This is a football.
Please note the lack of handles.
Small wonder that each weekend countless receivers "can't find the handle on that one".
Feel free to share the comments of sports commentators you find annoying and over used in the comments.
| Your Inner European is Italian! |
 You show the world what culture really is. |
Cap'n Smith is talking about N. Iraq. I don't get out that way, so if you're interested, see what he has to say.
If you're interested in Western Iraq, Michael Totten is out there. Greyhawk and I put him on a bird just a few days ago. Nothing yet, but keep an eye on his site.
Slate magazine: helping you conceal murder since 2007.
Knox and Sollecito were on the right track: Bleach contains sodium hypochlorite, an extremely corrosive chemical that can break the hydrogen bonds between DNA base pairs and thus degrade or "denature" a DNA sample. In fact, bleach is so effective that crime labs use a 10 percent solution (one part commercial bleach to nine parts water) to clean workspaces so that old samples don't contaminate fresh evidence. Likewise, when examining ancient skeletal remains, researchers first douse the remains in diluted bleach to eliminate modern DNA from the surface of bones or teeth.I'll frame this with the China query of a few days ago. Free inquiry has its benefits and its hazards; you can be sure China wouldn't let a website post a get-out-of-jail-free kit like this one.
So, why did Knox and Sollecito's bleaching gambit fail? It's difficult to swab a knife thoroughly. Dried blood can stick to the nooks and crannies in a wood handle, to the serrated edge of a blade, or become lodged in the slit between the blade and the hilt. With help from a Q-tip, it's possible to eliminate most stains, but what's not visible to the naked eye might still be visible to a microscope, and sophisticated crime labs need only about 10 cells to build a DNA profile.
Bleach is perhaps the most effective DNA-remover (though evidently no methodology is failsafe), but it's not the only option. Deoxyribonuclease enzymes, available at biological supply houses, and certain harsh chemicals, like hydrochloric acid, also degrade DNA strands. It's even possible to wipe a knife clean of DNA-laden hair follicles, saliva, and white blood cells with generic soap and warm water. The drawback to this last method is that the tell-tale cells don't just disappear once off the knife. They linger on sponges, in drains, and even in sink traps, where wily investigators search for trace evidence.
...forever strange. A remarkable article from the New York Times tells us about 'love in the time of dementia.'
Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, has a romance with another woman, and the former justice is thrilled — even visits with the new couple while they hold hands on the porch swing — because it is a relief to see her husband of 55 years so content.This actually makes perfect sense to me.
State Dept. Tries Blog Diplomacy, reports the Washington Post:
By Walter PincusSoon, every cell phone in Baghdad will start receiving: US <3 U!
The State Department, departing from traditional public diplomacy techniques, has what it calls a three-person, "digital outreach team" posting entries in Arabic on "influential" Arabic blogs to challenge misrepresentations of the United States and promote moderate views among Islamic youths in the hopes of steering them from terrorism.
The department's bloggers "speak the language and idiom of the region, know the culture reference points and are often able to converse informally and frankly, rather than adopt the usually more formal persona of a U.S. government spokesperson," Duncan MacInnes, of State's Bureau of International Information Programs, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats on Thursday.
"Because blogging tends to be a very informal, chatty way of working," MacInnes said, "it is actually very dangerous to blog." So State has a senior experienced officer, who served in Iraq, acting as supervisor and discussing each posting before it goes up. "We do not make policy," MacInnes added.
The State Department team's approach is to join a blog's conversation, often when it turns to the motivation for U.S. policy toward Iraq, and when others are claiming that the U.S. occupation is meant to help Israel or to secure oil. "Our job is to address that motivation issue and show them that that's not the motivation," MacInnes said.
"You can't just say, 'Well, here's our policy,' and drop it into the blog. You have to have what I call a bridge," MacInnes said. He then described using a sporting or current event or even poetry that would "allow one to get to be in a conversational mode with people."
