Random Thought #739....

Took a walk with my copilot this evening past the United Nations building in Manhattan, and I wondered:

How different would this world be today if one of those planes had been aimed at the U.N. building?

52% of America thought....

Joe Biden was a smarter VP pick than Sarah Palin. Amazing. They mocked her as "Caribou Barbie".

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”

Biden is a certifiable, friggin' idiot. Zero is an even bigger idiot for picking him as his Veep. If they had any honor, the 52% of America that voted for the Zero/Biden ticket ought to be pushing for an impeachment, if for no other reason than to regain their integrity.

Told ya' so.

Don't these people know we're in economic trouble here?

I'm out on a trip and on a layover. Today, I'm downtown in Atlanta.

And what do I see as I returned from dinner?

The hotel is hosting a convention from the United Federation of Doll Clubs, Inc.

There are a number of folks here, primarily middle-aged women, who apparently have not grown out of playing with dolls.

The idea that some of these folks would come together to form a club so they can talk about and show their dolls is odd enough. But, moreover, that these clubs would feel the need to band together to form a Federation just boggles the mind.

This country is in the deepest economic trouble in decades, and these people are playing with dolls.

A Tale of Two Tails....

From ABC


h/t Ace.

Not for nothing, but Zero is doing something that every male does (and especially Sarkozy). The problem here is not that he looked at an attractive young woman, but that he got caught. ABC ought to be ashamed of the lengths they go to explain what is plainly a glance at the young woman.

Moreover, Michelle Obama gets far too much credit for her looks. The left and the media (but I repeat myself) still fawn over Jackie Kennedy, and Michelle Obama is their current incarnation of her. You would think that someone on her staff would know a way to diplomaticly ask The Most Beautiful Woman Evar if she really wanted to be in a position to be photographed wearing this ensemble....



Also, Michelle, famous as she is for her own Arms Race, appears to be putting on weight. Perhaps Zero is noticing too.

OK. So I went to a Tea Party yesterday.....

There were two Tea Parties in the Phoenix area yesterday: One, which included a half mile "protest march" at 4:30 in the afternoon in downtown Phoenix, and the other, at 8:30am on the lawn of the Municipal Building in nearby Gilbert. Guess which one I went to?

Some observations, in no particular order.....

• It's hard to tell, and I'm certainly no expert, but I'm guessing there were a couple of thousand people in attendance.
• The media were there too. Channel 3 and Channel 12 had TV trucks there, and I have to imagine the print media was there too, but I'll be damned if I can find a mention of it at azcentral.com.
  
  [Edit: At one point, I had an embeded video here from one of the local news outfits. I have removed it though, because it was one of those videos that starts on its own, and every time you opened this webpage, the damned thing would play. I've decided I hate that.]
• Some thoughts on crowd composition...... It was almost exclusively, at least to my eyes, white. This will lead the real racists of the world to again shout "Racism!", but it is really more of a racial, rather than racism point.
  
  A white crowd is both good and bad. But first, a caveat: This is the East Valley we're talking about here. The Phoenix metro area has a black population, but compared to other areas, it is relatively small. We do have a hispanic population, but neither were represented at the rally. On the all-white crowd I saw, the good: That mainstream middle-class Americans--the Silent Majority--are inspired to take to the streets is an expression of the frustration this otherwise sedentary group. The bad: Having a broader appeal is necessary. That the liberals and the Democrats have succeeded in dishing deals to their constituent groups is a problem this movement needs to address.
  
  The crowd was also largely composed of middle-aged (and older) folks. This too has a good and bad view. Older folks are more reliable voters, and the politicians know this. But it would be better to have a coalition (Hey! A Lefty word!) across the age groups.
  
  I wasn't thrilled with some of the groups that were there. The NRA had a table there, which I obviously don't mind, and there were a scattering of "Sign My Petition" tables and folks selling t-shirts, etc. But there was also a group there who are pissed off about the speed cameras (which, as I understand it, issues fines but not points), and the John Birch Society. When a fringe movement has its own fringe elements, it is easy to paint the whole thing as nutty.
• Taxes are a high interest item. Given that this was Gilbert, there was more than a little discussion of a Gilbert (sales?) tax under consideration. The politicians had better know that more taxes are going to be a difficult sell. There were many signs opposed to Cap and Trade.
  
• The message the Republican party ought to be listening to is this: The conservative segment is done watching you compromise with the liberals. The support we gave to the big government "compassionate conservatives" is over. Sen. McCain was boo-ed (no surprise there), and Rep. Flake--who is otherwise a very fiscally prudent representative--was damaged by missing the vote on Cap and Trade. By design, no elected representatives, at any level, were invited to speak.
• Lots of folks made homemade signs--there was even a table set up for you to do it there. My favorite: "Chains You Can Believe In" (I don't mean to imply this was taken at the Gilbert rally....I got if off the web.)

I never was much of a Republican. I left the party back in the 90's when George H.W. Bush reneged on his "No New Taxes" pledge and began the Assault Weapons Ban bandwagon rolling. I voted for Ross Perot, and for my sins, we ended up with Bill Clinton. I only re-entered the party last year in order to vote for Fred Thompson in the Republican primary. But I'm pretty well convinced that I'll be leaving the Republicans again. I understand that the political parties have a stranglehold on things, but I'm hopeful that a third way can find success. I'll explore the Constitution Party, but will probably re-register as a Libertarian.

Somehow you had to know this was coming.....

Mrs. Obama bringing glamor to Moscow this weekend

This Independence Day weekend, if you hadn't noticed.

Sarah Palin's Resignation....

Back when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, I thought: "Perfect. Someone who is a real conservative--not some 'Maverick'--and who actually lives her principles." Then, when McCain suspended his campaign over the economic crisis, I thought that it was over (and I think I commented somewhere to that effect.).

[As a digression, and on later reflection, based on this very open and compelling video, maybe suspending the campaign was prudent. Note the timeline here...the run on the bank Kanjorski speaks of happened Sept. 15, and McCain suspended his campaign Sept. 24.]


Anyway, I remember thinking that when McCain pulled that stunt, prudent or not, that he was done.

