short first cycle to give children a "root" of where they are in the world; a second, long cycle, from third grade until the end of eight grade, that starts with the founding of civilization and goes through American history, but with time for frequent looks back over the years at how civilization carried forward traditions and ideas from the earlier periods, or lost and recovered them. Then a fourth cycle in high school, which begins again with Ancient History and Ancient Greece for the first year; Ancient Rome and the Medieval period for the second year; the Renaissance and the Early Modern Period in the third year; and the fourth year, modern history and American history. The third cycle would be more in-depth and scholarly than the previous two.

A classical education of that sort would be the best preparation I can imagine for the modern world. That it was also the best possible preparation for all previous worlds is not an accident.

Yet Another

Another Voice in the Chorus:

Southern Appeal cites a report by the Manhattan Institute that says more or less the same thing as these recent "class" articles, starting with Red State, Blue Collar, which I wrote while visiting at BlackFive's place. That was followed by Class War and The New Class, which were less 'considered essays' than regular old blog posts. Still, the three read together are all on a theme.

The Manhattan Institute sings a variation:

Steven Malanga shows how coalitions of public employee unions, workers at government-funded social service organizations, and recipients of government benefits have seized control of the politics of the big cities that make up the heart of Blue America. In New York City, this coalition has helped roll back some of the reforms of the Giuliani years. In California cities and towns, it is thwarting the expansion of private businesses. In nearly 100 municipalities, it has imposed higher costs on tens of thousands of firms by passing "living-wage" laws. Whereas the New Left of the 1960s believed—idealistically, if somewhat naively—that government could solve the biggest problems of our times, this New New Left is much more narrowly and cynically focused on expanding government programs to increase its own power, pay, and perks. And, as Malanga shows, the New New Left is emerging as the most powerful element of the national Democratic Party coalition.

Genuine progressives -- the old sort of Progressive -- will soon realize that the point of these programs is no longer 'helping the poor,' but controlling the poor along with the rest of society, while arrogating more wealth and power to their own "class."

Blogger

Blogger Troubles:

You've probably noticed (I hope!) that the page is down occasionally. I gather this is a Blogger problem, and I hope they shall resolve it directly.

Winds of Change.NET: Darth Vader, NASCAR, and the New Class

The New Class:

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change linked to the article on class, below. He wonders if it doesn't demonstrate illustrate the theory of the "New Class" envisioned by Communists, but likewise present in the socialist West.

Mr. Derbyshire, whose notes from the school bus stop were quoted in the piece below, wrote in 2000 about the New Class. He was entirely hostile, but his piece is nevertheless insightful. One of their traits, he stated, was that:

They hate masculinity. The great masculine enthusiasms -- hunting, sexual conquest, mathematics, adventure, history, poetry, war -- are not popular with the New Class.... There is a strong tendency in our culture, encouraged by New Class educators and psychologists, to regard masculine traits as undesirable.

That is a common theme here, and elsewhere, but Mr. Derbyshire put it to virtual paper some years before we did. Psychology as a discipline (not really the appropriate word, but "science" is even less so), when applied not to individuals with problems but to "social problems," does seem to serve just this function: to enforce New Class values, while undermining traditional ones.

(Psychologist, by the way, is 77th percentile in the 'high status' scale of the Times' article. Since it requires a college degree (91st percentile for education even if it's just a Bachelor's), any practicing psychologist will average out as a member of the Top Fifth.)

Recognizing that is the first step to purging that pseudoscience from the unearned position it has come to occupy in our society. Both Derbyshire and du Toit complain, rightly, of the abuse young boys take at the hands of members of the 'helping professions,' who redefine their natural and healthy energy as a problem for society. As adults, men who have that energy are routinely painted with a black mark on these grounds. Because an increasing number of Americans have grown up in institutions that have enforced those values on them since childhood, it almost seems natural. Of course we should punish aggression, in all forms -- protective as well as predatory! Naturally, both the person who started the fight and the man who fought back are guilty.

This is the real face of our problem, as Mr. Katzman has rightly recalled. It comes down to class, but not "class" as the Times meant it. It comes down to whether you're one of them. If not, perhaps you're just a Hun.

NY1: Politics

Not The Only One:

Apparently my recent bout of nastiness is not unique. I see where Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, recently held a press conference. He began by saying, "I have hay fever and am in a bad mood, so don't ask me stupid questions."

Well, maybe. But he sure seems to be having a good time while he is tweaking China's nose.

Cowboys and Indians - New York Times

At Least It's Not Vietnam:

Suddenly, comparisons between Iraq and British India seem to be the fashion.

Niall Ferguson: "Cowboys & Indians."

Chris Hanson, "The Scoop Heard Round the World."

Wretchard, "The High Hand."

Nicholas Fearn reviews "The Butcher of Amritsar"

Michael Hirsh, "A Troubled Hunt"

Wretchard excepted -- he has made occasional British India comparisons, but only as part of a wider commitment to exploring many historic models from military science -- this new wave seems in need of an explanation. My guess: the Vietnam analogy was finally fully explored in the 2004 elections, and decisively rejected by the voters. Journalists, who are broadly anti-war, now need a new model of to draw upon. It's taken this long to discover the next good model, and to educate themselves about it enough to write of it.

UPDATE: I've decided to expunge the last four paragraphs of the original post, on the grounds that it was nasty and unfair. :) Must be my allergies are getting to me. My apologies.

Southern Appeal

On Pat Tillman:

Readers need no introduction to Pat Tillman, though Southern Appeal provides one today. William at SA is wondering "why the Army withheld [information about Tillman's death by friendly fire] from Tillman's family and the American public."

It didn't occur to me at the time, but as I was reading the post and the comments, I remembered something from earlier. There's an executive order that touches on this matter:

"In no case shall information be classified in order to ... conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error [or to] prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency...."

The first time I encountered it was in Secrecy News, which brought a formal challenge against the military for classifying the Abu Ghraib report.

As I said at SA, no one is a bigger supporter of the military than I am. However, government secrecy is a danger to the Republic.

It's a necessary danger, but we have to have clear and enforcable rules -- and robust declassification, when the time comes that the information can be released -- if we are to remain a nation where the citizens are in charge.

All of you know how strongly I feel that we must remain that kind of a nation. The road away from citizen government is very smooth and wide. There are many reasons to travel it, and there are many people who will encourage you every step of the way. Yet we know where such roads lead.

If we are to remain a government of the people, we cannot yield over to goverment by experts. We cannot let it be said that only those trusted by the government enough to have clearances have a right to information about the government. We must insist that we have a right to all the information, even if it cannot be released immediately. Delay, yes, for the good of the Republic: but in time, we must insist, all things, all of them, must be told and reported to us. In the meantime, we must insist that our representatives be informed, and we must insist that they hold the government -- even the military -- to its laws on these matters. Just as we cannot accept a government of judges, we cannot accept a government of bureaucrats and functionaries, nor even of officers.

That is the only way to preserve the Republic for the long term. Here is a matter on which you might write your representative, and suggest that they demand an answer. Was the law followed? It shows less honor to Pat to have tried to keep the truth of his death from his family, than to have built some shining tale around it.

'Sunday Money' and 'Full Throttle': Nascar Nation - New York Times

Class War:

You probably saw the link at InstaPundit to the "NASCAR fans are a bunch of Huns" article at the New York Times. (Junior Johnson really is an American hero.) I went over to read the thing, and noticed another article on the sidebar -- on how evangelicals are either low class or Nuevo Riche. Both categories are, naturally, traditional objects of scorn for the Old Money or Traditional Aristocrats, in which latter role the Times places itself and its presumed readers.

Want proof of that assertion? Try their helpful online quiz, to determine what class you are. Go ahead.

OK, you've tried it out. Notice anything odd about it?

Well, what exactly is the "Occupation" field telling us? It doesn't tell us how much you make -- that's a separate field (income). It doesn't tell us how much you have already, as that is another separate field (wealth). The fourth field, education level, is likewise removed from Occupation.

What the Occupation field is for is to tell you how socially acceptable your job is. It tells you whether what you do is "High Prestige," or "Low Prestige." A surgeon, they say, is of the highest prestige -- and, since prestige is crossed with class, it tells you that a surgeon is presumably worthy of being in the Top Fifth.