Even though the State Department employees were not going into hard-core terrorist sites, the worry, MacInnes said, was that after identifying themselves and using their own names, "we would be, in the parlance of the Internet, 'flamed' when we come on" -- meaning their entries would be subjected to intense attacks.
They were not, and there were such posts as, "We don't like your policies but we're sure glad you're here talking to us about it," MacInnes said. As a result, State is expanding the team to six speakers of Arabic, two of Persian and one of Urdu.
To prove that it, too, can plug into the modern media world, the Pentagon's Central Command has a blogging operation at its headquarters. Its Joint Forces Command also has the capability and has even written a brochure on how to do it. "It's an area we're moving into," Navy Capt. Hal Pittman, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for joint communications, told the House panel. He added that Central Command may not be using its own Arabic or Farsi speakers, but rather contract personnel. "We're sharing with State and trying to, you know, better our knowledge on how to do it."
The State-Defense communications approach is also turning to a more sophisticated message, one that moves away from trying to change perceptions of the United States, focusing instead on the self-perceptions of its target audiences. "Our core message must outline an alternative future that is more attractive than the bleak future offered by the terrorists," said Michael Doran, deputy assistant secretary of defense for support of public diplomacy.
Another step they described to the House panel, in what they called "counterterrorism communications," is having a greater awareness of the impact of what U.S. speakers are saying. "When we say 'Islamo-fascism,' whether the term has a meaning or not, what they hear is 'war on Islam,' okay -- 'attacking my religion,' " MacInnes said.
He described the phrase as "a verbal equivalent of poking a stick in somebody's eye . . . and [Osama] bin Laden has been very good at taking our words and turning them around to his advantage by saying, 'See, they're actually at war with Islam.' "
President Bush has not used the phrase recently.
National security and intelligence reporter Walter Pincus pores over the speeches, reports, transcripts and other documents that flood Washington and every week uncovers the fine print that rarely makes headlines -- but should.
EagleSpeak has a great post:
The last warship from World War II came home Tuesday to the United States.Of more contemporary interest, a piece on security engagement with potential partner nations.
When it comes to security cooperation, however, there will always be a tension between balancing military readiness with security cooperation. Most argue that readiness is the most important priority. But, if adequately funded and properly executed, security cooperation activities may build partners and prevent conflicts. Investing early in shaping activities may avoid exponentially larger expenditures later.Sub-regional partnerships are a wise idea, in my reading: we can get a lot out of them. They came in for a brief mention in a fairly harsh critique of our government's functioning that I penned.
From The American business magazine, on 'the China model,' this week:
The CPC is replacing old-style communist values with nationalism and a form of Confucianism, in a manner that echoes the "Asian values" espoused by the leaders who brought Southeast Asian countries through their rapid modernization process in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and elsewhere. But at the same time, in its public rhetoric, the party is stressing continuity and is assiduously ensuring that its own version of history remains correct. Historian Xia Chun-tao, 43, vice director of the Deng Xiaoping Thought Research Center, one of China’s core ideological think tanks, says, "It’s very natural for historians to have different views on events. But there is only one correct and accurate interpretation, and only one explanation that is closest to the truth." The key issues, he says, are “quite clearly defined” and not susceptible to debate. "There is a pool of clear water and there’s no need to stir up this water. Doing so can only cause disturbance in people’s minds."From John Derbyshire's tour of Hangzhou, 2001:
Some political scientist — I forget who — has coined the phrase "pre-critical society" for those cultures that have not attained the ability to look objectively at themselves and their history. Fifty years of Party-line government and "thought control" have left China stuck firmly in the pre-critical stage of intellectual development.My wife and I lived in Hangzhou for a while. I can confirm the truth of the story about the statues.