Regarding Palin's future, I was really pumped when the NRA announced it was honoring Palin with a specially made .50Beowolf M4. I thought: "That's it. She's running, and she's running as an in-your-face conservative." However, after she demurred from attending, I then thought "OK. Maybe that's a smart move. Why make half of America suspicious of you?"

So anyway, today, when Palin announced her resignation, I had that same sort of feeling that I had when McCain suspended his campaign. Maybe she's just trying to put an end to these ceaseless and baseless attacks on her and her family. For that reason alone, I can understand the resignation. But as a political move, I'm not so sure. Maybe this is a totally out-of-the-box approach that she'll find that this will work for her--I certainly hope so. But she may have shot herself in the foot here too.

Exactly the healthcare we don't need.....

IBD: Where will Canada send its preemies and other critical patients when we adopt their health care system?

h/t Kevin.

Guess who?

....Neal is on his Soapbox over?

"....This man has no idea of what it means to be an American. He cares nothing for the principles which made this country what it is. He shows no respect for the sacrifices made by our servicemen in the defense of our freedoms and liberty. And he cares less than spit about the document that he swore an oath to uphold...."

OK. Its not that hard.

h/t Theo.

On The Occasional Perks of a Bad Schedule

I don't often write about my work life. If done well--or at least as I define "well"--being an airline pilot is boring and lonely. I like the work, but am tired of the travel, if that makes any sense. If I ever find myself making a call to my wife to tell her about my exciting day at work, it will be the last thing either one of us wants. And because she is my best friend, not seeing her half the month brings a sense of aloneness.

The system by which we bid our schedules was changed recently. "Change" may be too harsh a verb..."tweak" might be better. I had had my bidding strategy pretty much on "automatic pilot" month-to-month, and have gotten used to a schedule which fits my needs. I haven't put the time to understand these new tweaks well enough to make use of their strengths...maybe next month. Anyway, this new change/tweak, in combination with the regular seasonal variations of an airline schedule (summers are always busier than winters) and the industry trying to react to a declining economy has left me with lesser quality schedules than I have been used to. I'm not complaining, mind you, just noting that things aren't as good as they once were.

Anyway, this month has been especially taxing. I have a flying schedule of 16 days...which is about normal. On top of that, however, I was away for 4 days for our annual recurrent training. I spent the two days immediately preceding that recurrent in a financial seminar. (And I finally came to understand the material well enough to think that I am done going to these seminars. Now to translate that knowledge into my trading accounts!) And rather than go home after recurrent, I spend the Father's Day weekend with my ailing father for what I believe may be his last Father's Day. Immediately following that, I launched off on another trip.

All told, I have been able to be home 6 days this month. Wifeof- and Sonof- and Dau#2ofAzlib have been wonderful for me. The chores I normally take care of--the yardwork, the pool care, the ironing--have been taken care of by my family. If you're a reader who works 5 days a week and has 8 or 9 days of "weekend" a month, then 6 days may not sound like much, but my life is structured on 14-16 days off each month. Six days of down time hasn't been enough.

And because I'm not bidding well, the trips I've flown this month aren't particularly great either. By that I mean I am flying all-night trips. Some guys totally hate this type of trip, but I'm not one of them (yet). We have a "Quiet Room" where I am based, and I've found that if I can spend an hour or two in a recliner in a dark room with my earplugs in, then I can function for an all-night flight. Its not easy: That nap is crucial, and I have to drink coffee, and plan to eat and stand up to get my blood flowing in order to stay awake, but it is "do-able". I've had three of these all-night trips this month which have had me leaving my west coast base some time between 10pm and midnight and arriving in New York between 5:30am and 8am.

Anyway, last night we found ourselves watching the sun rise in the last hour of our flight. I'm not much of an astronomer, but I have flown enough at night to recognize some of the bigger constellations, as well as Venus and Mars. But last night, right before sunrise, and as we were over western New York, we were able to see what we took was the International Space Station. You can track it here.

A busy month half-full of crappy trips does have it's opportunity for a perk.

Count me as more than a.....

Little pissed off.

My congressman, Jeff Flake, missed the vote on the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill.

Not that it matters, as the bill passed 219-212, so his vote would have made it 219-213.

But.....

I took the effort to call his Arizona office this morning to speak out on this issue. The woman who took my call was receptive, but as is usually the case, she didn't offer anything back.

And tonight I found out the reason: Flake was watching his daughter compete in the America's Junior Miss competition.

Don't get me wrong: I really, really like Jeff Flake. Everybody likes their congressman, but I don't just like him because he represents me. He has been one of the best guys around for quite some time.

[A personal point: Flake lives in my neighborhood. This daughter is a senior at the high school that my three kids attended. I see him at our neighborhood gym. And Flake selected a drawing my oldest daughter did when she was a high school senior for the Congressional Art Competition. Her drawing hung in Congress for a year, and it was a high honor for both her and our family.]

I'll give the guy his due....family is important, and I have no doubt that this Junior Miss is a big deal. Being there for his daughter is something any father would want to do.

But this Cap and Trade bill is important for all of us--his daughter included. It will crush our economy in a misdirected aim of saving our environment. There are too many loopholes to be effective as a environmental tool, making the whole thing a stupid exercise.

Flake is still a good guy, but he should have voted. Even given that the bill apparently has a slim chance in the Senate, he should have found a way to be there for the vote. I'm going to remember this.

"Stop spending our future"....

Ummm, Yep. Can't argue with one word.




h/t Sine Nominee, seen via Glenn, so he doesn't need my traffic.

Hard hats and tie tacs.....

I guess there are occasions where a hard hat is seen with a tie tac...an architect visiting a work site perhaps...but they usually don't have much in common.

However, on a visit through Drudge's site, I saw this story on some hard hats distributed by the AFL-CIO on Capital Hill to make some pro-union point. The problem being: the hard hats are made in China. The union tried to excuse this with....

"Obviously our policy is to only use union vendors and it was a mistake by a new staffer who ordered them and unfortunately wasn't caught before they went out."

[Hmmmm. "New staffer". That has a familiar ring.]

So how the connection to tie tacs?

