Dumbass
This UN moron (but I repeat myself) not only has the stupidity to wring his hands about a non-existent disease, but has to throw in a gratuitous slap at the end of the article about the horror of the coming war in Iraq. And he's talking about Africa, where wars are going on all over the landscape. Pigmies are being eaten, for God's sake, in the Congo. Algeria hosts an AlQaeda-linked rebel movement that kills more innocent Muslim civilians in a month than have been killed while being used as human shields by Hamas and Fatah cowards in the West Bank and Gaza for the last ten years. Robert "Crazy-ass" Mugabe in Zimbabwe is dispossessing the only people in the country who know how to grow food and simultaneously rejecting "Genetically modified" food on the advice of his Euroweenie PC friends, who are not - yet - starving to death. Nigeria is stoning women to death for adultery and threatening death to beauty pageant managers. And HE'S UPSET ABOUT THE LIBERATION OF A COUNTRY FROM A BLOODY DICTATOR ARMED WITH POISON GAS AND ANTHRAX!!! Ok, now he's got me upset. Deep breath. Focus. What can be done to destroy, eliminate, bankrupt, reduce to a nullity the United Nations? Any ideas?

Thanks
Thanks to Inoperable Terran - one of my favorite news-link sites - for a link to my article on the LeMonde editorial. Now let's see if anyone wants to get a comments discussion going. I have such comment-envy when I go to Rachel Lucas and Asymmetrical Information. I wouldn't even mind a troll or two.

Many marriages are like this:

It’s as though you had two people who were hitting themselves over the head, repeatedly, each hitting himself, and neither of them realizing they were doing it. Then all of a sudden one of them realizes what he’s doing and that it hurts and that he can stop if he wants. Now would it make sense for him to turn to the other one and say, “Hey, I’ve got a great idea! If you stop hitting yourself on the head, I’ll stop hitting myself. How about it?”
Does that make sense? What should the man who realizes what he’s doing do? Right! He should STOP HITTING HIMSELF ON THE HEAD! Despite what anyone else is doing.

Verbum supra!
Clinton is being mentioned as a possible Chancellor of Oxford (I told you Europe was doomed!) So the dog Latin specialists over there have come up with a celebratory poem.(via the International Sentinel) You really need to read this. I'm not going to try to translate it. You need to. "Togam maculatam" to you!

Hyphenated fuzzy thinking
The recent use by women of hyphenated names, their maiden last name and their husband's last name, has always bothered me, for a number of reasons.

The first is that the women who tend to do this are leftover hippie-dippy chicks who, unlike myself, have not managed to shake off the effects of narcissism and resentment at the nature of reality.

The second is that it doesn't make any sense, because it can't be carried on very long. Say if Mrs. Rainbow Smith-Jones (her maiden name was Smith) and Mr. Peacepipe Jones have a daughter, Nebula Smith-Jones, what will her name be if she gets married to the son of Jane Roe (now Roe-Doe) and John Doe? Nebula Smith-Jones-Roe-Doe? You can see this doesn't provide a solution to the non-problem of perpetuating male oppression for very long. Few people are going to want to carry around their entire genealogy on their business cards.

The third problem is that the use of conjoined names was and is a legacy from the aristocratic practice of marrying to unite two families and those rich people could have names as long as they wanted because they had servants. Both names were retained so that the offspring could boast that they belonged to two important families, or at least one important one and one whose patriarch - with a lot of help from the matriarch - had the smarts to marry his daughter off to an important one. Take, for instance, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (although she at least eschews the hyphen). But in the modern world, the practice ended because people didn't want to be pretentious. And it doesn't help that the arranged marriages commemorated by these compound names were hardly examples of individual choice and feminist freedom. The users of these odious hyphens seem to be totally oblivious to the historical context.

The fourth problem, that I just realized today, is that the use of such a name makes it obvious that you're married. If you're unmarried and your name is Debbie Goodman and everyone knows you're Debbie Goodman and then all of a sudden you're Debbie Goodman-Gates, your patriarch having made a VERY shrewd deal with a scion of the modern nobility, everyone knows you're married. But the whole point of keeping on using "Ms" instead of switching to "Mrs." when you get married is to hide the fact that you did something so bourgeois and dated as getting married and also not to make the single girls feel bad right away. But if you keep your maiden name, all the trouble of hooking your man will have been entirely for naught. I should have known the essential characteristics of feminity would have found a way around PC-ness. My faith in human nature is restored.

Europe not only doomed, defeated
OK, I don't have my French dictionary with me, but I managed to struggle through this editorial in LeMonde and they seem to be saying that Europe is "defeated" (defaite). Does this go beyond "doomed"? Probably. They also seem to be assuming that Bush's tax cut plan will lead to bigger deficits, in the range of 4%. So they are also assuming that spending will not be cut. I don't know. Jeb Bush in Florida seems to be dedicated to cutting spending. In his inaugural speech yesterday, which I attended briefly, he actually said that he'd like to see the government buildings that surround the Capitol in what passes for downtown in Tallahassee empty in a few years. I could feel a shiver of fear pass through the gangs of state workers listening. George W. has broken with Ted Kennedy about paying off the teacher's unions. Not a bad idea politically, since they're not going to support Republicans anyway. So maybe we'll get lower taxes AND lower spending and more prosperity and can watch the Europeans raise taxes and ratchet up spending and disappear down the rathole they so richly deserve. Life is good.

GOOD!
One narc fewer.

Attaque Generalisee sur le Fromage!
The rebels in the Ivory Coast are threatening to attack French forces on all fronts if the Imperial French Army doesn't stop interfering in the Ivorian Civil War. How can the French be so stupid and bloody-minded? Don't they have enough cheese at home? Maybe we should send some military aircraft and then, when French troops are under fire and calling on us for help, we can change our mind and say that we don't think we should take part in their racist oppressive war. When will the world put a stop to the globalization of the French cheese industry? Don't they realize a lot of people don't even like cheese?

Europe is still doomed

Bloomberg has the latest gloomy statistics from the European economic tailspin. The only problem I can see with this situation is that if France goes defunct I won't be able to get my favorite wines any more. But I suppose the vineyards will be the last resource to be surrendered. With the imposition of Shari'a law in France, though, they'll have to stop producing alcohol. But maybe they'll start smuggling out immense quantities of hashish and heroin like the other Islamic states. Then with their luck we'll come to our senses and decriminalize. Serves them right!

More Vernon Howard

The Difference Between You and Me

by Vernon Howard

You are as stubborn as a mule, but I am loyal to my noble beliefs.
You are a blabbermouth, but I am endlessly generous in contributing my wisdom to others.
You are pushy, but I take constructive initiative.
You are a shameless glutton, but I am a daring explorer in the world of food and drink.
You have cunning greed, but I have admirable ambition.
You express childish anger, but I firmly denounce all forms of injustice.
You are rude, but I am not afraid to say what I think.
You indulge in petty gossip, but I discuss other people in order to sympathize and help them.
You are lazy, but I possess relaxed patience.
You think the world owes you a living, but I wish only my rightful rewards so richly deserved.
You have an evil lust for power, but I have a natural talent for social leadership.
You nervously run from one foolishness to another, but I happily pursue many meaningful activities.

New Life Foundation • PO Box 2230 • Pine AZ 85544
(928) 476-3224 • Fax (928) 476-4743
E-mail: info@anewlife.org

— A Nonprofit Organization —

Vernon Howard, Founder ……… Richard Wooldridge, Director

Copyright © 2003 New Life Foundation. All rights reserved.
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No Blood for Cheese!!
The Imperial French Army, with no consultation with the UN or anyone, has moved troops into the Cote d'Ivoire to suppress a rebellion. They call it "enforcing a ceasefire"! The only possible reason for such an unprovoked aggression must be the presence of something in the Ivory Coast that the French want. Of course, the US aggression against Iraq - which will surely happen someday if organisms of good will don't stop it - is to get oil. Now as I understand it, Ivory Coast produces coffee, but that couldn't do it. The price of coffee is at all-time lows on the world market. So what else would the French fight for? Snails? Cheese! It's got to be cheese! That's the only thing they wouldn't surrender for. The untapped cheese resources of Western Africa must be immense to inspire such ferociously barbaric attacks. I'm confident, though, that the Chomskys, Ralls and Fisks of the world will organize huge anti-French war demonstrations to stop this raping of Third World wealth. You can help by going down to the local French cheese shop and burning all the Camembert you can lay your hands on. Be careful. The proprietor may pretend not to have any Camembert, or Brie, or Roquefort or, perhaps, any cheese at all. But you know what to do. Hit him with a dead parrot and he'll surrender.

Update - Burkinabesque aggression!
The foreigners are of course responsible for the fighting in Ivory Coast. Westerners? No, Northerners, immigrant Burkinabes from Burkina Faso, to be exact. The government's totally logical response, to throw out the immigrant invaders, will, I am sure, be roundly criticized by France and the EU. I mean, we can't have people restricting immigration and threatening to expel millions on the basis of country of origin. That would make us just as bad as those nasty xenophobic Americans. Wouldn't it?

