Exultate Justi

Friday, August 29, 2003

THIS WEEK'S COUNCIL WINNERS

Here are the results of this week's voting:

For the Council-Written category, the winner for the week was Endgame/Reality Check, from this here very blog. Thanks for your kindness in voting, all. It's an absolute honor to have been selected - especially with all of the great writing represented!

For the Non Council-Written category, our winner was an amazing piece by L.T. Smash - The Long Road Home. You've got to read this one.

The results, in their entirety, may be viewed here.

Allow me to register my great offense at the revelation of Nitin's non-reading of my post. I am shocked...shocked, and appalled! ;-)

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:17 AM |

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

MINI VACATION

Posting will be sporadic over the next few days. The Wife™, The Girl™, and I will be heading out to see The In-Laws™ for a few days (they need a granddaughter fix).

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:58 PM |

WHEN THE IRRATIONALY ANGRY MEET THE TERMINALLY STUPID...

They join forces, and write Frank J., who is suffering from a glut of bizarro hate mail. Fun to read, but, OY! The humanity!

Read the latest word from the tinfoil hat set here.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:28 PM |

WELL, THEY DO HAVE THE ILLUDIUM Q-36 EXPLOSIVE SPACE MODULATOR...

This makes a lot of sense. Last night, while hauling my telescope outside to have a look at the Planet O' Red, I accidentally knocked it over, breaking off the mount for the counterweight. Damn Martians...

Breaking telescopes is NOT their prime motivation, however. In reality, the Martians are believers in the Religion O' Peace™ (or, pieces, as the case may be...). As such, they're causing all kinds of grief for the rest of us infidels...

NEW DELHI (AFP) - While Indian authorities blamed Islamic militants for car bombings in Bombay that killed 52 people, astrologers are convinced the culprit was Mars, which is dangerously close to Earth.

Astrologers believe the current positions of the moon, Mars, Saturn and Rahu -- an imaginary malefic planet in the horoscope -- bode ill for the near future, with the Indian government due to make wrong decisions and the public responding violently.

Astrologer R.L. Kanthan told The Times of India that the spell of misfortune will not ease until September 20 with the movement of Mars, the planet that "portends violence, wars, bloodshed and combat".

I second Tim Blair's motion.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:19 PM |

AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BLEG

Well, it's come to this...

As a new father, *sniff!* I don't have the money to buy that AR-15 I've always wanted. Woe is me! I'm no collector, but I've always wanted to have a good handgun (got it before I got married), a good shotgun (got it as an anniversary present - what a wife I have!), and a good high-powered rifle. Got two out of three, but that last one's the toughie. My wife isn't quite behind the idea of my spending $700+ on a new Bushmaster or Olympic Arms rifle, but her opposition to the idea is understandable (we DO have a beautiful new baby at home now). It is, however, lacking in one area - it fails to result in my obtaining such a weapon.

As such, I've chosen the coward's way out. Rather than scrimping and saving for years and years (and having the whole works crushed with a new version of the Scary-Looking Weapons™ ban, I'll follow Kim Du Toit's lead, and go blegging for gun money. Sure, Kim's a better blogger, and has about 85,000 times the traffic I do, but hey...sooner or later, someone might just have mercy on me, and drop me a buck. That buck will significantly defray a small portion of the shipping costs of my new rifle.

Anyway, there's a PayPal button on the right (beneath the archive listing), should you, under the influence of controlled substances, or temporary insanity, wish to make a donation to my "pity me, I need a new rifle fund."

Happy hunting.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:02 PM |

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

MYONGWATCH!

After a weeklong hiatus, MYONGWATCH! returns with some insights on which American political party the North Koreans prefer...(hee-haw!)

You vote for John Kerry!! He serve in Vietnam!!

Borrowing (OK, ripping-off) an idea from Patsy Newton of The Lost Art of Correspondence, I sent an inquiry to Everyone's Favorite Crack-Smokin' Commie™, Kim Myong-Chol, in reference to the anticipated timetable for his piece, US-DPRK Will End Up In Shotgun Marriage. Here is my initial email:

Dear Mr. Kim,

I have read with great interest many of the essays found at http://www.kimsoft.com/kimmc - specifically of interest to me is the essay entitled, "US-DPRK Will End Up In Shotgun Marriage". What inspired you to write this piece? What sort of timeframe do you see for this essay becoming reality? As an American, I am intrigued to hear about what has influenced you to take these positions.

Thank you for your time.

-Jared Keller

The Myongster graciously responded (parenthetical comments and bolds mine):

Thank you very much for taking the trouble to take a look at my piece, whatever has motivated you. Interest is what encourages and delights the writer.

In the first place, the U.S. agreed to upgrade bilateral relations with North Korea in return for eventual dismantlement of the graphite-moderated reactor and the related facilities. So had if everything proceeded as agreed, there should be full diplomatic relations between Pyongyang and Washington.

Whatever the reason, the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea, the enemy with two light-water reactors and 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually while the two are under construction.

From the beginning, however, it was too obvious that the U.S. had no genuine interest in fulfilling the American part of the obligations under the Agreed Framework (so therefore, it was OK for NK to disregard the Agreed Framework altogether). This has long prepared the North Koreans to have in place what is needed to remind that there is no other option left to Washington than to end the policy of hostility to North Korea and normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea.

North Korea will become an indisputed winner in two cases. One is American agreement to sign a peace or non-aggression pact. The other is an American refusal to do so. The latter will means that North Korea will become a stated nuclear power with ICBM capability to deliver direct hits on the American metropolitan area (Geez - what is it about the heartland that these guys hate so much? Oh, yeah...as you can see below, the North Koreans apparently have a little animosity toward those pesky RED states, ironically enough...). That capability will bring down the Americans from the most coveted superpower status to an also-ran spot. Unless prepared to fight a devastating nuclear war with North Korea, the U.S. will have to back down for negotiataions with North Korea on a possible shotgun marriage.

History is a good pointer. The Johnson-era 1968 Pueblo case ended with the Americans withdrawing their massive military muscle and an official apology to North Korea. The Nixon-era 1969 shootdown of an American spy plane again difused with a silent American retreat despite the loss of 31 American lives. The Ford-era 1976 Poplar tree incident was resolved with a verbal expression of regrets from North Korea and Americans using a huge military force to cut down the tree. The Clinton-period 1993-94 nuclear standoff was worked out with the Americans agreeing to upgrade relations between the two enemies to full ambassadorial levels. The Bush-era current crisis has left Bush negotiating with Kim Jong Il. No military muscle has been flexed. The shotgun marriage will have strong chances of being held sometime this year. Bush has little chances of being reelected. If not, Pyongyang has only to wait for a Democratic government to be installed in 2005. Bush will be a lame duck. After all, the ultimate and overriding objective of North Korea is how to neutralize the American military involvement in Korea, which can come either through DPRK-US agreement or through North Korea membership of the elite nuclear club.

Regards,

So, it looks like all of those nice folks at the DNC should be watching their mailboxes as the checks roll in from the home of the most repressive regime on the face of the earth. Yay!