As you can see from the upper left, I am an airline pilot. With that, I am also a union member....in my case, the Air Line Pilots Association.

And for an airline pilot union member, wearing a union tie tac is important to many of us. For those who don't know, in the build up to a contract, a great deal is made of solidarity among the union, and getting everyone to wear the tie tac is one of the favored methods of measuring and demonstrating that solidarity.

The ALPA tie tac comes with numbers denoting the number of years you have been a member. 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.

I may have written about this long ago....if I did, I didn't tag it, so its back in the archives somewhere. Anyway, when I went through 20 years, the union sent me a nice note with my new 20 year pin.

And here it is.....


Click the image for a larger view.

I wrote the union making the same "You've-got-to-be-kidding-me...sending-me-a-union-pin-made-in-China" complaint and got pretty much the same response--Mistakes are made.

I hope you can see why I don't--and won't--wear my union pin any longer.

Ok....here's the thing.......

Like everybody else in the world, I've got a couple of gay acquaintances, and even a distant relative who is a lesbian.

That said, I'm as straight as the day is long. Not a gay bone in my body. [Awright, awright... I'll dispense with the double entrendes.]

But if ever I was to have a man-crush, it would have to be with this guy.



And yeah, it turns out to be a pitch for somebody, and I'm real close to becoming a gold bug myself, but the rant is beautiful, man. Beautiful.

h/t Gerard.

Good Gawd.....

I had one of these as a kid.

Yep. That was one fine Christmas, I'll tell you.

At one point, I also had a toy meant to be a version of one of these.....



No wonder I'm a bit twisted (like the barrel of a rifle. I keed! I keed!)and have a gun-safe full of metal.

However, those were the days when boys did not play with dolls, so for as macho as they were, Dad didn't allow my brother and I have any G.I. Joes. They were little more than Barbies, and I think I have to agree. It is better to emulate adult life with toys than to imagine toys playing with other toys....if that makes any sense.

I guess that today's video game generation makes that point even more pointedly....what with middle and high schools using the Wii platform in their gym classes, we have accepted the idea that we can simulate doing something as well as actually doing it. I mean what's better: Handing a kid a tennis racket and a ball, or handing him a video controller so he can simulate playing tennis?

Anyhoo, this trip down memory lane is all thanks to a small item I saw at DirectorBlue having been pointed there by Gerard.

A(nother) random thought....

On my way back from grabbing my lunch today, this picture popped into mind. Lots of folks on the intertubes and the blogododecahedron were talking about it the other day. Glenn got it from Drudge. Ann ran a caption contest. Pretty much everybody spoke about it. I dunno know why it came to mind today. It just did.

Now, I'm on long record here has being less-than-impressed with Michelle Obama. She strikes me, more than anything, as an angry woman. I've felt that way all the way back to her days of "not being proud of her country", and her admonishment that "Barack Obama will require you to work." The extravagant inauguration ceremonies--which cost far more than the previous record did--and last week's "date night" to NYC strike me as things that Michelle had her hand in.



I get many of my viewers here through images searches for Michelle Obama wearing what I call her "Black Widow" dress. [The image I used stole for that purpose is now gone into the internet black hole, but you get the idea.]

I wondered then, and still wonder: Why would she wear this dress? Especially after we had previously asked: "What's So Scary About Michelle Obama?"

Anyhoo, what popped into mind today was the flash that there is a bit of history between Carla Bruni (wife of French President Nicholas Sarkozy) and Michelle Obama.

"...Carla Bruni will stay away from the summit, preferring to meet Michelle Obama in Strasbourg. The Élysée Palace told The Times that Ms Bruni would not be among the 16 spouses who will accompany their partners to London for events hosted by Sarah Brown and a reception at Buckingham Palace.

Instead the first ladies of the United States and France will meet at a European summit on Saturday, in what inevitably will be seen as a snub to London...."

Lots of readings of the meanings behind the fashion and body language here, here and here.

I'm thinking that that look--like her "not proud" comment and her belief that Barack will drive us from our cynicism,--reveals more about the inner Michelle than she would like us to know.

I'm guessing that...

...The Secretary of the Treasury will create a new
"Bureau of How-Much-You-Ought-to-be-Paid".

How long before this Bureau is not limiting itself to executive compensation? How long before companies find a way around their limitations? How long would it be before we'd see companies' talent pool go John Galt because of these limitiations? How would the Bureau be better than the Boards of Directors, the stockholders--the Market for executive talent--at determining how someone should be paid?

In short: What could possibly go wrong?

h/t OptionArmegeddon

O/T: The NYT link to the SecTreas plan to regulate executive compensation has on its sidebar this story from the "Moral of the Story" column entitled "Give Women Guns". The author, Randy Cohen, we're told has 5 Emmys, one of which he "received [...] as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it." We're also told his Moral of the Story column is one where "he will examine a news story from an ethical perspective." He is also--no kidding--a humorist.

One question: How is it ethical to keep an item gained through a clerical error? Or is that supposed to be humor?

And were I less busy this week, I might try to fisk this thing, but right now I'm overwhelmed.

Obama in Cairo on Islam....

I confess to not having watched His (sic) speech in its entirety, but I've seen enough to know that I'm not impressed.

Neither is Amir Taheri of the New York Post. A snippet.....

President Obama's "address to the Muslim world" was a masterwork of equivocation and political naiveté.

Lots of commentators have already debunked Zero's acknowlegment of "civilization's debt to Islam"--"the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing." However, what caught my eye was when Zero repeated one of the reliable canards of the Left: "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world."

The war in Iraq was not a "war of choice". We brought the matter to the U.N. and were able to get the U.N. Security Council to vote unanimously that, among other things, "the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations".

The Congress fully debated the question of going to war with Iraq. The Iraq War Authorization passed the House 297-133 (including 82 Democrats voting in favor) and the Senate 77-23. More Democrat Senators voted for the Resolution than voted against it (29 voting for; 21 voting against). Included in those Senators voting for what Zero calls a "war of choice" are his Vice President, who was "perhaps the single most important congressional backer of the Bush administration's decision to invade that oil-rich country" and Zero's Secretary of State, who, in her then-capacity as a Senator, also voted for the Resolution.

