When the Royal Navy has 38 admirals for 29 warships, the problem is not the 38 admirals, unless you are a British taxpayer (God help you). The problem, for the rest of us, is that one of the West’s great fighting forces only has 29 warships.... The Brits have no aircraft carriers, no cruisers, and a flawed and failing force of destroyers and submarines....The thing about the Marine Corps is that it is a corps in size: that is, a force that comes from combining divisions and some separates. Thus, the total force available to defend the realm is only half a corps: a division or two, at most. The article estimates they could currently deploy only one brigade.
This is not just a problem of too few ships for the heirs of Nelson. The British Army and RAF also faced cuts in personnel and capabilities following the 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review—and the security review of 2003, and that of 1998, and of 1990. As a result, the British Army is now about half the size of the U.S. Marine Corps.
An Ally of a Sort
The British navy is so famous in history that no one may have recently asked just how potent it remains today.
Reaper
The Deep Army speaks:
A video posted online claims to show that ISIS militants have killed the captured US aid worker and former Army Ranger - Peter Kassig...It's a debt of honor. Be sure we will pay it.
USAWTFM: To those responsible, maybe tomorrow, next month, maybe twenty years from now someone wearing an arrowhead patch will cut your heart out while you are watching.
Net Neutrality
Touché, you little viper
John Roberts unfairly tries to force a redistricting lawyer to explain how race-based policies can be implemented without making race the predominant consideration.
Do You Sometimes Use A Chainsaw to Fell Trees?
If the answer to this question is "yes," you're entitled to the respect that deserves (which is substantial -- it's a dangerous bit of work if the tree is of any size). If you're a man and the answer to this question is "no," you may be mocked by women on the internet. Don't expect any sympathy from me, though.
Instead, go learn to use a chainsaw.
Instead, go learn to use a chainsaw.
The FBI and Mortal Sin
Somehow, although I am as historically aware as most Americans can be expected to be, I never knew until this morning that the FBI tried to get MLK to kill himself. The intense surveillance they deployed against him gave them a wealth of knowledge about his actions that they used to assemble this letter, which is disturbing but not surprising. That a police agency would attempt to fool one of its citizens into committing suicide is both horrible and shocking.
Of course, the FBI is only partially a police agency; they also think of themselves as a counterintelligence service. That is an inadequate excuse.
(H/t: InstaPundit.)
Of course, the FBI is only partially a police agency; they also think of themselves as a counterintelligence service. That is an inadequate excuse.
(H/t: InstaPundit.)
What would we do without Washington
AT&T pointed out that it would need to pause on $18 billion of fiber it intended to lay next year, while the FCC figures out whether it wants to demonize Internet profits to make the President happy. This provoked cries of "extortion," which is what we call it when someone says he's not going to provide a valuable service unless he's got a pretty good idea he can do it at a profit.
Only in Washington could a delay to seek regulatory clarity before spending $18 billion in shareholder money be called extortion. Even after six years of slow growth, the Obama crowd hasn’t figured out that punitive regulation reduces the incentive to invest.Well, we'll just force them to invest! And if that doesn't work, we'll confiscate their money and let the public sector do a great job instead, with their proven track record of achieving miracles by avoiding the evil profit motive, which is how socialist countries get so rich and ensure that all their citizens have a decent standard of living.
Stirring up the hairstyle
Not much ever happens to my hair. It's reached a certain length at which entropy just keeps pace with growth. If I'm not asleep, it's tied back in a ponytail. It gets washed from time to time. If I were looking for some high-maintenance options for generating a little drama, though, I couldn't do much better than these. Dang.
Dress and modesty
From "Kit and Kitty," a 1890 novel by R.D. Blackmore, who had no affection for ostentatious dress:
The Gutenberg work continues to engross me. I've done about 30,000 pages.
