Cold Chisel

Not the usual around here, but ya never know what people will like.

"Khe Sanh," the unofficial Aussie anthem, or so I'm told by highly reliable sources¹:

"Shipping Steel," trucking the outback

For breakfast fans

¹My best Aussie drinking buddy, if you must know.

Kevin Drum: The NRA Is Right This Time

There are plenty of gun-control measures I'd support. Banning high-cap magazines, for one. But banning gun sales to anyone who's ever caught the FBI's attention? No thanks. Senate Democrats have finally put me in the position of agreeing with the NRA. Nice work, folks.

It's been a stunning week, watching Democrats declare that due process needs to be permanently suspended for gun sales. It's clear that the right to keep and bear arms isn't even a second-class right in their view: it's a privilege, one they feel the American people have proven they deserve to lose.

How can you square this with the oath you took as a Senator, though? Even if you believe -- as Hillary Clinton has argued -- that Heller was wrongly decided, the Constitution is really firm on due process. 'We have to get rid of due process' is the very next thing to 'We should have the power to make whatever rules we want for the Good of the State.'

Does Anyone at DHS Actually Speak American English?

From a Free Beacon report:

Government agencies should employ “American English instead of religious, legal and cultural terms like ‘jihad,’ ‘sharia,’ ‘takfir’ or ‘umma,’” states the June 2016 report by the Council’s countering violent extremism subcommittee....

The DHS report stated that to avoid a confrontational “us versus them” stance in public efforts to counter Islamic radicalization, government programs should use the term “American Muslim” instead of “Muslim American.”

In that language we call "American English," there's an important distinction between the noun and the adjective. The noun is supposed to refer to what the thing essentially is, and the adjectives usually refer to less important qualities. If the idea is to avoid an 'us versus them' stance, "Muslim American" suggests that these are people who are first and foremost Americans. "American Muslim" suggests that they are essentially Muslims, and only accidentally American.

Likewise, while plain speaking is good, it's difficult to discuss concepts without naming them. I don't see any reason to believe that anyone can become an expert at 'countering violent extremism' today without understanding concepts like sharia or takfiri behaviors. You can say, "It is wrong to try to replace a Constitutional system with a system of religious law," and that's fine. But it doesn't get at why this particular religious law is especially pernicious, or why it's popular in certain regions from which we draw our Islamic immigrants. Just what is driving the conflict disappears behind a veil, as if Catholics might be just as likely to forward a scheme of replacing the Constitutional system with church law.

Rather, it is exactly the fact that sharia can't be changed by human beings that makes it attractive in the lawless regions like Afghanistan or Somalia. In those contexts, sharia is a standard against which you can judge the behavior of the warlords. Otherwise, all you've got is "The law is what I say it is, and the taxes you owe me are what I say they are." The fact that no warlord can change the law is really attractive in those particular contexts.

That same unchangeable quality a real problem in our context. Sharia taken seriously declares that our entire system of government is illegitimate, indeed an offense to God. So too large parts of our way of life. And it can't be changed to accommodate us, not by anyone ever.

That's a huge conflict with the American way that isn't present in other systems of religious law.

This could be fun

From Powerline via Maggie's Farm, a proper response to bureaucrats, Alinsky-style.

That Doesn't Mean Anything! These Guys Were Trained!

Well, except for Christy.

Time for a Convention of the States

Texas Governor Greg Abbot is on point.

Count me in. He's been talking since the spring, but things aren't getting better. More and more, it looks like disaster in the fall -- no matter which way this election goes. We don't have to do this. We can walk.

Can We Stop This?

John McCain is wrong: Barack Obama is at most indirectly responsible for ISIS. Anything inspired by ISIS, he's indirectly indirectly responsible for.

Guilt can be divided without being lessened, it's true. But Orlando wasn't done by Christians, it wasn't done by the NRA, and it wasn't done by Barack Obama either.

Not that Obama is covering himself with glory today, doing his best to blame Orlando apparently on people like me.

A pox on all their houses.

Well, It's Almost Friday ...

Grim introduced us to Mr. Fowler recently. Here's one that seems appropriate after Range 15, and, well, everything else.

Now, a little Tullamore DEW would be perfect.

...

Update: Well, why stop with just one?

Cheers!

Two From Facebook

Both with a Range 15 theme:

Trump was Wrong About the Troops

I went out with some guys distributing bricks of cash myself. The things were plastic wrapped and sealed -- you couldn't have stolen any without stealing the whole brick, or cutting it open in a very obvious way. Accountability was always in force. You personally signed for every brick you took, and you had to get signatures from the Iraqis you turned it over to. If they later claimed not to have gotten it, that would be the end of the gravy train for them. But it also would have resulted in an intense investigation of the last guy who had positive control of the money, and his unit mates.

Of course tons of that money got stolen, once the Iraqis had custody of it. Just like any tribal leader who is "a river to my people," a lot of the river gets routed into his own fields. Plenty of the money got stolen. It just didn't get stolen by us.

Here a special operator tells his own version of the same story.

In 2008, while deployed as a special operator in western Afghanistan, I led a team of fifteen marines and nearly seven hundred Afghan commandos stationed on a remote firebase near the Iranian border. We were almost entirely reliant on an operational fund, something akin to cerp. We used these funds to buy our food and fuel and to hire local Afghan tribesmen to provide base security. Hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through our hands. Our position was in no way unique. Every special-operations team in Afghanistan managed the same kinds of funds. Once, when security in the village just outside our gate became a problem, one of the marines I worked with negotiated a deal with the local village elders to use our operational fund to convert an abandoned Olympic-size, Soviet-era swimming pool into a reservoir to irrigate several acres of parched fields. Within a few weeks, those fields were ready for planting, and the threat to our base had disappeared.

Two and a half million American men and women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Center for Public Integrity, some hundred and fifteen military personnel since 2005 have been convicted of committing theft, bribery, or contract-rigging crimes, involving a total of fifty-two million dollars. This is a disappointing fact, but it does not cancel out the ingenuity shown by the soldiers, many of them only in their twenties, who have ethically managed budgets equivalent to that of a small town or medium-sized business.

He goes on to talk about what he wished Trump had discussed instead. But Trump can't talk about those things, because he doesn't know anything about them.

Southern Baptists are Done with the Confederate Flag

NPR buries the lede on this one, preferring to talk about the Southern Baptist Convention's support for resettling Syrian refugees. But of course the Southern Baptist Convention supports that: there are massive Federal contracts available for churches who will help settle Syrian refugees. There is just too much money available for any mainstream denomination not to want to play. Even those without the theological justifications that Christianity offers would be inclined to get in on the payday.

No, that's to be expected. What's really surprising is this:

Southern Baptists also weighed in on another emotional issue at the intersection of race, religion and violence. Almost exactly a year after the murder of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., set off a debate over the Confederate battle flag, the Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution calling on "our brothers and sisters in Christ to discontinue the display of the Confederate battle flag as a sign of solidarity with the whole Body of Christ, including our African-American brothers and sisters."...

During the debate over the wording of the resolution, Pastor James Merritt of Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Ga., delivered an emotional speech calling for the removal of language stating that for some, the display of the flag serves not as a "symbol of hatred, bigotry and racism, but as a memorial to loved ones who died in the Civil War."

"I am the great-great-grandson of two men who fought in the Confederate army," Merritt told the convention. "I cannot undo what they fought for. But they cannot undo what I wish they had done, and what I pray we will do today."

The language was stricken. Baptist Press reported that the resolution passed by a "wide margin."

The shooting in Charleston last year changed people's hearts. One wonders if the Orlando shooting will have a similar effect. And, if so, on whom.

