Making a Cigar Box Guitar

Grim's 1332 post got me watching a bunch of cigar box guitar videos. Here's a good, time-condensed video of making an electric cigar box guitar from scratch. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the craftsmanship, though the background music gets a bit repetitive.

Update: If anyone's interested in a much, much simpler and easier way to do this, here are three different plans.

Art of Manliness: How to Make a Cigar Box Guitar

Make: Hand-Rolled Music

Cigar Box Nation plans

Glenn Watt has a bunch of useful videos on it as well, and there is a lot more out there.

Ranger School Update: The Fix Is In

So claims Havok Journal, at least, based on the President's sudden desire to attend graduation.

Now, I’m no fortuneteller, but when the travel agent of the Commander-in-Chief contacts your organization, travel plans probably isn’t the message trying to be delivered. “Undue command influence” is something JAG officers warn leaders about, especially during election cycles and sensitive topics that can get young NCOs and company commanders in trouble.

Call it what you will, but when the President says he’s attending graduation for Ranger School, something he’s never shown interest in prior to this class, there’s obviously a reason, and I’m sure there’s at least one or two Ranger candidates that will make the cut. Unfortunately, the premier leadership school in the Army is falling victim to an agenda and will soon find itself in a swelter of media madness like its never experienced, even up to this point.

So disconnected from the military is he that he does not realize that, rather than honoring the women by his presence, he will have undermined them in the eyes of everyone by doing this. Few will now believe that their passage through the school was fair and free from political pressure. I wonder if he can even imagine the damage he's doing to these two women, who have done gloriously to come this far, by making himself a part of this?

The South Must Be Destroyed

At the time that the world went insane over the display of the Confederate flag at a war memorial on the grounds of the South Carolina capitol, I told a friend that I was concerned that this would lead to a much more serious purge against the South. The language being used wasn't always anti-Confederate, but had a strong anti-Southern tendency -- especially the language of the powerful and politically connected, as opposed to the ordinary citizens of South Carolina who have a perfect right to debate how to remember their heritage.

That this is an anti-Southern purge by the cultural elite is clear, now, as the Washington Post leads the charge to destroy the Southern belle. Writing on a decision by the University of Georgia to ban the wearing of hoop skirts as somehow symbolic of slavery, though unlike the Confederate flag the skirt is characteristic of the South both before and after the end of slavery, the Post calls for much more purgery:

If UGA and other Southern schools really want to lead, they will not only ban the hoop; they will also go after the belle. This will be tougher to do. It will mean discontinuing support for still-prevalent campus productions that promote imaginative connection with the Old South. And it will mean instituting new campus productions in their place. For their part, traditionally white Southern sororities serious about anti-racism will scrap the belle aesthetic and corresponding performances designed to measure it. They will develop new yardsticks for evaluating potential members that are less about looks and more about leadership. In short, they will confront the central role their choreography plays in reiterating race and class privilege. They will just say to hell with the belle.

The language is extraordinarily hostile to a group of young women engaged in what, in an earlier era, we might have thought of as "protected acts of free expression." But the campus is no place for free expression these days. These days expressions on campus must be controlled by the Federal Government's Office for Civil Rights. Campuses in the South must be controlled most tightly of all.

I've seen this movie before.



It wasn't the Medieval English kings, as the film has it: it was in 1746 that the kilt was banned, and the pipes, and the symbols of Scotland.

This Story is Starting to Get Interesting

The National Review points out that the missing emails -- whether or not they end up creating a legal issue for Mrs. Clinton -- will probably derail the prosecution of a terrorist associated with the Benghazi attacks. If you felt that we needed to point to actual damage to the national security, now you can.

If Mrs. Clinton thinks FOIA is a headache, wait until she sees what happens when a top government official’s reckless mass deletion of e-mails takes center stage in a terrorism prosecution of intense national interest. Federal criminal court is not the nightly news. There, mass deletion of files is not gently described as “emails a government official chose not to retain”; it is described as “destruction of evidence” and “obstruction of justice.”