It is an outrage that Zero would go onto foreign soil (not to mention Islamic foreign soil) and cast the Iraq War as a little-debated question, decided upon rashly, and without adequate consideration for other methods of solving the Iraq problem. The world and this country fully looked at the problem we faced in Iraq, and openly decided on a course of action.

That Zero disageed with that decision, and was in the minority at the time, does not make it now a "War of choice".

Humbled....

I left a comment over in Cowboy Blob's weekly caption contest, and frankly, what with our anniversary trip and everything else going on right now, I'd forgotten about it.

And lo, and behold, I won! Thanks, Blob!

You and me both, Baxter....

Oh, yeah. One of my secret aspirations is to one day grow me one of those awesome mustaches. It'd prolly look like hell on me, but if Wilford Brimley can pull it off, I don't know why I couldn't too.

H/T Gerard.

Shooting Goals....

In which I totally rip off the idea from ExurbanKevin.

Here are mine....complete with my excuses pre-attached.

• Get to a match once a month....minimum. I enjoy the Tuesday night Sundowner IDPA match over at Phoenix Rod & Gun Club, but it always seems as though there is something that keeps me from my once-a-month ideal. A year ago it was $4/gallon gasoline. My schedule as an airline pilot generally allows me to select one or two days a month that I am guaranteed to be home for, but by the time you put in birthdays, holidays, and other events, making a "Me" day sometimes seems kinda selfish.
• Improve my shooting--which would be the result of any or all of these. My motto, if you will, is: "Surround yourself with excellent people, and then hope one day to be average." With that, I don't mind being among the last guys at the IDPA match. I figure most of these guys are shooting at least one match a week, and given that I show up once a month (if that), then I'm doing OK. But I still would like to improve. It sucks to be last. I went to the state IDPA match last year and despite a more rigorous preparation, I still sucked and was disappointed that I did.
• Related to getting to a match and improving my shooting is that I should get to a IDPA classifier. June would be good, but it will probably have to be later than that. I've got recurrent in June and still need some serious preparation to finish for that, so a June filled with shooting prolly ain't gonna happen.
  
• And Kevin is right: Losing weight would help. In my case, I should be 25 pounds lighter than I am. This too requires a dedication to the gym that I have spent the last 52 years avoiding.
• Dry firing would be good too.
  
• Start reloading. Ammo is getting very hard to find. Couple that with part of me that believes we may be headed to very difficult times (Data point #1, data point #2, data point #3. I could go on, but you get the idea.) and I'm left with the dilemma that every round I practice with today might be a round I might need to shoot tomorrow.
  
  Not long after I got my press, I managed to score some small pistol primers and a small supply of bullets, I just ordered some powder, and of course, I've got tons of brass. But putting it all together and actually doing it is just Another-Thing-To-Do.
  
  I've had a standing request (along with about every other shooter) for 10k small rifle primers since last December, but I don't really have a hope that they'll be delivered. [And I certainly don't have enough .223 ammo to begin the habit of regularly shooting my AR-15.]
  
  I really ought to get started with the reloading...the last .40 ammo I bought was outrageously expensive at the time, and lead bullets. I have found that these leave traces of lead in the polygonally rifled barrels of my HK USP (and will probably do the same on my Glock). I've got copper-clad bullets for the reloading, but only a thousand, so keeping a supply of more of these should become a priority.
• Oh, yeah. I would like to start Three-Gun and get to a formal course too. Not gonna happen anytime soon though.
  

MIA....

WifeofAzlib and I are away celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary.

We've been in Napa for the last couple of days. While we're neither wine conniseurs nor even much of wine drinkers, we've had a great time. We toured the Castello Di Amorosa, and enjoyed it very much....even bought 6 bottles of their wines. Yesterday we had a fabulous time and a wonderful meal on the Napa Valley Wine Train...highly recommended. We've stayed at the Vino Bello Resort, which appears to be a timeshare, but have had a wonderful room....fireplace, full kitchen, large jacuzzi bath, enormous shower and comfort everywhere. It doesn't look like much from the outside, and the location isn't the best, but we've enjoyed the place thoroughly.

Today, we're headed down to Monterey and Carmel where we will meet with some friends for lunch and are looking forward to our stay at the Intercontinental Clement.

Geez....

This Andy McCarthy fella is one smart dude.

Here, he highlights the problems with Zero bringing to America, for any reason, any of the Gitmo terrorists/detainees/choirboys we abducted from the battlefield. I once called Zero "President Strawman", but Andy expands on this and points out the straw men that Zero does not erect because they cannot be knocked down.

OK.....

Whatever it is Kevin is up to here, I guess I should go along.

So if you view this attempt to drive my meager traffic towards Kevin's much more refined 2A site as my way of working around whatever the unstated rules of his game are, then OK. After all: "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'!"

Psssst! Hey, Wanna Win One of These?

"...Some of my outstanding Cabinet Members and Advisors..."

Courtesy of Allah, I see this....



As you will note in the upper right, I am an airline pilot. This may not be obvious, but this means that I fly with a number of different First Officers all the time. Occasionally, I will fly with a different F/O on each leg. I cannot tell you how many times I've looked over to my right to a guy who I have been sitting next to for the past two days, and silently asked myself: "What is his name?". With Flight Attendants, it is even worse. I have only a cursory exposure to them...frequently not even meeting some of them at all.

That said, I've always believed it is important for "The Boss" to at least know his subordinate's names. And, since I know this is a weakness of mine, I know I have to work to make sure I do. I don't always succeed (especially with the F/As), but I do try.

And as myrenovations notes, for the President of the United States, in an address on National Security, to mis-identify the Secretary of Defense is "awkward", in the very least. For him to make this mistake in the presence of his famous teleprompters is doubly awkward and unforgivable.

Oh, my.....

Politico: President Obama: U.S. 'went off course' fighting terror

Cheney due up next to smack him down.

This thing is going nuclear.

Oh, Snap....

Closing Guantanamo was "a hasty decision".

Just about the dumbest idea I've ever seen....

Slap a couple of tacti-cool rails and lights and sights on what amounts to a stage-coach gun, and call it a New Home Defense Shotgun. Good luck with selling that thing.