Thank God for That

From an article headlined "Harry Reid kills assault weapons ban":

Virtually the entire press corps frothed at the mouth when the president, grandstanding at the State of the Union speech, thundered that a list of gun violence victims “deserve” a vote on these sorts of measures... [but] the Senate leader decided he couldn’t prevail upon his members to cast a vote.

Cowardly? Maybe. Or maybe the votes aren’t there and to maximize his chances on other measures he took the assault weapons ban out. That is the nature of the legislative process. But at least we can dispense with the notion that Republicans are standing in the way of assault weapons ban legislation.

There's a huge difference in the 1994 law and a similar law proposed today. In 1994, so-called 'assault weapons' were a minor part of sales, even compiling all the weird things that the Clinton bill coupled together like pump-action shotguns with heat shields over the barrels. You'd go to a gun show, and there'd be like two tables selling anything like that. The rest sold long rifles with wooden stocks, hunting shotguns, or handguns.

A decade and a half since 9/11, the AR models are the most popular rifles in America. There are nine million of them in private hands. The US Army is barely a million all told, Reserve and National Guards added in. And 40+% of them are Southerners, since the all-volunteer military came to be. Close to seven in ten are Republicans. You'd be risking a mutiny to ask it, and you ought to be: you'd be running into the teeth of the most plain and obvious reading of the 2nd Amendment, to which all these soldiers took an oath.

I keep hearing that you can't deport 11 million people. Well, maybe, although people have to eat and that means they have to go out in public to find work and buy food. Guns don't have to do anything. If you grandfather 9 million ARs -- and all the other so-called 'assault weapons' -- you might as well not pass the law. But if you pass a law with confiscation, how are you going to find them? Who's going to come and get nine million rifles from families who don't want to give them up?

Thank God the votes aren't there.

I Suddenly Realize This Guy is Very Brave

Milo Yiannopoulos, I mean. He's going to get himself killed speaking his mind like this.

I like that in a man.

I've seen him talk before, and I haven't really been impressed with what I've heard. But I don't care -- he's speaking his mind when it's dangerous. Not just financially, either. There's a litany of secular saints who have gone down before the knives -- and axes, in one famous case -- of Muslim radicals who want to silence speech like this. He's very literally putting his life on the line by talking this way.

So.

Good for him. As I can, I will support him even though I don't always agree with him. As I can, I will defend his right to do this. Literally, if the opportunity presents itself.

Thoughts on Range 15

Don't appear to have been any shootings at Range 15 showing theaters tonight. It wasn't for a lack of guns. I haven't been in a room with that many gun-toting men and women since the last time I went to church in Baghdad.

Well, or the DFAC. Probably it was the DFAC.

There was a lot of laughing out loud at the movie. It was very much military humor, deployment humor. Some of it was black humor, but a lot of it captured the heavily sexual banter that young men deployed without real outlets develop over time.

I completely understand now why there were not able to get the movie rated. It doesn't fit the rating scale. There is no category for it. Normally a movie rated high for violence is an R, and a movie rated higher than that is rated X for sex. This movie was neither more violent than an R movie, nor were the sex scenes particularly explicit at all. The reason it couldn't be rated was that they said and did things that are just forbidden. I would have liked to have seen the faces of any of the raters who may have encountered it.

My guess is that it will become a cult favorite among deploying soldiers and Marines. It will probably be forbidden by General Order, and have to be passed around like other contraband. On the last day before rotating out of country, the commander will elect to go to bed early so his guys can have a screening without him taking official notice. They'll laugh, even though they've seen it many times before. Not because the jokes are funny -- many of them are terrible -- but because they understand them.

After the credits, they showed a nice little 'making of' video that ends with Nick Palmisciano of Ranger UP giving a brief speech about his hopes that this movie will create new lanes of understanding between military members and civilians.

Having seen it, I'm pretty sure it won't. :)

Heh

"Veterans Put Their Own Names on Kill List and Send to ISIS."

By the way, tonight Range 15 is on in hundreds of theaters nationwide. Any bets on whether any ISIS supporters choose one of those for a shooting attack?

Domestic Violence & Female Privilege

A woman runs down her boyfriend after finding out he has HIV. Are you as inclined to convict her as you would be if it were a man running down his wife?

D. C. McAllister points out that domestic violence is not just male-on-female, but we definitely don't take it as seriously when it's female-on-male.

Now, as Hillary has reminded us time and again, women are equal to men and should be treated the same. She’s right, which is why she should be called out for allegedly abusing her husband. If Johnny Depp can be held to account for throwing a cell phone at Amber Heard’s face and bruising her below her eye, then shouldn’t the same media exam be given to Hillary, who is running for president?

An allied point, related to the post below. A domestic violence abuser is forbidden from possessing a firearm, and it is a felony to transfer one to them. Doesn't the logic behind that law make it even more obviously true that we shouldn't transfer command of the US military to a domestic violence abuser?

Of course, like the Orlando shooter, she has not been convicted in a court of law for domestic violence. Like his wife, her husband has reasons not to press charges. If this is a standard we care about, though, does it really make sense to put that much weight on the abused spouse? They may often be too afraid to bring charges. It's also true that abuse creates a twisted and damaged emotional relationship that can cause an abused spouse not to want to bring charges. Or, like Bill Clinton, they could be swayed by material or political interests. Whatever the case, the state often steps in to prosecute these sorts of cases where evidence exists of domestic violence -- for example, a published book giving an account of the evidence in the name of a sworn officer of the law, as in this case.

One might say that Bill Clinton had it coming if anyone did. One might say that about the boyfriend in the video. One might just make a general claim that men often have it coming. Doesn't that come, though, at the sacrifice of the principle of equality before the law? Should we sacrifice that principle because we don't really believe in it? Or should we uphold it even though it means punishing people more harshly than is suggested by what appears to be a common sense that female-on-male violence is not as bad?

The AR-15 is a Weapon of Equality

I suppose I should mention Gersh Kuntzman's instantly famous declaration of fear, which is getting a massive amount of play on social media since he published it yesterday.

It feels like a bazooka — and sounds like a cannon....

The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary case of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.

Even in semi-automatic mode, it is very simple to squeeze off two dozen rounds before you even know what has happened. In fully automatic mode, it doesn’t take any imagination to see dozens of bodies falling in front of your barrel.

He somehow missed that there isn't a fully automatic mode, but among this collection of emoting that isn't surprising.

The AR-15 wasn't actually the weapon used in Orlando. However, the Armalite Rifle ("AR") is the family that has allowed the military to expand women throughout its ranks without abandoning accuracy at range. The Marines teach women to shoot it accurately over multiple shots to 300 meters, a testament to its low recoil and reliable construction.

Over the last 20 years, the Marines have also made a shift to the Body-Mass Index (BMI) standard that they use today. This has led to far smaller male Marines, too, as powerlifters and body-builders can't hold to the BMI standard. For example, I have a 34 inch waist, but am informed that I need to lose over 50 pounds to attain a "normal" bodyweight according to this standard. If I dropped 50 pounds of muscle, a lot of strength-oriented tasks would become harder or even impossible. But I could still put steel on target with an Armalite.

It's a tool of equality, in other words. Edward Abbey said that was common to rifles:

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an "equalizer." Egalite implies liberte. And always will. Let us hope our weapons are never needed — but do not forget what the common people of this nation knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny.

That capacity for human equality is a particularly strong feature of the Armalite rifle. It can weigh as much as four pounds less than the M1 Garand rifle with which we fought World War II. Its recoil is vastly less than the .30-06 round the M1 fired. It is an ideal weapon for the kind of militia use the Founders intended: its operation is immediately familiar to anyone with military training, and it can be conveyed quickly to almost any citizen who might be called up even without military training. Almost any citizen can carry it and use it effectively, quickly, at need.