Own your own business as, say, an exterminator? The best you can do is "Upper Middle Class" even if you set all the other indicators to full. Assuming you don't have a Doctorate, but rather a High School degree or thereabouts, and you're down in the regular Middle Class, even if you're rich as rich can be. If you're not fithy rich, you are hereby instructed that your lower prestige job relegates you to the status of Nobody Important.

So, where does a Senator fit in?

How about a State Department official? FBI Agent? ATF? Congressman? Federal Judge? [UPDATE: Per Daniel and Eric, judges are apparently included, though oddly as lower-status than lawyers; see comments] Town Mayor?

It seems to me that the Times misses the real story about 'Class in America.' The real story was captured nicely by John Derbyshire's recounting of a conversation at the school bus stop:

Another factor is the rising awareness & resentment among people working in the private sector of the widening gap between themselves and public employees. Here in Long Island, one teacher in 12 makes over $100,000 a year (according to last Sunday's NY Times Long Island section). That's with wellnigh guaranteed employment, masses of fully-paid vacation, and a gold-plated benefits package.... This, while private-sector workers are struggling to stay afloat in a fast-changing economy.

That's the real story. The socialist sector of our economy -- the public sector -- is quickly becoming a problem. The private sector is shrinking to the point that our economy is more socialist than not. The public sector workers enjoy all those benefits, and can simply vote themselves more.

It seems to me that there are two overarching classes in America: those who work in the Private sector, and those who work in the Public sector. What the Times is talking about is -- mostly, as some sorts of police and firefighters, social workers, and teachers are included -- the internal hierarchy of only one of those classes, which is why the article fails to give you anything akin to the real picture. The data leave out a massive sector of the economy, one that may be the real locus of wealth and power in our nation today.

UPDATE: See comments for a discussion of the proper place for considering the military, which is not included in this model; and also for gov't contractors.

Riding Sun: Newsweek: America is dead

The End of Newsweek:

"The Day America Died" they call this week's cover story in the Japanese edition. The cover? An American flag in a trash can.

For some of us, there's more of Truth in that flag than in the "holy" Koran. Will we riot, and call for the murder of journalists, as so many Muslims around the world allowed themselves to do toward America at Hizb-ut Tahrir-led rallies?

No; but now Newsweek is joining calls for the death of America too, or rather, asserting it as if after the fact. The "international" edition, less abusive because it is in English, is still highly aggressive.

But the American edition? They don't mention it at all. Cover story this week is on the Oscars.

It would be well to spread this as widely as possible. Newsweek can say what it wants, but it shouldn't get away with saying one thing to America's face, and another behind its back.

This behavior is beneath contempt, cowardly and craven. Zell Miller correctly stated that we would have a better country if journalists could still be challenged to duels, but this behavior is so low as to place the editors of Newsweek beneath challenging. They would, indeed, be beneath notice -- if their behavior were not undermining America's cause, endangering the lives of our soldiers, and the nascent cause of freedom in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the myriad places where reform has but recently begun.

Shame on the scoundrels. What a perfectly worthless bunch of cowards.

Yahoo! Mail - grimbeornr@yahoo.com

Support for the Troops:

I've had a couple of emails today from people trying to help out. They wanted me to pass some information along, so here goes.

SFC Christopher Grisham writes to mention a "soldier support" concert being held this Memorial Day weekend. It's a fundraiser for Adopt A Platoon. There is a story about it here.

Soldiers' Angels is a group mentioned frequently on MilBlogs because of their extraordinary work to support the troops, and particularly the injured. They are trying to put together a welcome for Sgt Brian Currier, returning home after encountering a VBIED. They're planning to "greet this hero at the airport in style," but the email doesn't say when or which airport. If you might want to come out, though, email Patti and ask for details.

Armarillo Spoof By Royal Guard

I Guess the Scots Still Get a Whisky Ration:

That, at least is the only lesson I can draw from this video, shot by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in Iraq. "Ya'll are out of uniform" seems so inadequate as a response.

Hat tip: Daniel.

The Blue Bus is calling us...: USS John F. Kennedy arrives in South Boston

Happy Armed Forces Day

Our friend and regular commenter Lizard Queen has a nice little photo gallery of the USS John F. Kennedy coming home to Boston. They've got a prototype Joint Strike Fighter on the deck. There are tours today, if any of you are in Boston.

Black Five has a post on the coming war against the military by the press. His thesis, which seems all too reasonable, is that the press is likely to rally behind Newsweek instead of the military, and do anything they can to "prove" the allegations of insensitivity. This is, of course, likely to cause harm to the military, the interests of America, and in the long term the interests of a free press. How many nations which currently do not have a free press will be eager to create one, after they watch how ours behaves?

Baldilocks reminds all those soldiers not to cooperate with the media's desire to destroy their reputation. "Some military personnel were Judases for a lousy 900 dollars. I hope they can live with the fallout," she says.

Doc Russia has a link to a page with a photo of a Cuban gentleman prisoner that you won't want to miss. We have enemies in many places, but we also have friends -- often the truly oppressed and downtrodden. It is men like these, and women like those in Afghanistan, who most love the idea of America.

On a topic not directly military, but of importance to MilBloggers and others who believe that this form of media is the wave of the future and a particular strategic advantage to the United States, the FEC is still planning to regulate blogs. Send a letter while their comment period is still ongoing.

It's been a rough couple of days around here for professional reasons, just as last week was pretty heavy. I'll be back to my usual blogging self as soon as things quiet down.

Eject! Eject! Eject!

Sanctuary:

Bill Whittle has a new essay out. It is long and winding, as they always are, but quite rewarding, as they always are.

The early part of the essay takes on the question of the abuses of the laws of war, and who is responsible for them. Mr. Whittle maintains that the refusal of the enemy to wear uniforms -- their attempt to take cover among civilians, which then requires the military to set aside some part of the protections for civilians -- makes the enemy at fault for all such abuses. That is the correct explanation as a matter of the laws of war, and the essay examines the reasons for that carefully.

However...

I often wonder what options there are for fighters in the current period. "Fourth Generation" warfare isn't something we control: the wearing away of the clear lines between civilian and combatant aren't to our advantage, and in fact the American military could not be better served than by having clear lines. Responding to the challenges posed by these enemy shifts is probably the single greatest problem facing the American military.

But, by the same token, our enemy doesn't control the shift from Third to Fourth Generation warfare either. It's easy to forget that. The fact is that, to a large degree, the enemy is fighting us this way because there is nothing left. They cannot do what the Minutemen did -- compose an army of farmers, stand in a line, and slug it out with British regulars. Stand in a line now, and you'll get a JDAM dropped on your head.

Some of these unlawful acts are indeed atrocities, and they should be condemned even by the very radicals who oppose us. Car bombings or other attacks directed against civilians; the use of atrocities against the innocent, such as beheading civilian hostages, to inspire terror; the use of the mentally retarded as suicide bombers; pretending to surrender and then detonating yourself: these things are crimes, not just against the UCMJ or the "Laws of War," but against the higher and prior laws that underlie those things. Those are truly evil acts, which ought to be abhorred by all people equally.

But the fact of fighting without uniforms is not among those things. It is morally problematic, for the reasons Whittle cites: it undermines the protection of civilians. Yet, how else can they fight us? If not by assassination, sniping, hiding, bombing military targets -- how?

I think Mr. Whittle's answer -- again, the correct answer -- is that they should not be fighting us. We are in the right. We are upholding civilization, the 'society of miracles' that he holds forth on later in the essay. These savages, who behead unarmed civilians in order to inspire terror, are simply wrong and should lay down arms.

Yet it isn't necessary that this should be the case. Consider the question from this angle: What if some future administration were actually doing the things that Democratic Underground charges Bush II with doing?

Let us say that you became convinced, correctly, that this theoretical administration was undermining the Republic and the Constitution, and actually seeking to install itself as a dictatorship -- either openly, or through perversion of the law to make elections a mere show. The elections of 2008 and 2010, say, were illegitimate elections that used outright fraud to install not just a President, but a legislature that would be pliant to him. The military was being used, not just to batter other nations into line and steal their resources, but also against our own people in accord with the administration's interests. The nation's police forces were being fielded to suppress dissent, and to terrorize innocent people who might be a problem. The administration was arresting people without charges, and holding them without trial. It was secretly endorsing the use of torture and murder: not only letting its servants get away with it, but secretly encouraging it from the very top down. Good-hearted people in the military, who try to object, are being driven out, imprisoned, or having their careers ruined. Only officers who agreed with the government were left, or were being installed where they hadn't been, and they were moving to use their units in accord with its goals.