This unhappy little fact was brought home to me at the mausoleum of Yue Fei in Hangzhou. Yue Fei is a national hero. He lived in the early twelfth century, a time of great crisis for the Chinese nation. The Song dynasty (960-1279: it was, by the way, arguably the most progressive and creative of China's 24 imperial dynasties) was under assault by the savage Jin barbarians of the far north. Yue Fei was commander of the Chinese armies fighting against the Jin. He won many brilliant victories against them, and was hugely popular with his troops and with the common people. At the court of the Song emperor, however, there was a faction that wanted to make peace with the Jin, and cede to them the large area of North China they had conquered. This faction was led by a senior official named Qin Hui. Yue Fei, of course, wanted to fight on, to regain the lost territories. Qin Hui, however, had the emperor's ear. He arranged a frame-up of Yue Fei, who was recalled to the capital and executed. North China was ceded to the Jin (and the dynasty is thereafter known as the Southern Song, with its capital at Hangzhou).
This incident is regarded as an outrage by all patriotic Chinese, and seems even to have aroused strong feelings at the time. The following emperor had Yue Fei posthumously rehabilitated. The great warrior was re-buried in a grand mausoleum, which is now a popular tourist spot. Statues of Qin Hui, of his wife (who was involved in some way I have forgotten), and two of Yue Fei's subordinates who had co-operated in the frame-up were set in front of the tomb, all in a kneeling position — kneeling humbly before the patriot they had wronged. It used to be the custom for visitors to the mausolem to spit on the statue of Qin Hui. This has now been forbidden, however, and when I saw it, the statue was spittle-free. (The only surface area of its size anywhere in China of which this could be said.)
Strolling around the pleasant grounds of the mausoleum, I wondered aloud to Rosie — who can be taken here as a sort of lay figure, a representative well-educated thirty-something mainland Chinese — whether any bold historian had tried to make a name for himself by arguing a revisionist view of the Yue Fei incident, showing that Qin Hui was right and Yue Fei really a dangerous plotter.
Rosie was scandalized by this notion. "If anyone wrote such a thing, his statue would be put next to Qin Hui's for people to spit on." I persisted, with all the usual arguments about the difficulty of getting to the bottom of historical matters. President Kennedy was shot less than forty years ago. We have film footage of the event, and independent judicial inquiries have been carried out at vast expense, yet people are still arguing about what happened. Are we quite sure we have all the facts about a palace intrigue of nine hundred years ago?
Rosie wouldn't hear of it. Yue Fei was a great national hero, she sniffed. Qin Hui was a contemptible traitor, who sold himself and his country for cash. "Everybody knows." No use to point out (though I did anyway, from sheer force of habit) that until quite recently, "everybody knew" that the sun revolved around the earth, but that careful inquiry had showed this not to be the case. No use: I had hit the Wall.
This failure to develop a properly critical attitude to one's culture and history is a natural consequence of despotic government, with all its grisly apparatus of propaganda and intimidation. At any give time there is only one correct "line" in a despotism. To present any alternative version of things is at least anti-social, and may be seen as treasonous.
Yet Qin Hui must have been a man of great intelligence and ability. He had risen to the highest rank in government via stiff competitive examinations, and no doubt had survived many savage and complex court intrigues. Are we really to suppose that he would have no arguments to bring to his defense? After all, in any conflict there is a peace faction and a war faction, and the peace faction is sometimes right. King Alfred made peace with the Danes and ceded half of England to them: he is revered as the savior of his nation. And powerful, popular generals sometimes do have designs on the throne — most disastrously, in Chinese history, An Lu-shan, whose rebellion in the middle of the eighth century wrecked the Tang dynasty.
This one, though, actually might have a read on it. I don't know enough mathematics to evaluate the claim that E8 construction could explain reality; perhaps one of you would like a try at it?
I will say, however, that "Holy Crap! That's it!" is a pretty good Modern English translation of Archimedes' "Eureka!"
First of all, it's time for one of our periodic discussions among the various co-bloggers. We do this occasionally for various reasons. One of the items on the agenda this time will be getting someone to keep an email list, so I don't have to keep asking for everyone's emails, which I always lose before the next time I need them. :)
Second, let me thank Cassandra for providing this link, which I hadn't seen before. It's majestic. The last line is, of course, Gandalf's.