Of course, those things are also the very reasons it is so dangerous in the hands of a bad person. This particular bad person shouldn't have had access to firearms, under existing law, because of his penchant for domestic violence. The Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968 makes it a felony to transfer a weapon to someone convicted of domestic violence. The only problem is that, somehow, he never got convicted. His wife didn't press charges, just as she seems to have gone to the store to buy the gun and to help him scout out the club (and possibly Disney World). Well, a battered wife has a complex psychological state, and legitimate physical fear, so perhaps we won't press her too closely about all of that. But the FBI also somehow missed any signs of it during their multiple investigations of him.

Just Some Outlaw Tunes, More or Less

"Tom Ames' Prayer," "Pour 'Em Kinda Strong," and "Before the Devil Knows We're Dead."
Seems in keeping with the mood of the Hall lately.

No, Christians Are Not Behind Orlando

Another person who would rather beat up on his fellow Americans than ISIS is ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio.

"You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate," ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted on Sunday morning....

"The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this," Strangio tweeted. "No."

Another ACLU attorney who specializes in religious liberty issues scolded Republican lawmakers who tweeted out their condolences. "Remember when you co-sponsored extreme, anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act?" the ACLU's Eunice Rho tweeted at Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other Republicans,

This is really irritating stuff. How can you even say the phrase "extreme, anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act" in the same context as the Orlando killings? Doesn't that context wash the extremism right out of the 'hey, maybe the government shouldn't force people to bake cakes' bill?

Donald Trump sounds sane today compared to these people. He at least is capable of pointing a finger at the actually responsible party. What caused this terrorist act? "Toxic Masculinity!" "Christians!" "Republicans!" "The NRA!"

Stop it. Get a grip on yourselves. I myself strongly support religious freedom legislation, not just for Christians but for Sikhs or Hindus or Native Americans and, yes, even Muslims. All I ask is what Locke asked, which is that their religion remains wholly voluntary. As long as they are doing it because they want to do it, or not doing it because they don't want to do it, that's all fine. I just draw the line at anyone being made to do, or refrain from doing, something for religious reasons they do not share. It makes sense to let religious bakers elect not to bake a cake. It doesn't make sense to kill people for failing to conform to a religion they aren't even part of.

Furthermore, I don't consider myself to be an "extreme, anti-LGBT" person for believing that this is a reasonable principle for sorting out religious differences. In fact, I'm not even thinking of LGBTs when I arrive at the principle. I'm thinking about political philosophy and the rights of man. This is one of those rights. Our country's entire purpose is to guarantee these rights. I don't care if you don't like it.

Nevertheless I will kill or die to prevent any American from being killed by a terrorist. That's another principle I have, and it's another one that I didn't come to while thinking about LGBTs. I came to it for other reasons, but it likewise applies to them just the same. If our enemies come for you, I will fight for you. That you may be gay doesn't matter at all to the operation of this principle. As much as the ACLU (and Amanda Marcotte) seem to have forgotten it, our real enemies are not other Americans.  Remember the rattlesnake.

Ah, Amanda Marcotte

I had largely forgotten that Amanda Marcotte existed. How nice to see that she hasn't changed a bit.

Every time feminists talk about toxic masculinity, there is a chorus of whiny dudes who will immediately assume — or pretend to assume — that feminists are condemning all masculinity, even though the modifier “toxic” inherently suggests that there are forms of masculinity that are not toxic.

So, to be excruciatingly clear, toxic masculinity is a specific model of manhood, geared towards dominance and control. It’s a manhood that views women and LGBT people as inferior, sees sex as an act not of affection but domination, and which valorizes violence as the way to prove one’s self to the world.

For obvious political reasons, conservatives are hustling as fast as they can to make this about “radical Islam,” which is to say they are trying to imply that there’s something inherent to Islam and not Christianity that causes such violence.

Do you see what she did there? She did exactly the thing she just accused her opponents of doing one paragraph earlier. The modifier "radical" and the modifier "toxic" are performing the same function, whatever function that is. Either it's true that the modifier 'inherently suggests' that there are forms that aren't radical or toxic, or it isn't. If it's fair to treat conservatives talking about "radical Islam" as if they were really speaking in a coded way about "Islam," then it's just as fair for your opponents to assume you mean the same thing.

If I called her "whiny" for doing what she just called her opponents "whiny" for doing, she would say that was a sexist remark coming from me but not from her.

The Largest Mass Shooting in American History

It wasn't Orlando, actually.

THE LARGEST MASS SHOOTING IN US HISTORY HAPPENED December 29,1890. When 297 Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota were murdered by federal agents & members of the 7th Cavalry who had come to confiscate their firearms “for their own safety and protection”. The slaughter began after the majority of the Sioux had peacefully turned in their firearms.

It was a little less cold blooded than the post makes it sound, but quite brutal all the same. The gunfight broke out when one Lakota man refused to turn in his arms. Twenty-five soldiers were killed in the battle that erupted when they opened fire into the crowd, as not all of the Lakota had yet handed in their guns. At the time it was something the government approved of so much that it awarded twenty Medals of Honor to participants.

Reason Magazine on Creating a Gun Free America

One curse word, for those of you watching at work.

Wretchard on Trump

The most disturbing aspect of recent terror attacks is that despite advance warning the authorities were taken by surprise each time. This serial failure undercuts the administration's claim to competence. This is something the non-expert public understands. Suppose someone came to you claiming he was a brain surgeon. Even if you were not a doctor but had tests only a brain surgeon could answer correctly you could evaluate the "brain surgeon" by giving him one exam and another to the cleaning lady in the hallway. If they scored the same you would begin to suspect the brain surgeon might be fake. In fact if the cleaning lady continued to outscore the "brain surgeon" a rational employer would consider hiring the cleaning lady as head of surgery, which possibly explains the rise of Donald Trump.

Heh.

Jesse James

He was a man, who killed many men.

The song's been done a few times.

Well, maybe he wasn't a hero. But wasn't he a man?

Bang, Bang. Isn't That A Pretty Sound?

Embrace Violence – Two simple words, that when together, build the foundation for all that we know. A minute number of people ever stop to think about the circumstances that surround the very freedoms they spend the majority of their lives enjoying. Not the main stream core freedoms that our country was founded on, rather the diminutive pieces of thread that weave together to form the very fabric that holds our great nation together. Each day passing as the last, each day taken for granted with little to no thought about how fortunate they really are for having in their lives, those that embrace violence.

In our world there lives a relativity small group of guardians who not only stand ready to do violence on the behalf of others, but actually wait anxiously for the opportunity. Men that live outside the illusion of safety built upon walls of ignorance and denial that is our peaceful existence in this world. Men who would rather dance with the devil in the valley of the shadow of death than sit at a Starbucks, sipping a $10 dollar coffee while contemplating whether their skinny jeans are adequately squeezing all available testosterone into their systems in hope of fulfilling their latest desire of obtaining a beard.

For this chosen group, violence is the answer.

These are my people. Does that make me a bad man, or a good man? Or just a man? Maybe, as Edward Abbey said, that's honor enough.

The Smell of Victory

They're smelling it.

And they just don't understand what is going to happen if they follow through.

Orlando & LA

I don't have much to say about this, but somehow I've been talking about it most of the day. Lone Wolf terrorists have two quite distinct profiles. Most of them are white supremacists with criminal histories that built ties to criminal organizations like the Aryan Brotherhood. I'll bet the LA case turns out that way. The rest are Islamic supremacists with ties -- sometimes merely sympathies -- with terrorists. The Orlando shooter was clearly one of these.

These are solvable problems, but only if we square up on what we're dealing with. It's two separate, similar, supremacist problems. Neither "all gun owners" nor "all Muslims" nor "all white people" are the problem. It's a narrow, easily targeted selection of folks who cause almost all of these issues.