Update - Genocide!
The Imperial French Occupation Force has struck again, killing 30 Ivory Coast residents. No doubt they were unarmed and on their way to church.

The BBC has a statement from a patriotic Ivorian resisting this foreign aggression:

"There was a sort of joy and satisfaction when they spoke of the deaths of young Ivorians killed by French bullets," MPCI spokesman Sidiki Konate told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

When will the oppression of the Third World by the frog-eating murderers end? Where is the UN? Michael Moore??

Vernon Howard
I've been a self-help enthusiast for years. I've got shelves of books by everyone from Napoleon Hill to Anthony Robbins to David Schwartz to Shad Helmstetter. Yeah, I know and what do I have to show for it? Well, my new enthusiasm is Vernon Howard. And he's really something. You know how a blogger is posting diet results on his blog? Maybe I'll start posting results from my implementation of Vernon Howard's principles. Mostly he says, "trust yourself", a mind-boggling notion in this era of conformity to authority and kowtowing to celebrity. Some quotes:

“There is a way out of the human problem and anyone can find it.”

A warring world has no power to injure your real nature any more than darkness can shake a tree.

Men who fall from a canoe while standing up to attract attention always claim someone pushed them.
(OK, I'm not saying I completely understand that one yet!)

Like an army doctor treating enemy soldiers, truth is patient and kindly toward the parts of us which resist correction.

Isn't that great? Like an army doctor treating the enemy. Like the Israelis offering their hospitals to terrorists who are trying to kill them. It may seem foolish, but has a higher, nobler purpose, a self-interest thought out more deeply than simple barbarism.

Speaking of the Israelis, the blogosphere has had it totally with the latest "Palestinian" outrage - I use quotes from now on to show the sham and hypocrisy contained in the notion of a "Palestinian people". Lileks and The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler are especially lucid and forceful.

Update - more violence against Muslims - by Muslims
How long before some idiot blames this on Sharon? (Link via LGF) And let's not forget the million dead in the Iran-Iraq war and Afghanistan and the thousands that continue to die in Iraq and Indonesia and Pakistan and Kashmir and the Sudan. It's not just Arabs. Let's see, what do all those places have in common?

Cotterell
I suppose I should comment on the first Tallahassee story since the 2000 elections to make the big time. The Tallahassee Democrat, the local liberal rag, has suspended one of their columnists for what he said in an email. The Democrat is the kind of paper where, when you buy it on Sunday for the TV piece and comics, you flush the news and comment sections down the toilet so they won't infect the trash. I've been feuding with them for years. Their columnists were trying like crazy - still are - to find excuses for the bin Ladens of the world. So they keep this Cotterell guy around to give the place atmosphere. Cotterell had the effrontery to say that the Arabs had not been sincerely trying to negotiate with Israel for peace. Haven't they seen Arafat's box of baby wipes that he keeps around just to soothe his face from the effects of crying over all the innocent Israeli lives he has snuffed out? Here's Cotterell's statement from the Democrat story:
"OK, they can squat around the camel-dung fire and grumble about it, or they can put their bottoms in the air five times a day and pray for deliverance; that's their business," Cotterell wrote in his e-mail. "And I don't give a damn if Israel kills a few in collateral damage while defending itself. So be it."
Right on, Bill. Obviously, though, in this day and age, any reporter who mentions the fact that camels produce dung, or that Arabs burn it for fuel, is being culturally insensitive and probably speciesist as well. Why don't camels burn our dung? Hey, makes about as much sense as criticizing Cotterell! On a side note, I don't understand why the wire services and Drudge didn't pick up the Democrat story. Drudge went with one from the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Gun control at work
Draconian gun control laws are having the predictable effect. Even the Independent cannot help remarking on the surge of gun violence around Britain. Wonder how many of these goblins would be dead if the reported attacks had happened in Texas? The Birmingham attack involved "sub-machine guns"! If all guns are outlawed, outlaws might as well arm themselves with the heaviest artillery they can lay their hands on.

Update
Say, you don't think sentences like this from British judges could have any relation to the outbreak of deadly violence? Nah. He's trying to be a poet, after all. The machete was obviously an artistic statement. Three strikes and you're a piece of cold dead meat, anyone? Now there's an artistic statement!

Warming blanket
Nights are getting cold here in Tallahassee. I'm getting tired of having either not enough or too many blankets on the bed, so I determined to buy what we used to call an "electric blanket". Down at Target, I looked in vain. Then I noticed a couple of packages that looked like electric blankets, but were called "warming blankets". The hairs went up on the back of my neck. Has our language, our culture, degraded to that extent? Are we so afraid of being fried in our beds that we wish away the horror by avoiding the dread word "electric"? In my mind that's always been a good word. And note the flabbiness of the new locution. Is there any such thing as a "non-warming blanket"? Do we actually have to resort to redundancies to reassure ourselves that the demons Spark and Fizzle will not spring out of our bed covering in the night, launch themselves on us and overstimulate our dreaming neurons to produce brain-destroying circuit overload?
Wait a moment. Non-warming blanket. Cooling blanket. There's an idea. It gets pretty hot and humid around here for eight months of the year. Maybe one could have a blanket with ice water or Freon - ha! to the ozone hole - running through little tubes in it to keep you cool. No need for air conditioning all night. Think of the savings. But then we'd have to think of something to call it. "Refrigerating blanket" might not be quite right. People are SO sensitive! They might get visions of waking up in the morning frozen into a block. Malfunctions are the stuff nightmares are made of - or was it "on"? So maybe "cooling blanket". But that doesn't sound quite right. A blanket is supposed to keep you warm, not cool. "Cooling cover" - too alliterative. "Cooling spread" - sounds like something you eat on toast when it's a hundred degrees out - hey, now there's an idea! "Chill sheet" - Jeez, makes you think of the morgue. I know! The Refresherator! Ho! You can't have it! I had it first!

Ingrates
The Independent is whining, like that's not obvious, that Australia didn't immediately go to the help of the Solomon Islands, in a remote region of which a cyclone has struck two small islands, when the Solomons government did not ask for help and didn't give permission for Australian aircraft or ships to even go to these islands. Australia gives twelve million pounds to the government every year, which apparently has few other assets and has blown every asset it has. And now the Euroweenies are complaining that the Australian taxpayer is not taxed further to rescue the oppressed citizens of this jerk government. What would the Independent say if there was an earthquake in Iraq, the Iraqi government did nothing and the Israelis went in to help without asking the Iraqi government? What if a hurricane hit Cuba and the US sent a fleet of airplanes from Florida, loaded with relief supplies, without getting Castro's permission? The yowls of protest would resound for years. There's no point to reading the Independent. It just raises the blood pressure. And nothing you could ever do will appease them. Impoverish yourself, give up every right you can imagine, flagellate yourself, praise their every action and they will just spit on you. The hell with them.

Wake up, Andrew!
Andrew Sullivan said a couple of things today that I disagreed with, so I sent him a little message. Lot of good it will do me.

Dear Mr. Sullivan,

About your post on the lesbian "parents", it is only
necessary to say that no man has or ever has had two mothers. The
concept is clear and has been for thousands - nay millions - of
years. To redefine something as simple as motherhood is arrant
self-deception. Even adoptive parents are always aware there's
someone called the "biological mother" - and father - out
there somewhere. What a redundancy! What sort of mother is a mother
who is not biological? The "legal" mother? The
"love" mother? What does "mother" mean, anyway?
I favor restricting meaning to the natural concept. Next thing,
you'll be redefining apple pie as "legally acceptable
apple" pie when it contains only Ritz crackers, the famous
"mock apple pie". What gay people have is a mock marriage.
It mocks itself.

To treat gay relationships as marriages is to destroy meaning and
create nothing new. The ties of blood will always be reliable. They
will always trump the thrill of mockery.

And about Herb Ritts - he did die of pneumonia because no one has
ever died of "AIDS". That's another mockery of logic,
cobbled up by the medical establishment to justify research grants.
But that's an old story, known to all who will open their eyes to
see. You obviously prefer blindness.
--

Update - now I'm ticked off
Maybe I'm going over the edge, but Andrew Sullivan has enraged me again by opining that Herb Ritts did after all die of "AIDS". So I launched a salvo of indignation:

Dear Mr. Sullivan,

You have said on your blog that Herb Ritts "...died because his
immune system was severely compromised by HIV." I challenge you
to support this statement with scientific evidence. Unless you can,
your assertion is false. And if you find such evidence, you might as
well send it to researcher Peter Duesberg and Kary Mullis, the Nobel
Prize winner. They would be very surprised to find such proof.

Put up or stop lying.

Oh, dear, I guess I won't get invited to any of his cocktail parties!