The problem is that the indictment tries to stand by the silly story that the attack was a spontaneous protest to an internet video, and the government is required to produce anything it has that "calls into question the prosecution’s version of events, theory of guilt, and credibility." Emails from the day of the attack touching on the attack are, of course, evidence of that kind. I can tell that the author really enjoyed writing this piece.

Now classified information might not be required to be produced in an open court, but it is Mrs. Clinton's stated belief that no classified information was sent on this system. Also, according to Federal law, these were government records that were required to be archived.

Meanwhile, in what may be an even more amazing story, the IT firm Mrs. Clinton used appears to have transferred all the data to another drive -- and then sold it.

Bloomberg reported Thursday night that Barbara Wells, an attorney for Platte River Networks, Inc., confirmed that while the server hardware now controlled by the FBI 'is blank and does not contain any useful data,' its contents could still be safe and sound elsewhere.

That's because the server's messages were 'migrated' to another server that still exists, she said, before ending the Bloomberg interview without specifying where that device is located and who owns it – only that her company no longer has it.

That's some first-rate security this firm provides for their clients' sensitive data!

Wonder who has it now?

Waco Shootout Update

So... it's been three months. Do we know who shot whom?

No, indeed! "Tabo says courts can make exceptions under certain circumstances and in those cases, gag orders don’t violate The First Amendment. '[But] the standard is supposed to be quite high,' she says."

Nine people died at that shootout. Who shot them? An attorney out of Vegas claims, allegedly based on talks with the bikers, that the police killed them all. This would be an easy charge to rebut by releasing physical evidence. For example, were these gunshot wounds from handguns, or were they from rifles? That's very easy to determine in an autopsy.

Also: "All but two of the 177 have been released, and no one has been formally charged." No one? That's kind of amazing. Almost two hundred people were arrested, and no charges have been filed?

"Stands to reason" medicine takes another hit

For many years some doctors refused to treat Jehovah's Witnesses on the ground that they refused blood transfusions, which doctors felt made some procedures too risky.  Someone finally got around to testing the assumption that patients do better with transfusions than without.

Confidence

President Obama having had a "chance" meeting with Bill Clinton on the golf course yesterday, today he's out with the former President for the afternoon. Hillary Clinton will be joining them later when the party moves from the links to a birthday celebration for Vernon Jordan.

Wonder what they'll be talking about?

Poll results show that three percent of Democrats think Hillary is telling the truth about these emails.

That's Four Counts Showing

Passing TS/SCI information to someone not cleared to receive it is a felony each time you do it. We don't know how many recipients were on those two TS/SCI emails in Mrs. Clinton's account, but we do know that she passed them personally at least twice: once to her attorney, and once to an IT firm that was not cleared to handle classified material.

These facts aren't in dispute. That's a maximum penalty of 40 years. She could get less, and indeed I would expect the sentences to run concurrently in any case. Still, at this point we aren't arguing the facts anymore. We're now arguing whether this is a case of "knowingly" doing wrong that should be prosecuted under 1924, of "gross negligence" that should be prosecuted under 793(f), or whether it is merely a case of an unlawful transfer that should be prosecuted under section 793(d) which requires neither knowledge nor intent but merely being guilty of having done it.

The penalty is the same even if intent can't be proven. I understand she's arranged a meeting with the President. Meanwhile, The Observer calls for a special prosecutor.

I Think We Know

Robert Spencer reports on a 12-year-old girl who was kept as a sex slave by an ISIS fighter.

In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

Both before and after he raped her, he prostrated himself in Islamic prayer:

“He told me,” the girl recounted, “that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God.”