C'mon Brexit

These are our brothers overseas. Of course, I was on the side of Scotland separating from Britain too. The bigger governments are always worse, but you have to balance that against the danger of invasion from abroad. Right now, Europe couldn't invade Vanderbilt. Small is the way to go.

Rolling Stone: Democrats Will Learn All The Wrong Lessons from Sanders

They have no choice, because they never understood him to start with.

Nobody saw his campaign as an honest effort to restore power to voters, because nobody in the capital even knows what that is. In the rules of palace intrigue, Sanders only made sense as a kind of self-centered huckster who made a failed play for power... [T]he theme of this election year was widespread anger toward both parties, and both the Trump craziness and the near-miss with Sanders should have served as a warning. "The Democrats should be worried they're next," he says.

But they're not worried. Behind the palace walls, nobody ever is.

Petraeus to Launch Gun Control Group

Well, of course. Nobody's more intense about gun control than the Armed Forces.

Veterans Coalition for Common Sense to encourage elected leaders to "do more to prevent gun tragedies." The group will feature veterans from every branch of the military who are urging lawmakers to toughen gun laws, the organization said in a news release.

This group won't accomplish more than giving false narratives to the media for propaganda use. Nevertheless, that's still harmful. Sort of like "only" revealing classified information to your mistress. It's not as bad as putting it on an easily-hacked private server with no proper encryption protocols. But your country won't thank you for it, all the same.

Thunderbolt Iron, Redux

King Tut isn't alone. Here's some American thunderbolt iron.

Ranger UP Addresses Male Body Image

Archaeology Confirms Viking Saga

Archaeologists working in Trondheim in Norway are amazed by the discovery of a human skeleton in the bottom of an abandoned castle well. The skeleton provides evidence that confirms dramatic historical events mentioned in the Sagas....

In 1197 King Sverre Sigurdsson and his Birkebeiner-mercenaries were attacked and defeated in his castle stronghold, Sverresborg, by his rivals, the Baglers. According to the Saga, the Baglers burned down buildings and destroyed the castle’s fresh water supply by throwing one of King Sverre’s dead men into the well, and then filling it with stones.

Now, following a trial excavation in the well, archaeologists can confirm this dramatic story. Archaeologists managed to retrieve part of the skeleton they found in the well in 2014. A fragment of bone produced a radiocarbon date that confirmed that the individual lived and died at the end of the 12th century, the same time as the incident described in the Saga.

Reducing Sexual Assaults: Self Defense Works Best

In a study surprising only in that it comes from Canada, researchers found that women taught to defend themselves suffer fewer sexual assaults.

The four-year study tracked nearly 900 women at three Canadian universities, randomly selecting half to take the 12-hour “resistance” program, and compared them to a second group who received only brochures, similar to those available at a health clinic. One year later, the incidence of reported rape among women who took the program was 5.2 per cent, compared to 9.8 per cent in the control group; the gap in incidents of attempted rape was even wider.

The discomfiting part: Potential victims are still shouldering the burden for their own safety.

I don't see why that should be "discomfiting." I've spent a great deal of my life learning to defend myself, my family, and those around me. I make it a point to always be armed, though often only with a knife, to help ensure that I am always capable of rendering an effective defense. I regard it as a source of pride that I am strong and capable in these areas, and that those I love are safer with me around.

I would regard it as shameful to depend entirely on others for my defense. I would regard it as slavish to accept that my only proper defense was to trust that others wouldn't hurt me.

Far from being discomfited by the thought that I should have a hand in my own defense, I think that taking charge of your own defense is virtuous and ennobling. If I had a daughter, I would hope that I could teach her to do the same.

National Reconnaissance Office Patches are Awesome

Take a look at these mythic beauties.

Not Some Fairytale

Picture this. A Muslim leader reaches out to a group of Christians and invites them to his country. The Christians happily accept the invitation, while the Muslim leader prepares his people for their arrival. This is the first time the two communities have met in an official delegation. Matters of state, politics and religion are the topics of discussion. The two groups see eye-to-eye on most issues, but also agree to disagree on theological issues. If one phrase can best describe their meeting, it is “mutual respect”.

At the end of their talks, the Christians tell the Muslims, “It is time for us to pray”. The problem for the Christians is that there is no church nearby to worship. Instead of letting the Christians pray on the dirty street, the Muslim leader tells the Christians, “You are followers of the one true God, so please come pray inside my mosque. We are all brothers in humanity.” The Christians agree to use the “Islamic space” as their own. A bridge between these religious communities is made in the name of peace and goodwill.

This story is not some fairytale. It is a historical fact (I did, however, make-up quotes based on how the interaction might have played out). The Muslim leader of the story is Prophet Muhammad and the Christians are from Najran, or modern-day Yemen. The event happened in Medina in 631 AD. This moment in time represents one of the first examples of Muslim-Christian dialogue, but more importantly, one of the first acts of religious pluralism in Islamic history.

Now fast forward to 2016 in Damascus, Syria. The city – and much of the Middle East - has plunged into darkness. Pastor Edward Awabdeh leads a prayer in a Church despite threats on his life by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) militant group. Pastor Awabdeh maintains the Christian faith, although many of his religion have fled a country which is now ranked the fifth most dangerous country in the world to be a Christian.

The militant group regularly persecutes religious minorities in the large swathes of Syrian territory it has taken, and its ultimate aim is to destroy all traces of Christianity in the Middle East.

But to put it bluntly, the daily abductions, murders, beheadings and destruction perpetrated by IS fanatics on the vulnerable Christians of the Middle East directly contradict Prophet Muhammad’s vision of an Islamic state.

It doesn't fix everything wrong with Islam's vision of how it relates to Christianity, but this understanding would mark a significant change for the better.

Law and Order

I've written a number of times about my thoughts on the rule of law. Where ordinary people are concerned, the law ought to be a tool for creating a peaceful and harmonious order. That means it should be well considered, and it should be enforced if it has to be. On the other hand, enforcing the law is not an end in itself. Officers of the law should be focused on the peace and harmony, rather than on ensuring that every documented violation of the law is paid for in court.

However, I have also written, I think that those entrusted with the power to enforce the law should be held to the law exactly. The extra power over the lives of others that they are granted should be matched with a stricter standard of personal adherence to the rules they enforce.

Instead one often sees the opposite. No one drives faster than police do, and not just when responding to a call. No one parks illegally more cheerfully than the government vehicle whose driver assumes there is no danger of a ticket. No one abuses the power of their office more readily than an ally of President Obama's, whether her name is Lois Lerner or Hillary Clinton.

It would be one thing to excuse a momentary lapse of judgment from a career official with an otherwise stellar record. It is another when one is excusing a pattern of behavior that was intentional, illegal, and immoral.

In the case of Clinton, as her history proves, there is always another abuse.

My Favorite Part About This is the "Tradition" Argument

The 9th Circuit says there's no Constitutional right to carry a concealed weapon.

OK. Open carry is fine with me.

But my favorite part is the argument:

“The historical materials bearing on the adoption of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments are remarkably consistent,” wrote Judge William Fletcher, going back to 16th century English law to find instances of restrictions on concealed weapons.

Mrs. Clinton made this argument during her recent failure to identify a right to keep and bear arms in the Constitution. She also spoke of "our history from the very beginning of the republic" in terms of identifying restrictions on the carrying of firearms. Nathan Deal said something similar in his veto of campus carry this year.

OK. We had a tradition about what constituted "marriage" too. It lasted from about a thousand years ago until last summer. You remember what you had to say about "tradition" as an argument then?

Not that I'm unwilling to accept such arguments now. I just would like an agreement that we'll accept them across the board.