Have a PC New Year's!
Isn't it a relief not to have to worry about whether you're going to be attacked for saying "Merry Christmas"? Nobody minds a "Happy New Year!" But why is that? After all, our New Year has not always been universally recognized. Jewish New Year is not on January 1, nor is Chinese New Year. And the year numbers are all different. Islam's calendar started fourteen-hundred odd years ago, not 2003. I think the Chinese and Jews are over four thousand. This "Year of our Lord" bit is based on our oppressive Western Christianity, after all. How come no one gets upset about it the way they do about Christmas? You would think that the response to "Happy New Year!" would be, "Maybe it's YOUR New Year, capitalist Western pig, but don't assume it's mine. My cult doesn't even recognize the passage of time. How can you be so offensive!! Go invade Iraq for oil or something! I'm gonna sue!!" Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. Maybe next year, everyone having been cowed into saying "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", the PC crowd will target the New Year thing and try to get us to recognize all the time-keeping systems as morally equivalent. Then calendars will be attacked for using Roman months, those nasty Romans who beat up all those nice Oriental countries. Publishers will make money flogging "multicultural" calendars, bearing all the year systems, in lunar and sidereal months, to the total confusion of everyone. Better enjoy the relative clarity while we can.

Benefits of Socialized Medicine

I've been reading Mendelsohn's Confessions of a Medical Heretic. It's a good book to read if you're feeling sick. Then you don't make the terrible mistake of going to a doctor so you can feel better. Reading through this thoroughly sensible treatise, I had a revelation about the real underlying purpose of socialized medicine. The proclaimed purpose of socialized medicine is to make it possible for anyone, no matter how poor, to have "access" (a loaded word if ever there was one) to medical care, translation, to go to a doctor or a hospital if he feels the slightest bit ill. The reality of socialized medicine, of course, is that the system is always overloaded, doctors and other staff have no incentives to treat you well and you have to stand in long lines to get anything done, even if you're nearly dying. So the net effect can be to keep anyone with any sense away from the medical system entirely. Who would queue up with contagious children and rheumy elderlies unless he absolutely had to? And that's just what Mendelsohn's saying. More people die because they go to the doctor or the hospital than die because they can't find or afford medical care. The way socialized medicine works out, sensible people go to the doctor LESS frequently than they would if they had health insurance or if the rabble were kept away from the medical system by high prices. So, according to Mendelsohn, sensible people are healthier under socialism than they would be under capitalism. A side benefit is that the silly poor folk who throng into the hospitals are being used as guinea pigs, given unnecessary and harmful prescription drugs and suffering unnecessary and often harmful surgery (M calls it "ritual mutilation"!). A good percentage, therefore, are keeling over who wouldn't have if they hadn't gone to hospital. And natural selection proceeds on its merry eugenic way. All hail Marx and Lenin!

Update - Life imitates life
Mindles Dreck, in Asymmetrical Information, reports on and analyzes the reasons for doctors' strikes in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. But my comment points out that they missed an important aspect of having fewer doctors messing with your life:

Robert Mendelsohn, in his book "Confessions of a Medical Heretic" documents several instances where strikes by doctors led to massive decreases in the death rate. Maybe Pennsylvania and West Virginia should try to drag this dispute out as long as possible. For the children and the sick!

Alternative Palestine
My sister sent me some generic article about the oppression of the poor Palestinians by the nasty Israelis. I won't bother you with it. But I think my response is on point:

While in a state of war with a stateless rabble of murderers, Israel would have to be insane to let millions of them back into areas they left voluntarily, hoping to return to a Judenrein "Palestine". The miracle is that Israel has tolerated terror attacks from Judea and Samaria and Gaza for decades. If the Arabs had won in 1948 or 1956 or 1967 or 1973, would they have created a Palestinian state? No. The Ottoman province of Palestine would have been split up among the Jordanians, Egyptians and Syrians, who would probably still be fighting over the worthless spoils. If a native "Palestinian" movement had started terror attacks on Damascus or Amman or Cairo to create Jew-less Palestine as a state, the Arabs would have massacred them to the last man, woman and child. Remember, the West Bank was part of Jordan in 1967. Gaza was "occupied" by Egypt. Israel liberated those areas and began negotiations that would have, if the Palestinian leadership had been half sane, resulted in the very first state of Palestine. But Arafat took the opportunity to miss yet another opportunity.

And how can "ethnic cleansing" exist when the "Palestinians" are not a separate ethnic group and never have been?

Where'd that come from?
Do you have anything in your house that seems to have popped up from nowhere? In my case it's a spheroid wicker overhead lamp suspended by a chain over my reading chair that I've been using for the last five years at least. I looked up at it today and thought, "Hey, wait a minute! Where did THAT come from?"
I don't remember buying it. I never would have. Was it here when I got here? Not that I remember. I checked with the little woman: " I thought you bought it" Nope. You know the kids wouldn't have let it in the house if they had the chance. So there's only one possibility left. It snuck in by itself. It was rolling along, perched on a truck loaded with moving stuff and fell out on the corner outside my house. It rolled down the driveway and, awaiting its opportunity, popped into the garage and tried to look natural, like it had always been there. And I, foolish I, picked it up and suspended it by a hook mere inches from where I have been soaking up everything from Objectivism to flying saucer lore. It's got a complete record of all my reading, for years. And, oh yes, we all know what it is. We all know that when the time is right it will extend a scrawny little green hand from the top of the wickerwork and detach itself from the chain and roll out through the garage door and with a "pfft" take off for the sky, kick into warp drive and arrive at its home planet in mere seconds. Then, when the authorities on ssxxqplgitt see what passes for thoughts in the minds of men, then can anyone doubt they will attack? Oh, yes, they will attack and destroy and cleanse the universe of our noxious beings. But wait a minute. Back in '96. Didn't I read some Wodehouse? I did, I did! Jeeves and Wooster and Psmith! They'll read it. And, to a noid, they'll die laughing. Hey, you know what I did? I saved the universe! That deserves a Scotch.


Hell for actors

What if, after they were dead, actors and actresses had to adopt the parts that they played on Earth for, say, all eternity? It would be up to God, of course, which parts and for how long. If God liked Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life", ol' Jimmy would be running a failing savings and loan for the next few millennia, chasing after Uncle Billy, crying, "Where's that eight thousand dollars, you old drunk!!" with Lionel Barrymore chortling in the background.
Oh, how the angels would laugh. But they'd get bored eventually. Then maybe they could pick on Bogart and make him play Sam Spade alternating with Cap'n Queeg: "You're taking the fall, baby, just as soon as I find those darn strawberries!"
Schwarzenegger, may he live forever, if he does die some day, will have a peculiar burden, having to worry whether he is to play Danny deVito's twin brother, a kindergarten cop, a Martian colonist secret agent rebel or Conan the Barbarian. Now that's diversity! A most interesting moment will occur when, one hopes not too soon, Charlton Heston knocks on the pearly gates. I can see the sweat starting to form on God's massive forehead already. He has to let him in. You can't consign God and Moses to the Evil One. But if Heston does come in, how could He refrain from letting him play God some day, some time? And maybe, just maybe, the angels would prefer Heston's performance.

123

Rethinking the War on Terror
Scrappleface, one of the funniest sites on the web, had a great bit about the Republicans' decision to adopt segregationist policies to appease Democrats angry about the Trent Lott tempest in a teacup. I just had to drop in the following comment:

In foreign relations, the Republicans have declared that they have decided that Osama bin Laden is not really as bad as they had thought.
"After all", a party spokeseunuch opined, "he did build all those day care centers, bar-b-que restaurants and discos in the third world. If we had only done that, he wouldn't have had to attack us on September 11, 2001."

Late news that bin Laden has been captured by the Sudanese police and offered to the Bush administration for prosecution brought this response: "We don't really think we have the authority to accept him. Millions of Frenchmen have bought a book declaring that the Pentagon attack never happened and the Jews were behind the WTC attack. That's reasonable doubt as far as we're concerned. We need to get on to the real business of the country, like making sure anyone who declares he's been persecuted gets lots of money and nailing down that thirty-five hour week and six weeks of paid vacation thing the French and Germans have been so successful with."

The Kabul Declaration
Has anyone else in blogdom, or in the regular US media, remarked on this agreement in Kabul, reported by the Tehran Times involving many countries surrounding Afghanistan promising to stay out of Afghan affairs? It sounds like, skeptic that I am, that this may be a major break in the centuries, nay, millennia of interference of every Asian potentate in Afghan politics. Maybe, just maybe "nation-building" or just plain allowing the Afghans to be free of outside influence, has begun in earnest. Come on, Fisk, Pilger, Chomsky, why don't you celebrate this evidence of independence and territorial integrity in Central Asia, by Central Asians? Hope rears its shining face.