This was no isolated incident. A fifteen-year-old girl who had been forced into sex slavery recalled:

“He kept telling me this is ibadah” – that is, worship of Allah. “He said that raping me is his prayer to God. I said to him, ‘What you’re doing to me is wrong, and it will not bring you closer to God.’ And he said, ‘No, it’s allowed. It’s halal.’”

All this is reminiscent of Hamas’ statement:

“Killing Jews is worship that draws us closer to God.”

What kind of god is this?

The answer is in that piece on ISIS's songs and poetry that I cited this morning.

We sold our soul to Allah
And marched on the road to martyrdom.

Emphasis added.

This Doesn't Strike Me As A Dilemma

Philosophically, at least, there's no two ways about this. The right thing to do is to strike.

Imagine if you were a natsec official and received information that [American hostage Kayla] Mueller was being held at a location that Special Forces couldn’t safely reach, that she was being routinely raped (by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself), and that she was likely to go on being raped indefinitely until she was eventually murdered on film for propaganda. That dilemma is a bit like the dilemma FDR faced in deciding whether to bomb concentration camps: Is the humane option to put the innocents out of their misery and wreck some of the machinery of death in the process or do you hold back and let the suffering go on in the hope/expectation of liberation eventually?

Aquinas would have said that you strike and hope for a miracle to preserve her safety: and that you can hope for a miracle proves the morality of the case. If you were acting immorally -- if killing her were your end or the means to your end -- the miracle would undo your intended end. Because you can fervently hope that the bombs might miraculously avoid harming her, you know that your intention is not the evil but the good.

Clearly it feels like a dilemma to Allahpundit, however, which is interesting to me. To me it seems so clear a case as to require not the slightest hesitation before deciding. It's interesting that the intuitive feeling differs, although I think reason decides the case one way for all.

What do you think? Would you find this a difficult decision, were it to fall on you to make it in this war? Would you make it differently?

Why Not Dance?

I've been thinking more about the Chesterton post, inspired by AVI's generous gift, and the question of why dancing seems to have dropped away from the repertoire of normal things a man ought to be able to do. I know plenty of men who can dance, of course, but it is no longer one of the basic skills of manhood: my father didn't dance either, and nor did my uncle, and nor did many of the best young men I knew when I was a young man myself.

Here are two videos that I think may explain the shift. The first one is from Fort Apache, starring Henry Fonda and John Wayne. In this scene the fort commander is being asked to dance with the Sergeant Major's wife, having just given grave insult to the Sergeant Major's family. It is a moment in which the formal and ritual come to the rescue of the society when it is endangered by passionate emotions. The commanding officer looks askance at the request, but recognizes his duty and carries it out with vigor. Watch the Sergeant Major, too, dancing with the daughter of his commanding officer (played by Shirley Temple). Look how far apart they dance, but how pleasantly. Though she is a much younger woman, and he a married man, there is no danger of this action being misinterpreted as otherwise than joyous and appropriate. The dancing is, however, quite stiff by our contemporary standards.



The second scene is a really artful piece from A Knight's Tale. What I like about this scene is that it smoothly morphs about halfway through the dance from the Medieval formal dance to a contemporary sort of dancing. The director intends you to see that the formality, which might look alien and weird to a contemporary American, is really carrying the same sort of eroticism and pleasure that we expect from dances today. Yet you can't avoid the contrast, either, between the dance with steps and elaborate forms and the dance without either. The transition is really a transition, even though the director is quite right to say that dancing was also an erotic activity for the young even when it was formalized.



I think there may be something here to do with the loss of the form. Speaking for myself, I was taught to waltz, but none of the young women I knew wanted to waltz. Their favorite dances were more like the second dance of the second video. But the advantage to a formal dance is that you can know you're doing it correctly, which avoids embarrassment and public shame. The same spirited young men who are most interested in honor -- what I called "the best young men I knew" -- are also most driven to avoid shame. The new dances put them at grave risk of having their intentions toward the lady misinterpreted or misrepresented, of physical error and looking a fool, or of banging into someone else and thereby giving offense.

