Pills, pills

Pills, Pills:

Reason magazine is ready for them. Quite ready:

Owens posits this case: You have developed some nagging doubts about your partner's fidelity. Although you sometimes think your doubts are irrational, you remember certain lingering looks at parties, and your happiness is spoiled. You're not the sort to hire a private detective, but you have heard of a new pharmaceutical, the anti-doubt pill, Credon. Credon lulls your suspicious nature, but doesn't make you gullible to car sales people. It works only in the context of intimate relationships. The manufacturer does warn that Credon has sometimes generated excessive trust between lovers. So off you go to "The Pharmacy of the Future" for Credon.

Once there, the conscientious pharmacist confirms that Credon does usually work, but asks if you've considered alternative treatments. For example, why not take the new anti-possessiveness pill Libermine? Patients using Libermine don't care if their partners have an occasional fling. Or why be a couple at all? Solox, the emotional independence pill, enables patients to have a wide and emotionally satisfying circle of friends but liberates them from the tedium of having only one intimate partner. Owens then posits that the price of Credon is about as much as for a candy bar, while Libermine and Solox costs as much as good bottle of wine. So on what grounds do you choose among these options?

Owens suggests that one response might be that it's "normal" to want to be in relationship. The pharmacist reminds you that people born with extra Solox in their brains are just as "natural" as people without it. Surely you would agree that such free spirits should not be regarded as somehow inadequate. Another response is that taking Libermine would so change you that you wouldn't be you anymore. Of course, the whole point of taking Credon is to change you so that you, in some respects, aren't you anymore.

So why not flip a coin? Would that mean that the choice doesn't matter any more to you than choosing between two brands of coffee? Surely one's emotional state and the state of one's most intimate relationship should matter more than choosing between Bustelo and Starbucks.

Reason's summation is that "trial and error" will determine the best choice -- not for you, obviously, but for society as a whole, eventually. So really, a random choice may be the best way to go.

Or let the market decide, and just pick the cheap one.

Anyway, you'll be happier regardless, right? Whether you just believe your spouse is not cheating, or you are happy for him or her to cheat, or you just walk away and never care about them again... as long as you feel better, that's what matters.

Is it not?

Hell on Earth

Hell on Earth:

I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the unfortunate subjects of China just now.

The snow struck as tens of millions of Chinese head home to celebrate the Lunar New Year, starting on February 7 this year, straining trains and planes even in normal times.

At the main rail station in Guangzhou in the relatively warm commercial far south, 170,000 people crammed together waiting for trains that cannot leave because of electric trains stranded downline, Xinhua news agency reported.

By the end of Monday, a backlog of 600,000 waiting for trains from the city was expected. Television showed green-uniformed anti-riot troops ready to keep order around the station.

I've traveled by train in China during the runup to the Lunar New Year. It's astonishing. Somewhat more than half of China's billion-plus population just... gets up and moves. And then they move back in a few days. If you've ever flown at Christmas, imagine that pain times ten.

And that's in a good year, without the snowstorms.

This has pretty much got to suck.

The government has not announced deaths due to freezing in homes. But homes south of the Yangtze River generally do not receive central heating and are not built for such icy weather.

That's true too. We sealed up our little hovel with layers of plastic bubblewrap over the windows and doors, laid down rugs over the cracks in the floor, and made candles out of fish oil and strips of cotton cut from the wife's underwear. Fortunately, the place was so small that you could actually generate enough heat out of some homemade candles to keep from freezing to death.

Yeah, good times. Take a moment to think warm thoughts for those poor folks.

Intel cells

Rifle-company Intel Cells:

Once again, the Marine Corps leads the way. The databasing/sharing concept is the most important one. Companies, like any other military unit, have seams with other units -- they control a given area, but the enemy moves in and out of that area. What happens here matters across the way, and vice versa. Better sharing is critical.

Too, analysis tends to get better with experience, but added responsibility and distance degrades the benefit. The G2 section normally is better at recognizing patterns and important details than the S2, because its members have more experience with it. They have a problem in being responsible for a lot more areas, so they can't focus down on any given area except periodically. They have an additional problem in being distant: instead of dealing with the area eyes-on, day in and out, they're often learning by reading reports. Even the best report leaves out a lot of information that you get by being there, and looking things over -- information that may not seem important now, but that might be later.