Iraqi Darwinism
Vodkapundit has been opining that if we invade Iraq and topple Saddam, we need to be prepared to hang around for years and guide the Iraqis through the strait gate and down the narrow way to parliamentary democracy, capitalism and, presumably, pressure-group politics. All they really need is capitalism and the freedom to make it work. So I posted a comment:

The same people who say we shouldn't topple Saddam unless we are willing to nursemaid the Iraqi people for thirty years would scream the loudest if we refused to leave when the Iraqis said they were ready to go it alone. And that might be in five years, or six months, after the toppling. I think we should have done a lot more "nation-building" in Kuwait after the last war. Why leave a corrupt Sheik in power? But you don't hear anyone complaining about that. The fact is we can't control the political evolution of Iraq. We would be stupid to try. What we can do is make sure Saddam has no access to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
***
I have a vision of a post-war Middle East where the Iranian students have installed a Turkish-style political system, including some power for the mullahs, and the Saudis have been dethroned. Assad in Syria and Mubarak in Egypt must also open up their political systems. The first Arab democracy is key, though. Turkey's democracy has not had an appreciable effect on Arab politics. Neither have Iran's spasmodic bouts of parliamentarianism. But a real functioning Arab democracy would spread freedom and individualism with blinding speed. The Arabs have always looked at the Turks and Persians as overlords, not models. But a true Iraqi democracy that was not seen as totally imposed by the US would make a real difference. Why, the Arabs might even realize that all of their people aren't more concerned with pushing the Israelis into the sea than they are with feeding their children and freeing their economy.

Christmas Contentment
Feeling pretty good about Christmas this year. My daughter's birthday is today. That always gets the celebrations started. We got our tree weeks ago, so the dreaded task of decorating is behind us. The house is full of food and presents. I gave myself an early Christmas present in the shape of Terry Teachout's biography of H. L. Mencken, which I am enjoying very much. I didn't know that Woodrow Wilson was such a monster. It makes sense, now that I think of it. How could anyone who could push the precursor of the United Nations and the Federal Reserve Board and prohibition be anything other than a contemptible fool?

I also finished Kary Mullis's "Dancing Naked in the Mind Field", an autobio by a Nobel winner that confirms all my prejudices about myths like global warming, the ozone hole and HIV not causing AIDS. The only jarring note in Mullis is his advocacy of astrology. Come on, Kary, we can give up all of the illusions left over from Sixties hallucinogenic fantasies. We don't have to hang on to any for nostalgia's sake. Astrology is worthless. Do you hear me? Fake, stupid, ineffective, non-functional, pointless and boring. Get over it. Go see Randi if you need help shaking the monkey off your back.

Message from the Levant

My sister in Egypt sent me a column from AlAhram by Edward Said that had a few interesting points about the Middle East. I can't find a link to the original article, so I've reproduced it below. Here's my response to her:

Well, what do you know? I actually agree with a lot of what Said has to say about Saddam and Arafat. They are thugs. And I share his rejection of suicide bombing and other attacks on civilians. But Said's basic mistake is to maintain that the Palestinians are a "people" rather than just an ad hoc group of refugees from the Arab world's obsession with destroying Israel. The security of Israel is and has been in so much doubt that it overwhelms the problems Palestinians have in getting their plutocrat mafia to share its Saudi and EU and even American wealth with them. I also disagree strongly with his picture of the "unrestrained" IDF. No army in the history of the world has been under such provocation and suffered such losses for so long and acted with such restraint. Any Arab autocrat suffering attacks from a group like the Palestinians would wipe them out to the last man, woman and child. Ditto for collectivists like Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho, Castro and every minor Commie potentate. Also the French. I don't even want to think of what the Germans would do to them. What I find unbelievable is the leeway that leftists afford to Arafat and their shrillness towards the Israelis, who are only trying to survive. And of course, as Said well knows, the "occupation" is NOT illegal. Hostilities with the Arabs have never ceased for fifty-plus years and international law does not require a power suffering attacks from an area to allow those attacks to proceed unchallenged.
So Said is lying through his teeth as well. He and many others could well be surprised if, as I think likely, Bush manages to disarm and drive out Saddam without launching a full-scale war. Will he get credit for that if it goes well? Duh. And what other plan does Said have for relieving the Iraqi people of their oppression, which costs them far more lives every month than even the most ham-handed bombing campaign could?
Israel has freedoms, and economic success, in desperate wartime, that no Arab country has ever enjoyed. In sum, is Said blaming Arafat and the other mafiosi or Israel for the parlous state of the average Arab citizen? He can't have it both ways. I can't understand why he doesn't see that the campaign against Israel is and has been only maintained to keep thugs like Arafat in power. He should be for stopping the war orchestrated by Arafat but he can't bring himself to give up his reflexive anti-Semitism or the cherished myth of a "Palestinian nation" which has no historic or cultural reality. Otherwise, he's right. Eliminate Arafat. And Saddam and Assad and the entire Saudi royal family and Hamas and Hezbollah and Qaddafi and bin Laden, if he's not already a cinder, and the Israelis would with a great sigh of relief come to an accommodation with the Arab world and help them make their way to rationality and prosperity.

Note: I'm going to remove the Said article, because it seems to be knocking me off Blogger. I'll put it back in when I get a chance. RS.

Turkey and TAFTA

Jim Bennett has another column (via Instapundit) about Turkey and the European Union and how Turkey would be a much better fit in an economic union with the US and parts of Eastern Europe that aren't particularly thrilled with the idea of union with the declining social collectivists of Western Europe - see my Estonia post about four posts down. Maybe this idea will have some legs. I remember my sister telling me, after her visit to Istanbul last spring, that the Turks have a sphere of influence of their own in Central Asia that has unique cultural attributes. It's not Arab, not Russian, not Persian, but Turkic. With the discovery of oil and natural gas in many of the new nations with traditional ties to Turkey, we may see the emergence of a rival to the sclerotic states of the Gulf and OPEC. Perhaps in a few years the Palestinian psychosis will abate for lack of wealthy patrons. One can only hope.

La Fee Verte

Ken Layne has an interesting link to an absinthe website with all kinds of info about the "Green Faery". The description of what happens to you when you drink a bottle is fascinating in a macabre way. I'm thinking of trying it someday. The smoked caviar and snail eggs are calling my name, as well.
So, two new hobbies to try - shooting and drinking absinthe. Just as long as I keep them separated....

Whittle-ing the anti-gun nuts down to size

Rachel Lucas has posted a long but eloquent defense of gun ownership by a Bill Whittle. It's worth the time to read and print out and pass out at your next PTA meeting or gun nut convention or Republican Caucus. I have a sudden strong desire to go to the local range and learn to shoot. Think I will.

Restau-rant

What is it with restaurants that want you to do all the work?

For instance 1, Subway and Subway clones: I am sick and tired of ordering a specific sandwich from a menu, with a specific price on it and having people ask me what I want on it. Bread, please. Even though I know I shouldn’t, loving the Atkins diet as I do. Then fill the bread with the stuff that has to do with the sandwich you advertised. Don’t ask me if I want tuna salad when I ordered a fake crab sandwich. How many times do I have to say I want fake crab?

Then you do the work. Put on mayonnaise, mustard, relish, peppers, whatever makes the sandwich a good fake crab sandwich. Oh, OK, maybe you can ask me whether I want hot peppers or not because there are so many wussies out there who would faint if they got anything hotter than a tomato in their prissy little gullets. But that’s it! None of that “how much lettuce do you want?” nonsense. You’re the darn sandwich professional. You figure it out and do it right. Don’t do it right and I won’t be back and I REFUSE to guide you through the process, to train you in how to make a sandwich. For six bucks a sandwich you can train your own sandwich makers!

For instance 2, buffet restaurants: Terminate them with extreme prejudice. I do not want to go into a restaurant and pay ten bucks for lunch and have to work for half an hour in a kitchen putting together my own plate of food. Only in America! Oh, and maybe smorgasbrod-addicted islamofascist-coddling Scandinavia. I will not take a new plate every time I go up. I know your plan. You want to be able to bring over all your non-English-speaking buddies and let them work setting out food and clearing tables because with a buffet they don’t actually have to know any English to talk to people and serve their needs. Heck, the ones I’ve run into don’t even know the difference between a beer and a coke. All they say is “Go ahead, go ahead! Buffet for you! Leave me alone! Fill up your own plate, silly American! What you think I come all the way from Myanmar to figure out how to actually cook food the way you want it and serve it to you when you’re ready. Hah!”

Which brings me to the point. Meals should be civilized occasions. Civilized men take a civilized break and talk about civilized subjects. Like in Nero Wolfe’s brownstone. Or in that movie, “My Dinner with Andre”. Remember that? Would that movie even have been possible if Wallace Shawn and Andre had to get up every ten minutes, get a clean plate and decide what kinds of sushi to load up on and oh, yeah, let’s pile on some raspberry Jello, macaroni salad and a plate of soup. They wouldn’t have had any time to talk. These ridiculous restaurants only work because modern barbarians are more afraid of sitting at a table with nothing to talk about than anything that could happen to them at the buffet table. They’d rather ooh and aah about the six kinds of sushi than concoct an opinion about whether we should invade Pakistan or just let it implode.