Hey Boss, You Know You're An Idiot?

Yeah, I know.

I could almost bend my thumb normally today, although it's still bruised as hell, so of course I decided to finish laying in this new gate. Naturally that involved chainsawing the posts, pouring the concrete, stretching the wire, hooking it up to the posts, and hammering the staples.

Cuts off a section of the property that was otherwise enclosed, so as to effectively create a new pasture. Avalon was impressed with her new range, as it was full of grass we've been letting grow with this project in mind.

Also my apple trees. Hopefully her little herd won't steal too much, but as little rain as we've had this year I wasn't going to get much out of them anyway.

Now, excuse me if I have a drink. My hand kind of hurts. Because I'm an idiot.

Congress Must Move to Appoint a Special Prosecutor

The President of the United States just endorsed a woman under investigation by the FBI for corruption and violating national security law. It was bad enough when the prosecutorial decision was going to be made by an office that had donated $75,000 her campaign this year.

Nothing could make clearer that the legitimacy of the law is being thrust aside for political reasons. Nothing could more clearly underline the need for a special prosecutor in this case.

Aware

A neuro-scientist proposes a partial theory of consciousness. It doesn't get at the Hard Problem, but it does offer a suggestion for how consciousness might have come to be, and a predictive model for what sorts of other animals might have it.

The Twelfth of Never

When the State Department was asked when they would turn over to the public Clinton's emails related to her negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, they actually said "November 31st."

D29 points out that this is exactly equivalent to 'the Twelfth of Never,' or at any rate not until after it's of any use to you.

Want to read her aides' emails? How does 75 years from now sound?

Poor Whites Are The Future of Poor Blacks

For now the Clinton campaign is sticking to the rhetorically strong but intellectually weak argument that 'Make America Great Again' means something like 'Restore Racism as a Guiding Principle.' Sooner or later, however, the machine Democrats backing Clinton over Sanders are going to have to grapple with a reality they are refusing to accept. The Washington Post touches the point without recognizing it.

Gallup asks people to rate their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst possible life they could be living and 10 is the best. Crucially, they also ask people to imagine what their lives will look like five years in the future.

Among the poor, whites are the demographic group least likely to imagine a better future for themselves, Graham found. Poor Hispanics were about 30 percent more likely to imagine a better future than poor whites. The difference for poor blacks was even larger: They were nearly three times as likely to imagine a better future than poor whites.

The difference in optimism between poor blacks and poor whites is nearly as big as the difference between the poor and the middle class overall: "The average score of poor blacks is large enough to eliminate the difference in optimism about the future between being poor and being middle class (e.g. removing the large negative effect of poverty)," Graham found....

The past 30 or 40 years have seen striking economic and health gains for non-white families -- in part, this is a result of the rolling back of discriminatory policies that kept minorities locked out of middle-class life. But working-class whites may look back and see no similar pattern of gains, in part because they weren't as broadly discriminated against in the first place.

Part of the optimism gap is indeed because of "a shrinking pie of good jobs for low-skill/blue collar workers," Graham said in an email. "Whites used to have real advantages (some via discrimination) that they no longer have ... they are looking at downward mobility or threats of it, while poor blacks and Hispanics are comparing themselves to parents who were worse off than they."

Here's the problem the Post doesn't see. If you look at discrimination in the workplace '30 or 40 years ago' -- that is, reaching all the way back to the mid-70s -- you can see that almost all of the good for poor minorities to be had from ending workplace discrimination has been had. Forty years ago the blue-collar economy was strong enough that it was willing to pay a premium for its racism. Today, it's quite common here in Georgia for me to see 'help wanted' signs printed only in Spanish. Corporations have learned to compete with each other through globalization, importing foreign workers, and yes, through hiring American minorities who live in poorer neighborhoods (and who thus have lower income requirements, and can take lower wages).

This 'ending of racism' is something corporations have congratulated themselves about quite loudly, preferring to see it as a kind of personal enlightenment. Some of it was that: Coca-Cola markets its role in making Atlanta 'the City too Busy to Hate' back in the Civil Rights era, and they deserve the credit. But much of what has happened since the mid-70s has been done not for moral reasons but because the end of corporate racism meant the opening of whole new fields of action for depressing blue-collar wages.

For now it looks like poor blacks and poor Latinos are on the way up, but the truth is that workers of their class are on the way down. It used to be a worker could raise a family. Then it was true that a married couple could raise families if they both worked. Then it was true that probably only one of them could find work, so it was better if it was the mother raising the kids alone -- then she could at least draw welfare. Now it's lucky, in much of what used to be blue-collar American communities, if either of them can find work.

What all that means is that the despair in poor white communities today is the despair of poor black, Latino, and Asian communities tomorrow. For now it looks rosy only because the last 40 years have been a wealth transfer from poor whites to poor minorities. But the game is grinding to a close: poor whites don't have much left to lose. Over time, the same forces that have been spiritually crushing the poor white community will destroy the hopes of other American poor as well.

This is something that Trump and Sanders both seem to grasp, although they have very different plans for approaching it. Maybe neither plan was much good, or was much of a plan, but they were both at least aware of the problem. The Clinton camp denies that the problem exists.

And no wonder. As proven by her actions while Secretary of State with regard to donations to her foundation, the Clinton camp is government for the highest bidder. The highest bidder can be Russian as readily as American. She is the favorite of the Davos crowd, not just the candidate of Wall Street. She personally negotiated the TPP that she now pretends to oppose, just as her husband is the #1 name associated with NAFTA.

For now, the Democratic machine's racially coded language is masking this reality. The coming pain is the dashing of the rising hopes of American minorities. They will be leveled with poor white Americans in a way they didn't expect: by seeing their hopes and dreams equally diminished.

Clinton gave a speech about the inequality between rich and poor the other day, while wearing a twelve-thousand dollar jacket.

This last week, I've read tons about how big a racist Donald Trump is. Maybe he is. But he's not the one profiting from racism. These racially coded appeals are helping a band of thieves swipe an election, so they can sell the power of their office to the highest bidders.

Good for Bernie

Going to take it to the convention. Sanders supporters are allegedly a non-specific risk to AP reporters for its blatant attempt to depress turnout in the CA elections, but the anger is pretty justified. The media is throwing themselves into Clinton's tank this year.

Meanwhile, California's alienation from Republicans is now so severe that it is sending two Democratic candidates to the general election for US Senate.

Two Young Men Doing Right

The story of two Swedes in America who stopped a rapist and held him for police. The case has gotten some fame for the injustice of the sentence. It's good to reflect on the positive aspect of the young men who stepped up to stop a crime, and to see that the villain did not simply escape.

Trump and the Press: A Metaphor

Kind of an insightful point buried here.

For every ugly or threatening thing Trump has ever said about press, he’s gotten back ten-fold from reporters. If this is war, it’s surely been an asymmetrical one, with Trump tossing stones as the press lofts cruise missiles. Carl Bernstein, the New Republic’s Jamil Smith, and Robert Kagan have called him a fascist. David Remnick, Jill Abramson and Andrew Sullivan have likened him to a demagogue. Dana Milbank, BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith and the Huffington Post have labeled him a racist....

It sounds alarming enough, but the anthropologist in me views the Trump-press contretemps as the endemic and persistent warfare associated with the stylized combat sometimes observed between tribes in the Papua New Guinea Highlands: The two sides pair off, shouting insults and derision at one another, claiming the other side started it. Much noise and many insults are traded, grudges are captured and preserved. Skirmishes break out here and there, followed by temporary truces until the cycle begins anew.

A lot of people pay attention. Only rarely does anybody die.