So it's 2011. You honestly believe -- as apparently many of the subjects of Mr. Whittle's essay do -- that new Nazis have taken over the government. Many of you have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution against enemies, foriegn and domestic. Others have not, but feel as strongly about doing so. What do you do?

Pondering this, of course, demonstrates the fundamental unseriousness of the current opposition. What they actually do is hold no-account protests that do nothing but disrupt the workings of people's lives. They sit at home, in comfort, writing screeds. They go to Meet-Up meetings and talk angrily among themselves, over expensive coffee that they can easily afford.

That wouldn't do, though, if these were real Nazis.

Frankly, I think the theoretical example is and can only be that -- I do not believe that the military would enforce those sorts of illegal orders. I think they would stand true to their duty to disobey illegal orders, and would do whatever it took to restore the Republic. The military remains a strong hindrance to abuse of power by any US government. In order for the theory to ever become practice, then, the government would have to engage us in a war -- not like Iraq, but with a genuine threat like nuclear China -- that so involved the military with an actual external threat that its members could not attend to, nor consider resigning from their posts in order to address, serious Constitutional violations at home.

I think, then, that the military would have to be otherwise engaged.

On the other hand, we have seen a real example of a Federal police agency -- the very largest, BATFE -- that has been perfectly willing to be transformed in improper ways. Most of BATFE's activities are against people guilty of procedural violations, and according to a Congressional investigation, seventy-five percent of BATFE prosecutions are constitutionally improper. (See a lengthy debate on the topic, with links, at InstaPundit).

These figures should be humbling, causing the bureau to insist on going about its business more carefully and with a great deal of concern for the proprieties. Yet, instead, BATFE has simply chosen to ignore them and pretend that the facts aren't what they are. One bureau is not an uncorrectable problem, nor even several major agencies if the electoral system continues to function -- but what if it did become broken? What if we did find ourselves in an "illegal war" being used as cover by an administration attempting to engage us in a dictatorship?

It is not utterly impossible that we could find ourselves obligated, by oath and duty, to take up arms at some point in the future, against some administration yet to be conceived. Thomas Jefferson thought it likely. Any American must remember the roots of our nation in Revolution, and remember that revolution may someday again be required of us.

I mention all of this only to demonstrate that some of these guerrilla tactics might very well have to be employed -- that employing them, however distasteful, might be preferable to doing nothing. Bombing a city, even with precision munitions, is distasteful. Indeed, it is horrifying. But there are times when it is better, morally as well as in terms of practical reality, than the alternatives.

If our Islamist enemies believe that they are in such a position, then they have to fight us. Indeed, if the radical Left were serious, it should be fighting us.

We have every right to punish atrocities and terrorism. We should, however, be careful to consider which of their tactics are truly evil, and which are simply necessary. That will allow us to separate the terrorists from the honorable enemies with whom we can negotiate. The ones who behead the weak and innocent in order to inspire terror are evil. The ones who fight our military with rifles, though they do not wear uniforms -- they may not be evil men. They may simply not trust us, and be unwilling to conceed control of their nation to foreigners with rifles and bombs.

With the first sort of foe there can be no quarter. With the second, there can be a genuine peace. It is in our enemy's interest to blur those lines, just as it is in his interest to blur the line between combatant and noncombatant. We must try to keep the lines clear, as much as we can.

An imaginary �scandal� by Theodore Dalrymple

On Frauds:

Dalrymple speaks to the philosophy of frauds:

The fact is that people who commit fraud, at least on a large scale, have lively, intelligent minds. I usually end up admiring them, despite myself. My last encounter was with a man who defrauded the government of $38,000,000 of value added tax. I am afraid that I laughed. After all, he had merely united customers with cheap goods. Unfortunately for him, he had been lifted from his tropical paradise hideaway by helicopter and then extradited. By the time I met him, though, his sentence was almost over. He had discovered Wittgenstein in prison.

"Did you have to pay the money back?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "though I would have had a shorter sentence if I had."

He had calculated that an extra two years as a guest of Her Majesty was worth it. I shook his hand, as a man who was unafraid: I could do no other.

It's even harder for Americans, I think, to be irritated with people whose crime is tax evasion. Boston Tea Party, and all that.

UPDATE: I wrote that in amusement when starting into the essay. That is the point of such anecdotes -- to draw you in, with humor, so that you will stay for the sermon.

And it is quite an essay. The amusing parts are up front; the deeper you get into it, the more it proves a tragedy. In this way it is like Shakespeare, who happens to make an appearance. Give it a read.

The Adventures of Chester: The End of the Obvious Pseudo-Event

Strategic Communications:

Officer of Marines Chester has an excellent post about the current situation of the global media, and how it impacts the United States' strategic goals. One of the things he challenges is the Defense Science Board's call for a "top down" revolution in conducting Strategic Communications:

No such orchestration is possible, if it ever was, for two reasons:

1) the mass media has an aversion to being the handmaiden for any government program and
2) the mass media is rapidly being replaced by a decentralized free global and private press that is unprecedented.

A top-down approach will not work if saving America's image is the goal.

There is a particularly American solution in the offing, as demonstrated by the MilBlogs ring. Several times in the recent past, slanders against the US military have been effectively countered by MilBloggers, acting without orders. While these operators are independent -- which gives them a credibility that official government statements do not have because of the walls of secrecy around government decisions -- they are choosing to coordinate of their own free will. Such coordination can create impressive results. Consider a few of these swarms, which are gathering around Mudville because of Greyhawk's leadership:

On Newsweek. There's a lot to be said about this, but all of it falls under nondisclosure for me, so I won't. What should be noticed, though, is how many independent analyses gathered there.

A response to Bob Herbert's slanders was expanded to this second post. Another media-generated "the military is full of thugs" scandal, unmade by the simple fact that a lot of military men with actual experience now have a voice.

The military's own response in both cases has been muted. Even if there were a top-down authority firmly in place, however, I think Chester's right: it wouldn't be as effective as the MilBlog response, except perhaps as an additional means of raising the challenges to these stories that MilBloggers raise. It can ally itself to them, and give the rubrik of authority to their statements. But it can't do what they can do: the news media will regard any statement from such an authority as questionable simply because it was made in secret. MilBlogs offer transparency.

I don't see any reason a similar set of blogs couldn't be set up by institutions with the courage to do so. If State or CIA officials had the guts to say what General Cartwright said, we'd soon be in a stronger position as a nation. The bureaucracies don't like the idea, however, because it gives underlings a forum for complaints as well as for rising to the defense of the institution. (Consider the DiploMad.) Even this is a selling point, however, for those who are not timid. It is the independence of the voice that makes it credible. If they are free to praise or to condemn, their praise is valuable, and their condemnation can offer useful lessons for the improvement of the agency.

Protected free speech, transparency, and a shift of power away from the state and to the individual: that's the American way. Not only that, but we are the culture in the world most comfortable doing it, which means that other nations won't be able to replicate our success at it: there will be no Chinese MilBlogs ring.

If this distributed media is the wave of the future -- as many think it is, and I see no reason to disagree -- America has a chance to retain unassailably its position of information dominance. The way forward is to lift some of the restrictions on disclosure and speech by individuals who are within organizations, and then protect blog speech under the First Amendment.

Obviously there are places that cannot do so easily -- the CIA, for example, would have to think hard about what rules it might employ before allowing officers to blog. But for those that can, it is a powerful tool.

Gunfighting

Gunfighting:

As you recall, I missed out on Buy A Gun Day due to it falling on "pay exorbinant taxes day #1 of 4" for contractors. However, my generous wife has offered to dip into her own money in order to consider a firearm purchase for Father's Day, which happens also to be our wedding anniversary (and our son's birthday -- at least some years).

I'm thinking of a Bond Arms derringer, or possibly one of the Cimarron "Thunderer" Sheriff's models. Either could be carried in a pocket, I think, though the Cimarron would be harder -- maybe I can find one to examine at the next gun show out this way.