The whole letter-writing idea was Patsy Newton's, and you really should read her collection of letters from nutjobs around the globe - from Nigerian scam artists (VERY funny stuff) to The Myongster himself. Truly clever, and truly original.

To recap the Myongman's statements -

- It is OK that North Korea broke from the Agreed Framework for two reasons: 1. they wanted to, and we were dumb enough to give them better reactors, and 2. we were big poopy-heads who were just going to be jerks to them anyway, so we deserve flaming nuclear annihilation.

- The shotgun marriage will happen this year (watch for your invitation in the mail, and be sure to RSVP - OR FACE NUCLEAR DEATH, WITH THE RUNNING, THE EXPLODING, AND THE CRYING, mwahey!)

- That President Bush is difficult to deal with, so the Norcoms are really hoping for a Howard Dean or John Kerry Presidency. At least with a Democrat in office, they know we'll roll over for 'em!

- The ultimate objective of the North Korean strategy is to render the US militarily useless on the Korean Peninsula. According to Big Myong, this can happen in one of two ways - either through NK's acquisition of nukes (and, if you believe The Myong John Silver, they already have a zillion of 'em - they're everywhere over there!), or through an agreement with the US (if history is any guide, this agreement is presumably to be made with a Democratic President, and then quickly stomped upon by Lil' Kim Jong Il). Again, all of this rests on the North Korean desire to see a Democratic President elected.

So then, we arrive at our moral for the story -

Vote Republican, and jam a big, imperialist finger in the eye of those Stalinist moonbats!

or, if you're so inclined-

Vote Democrat, and make Kim Jong Il's little heart go pitter-patter!

Who says the Democrats and Republicans are all the same?

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 9:41 AM |

Monday, August 25, 2003

COMMENTS APPEAR TO BE HOSED RIGHT NOW

Sorry. Trying to get the issue resolved as I type...

UPDATE
Comments seem to be working again.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:38 PM |

PAVE FRANCE

Utter crap.

The British Need More Parking.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 11:17 AM |

NRO ON GEN. WESLEY CLARK

Alan Dowd has an intriguing profile of the seemingly-bipolar Democratic Presidential wannabe.

From the piece:

When it comes to Iraq, Clark finds a way to rub war critics and war advocates the wrong way: In an NPR interview, he called Bush's decision to invade Iraq without U.N. approval "one of the greatest strategic blunders the American government has made since the end of the Cold War." Most Democratic primary voters will agree. (Never mind that the Kosovo war, which Clinton declared and Clark prosecuted, was waged without U.N. authorization.) But unlike many of the Democratic-party faithful — especially frontrunner Howard Dean — Clark believes that "there are some mass-destruction capabilities that are still inside Iraq." In Clark's estimation, some of Saddam's weapons "have been shipped over the border to Syria." If recent polls are any indication, that resonates with most Americans, but not with Dean's Democrats.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 11:15 AM |

Sunday, August 24, 2003

NEW COUNCIL MEMBERS

Welcome, King Of Fools and Spiced Sass!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:52 PM |

Friday, August 22, 2003

ROAD MAP?

As the father of a brand new baby girl, I must say that I'll never be able to get the images of that dying baby (or the heroic paramedics attempting to rescue her) out of my mind. Damnable murderous animals.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 3:23 PM |

CONDOLEEZZA RICE - FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY

Christianity Today has a terrific profile/interview of/with National Security Advisor (and potential VP candidate?) Condoleezza Rice, upon whom the magazine bestows the title "unflappable."

From the piece:

Rice's keen intellect, steely unflappability, and Southern charm have served her well. Those qualities, her family and friends told Christianity Today, arise from something deep within her. "Her faith is absolutely fundamental to who she is," says Randy Bean, executive producer of special television projects at Stanford and a longtime friend. "It's part of her fiber."

"She's very close to the Lord," says Rice's aunt, Genoa Ray McPhatter. "She knows that he guides and directs her. She learned this early as a child, to have that faith, and to believe that the Lord can do all things."

On her development as an intelliectual force:

Condi's father took academic positions at Stillman College and then the University of Denver, so Rice spent her teenage years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and in Denver. There she enrolled in the prestigious St. Mary's Academy, an independent Catholic school and the first integrated school she attended. It was also where a school counselor advised her parents that their daughter was not college material.

That assessment—which her parents rejected as flat-out false—seemed to bounce off the confident young woman not accustomed to accepting society's limitations. "Our parents and our community in many ways sheltered us from the very negative things," says Bush. "Many of us never thought about limitations. We never expected there would be limitations on our ambitions."

That counselor's words seemed only to invigorate her. Rice thrived at St. Mary's with a full schedule of ice-skating, tennis, and piano, graduating early with a slew of honors. At 15, she enrolled in the University of Denver. (as a DU alum, I think this is really, really cool.)

And:

Rice enrolled in a course on international politics. The instructor was Josef Korbel. The former Czech diplomat and political refugee fascinated Rice. She would later describe Korbel as "one of the most central figures in my life, next to my parents." Korbel and his family, whose Jewish background came to light much later, escaped both Nazis and communists. The U.S. government granted Korbel political asylum, and the University of Denver hired him to start an international politics program.

Rice and Korbel's daughter, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, are probably that program's most famous alumni. Both Rice and Albright, despite their differences, acquired Korbel's unshakable commitment to the American ideals of freedom and democracy. Rice, like many foreign policy experts of the Cold War era, was attracted to the views of scholar Hans Morgenthau, a leading advocate of balance-of-power realism in relations between nations.

But in time, Rice's own view would shift toward the values-driven model that the Bush White House embraces. "Power matters," Rice told National Review in 1999. "But there can be no absence of moral content in American foreign policy, and, furthermore, the American people wouldn't accept such an absence. Europeans giggle at this and say we're naïve and so on, but we're not Europeans, we're Americans—and we have different principles."

Read the whole thing. It's very good.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 3:16 PM |

JUSTICE MOORE - SOME THOUGHTS

Although I have been a supporter of Chief Justice Roy Moore's for some time (since the initial brouhaha regarding a small Ten Commandments plaque in his chambers), I have to draw the line at this point. He has, to my mind, crossed a line that renders him vulnerable to accusations of political showboating.

Goodness knows that I revile the ACLU, and their bastardized interpretation of the First Amendment as somehow prohibitive of any interaction between religion and government (such a position is irrefutably antithetical to both the intent of the framers, and to the letter of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence), but the fact of the matter is that the current situation is different from the one that originally brought the Justice to the public eye. In the first instance, the issue was a private display of religious material by a judge in his chambers. In this instance, however, the religious material is publically-funded, and on the grounds of government property.

My quarrel is not with Justice Moore's opposition to the rulings of the court. I, too, find it to be ridiculous. However, what he's doing is dangerously close to the very thing that we. as conservative Christians have railed against for years - he's picking and choosing which laws to which he'll adhere. I completely support all legitimate and lawful efforts to battle the ACLU's bizarre interpretation of the First Amendment. The United States was founded on Judeo Christian principles, and is, despite the protestations of the Freedom From Religion Foundation a religious society.