In Iraq we used to say that "Violence is a form of negotiation." That was to remind us that actual violence, like rockets being shot in our laps or bombs being placed outside our gates or a machinegunning in the night, shouldn't be taken as a commitment to war-to-the-knife. Much more often in that tribal environment, it was an expression of displeasure at something we'd done or were expected to do. With the right negotiating tactics -- which could also include some violence -- we could restore a working relationship.

The metaphor here isn't to war like in Iraq, which was already better than war like in Stalingrad. It's to a stylized form of war in which the consequences have almost completely been replaced by demonstrations. And this is less violent than that: it's a metaphor of what is already just a metaphor of war.

Californian Completion

The California state Senate voted 28-8 Wednesday to exempt itself from the pointless gun-control laws that apply to the rest of the populace. Legislators apparently think they alone are worthy to pack heat on the streets for personal protection, and the masses ought to wait until the police arrive.

Is the Spiking Crime Rate in Some Cities a Function of Incarceration?

For the most part, US crime rates remain very low versus 20 years ago. Some major cities, however, are seeing spikes in violent crime. This has gotten some media attention lately.

So what I wonder about is the downward curve in these BJS figures for incarceration. The prison population seems to have peaked around 2009, and then entered a decline. Federal prison population kept rising for a few more years, but is now on a downward curve too.

I'm not sure how much the overall trend of not locking up as many criminals directly leads to more crime, although it's not implausible prima facie. I'm thinking particularly about the failure to enforce the Federal laws on gun carrying by felons. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, whose city has seen the most famous increase in violent crime, has been calling for more robust prosecution of these violations.

It's the one kind of gun control that the NRA has generally completely supported. Instead of trying to prevent law-abiding citizens from having guns, why not prevent criminals from having guns? On the other hand, there is legitimate concern about the mandatory minimum aspect of the Federal law -- especially the way that the offenses can quickly 'stack' so that a first-time offender is treated as a multiple-time offender. A 25 year mandatory minimum sentence is draconian if the offense is just carrying a gun, even if it is while selling drugs or while a convicted felon.

Of course, it may not be that there's one simple fix. It could just be that the society is trending more chaotic and competitive as economic times get harder. If so, increasing prison populations may merely be a band-aid for the real issue.

Deceptions

An ongoing column on elite lies in the media, this one treating Katie Couric and the State Department's erasures.

By the way, fun report in the AP yesterday evening that the election was over -- right before election day. We'd all heard that the press was going to call it for Clinton tonight no matter how the elections turned out. Apparently they decided they couldn't wait for people to vote.

Dangerous, letting people think for themselves.

A Crack at the Bone-House

It's easy to forget how fragile the human body really is. Most of the time I feel pretty tough. I can lift big weights, I can raise an 800 pound motorcycle with one hand, I can split logs and what have you.

Yesterday, however, I got smacked on the thumb with the fiberglass handle of a mattock I was using. I don't think the finger bones broke, but the thing has swollen up enormously and bruised. It hurts to touch anything. Just one little touch, the contact lasted less than a second, and for a while all my strength is gone. I can't grip anything with that hand.

Such a strange world. You forget how strange, sometimes. This is a minor complaint that will soon heal, I suspect, but it reminds me of how precarious life in the bone-house really is.

It's Obiously Sexist to Run Against Hillary

A New York Times reporter has a question for Bernie.

“What do you say to women that say you staying in the race is sexist because it could get in the way of what could be the first female president?” she asked. It is unclear which women believe that it is sexist for the 74-year-old to continue running for president against Clinton.

Oh, I think it's pretty clear.

"99% of Women Are Happy With Sharia"

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board says that no changes to Islamic law will be tolerated, and that it's totally cool to divorce your wife by text message.

Asked about talaq messages being sent by WhatsApp and SMSes, Zehra told Hindustan Times, “At least the woman has a proof in the form of WhatsApp message or an SMS that she has been divorced. This proof will help her in charting out a new course in life. But in other religions, women are just being abandoned by their husbands. For such women, there is no help forthcoming.”

Indeed, if only women in other faiths had the benefit of a text message to prove their legal status.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

The Islamic State joined world leaders and veterans organizations Saturday in numerous ceremonies throughout the caliphate honoring WWII veterans through mass genocide and unchecked, forcible expansion into neighboring countries.

Sources report that ISIS simply continued its current takfiri doctrine and changed absolutely nothing to pay homage to the intolerance and megalomaniacal ideologies tacitly accepted by most nations almost 80 years ago.

“While they are of the kuffar, we can’t help but admire their methods,” ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani told Duffel Blog. “That whole ‘exterminate the Jews’ and appropriating land thing? I know they would never admit it, but I could tell someone had been studying their Al-Anfal and Prophet Muhammad’s letters.”

From the DB, of course.

Rasmussen Hints Trump Will Win

Nearly a quarter of voters won't say whom they prefer. Why not?

Undecideds in single digits are not unusual at this stage of the election season, but when nearly one-in-four voters say they’ll vote third-party or stay home, it’s time to wonder why.

Are they really looking for another candidate? Are they still trying to make up their minds between Clinton and Trump? Or are they just not telling the truth?...

From general experience when we poll on highly controversial topics (e.g., a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country), it’s not unusual to see a higher number of undecideds. This suggests that many of these respondents don’t want to publicly state their position on this topic, fearful perhaps of being branded anti-PC, just to avoid controversy or maybe, who knows, because they think the NSA is listening in. It wouldn’t be surprising if many voters regard support for Trump that way: It’s the topic you don’t bring up at the dinner table because you don’t want to argue.

Everything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

This is becoming something of a theme. Trump University is a scandal. It really is. But it's dwarfed by the Clinton for-profit-education scandal.

Bill and Hillary Clinton’s attack on Donald Trump over Trump University could invite increased scrutiny of the Clintons’ involvement in a for-profit education scandal in which a company that runs shell colleges paid Bill Clinton $16.5 million to be its pitchman.

While the Clintons were collecting millions, Hillary Clinton’s State Department funneled at least $55 million to a group run by the college company, Laureate Education Inc., according to Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash” as Breitbart reported.

Clinton abruptly resigned from his post as “honorary chancellor” in April 2015 when the disclosure was publicized.

Documents uncovered by Washington-based watchdog Judicial Watch show Laureate Education paid the former president through a “shell corporation” pass-through account that evidently passed State Department scrutiny while Hillary was secretary of state.

Further, in a story showing how for-profit colleges encourage huge student debt, Forbes found the biggest borrower on the for-profit college list is Laureate Education’s Walden University, whose grad students borrowed $756 million in 2014.

Every time I read something and think, "Wow, this guy really should not be President," a little later I find out that the Clintons did the same thing but worse.

A Victory Lap...

...without winning.

F-35 Update: Still No Good

Via Bob on the FOB, who says of it, " It's as if the project was specified and managed by the VA."

This Is Hilarious: Scott Adams Endorses Hillary

I will just post the first three paragraphs to get you started, but the whole thing is great ... in a really dark and twisted, it's better to laugh maniacally than scream in terror sort of way.

I’ve decided to come off the sidelines and endorse a candidate for President of the United States.

I’ll start by reminding readers that my politics don’t align with any of the candidates. My interest in the race has been limited to Trump’s extraordinary persuasion skills. But lately Hillary Clinton has moved into the persuasion game – and away from boring facts and policies – with great success. Let’s talk about that.

This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear.

Step One Is What Now?

I think this looks like an awesome project, but I can't get past the first step.

Questions Candidates Have Trouble Answering

For Trump, as we were just discussing, it's whether his opinion about a judge of Mexican ancestry makes him a racist.

For Clinton, it's whether or not she is prepared to recognize that the Second Amendment guarantees a real right.