I'd like a pocket pistol for the summer, and given the short barrel and short ranges involved in such a thing, I'd prefer a heavy bullet like the .45 Long Colt. At the range at which a pocket pistol would be useful, an assailant is likely to get ahold of you or your family if you don't shut him down at once. The only ways to do that are through central nervous system shock, and by dropping the blood pressure sharply -- i.e., by striking the central nervous system itself, or the heart, or the giant arteries just above it. You've got to get through heavy bone to get to any of that.

What do you folks think? I'll entertain alternative suggestions, but I'm especially interested in people who have experience with one of these models.

B-5

Thanks to BlackFive:

I had a good time posting at B-5's haunt during his absence. Unfortunately for me, the weekend saw a spike in the amount of work I've been doing professionally; and my nondisclousure agreement causes me to refrain from blogging about topics I've done work with in that regard. As a result, I had neither time nor material for more than two posts, which you can read here and here if you like.

My fellow guest blogger, Cassandra, therefore had to carry most of the weight herself. Please note that I've added her blog to the "Other Halls" section, which I meant to do last September when we were blogging together at Mudville. If you don't know her site, you might want to get to know it. She's an interesting voice.

Arganti

Happy Birthday, Arganti:

Back in 1999, a great monster of a hurricane named Floyd bore down on the coastline of the American South. It was the size of Texas when it made landfall, but it had thankfully weakened in the hours just before hitting ground. Not long before it was due, it had been a powerful Category Four.

The city of Savannah, which is twelve feet about sea level at its highest point, was evacuated -- along with the coastline north and south of there for quite a while. I happened to be living in Savannah at the time. When we came back in a few days, some trees were down and the city had endured a thrashing, but there was no severe damage.

However, the evacuation and the storm had occasioned some chaos. I was out surveying the neighborhood in which I lived to see how much damage there was -- the worst was from flooding, and not the only time our home flooded while we were there.

As I turned a corner, I saw a little white kitten sitting alone and forlorn in the middle of an empty sidewalk. She looked up, saw me, and raised her tail straight into that position that kittens use to signal that they've seen their family.

"Uh-oh," I said to myself, and started walking home.

Too late! The little white kitten followed me all the way home, without me so much as touching her or encouraging her. She trotted after me as fast as she could, and walked right into the apartment in which my wife and I lived.

Well, we didn't need a cat. I should say, we didn't need another cat. We haven't had a cat in years, but at the time we had cats already. One of them, a little grey and white coward called Mosqueton, was always sneaking up on this kitten and pounding her. He didn't like her at all.

Fortunately, I had a friend who needed a cat. Unfortunately, she lived in Maryland. Still, once she had seen the pictures, she took a flight down to spend a few days visiting with us, and then when she left she took the cat.

You can see the kitten went to a good home. Happy birthday, Arganti.

BLACKFIVE

BlackFive:

I've been asked to guest-blog over at BlackFive, while he's on the road for a few days. Since most of you probably read his site as well as mine -- and since those of you who don't probably should -- I'm just going to be posting over there for the next few days. It will save everyone some time. :) If I come up with anything interesting, I'll post a link to it here so that regular readers can debate it at this site, should you prefer. B5 gets so much traffic that a debate can be harder in that context.

Rocky Mountain News: Columnists

Theft of a Loved One:

The Rocky Mountain News has an article on a new ban in Denver, coupled with the seizure of property. The property? People's dogs: seized and killed, because they were born pit bulls.

A uniformed officer arrives at a home. "I'll get him," she announces to her partner. Rather than fight it all, a distraught man emerges, weighs going to jail and a fine, and in the end hands over his dog.

"I'm definitely sad," he later tells a reporter. "He's like a member of my family."

Later in the day, a woman pleads: "I don't have no dogs!

"There ain't no dogs in the basement!" she yells as the uniformed man and woman, responding to an informant's report of a pit bull, interrogate her. Outside, squad cars filled with police officers wait to see if they are needed.

The Geek with a .45 wonders how these police happened to know who had a pit bull in the first place.

So, here we have the animal control officers, backed up by men with guns, operating on a tip, and apparently without a warrant.

The only thing we need to complete the scene is a refrain from the Nuremberg chorus.

Oh, wait! Here it is!

"I'm just doing my job," the woman officer later laments.

The Geek is making a point about how much this looks like the way government goes after firearms: first it registers them, promising that the registration will never lead to confiscation; and then it confiscates the registered property and destroys it. We have seen this happen over and over again, worldwide.

But there are other points of similarity as well.

The article quotes genuine dog experts, to see how much sense it makes to ban pitbulls. Answer: none whatever. The ban -- like the so-called "Assault Weapons" ban -- was written by the ignorant. It seeks to ban something that is scary to people who don't know anything about it.

Another reason, not cited by the article, is this: the ban is breed-specific. Pitbull purebreeds are not dangerous, as I understand it, having lived around and trained dogs my whole life. What is dangerous is crossbreeds, where a pit is bred to an animal of another breed (often a Rottie), with the individual two dogs chosen for being particularly aggressive. That is, you can make a violent animal if you set out to do it. But the pitbull as a breed is playful and gentle (except to my hats -- one pit I know, named Havoc, lept up and stole one right off my head and ran away with it, chewing it merrily).

The other thing is the willingness of the police to use "grey" tactics to enforce these laws. Gwa45 cites the lack of warrants. Here is an article which has a far worse abuse, by the BATFE. The article is about .50 caliber firearms, and while the author is not sympathetic to them, he is horrified by police tactics:

Several years ago, the BATF asked [Mr. Robert Steward, who makes perfectly legal 'kits' for collectors who wish to manufacture a firearm] to stop. He refused. Shortly after that (according to published reports) two men entered his gun shop with an AR-15 rifle, requesting that he adjust the scope mount. He put it on his bench and began to work on the scope. As soon as he put a screwdriver to the gun, the men produced BATF badges and arrested him for working on an illegal machine gun. The AR-15 had been illegally converted without changing the exterior appearance.

So how was he to know it was illegal? If he had taken it apart to see, he would have been just as liable under the law -- and the only reason it was in this condition was to enable the police to make him a felon. As a felon, he is forbidden from life from operating his business, as it would entail the possession of firearms.

Mr. Steward was arraigned on June 22nd. Over the objections of the prosecution, the judge released him on his own recognizance. (The prosecution claimed that Mr. Steward must be deemed a threat to his community because of his strong "second amendment views.").... It is a strange world where a federal prosecutor demands a high bail because the accused assumes the United States Constitution means what it says.

Can you think of any other case in which having "strong views" on the importance of a part of the Bill of Rights is said to make you a danger to the community?

How about the Fourth Amendment? There are no dogs in my basement. Get a warrant.

How about the Fifth? You can't just take my dog and kill him, without paying me just compensation. That includes compensation for the pain and suffering endured by the three-year-old boy, who has to watch armed men lead his best friend off and kill him.

Invoke either, and you face "jail time and a fine." Your dog isn't popular, you see. We don't like his kind -- or yours.

Print Story: Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech on Yahoo! News

Dr. Rice Agrees:

The good doctor said something I agree with today:

Rice said she favored background checks and controls at gun shows. However, she added, 'we have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that the Founding Fathers thought very important.'

Rice said the Founding Fathers understood 'there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Ala., when, in fact, the police weren't going to protect you.'

'I also don't think we get to pick and choose from the Constitution,' she said in the interview, which was taped for airing Wednesday night. 'The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment.'

If only everyone agreed with that last line, the first line would have a different context. If it weren't for the fact that there are almost endless devotees of the principle of disarming Americans, including not just Congressional lobbying groups but the United Nations' entire bureaucracy, we could have a different discussion about "checks and controls."

A government that took the Second Amendment seriously would enjoy a lot more trust when it thought it proper to regulate the expression of that amendment. Not perfect trust, of course, any more than any of us really trust them to regulate the First Amendment -- everyone from the ACLU to right wing bloggers agrees that the gov't can only be trusted just so far.

Still, even Second Amendment absolutists would probably agree to a national version of the Concealed Carry Permit -- a shall-issue permit that allowed carry anywhere in the United States, but in exchange for submitting to background checks and fingerprinting (at least for the purposes of the check; some states retain and others destroy the fingerprints after the check is complete). Such a government program, regulations based on a recognition that you have a right to keep and bear arms, would be broadly acceptable.

Indeed, it's possible that people might even feel comfortable enough to go further, if they could trust that the government really intended to respect the right rather than trying to regulate it away. Gun manufacturers could view government as a partner rather than an opponent, a force to help them get quality weapons to honest citizens instead of a force trying to run them out of business and possibly send them to prison.