When I opened the door, I saw a very pretty girl, but no more to be compared with my darling Kitty, than a tulip with a lily of the valley. Although it was close upon winter now, she had a striped parasol, which I detest; and her velvet hat (turned down over one ear, and turned up at the other) had two kingfisher's wings stuck crosswise, and between them a gorgeous topaz humming-bird. You might look at my Kitty fifty times; and if any one asked you how she was dressed, you would have to say, "I have not the least idea," if you happened not to be a woman. But this young lady's attire compelled attention, and perhaps deserved it.All of Blackmore's works but 1869's "Lorna Doone" have gone out of print, says Wikipedia, which is a shame, because they're delightful. He was a great favorite of Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, and James Barrie. Luckily, Project Gutenberg has quite a few of Blackmore's works and soon will have more, including "Kit and Kitty."
The Gutenberg work continues to engross me. I've done about 30,000 pages.
There's "Colonel."
Also "Sergeant," "Captain," and "Doctor."
For all my marriage has given me, all it has allowed me to be and to experience, there is no title to recognize that. It’s just ‘mister,’ for every man.I prefer to be addressed by my first name: "Sir."
SWF (Sperm Whale Fishery)
Thus did Melville suggest whalers signify their profession on their calling cards.
I wonder if we're seeing the end of fishing entirely, as we have already seen the end of sperm-whale fishing.
I wonder if we're seeing the end of fishing entirely, as we have already seen the end of sperm-whale fishing.
"This isn't predicted to happen. This is happening now," study researcher Nicola Beaumont... "If biodiversity continues to decline, the marine environment will not be able to sustain our way of life. Indeed, it may not be able to sustain our lives at all," Beaumont adds.
Already, 29% of edible fish and seafood species have declined by 90% -- a drop that means the collapse of these fisheries.
Silent Beach Spring
This environmental scare piece about sand depletion reminded us of the old joke about what would happen if the USSR took over the Sahara Desert: "For five years, nothing, and then a sand shortage."
Sine Qua Non
What would America be without men like these?
A few months later, Nate's battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel William Seely, traveling the country to visit the parents of his fallen Marines, came to see the Krissoff family. Bill and Austin took him for a hike around Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay, and Bill asked Seely about medical care for Marines in Iraq. Seely told him that every Marine battalion deploys with a surgeon and numerous medics, all from the Navy. As Seely described the role of the battalion surgeon, the penny dropped for Bill.So a little while later...
That's what I want to do, he thought. I want to be a battalion surgeon.
Bill was as lean as his boys. He stayed fit by biking, hiking, kayaking, and skiing. He figured he could meet the military's physical requirements, so he called up a Navy recruiter in San Francisco and offered up his services. The recruiter posed a series of questions. Finally, he asked how old Bill was.
"Sixty," Bill said.
"Um, that's a problem," the recruiter replied. "You're too old." Anyone over forty-two who wants to join the Navy Reserve medical corps needs an age waiver, the recruiter explained. He wasn't optimistic about the possibility of a sixty-year-old obtaining one.
Three days after meeting Bush, Krissoff received a phone call from the same Navy recruiter who had scoffed at his request to join a few months earlier. "I have orders to meet with you by the end of the day," the recruiter said. When Krissoff replied that he was trailering a horse with his wife and could not immediately drive down to San Francisco -- three hours away by car -- the recruiter was undeterred. "I'm coming up to see you," he said.
Drive On
Very late getting to it today, due to computer problems. I'll try to make it up with this piece from none other than Johnny Cash. It's not one of his more famous pieces, so it may even be new to some of you.
Drive on, warriors.
UPDATE: How about one from Hank Williams, Sr?
Drive on, warriors.
UPDATE: How about one from Hank Williams, Sr?
Differential Treatment
One of the cases Cass and I have tangled over a few times back in 2012 is the case of Rick Santorum's children going to a Pennsylvania public school though he spent most of the year living in Leesburg, VA. I thought Santorum's point was valid -- he owned a house in the appropriate district, paid the taxes on that home which funded the school system, and the fact that his official duties as a senator from Pennsylvania kept him near Washington most of the time shouldn't imply that he ceases to be a citizen of the state (and city) which elected him to represent them in Washington. Cass thinks it's a violation of the rules, and breaking the rules for your personal advantage is dishonest and dishonorable.