Clinton's answer was apparently to reject the idea, adding that if hypothetically it did she would still be free to regulate it. Well, not just her: she thinks that this hypothetical Constitutional right should be subject to regulation by every level of government: the Federal government, yes, but also "states and localities." Not that she admits that there is such a right.

And Did You Mean It, Did You?

Obama calls for an end to Catholic schools, apparently. You can see where he's going with the point he's trying to make, but it seems he didn't think this all the way through.

The Lost Voice of Ancient Britain

A flattering reading of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Chicago Gangsters, Amateur and Professional

The professionals wear suits and hold political office.

H/t: Instapundit.

Oh, Good

Headline: "Elite's AI Created Super Weapons and Started Hunting Players. Skynet is Here."

Amusingly to me, I'd never heard of this game but knew immediately what they were talking about because I played the original back in 1984. I was Elite, once.

Range 15

The Athens, Georgia show has locked in. If any of you are close enough and want to come, I have a few extra tickets.

Erik Erickson: Trump is a Racist

The issue, I think, isn't whether or not Trump is a racist. It's whether there's a home left for non-racist beliefs.

Even the New York Times wrote, “Mr. Trump again steered his pirate ship into uncharted waters, firing off personal and racially tinged attacks against a federal judge”

These were not racially tinged or racially charged attacks.

This was racism plain and simple.

The partisan press has long muddied what is and is not racist in this country and now confronted by actual racism cannot bring itself to use the word lest it be judging Trump.

The attacks are racist. To claim that someone is unable to objectively and professional perform his job because of his race is racism.

We've been talking here about Trump's attempt to build a white voting bloc to match the Democrats' black, Latino and Asian voting blocs. I think it's a terrible idea in the sense that it will formalize and cement hostility among Americans, and make it impossible to pursue common goods instead of tribalism. I also think it will likely work, because it is a kind of division people seem naturally to prefer. We will end up with a politics like Brazil's.

The alternative isn't clear, though. Justice Sotomayor made essentially the same argument Trump is making, albeit with the polarity reversed, in her frequent and infamous remarks on the value of having "a wise Latina" on the bench. The argument is that there's something about this quality -- which may not really be race, but is certainly ethnicity -- that will inform one's judgment. All Trump is saying is the same thing. He's just portraying it as a bad thing instead of a good thing.

The Democratic Party portrays itself as anti-racist, but in fact it is the party that has led us here by building its electoral success around racial voting blocs. It continues to try to divide white Americans by class because that prevents a majority voting bloc from forming against them. Everyone else it wants to vote their 'racial interest' by joining the D-majority voting bloc. What Trump is saying is that America should just go all the way to a polity divided by race. What would be wiser would be to break up the extant racial voting blocs, not to finish the work of dividing the nation this way.

Again, though, I don't know how you accomplish that. We probably can't do it until we can speak clearly about it. It won't do to let the Democrats' conduct slide while portraying Trump and his white bloc as some kind of especially wicked racists. He is making a racist appeal. The trick is, so is everyone else. Yet somehow, we continue to talk as if only Trump's version of this electoral strategy is racist. We can't fix the problem unless we acknowledge how much bigger it is than him.

UPDATE: Power Line makes an allied point.

Indian Motorcycles and Combat Bikes

In the video for "Sellout Song" Grim posted, I saw one of the men wearing an Indian Motorcyles t-shirt, and it piqued my curiosity. Clicking around, I found the following video on their website, along with a photo of a recently custom-built "Indian Military Scout Bike" (yes, I want one, complete with Thompson) that replicates some of the bikes used in WWII you can see in the video:

That reminded me of a time I was in Japan and was able to attend a demonstration by their Ground Self Defense Forces. I really don't remember much I saw that day, the typical tanks and helos, marching formations and whatnot. But one demonstration did stick in my mind. A squad of men on  mountain bikes raced down a mountain. As they approached the bottom, they locked their handlebars in place and, maintaining speed, unsheathed rifles and assaulted through an imaginary enemy at the base of the hill.

Wikipedia tells me this may have been the bike they were riding, the Honda XLR250R, although I don't see the rifle sheath. Maybe my memory is faulty; maybe the rifles were slung. Or maybe it was a different bike. Anyway, here's a photo from Wikipedia:

This reminds me of bicycle infantry units. Maybe I'll do a post on that next.

All Right, Let's Have This Fight

Just understand what's at stake if we lose this fight.

Maybe there's no choice, though. Maybe we just have to fight this one out.

Saturday Night AMV

I want to remind you of one of Eric Blair's earlier contributions.



We're down now to Clinton or Sanders or Trump. In other words, we're down to the Crime Syndicate, the Communist, and the Egotist.

I don't know where we are going with this. I'm not going to presume to know. I think I know that Clinton is the worst of them, because she has organization. But they're all pretty bad.

If you're reading this page, we're damned to the opposition for the next four years at least. There won't be a superhero intervention. Look to your arms, and your virtues.

A Second Bite at the Apple

From my perspective, Wretchard is really on fire right now. Here's another piece this weekend hitting what seem to me to be the major themes.

A Sellout Song

Free Will: Philosophy v. Neuroscience

A philosopher further confuses the question. On purpose, I mean. Often, that's what good philosophers do.

Here's an example:

DB: "Salon Editors: We Should Have Let the Axis Win"

The only reason the aircraft that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima was named Enola Gay was so the military industrial complex could blame the dawn of the atomic age on the LGBT community. The American experiment has been nothing but a massive plot to denigrate protected classes.

Let’s be candid, it’s taken over 70 years for Americans to have a serious conversation about National Socialism and firmly divide people along racial lines. Thanks a lot “Allies.”

During that time, what has America actually done for the world? Given us an addiction to technologies dependent on fossil fuels? Domestic surveillance techniques? Patriarchy? The great American melting pot is more like a great American chop shop of appropriated culture.

Their satire is at its best when it is so close to the truth. I have read serious versions of this argument pointed at the first World War.

House of the Dying Sun

Wretchard has a good one this evening. Friday afternoon is a strange time to post your best stuff. I wonder if he's hoping people won't read it.

In retrospect the postwar American world can be said to have gone off the rails in one of two places. Liberals will put the date in March, 2003, when the campaign to topple Saddam Hussein began. Although the action was supported at the time by both political parties, the outrage liberals felt at what they believed to be the deception surrounding the operation created a reaction that made the second critical date inevitable: the 2008 election of Barack Obama.

Obama was regarded -- and is still regarded -- by many conservatives as possessing the same degree of delegitimizing characteristics now attributed to Donald Trump. In this view, the accession of Obama, not the invasion of Iraq, marked the moment Everything Changed. It also made the rise Trump historically inevitable. The chain runs thus: Iraq --> Obama --> Trump/Hillary. Where you start is optional. Where you end is unknown. Ironically September 11, 2001 plays an ambiguous role in the historiography. For some reason that date is regarded by some as occurring Before the Fall....

If political columnist Ron Fournier is right about this election cycle, it is less about achieving incremental policy change than precipitating a radical institutional change . In that case the current unpopularity contest can be seen as an deliberate process to increase instability by hoping the worst man wins, not in order to continue the status quo but to tear things down and start afresh.

Of course he's right, as regards Sanders and Trump. Only Clinton stands for trying to prop up the failing regime. She is the candidate of every remaining institution. Maybe that will carry her over the line, in spite of her felonies, in spite of her weakness.

But it can't stop the tide.

Friday Night AMV

Don't Smoke.



(This is very clever editing, because I've seen this series and this is *not* what it is about at all.)

Judgmental Map of Atlanta

Inspired by AVI's map of Massachusetts stereotypes, I looked for a similar map of Georgia. There isn't one, probably because the kind of clever Buzzfeed-types who make such maps don't know anything about Georgia. Outside of Atlanta and perhaps Savannah, the whole thing would be marked, "Here be Dragons."