My problem with Justice Moore lies in his technique. In the past few years, we've seen the ACLU fire off lawsuit after lawsuit intended to scour all religious references from American public life. Quite often, these lawsuits have targeted public monuments featuring the Ten Commandments. The United States Supreme Court has yet to rule definitively on this issue, and, to my mind, the continuing schizophrenia of the judiciary on public displays of the Ten Commandments is a microcosm of its inconsistency regarding the relationship of religion and government in general. Knowing this, it seems a bit over the top for Justice Moore to have taken the steps to commission the placement of such an obvious target for litigation within the rotunda of the courthouse. Justice Moore has turned down flat any attempt to simply move the monument to a less prominent location on the grounds of the courthouse, thereby adding to my skepticism regarding his motivations.

Just as those of us who feel that abortion is murder are damaged by those who murder abortionists, those of us who feel that the government was never intended to be religion-free are made to look foolish by those who plant their flag on unwinnable issues, and then proceed to speak about the rule of law, even while disregarding the voices of the other eight members of the State Supreme Court, the Governor of the State, and, (through its inaction), the United States Supreme Court.

The bottom line is this: I agree with Justice Moore that there is no legitimate reason to remove a display of the Ten Commandments from the gounds of a governmental building. Our nation's foundations are utterly religious, and it is patently ridiculous to assert that the Framers ever intended to found a government free from any religious influence or reference. However, when the courts rule in such a way as to subvert our beliefs or opinions, we have been provided with a means of remonstrance - the ballot. I would prefer to see those who are currently flailing away on the side of Justice Moore's protest spend their energies on efforts to elect leaders who share their beliefs, and will nominate judges who do, as well. We, as conservative Christians would be far more well-served by fighting the efforts of the Left to submarine President Bush's judicial nominations than we are by aligning ourselves with an effort that so apparently carries the odor of a publicity stunt.

UPDATE
Quin Hillyer at NRO agrees.

UPDATE #2
Joyful Christian adds some thoughts, as well...

CLARIFICATION
It seems that only part of what I've said is getting out there. Let me make this very clear; I am not critical of Justice Moore's position on the Ten Commandments display. Rather, I feel that his methods are inappropriate, as is his taking of these steps while on the bench. Were he a private citizen, I would be the first to say "more power to you". The fact of the matter, however, is that he is acting in violation of rulings that have yet to be overturned. As such, his comments regarding the rule of law tend to ring hollow.

To find out more about the Judeo-Christian heritage of the United States (the existence of which is, again, irrefutable), please visit The Wallbuilders. They offer some great, high-quality products that are truly educational.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 2:48 PM |

ENDGAME/REALITY CHECK

Although it can be rather unsettling to do so, one finds it necessary to take a step back, and see where we are in relation to the events of September 11, 2001, and to look forward, trying to see the road that lies before us. In both cases, the view is rather daunting, but not without real sources of encouragement.

Since the attacks on New York and Washington, the United States has sought to engage those responsible for the acts, as well as the sponsors of those (and presumably future) attacks, and to root them out and destroy them, while simultaneously demolishing the foundation of financial, political, and military support that has, for so long, been the base from which organizations like Al Qaeda (and the Islamic terror groups that preceded them) have operated for decades. As such, the United States has embarked on the single most ambitious “nation building” plan since the Second World War. By finally taking the step that Administration after Administration had sought to avoid through repeated efforts at diplomatic outreach, and isolation of the groups involved, the Bush Administration has crossed a bridge that, thankfully, negates any option of retreat. As was made painfully clear on 9/11, any approach relying on the construction of understanding or mutual respect will never be truly successful in eliminating terrorism. As has been stated time and time again by folks more intelligent and thoughtful than myself, there is only one philosophy that can be employed when dealing with the supporters of Islamic terror – “kill or be killed.” The groups in question don't want us to understand their pain, and they have no desire to understand us. They want us dead.

To move forward with this understanding in mind would seem, on the surface, to be quite a simple proposition. As was to be expected, however, reality rarely bears any resemblance to throwaway catchphrases, and the fight has been both difficult and dynamic.

The sheer number of Islamic terror groups, and their broad dispersal across the globe (from the traditional enclaves in the Middle East, to newer hotbeds like the Philippines and Indonesia, and even in Western countries, including the US) have ensured that this struggle will not be won quickly, or won easily. There will be much bloodshed as a result of this conflict over the coming days, weeks, months, and years. What we, as a nation (and an Alliance) have chosen to do is nothing short of monumental. The risk of failure is quite high, but, as we’ve seen, the risks of inaction are far more immediate, and far longer-lasting in nature.

Though the risks associated with this grand effort are massive, it must be pointed out that we have already achieved a remarkable degree of success. Two of the most oppressive regimes on earth are no more, and, despite the bewildering vacillation of some on the left, the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq are now far better off than they were a matter of months ago. Similarly, though the United States has been placed on a higher alert status on more than one occasion, we have suffered no major attacks in the US since September 11. This is not to say that there is no longer a danger of such events. The atrocities in Bali and Jakarta, the UN bombing in Iraq, and the continued slaughter in Israel testify to the fact that there can be no negotiation with terrorists, and that they will continue to strike targets in the West whenever opportunities present themselves - so long as these groups exist.

In another stellar piece for National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson writes that the escalation in violence that has been underway of late may actually be an indication of a weakening of Islamic terror groups throughout the Middle East. From the piece:

We are indeed entering a third phase. But it is not quite what most people think, since it has brought a brutal clarity to the conflict that the terrorists may not have intended. For those who were still unsure of the affinities between the West Bank killers once subsidized by Saddam, Baathist fedeyeen, the Taliban, and al Qaedist terrorists, the similarity in method, the identical blood-curling rhetoric, and the eerie timing of slaughtering during peace negotiations and efforts at civil reconstruction should establish the existence of a common enemy. It has been fighting us all along — a general fascism, now theocratic, now autocratic, that seeks to divert the Middle East from the forces of modernization and liberalization.

Contrary to the latest round of punditry, the liberation of Iraq did not stir up a hornet's nest nor create ex nihilo these terrible alliances. No, they are natural expressions of the hatred manifested on 9/11 that will continue until either we or they are defeated.

Therein lies the rub. Such actions will take place again and again until the groups who sanction and order these attacks are no more. It doesn’t matter what steps we take to understand or to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians. As long as their leaders view children as legitimate targets, they forfeit any consideration of their claims, and render themselves deserving only of destruction. We shouldn’t lose too much sleep over the fact that Wahabists resent and revile our “decadence” here in the West. There is nothing that we can do, short of dying off, that will satisfy them.