Adding extra eyes to your data can compensate for that to a certain degree. If you have two guys with less experience looking at the data, they may still both miss the pattern; but it's better than just one guy. And the closer you get to the grunts on the ground, the more you'll be drawing on patterns they've seen playing out. They've got all that 'extra' information that isn't captured in their reports, the stuff they saw or heard that didn't seem important or relevant at the time -- but that can come out when they get together and compare notes with the company across the way.

Better sharing across companies, as well as up-and-down between organizational levels, has the potential to substantially improve predictive analysis on the ground. The Corps is doing something smart here; but that's what we expect from the Marines.

Flounder

The Flounder Principle:

InstaPundit today links back to something he wrote that I missed before, on 'the Flounder principle.' It's a remarkably useful concept where politicians are concerned.

This is a good time of year to think about it, too. Right now is the time when politicians are making deals and endorsements, and then getting out and promising us stuff -- either campaign promises of their own, or promises about the other politicians they're endorsing.

As always, the question to ask yourself is, "Why should I believe a word of this?" If there's not some very good reason why, it's probably not going to happen after election day.

Just remember: when you find yourself on the same side as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, it's probably time to check your six and your compass.

I mean, it's going to happen once in a while, because like all politicians they adopt any position that is useful to him for a moment. Just recognize it as a warning sign, and take a second to be sure you're really where you want to be -- and check whether anyone is slipping something up on you.

Not that endorsements are a great way to make up your mind about a candidate anyway. Otherwise, we'd all be voting Huckabee.

After all, Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink. Once, Chuck Norris visited the Virgin Islands: now, they're just "the Islands."

At least, so I've heard.

Nathan Zachary

Crimson Skies:

Popular Science has been running a series on zeppelins of the future. Sky pirates can only be around the corner.

Horses / BP

Horses on the Border:

An article tracks the mounted Border Patrol. Photo 2 in the slideshow is beautiful.

Down with the General!

Down with the General!

Order #1, that is. Best of the Web reports:

Our item yesterday on a homeless-vets story brought numerous responses along the lines of this one, from a reader who asks not to be identified:

I love the column, and I agree about the tiresome "homeless vet" stereotype. I must disagree, however, with your conclusion that the soldier who received vodka disguised as Scope must have had other problems to begin with.

A college friend of mine is an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. His latest tour in Iraq was a staff position, meaning long days in a command office. When a group of us got together to send him care packages, he enjoyed the movies and candy bars, and loved the cigars. But he particularly appreciated the Maker's Mark and the port we sent. He and some fellow Marine officers spent last New Year's Eve smoking a cigar and sipping a cocktail from the roof of their building as Marine 155's fired artillery over their heads at insurgent positions in Fallujah. It must have been some spectacle, and I am happy for the small role we played in giving them a moment to relax.

The reason it worked out is that we disguised the spirits, much as Mike Lally's mother did. In order not to "offend our Arab hosts," alcoholic beverages are not allowed. As we were transferring the spirits into plastic bottles (port looks a lot like Ocean Spray Cranberry, while whiskey looks passably like Cran-Apple), my wife and I felt a bit silly, but we agreed that is was preposterous that a 37-year-old officer, a helicopter pilot entrusted with great responsibility, a husband and father of three with a B.S. and an M.B.A., fighting for freedom in a foreign country, couldn't have a glass of wine or whiskey while away from his wife and kids for Christmas and New Year's. No, he doesn't have a drinking problem, but as a grown man he certainly is entitled to a drink on New Year's Eve, and it was worth our feeling "silly" to give him that chance.

So, although the AP story deserves your criticism, please don't assume that Mr. Lally or his mother do as well, nor the thousands of others who just want to sit back off-duty after a long day and have a drink while they unwind. The notion that they are drunks is as invidious a cliché as that which the AP repeats. Spare the criticism for the policy that makes grown, responsible people employ such adolescent tactics just to give a man a chance to a pleasure that we at home enjoy and take for granted.

OK, we're convinced.

Hear, hear.