But I did find a map of the closer-in parts of metro Atlanta that fits the bill.

I went to High School in "Prime Real Estate." The part they call "The Mexico," which is properly known as Chamblee, I've always heard called "Chambodia." It has at least as many Asian immigrants as Mexican ones, and it's an excellent source for authentic cuisine from anywhere. If you hit the area, try Los Americas or El Taco Veloz.

Vox Starts to Catch On After All

They're still describing this in gaslighting terms -- Trump supporters 'think' this and that -- but they do seem to have had a moment of clarity.

UPDATE: Via Drudge, someone whose moment of clarity has yet to come.

VFW: Speak For Yourself, Buddy... er, Mr. President

The Veterans of Foreign Wars were not amused by President Obama's recent suggestion that their membership are fools.

No Wonder She Has Such Clear Vision of Her Destiny

In an article on Clinton's inner circle, a representative email circulated among her staff:

“If you get a chance — please tell HRC that she was a ROCK STAR yesterday. Everything about her 'performance' was what makes her unique, beloved, and destined for even more greatness. She sets a standard that lesser mortals can only dream of emulating.”

The wiser advice was whispered by that slave in Roman Imperial times: "Remember you are mortal."

UPDATE: On the other hand, this technique works great as long as your candidate is in on the joke.



It's only when you begin to believe your own BS that Nemesis begins slipping up behind you.

Why Not Murder?

Hot Air has some thoughts from a top Vox editor on the righteousness of violence against Trump rallies.

Advice: If Trump comes to your town, start a riot.

— Emmett Rensin (@emmettrensin) June 3, 2016

So …. who exactly is the fascist in this scenario? The Week’s Michael Dougherty seemed to wonder that himself, asking Rensin what exactly he saw as the limits of “legitimate” political violence. The answer? Murder’s out … but that’s about it:

@michaelbd Destroying property is legitimate. Shouting down is legitimate. Disruption of all events is legitimate. Murder isn't.

— Emmett Rensin (@emmettrensin) June 3, 2016

So any violence short of murder is legitimate, as long as the political aim is pure enough, presumably. If you’re wondering what kind of violence isn’t legitimate, Jeryl Bier found this line in Rensin’s sand from last year:

Here's @emmettrensin on "literal violence": https://t.co/gmYzGWfbHO pic.twitter.com/HPYejDklOm

— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) June 3, 2016

A “Stop Hillary” wifi password is literal violence, while destruction of property and shutting down free speech is just legitimate political action.

So what's so wrong with just killing Trump? Wouldn't it obviate the need for all this destruction of property, all these clashes in the street? Doesn't everyone say that they'd kill Hitler if they could go back in time and do so?

I mean, I understand the Catholic objection -- that murder is an inherently disordered act. But surely you won't want to impose some religious test on your politics, Vox. Why not have the courage of your convictions?

UPDATE: Vox today runs an article called "Donald Trump Rallies Are Only Going To Get More Dangerous For Everyone." Whose fault is that? Trump's, of course.

UPDATE: Althouse: "Yells of "[F***] you!" are heard, along with vuvuzelas and chants of 'Trump go home!'"

Vuvuzelas, is it? Now we know what we're dealing with here.



UPDATE: Vox suspends, but does not fire, its editor. Go sit in timeout until after the election -- everyone knows you don't actually tell people to riot. You just say that it's completely understandable that people riot given how awful Trump is, and that it's certain to get worse.

An Interesting Point

I don't know who Daredevil is, but I gather it's a superhero thing. Nevertheless, I was over at Brandwine Books to see what Lars Walker has been writing about recently, and he has a post that discusses the series. I found this point interesting:

When Kingpin calls Vanessa on the carpet for concealed carry, viewers learn that she’s not some ingénue, but rather an empowered woman with her own ambitions: “We’ve been sitting here talking for hours, and you’re going to insult me like I have no idea what you really do? … I know you’re a dangerous man. That’s why I brought a gun to a dinner date.”

Way back when we were first dating, it was a point in my future wife's favor for me that she carried a knife. Though she later admitted to me that she wasn't used to men who carried guns, she accepted it as a risk worth taking for me.

For me, it's kind of neat to see that sort of thing reflected in fiction.

Former Delta Force Leader Uninvited From Ft. Riley Prayer Breakfast

LTG (R) Jerry Boykin was one of the greats in his day, and now seems to spend most of his time on issues of faith. So of course that's where they hit him:

A Kansas military base abruptly canceled an upcoming prayer breakfast that featured retired Lt. General Jerry Boykin after complaints were lodged that Boykin is anti-Muslim and anti-gay.

Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder Mikey Weinstein told Army Times that Boykin’s invitation had caused great angst among soldiers at Fort Riley – leading some to break down in tears.

“I have clients of ours weeping on the phone about this,” he said.

Weeping? Oh, please.

“I sincerely doubt that America can expect to win wars if the people who are tasked to do so are frightened by an old retired general with biblical views and a testimony of faith,” Boykin told me.

Boykin, an original member of Delta Force and an executive vice president of the Family Research Council, was scheduled to deliver remarks at a June 6th prayer breakfast. The event was set to be held in conjunction with the 1st Infantry Division’s Victory Week celebration....

“He sows hatred and heinous divisiveness with his sickening screed of fundamentalist Christian supremacy, primacy, exclusivity and triumphalism,” Weinstein wrote in a complaint to Fort Riley.

I don't share Boykin's views, but to find them "sickening" represents a pretty harsh opposition to his mode of faith -- in fact, at least as harsh a mode as the one Boykin aims at Islam, which is one of the MRFF's complaints against him.

The MRFF has a page in which it was asked whether it focuses on beating up Christians exclusively, or if it sometimes worries about other religions such as Islam. You know, Islam: that religion that has resulted in several blue-on-blue incidents such as the fragging at the start of the Iraq War, or the Ft. Drum shootings.

Their response is several paragraphs long, but here is the nut: "We simply do not receive similar complaints involving any religion other than Christianity."

Aristotle said that justice lies in treating similar cases similarly. The big question there, as here, is what constitutes "similar."

Hahahahahahaha

NYT Headline: "Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say."

Where've you been these last few years?

Trump is the only one who even might prosecute top members of the Clinton machine. If Hillary Clinton is elected, it'll be open season for high-level corruption, the sale of American power to the highest bidder, and bribery on a scale never seen before in the United States.

I don't know if Trump would be good or bad for the rule of law. But I know he can hardly be worse. What's surprising to me is that the Times can't see how ridiculous it is to put forward the Clinton machine as Guardian of the Rule of Law.

I can see the slogan now: 'Vote Fox for Henhouse Sheriff!'

UPDATE: Related: "We’re all thinking the same thing but an RNC spokesman was the first to get to say it: Of the two major-party nominees this year, it ain’t Trump who mishandled classified information."

UPDATE: Also related: We hear about how Trump marks the rise of brownshirt fascism, but somehow it's his rallies that keep getting attacked by mobs.

None of this stuff is of the tu quoque fallacy. It's not that Trump's opponents do it too. It's that the charge that he does it overlooks the fact that his opponent is far worse on all of these issues.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever

Not the Duffel Blog

Actually, the Washington Post: "Female-named hurricanes kill more than male hurricanes because people don’t respect them, study finds."

This Happened in Georgia?

A burqa-clad assailant allegedly attacked a woman with her own American flag.

Amusingly, the article posts a burqaless mugshot. If maintaining modesty at radical Islamic levels is important to you, you'd better obey the law.

Guns Save Lives

Sometimes, they're the right lives.

You can increase your odds of it turning out right by practicing and training regularly.

"Seven Hobbit Meals"

Actually, the first one is Beorning.

They all look pretty good, though.