Many in the West are guilty of a bizarre sort of projection when it comes to dealing with Islamic terror groups. The assumption is made that these groups wouldn’t take such horrendous actions if they didn’t have legitimate claims/if they had other means of expression/if the US didn’t support corrupt leaders in the lands, et. al. Such rationalization is utterly foolhardly, completely unproductive, and incredibly dangerous. Groups like Abu Sayaaf, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Jemmah Islamiyaa, etc. have, time and time again, reacted to the hand of reconciliation with disdain, mockery, and ultimately, violence. To ascribe even remotely-noble character traits to these groups is to willfully adopt a degree of cultural (and moral) blindness that is truly shocking. Leftist groups, from terrorist apologists like ISM and MoveOn.org to the mainstream Democratic Party have, thus far, shown themselves to be largely incapable of formulating truly coherent positions on what are remarkably simple moral issues. It is either wrong to detonate oneself on a bus filled with children, or it is not. There is no gray area to be found by anyone with a shred of moral clarity. The Left’s inability to move past its obsession with a Post-Modernist focus on moral relativism, and to recognize evil as evil has rendered it absolutely impotent as a legitimate contributor to the debate on national security.

The bottom line is that we find ourselves at the end of the beginning of this campaign. Our work in Afghanistan and Iraq (much of it unseen) may not completely bear fruit for years, when other state sponsors of terrorism around the region begin to implode en masse. We must not become discouraged when overt results are slow in coming, and, more than anything else, we must guard our hearts against complacency. To abandon this effort too early will result in a resurgence of terrorist activity that would undoubtedly overshadow anything that we’ve yet suffered. We must remain in the fight, and must recognize it for what it is – a battle to the death with an opponent who doesn’t want to “live and let live”, and who will never stop hating us…not for what we do, but for who we are.

This is reality.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:28 PM |

THIS WEEK'S COUNCIL WINNERS

Congratulations to this week's winners!

Council-Written:

Today's CP-USA: Hypocrisy, Nepotism, and Spin - from Commiewatch

Non Council-written:

The New Left Wing Drivel - from Balloon Juice

See all of the voting results here.

Great submissions, all. I look forward to next week!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 11:20 AM |

Thursday, August 21, 2003

NOT MUCH TIME TO POST TODAY, BUT...

Happy blogday, Aaron.

Oh, and, Hamas? You're damn right the truce is over. May you never know what hit you, you repulsive killbots.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 3:28 PM |

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION, COLUMBIA/TRISTAR?

Well...probably not, but there are now well over 2,000 signatures to the Karate Kid 20th Anniversary petition!

Some great lines from the film:

I hate this bike! I hate this damn bike!

What's the matter, Danielle? Mommy not here to dress ya?

It's coming around!

Get 'im a body bag! Yeahhhhhhhh!

OUT of commission!

(whiny voice) But Sensei, I can beat this guy! (/whiny voice)

I don't WANT him beaten!

Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Lawrence?

You karate do "yes", safe. Karate do "no", safe. You karate do "guess so"...sooner or later, you get squish *squish noise*, justa rikah grape.

Daniel: What kind of belt do you have?

Miyagi: Canvas. You like? JcPenny...three ninety-eight. In Okinawa, belt mean no need rope hold up pants!

STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD, NO MERCY SIR!

YOU SIGN PETITION NOW!!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:52 AM |

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Chemical Ali is in deep doo doo.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:45 AM |

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

ABIT CYNICAL, PERHAPS, BUT STILL A RELIEF...

You're
the United States of America!

You were probably a big bully in school, and odds are that
you're still a big bully. You make promises that you break, you manipulate
everyone around you, and you're awfully materialistic. On the other hand,
you're pretty inventive and have a really good sense of justice. You just
never get around to applying the idea of justice to yourself. Incredible
potential remains yours to take advantage of.
face="Times New Roman">Take the Country
Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Despite the cliched "America is a bully! *sniff*" tone, at least I'm the US of A. Poor Meatriarchy is the UN *shudder*...

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 2:35 PM |

THE NEXT BLACKOUT

The indispensible Center for Security Policy has a provocative article regarding a major, if largely unreported threat to the national security of the United States - terrorist attacks via ElectroMagnetic Pulse weaponry.

Should the US (or, in fact, any other modernized nation) be attacked with weaponry of this type, the results could very well be disastrous. Without sophisticated (and expensive) security and protective precautions, large areas could be rendered completely devoid of electronic capacity - including infrastructure, computer equipment, and automobiles included.

From the piece:

In a new op-ed in today's Washington TImes, Center President Frank Gaffney argues that we had better be awakened, though, to one other, particularly ominous prospect: Determined terrorists could inflict lasting, if not actually permanent, damage on the United States' electrical and other computer-based systems by employing small nuclear or non-nuclear devices that generate what is known as electro-magnetic pulse (EMP). The short, intense spike of energy that these EMP weapons create can do irreparable harm to electronic devices (even those not in use, such as replacement microcircuits, chips and memory boards in warehouses) unless expensive measures have been taken to shield them. Under a worst-case — but not implausible — scenario, a large, ballistic missile-delivered EMP weapon could within seconds reduce half the country to pre-industrial age conditions for many months, if not years.

Thanks to the tenacity of one of Capitol Hill's few bona fide scientists, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Maryland Republican, who has long warned of the EMP threat, a blue-ribbon commission led by President Reagan's science adviser, William Graham, is now conducting a congressionally mandated study to assess this danger. If anything, the recent grid failure adds urgency to the completion of the Graham Commission's work.

Read the whole thing.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 2:22 PM |

STRATFOR WEEKLY

This week's Stratfor Weekly takes a look at the increasingly fuid insurgency taking place in Iraq, and the changes that may need to come about for the US to find success in battling this phenomenon.

In particular, the piece revisits a rather hoary position - that modern warfare strategies, with their focus on superior technology, organization, and logistics, are not nearly sufficient to quell insurgencies by a determined if underarmed group of indiginous fighters. From the piece:

The modern armored division, carrier battle group and fighter or bomber wing represent the optimized organization built around a technology designed to assault industrialized armies and societies. They remain the basic structure of modern warfare, and they carry out that function well. However, as the United States discovered in Vietnam and the Soviet Union discovered in Afghanistan, this force structure is not particularly effective against guerrilla forces.

The essential problem is that the basic unit of guerrilla warfare is the individual and the squad. They are frequently unarmed -- having hidden their weapons -- and when armed, they carry man-portable weapons such as rifles, rocket-propelled grenades or mortars. When unarmed, they cannot be easily distinguished from the surrounding population. And they arm themselves at a time and place of their choosing -- selected to minimize the probability of detection and interception.

This, of course, would reflect our experience in Vietnam, and the Soviets' experience in Afghanistan (though I have tremendous reservations about comparing the two campaigns). I remain largely unconvinced, however, that what we are seeing in Iraq would qualify as a true insurgency - at least by Vietnam standards. In Southeast Asia, we faced a fairly specific set of circumsatnces that we do not see in Iraq. The United States was viewed by a very large segment of the population to be just the next in a long line of "invaders", including the French (twice!), and the Japanese. This perception of our efforts in South Vietnam, combined with the true nationalistic zeal of Ho Chi Minh, and the corrupt nature of the SOuth Vietnamese leadership, resulted in a very large population of Vietnamese who, while not necessarily overtly hostile to American actions, were not overtly hostile to the actions of the North Vietnamese, either. This general malaise in the population at-large insured that there was a relatively large group of potential guerillas to be selected and absorbed into the ranks of the Viet Cong, and later, the NVA.