Dream come true or nightmare?
Lots of stories on EU enlargement are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. John O'Sullivan has a dyspeptic view. The International Sentinel has another article, walking the sunny side of the street. The comments are interesting. The Telegraph is reporting, (via Drudge) that the EU is bulking up militarily. Sure. Give them twenty years with Hitler in charge and they might be able to take on one of our aircraft carriers. Let's see, the Ark Royal is 20,000 tons. The Nimitz is 95,000 tons. The Ark Royal can launch Harriers, subsonic but, oooh, they can land straight up and down! That's really going to help them up against F-15s!

Update - paradise in Estonia?
At least one potential Euro-borg absorbee is not that happy about the prospect. (via News Forum) And the information about Estonia's economy makes it sound decidedly like my kind of place. Maybe we can emigrate! Mmm! Lynx stew with a side of bear!

Europe is doomed - still
I'm going to keep on beating this drum until France petitions to become a state of the Union. In this story about Germany, the Financial Times is banging the drum for me (via Drudge). Schroder's tax assault on savers is seen as a threat to industry and investment in general. Duh. Why is it in times of financial crisis, governments think first about raising taxes? Oh, I know. The alternative is reducing the size of government by, in Deutschland's case, at least half, for starters, as well as lightening the regulatory load. But no. Charge right into the machineguns for the Vaterland, dummkopf!

I could have used a few more details. What is a "unitary savings tax" of 25 percent? Do they take a quarter of your savings account? Or do they tax money that goes into savings at a 25 percent rate, compared to a higher regular rate? Even I could think of ways around that. I'd just put all my money in savings and borrow on it. Net gain to the economy: nichts.

Burger imperialism
If we would only stop sending a battalion of Marines along every time a new McDonald's opens, to force people to buy the burgers, maybe the world wouldn't stop the restaurants from opening. I mean, if it were up to the free will of the people whether they bought food there, who could possibly object? If a lot of people didn't like having a McDonald's around, they could just not buy the burgers and it would go out of business and leave (see Update story). So it must be the soldiers running around forcing campesinos at gunpoint to part with a month's income for a Happy Meal that gets people upset. That's the only sane reason I can see for a country so poor millions of its people cross deserts at the risk of their lives to get to California to find jobs, for god's sake, to reject employment opportunities right in their own cities.

Update - You just can't please everybody
In another country people are complaining because McDonald's is leaving. But it only catered to the rich anyway. A school teacher had to "save up for a week" to afford a burger meal. A week? Heavens. I don't know that many people in America who go to McDonald's every week. I guess The Bush Tyranny must have decided to redeploy the burger-extortion battalions from Bolivia to Mexico. Now maybe Jose Bove or Michael Moore will lead a demonstration to force McDonald's to stay in order to save jobs.

Yay!
Minor victory. I passed the MPRE, prelude to the Florida Bar examination. Of course, I took and passed it seventeen years ago in New Hampshire, but the Florida authorities made me take it over. A New Hampshire license isn't much good in Florida and anyway I let my good standing lapse by the simple expedient of not paying my NH bar dues for ten years! It's actually costing me less to register for the Florida exam than it would to reinstate myself in NH. Now on to the bar exam itself, in February. A colleague at work is kindly allowing me to study with her materials. I'm energized! Right now I plan to practice immigration law. I am looking forward to it. The challenge is to ignore the inconsistencies and outright errors of the law to get the score I need to practice. No, don't think about the drug war or the draft or the overwhelming size of government that is supported by the legal system. Perhaps I can be a force for change.

Loves his People???!!
If Mandela "loves his people" so much, why is he killing them with AZT and other anti-retrovirals? Ah, I see the key phrase: "Lots of money". Hmm, I wonder where that's going to come from? How blind can people be? But as long as they love the poor, how can they ever go wrong?

Any which way but slantwise
Hey, that's right, this is supposed to be a blog about cryptic puzzles. I did the latest from Richard Maltby in Harper's, "Quo Vadis". It's quite challenging. I thought for the longest time I was going to have to leave it undone. I hate it when that happens. But it finally "broke" and I was able to fill in every blank. The only problem is, I'm not exactly sure why I got some of the answers. I know the letters entered are correct, but I just don't get the exact explication of the clue. That's bothersome, too, because I hate to think I've actually completed the puzzle when some answers are incompletely analyzed. Guess I'll have to live with it. Wake up screaming, I will.

Sigh-prus
How many times do I have to say it? Cyprus should become a US state and Turkey should join an expanded NAFTA. The EU is the wave of the past. Turkey deserves better.

Iron Curtain - not
This article will be used, I predict, to equate the Israel Defense Forces to the East German Stasi shooting people going over the Berlin Wall or through the Iron Curtain borders separating West Germany from East Germany during the Cold War. There's one big difference, though. The Palestinians killed were trying to get INTO a country which offered them opportunity, perhaps even survival, when they were killed by agents of the country they were trying to enter. The only similarity is that East Germans who went over the Wall, like these Palestinians, were trying to escape a collectivist hellhole. But why are the Palestinian areas so economically wretched that men would risk their lives to get out? Arafat has billions in Switzerland. The Israeli Government just gave the Palestinian Authority $35 million. As with Iraq, there's plenty of money to keep all the Palestinians quite comfortable, even if their idiot government keeps them in wretchedness by refusing to enter into real peace negotiations indefinitely.

And the reason the intruders were killed is clear. Hundreds of Jews have been killed by terrorists coming over and through borders into Israel stealthily by night. I don't blame the IDF, in this situation, for shooting first and confirming later that the intruders were not carrying weapons or wearing explosive belts. They really don't have any choice. The Stasi were in no such dilemma.

Negotiating terror
I've been reading Herb Cohen's book, "You Can Negotiate Anything" and it struck me that this war on terror is essentially a negotiation. One of Cohen's principles of negotiation is that if you know the other guy has a deadline and he doesn't know yours, you have an advantage. So maybe W's declaration of an open-ended war on terror, with no deadlines, just goals to be accomplished, is quite intelligent. Because Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein do not know our deadlines. They don't know when we have to capture bin Laden or overthrow SH. Do we have a deadline? Well, in a way. It would be good to make major progress in the war by the next election, November 2004. But even that is squishy. We don't have to capture bin Laden ever. We can keep saying he's dead. Who knows? Maybe he is. He has a deadline (so to speak!) If he doesn't show up and do something heinous in a couple of years, he's lost his power. We don't have to overthrow Saddam before the election, if we can keep him pinned down, using something like, oh, for instance, interminable UN inspection regimes.
And maybe with each day that goes by we get stronger and Saddam and Al Qaeda get weaker. Look at the latest document dump Saddam did. What did it show? They have and have had a nuclear program. Duh. But they've admitted it. They're dealing with European firms to get weapons. Double duh. But it's on the record. Major Euro-weenie embarrassment. So OK. Are we weaker or stronger than last week, in terms of negotiating position? Triple duh!

Middle East Arms Conundrum

The Washington Post reports that a ship has been intercepted off Yemen carrying a dozen North Korean Scud missiles. So now the guessing begins. The location was interesting - "600 miles off the Horn of Africa". The ship was nominally bound for Yemen, but was it really going there? That's awfully far out into the Indian Ocean. It could well have headed into the Red Sea, like the Karine-A, or even into the Persian Gulf. Which leads to some interesting possibilities. After all, what would Yemen do with Scuds? Or even Al-Qaeda in Yemen? Fire them at US ships offshore, or at an oil tanker? From what I understand, the Scuds are so inaccurate this would be like throwing a rock at a mosquito. But it would cause a bit of terror. More likely, though, is that the Scuds were headed to Palestine, to the PLO or Hamas or Hezbollah, for use against Israel from close up. But why Scuds? They're much longer range. OK, then Iraq? In the middle of UN inspections? Would Hussein be that stupid, and that desperate for missiles? I think not.

Iran seems a much more likely destination. I can see the Iranians being very concerned about the prospect of a last-ditch Hussein spasm of destruction. Maybe they thought they could get the first lick in.

They're not telling the nationality of the patrol boat that first intercepted the ship. How about Omani? Sultan Qaboos would love to make some points with the Americans and discomfit his traditional Yemeni foes. Developing, as they say on Drudge.

Hmm. Looking back, I see that this is not the first shipment of Scud stuff to Yemen. Maybe the real story is that the shipment was stopped. Why now? Is Rumsfeld getting ticked off at the Yemenis? About time. Seventeen dead sailors testify to the incompetence of the Sa'naa government at fighting terrorists.

Update - Curiouser and curiouser

The ship that stopped the missile ship was a Spanish frigate. Spanish? Huh? Que pasa? In the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean? And a CNN article (via Instapundit) says there's every indication it was headed for the Horn of Africa, which makes no sense. The ship bore no flag, which is weird to say the least. It went through the straits of Malacca, across heavily patrolled seas bearing ballistic missiles, with no flag, for thousands of miles without being stopped? I don't believe it.