Third, I have gotten a lot of requests to do stuff lately. I'm sorry that I'm very busy and don't have the time I would like, as all of these things are worthy causes. Here are two of them, which I present only because they are in the last day or so's email, and I don't have to go searching for them.
OSD is running an "America supports you" text messaging thing.
Miss Ladybug is running an AnySoldier support project.
Sadly, the Project VALOUR-IT fundraiser, which I normally am glad to assist, is over already.
A famed author pronounces the final decline; but his reviewer points out that the fact of that very man's existence is reason for hope.
Admission to the Barzun-Trilling seminar, as it was known, entailed an interview with the two professors, which took place in Trilling’s Hamilton Hall office. This turned out to be genial, indeed conducted with a tone that suggested that in some sense we were equals, gentlemen and professionals, and serious about goals the three of us shared.So, amid decline, are new seeds planted.
In that first interview I gained a distinct sense that what they wanted were seminar participants who not only would teach but had it in mind to write in a serious way, and to the extent possible be engaged in focused and shaping activity: No Waste Landers; no Bartleby the Scriveners; no William Steig figures curled up in protective boxes of sensibility.
I'd love to see a fuller explanation of the reasons behind this ruling, which is on IRNA here. Ayatollah Kashani says:
Islam bans shedding blood of nations; on the same ground, production of nuclear bomb and even thinking on its production are forbidden from Islamic point of view.This is one of those times when I want to know why he says so. What's the justification for a ruling that even thinking of producing nuclear weapons is haram? I have no doubt that would be a fascinating conversation, one I'd like to have.
As every year, the Birthday is followed by Veteran's Day. All the best to all of you who have served in uniform, and thank you for all you have done.
Dalrymple gets a positive review here. He has a way of turning a phrase, so as to both praise the person of, yet totally dissent from the view of, an ideological opponent:
[J. S. Mill] was inclined to suppose, as many thinkers are, that most people either were or could become with sufficient education, like himself. In a way this does him honor, for he modestly supposed also that his own gifts were neither great nor exceptional, but this led him to imagine what is not very probable, that there would come a time when most people would be as deeply concerned with the moral foundations of human conduct as he. This in turn suggests that his knowledge of human beings in walks of life different from his own was not very extensive.That's a brutal charge -- 'Mill was too ignorant of humanity to write about human nature' -- but delivered in a manner befitting a gentleman. We'd do well to emulate that courtesy.
Here's a video my wife thought you'd enjoy.
The cool thing is that the horse is doing all the work. The rider, as the voice-over explains, doesn't know how to cut the buffalo herd. But the horse does.
Last month, a boy asked my 16-year-old daughter to his school's homecoming dance. She agreed to go, bought a new dress and made a hairdresser appointment.
The boy never bought tickets to the dance. Neither did his friends. They decided that attending homecoming wouldn't be cool, and instead planned to just dress up that night, go out for dinner and then hang out with their dates at someone's house.
My daughter was disappointed, as were her girlfriends. They would have loved to have been taken to the dance, to show off their dresses, to see and be seen.
At 6 p.m. on the night of the boycotted dance, about a dozen of these girls and their dates gathered in one boy's backyard so a mob of parents could photograph them. I found it dispiriting. My heart went out to those girls -- all dressed up with no place to go.
I live in suburban Detroit, but this phenomenon is playing out elsewhere in the country, too -- a telling example of the indifference with which young people today view dating, chivalry and romance.
Studies, of course, show more young people skipping romantic relationships in favor of "hooking up." As teens socialize in packs, forgo one-on-one dating and trade sex nonchalantly, it is no stretch to find that boys are asking girls to homecoming and not bothering to take them there.
Pre-deployment briefs.