In Iraq, in contrast, we have a population that, while cowed by the Ba'athist regime, was hateful of their previous government, and has, especially outside of Baghdad, been quite supportive of our efforts. As such, I that the resistance we're seeing is more akin to the actions taken by many former members of the Nazi army following Germany's surrender in 1945 (described very neatly in this post from Pejmanesque).

In closing, Stratfor reveals a bit of the semi-pessimism that has often crept into their analyses, but, in my opinion, offers yet another solid piece of analysis that should not be ignored:

The dilemma facing the United States in Iraq is to surgically remove the guerrilla force from the population without generating a political backlash that will fuel a long-term insurgency regardless of levels of attrition. This is much easier to say than to do. The heart of the matter is intelligence -- to deny the guerrillas intelligence about U.S. operations while gathering massive intelligence about the guerrillas. The only way to win the war is to reverse, at the earliest possible phase, the intelligence equation. The guerrillas must be confused and blinded; the Americans must maintain transparency of the guerrillas.

That is clearly what the United States now is attempting to do. It is limiting its search-and-seize operations while massively increasing its intelligence capabilities. This is happening both in terms of human intelligence and technical means of intelligence. It is unclear whether this will work. Human intelligence is political in nature and requires extreme expertise with the culture, without dependency on indigenous elements that might be unreliable. It is very difficult for someone from Kansas, however gifted in the craft of intelligence, to make sense of a tactical situation -- and at this point, the guerrillas present only a tactical face.

It is nevertheless the key to any hope for success. It also is an operation that will take an extended period of time. Washington's hope obviously is that by curtailing the United States' own large-scale operations and moving into an intense intelligence phase, the guerrilla operations will alienate the population. It is possible but difficult. It also will take time. But it is clear that the United States is in the process of rewriting parts of the counter-insurgency book and, therefore, is beginning to write a new -- and as yet uncertain -- chapter in military history.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:08 AM |

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

AND THEY MOCKED ME WHEN I SET IT UP...

Fools! My Karate Kid petition is now one of the top ten most active petitions in all the world! Bwahahahah! Nearly 2,000 signatures in the bag, and a letter from Columbia/TriStar pictures on my desk, assuring me that they are, even now, working on a super-duper DVD boxed set!

STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD, NO MERCY, SIR!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 11:54 AM |

NEW COUNCIL MEMBER

A warm round of applause for e-Clair, everybody...

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:32 AM |

Monday, August 18, 2003

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION AS FOREIGN POLICY

In a stellar piece for Policy Review, Adam Garfinkle describes what happens when a dangerous combination of detrimental traits found within the media (and, to some extent, within the public at-large) - namely, tendencies toward short attention spans, single-issue myopia, and absolute ignorance of the realities of political, economic, and diplomatic dealings - coalesces in the crosshairs of media organizations.

From the piece:

The immaculate conception theory of U.S. foreign policy operates from three central premises. The first is that foreign policy decisions always involve one and only one major interest or principle at a time. The second is that it is always possible to know the direct and peripheral impact of crisis-driven decisions several months or years into the future. The third is that U.S. foreign policy decisions are always taken with all principals in agreement and are implemented down the line as those principals intend — in short, they are logically coherent.

Put this way, of course, no sentient adult would defend such a theory. Even those who have never read Isaiah Berlin intuit from their own experiences that tradeoffs among incommensurable interests or principles are inevitable. They recognize that the urgent and the imminent generally push out the important and the eventual in high-level decision making. They know that disagreement and dissension often affect how public policy is made and applied. More than that, any sober soul is capable of applying this elemental understanding to particular cases if he really puts his mind to it.

The problem, of course, is that, in too many cases, many journalists - up against deadlines, and short on material - can't seem to muster the force of logic needed even for the comprehension of these basic truths.

Garfinkle continues:

ow many times have we heard the clarion claim that the covert U.S. effort to aid the Afghan mujahedeen through the Pakistani regime during the 1980s was, in the end, a terrible mistake because it led first to a cruel Afghan civil war and then to the rise of the Taliban? I have lost count.

This argument is about as cogent as saying to a 79-year old man — Ralph, let’s call him — that he should never have gotten married because one of his grandsons has turned out to be a schmuck. But a person does not consider marriage with the character of one of several theoretical grandchildren foremost in mind. It was not possible at the time of the nuptials for Ralph to have foreseen the personality quirks of a ne’er-do-well son-in-law not yet born; so, lo and behold, the fine upbringing that he bequeathed to his children somehow got mangled in translation to the next generation. These things happen.

Similarly, in 1980, when the initial decision was made (in the Carter administration, by the way), to establish links with the mujahedeen, the preeminent concern of American decision makers was not the future of Afghanistan, but the future of the Soviet Union and its position in Southwest Asia. Whatever the Politburo intended at the time, the consolidation of Soviet control in Afghanistan would have given future Soviet leaders options they would not otherwise have had. In light of the strategic realities of the day, the American concern was entirely reasonable: Any group of U.S. decision makers would have thought and done more or less the same thing, even if they could have foreseen the risks to which they might expose the country on other scores.

It is, of course, impossible to fully anticipate strategic developments - especially those on the scale of the fall of the Soviet Union, and, in fact, of Communism as a truly viable threat on a worldwide basis. As such, it is logical to allow that, though we should continually strive to ensure that we consider ever strategic possibility, it is only practical to focus on those developments that are, in the estimation of those in a position to know such things, more or less likely to happen. To try and view past decisions through a prism of modern knowledge is the height of disingenuousness and stupidity, and does absolutely nothing to further our ability to learn from mistakes made, and to develop more keenly-honed decision-making and analytical abilites.

Decision makers at every level are forced to make due with the information that they have at any given time. There is no way to anticipate with any degree of certainty the multitude of ways in which every decision made can affect unknowable peripheral issues, and as such, there is no real way to truly mitigate the potential for negative unintended consequences that always accompanies a policy decision.

Garfinkle lays out this case beautifully. You should read the whole thing.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 3:17 PM |

SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T LISTEN...

Appearing in The Rocky Mountain News? A glowing review of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. When even the very title of the film is fraudulent, you know you're in some deep kimchee...

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 3:00 PM |

LAST WEEK'S COUNCIL WINNERS

My apologies for the hiatus. While I was loafing (and cleaning up lots of baby barf...), I neglected to post the results from last week's Council voting. Here they are!

Council-written winner:

Criticizing Israel's Critics, A Quantifiable Argument

Non Council-written winner:

Bali Bomber Lawyer Quotes Michael Moore

Find all of the results here.

Congrats to the winners! As usual, a great spectrum of subject matter was covered adeptly by the various Council members. Nicely done!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 9:42 AM |

Monday, August 11, 2003

EXULTATE JUSTI RETURNS NEXT MONDAY

Sorry for the light posting of late. I just wanted to post a note announcing our adoption of a beautiful baby girl, who we've named Abbey Joy. She's keeping me hopping (and near-comatose), but she's absolutely perfect.