The saga ended with the Santorums withdrawing their children and homeschooling them. The state of Pennsylvania tried to get them to pay its estimate of what it cost to have those students in the school, but failed to collect. (It is unclear to me why the Santorums should be asked to pay in any case: they'd already paid their taxes, both there and in Leesburg. At most the one school district should have billed the other, not asked for a third payment on top of the two sets of property taxes already paid, either of which should have guaranteed access to education. But I digress)
I bring it up today not to tug at Cassandra's braids, but to inquire after the very different treatment encountered in a similar case.
1) McDowell is black, Santorum white. It is not clear that this difference is relevant, but a great deal of internet commentary has focused on the fact that she is black, so it's necessary to mention it.
2) She is poor, and he is rich. Rich enough to afford good lawyers, for example, who could keep the matter at bay. She seems to have plead largely because of the stress of the process (as Mark Steyn often says, when it comes to American law, the process is often the punishment).
3) She was homeless, and so paid no property taxes anywhere. Santorum paid property taxes in both school districts. Her child's right to a free education does not actually depend on her paying any taxes, or owning any homes, but the fact that she paid nothing to anyone does create a differential with the Senator, who had in fact paid everything he would have been asked to pay.
4) It is difficult to say where a homeless person's district properly is. The state elected to proceed with this method presumably out of a desire to keep homeless people from living in vans parked in the districts of richer citizens -- a kind of anti-vagrancy method. In the Santorum case, they did actually own property in both districts, paid the taxes on both, and lived in both places during different parts of the year. So the difficulty came not from them not having a home, but from interpreting the rules governing someone who owns more than one home.
5) She is a nobody, and he is a sitting Senator.
6) Different state laws are relevant: her case happened in Connecticut, not in Pennsylvania or Virginia.
In any case, the different outcomes are noteworthy. In the case of Santorum, the punishment was a lot of news stories that tarnished (for some) his standing as a candidate for President. Even if they'd gotten what they wanted out of him, it would have been a repayment of costs. In the case of McDowell, she also didn't repay the costs -- because she couldn't possibly, not because she won the argument. But nobody seems to have even suggested that the Senator should go to jail for fraud over the matter, whereas McDowell is going down for five years.
That last fact strikes me as madness, even given all the differentials in the cases. What is it going to benefit the state of Connecticut to pay to feed and house and guard her for five years? Clearly she is no danger to anyone, and the motive for her crime -- if crime it really ought to be -- was merely to seek what any mother ought to want for her child.
We don't have a very good answer to homelessness, especially not to trying to help the children of the homeless escape a similar fate. Even so this is a terrible stab at an answer, separating a mother who loves her child from that child, sending the mother to prison for half a decade, and sending the child to whatever the state's uncaring institutions devise.
Perhaps Senator Santorum ought to lobby for a pardon for her. It would be just for him to do so.
The saga ended with the Santorums withdrawing their children and homeschooling them. The state of Pennsylvania tried to get them to pay its estimate of what it cost to have those students in the school, but failed to collect. (It is unclear to me why the Santorums should be asked to pay in any case: they'd already paid their taxes, both there and in Leesburg. At most the one school district should have billed the other, not asked for a third payment on top of the two sets of property taxes already paid, either of which should have guaranteed access to education. But I digress)
I bring it up today not to tug at Cassandra's braids, but to inquire after the very different treatment encountered in a similar case.
A mother who pleaded guilty to fraudulently enrolling her six-year-old son in the wrong school district has been sentenced to five years in prison. Tonya McDowell sent her son to an elementary school in Norwalk, Connecticut, instead of her home city of Bridgeport. The 34-year-old, who was homeless when she was charged with felony larceny last year, said she wanted the best education possible for the boy.There are differences in the cases.
1) McDowell is black, Santorum white. It is not clear that this difference is relevant, but a great deal of internet commentary has focused on the fact that she is black, so it's necessary to mention it.
2) She is poor, and he is rich. Rich enough to afford good lawyers, for example, who could keep the matter at bay. She seems to have plead largely because of the stress of the process (as Mark Steyn often says, when it comes to American law, the process is often the punishment).