Right before Lancelot went on his latest trip, he reminded me that the Dark Prince was coming home on Friday. I must have had a blank look on my face because he then reminded me why: Dark Prince's pre-deployment brief the following day. A brief that I would have to attend with my son without my husband.
Looking back, I'm now of the opinion that my husband planned to be out of town so as to avoid the whole nightmare....
For starters, my son is not very skilled in the social graces. Some might even assume that he was raised by wolves. Arriving at the brief, it began.
"Mom, I have to go talk to someone."
Me: "Oh, okay, I'll be right here."
This, in case you didn't know, is his way of avoiding even the admittance that he has a mom (let alone introducing her).
Nope, not the Dark Prince, he was hatched from an egg.
A house isn't a home until you can write "I love you" in the dust. I just ask that you don't date it.
To all those who said the “surge” in U.S. forces in Iraq was doomed to fail, a look at the latest results should be instructive, if not humbling.
Start with American military casualties. For October (36 Americans killed in action), they were the lowest for any month since February 2004, more than three years ago.
U.S. casualties have now declined for five consecutive months even as American forces press the fight against al-Qaeda-in-Iraq terrorists and move out of their mega-bases to operate from security outposts in Iraqi neighborhoods.
Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno reported the following arms captures: “Over 37,000 pounds of explosives, a thousand gallons of nitric acid used to make homemade explosives, over 2,000 artillery rounds and over 500 rockets, 136 assembled explosively formed penetrator IEDs (improvised explosive devices), along with 359 copper discs used to make more EFPs, and hundreds of rifles, grenades, anti-tank weapons and suicide vests.” Odierno attributed these arms captures largely to tips from local Iraqi civilians.
Iraqi civilian deaths are down more than 60 percent since their peak last December, from 3,000 that month to just over 700 in October.
The incidence of mass-casualty terrorist attacks (truck bombs, car bombs and the like) in Iraq's capital city is down 75 percent in recent months.
Overall, the declining numbers of terrorist attacks and security incidents represent, as Gen. Odierno noted, “the longest continuous decline in attacks on record.”
Turn your back on them for a few months, and you start getting emails asking if they can't please just go buy a little something...
Watch how he seems to float at the trot. That's the old warhorse blood in the Friesian. Goliath, from Ladyhawke, was one of that breed -- you can see the resemblance in how the colt moves. No doubt he's a beauty, or will be in a couple of years.
Not sure what they were thinking with their musical selection for that video, though.
The fact that a right-wing blogger spews serious accusations based on complete idiocy is ordinarily not worthy of comment. That happens virtually every day. That is what the right-wing blogosphere is, more or less; it is why it exists.
...I'm honestly interested in knowing: what else besides abject stupidity can explain this? I mean that as a serious question.
Most of Col. Boylan's claims of inaccuracy in what I wrote are grounded in his invention of "facts" that I did not assert. I never, for instance, said that Steve Schmidt (the Bush/Cheney P.R. flack and ex-Cheney "communications" aide) was currently on staff with the U.S. military in Iraq. Rather, I linked to an interview given to Hugh Hewitt by Mike Allen of The Politico, in which Allen reported that it was Schmidt who was sent to Iraq to improve the political efficacy of the U.S. military's war communications in Iraq...
Throughout this year, the U.S. military in Iraq has become staffed with pure Republican political hacks -- including long-time Bush/Cheney P.R. hack Steve Schmidt and former White House aide Gen. Kevin Bergner. These are the most partisan and politically-motivated people around shaping U.S. military conduct. And it shows, as the Army's behavior in the Beauchamp case is exactly what one would expect from an increasingly politicized, Republican-controlled division of the right-wing noise machine.