As we've got the little whippersnapper around, things will be a bit hectic as we settle into a routine this week. I'm afraid that I'll have to skip out on the activities of Watcher's Council for this week, but, to quote the next Governor of Kollyfohrneeuh, "I'll Be Back."

Welcome to the Council, Hawken Blog!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:44 PM |

Saturday, August 09, 2003

WELCOME A NEW WATCHER'S COUNCIL MEMBER!

Check out The SmarterCop - the newest member of our vast, right-wing conspiracy!

Along those lines, here are the winning posts, as submitted to the Council:

Council-written:

Worker's World Party Working With North Korea, from the indispensable Commiewatch.

Non Council-written:

Some of My Pet Peeves With the Mainstream Media, from another terrific site - Right Wing News.

Find a list of the entire voting results here. Great pieces to choose from last week!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 9:43 PM |

Thursday, August 07, 2003

HEADLINE OF THE DAY

From Damnum Absque Injuria -

I guess this means Gary Coleman can't run as "Arnold" after all.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:15 AM |

MYONGWATCH!

It's been a hella-rough couple o' days, and I'm not sleeping. It's officially Thursday, so I'm posting this week's MYONGWATCH! a bit early (about 1 AM). This week, we continue our education in the methods and madness of Everyone's Favorite Crack-Smokin' Commie™, Kim Myong-Chol!

In another frightening example of unrequited (and really creepy) love, The Myonginator took up his state of the art Commodore 64, and tapped out a winner of an essay entitled The Agreed Framework is Dead - Shotgun Wedding is the Only Option to Diffuse Crisis. This, of course, is not to be confused with his earlier-referenced, and equally-loopy piece, US Will End Up In Shotgun Marriage With DPRK.

This guy has SERIOUS issues. I mean, come on, man...you got dumped. Find someone else. I heard Cindy Lou broke up with The Netherlands, so he's available. Sheesh...

From the bewildering spectacle that is the Myongman's consciousness:

The present furor over the reported North Korean centrifuge for uranium enrichment may be likened to the scene being made by a jealous possessive wealthy American Uncle Sam, who has gone out of his way to tell his friends and acquaintances about the alleged illicit affair of his poor but strongly assertive North Korean fiancée in a bid to whitewash his acts of sowing wild oats. While constantly running after other women, he has resisted not only taking any steps to make an honest woman of her by the promised wedding date of 2003, but also has failed to pay proper attention to her for the past two years, say, by sending fancy gifts to her or taking her out on a date.

Nor is this all. The American gentleman has repeatedly insulted his fiancée in public by calling her all names. The North Korean woman, faithful to her Confucian tradition, has continued to grin and bear it al the time, until the American fiancée made a sudden visit and insisted on her remaining his second-class mistress, brandishing 'evidence' of her alleged infidelity.

No shred of compelling evidence has been produced that the North Korean fiancée has had relations with any other man (although the lonely woman confessed that she has gone out with another man.) A high-tech gadget maniac, Uncle Sam has no compelling satellite imaging to document his accusations. Procurement documentation is too weak to charge the North
Koreans with actually running the centrifuge for enrichment of uranium (ed. - whoops! I guess the whole plausible deniability-thing has gone out the window since then, huh?). There are clear limits to what high-tech American intelligence gathering can do.

It gets more nutty as we go:

An engagement does not stop a woman from going out with other men. The engagement has virtually been nullified for lack of
attention and refusal to take steps leading to a holy matrimony. The only option left for Uncle Sam is either to terminate the engagement and give her total freedom to do whatever she pleases or to apologize for his poor attention to her and to have a wedding ceremony before 2003, albeit at the point of Taepodong ICBMs fitted with a thermonuclear warhead. A shotgun marriage is the most reasonable way out for the Bush Administration, because the Geneva agreement mandates the U.S. to.

So, to recap, The Geneva Convention mandates that we drag our doting (but heavily armed and unstable) fiance (boy, we must have been VERY drunk...) to the Elvis Presley Memorial Chapel O' Love in Vegas, tie the knot, or face impending immolation from zillions of invisible thermonuclear (not just nuclear, but THERMONUCLEAR!) weapons. Sounds like a heck of a deal! Why didn't they just say so?

After a hilariously contorted set of logical twists and turns justifying NK's use of uranium-enrichment techniques as somehow kosher under the Agreed Framework, The Myongster finally unloads with the Mother of All Baffling Innanities™ -

The third option of negotiating a shotgun marriage will most probably have the most sex appeal to Bush. Bush will fly all the way into Pyongyang to become legitimate husband and wife before his American family members, relatives and friends attending. By marrying North Korea, Bush will have a strong chance of being returned to the White House in the next presidential election. Otherwise, like father like son. Bush Senior and Bush Junior will serve combined two terms, each one term.

While on honeymoon (shudder), both Kim Jong Il and Bush will receive worldwide acclamation for their dramatic role in saving the mankind from thermonuclear catastrophe and likely share a Nobel Peace Prize (the frightening thing here is just how plausible this sounds. "Threaten the world with thermonuclear death? Win a Nobel Prize.") . To look back, Kim Jong Il has only the nuclear and missile cards, but they go a long way as bargaining chips. No other country should try to emulate the North Korean experience. It would be too risky.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Some Passages Edited For Clarity

Ever since North Korea was little schoolgirl, Uncle Sam go out with prettier cousin from South. She make promise to herself that one day, if America not take her to the prom, she nuke the crap out of him. That show him her eternal love.

Once America nuked, North Korea wait for couple of days, then call and apologize. That really mess with stupid jerk's head. We see if he leave us at altar again!

Demi Moore keep trying to pass off Ashton Kutcher as America! We not that stupid! WE NUKE HER NOW!

We call up France the other day. She like, "Yeah, we got dumped, too. America is big stupid head. If we weren't so scared of loud noises, we nuke him, too." We not call France again. They sort of pissy.

America make big agreement with North Korea about nukes. We signed it, and they bought it. SUCKERS! See, we had fingers crossed, so, according to Geneva Convention, Agreed Framework mean nothing! HA!

We have nuclear weapon, thermonuclear weapon, and also, most devastating of all, nucular weapon. American Cowboy President thinks he only one with this super weapon. He wrong! We have one! No, wait...we have fiv...no, 1 google! I tell you that before, right? You know how many that is?! That SO MANY! Even fancy "Star Wars" system can't stop all of our nucular weapon!

America still not listen, so we send letters to Oprah and Dr. Phil. Maybe they make stupid stubborn America listen to reason and come back to loving, crazy, nuke-armed North Korean psycho-girl. THEY LOVE US OR DIE!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 9:53 AM |

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

WELCOME, ALPHA PATRIOT!