Unhappily, we aren't there. There are too many people whose real interest is in infringing the Second.

Grim's Hall

A Long Day:

Got up at 0400 yesterday, and here it is 0100 and I'm still awake. I had to go into Falls Church to take one of those gov't examinations that sensible people left behind long ago, the kind with no. 2 pencils and instructions that have to be read aloud. These things are required for all sorts of duties nowadays, though I'm not sure why: the kinds of things you can easily measure with those sorts of tests are limited, so why not just look at one of the existing tests I have on file? I've taken tons of them; surely by now I'm as well-categorized as I can be. ("V. Good at abstract reasoning; not so good at mathematics involving actual calculation." "Good at analogies. Less good at understanding why it's important that he should take this test.")

I've even taken all the psych tests. I know what my psych profile looks like on every one of the major models. This has only increased my suspicion that psychology is the entrail-reading of the modern world. I see no reason to choose to use these models in making hiring decisions; in fact, I'm not sure it should be legal to do so. I don't suppose it qualifies as a "religious test" for the purposes of the Constitution, but you do have to subscribe to what amounts to a religion in order to put any faith in the models.

Oh, well. Just -- A little interagency cooperation, please? I'll sign the disclosure forms, but please let me retire the little bubble sheets once and for all.

Of course, the regular workload did not decrease simply because I had to take half the day for testing. And, tomorrow is another day....

Well, time to turn in. See ya'll tomorrow.

WOAI: San Antonio News - The Alamo a Symbol of Slavery?

Painting a Lead Balloon:

Green, as it happens. From Nickelodeon's segment on the history of the Alamo:

By the early 1800s, most of the people living in San Antonio were white farmers who brought their slaves with them.

In 1829, Mexico abolished slavery and what followed was years of conflict between white farmers who wanted to keep their slaves and Mexican authorities.

This conflict led up to the battle for the Alamo.

I guess this answers the question of whether Texas is part of the South or not. From now on, you are -- you've been consigned to the "evil slaveholding" part of America, whose every motive before about 1970 must be assumed to be racism. Having seen this train of thought work itself out in several other places, allow me to assure my history-loving Texas readers that they will require a steady supply of antacids henceforth. You have my sympathies for that, but I suppose you had to be punished for giving American Mr. G.W. Bush.

Hat tip: NRO.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Ideas / how_good_was_the_good_war

V-E Day:

Both BlackFive and Baldilocks have joined the Armed Liberal against Englishman and author Niall Ferguson. Ferguson wrote recently an article entitled "V-E Day: A Soiled Victory," which is subtitled "A look at the WWII Allies' moral shortcuts."

As BlackFive says warriors need to have a clear-eyed view of war. There are times to set it aside -- the anniversary of V-E Day being one of those times. There are times to wave the flag and play the fife and drum, and choose to believe for a little while that all uniforms are dress uniforms. The wise man has room in his mind for both myth and history, because he recognizes that he needs both myth and history. A man, a nation, a society needs its myths to stay healthy.

When that day of celebration is suitably past, however, we have to return to the clear-eyed view. We will set it aside again at the appropriate time in the future, but we should be able to consider it now. If Ferguson can't provide it -- if his piece seems "tainted," to use his own words -- perhaps others can. Yet who else is interested in doing so?

Consider this piece from the Boston Globe, by Englishman Geoffery Wheatcroft, entitled "How Good was the Good War?"

Some of these legends are more obvious than others. The French suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1940, and the compromises many Frenchmen made with their conquerors thereafter ranged from the pitiful to the wicked. More Frenchmen collaborated than resisted, and during the course of the war more Frenchmen bore arms on the Axis than on the Allied side. Against those grim truths, Charles de Gaulle consciously and brilliantly constructed a nourishing myth of Free France and Resistance that helped heal wounds and rebuild the country.

We can see that this is true -- and I don't think we hold it against de Gaulle. This is what I meant when I said that a nation needs its myths to remain healthy. You can't build a nation on a recognition that yours is a society of collaborators. That is what de Gaulle would have had to have done, if he had not made myths. So, he made myths; and he was wise to do it.

One may ask why the English authors are so eager to unmake these myths, at this time. The answer is obvious: the rise of anti-war politics in Britian, which has split both their left and right political wings. The recent elections have only heightened the tensions, and so the business of scorning all wars -- even "the Good War" -- is on the minds of some.

The English are not alone. The Germans have an interest in it too. Here is a piece from Sign & Sight called "The Mongol Devastations":

The historic fires in San Francisco, Hamburg and London had nothing in common with the procedure whereby in only 17 minutes (Würzburg) or 21 minutes (Dresden), cities were showered with hundreds of thousands of incendiary bombs. These sparked thousands of fires, which within three hours became a flaming sea, several square kilometres wide. Large natural fires normally have a single source, and are driven for days by the wind. But war statistics showed that such winds played a minor role in fires caused by bombs. The real destructive power was not in the wind that drives the fire, but in the fire itself, which unleashes its own hurricane on the ground.

Neither buildings nor people can escape the logic of the elements of fire and air. A fire starts, it sets the air in motion, fire and air form a vortex extinguishing life and all that belongs to it: books, altars, hospitals, asylums, jails and jailers, the block warden and his child, the armourers, the people's court and all the people in it, the slave's barracks and the Jew's hideout, the strangler as well as the strangled. Hiroshima and Dresden, Tokyo and Kassel were transformed from cities into destructive systems.

The Germans have their reasons for wishing to teach this lesson as well. Much has been written about the experience of Nazism, and what it has done to the German conscience -- I have written on it before myself. But, as I wrote in an email to someone on the topic of the new Pope's wartime activities. My correspondant felt that the young Pope's resistance was not sufficient, and that he should have been part of the active resistance:

The moral landscape of WWII Germany is not nearly as clear as it appears to Americans in retrospect. For a German citizen -- enduring both the experience of Nazism, but also the Dresden firebombings -- it would have been entirely reasonable to choose no side, but to withdraw and pray for the end. It would have taken real faith, not in God but in America, to believe that a nation that [could carry out the bombing of Dresden] was one you should aid by force of arms. We Americans naturally feel that faith, but I see no reason that a German should.

We Americans do naturally feel it, and it is right that we should. America is our mother, and it is right and natural that you should love your mother even if she is a grizzly bear. Indeed, if your mother is a grizzly bear you have no better friend in the world. You can laugh and play when she overturns boulders and rips open beehives. Neither her claws nor her strength should frighten you.

Not so, the man who finds himself between her and her cub!

Not, that is, unless he is a berserker -- a "bear-shirt," who fears neither fire nor iron, because he is also a bear. Such men are myths, but they are not only myths. It is through living the myth that the road to health lies. I mean that literally. She's twenty-five feet away. The man who has convinced himself that he is living in a myth will find the strength of will to do what he must: to use his pepper spray, or his rifle, against the eight-hundred pound giant charging down on him at thirty miles an hour. Try that if you are concentrating on a "clear-eyed" view of what she's going to do to you when she gets here. There are times when "rational" and "wise" are not the same thing.

The mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, spent part of last week waving around the blackened fingernail of an atomic bomb survivor -- the word is hibakusha in the Japanese. The Japanese say that theirs is the only nation of hibakusha. That prompted the Koreans to form an organization of "Korean hibakusha," who had been kidnapped by Japanese imperialists and forced to work in Hiroshima until the American bomb blew it away.

The Japanese are now allies, who still yet may not have an army or a navy because their own nationals will not vote for a change in their constitution. The Koreans rage against everyone, Chinese, Japanese or American; they build nuclear bombs, both North and South Korea having admitted to clandestine enrichment programs in the last year. The Germans are pacifists. The English rush to cast away the mantle of victors, and to assume the mantle of victims: shame-filled creatures, made so by their fathers, whose sins they feel they have inherited. The French -- well, we have seen much of them in the last few years. They sputter like madmen, unable to decide if they are anti-warriors or imperialists, morally against American "mercenaries" or morally eager to sell arms to China.

This is what comes of breaking myths. The English want to help us break ours, even as the Koreans wish to break those of the Japanese. Thank you for the kindness, but we should prefer our myths intact.