As the Beauchamp/TNR "story" demonstrates, the U.S. military is using the standard GOP/right-wing model for trying to shape the news in politically beneficial ways -- feeding supposedly secret and classified documents to Matt Drudge; using The Weekly Standard as its primary propaganda outlet, and working hand-in-hand with their apparent comrades in the most extremist precincts of the right-wing blogosphere. From the beginning, the U.S. military has refused to answer questions from the press, cut off The New Republic, cited classified and secrecy doctrines to suppress information, and all the while, worked secretly through selective leaks and back-channels with the most rabid right-wing partisans to shape the story in the most politicized way possible. Doesn't that merit at least some commentary?
The overt politicization of our military in Iraq -- working closely and in secret only with Drudge, The Weekly Standard and right-wing blogs -- seems at least as important as the monumental issue of what Franklin Foer knew and when he knew it.
Beauchamp, with the Army's encouragement, had agreed to talk to The Washington Post and Newsweek on Sept. 6, but canceled the interviews at the last minute at Foer's urging. Foer said yesterday that "given everything we have on the line, we have a right to have this exclusive line of communication with him."
The type of hostility, pseudo-intimidation, and stonewalling expressed by Col. Boylan here (in the emails of undisputed authenticity) is the type to which reporters are frequently subjected when they step out of line, particularly with war reporting. That is one reason why so few of them ever do.
And just survey the long list of media outlets and journalists which have been the target of swirling, right-wing lynch mob campaigns for perceived offenses in reporting about the war -- The Associated Press, Reuters, Eason Jordan, The New Republic, Ashleigh Banfield. There is a clear attempt to create strong disincentives for any journalist or commentator to do anything other than cheerlead loudly and deferentially.
It’s not a huge leap to jump from viewing conservatives as those for whom ‘lying is second nature, if not first’, who make up the most corrupt Administration in history, who trash the Constitution and who stop at nothing to get their way to accusing them of committing violence. C’mon, if the GOP was willing to steal the 2000 and 2004 elections, beating up a woman who dares to speak truth to power is no big deal. Once you tell yourselves enough times that the right hates women, especially women with brains, it’s a small step to figuring they’re no longer satisfied with abusing women verbally. Since the right obviously isn’t happy limiting themselves to violating our civil rights on a daily basis, it makes sense that they’d turn to beating up their critics.
False story, but accurate… because every conservative is a potential mugger. If they haven’t yet turned to beating up their critics, it’s just a matter of time.
Cassandra asks a hard question: What do we owe the children of our dead? The answer seems self-evident; and the sad thing is, we all know that there is not one chance that they'll get it out of American society.
Talk about a beating. Man alive.
Nobody likes being on the wrong side of serious security arrangements. We've got Ugandans here too. They are a little distant, but that's because they're not thinking of you as a person -- they're thinking of you as a potential suicide bomber, who will kill them first if you kill anyone. If they're a bit cold, it's because they're scared of you, and everyone else they see, and they see ten thousand people a day who might be coming to kill them.
It's respectable enough to regret the necessity for such things, and to hate that we have to treat each other -- even fellow Americans -- with suspicion. I hate it myself.
But it's not the guards. It's the terrorists.
UPDATE: The post is gone, which is a shame because the 197 wrathful comments were a joy. Greyhawk captured the post, however.
Wretchard asks how far you can run without a support structure. The answer really depends on who "you" are, and where you are. It is possible to live off the land, if not easy to do so; and don't miss his story of the Japanese soldier who fought his war for thirty years after surrender.
I'm fascinated by this concept. I'm accustomed to military contractors, being one myself; but watching State do what MPRI does is really interesting. We know why the story is in the news now, but it's still bigger news than most people realize. My sense is that this story is correct: State and CIA are both so tied to Blackwater in Iraq that they hit a period where they were stalled because it was stalled.
That's something that shouldn't be allowed to happen; but it's not clear why it did happen. If State were guarding its own convoys with internally owned security assets, it wouldn't allow them to become shut down. The separation here is artificial -- State needs these assets, whether it owns them or contracts them -- but it allows State to plausibly deny responsibility.