I haven't been drinking out of any plastic bottles (except the water bottles we get distributed here); and in fact, it's gone so far that I've developed something akin to a taste for this, in spite of its 0.5 overall rating. Still the best beer on VBC.

Hitch on Paine

Hitchens on Thomas Paine:

An interesting review of what is probably an interesting book.

Journos II

Since Janne Liked It So Well:

The NYT has decided to make a series out of their blunders; and therefore so has Iowahawk.

Click through the Iowahawk link for a few more, just as good.

"If they get out of line, just slag 'em."

That's the message I got from this article in the Guardian this morning:

"The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists."

Now, I actually worked with one of the guys that authored this thing: Gen. Shalikashvili, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after Powell. My impression of him was that he was a pretty conventional general officer, not given to hyperbole, or overstatement. That he put his name to this impresses me some.

However, I don't think the US or any of the other nuke-capable NATO members are going to be the first to light off a nuke on somebody's ass. Someone else is going to have to cross that particular line.

Wham

Democrats Beat Each Other With Sticks:

Cage match primaries are always fun:

Obama told the former first lady he was helping unemployed workers on the streets of Chicago when "you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart."

Moments later, Clinton said that she was fighting against misguided Republican policies "when you were practicing law and representing your contributor ... in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago."

It's also not a good sign for John Edwards that when he asks, "Are there three people in this debate, not two?", everyone thinks of Bill Clinton.

Actually, I'm learning quite a bit from the fistfight. The reporter says:

A blind trust held by Clinton and her husband, the former president, included stock holdings in Wal-Mart. They liquidated the contents of the blind trust in 2007 because of investments that could pose conflicts of interest or prove embarrassing as she ran for president.

Chicago real estate developer and fast food magnate Antoin "Tony" Rezko was a longtime fundraiser for Obama. Prosecutors have charged him with fraud, attempted extortion and money laundering in what they allege was a scheme to get campaign money and payoffs from firms seeking to do business before two state boards.

Are these really equivalent charges? Obama used his law degree to further the interest of a slumlord charged with extortion and money laundering... but Clinton used to own Wal-Mart stock? What?

It's not like you have to do a lot of research here -- Rose Law Firm? Billing Records? Cattle Futures? What's so bad about Wal-Mart?

Embracing the Suck.

I've now followed a number of soldiers' blogs as they write about their experiences 'over there'.

The most recent I've started follow is LT G.

Read his words at "Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal".

The LT has a way with words. And, unlike most, he's introduced his fellow soldiers.

(via Acute Politics)

Evil Black Gun meets Hello Kitty.

Ain't that the cutest lil' thing? I truly think the magazine is just the right touch.

(via American Digest)

Bowie @ Alamo

Jim Bowie at the Alamo:

This day 1836, Jim Bowie arrived at the Alamo with thirty volunteers. I've occasionally thought of the Alamo over here, on those occasions we've had mortars or rockets. Of course we are not surrounded by an enemy army, nor in danger of being wiped out; the experience here is suggestive, more than similar. You do see "the rocket's red glare; the bombs bursting in air," quite literally in both cases, even though the insurgent's rocket of 2008 is probably somewhat less accurate than the British rocket of 1812.

That said, it does provide me the chance to reflect on the bravery of better men who have gone before. The Alamo is regularly celebrated here at Grim's Hall, and the model of gentlemen that defended her. Americans have long celebrated Crockett and Bowie -- see this collection of 'Bowie style' knives, made from the 1830s through the 1970s; others are still made today.

Bowie was a friend to the pirate Jean Lafitte, as was Andrew Jackson. As Byron wrote of Lafitte:

"He left a corsair’s name to other times,
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes."

We celebrate the virtue, and forgive the crimes; may others remember us as kindly, in spite of ourselves.

UPDATE: On a related note, a question from a Fred Thompson rally:

Man: Fred, I drove over 500 miles to see you.

Thompson: Bless your heart. Let's give this man a hand. (Applause, cheers)

Man: I came over Finch Mountain in a snowstorm. (Pause) May I call you Fred?

Thompson: Absolutely.

Man: That's okay until January and I can call you Mr. President. (Laughter, more applause). Now, I've got a question.