The human mind needs both myth and history to be healthy. I am aware of all these facts, and can use them at the appropriate time, in the appropriate way. That way is this: to understand the events of today, where they are rooted and why; and to find there reasons for compassion for and fellow-feeling with the Germans, the Koreans, the Japanese. I see their anguish, and I sympathize with it. I wish to soothe it. I want them to know health, and strength, again: to be men, and even myths.

America remains healthy. It does so not because it remains strong -- it remains strong because it is healthy. It is healthy because so very much of it still retains its myths, though we are great consumers of works of history: witness any bookstore.

Raise the flag, and play "The Star-Spangled Banner." See how many American men lack for tears in their eyes. There is myth, and joy, and pride.

Take your clear-eyed look at war, and take it boldly. But look also at those who have dwelt upon the abyss, and what it has done to their hearts. Myth and poetry are the gifts of gods who love us, to bear us up and soothe our souls. There is greater health in the Iliad than in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The modern world needs both. The wise man neglects neither.

Musings of The GeekWithA.45

The Busy Days of Spring:

Congrats to The GeekWithA.45 for getting those items off his checklist. Meanwhile, Doc Russia has been doing CPR. And ParaPundit has sniffed out yet another job being done by "the invisible hand of the market."

Busy hands, all.

Marine Corps Times - News - More News

Body Armor:

The Marine Corps Times has the story:

The Marine Corps issued to nearly 10,000 troops body armor that government experts urged the Corps to reject after tests revealed critical, life-threatening flaws in the vests.

In all, the Marine Corps accepted about 19,000 Interceptor outer tactical vests from Point Blank Body Armor Inc. that failed government tests due to “multiple complete penetrations” of 9mm pistol rounds, failing scores on other ballistic or quality-assurance tests, or a combination of the two.

Won't stop 9mm pistol rounds! I've seen Sunday papers that would stop a 9mm round. I'm sure we all remember the photo of the guy whose tooth stopped one.

The officer in charge of Marine Corps Systems Command obviously knows this is bad, bad trouble. You can tell by the way he's taking full responsibility onto himself. Lt. Col. Gabriel Patricio is his name. One thing you will never see is a corporate or civilian government employee standing up to take a hit like he is doing. Can you imagine an FBI or CIA officer standing up and saying, "Yes, this was my responsibility, and I am the only one to blame"?

Pity we can't. Those agencies would be a lot better off if they were staffed with men like this. Every government agency must sometimes say that "mistakes were made." Not enough, not nearly enough, have men willing to say, "I made them."

Hat tip JH(G)D.

BLACKFIVE: Marine's Take Care Of Their Own

A Fallen Marine:

BlackFive has a story about a fallen K-9 Marine, and his escort out. When a Marine dog dies, he isn't buried in some shallow ditch, as a dog might be.

I am part of an organization that believed it was important enough to send two helicopters and their crews, into harms way in order to retrieve the body of one of its fallen. It made no difference that the Marine killed in action was a dog and not a man, what does matter is that each one of us involved felt the same.

To us, not only was it a warranted and reasonable utilization of Marines, Marine Corps assets and resources, but the risk to eight Marines and two aircraft was far outweighed by a pervading sense of honor, commitment and espirit de corps. Why else am I here, if not to go get a boy and his dog - both of whom are fellow Marines. Few things here have been as important as that mission to me, and to my crew as well.

The Air Force treats its dogs well, too. I would be surprised to discover that any American military unit did not. It is a high demonstration of the civilization we defend, and of why it is worth defending.

The Adventures of Chester

Interagency Seams:

The Adventures of Chester has an interesting piece of commentary on the subject today. Chester, an officer of Marines, examines the failure to capture bin Laden in this light -- but also several important, and less public, successes.

Japan Today - News - White House serves beef to Abe so he can see how safe it is - Japan's Leading International News Network

Ahem:

Japan Today notes this little piece of fun by the White House, at Japan's expense. Shinzo Abe is the leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and widely expected to be the next prime minister:

Liberal Democratic Party Acting Secretary General Shinzo Abe was served beef and asked by a senior U.S. official if he enjoyed it at a White House luncheon on Wednesday.

Abe was attending a lunch hosted by Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby when the conversation turned to Japan's 17-month-old import ban on U.S. beef.

At least this sort of diplomacy can't be called "ham-fisted."

Ledger-Enquirer | 05/06/2005 | Mother's call gets son in hot water

You Wanna See Defiant?

Via the Best of the Web, this story about a son of Sgt. 1st Class Monique Bates, deployed in Iraq with 3ID.

Francois, a junior at Spencer High School in Columbus, was suspended for disorderly conduct Wednesday after he was told to give up his cell phone at lunch while talking to his mother who is deployed in Iraq, he said....

The incident happened when Francois received a call from his mother at 12:30 p.m., which he said was his lunch break. Francois said he went outside the school building to get a better reception when his mother called. A teacher who saw Francois on his phone told him to get off the phone. But he didn't....

Francois said he told the teacher, "This is my mom in Iraq. I'm not about to hang up on my mom."

Francois said the teacher tried to take the phone, causing it to hang up.

The student said he then went with the teacher to the school's office where he surrendered his phone. His mother called again at 12:37 p.m. and left a message scolding her son about hanging up and telling him to answer the phone when she calls.

This kid's getting it from both ends.

"Kevin got defiant and disorderly with Mr. Turner and another assistant principal," Parham said Thursday. "He got defiant with me. He refused to leave Mr. Turner's office. When a kid becomes out of control like that they can either be arrested or suspended for 10 days. Now being that his mother is in Iraq, we're not trying to cause her any undue hardship; he was suspended for 10 days."

Defiant, eh? Just because a teacher was trying to steal his phone and hang up on his mother in Iraq? And then refused to let him answer the phone when she called back?

Arrested, eh? Yeah, I want to be on that jury. "We find the student not guilty, plus he gets to apply the remedy of the 28th Alabama to the teacher, if he feels inclined."

Range Day

Range Day:

It's been a gloomy and overcast day here in Virginia. I've spent most of it working, but I did find a little while to go over to the range. I went through a box of .44s. Here's the target I saved for the last six:

I've been going down there since July, after more than a year of not using any sort of firearm due to living in the socialist republic of Maryland. I planned to go once a week until I got back into shape as a shootist, and then once a month or so to keep in shape. As it's worked out, I've managed to get out there less than once a month at any point.

Still, I'm pleased with the result. I'm shooting handguns now as well as I ever have. My riflemanship still needs quite a bit of work, work it didn't get today as I had only twenty minutes on the range. Still, I'm pleased with the progress I've made, and look forward to the future: shooting not just as well as I ever have, but better than I ever have.

Kaplan

Kaplan:

Kaplan's new piece in the Atlantic Monthly is stupendous. It's called "How We Would Fight China," and you must read it.

Every reader will find something to agree with and something that rubs him the wrong way. Set aside the parts that rub you the wrong way, and keep reading. Kaplan definitely knows what he's talking about here. This is an excellent history of PACOM and its capabilities, with a useful analogy to Otto von Bismarck, thoughts on current and future naval capabilities, diplomacy, and ways in which China might fight us with asymmetry.

Smitten in 8 Seconds

Maryland Cowboys:

Yeah, really. Here's an article on Bullriders in Libertytown, MD. The Washington Post gives a full history in the article, assuming that most of their readership will have never heard of such a thing.

Still, except for the hilariously inappropriate title ("Smitten in Eight Seconds"), it's a good read. I like the advice given to the cowboy with the newly dislocated shoulder on how he should have handled his ride.

The Daily News, Jacksonville NC

"Roster of American Combat Heroes"

Lisa Hoffman, writing for Scripps Howard, has composed an article called "Roster of American combat heroes in Iraq is rich." JHD sent it to me to fold into my morning reading, and I'm glad I did.

By rights this type of article should be a major focus of journalism. It's the kind of thing people love to read, so it sells newspapers. It makes people feel good, so it sells newspapers. It also happens to be true and important, which also sells newspapers.

Yet we rarely see it, and almost never as front-page items. Readers of the MilBlogs know that these things are not rare news; the occasional roundup item, such as this one, has a wealth to pull from, and they can only scratch the surface. One would almost think that newspapers weren't primarily interested in selling their product, but in trying to influence politics.

That might help to explain certain recent sales figures.