For a diplomat, that would be a useful advantage. "It's not me!" he can cry, pointing his finger at the guy he hired to do the job. It won't hurt Blackwater, not in the long run, because the country needs what they've got. It isn't honest, but then, diplomacy often isn't.
The Economist tells us that men die young from chasing girls. It makes a good counterpoint to the discussion on socialized medicine, below. The concept at work there applies also here -- smoking or drinking can reduce your lifespan, and incur costs that spread beyond yourself; but, because you died young, you're saving society from other costs that it would incur on your behalf if you lived to an old age. This includes a vast array of medical expenses (15 pills a day for forty years, numerous operations, etc) as well as retirement/pension benefits.
There are then two questions. The lesser one is the one we've asked here: If there are social costs either way, why not let people be 'drunk or sober, just as they please'?
The bigger question: Aren't women worth dying for? I always thought so.
Greyhawk couldn't make it out here a week ago, but he did come by last night. It was a pleasant dinner. He and I turn out to have a lot more in common than you'd expect, and I greatly enjoyed the evening. He has some good stories, including even some horse stories pertaining to his sister's family, that you've not heard yet. If you run into him, pry them out. :)
We've talked about the famous Zimbardo study before, where people were divided into prisoners and prisonkeepers, and immediately became bestial. If you remember the discussion, you will still find this article to be interesting -- just skip down to "the shocking events of the SPE..." and following.
The author concludes:
People, moreover, are not all alike. The research described by Zimbardo shows a surprising level of bad behaviour in the experimental situations, but nothing like uniformly bad behaviour. First, there are active perpetrators and fearful but humane collaborators. Both of these are morally defective, but in different ways. Finally, there are whistle-blowers who do have the strength to challenge the system, and Zimbardo devotes his final chapter to the characteristics of such people. So he himself knows that the individual does matter, and he is actually very interested in asking not only how situations can be better designed but also how people can be brought up to be good actors in bad situations.This is the whole point of virtue ethics: to create the kind of man who rises above his situation, who does what is right because it is right. Yet, as Aristotle noted, it takes "the proper upbringing" to create such a man. You must put him in the right kind of situation in order to train him to object to, and reform, the wrong kind.
One particularly chilling example involves schoolchildren whose teacher informs them that children with blue eyes are superior to children with dark eyes. Hierarchical and vindictive behaviour ensues. The teacher then informs the children that a mistake has been made: it is actually the brown-eyed children who are superior, the blue-eyed inferior. The behavior simply reverses.All ethical systems have to either struggle with that problem, or ignore it; they have to endorse the idea that the great are good, as Maoism did, or else try to remind the great that they are also sinners, as Catholicism does. That is one sense in which Catholicism is categorically better than Maoism.
"For my vow," said the Templar, "our Grand Master hath granted me a dispensation. And for my conscience, a man that has slain three hundred Saracens, need not reckon up every little failing, like a village girl at her first confession upon Good Friday eve."Then, of course, there is the problem of bad men: for just as the worst situation does not produce universal viciousness, so there are some men who will not turn to virtue even in the best of times and places. The world is what it is, and humanity is, and at last we can only do the best that we can.
Something I wish I'd understood earlier in life is how much my parents loved me. It's something you don't comprehend until you are a parent yourself; there just is not a comparable experience in life. Even romantic love, which can send a man into the greatest heights or make him long for death, is not of the same quality as the love of a parent.
As a result, I was as this young man is, always headed out the door. I'm sorry for that.
The second part of that series is now up. As I noted at BlackFive, the MILF and the AFP held a joint medical operation this week. What Colonel Maxwell wanted to create, is happening just as he wanted it to happen.
It's interesting to watch a COIN operation that is hitting on all cylinders. We're starting to see the early formations of this kind of potential in Iraq with the Anbar Awakening and -- even more -- with the Concerned Citizens' Program outside Anbar. It's still at a much earlier phase, but then, we don't have the investment in Iraq that we have in the RP. We've been there, in one form or another, for a hundred years.