So dancing gets dropped from the repertoire of the young gentleman. There's no point in dancing without the ladies, and the ladies want to do a sort of dancing that he can't do without risking shame. That is too bad because, as the first video shows, it was a form capable both of giving pleasure and easing social interactions. Done correctly, that is -- but that means there has to be a correct way to do it. The informality is the enemy of those goods.

Songs of ISIS

One of the things I have advocated to DOD's Minerva Project is a serious study of radical Islamic poetics as a means of developing more effective counter-radical messaging. All our various disciplines of trying to influence in this area would be stronger if we knew how to speak in the language of poetry, as this carries so much of the weight in terms of how people feel about what is best and most worthy. Young men are especially susceptible to the emotional appeals of poetry and song, just as those same young and romantic men are the most likely to get involved in radical politics.

This week MEMRI gives us a look at the songs that ISIS is using for recruitment and morale.

ISIS's songs belong to a genre of traditional poetry called zajal, whose most prominent formal characteristic is rhyming. Zajal poems display various rhyme schemes.... The authors of ISIS's songs are evidently familiar also with Classical Arabic poetry, especially poems of war.... ISIS's songs are written in Classical Arabic, but the pronunciation is colloquial, reflecting the dialect of the lead singer....

Ours is the cry of truth [Allah Akbar] when the fighting [sides] collide.
We, the proud savage lions,
Carry the steel [swords] with firm determination.
And when war comes, with the music of bullets,
We take the infidels by storm, yearning for revenge.
They are led to perdition, they find no refuge,
We water the soil with the blood of their veins,
And cast off their heads with the blade of our sword.
We heal the souls [of the Muslims] by striking the enemies,
So give the enemy tidings of the evil day [that awaits him].
Ancient glory shall shine across the world.
The jabs of the spearhead are the music of the men.
And in war, honor casts a wide shadow.
So awaken to eternal life, come, my brother,
Leave the path of the slothful and foolish.
When the fire springs up, we are the flame,
Burning the rabble with our sword,
Lifting the dark night from the earth,
And a new dawn breaks over the world.

Chinese blast

The Daily Caller has up a collection of amateur videos of yesterday's huge explosion.  I guess they still don't know what blew up, exactly, but the area of devastation is huge.  So far they've acknowledged about 50 people killed.  It's a good thing it happened at night.

More on Anti-ISIL Militias

US News and World Report reports that about 600 Assyrians are being trained by an unnamed US company for the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU), and the group has 3,000 more volunteers being screened. The NPU is a Christian militia group operating in northern Iraq

Reuters reports on Westerners who have joined Dwekh Nawsha. In addition to a short video interview and a longer article providing context and more about the Western fighters, Reuters answers a question I had about why Westerners aren't joining the Kurdish peshmerga. They are concerned about possible affiliations with the PKK, which is considered a terrorist group.

British Grandfather Joins Christian Militia in Iraq

Despite having no military experience, Jim Atherton, 53, of Tyne and Wear, has sold his car to buy weapons and has already come under mortar and rocket attacks.

The granddad, who before leaving for Iraq cared for rescued daschunds, said Special Branch had tried to persuade him to come home, but he believed his place was fighting jihadists.

...

Mr Atherton said his family had been devastated by his decision to join a Christian militia called Dwekh Nawsha, which means The Sacrificers. He now belongs to a unit which protects the Christian population of Iraqi villages such as al-Qosh.

He raised the £18,000 needed for travel and guns by selling his Sierra Cosworth, two motorbikes and a boat.

Mr Atherton, whose younger brother was killed fighting in Afghanistan, came across Dwekh Nawsha on the internet. 

As a virtue, courage is the golden mean between cowardice and foolhardiness; I don't know if Mr. Atherton is courageous or foolhardy.