Lott and justification

I don't like Trent Lott. Oh, not just because he's from Mississippi or because he's in favor of the drug war - what politician will say he isn't? I just think he's stupid and he's got a tin ear and he lets the Democrats get away with too much. And that makes me less free. This latest hassle about Lott's comments at the birthday bash for Strom Thurmond makes me crazy, though. It's all over the blogosphere, but Instapundit is the ringleader, as always. The basic idea is that Lott said, "We'd all be better off if Thurmond and the Dixiecrats had won in 1948." And gasps of horror arise, because the Dixiecrats were segregationists and anti-anti-lynching and all sorts of horrible things. But hey, in those days, most of the Democratic Party was too. And it changed. This seems to be what people are missing. Lott may not be saying, "Yeah, it would be better if the Dixiecrats had got in and had ruthlessly suppressed the civil rights movement and kept those otherly-colored Americans in their places."

I know a lot about 1948. I was born that year. You know what the main characteristic of 1948 is? It was one hell of a long time ago. And a lot of things have changed since then. Why, even the Democratic Party of George Wallace and Orval Faubus has become the champion of the oppressed otherly-colored. So what WOULD have happened if Thurmond and the Dixiecrats had been elected instead of the party of George Wallace and Orval Faubus - and Bull Connor? They would have changed, too. And all Lott may have been saying is that they would have managed the transition to a freer society better than the Democrats or Republicans did. And specifically I think he was saying that the government wouldn't have grown as large and out of control as it did if Thurmond had been in charge for a while. Or maybe he was saying we wouldn't have got involved in Korea or would have won the Cold War sooner or any number of other things. Everybody just jumped on the race thing.

I may be giving Lott too much credit. I am certainly not saying it wasn't politically stupid for Lott to say what he said, because it left him vulnerable to attack as a racist. But maybe, just maybe he was speaking from the heart and saying, you know, we thought some wrong things back then, but we would have handled the changes better than the establishment parties did. And God knows a lot of people would agree with him today about the competence of the Democrats and Republicans.

Make my point for me, Mary
Mary Robinson, the UN's chief whiner on human rights, is crowing in the Boston Globe, that, now that AIDS is a "pandemic", the rich countries will "have to do something". But Mary. The West has fought its "AIDS epidemic" to a standstill. There's no risk of reinfection from the Third World to the West, especially since the HIV virus never hurt anyone. So why should the West do anything about the problems of the Third World? Oh, to avoid revolutions and chaos? But those already exist. The lack of sanitation, food and civil peace that typify the Third World are the cause of the diseases that the AIDS mafia call "AIDS". But they are nothing new. Places like South Korea, Japan, Israel and large parts of Eastern Europe have successfully climbed out of the gutter without killing their people with AZT. Robinson's article, though, is a perfect example of how AIDS hysteria is used by leftists to assert a right on the part of hopeless, helpless, tyrannized and brutalized populations to the wealth of productive democracies like the US.

This brings up a weird objection that was brought up to Peter Duesberg to stop him from pointing out the truth of the HIV virus's innocence.
"But, Peter," the establishment would say,"You may be right, but if this point is publicized, vulnerable populations will stop using condoms, will stop being sanitary and sexually restrained. You wouldn't want to be responsible for that, would you? Let's just sell them - or sell the US government to give them free - some AZT instead." OK, so I added that last part myself. Duesberg's sensible response is, (my interpretation) "If they've got TB, treat them for TB. If they've got Kaposi's sarcoma from using "poppers", treat them for that. But for God's sake don't make up a whole new scary disease. It's like the drug war all over again. When, eventually, it comes out that there is no such disease as AIDS caused by the HIV virus, no one will ever believe the medical establishment about anything again."
Hey, wait a minute. Is that really such a bad thing?

War Corps
I wrote the following email to Eric Raymond in reply to his recent essay about a man's role in war:

Dear Mr. Raymond,

I remember the attitude I had in the Sixties about those who went to
war. I regarded them as soft, conformist idiots who didn't have the
testosterone to stand up to an obviously wrongheaded war machine.
Being drafted seemed to me to be not a certification of manhood but a
submission to illegitimate force. Looking back on it, I can see that
some actually went to Vietnam sincerely, others were too lazy or
afraid of others' opinions to resist, while more than I could have
imagined volunteered.

The present situation is quite different, I tell myself. I think I
would join up eagerly to repel the Islamic menace. As an oldster
now, I keep thinking, "How can I help"? Debating liberals
just isn't enough. I keep thinking of applying for a job wth the CIA
or Foreign Service or whoever would take me. Maybe there should be a
War Corps that over-the-hill former hippie radicals could join to
battle the new religious collectivism. Hey, maybe there is already
and it's called the Blogosphere!

Robert Speirs
Tallahassee, Florida

Bummer
ABCNews has called the race for Landrieu and it looks like they're right, although I don't know where they're getting their figures. The SecState figures don't show a lock yet. CNN agrees, and Realclearpolitics.com. So I guess it's over. The Landrieu name works its magic once again and Louisiana is still safe for corruption and collectivism. What, me bitter? Why, no. I don't even care. But I feel like my favorite team just lost a game. But not a big game. Oh, by the way, Oklahoma did win, by three touchdowns.

Interesting
The La. Sec. of State's website shows Terrell still 30,000+ votes behind. Drudge, though, from somewhere, has figures that show, with more precincts reporting, that Landrieu leads by only 14,000! So maybe there is still hope. Now the SecState shows the gap closing to 6,000! I guess I'll let the football game go. Oklahoma is still two touchdowns ahead with just a few minutes left, so what can happen?

Closing?
Landrieu's still ahead, but in the US Rep race, Republican Fletcher has closed to within four hundred votes of Democrat Rodney Alexander. So it is possible. Unfortunately, only two precincts have yet to report in the Rep race, so it could be over anyway. More than a thousand precincts have yet to report in the Senate race.

Still steep
Terrell has a steep hill to climb with 2853 precincts reporting. Landrieu is ahead by 23,000 votes. One can only hope that some of the non-reporting precincts are in northern Louisiana, where I hear Terrell is heavily favored.

Eek!
With 2530 out of 3912 precincts reporting, Landrieu has taken a 51-49% lead. They must have received some results from New Orleans or somewhere Landrieu is favored. Things can still turn around, but this does not augur well. I'll figure out why I care later. Right now, I love the emotional rollercoaster.

Closer
With more than half the precincts reporting, Terrell is still ahead, but only by 51-49%. Lee Fletcher has slipped marginally behind Alexander. It's tough trying to keep up on the Colorado-Oklahoma game and the political results at the same time, but I can't decide which I find more interesting. I'll just have to do both.

Election results
I love election nights. At least they give you the illusion something may change. Right now (9:51 PM 12/7/02) Terrell is leading Landrieu in the Louisiana Senate Race 52-48%, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State's website, with about a third of precincts reporting. Unfortunately the connection keeps getting refused, so I can't get updates. Will blog back when I get in. Drudge is posting results, too. Unfortunately I've forgotten which Representative candidate is the Republican. Fletcher is a couple of percentage points ahead of the other candidate. Back soon.

Steyn strikes again
Mark Steyn has a hard-hitting piece on the Rushdie affair and its implications thirteen years later. I remember when the fatwa came out, I rushed down to the bookstore and, with my last twenty dollars, bought Rushdie's book. No, it wasn't that great, but it was worth it just to twit the mullahs. Steyn's onslaught on the mullahs, and their British fellow-travelers, is a joy to experience. A sample:

Roy Hattersley, the Labour Party's deputy leader, attempted to split the difference by arguing that, while he of course supported freedom of speech, perhaps "in the interests of race relations" it would be better not to bring out a paperback edition. He was in favour of artistic freedom, but only in hard covers -- and certainly, when it comes to soft spines, Lord Hattersley knows whereof he speaks.

Ouch!

No waffling on Belgian nuclear plants
In the continuing saga of Europe's economic sepukku, Belgium will eliminate its nuclear reactors, meaning "almost two-thirds" of its electrical power generating capacity, by 2025. I guess they're going to be running those waffle irons on solar power or hot air from the politicians or, more probably, crude oil imported from the Democratic Republic of Iraq under the Hashemite constitutional monarchy installed in 2003. Pretty pathetic when a dessert serves as a symbol for a whole country!

Words, HIV and AIDS

Looking at this story from South Africa (via Google News), it’s easy to see how propaganda assuming that HIV causes AIDS is woven into the fabric of ninety-nine per cent of news stories about AIDS.

The hyperbole begins with the title:

AIDS “knows no boundaries”

It doesn’t? Then why was there no breakout into the general population in the US and Europe? Why were at least 94% of AIDS cases restricted to intravenous drug users, homosexuals, almost all male, and hemophiliacs? As Peter Duesberg says in his book, Inventing the AIDS Virus, how does a virus choose victims by sexual preference and drug use and the number of platelets in the blood? No answer has ever been given. No wonder they put the money phrase in quotes. The lead-in title in Google.News was even more blatant: “AIDS: the great equalizer”! Ah, yes, AIDS, which kills rich, poor, white, black, old, young, gay, straight, with equal ferocity. Only it doesn’t and never has. The sickening fact is that the AIDS researchers wish that HIV did act like a real virus, like the TB or polio virus, and kill everyone without distinction. Only then would their theory hold water and their careers be secure.