Saying it all...

...On a T-Shirt.



h/t The Art of Obama, who I can't really figure out.

A Couple o'²....

Notes that I should note.....

• Kevin over at The Smallest Minority has wisely called on Bill Whittle of EjectEjectEject to write a new version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. I read Kevin's stuff fairly regularly, and you should too. I confess to having not been to Bill's site much in the recent past. He's a fine writer, and passionate about the same sorts of things that bring passion to me, and while I used to read him often, I've gotten out of the habit lately. EjectEjectEject is now on my blogroll, and I'll be sure to visit more regularly, both for the topics that Bill writes on and the wonder that someone can write so well.
• Relating to Bill, I noticed on his webpage, that the picture of him in that small plane doesn't much look like the Bill that I watched here. In doing a google search for a better (more recent?) picture of him, I came upon this quote.....

  "The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
  -- Thomas Jefferson

  
  Why is it that I've never seen this before?

John Piper....

I've never heard of John Piper; I'm not Baptist; I'm not even particularly religious. You could fairly count me as one of those squishy "spiritual, but not religious" types.

But the older I get, the more I find that I am against abortion.

I didn't vote for Obama for a number of reasons. His position on abortion is only one of them.

Hey. Here's some cheer-y news...

"War is coming to the Caucasus."

Zero is a naive infant regarding the serious problems we have around the world.

Wholesale.....

Linkerage....

• Obama's Military Tribunals- "Their champion has repudiated them once again"
• Critics Still Haven't Read the 'Torture' Memos-

  "Congress required, in order for there to be a violation of the law, that an interrogator specifically intend that the detainee suffer prolonged physical or mental suffering as a result of the prohibited conduct. Just knowing a person could be injured from the interrogation method is not a violation under Supreme Court rulings interpreting "specific intent" in other criminal statutes."

  There's that "specific intent" thingi which I noted that Scott at Powerline and Andrew McCarthy made mention of here. That "specific"--as opposed to "general"--intent concept makes a difference.
  
  And, Oh-By-The-Way, I love the scare quote around "torture" in the title.
• Panetta's Pelosi Smackdown-"Mrs. Pelosi is now caught in a humiliation of her own design that will only escalate if she insists on an interrogation 'truth commission.'" As I said the other day on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, the typical congresscritter--anc certainly Mrs. Pelosi--wouldn't know the truth if it were a cluebat applied directly to their foreheads.
  
  

More on Torture...

One of the concepts that I've had in mind regarding "torture", but which I've been so far unable to fully crystallize and enunciate is the idea of "intent".

Like all Air Force pilots, I am a graduate of their Survival School. I have undergone many of the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques which were exposed here, but not "waterboarded"--which I presume was part of an "advanced" Survival School that I did not go to.

I'll be the first to say that these EITs are unpleasant, and that given the choice, I would avoid them.

But more on "intent"....

If I take my gun out, and align the sights on the heart of a man, pull the trigger and kill him, have I committed murder?

I say: It depends.

• If I am a madman in a bell tower, then: Yes. This is murder.
• If I am a political assassin, then: Yes, this too is murder, with a political motivation.
• If I am a soldier in the field, then: No. This is part of combat that is expected of every soldier.
• If I am an executioner in a prison, then: No. I am carrying out the sentence of the state (perhaps of my first two examples).

So the reason behind why you are pulling the trigger has everything to do with how we view the act of pulling the trigger. Intent.

So. Regarding "torture", what if we had the following set of questions and answers...

Questioner #1: Are Navy SEALS subjected to waterboarding as part of their training being tortured?

Respondent: No, it's not torture in the legal sense because you're not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we're trying to do is train them --

Questioner #1: So it's the question of intent?

Respondent: Intent is a huge part.

Questioner #1: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?

Respondent: Well, it... uh... it... one has to look at... ah... it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act -- that is not torture.

...and...

Questioner #2: Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent. If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn't that correct?

Respondent: No, not at all. Intent is a fact question, it's a fact specific question.

Questioner #2: So what kind of intent were you talking about?

Respondent: Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act? Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?

Questioner #2: I said that in my question. The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm -- there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm -- knew that for sure. So, is the intent, are you saying it's in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured. Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he's doing harm.

Respondent: The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances. That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.

Of course, in this example, Questioner #1 is Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) and Questioner #2 is Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) and the Respondent is Eric Holder in the recent hearings regarding the "torture" question. And equally obvious, I did not come across this by myself, but must credit Scott at Powerline who expands on the point brought out by Andrew McCarthy. They lay out that Holder is aware of the differences between the intent behind waterboarding. They argue that if the intent of the waterboarding is to train, or to gain information, then waterboarding is clearly not torture. If the intent is to cause pain or discomfort, then it is.

Holder is acting politically here, which comes as no surprise.

And on the topic of....

My infrequent postings here, I confess to being amazed that my (very meager) traffic holds steady. I do notice that I'm getting some referrals from comments I've put up here or there instead of the clicks to the pictures I've used swiped from elsewhere on the intertubes.

Ok. I'm outta here. Saturday chores in preparations to a visit to the NRAAM tomorrow (hopefully!).

It was a light blogging week, but....

I just noticed that it has been a week since I put something up here. Its not that I haven't been active on the intertubes...I have. I'm on vacation now, which means I've been catching up on things around the house (a pool repair project, a new door, fixing the lawnmower [again--groan]), preparing for our 25th Anniversary Vacation (Yeah!), studying for recurrent (Boo!), and spending more time on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named than I should.

All that said, the topic of the week was, still, "torture". It came in many incarnations...from Zero's decision to not release the photos of the "torture", to Nancy Pelosi's continuing down the bizarre path that They-Only-Told-Me-They-Were-Gonna-"Torture"/I-Was-Only-Briefed-That-There-Was-A-Briefing/The-CIA-Lied-"Mislead"-Congress/No-Make-That-"The-Bush-Administration-Lied". Leon Panetta has now found himself involved.

The "Torturous" video here....

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named "torture" was still the topic. I posted the following over there (de-identified, of course) to one of my die-hard "torture-is-immoral" oppponents (is that an oxymoron?).