3) She was homeless, and so paid no property taxes anywhere. Santorum paid property taxes in both school districts. Her child's right to a free education does not actually depend on her paying any taxes, or owning any homes, but the fact that she paid nothing to anyone does create a differential with the Senator, who had in fact paid everything he would have been asked to pay.
4) It is difficult to say where a homeless person's district properly is. The state elected to proceed with this method presumably out of a desire to keep homeless people from living in vans parked in the districts of richer citizens -- a kind of anti-vagrancy method. In the Santorum case, they did actually own property in both districts, paid the taxes on both, and lived in both places during different parts of the year. So the difficulty came not from them not having a home, but from interpreting the rules governing someone who owns more than one home.
5) She is a nobody, and he is a sitting Senator.
6) Different state laws are relevant: her case happened in Connecticut, not in Pennsylvania or Virginia.
In any case, the different outcomes are noteworthy. In the case of Santorum, the punishment was a lot of news stories that tarnished (for some) his standing as a candidate for President. Even if they'd gotten what they wanted out of him, it would have been a repayment of costs. In the case of McDowell, she also didn't repay the costs -- because she couldn't possibly, not because she won the argument. But nobody seems to have even suggested that the Senator should go to jail for fraud over the matter, whereas McDowell is going down for five years.
That last fact strikes me as madness, even given all the differentials in the cases. What is it going to benefit the state of Connecticut to pay to feed and house and guard her for five years? Clearly she is no danger to anyone, and the motive for her crime -- if crime it really ought to be -- was merely to seek what any mother ought to want for her child.
We don't have a very good answer to homelessness, especially not to trying to help the children of the homeless escape a similar fate. Even so this is a terrible stab at an answer, separating a mother who loves her child from that child, sending the mother to prison for half a decade, and sending the child to whatever the state's uncaring institutions devise.
Perhaps Senator Santorum ought to lobby for a pardon for her. It would be just for him to do so.
Hmm
From a long article attacking conservative ideas about poverty, some thoughts on the collapse of marriage among the lower and middle class:
The author got around to studying men in poor communities too, though it took some effort. "Edin [says] she'd never been interested in studying men. 'It's fun to write about people with a strong heroic element to the story,' she says. 'Women have that. Men don't have that.'"
But the men she talked to had yet another surprising attitude: they thought having kids out of wedlock was a good thing they were doing in the world. It was a way of adding something hopeful and promising to an otherwise bleak landscape.
A whole lot of the thinking going on in the article will not be what you expect, both from the authors and from their subjects.
Next Edin took up the question of why low-income mothers so often put childbearing before marriage. Far from eschewing marriage as an institution, she found, poor women idealized it to such an extent that it became unattainable. They didn't believe that a marriage born in poverty could survive.Emphasis added.
In a society that increasingly saw marriage as a choice, not a requirement, low-income women were embracing the same preconditions as middle-class women. They wanted to be "set" before marrying, with economic independence to ensure a more equitable partnership and a fallback should things go bad. They also wanted men who were mature, stable, and who had mortgages and other signs of adulthood, not just jobs.
"People were embracing higher and higher standards for marriage," Edin explains. From a financial standpoint alone, "the men that would have been marriageable [in the 1950s] are no longer marriageable now. That's a cultural change." The low-income women in Edin's study reported that decent, trustworthy, available men were in short supply in their communities, where there were often major sex imbalances thanks to high incarceration rates....
Marriage was so taboo among her subjects that Edin discovered two couples in her sample who claimed they were unmarried at the time of their babies' birth but were actually not. One of the women had even been chewed out by her grandmother for marrying the father of one of her children.
The author got around to studying men in poor communities too, though it took some effort. "Edin [says] she'd never been interested in studying men. 'It's fun to write about people with a strong heroic element to the story,' she says. 'Women have that. Men don't have that.'"
But the men she talked to had yet another surprising attitude: they thought having kids out of wedlock was a good thing they were doing in the world. It was a way of adding something hopeful and promising to an otherwise bleak landscape.
A whole lot of the thinking going on in the article will not be what you expect, both from the authors and from their subjects.
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