Knowing this, of course, the AIDS warriors must have been ecstatic to find that in Third World countries the AIDS “disease” could be said to have spread to all segments of the population. What they don’t mention is that the presence of the HIV virus has been steady in the US population for years at one in every 250 people, with a fairly wide demographic distribution. The prevalence in Third World countries is higher because sanitary conditions and overall health are lower. Yet “AIDS” is reported only for those particular groups who are and always have been at risk for serious health problems from sources other than HIV.

HIV/Aids is not just a disease affecting the poor, the young or certain population groups and provinces in South Africa.
...
About 5.6% of children between the ages of 2 and 14 from all population groups are HIV positive and 12.1% of the residents of formal urban neighbourhoods suffer from the disease. (emphasis added)

These paragraphs assume that AIDS is a “disease” and that HIV causes it. Why else use the slashed phrase “HIV/AIDS”? Is there any other kind? Then the concept is slipped in, entirely without proof, that HIV itself is a disease. Well it’s not. It’s a virus, one that has never been shown to cause any harm. Duesberg makes it clear that the virus itself would not ordinarily be suspected of causing harm. Another selection from the article makes for interesting reading from this point of view:

Unaware of HIV status
About 76% of those infected with the virus were unaware of their HIV status and 63% of them didn't think they were at risk of contracting the disease.

The first thing to note is that no statistics are given on how long each of these “infected” people may have had the virus in their systems. That’s because the researchers don’t know. They could have carried it from birth, for decades or just acquired it last week. But the very fact that more than three quarters of the “sufferers” didn’t even know they had the virus indicates that the virus was not killing them or even making its presence known. It would have been instructive for the survey to have determined the health status of the HIV-positives and compare that to the HIV-negative population. But that would have given the game away.

Several other interesting points emerge:

Earlier this year, the HSRC performed saliva tests on more than 8,000 people countrywide, 11,4% of which tested HIV positive.

The good news is that the total figure of 11.4 % is much lower than the scare propaganda that has been bandied about. And the fact that that statistic came from “saliva tests” makes me wonder how valid those tests are compared to blood tests. Maybe someone can inform me on that score.

These statistics form part of the results of the country's first independent and representative survey on the prevalence of HIV/Aids conducted by Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). The results were released in Johannesburg on Thursday.

What? This was the first real survey in South Africa? Then where did all those figures come from that have been thrown around for fifteen or more years? Other sources mentioned are from government “estimates” (!! I wonder which way those estimates were biased, considering that every case of “AIDS” means money for the government?) or from surveys of totally unrepresentative populations, such as young sexually active women, truck drivers, pregnant women and “sex workers”.

Dr Olive Shisana, chief researcher, said they were shocked by the inexplicable high rate of infection among children.
"Mother-to-child transmissions and sexual abuse cannot explain this. We know that some of these children were sexually active and we are investigating the possibility that contaminated needles might play a role. Urgent research is necessary."

Interesting. Why was she “shocked”? Could it be that such a “high” rate of HIV “infection” among children was not reflected in childhood AIDS deaths, as Duesberg states more than once? Why couldn’t mother-to-child transmission cause the stated rate of infection (5.6%)? Is that really so high? And why is it a problem if few – or no – children are dying of AIDS? But, no, "urgent research is necessary". And it's urgent that as much money as possible be wasted on this research. And it's urgent that as many health professionals be hired as possible at the highest salaries possible. Excuse me, but I'm going to be sick. And not with "HIV disease"!

There’s much more to be said on this subject, but I think it’s fascinating how much lockstep lip service there is to the myths of AIDS in the news media.

How could you all be so stupid and why should we ever believe you again?
Ah, questions, questions. Does the HIV virus really cause AIDS? Why would anyone think it didn't, since so many billions of dollars have been spent on the problem and thousands and now, according to what we're told by the UN (GRRR!), millions of lives may be lost if we don't spend even more? I've been exploring the HIV-AIDS-Duesberg-Kary Mullis universe and it's pretty amazing. Go to this website and see if some of your questions aren't answered, but not in the way you thought they might be. Then start thinking about everything else your doctor ever told you and start wondering. You might want to check out the movie "The Fugitive", the 1993 Harrison Ford version, for a dramatic portrayal of what might actually be going on.

Going Canadian
Looks like Germany is adopting the latest Socialist fad: allowing the capitalists to defend your country. Hey, if this keeps up, we'll be able to use the US troops in Germany to just take over the government without firing a shot. Maybe if I play my cards right, I could get my own mountain castle in Bavaria.

More God Stuff
I put in a comment on "The Light of Reason":

If it were possible to show that the statement "God exists" is meaningless, wouldn't that be just as good as proving that God does not exist?
And if "exists" means "has physical reality" and those of "faith" do not actually contend that God physically exists in any meaningful sense, certainly not in the same way that one says "that rock exists" or even "the Moon exists", haven't they admitted that the sentence "God exists" has no meaning?
If you say that the words "exist" or "faith" mean anything you want them to, you have deprived those words of any meaning. If the "existence" of God has no consequences in the real world, then it is merely a delusion, a fancy that may give warm and fuzzy feelings but can not be analyzed or proven. Propositions incapable of proof are not intrinsically true, they are nonsense.
Posted by: Robert Speirs on Dec 05, 02 | 2:33 pm

Nobody stops Venezuela

This FOXNews.com boast might mean more if Venezuela had actually ever got started.

Sickening
After reading Duesberg's Inventing the AIDS Virus, the implications of this article quoting Mandela are just mind-boggling. The SA government is going to make sure every HIV-positive gets anti-retroviral drugs like AZT which will assure that they will acquire AIDS-like symptoms. You have to wonder how blind people can be.

"The road to Baghdad no longer goes through Jerusalem," said one reporter. "It goes through Cyprus."
As I mentioned before:

I have a suggestion
The New Republic is bemoaning the EU's reluctance to let Turkey in. As I mentioned a few posts below, we could offer Turkey a clear alternative: Join an expanded NAFTA that would include a large swath of Eastern Europe. As a further inducement, the Turks would not have to be in the same economic community as Greece, their historic rival and enemy. Hmm. Then what would we do with Cyprus? Hey, it's not bigger than many of our states. It even looks a lot like West Virginia. I'm sure neither Greece nor Turkey would mind if we took Cyprus on as a new state, or, rather, two states. It's only been trouble for them. We could immediately resolve the Greek/Turkish split by having North Cyprus and South Cyprus, each with its set of politicians. After all, the Crusaders in the twelfth century used Cyprus as a base. Why can't we?

I, unlike Stephen Hayes, have a plan for Cyprus that would solve the whole Turkey/Greece problem and reassure our Turkish friends that we have their best interests at heart. Meaning we won't set the Kurds up as an independent nation. And we won't let Greece take the whole of Cyprus back. And Turkey won't have to join the listing, dead-in-the-water-with-the-iceberg-approaching EU.

Gaz moutarde
And it ain't Dijon. The inspectors have found, in WMT-free Iraq, mustard-gas shells all ready to go, apparently. And, in a "say-it-ain't-so" moment, (scroll down), LeMonde reports that the "American image" has slipped badly since 2000, especially in Islamic nations. Gee, why would that be? What could have happened in 2000 to send our oh-so-valued image among the wretched of the Arab earth skidding so badly? The French must be implying that it was our botched fraudulent attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, which never really happened or were carried out by the Mossad or which in any case we deserved so much because of our idiot moron "cowboy" President who's attacking the earth and killing puppies for lunch. Yeah, that's it. And, oh, of course he wasn't really elected, just installed by the Carlyle Group working through the Supreme Court, unlike the free and fair and totally representative EU system. Time for lunch, although I've lost most of my appetite.

Another UN success story
Once again UN "nation-building" leaves a nation in shambles and its "peace keeping" does nothing to prevent more war. Has there been even ONE UN success story? Rwanda? Jenin? Cambodia? Sierra Leone? To go further back, Katanga, Angola, Lebanon, Cyprus? The fighting peters out after millions of dead, the blue helmets come in and screw everything up by telling the local tyrants they are being oppressed by the western imperialists, fighting breaks out again and the UN promptly packs up and leaves. Great job, Kofi.

Update
"Who needs terrorists when you have a self-combustible democracy", an East Timorese military officer said. And a self-combustible economy, apparently. Now all they need is for the IMF to come in and lecture them on fiscal discipline. Combined with this story, I have to remember to make a note to myself not to invest in anything east of Suez. Or south of the Mediterranean. Or, come to think of it, in Europe or South America either. OK, so I'll keep it all in my savings account here.

Oh, Canada!
To continue the Canada-bashing, the vaunted medical system is running into some problems. To look on the bright side, this will mean much more business for American profit-making hospitals located anywhere near Canada. And more business for airports to accommodate the remaining Canadian Air Force plane so it can fly in high-ranking bureaucrats and politicians. And that darned population increase bugaboo that the lefties have been whining about since Paul Ehrlich shouldn't be a problem for our neighbors to the north as soon as all the patients who need anesthetists die off. Of course, it is godawful cold up there, so maybe they can lay patients out in the snow until they go to sleep and then operate on them.