Posted By [Me] on 13 May 2009 07:38 PM

Posted By [A guy with similar views] on 13 May 2009 10:07 AM
...[My first name], help me here.

Maybe this is what you're looking for....

Regarding "torture", [My opponent] and his fellow travelers will say...

Posted By [My opponent] on 12 May 2009 10:05 PM

No, what we do to them defines us....

As they gaze at their navels in the search for every one of our imperfections, they fail to wonder:

If we are defined by what we do to them, is our enemy similarly defined by what they do to us?

While, just as in every religious sect, in Islam there are different interpretations of the meaning of religious texts, the Sura 9:29 says...

"You shall fight back against those who do not believe in GOD, nor in the Last Day, nor do they prohibit what GOD and His messenger have prohibited, nor do they abide by the religion of truth - among those who received the scripture - until they pay the due tax, willingly or unwillingly."

...and I have seen this alternative translation...

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, even if they are people of the book (i.e. Christians or Jews) until they pay the Jiyza with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."

Also relevant is Sura 9:30...

"They have set up their religious leaders and scholars as lords, instead of GOD. Others deified the Messiah, son of Mary. They were all commanded to worship only one god. There is no god except He. Be He glorified, high above having any partners."

When a Christian or Jew listens to a preacher or a Pope, the Islamists believe that they are blaspheming God/Allah. They call us "polytheists" for employing these intermediaries between ourselves and God. Moreover, whenever we elect people to represent us in a democracy, they believe that we are elevating a man to a place that God ought to occupy.

Christians and Jews share the Old Testament, and therefore the Book of Genesis. In Genesis, we see the story that God created the Heavens and Earth in six days, and on the seventh day He rested. He created a day free of work so that He could stop and appreciate--love--all that He had created. And, of course, one of the things that He created was man. Moreover, man was created in His image. [This idea itself is enough for the Islamists to believe that we are heretics.] But given that we are in His image, one of the things we accept is that we too have a day free of work in which we set aside time to worship Him and appreciate the wider world. But, because God also gave us freedom....we are also free not to worship. That choice may generate some consequences in this life or the next, but the point being that we are free to make that choice in our religious life.

The Islamists don't believe in this freedom, either in the choice of whether to worship or to whom. They believe that Allah determines and controls everything. They believe that the reason that the very molecules in our bodies do not fly apart into a random oblivion is only due to Allah's will. To deny Allah's will, either directly or by maintaining another faith, is blasphemy.

The Islamists also believe that any lands which were ever Islamic are always to be Islamic. The "Israel Problem" is a combination of their quest to reclaim territory and a fight against freedom-loving non-believers.

And speaking of freedom-loving non-believers, the Islamists are almost as unhappy with democratic Muslim states and Muslim states who cooperate with the West as they are with the West itself. They believe that any Muslim who casts a vote is denigrating that which is due to Allah. They were especially incensed at Saudi Arabia for allowing the infidel West to defile their lands in Desert Storm. They remain unhappy that SA does business with the West.

What this all adds up to is that the Islamists believe they have a duty--a religious duty--to fight anyone who denies Allah or Muslims who cooperate with these infidels.

I imagine you're wondering: Why did I take you down this path?

Well, I did this to again make the case that we are in an existential fight against a measurable portion of Islam. Like it or not, we are in the worst sort of war: A religious war. Beyond the lands that the Islamists seek to retake and rule under Sharia, they are also after our religious hearts. They seek to take everything we have: Our lands; our freedoms; and our religions. It is a telling omen that when Steve Centani and Olaf Wiig were kidnapped by the Palistinians in Gaza, one of the conditions of their release was that they were made to convert to Islam at gunpoint. You can pooh-pooh this by reasoning that a forced conversion is not a valid conversion, but how can you be sure? Does not God have the power to recognize conversions? Moreover, this is entirely consistent with how the Islamists view the world. We believe we have the freedom to make our own religious choices; They believe in no such thing. They are completely intolerant.

And when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sawed off the head of the Jewish Daniel Pearl, he too was being completely consistent. They believe they have the right, and the duty, to rid the world of those who do not believe as they do.

So after we captured Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, we found him to be resistant to all our efforts at getting what he knew. So then we gnashed our teeth and asked the OLC to give a legal opinion on just how enhanced our Enhanced Interrogation Techniques could be. So after we decided how and whether we could waterboard him, he gave up Abu Zubaydah after the EIT. When we captured Zubaydah and found him also resistant to our questioning, we waterboarded him and then Zubaydah gave up KSM. KSM also resisted until waterboarded, and through all these EITs, we learned information that saved American lives.

[My opponent] says: So what? We could have learned what they knew without resorting to these EITs--this "torture". He can't possibly know this. You can never know the conditions on the path that you chose not to take. Moreover, he cannot know the fourth dimension here--the time required to yield the same results if we chose to take some less "torturous" techniques. This is why Zero retains his Jack Bauer exception to the ticking time-bomb scenario. And this also makes those who decried the previous administration over "torture", yet continue to support Zero, hypocrites on this matter.

Christians are commanded to turn the other cheek. Yet we are also allowed to defend our beliefs.

FWIW, if you've reached this far and are interested in more of I've come across here, this post speaks to the Recent Statements of Islamic Ideology as heard through bin Laden and Zarqawi and this post speaks to Islam vs Free Democracy and Free Enterprise. I read all of the first and can recommend it, and the introduction of the second and can recommend it to that point.

Public sector pensions....

I know I've spoken to a number of folks at work about the coming bubble in public sector pensions. I've probably also mentioned it in a post or two here, but haven't put in a label to help me find them (fixed now).

But anyway, the public sector is in real trouble. They (we?) are being buried by the obligations for the pensions promised to their employees. In fact, these pensions have been over-promised, and with the fall of the market in which these pensions have been invested, under-delivered.

Vallejo, California is in bankruptcy. George Will obliquely notes that when the Navy closed a facility there, the revenues to the city went down, but the pension obligations did not. I read recently that their median firefighter income was nearly three times that of the median income of a Vallejo resident.