Marine Corps Moms

An Advanced Scam:

Marine Corps Moms has word of a fairly elaborate con aimed at the families of deployed Marines. I'll be surprised if it doesn't occur with other services, too. Keep your eyes out for this:

Two men posing as a Marine and a Sailor tried to gain personal checking account information from the spouse of an activated Marine Reservist. The attempted scam occurred as follows:

The spouse was called by a man claiming that he was a Marine Master Sergeant. He informed her that her husband was missing in action and that someone would visit her home to provide further information. Two men, one dressed in Marine dress blues and the other in a Navy uniform, visited the spouse at her home. Neither of the men would properly identify themselves. They informed her that her husband was missing in action and that they would need her checking account number in case he was determined to have been killed in action. The alleged perpetrators had somehow obtained personal information on the Marine to include his name, rank, address, telephone number and social security number.

Now, I know most military spouses are pretty tough in their own right. Anybody shows up at your house claiming that part of your family is missing in action, and wanting a checking account number -- I suggest that, if possible, you hold them until the police arrive. This kind of thing is intolerable.

The Indepundit

A Soldier In Need:

Smash links to the blog of American Soldier, who is coming up on some rough reconstructive surgery. He's feeling the distance from his loved ones, and could use some encouragement.

If you don't know what to say, check Smash's own comments. That's how you talk to a fighting man.

BLACKFIVE

Joint Marines:

BlackFive has some thoughts on the selection of Marine General Peter Pace as the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As B-5 points out, this is the first time that a Marine has held the post in the nation's history.

What's interesting is that there is also a Marine, General James E. Cartwright, as commander of the United States Strategic Command (CDRUSSTRATCOM).

STRATCOM is an oddity in the military structure. The military divides the world into "combatant commands," which is to say, regions of influence: the Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) roughly includes Latin America; the Northern Command (NORTHCOM) the North American region; The European Command (EUCOM) takes in much of Europe and Africa; the Central Command (CENTCOM) holds most of the trouble spots we think of as "the Middle East," including Iraq and Afghanistan; and the rest of the world falls in the Pacific Command (PACOM). These commands have areas of responsibility, and forces are placed under their command structures in order to pursue the missions that the government chooses for them.

There are two other commands, which do not have territory to control. STRATCOM is one of these. The other is the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), whose function is largely self-explanatory.

STRATCOM is normally thought of as the "nuclear" command, and it does handle that function. That was where the term "strategic" came from -- nuclear weapons are the only weapons which cannot be used tactically. Their power is such that not only their use, but their development and even how and where they are deployed must be considered at the highest level of military thinking.

In addition to that function, however, STRATCOM has been tasked with several similar functions -- military functions that have to be thought about at the highest level, so that they can be implemented with an eye toward the grand, worldwide strategy of the United States. One of these areas is "Strategic Communications," which we've talked about a bit here from time to time. Another is electronic warfare: protecting America's ability to communicate worldwide, to defend our electronic structures against worldwide threats, and to deploy against the electronic structures of enemy nations or groups.

It seems to me that the Marines' culture is particularly suited to the challenges of the moment -- the business of adapting the military's role to Fourth Generation challenges, with their blurring of lines. US Marines invented "small wars" thinking, after all, which is the template for a lot of the current thinking on how to fight Fourth Generation wars. The Marine culture is also highly adaptive, which may be of use in shifting the focus of so large an organization as the US military.

By placing the Pentagon and the Strategic Command under the guidance of Marines, the military has chosen to test that proposition. We will see how it fares under the friction of war. I think we can all wish it well.

FAS/China

Interesting Readings Today:

This week's Secrecy News has an especially varied group of readings. I'll bet that at least one of which is apt to be of interest to you -- at least those of you who comment often enough for me to know your interests.

For example, some of you will be interested in this piece by the Congressional Research Service, examining when "rendition" is legal. Of interest to Congress: when the awareness of the USG that an allied nation tortures should impact rendition decisions, and how.

Others of you -- especially those for whom the words posse comitatus are meaningful -- will be interested in the new Army Field Manual on Civil Disturbances. It includes information on how the Army might be used "in providing assistance to civil authorities requesting it for civil disturbance operations."

Also, China E-Lobby has a link rich collection of expert speculation on the future of Communist China. The experts don't agree:

On the future of Communist China: F. Andrew Messing, Jr. and Daniel A. Perez, of the National Defense Council Foundation, sound the alarm about Communist China’s ambitions for global dominance in the Washington Times. Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, has a more mediocre column on the cadres’ ambitions – mediocre largely because of his unwillingness to recognize the military aspect of the Communist threat. Meanwhile, Yu Linyi, Epoch Times, believes the Communists have a much shorter lease on life, due to the effect of the Nine Commentaries. National Taiwan University Politics Professor Ming Juzheng likens the CCP to the Nazi Party, and like the Nazis, he sees the Communists’ reign of terror ending as well (Sound of Hope Radio via Epoch Times).

To this I'll add Hugh White of the Australian Institute for Strategic Studies, who views Australia's role as becoming less that of US ally, and more that of mediator between the US and China. My own sense, which I will explore at length another time, is that the CCP is in some real trouble -- though its collapse is far from guaranteed.

That's surely enough matter of interest to hold you all for the rest of the day. Take care.

Marine Corps Moms

JarHeadGrandPa:

Marine Corps Moms managed to get the photos we've all been wanting to see.

Embraceable? Eew. (washingtonpost.com)

Miss Manners:

I occasionally point people to Miss Manners' column, which I think is not nearly as widely read as it ought to be. She has a gentle, practical kind of advice from which we can all benefit.

However, this week's column is highly unusual. I've been reading her for years, and I don't recall that I have ever before seen her single out someone by name for scorn. Not ever, until now.

And who did she pick, among all the etiquette wrongdoers in America?

Jimmy Carter.

Musings of The GeekWithA.45

For Airboss:

I never met him, but I have heard kind words of him from quite a few of you out there. The GeekWithA.45 informs us of the passing of Airboss, a reader and commenter on many firearms-related blogs and websites, as well as a fine gentleman by all accounts.

My sympathies to his family, and those of you who knew him.

OhmyNews International

So Buy Him A Drink:

What would you do if you met a youngster walking around displaying a fascist flag on his back? Well, what if you were in China?

This guy bought the kid a coke, and sat down for a chat. It makes for an interesting read, both the article and the comments.

Ma Deuce Gunner

MilBlogger on NPR:

Fellow MilBlogger Ma Deuce Gunner wants you to know that he was on NPR recently. He reports a very pleasant and professional experience: "I was afraid that they would take my words out of context and distort them. They did not do this. They were extremely honest and objective."

Well, they'd better be, with the whole MilBlogs ring watching their every step. :) But it's good to hear.

Former Georgia Sen. Zell Miller hospitalized - News - MSNBC.com

Best to Zell:

As JHD points out in comments below, Zell Miller is down with what does actually sound a lot like what got me. Of course, it's no joke when you're seventy-three, not even for a mountain lion like Zell. All the best to the man, and may he recover speedily and more than fully.

Sick/Defense

Role Reversal:

Doc Russia is in Vegas, taking some well earned time off. I hope he finds time to get by the roulette table for me.

Meanwhile, I've been haunting his usual domain: the emergency room. What I had mistaken for allergies turned out to be a case of severe dehydration. I'm not sure how it's possible that I could have become dehydrated, unless it's just exposure to sun and wind. I drink water by the liter, but obviously not enough liters. I am sure that my attempts to ease what I thought was an allergy attack made things worse rather than better. Drinking some gin and tonic, which has always worked well on allergies, only aggravated the dehydration.

This is the classic mistake that guys like me make. My old jujitsu instructor, Sergeant Ken Caton, very nearly died from appendicitis. His appendix burst, it made him feel awful, and so he decided just to bed down with some whiskey and gut it out. He figured it was food poisoning, just like I figured I had allergies, because it was the thing in his experience that fit the symptoms he was experiencing. I got off a lot better than Ken, who was down for months as a result of the damage his body suffered. All I needed was four liters of IV fluid, and I was back in my own bed by midnight.

I'm not pulling my weight today as a blogger for the above reasons. However, Joe of Winds of Change and Defense Industry Daily has several good posts on the Pentago's procurement scandals. Because I feel terrible, I'm just gong to be lazy and run his email on the topic:

It's just not the Pentagon's week for communications projects. The Pentagon has put Boeing on cancellation notice over the JTRS project, one of the central pillars of U.S. military transformation. Meanwhile, criminal investigations into L-3 Communications Holdings over the CSEL search & rescue radios are not only about to force a massive recall of a key item, they're causing the Pentagon to check a whole bunch of other projects - including its Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells.