Good to have you onboard the Council.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:52 PM |

A VOICE FROM THE LEFT

(hat tip Dennis Prager)

Needless to say, Norman Geras is no conservative. He is no fan of capitalsim, and has, in general, expressed great reservation about the entire poilitcal and economic system that forms the foundation of the United States, and, in fact, most of modern Western civilization. That having been said, however, he has issued a clarion call of repentance to the modern Left (and has been doing so for quite some time, in all fairness) regarding its propensity for choosing the wrong side in the great moral debates of our day. In a stirring piece at OpinionJournal.com, Mr. Geras writes with the clinical, yet heartfelt tenor of a man who has seen enough. From the piece:

Why this miserable response? In a nutshell, it was a displacement of the left's most fundamental values by a misguided strategic choice, namely, opposition to the U.S., come what may. This dictated the apologetic mumbling about the mass murder of U.S. citizens, and it dictated that the U.S. must be opposed in what it was about to do in hitting back at al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan.

Something similar has now been repeated over the war in Iraq. I could just about have "got inside" the view--though it wasn't my view--that the war to remove Saddam Hussein's regime should not be supported. Neither Washington nor Baghdad--maybe. But opposition to the war--the marching, the petition-signing, the oh-so-knowing derision of George W. Bush, and so forth--meant one thing very clearly. Had this campaign succeeded in its goal and actually prevented the war it was opposed to, the life of the Baathist regime would have been prolonged, with all that that entailed: years more (how many years more?) of the rape rooms, the torture chambers, the children's jails and the mass graves recently uncovered.

Read the whole thing, and visit Norm's blog. They're both well-worth reading, and should provide a worthwhile glimpse into a keen, but compassionate guy.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:48 PM |

CONGRATULATIONS JEFF AND JENNA!

A BIG word of congratulations goes out to my good buddy Jeff and his lovely wife Jenna, who gave birth to their firstborn - a son named Jackson - on Monday afternoon. Jeff's a pilot with the 319th Air Refueling Wing, and, like a good Air Force brat, little Jackson obeyed the orders of Jeff's commanding officer by showing up a bit (3 weeks) early, and not fouling up preparations for an upcoming Operational Readiness Inspection.

Anyway guys, we're so happy for you, and are grateful to call you guys our friends. Get some rest, and watch the power tools!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 1:27 PM |

REGARDING YESTERDAY'S BBS POST...

Apparently, the same exact post was made on one of the various communist bulletin boards out there, as my site was discovered via the invaluable Commiewatch (as you can imagine, Commiewatch is one of their favorites!).

Aside from the utter hilarity of the post (the guy rants about both my "witchunting", ans some sort of obsession with capitalism, even though this is NOT an econo-blog. I am a proud capitalist, but I've NEVER made a single post on the glories of the economic system), I find great humor (and peace of mind) in knowing that I've at least hacked-off some members of a group responsible for the largest share of inhumanity and evil this world has ever seen. Way to pick a philosophy, guys. If they're upset, I guess I must be doing something right.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:52 AM |

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

BEING SLIGHTLY BOLD IS JUST GOOD!

Jenglish!

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 4:26 PM |

THE NEXT KOREAN WAR

(hat tip Hugh Hewitt)

In an excellent piece, James Woolsey and James McInerney lay out the logical order of battle for a military confrontation with North Korea. It's an excellent read. Here are some excerpts:

But even if the krypton was emanating from Yongbyon, this still means that several additional bombs' worth of plutonium could be available a few months from now. Add this to Pyongyang's breach of the 1994 Agreed Framework by its secret uranium-enrichment program, and its boast in April that it would sell weapons-grade plutonium to whomever it pleased (rogue states? terrorist groups?), and it is apparent that the world has weeks to months, at most, to deal with this issue, not months to years.
Interdiction of shipments out of North Korea will not stop the export of such fissionable material. Even if current efforts for nations to intercept North Korean shipping are successful, this would be completely inadequate to the purpose. The North Koreans' principal exports today are ballistic missiles and illegal drugs, both clandestine. As former Secretary of Defense William Perry recently noted, the amount of plutonium needed for a bomb is about the size of a soccer ball.

It should be crystal clear to the world at large that the regime of Kim Jong-Il is not to be trusted, and is, in fact, a greave danger to the safety of not just the Korean Peninsula, but of the entire world. The clandestine effort of the regime to convert spend fuel rods into fissile material shows both the intransigence, and the desperation of the North Korean government. These to traits are a most dangerous mixture. The authors continue:

It is not reasonable to limit the use of force to a surgical strike destroying Yongbyon. Although the facility would need to be destroyed, the possible existence of another plutonium reprocessing plant or of uranium-enrichment facilities, or of plutonium hidden elsewhere, makes it infeasible to limit the use of force to such a single objective. Moreover, military action against North Korea must protect South Korea from certain attack (particularly from artillery just north of the DMZ that can reach Seoul). In short, we must be prepared to win a war, not execute a strike.

U.S. and South Korean forces have spent nearly half a century preparing to fight and win such a war. We should not be intimidated by North Korea's much-discussed artillery. Around half of North Korea's 11,000-plus artillery pieces, some of them in caves, are in position to fire on Seoul. But all are vulnerable to stealth and precision weapons--e.g., caves can be sealed by accurate munitions.

Massive air power is the key to being able both to destroy Yongbyon and to protect South Korea from attack by missile or artillery. There is a significant number of hardened air bases available in South Korea and the South Koreans have an excellent air force of approximately 550 modern tactical aircraft. The U.S. should begin planning immediately to deploy the Patriot tactical ballistic missile defense system plus Aegis ships to South Korea and Japan, and also to reinforce our tactical air forces by moving in several air wings and aircraft carrier battle groups, together with the all-important surveillance aircraft and drones.

These are dangerous waters we find ourselves in, but we are foolish if we think that, simply by "getting on the beach", we'll be any safer. Left unopposed, the North Koreans might very well send an already-jittery Japan into a full-fledged nuclear arms race that will inevitably engulf China, as well. It bears repeating one of the central tenets of the piece then - the ideal scenario for the avoidance of military confrontation (unfortunately, this is also the only real scenario in which the use of foce might be avoided) is to bring the Chinese into the picture in a major way - exerting palpable pressure on the North Koreans to back down. The question then becomes, just how likely is this to come about?

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 3:25 PM |

THE DE-MASCULINIZATION OF BOYS

John, over at Non Scholar has a great piece on this topic here. Check it out.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 2:41 PM |

SORRY - THIS BBS POST IS TOO GOOD NOT TO PUBLISH...

While checking good 'ol Site Meter, to see who's been sending me visitors, I happened upon a link to the bbs on the F***ed Company.com website (Why am I discussed here? Apparently, I must be close to laying off my staff, and running to the Bahamas with my zillions of shares of worthless stock options). The wickedly witty lefty (codename: brewtus) somehow managed to find great irony in my continued support for capitalism despite the fact that I've requested leads for jobs pertaining to my Father In-Law's expertise (he's got two interviews this week - including a second). Here's the link.

Yeah...that's what I thought, too.

Here's his post (under the heading "Funny - conservative putz's page"):

funny - conservative putz's page 08/05/03 11:40 am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These conservatives are so stupid they don't even see when they're being unintentionally ironic.