"...An independent citizens’ group, citing information obtained from city payroll records, demonstrated that the median income of a uniformed Vallejo Fire Department official in 2006 topped $157,000, while the median income of Vallejo residents sat around $54,000. The top-paid fire department employee’s W-2 form reported a whopping $359,000 in gross income during his last year of employment, a figure that would appear to guarantee a pension wage equal to or greater than the average enjoyed by his still-working former colleagues...."

California, of course, is itself in budget trouble.

And, here, we see that as part of their reactions to this budget trouble, California is going to let go "nearly 2000 firefighters".

"...About $81 million would be slashed from Cal-Fire's budget, eliminating more than 600 full-time and 1,100 seasonal firefighting positions -- no doubt it will slow response time...."

So, to put two and two together, firefighters are being let go, and those that remain are seeing pressure to their (over-promised and under-delivered) retirement plans.

One has to believe that the police and firefighter forces across the country will have similar issues.

So when the economy continues to tank (as I think it will), when you make that call to 911, will anyone be there to answer?

"This is a time bomb that has been building for years."

[Isn't that a mixed metaphor? I think so, but I've been guilty of these sorts of errors many times in the past, and given that I'm not the best wordsmith, I'm the last one to criticize.]

But, so says an editorial at IBD (seen via Gerard's edge notes).

They are speaking, of course, of the "retirement bubble", or more precisely "the-failure-to-plan-for-your-retirement bubble".

One of my favorite co-posters on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named has had a frequent theme that our retirement plans are in danger. He believes that we may approach a point where enough Americans are panicked enough about their retirement prospects that they may willingly sign over their 401k and other retirement accounts to the .gov.

With the caveat that I have fallen for conspiracy theories before, I think this is plausible. I think the rebound that the market is currently undergoing is a Bear Bounce. As I write this, the Market as a reflection of the health of our retirement plans has already lost 40% [(Dow 14000-Dow 8400)/Dow 14000]. How will the American people react if they lose another 40% from today's number? I think it is very possible that they (we?) will willingly run into the kind embrace of our Cuh-munnity-Organizer-in-Chief who will promise us a Socialist Workers' Paradise.

Conspiracy theory or not? Plausible or not? I sometimes question the steadfast-ness of Americans to hold on to their freedoms.

The editorial points out that the pension plans at medium and large companies have switched from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. However the editorial does not address the growing burden that public sector retirement plans--defined benefit plans--are facing. California is a harbinger here. When your local fireman or policeman sees his retirement plan fail--as the private world has foreseen--just how willing will he be to answer your call to 911?

Disingenuosity....

OK, I'm pretty sure that's not a word. But if it was a word, it would mean "the act of being disingenuous".

One of the things that bugged me during the Clinton years was the Democrat's defense that we should "Move on. This is a private matter." Well--of course a sexual act, in the workplace, with a subordinate is not "just a private matter". That the act involved a subordinate, and took place in the workplace made it very much more than just a private matter.

Moreover, when Clinton lied about this while under oath, these same defenders would say "Everybody lies about sex." Again--No. Everybody does not lie when confronted with their infidelity. And given that these lies took place while under oath, and given that the liar was an attorney (not to mention the Chief Executive), these lies came with a more foul stench.

Those who were offering these defenses were simply being disingenuous. They were intentionally arguing something that was not being argued to avoid having to defend the indefensable.

So, what brought me to this point?

Today, the conservatives are all up in arms about an amendment to a Hate Crimes bill that would include pedophiles as a protected class. Stop the ACLU. Gateway Pundit. Hannity. JD Hayworth was covering the topic ad infinitum today on his radio show.

Hate crimes laws are stupid on their face. They require an underlying crime and then we have to delve into the thoughts of the accused to see if hate was present or not, and if so, that would warrant further punishment. We are punishing people on something as intangible as their thoughts.

Also at issue is the question of pedophiles. I've got no problem with the legal system punishing someone for sexually abusing children. However, once they have served their sentence, we cannot continue to punish them as pedophiles. If we are convinced that a pedophile can never be reformed, then their sentences ought to be life. If we let them out of prison, they become ex-offenders.

We also have to ask why these crimes need to become federal crimes. Why are state laws insufficient to deal with hate crime?

Moreover, these same Hate Crimes laws set up protected classes, which was at issue today. That issue--should pedophiles be protected from hate crimes--should be obvious.

Yes they should. I disagree with hate crimes laws for any protected class, but if we're going to have these laws, we have to fundamentally believe that no one deserves to be attacked for a perceived identity. This is the essence of hate crimes legislation.

Let's say that a pedophile gets out of prison and moves into your neighborhood. If this were my neighborhood, I wouldn't be too happy about this, but the right answer is to be careful with your kids. You simply cannot justify preemptively beating him up because he used to be a pedophile and he now lives in your neighborhood.

And this is what makes this a hate crime.

The Republicans and conservatives are being just as disingenuous about this point as the Democrats were when they defended Clinton's lies.

Put me down as a....

"Me neither".

Gregory Kane, Washington Examiner:

"...I don’t care that al-Qaeda operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah were waterboarded after Sept. 11, 2001...."

More....

"...We were in a war against terrorists. War is called war for a reason. It’s because nasty things get done in a war, lots of them. The Allies killed hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians in bombing raids during World War II. Should we have NOT bombed Germany and Japan because killing civilians violates our principles and destroys our values?

Or does torture violate our principles and destroy our values while wholesale killing of civilians is acceptable?...

....and, finally....

"...If it’s worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting dirty for."

I agree entirely. If we have something worth defending, we have to stop gazing our our navels and be willing to bring to our enemy a horror they cannot imagine.

h/t HotAir headlines.

Home Depot and Lowe's....

So, anyhoo, I had some errands today that took me initially to Home Depot and then to Lowe's because Home Depot didn't have one item that was on my list.

And as I was in the garden section at Home Depot getting a fitting to fix a leaky hose, I spied a guy reaching for something from an upper shelf and in doing so, exposing his concealed weapon in a OWB black leather holster. [Makes me glad that I carry in a IWB holster.]

And then, as I was driving out of the parking lot a Lowe's, a guy crossed the lane in front of me wearing his sidearm openly.