Oy. Double-oy if you have to wade through all this and make sense of everything.

Fortunately, we've already made sense of BOTH of these scandals, explaining the programs, their rationale, what's wrong, and what might be next in terms that even non defense specialists can understand.

* L-3 Criminal Investigation.


* Jitters Over JTRS.

Oh yeah, and the Russians have announced 2 new nuclear ballistic missile subs for 2006, with a new type of ballistic missile that's supposedly resistant to missile defenses, and a new sub class to boot.

It's just one of those days.

Here too, mate. Here too.

New Scientist Breaking News - Mind-reading machine knows what you see

Cyborgs:

This stuff is getting more serious by the day. 2020 may come early.

Quinine

In Praise of Quinine:

Allergies bedevil us here at Grim's Hall. I turn to an ancient remedy, backed with Bombay Sapphire. I trust you'll understand. Blogging should resume soon; it usually doesn't take long for the body to adjust to the Spring's majestic flowering.

Southern Appeal

Immigration = Invasion?

There is a real dispute at Southern Appeal right now, running across several posts, as to whether or not the current levels of illegal immigration constitutes an invasion by Mexicans of American soil. SA is a law blog, and so they have a point to their investigation: if it is an invasion, there are legal obligations which fall upon the US government.

I won't attempt to reprise the discussion here. There are dozens of comments across several posts. But you should all be aware of the discussion. It strikes me as a tectonic sort of debate on the Right.

Apple - Trailers - Serenity - index

Serenity:

The trailer for Serenity is now available. In addition, there will apparently be a months-early sneak preview in these cities:

Seattle
Austin
Sacramento
Boston
Altanta
Chicago
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Denver
"The Portland of Oregon"

If anybody in or near one of those cities wants to get out and see it, let me know and I'll point you in the right direction. I myself am sorry to see that there's nothing out Virginia way on the list. Might have to fly to Atlanta "to see my family" on the occasion.

BLACKFIVE

More Georgia News:

BlackFive reports on the Best Ranger competition. This is held down near Columbus, Georgia. I've never been myself, but I have a number of friends who go to watch every year. It's an impressive series of events, "feats of strength" and endurance to impress even a Highlander.

JustOneMinute: Missing Stories

The Democratic Party's Plan:

I'm a little bemused by the notion that putting forth an platform agenda should be a threat, rather than a duty for a political party, but that does appear to be the tone of this memo.

If Republicans proceed to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, Democrats will respond by employing existing Senate rules to push forward our agenda for America.

Shouldn't ya'll be doing that anyway? Ah, well. Here's the agenda (hat tip Just One Minute):

1. Women’s Health Care. “The Prevention First Act of 2005” will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by increasing funding for family planning and ending health insurance discrimination against women.

2. Veterans’ Benefits. “The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005” will assist disabled veterans who, under current law, must choose to either receive their retirement pay or disability compensation.

3. Fiscal Responsibility. Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.

4. Relief at the Pump. Democrats plan to halt the diversion of oil from the markets to the strategic petroleum reserve. By releasing oil from the reserve through a swap program, the plan will bring down prices at the pump.

5. Education. Democrats have a bill that will: strengthen head start and child care programs, improve elementary and secondary education, provide a roadmap for first generation and low-income college students, provide college tuition relief for students and their families, address the need for math, science and special education teachers, and make college affordable for all students .

6. Jobs. Democrats will work in support of legislation that guarantees overtime pay for workers and sets a fair minimum wage.

7. Energy Markets. Democrats work to prevent Enron-style market manipulation of electricity.

8. Corporate Taxation. Democrats make sure companies pay their fair share of taxes to the U.S. government instead of keeping profits overseas.

9. Standing with our troops. Democrats believe that putting America’s security first means standing up for our troops and their families.

As one of the commenters at JOM says, "Of course #3 is amusing as well ... 'Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.' since #1, 2, 5 and presuably 9 talk about spending increases."

That said, it is a decidedly mixed bag. I'm outright in favor of some of these notions -- 2 and 9 (although I'm not really sure what they mean by this last one: it's possible they could come up with some tortured notion of #9 that I wouldn't agree to support).

I'm persuadable on other points, depending on the details of the plan -- 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8 (although, in general, my notions on tax reform have less to do with taxing corporations, and more to do with an across the board revision of the tax code: a flat tax, perhaps, or a sales tax replacing all other national taxation). All of these either could be good or bad, depending on how they're handled. For example, I have no idea what the plan to "make college affordable for all students" would entail. Southern Appeal had a link to an interesting article the other day, which pointed out ways in which reducing government mucking-about would lower tuition costs in a real fashion. You could win or lose me on most of these, depending on whether you are trying to increase efficiency (e.g. by reducing wasteful mandates, or through tort reform), or whether you're trying to increase the number of government mandates and spending.

The more socialist the plan, the more likely you are to lose me; but there are a lot of good ideas for addressing these from a libertarian/centrist position. Since that is the very demographic that Republicans seem to be having trouble with over certain religious-oriented policies, it would be a smart play for the Democrats to remold their party's agenda to win that ground. We'll see if they have the institutional will for such an endeavour.

I'm opposed to points 4 (because it was tried in the 1970s, and didn't work; so why waste the oil?) and 6 (opposed to the minimum wage, and in general to Federal meddling with peoples' ability to negotiate contracts on their own terms).

That's really not bad: I'm only decidedly against as many of these as I'm decidedly in favor of. The Democrats have something here, if they've got the guts to play for the center instead of structuring these things as statist, socialist mandates. You'll forgive me if I have my doubts that they do, but I am eager to be surprised. We'll see.

The new National Security Council - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED - April 26, 2005

The NSC:

An associate sent me a copy of a Washington Times article called "The new National Security Council." Its opening gives the flavor:

The Bush administration's decision to reorganize the National Security Council (NSC) has attracted little interest in official Washington but is potentially significant in suggesting how national security policy in the Bush second term will diverge from its predecessor.

There is a great deal of interesting analysis. The thing that grabs my attention is this:

A new high-level policy-coordinating role has been set up for the NSC staff. The new reorganization includes the creation of five new positions for deputy national security advisers — for Combating Terrorism; Iraq and Afghanistan; Global Democracy Strategy; International Economics; and Strategic Communications and Global Outreach. Each represents an announced administration policy priority.

I disagree with the notion that Strategic Communications is 'an announced administration policy priority,' but it has had some high level attention. The Defense Science Board issued this report on it last year, a very insightful piece that shows attention to the lessons of the blogosphere. The blogosphere, in return, critiqued the report openly and offered more lessons.

What has remained unclear is who will be running the show on US Strategic Communication. The military's combatant commands have a clear role, but one would expect State to be in charge of what is essentially diplomacy; on the other hand, certain functions can only be run by the CIA, as State is not authorized to do disinformation. As the DSB report demonstrated, that confusion of authority and budgets has resulted in a mess, and no coordinated message.

The NSC reorg shows that the administration is paying attention to this fact, and restructuring to meet the need. One could wish they had gotten to it sooner, but it is good to see that they are in fact getting to it. Hopefully the Deputy Adviser in charge of Strategic Communications will be effective. It's something to keep your eye on, though. As the DSB report says, this is one of the most important -- and to date, least effective -- parts of the GWOT.

An Unofficial Dictionary for Marines containing words, phrases and acronyms used by United States Marines through the ages

The Dictionary:

I've been greatly enjoying this dictionary that BlackFive posted. (He had a heck of a blogging day today, by the way -- if you haven't been by, stop in.) The dictionary is amazing. It's got almost everything I can think of off the top of my head, plus a few things I'd never heard of (esp. from the WWII era).

I was interested to see that WM is no longer current. It still was in my day -- indeed, it was printed in the introductory material handed out to recruits, so we'd all know what was meant by it, along with terms like "rack" and "cover." Given the performance of the Corps in Iraq, though, I can't see anything to criticize. Integration's proven out, at least as far as it's gone -- which is pretty far.

There are several entries that shouldn't be missed. My favorite is "group tightener," but you should also take care to read over "Joe," "Close Air Support," and "Sea Dip."