I'm sorry I haven't had time to do the usual analysis and thought pieces. I'd like to do more of that, but they keep me quite busy over here.
On the other hand, I do have a good piece to offer you. The Joint BlackFive-PMI Embed to the Philippines series has begun, and will run in three parts this week at the Long War Journal. The other great journal of COIN theory, Small Wars Journal, put it at the top of their midweek reading list.
Part II should be up soon, and Part III on Friday.
Elliott claimed the alleged attack took place near the corner of 39th Street and Park Avenue. He said that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and had neither a purse nor jewelry, leading to his speculation that "this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging."
"Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own?" he asked. "Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we're winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?"
"When Sharon Keller barred the courthouse doors to lawyers for Michael Richard, she killed Mr. Richard as surely as if she had put a bullet into his head on the courthouse steps. There can be very little doubt that, had Keller not acted as she had, Mr. Richard would be alive today."
Congratulations to Uncle Jimbo of BLACKFIVE for his first starring role in a feature film.
Speaking of unnecessary force, there is a good post today on the Knights Templar at the Volokh Conspiracy. It treats a new book that shows how the legal process used to destroy the Order was known to be based on false charges.
Greyhawk notices that unnecessary force can hurt you. Just ask the Madhi Army. Bonus situational awareness: guess which unit's AO this news is from?
Cold Steel has a new Bowie knife design, the "Natchez." I'm trying to decide if it represents an improvement over its older Bowie design, the "Laredo." I think the blade shape looks more efficient, but the overall length may push it past the point at which the blade is managable for most people. (You can ignore the absurd prices listed at the bottoms of those pages; the Laredo will run you around a hundred bucks if you buy one off eBay, and the Natchez, though brand new, you can have for not much more than half what they suggest.)
Unnecessary force? Could be. If I had one, I'd test it out properly and let you know. Since I don't, I'll open the floor for comments.
Miss Ladybug has a book review that might be of interest to you.
The wags at Arts & Letters Daily linked to this article with the following poem:
Red sky at night,Which, by the way, is connected in a way that might not be immediately obvious with this article on dieting. The point is -- how much is "scientific consensus" actually worth in the short term?
Sailor's delight.
Red sky at morning?
It's global warming.
Dr Fraser said: “He managed to go through three bottles of my finest before we ran out of that, but that got us through until the bottle shop opened.
My birthday starts in about three hours here, or seven hours there. I'll be spending part of it working, of course, but for part of it I'm going to meet up with Greyhawk of the Mudville Gazette. As you know, Hawk and I served together in Easy Company, Milbloggers. He says we'll celebrate by harmonizing "Dog Face Soldier" over some non-alcoholic beer (thanks to General Order #1, still in force after all these years).
That sounds like it could be OK, actually.
According to Army data, the overall attrition rate for captains averaged 12.2 percent from 1999 to 2007. But the estimated captain deficits for the past year were pronounced in some fields that require heavy deployments, such as military intelligence, where the Army is short 10
percent; transportation, where the gap reaches 21 percent; and aviation, where the shortfall is 11 percent.
Army officials said the projected officer shortage is mainly the result of the Army's plan to add 65,000 active-duty soldiers to its ranks -- including more than 6,000 captains and majors -- by 2010.
...Army surveys show that the bonuses would persuade 40 to 55 percent of captains who intended to leave to sign new contracts. The Army's goal is for 85 percent of those eligible to stay on, either taking the bonus or another incentive such as attending graduate school or selecting their next post. About 600 of the 900 captains who chose incentives other than bonuses picked graduate school.
...Army officials acknowledge that many eligible captains -- those promoted to that rank on or after April 1, 2002 -- would have stayed regardless. They say that they will not know whether the incentives are attracting officers who would have left until at least 70 percent sign up.
The officials said that while $35,000 might tilt wavering captains toward staying, it is unlikely to change the minds of those fundamentally opposed to three more years with likely war-zone duty.