Maybe not limited to Arizona, but these sights are certainly not seen in many places in America.

Now, if ammo prices would come back to earth, maybe I would get out to shoot more.

A Couple O'.....

Updates....

• I asked here if, given the increasing instability in Pakistan, we weren't developing a plan to go in and grab up their nukes. And now the New York Times is questioning the stability of these same Pakistani nukes.
• And most recently, I noted the "Torture" question circling the lefty drain and the "logic" used by Jon Stewart to, among other things, claim that Harry Truman committed a war crime by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. You really do owe yourself 17 minutes of your day to watch Bill Whittle take this claim apart piece by piece.

Jon Stewart and Torture....

In preface, I don't like the mixing of politics and comedy. It diminishes the seriousness of the issues in front of us, and many times, in practice, the comedy isn't all that funny.

Further, the prime practicioner of this practice, Jon Stewart, has an irritating "Clown nose on/Clown nose off" approach to his guests. He delivers serious points, but when confronted with serious rebuttal points, he immediately slips into the comedic role. Moreover, Stewart has a very bad habit of filibustering the people who he invites as guests, leaving his viewers with an uneven, if not one-sided debate.

But here is Stewart's Daily Show session with Cliff May, introduced as the head of "The Foundation of the Defence of Democracies".

Part 1

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 1
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Part 2

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Part 3

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 3
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Stewart at 1:20 of Part 2 brings up the issue of whether dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was tortuous. May gets Stewart to say at 5:55 that he thinks that Truman was a war criminal for dropping the atomic bomb. Wow.

The point that I would have liked to see May use to rebut Stewart regarding the atomic bombs is that when we dropped those atomic bombs, we saw the rate of civilian casualties drop. Our campaign of firebombing cities was causing more casualties than our use of the atomic bombs. How can Stewart claim that we were immoral by dropping the atomic bombs, but avoid the greater casualties we were bringing the Japanese through firebombing?

At 3:00 of Part 2, Stewart asks if it is "OK that we violate every ethical standard that this country has been based on, and even if by doing so, people are still going to die...." and he answers (or more correctly, filibusters) his own question with "I'd rather hold my head up high, and say as a country, 'We lived up to the ideals of our Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the family of nations [whatever that means], and not gone past the point that would bring most people moral concern...., why can't we do that to every criminal in prison'...."

Here's the problem with that approach....

• First of all, it is an ethical standard of this country to do what is necessary to protect its citizens. Killing is immoral, but that is not an absolute. We make no apology for killing our enemies.
  
• "Moral Concern" is not universal. It is immoral in most Western cultures for a man to have multiple wives. In other cultures, that is not the case.
• The "why can't we do this to every criminal in prison" point is completely disingenuous or reflective of someone who doesn't understand what is going on here. A Prisoner of War is not necessarily a criminal. We're not holding him because he has violated some law. We are holding him to keep him off the battlefield. [And this bypasses completely the point that May makes that these al Qaeda prisoners do not qualify as POWs. They are "illegal combatants"--a point touched on in this interesting article, which I only skimmed. ] Stewart makes the mistake of substituting law enforcement for war. We are back to 9/10.
  

At 4:04 of Part 2, May makes a very good point regarding that we do use lines between coercion and torture, where those lines are and where they ought to be.

At 2:42 of Part 3, Stewart suggest an alternative to torture that we need to get better information by learning Arabic, learning more about the culture, and otherwise avoiding the need to resort to "torture". What he is missing is the 4th dimension--time. If we are faced with the Ticking Time Bomb scenario, we don't know if we have the time to get the information we seek by asking nicely. Stewart would sacrifice American lives to give us that time.

Stewart engages in what I have elsewhere labeled as "Navel-Gazing". He believes this is all about us and how we believe others perceive us. It is not about our enemies, or how they are behaving.

h/t Tigerhawk, via Ed Driscoll and Glenn.

Pakistan....

A couple of days ago, I was involved in an email exchange with an internet-friend who has long said that the next big war--and perhaps an apocolyptic war--would begin in Pakistan.

I responded that what is really needed is a plan to go in and grab up their nukes. However, I added that I don't think that Zero has the stones for any such thing. It is not his style in the least. He is too busy spending money that we don't have for programs that we don't need, not to mention his penchant for nationalizing wide swathes of our economy. [I digress.] More to point, SecState Clinton has said that "'we can’t even contemplate' the consequences if the Taliban were permitted to overrun nuclear- armed Pakistan". But, according to one of my favorite milblogs, we had better be contemplating precisely this possibility.

I pointed out in my email that given the risk that a Taliban nuke would give to the world and the West, perhaps a wise military unit would be preparing for just this sort of mission--with or without West Wing approval. And, that brings up a whole new set of unsettling, or "unthinkable" questions.

So, what do I see this morning in a HotAir headline?

"Petraeus: Next Two Weeks Critical to Pakistan's Survival"

"...Petraeus also said wearily that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the United States' next course of action, which is presently set on propping up the Pakistani government and military with counterinsurgency training and foreign aid...." [my emphasis]

Question: Are we telegraphing/threatening just this sort of move? Is Petraeus reading my mind?

OK. Before everyone jumps on the bandwagon....

....I'm claiming the copyright to the words "President Turtledove".

Yep....

We are in the very best of hands. This is the Vice-President of the United States of America woofing down on his double dip.

h/t-hillbuz, via ace.

Related: "What if Biden's the smart one?"

To my tens and tens of readers....

Most of you stop by via a link to some picture I've swiped from the intertubes somewhere, but for those who actually come here for the dreck I write, I've got "personal stuff" going on right now, and posting will be light....very light.

I may or may not share that "personal stuff", although at some point I'm pretty sure I'll return to more active posting.

Another in a series of scenes from a Layover....

So there I was, checking into the hotel in Orlando, when the first thing I see is.......

A Pokemon convention.

A roomful of 8 year old boys playing a game with dice and cards. However, two sub-groups caught my eyes.

• The 14-16 year olds who brought out the question: "Do you guys ever expect to get laid? Ever?"
• The 30-somethings who brought out the question: "Are you some kind of pervert, or what?"