This ( http://strategicintelligence.blogspot.com ) is a web page called "Exultate Justi". It is part of the "Watcher's Council", a bunch of blogs that watches left-wing blogs for signs of whatever in some kind of witchhunting manner. He spends all the time glorifying capitalism and going on a virtual witchhunt (more than most conservatives) against anyone who doesn't glorify the perfection of modern capitalism. (ed. - that's a lot of witchunting...)

Which is why his recent blog entry is so funny...

"Thursday, July 31, 2003

Anybody out there in the Rocky Mountain region (specifically in the Denver or Salt Lake City areas) looking to hire a great accountant (or know of any such openings)? My Father In-Law was laid off a couple months back, and he's a very experienced general ledger accountant with tremendous people and management skills, as well as experience with complex Federal regulations, etc.. Anyway, if anyone's got a lead, fire me an email (jaredkeller74-at-hotmail.com), or post a comment. Thanks!"

Bahaha...the putz can't see the irony of praising the economic system he loves so much under the stewardship of Bush and a Republican house, persecuting anyone who disagrees, and then begging for a job, saying that the same system has been unable for "a couple of months" to get his father-in-law who is a "great accountant...a very experienced general ledger accountant with tremendous people and management skills" hooked up with a job. What an idiot. I hope he keeps the job begging up, it makes the page so much funnier to read.

Here's my response:

Uh-huh.

Sorry - I'm too busy witchunting in a witchunting manner to respond effectively to your blistering leftie intellect. Maybe, though, when I'm done witchunting, I can get back to slavishly worshipping at the altar of Bush and Cheney and freebasing OIIIIIIL!

And, by the way, you're right. No one EVER lost a job before the dark spectre of BUSH! How silly of me. 'Guess I should just go hide in the corner, sulk, and turn commie...or at least Post-Keynesian.

Did you even read the site? I kinda doubted so. Given your asinine interpretation of the Watcher's Council. On the other hand, maybe you've just figured out the dark secret of my Trilateral Commission-like witchunting cabal, so now YOUR name is on my list, too! Bwahhahaha!

In short, I refer you to the precedent set in the case of Rubber v. Glue, 1963.

When do I get that "special" email you so fiendishly referred to? Is it an offer to regrow my hair? 'Cause if it was, I accidentally deleted it. Anyway, I've got to get back to witchunting. Ooh, Look! Stevie Nicks! There's one!

Brewtus' a stone cold genius, straight-up, yo.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 2:20 PM |

STRATFOR - SHARON'S WALL

In this week's StratFor Weekly, the analysis group takes a look at the barrier under construction in Israel, and the chances of its success in fulfilling its intended purpose - the practical separation of Israel from the Palestinians.

From the piece:

From the Israeli standpoint, the driving force is desperation. Suicide attacks have achieved what Palestinian planners hoped for -- convincing the Israelis the status quo cannot be maintained. The bombings have convinced Israeli leaders that the continued physical occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip are not an option. The problem the Israelis have had to confront is that simply retreating and abandoning the occupation might not solve their strategic problem. From the Israeli standpoint, the problem of the Oslo accords is that they rested on a political decision by the Palestinians, who had to guarantee that they would abandon further claims -- and military operations -- against the state of Israel in return for Israeli withdrawal.

The last two years convinced Israeli leaders of two things: First, that any guarantee from a Palestinian government was unstable and could not be regarded as permanent; and second, that even if the Palestinian government was able to maintain its own commitment to an agreement, it was incapable of guaranteeing that all Palestinian factions would honor it. Israel observed the ability of the Irish Republican Army, ETA and other groups to continue operations without or against state sanctions. Since the absolute minimum concession from the Palestinians had to be the cessation of suicide bombings and related actions against Israel, this posed an insuperable problem. On the one hand, the status quo was untenable; on the other, a political foundation for withdrawal appeared to be unattainable. Israel was trapped between two impossible realities.

Once again, StratFor's analysis is crisp, and concise. Read the whole thing.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:34 AM |

CAMBODIA OFFERS HOPE FOR IRAQ

In a piece for the New York Post yesterday, The Heritage Foundation’s Peter Brookes draws parallels between the current state of Iraqi democracy, and the movement of Cambodia from Communism (under the vicious Khmer Rouge – led by Pol Pot) to fledgling democracy. The movement hasn’t necessarily been swift, and it certainly hasn’t been smooth, but it has been palpable. To quote from the piece:

Should Americans care about the health of democracy in Cambodia? Absolutely. Democracies bring peace and stability to a region and hope to its people. For instance, in mainland Southeast Asia, there are far too few democracies (Thailand is the other). A brutal military junta rules Burma, while repressive Communist regimes control Laos and Vietnam. A successful transition to democracy in Cambodia would serve as a beacon of freedom to its authoritarian neighbors (Just as Iraq will serve as a democratic linchpin in the Middle East).

The trouble with democracy is that it takes time. Once the seed is planted, it must be nourished and protected. Along the way, there will be fits and starts and troubles. As in our own experience: American democracy didn’t start out perfect – it still isn’t. But we try to make it a little better everyday. We have seen this in Cambodia, and we will see it in Iraq.

We must be cautious not to buy in to the doom-and-gloom scenarios being put forth by the Left on this issue. There are very real concerns that need to be addressed in Iraq, but there are none so daunting as to be beyond solution. The Left’s sneering derisiveness over our success to this point rings of nothing more than bald-faced political opportunism – ironically enough, tinged with a bit of cultural superiority. They see each new problem as indicative of two root causes – the intransigence of the Administration, and, though they’d never admit it outright, their statements through the years would indicated that many on the Left adhere to the age-old canard of an Arab love for dictatorships. In short, there is an unstated feel that, just maybe, the Iraqis aren’t truly capable of adopting democratic reforms.

Together with the newly united Iraqi opposition groups, the United States and her allies are making tremendous progress in restoring order to the daily life of the Iraqi people. It is this part of the reconstruction that is the most risky, but it is also this part of the effort that allows us to build a foundation of trust for future decision-making and political reform. This phase is crucial, and, from all appearances (the messages put forth by Reuters, et. al. notwithstanding), it is proceeding smoothly. We must give it time, however.

I, like Peter Brookes, share the President’s vision – that all men have an ingrained thirst for freedom, and for self-determination. As such, I look forward to Iraq’s development (and influence) as a democratic force in the Middle East. The ground will shift dramatically once the Iraqi people begin to sate their thirst for freedom with truly democratic principles, and the mullahs and tinpot dictators surrounding Iraq will tremble, even as the world breathes a mighty sigh of relief.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:25 AM |

NEW MEMBER OF THE WATCHER'S COUNCIL

Welcome, Four Right Wing Wackos to our little think tank.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 9:58 AM |

Monday, August 04, 2003

BABY STUFF

Sorry for the lack of posts Friday. Today will be on the light side, as well. We've been having to roll with some punches in the adoption realm, and are getting some last-minute stuff done around the house, and are staring at the phoe, willing it to ring...

Patronize 'em!

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