Dwekh Nawsha has its own Facebook page, of course, with some interesting photos and video, though it seems to be mostly in Syriac. And a YouTube channel with lots of videos but not much action. If Wikipedia is right:

The Dwekh Nawsha is a military organization created in mid 2014 in order to defend Iraq's Assyrian Christians from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and possibly retake their lands currently controlled by ISIL.

Unlike the NPU which is independent of the KRG and Peshmerga, the Dwekh Nawsha operates in coordination with them.

Despite being led by the Assyrian Patriotic Party, most militiamen are not members of the party. Several foreign fighters have joined the Dwekh Nawsha; they include Americans and Australians.

Interesting times we live in.

Daddy, where does gas come from?

Tom Steyer is shocked to discover that gasoline is unusually expensive in California, and can't figure out how there could be any reasonable explanation except market failure.

Maybe California should take over gas production, or set prices by fiat.  Has that ever been tried before?

In related news, the EPA is deeply concerned about the disparate impact of high energy prices on poor people.

Poking the bear

Project Veritas prankster James O'Keefe has been getting stopped at the border ever since he published his hilariously embarrassing videos of unchallenged border crossings dressed as Osama bin Laden or an ISIS terrorist.  I can't say I blame DHS for that; if they know he habitually stages illegal border crossings, they might reasonably scrutinize him to determine whether he's carrying contraband to make a point.  Yes, it's fairly clear they would be doing so to avoid embarrassment rather than to prevent harm to the U.S., but I can live with it, as can O'Keefe.

The pointed questions about what his next exposé is going to target, though, and the questions about which candidate he's going to support, are just creepy. This time, the border agents thought to ask him if he was filming the interview, which he wasn't, though they didn't ask if he was recording the sound, which he was. I imagine there will be flak over that, too.

All this is annoying and discouraging, but in a way it's good news.  There are countries where, if you pulled this kind of stunt, they'd just quietly kill you.

Things A Man Should Be Able To Do

Many thanks to our friend AVI, who kindly sent me a pair of works by and about Chesterton. One of them, The Man Who Was Chesterton, begins thus:

There are normal things that a normal man ought to do, as he sleeps or wakes or walks. One of them is to sing, to a plain tune with a common chorus, as our fathers did round their supper tables. Another is to dance, however clumsily, at least some of the dances of his native land. Another is to speak with clearness and moderate cogency in any council of his equals or on any not disreputable public occasion. Another is to recite poetry if he likes it; another is to be at ease and tolerably intimate with domestic animals; another is to know, even slightly, the uses of some weapon; another is to know common remedies for quite common maladies. And another is to be able to write down in pen and ink what he really thinks about public questions, and why he thinks it: which is all that I have done here.

Now I can claim a normal man's capacity in all of these things, except possibly to dance however clumsily at least some of the dances of my native land. In fact I was only ever taught one, and have not endeavored to learn more: indeed I have hardly used the waltz save at rare family weddings.

That it deserves to be titled a 'dance of my native land,' however, is beyond question.



What can you do?

That's Nonsense, Howard Dean

Dean, declaring how happy he is for the FBI to have Hillary's server, declares also that he's confident she will be vindicated. There's a good summary of the law at the link.

But it doesn't matter. "I don't think she's going to get the blame for it because she didn't know" is a nonstarter as a defense. Given the security markings the Inspector General assigned to the emails, she had to know. You would not have access to sensitive signals intelligence and top-flight imagery without being read into those compartmentalized programs and trained in their Operational Security requirements.

There is no way she or anyone with that access did not realize that what they were doing was a potential violation of security at the highest levels. Long before they sat down to write an email referencing satellite imagery or sensitive signals intelligence, they had been trained to know that before discussing that information they should check its classification level and releasability, and use only appropriate measures. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but ignorance when you've received extensive and specific training is no excuse at all.

We're Cleaning

Steve Reichert points out that Clinton committed a separate offense when she passed these emails, on the thumbdrive server, to her uncleared attorney.