Thompson: Yes sir.

Man: (Pause) I'm looking for a tall man who will stand tall for America. (Pause.) Who will cut the ears off of earmarks! (Pause.) Stop dead illegal immigration! (Pause.) And pull the teeth of activist judges...

Thompson: Yep.


Man: ... who take your house to build 7-Eleven! (Pause, then louder) And I want to know if you've got a Jim Bowie knife and a good strong pair (pause) of Channellock pliers! (Laughter, even more applause, calls of "That's right!" and "Hear, hear!")

The reporter finishes the report by sighing, "I hate being a Yankee."

We can certainly understand that. :)

No Business in the White House, But:

Huckabee's not someone I'd endorse. On the other hand:

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Huckabee said at a Myrtle Beach campaign event. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole."

That was a great line.

Good reading

Readings for Today:

Iowahawk notes the media menace:

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence of that America's newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters?

With statistics like these, I think we know the answer.



Separately, Cassandra falls in love with a guy who learned from his daughter.

What I’ve come to realize is that there are really two people inside me: the Dude Self and the Dad Self. The Dude Self has an evolutionary mandate. Namely, to get his DNA into all available fertile females. This is how I explain the compulsion toward media sluts, who, after all, sow the fantasy that women exist only for the carnal pleasure of men.

But then there’s the Dad Self. The Dad Self has to worry about the survival of his wife and offspring. It might be said that his genetic material is heavily mortgaged. He regards women differently, especially if he has a daughter. Now he must think about the kind of world in which he’d like her to grow up, and especially how he’d like other males to treat her, which is to say not as a sexual chew toy, but with kindness and respect.

I'm not quite sure why those concepts are supposed to be opposed -- I'd always thought the idea was to manage both at the same time.

Anyway, I note the story to ask: if American Dad has to learn that he has to participate in a society that treats girls as ladies, in order to protect his daughters... what does American Mom have to learn about her sons?

I have my own ideas about that, and I expect most readers can guess what they are. But I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Our Friend the Half-Wit

Our Friend the Half-Wit:

We like you anyway, BloodSpite.

Baiting

Danton Loves Her, Too:

Hillary, that is.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Sunday that Barack Obama's campaign had injected racial tension into the presidential contest....

"This is an unfortunate story line the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully," the former first lady said in a spirited appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press.""I don't think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it's not about race."

L'audace!

Iraqi Heroes

Iraqi Heroes:

Michael Totten writes:

Iraqi Army soldiers have a terrible reputation for cowardice and corruption – especially in Baghdad – but it’s unfair to write them all off after reading the news out of Iraq’s capital Sunday. Three Iraqi Army soldiers tackled a suicide bomber at an Army Day parade and were killed when he exploded his vest....

These Iraqis deserve recognition, and they deserved to be recognized by their names. Yet I could not find their names cited in any media articles. All three of their names generate zero hits using Google at the time of this writing. I had to contact Baghdad myself to find out who they were. Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton was kind enough to pass their names on....

Here are the names of the three brave Iraqis who hurled themselves on an exploding suicide bomber.

Malik Abdul Ghanem
Asa’ad Hussein Ali
Abdul-Hamza Abdul-Hassan Rissan

They were friends the Americans and Iraqis did not know we had until they were gone.

Boredom

The New Fight:

The Marines are bored:

After preparing to confront one of the most deadly insurgencies America has ever faced, and steeped in the legend of Marine aggressiveness in the counterterrorist fight, the leathernecks of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines are fighting a pitched battle against boredom.

With violence across the province dropping precipitously over most of the past year, Marines who were girding for a brawl on this latest rotation have had to dial back their warrior ways for a softer approach.

Though their thoughts are tinged with disappointment, many are nevertheless practical about the new reality.

"There's not much going on this time around," said Cpl. Ken Dickerson, 1st squad leader with Lima Company, 3/3's 3rd Platoon. "But at least we're not losing anybody."

It's not so boring here -- we have some pretty aggressive operations ongoing. Yet it's also true that we haven't lost anybody lately. The combination of improved tactics and Iraqi cooperation with the COIN has vastly limited casualties versus last year.

Things can carry on like this just as long as they want.