More reader mail
A letter I wrote to Kim duToit and his kind comments:

December 4, 2002
Re: National Service

Kim,
Growing up as a service brat, I saw everything I needed to see about the military. It put a premium on mindless subservience, rewarded ignorance and punished innovative thinking. The Service is as much a womb as college or government work or a large corporation. It tolerates incompetence and sloth and brutality from those who keep their uniforms neat and their mouths shut. As a teenager, I assumed I would go in the Air Force, but then got converted by VietNam stories and Bob Dylan to stubborn opposition to military service, which conveniently coincided with opposition to my father, a USAF officer. I managed to stay out of the draft and thought I was doing something noble and modern. OK, maybe I was arrogant and elitist.

Looking back on it, I wish I had gone in so I could speak from personal experience. I have no illusions now about the nature of the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese. But I still think US intervention was, as Talleyrand said, "worse than a crime, a mistake". And I still think compulsory military service is unAmerican. The draft riots in 1863 and in WWII certainly expressed a lot of men's opposition. Our new highly technological military needs fewer and fewer riflemen each year. Have you heard about the new anti-artillery laser system? If that's real it changes the whole battlefield to an exercise in mopping up.

What's wrong with a lost eighteen-year-old going voluntarily into the Peace Corps? Doesn't that still exist? You never hear of it much any more. "Compulsory service to the State" still sounds collectivist to me. The benefits of military service don't justify taking away freedom and inculcating the idea that you "owe" something to your country. That's not the way it works. Free men work for their own good, not for others. I believe jury duty is also equivalent to slavery and does NOT produce any result worthy of the name of justice. Grow up and face it. Men have to find their own way. No one can hand them solutions to life's problems.

Robert S.

[Excellent letter, although I disagree strongly with some of your points. Citizenship is NOT a free ride, and taxes should not be the only sacrifice asked of citizens. Without some degree of service, it just gets taken for granted. Good grief, the ONLY compulsory service we demand of U.S. citizens is jury duty, and most can get out of THAT. Note that I did not suggest sending draftees into combat (unless they volunteered, of course), so I suspect that most of the "draft riot" worries are misplaced.
Yes, men should grow up and find their own way. But 18-yr-olds aren't men yet (we don't trust them to buy or consume liquor, for example), and there's nothing wrong with a little helping shove in the right direction. I'm reminded of the old saw, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." A non-combat draft would do just that, I suspect.]

I wrote in response to this rant (his word, not mine!)

Commenting vs. blogging
I've been doing a lot of commenting on other people's websites lately, when I should have been blogging, importing their controversies to the greater glory of Conundrum. It's hard to avoid getting caught up in intellectual duels though, what with all the shallow liberals there are out there. I guess the battles keep me up with the latest arguments, but most of the comments I run into seem clearly wrong or vicious. How many ways can one call Bush a "moron"? Maybe someday I'll find a website where people are really looking for the truth. Wait a minute. I'm running one!

I wrote a reply to an article Wendy MacElroy wrote for FoxNews Views that touched on one of my pet peeves: the use of anything other than "he, him and his" when the gender of the antecedent of a pronoun is unknown:

I noticed, in your interesting and well-written article "Stand up for Yourself" on Fox News Views, you use "her" or "she" consistently when the gender of an antecedent is unknown. This is a bit of a breath of fresh air. I remember recommending years ago in a letter published in the New Republic that men should use "he" and women should use "she" in this situation. This practice would satisfy those who feel awkward or offended by using "he" and "his" and "him" all the time. And it would avoid the equally awkward and, to me, offensive, "he or she" and "him or her", constructions that are almost impossible to maintain through a piece of writing of any length and that distract the reader from the substance of the writing. Some use an even more annoying tactic, alternating "he" and "she" throughout the piece so you never know where you are. The only problem I see with using "she" is that you give up the historical use of "he" to mean both "he" and "she". The sudden appearance of "she" then makes one think, OK, who's this woman and when was her identity established? Perhaps in another generation those feelings won't even come up. Or maybe we'll go back to "he" and "him" and "his". I think it's cool, though, for women not to be afraid to proclaim their womanity (hey, new word!) by using "she". Women don't have to adopt male-sounding first names to sell books any more. And they certainly don't have to worry about hurting men's feelings by appearing to exclude them. I'll be interested to see if your usage spreads.

Dour Power
John Tabin (via Instapundit)has some thoughts about why the press doesn't like John Kerry. So do I:

Why are Democratic candidates always so dour? Gephardt, Lieberman, Daschle, Kerry, Gore, could not raise one smile among all of them. Mondale, Carter, McGovern and Dukakis were all also rather sobersided. Only Carter was known for his smile, however frighteningly insincere it seemed. Maybe that's why he's the only winner. They're quite a contrast with Eisenhower and Reagan and the Bushes, pere et fils. Of course there's always Nixon. Should have stopped while I was ahead!

Sometimes it's just too easy

Here's something my sister sent me, hoping to score points:

From: David Pugh [mailto:dpugh@igc.org]

Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 11:14 PM
To: ISM/Bayan Muna
Subject: Canadians to lead weapons inspection team into U.S.


Toronto, Canada
November 21, 2002

Canadians to lead weapons inspection team into USA

A coalition of Canadian peace groups today announced their intention
to
send an international team of volunteer weapons inspectors into the
United States later this winter. The coalition, Rooting Out Evil, are
recruiting inspectors through their newly launched website,
www.rootingoutevil.org. "Our action has been inspired by none
other
than George W. Bush," said Christy Ferguson, a spokesperson for
the
group. "The Bush administration has repeatedly declared that
the most
dangerous rogue nations are those
that:

1) have massive stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear
weapons;
2) ignore due process at the United Nations;
3) refuse to sign and honour international treaties; and
4) have come to power through illegitimate means.

"On the basis of President Bush's guidelines, it is clear that
the
current U.S. administration poses a great threat to global
security,"
said Ferguson. "We're following Bush's lead and demanding that
the U.S.
grant our inspectors immediate and unfettered access to any site in
the
country - including all presidential compounds - so that we can
identify the weapons of mass destruction in this rogue state,"
added
David Langille.

Visitors to Rooting Out Evil's website are invited to sign on as
honorary members of the weapons inspection team. Honorary inspectors
can participate in the action, or they can simply lend the support of
their name as they would on a petition.

The actual inspection team that crosses the border will be comprised
of
prominent individuals from Canada and other countries.

The Rooting Out Evil coalition includes Greenpeace Canada, the Centre
for Social Justice, and the Toronto Committee Against War and
Sanctions
on Iraq, and is supported by American groups such as the National
Network to End the War Against Iraq, Global Exchange and the US
section
of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. They
oppose
the development, storage, and use of weapons of mass destruction by
any
state.

For information:
David Langille or Christy Ferguson
info@rootingoutevil.org

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Phone (306) 664-6071

And here's my response:

Dear Martha,

It would be entirely appropriate to send Canadians to look for weapons, since they appear to have totally defunded their military under Chretien and have doubtless forgotten what weapons look like or what it means to fight for your principles and deny terrorists the
right to murder you. They are now totally dependent on US military power, paid for by the US taxpayer, to defend them. Maybe the shame of realizing they are international parasites will affect their consciences, if they still have any. The only exception seems to be when they need to use military aircraft to ferry their premier's family to hospitals in the US for medical treatment they can't get in their moribund socialist medical system. See Colby Cosh's blog for details. Oh, and I caught the egregious misuse of "comprise". Savages!

Robbie

Here's a reply I tried to send to a blogger on Ariana Huffington's site who maintained that corporations who move their headquarters to Bermuda or elsewhere to lighten their tax burden should be barred from getting government contracts. He didn't want me to know his email address, I guess. His logic approximated: All corporations receive benefits from government activities, and should therefore all pay. Another problem, aside from those I mentioned in my reply, with that thinking is that government does not only confer benefits, it causes harm, sometimes great harm, including overtaxation. And a corporation that pays greater taxes is going to have to charge more for its goods or services.

"This country is being slowly bled dry"!!?

I agree - by the government and its special interest freeloaders. Corporations are the ones who create value in the first place. Every penny for defense and the idiotic social agenda comes from corporate profits. How can you say corporations contribute nothing to the country? Ever got a paycheck? That's money that came from corporate profits. I oppose corporate welfare as well as that going, through huge bureaucracies, to individuals. I just think the government should buy what it needs where it can get the best deal. Is that so radical?

Robert Speirs

Duesberg
I've just finished reading Peter H. Duesberg's book Inventing the AIDS Virus. It's one of those life-changing books. It's temperate, convincing and totally damning. I don't ordinarily side with those who attack corporations in the way Duesberg attacks Burroughs-Wellcome for pushing poisons like AZT and ddI onto entirely healthy HIV-positives and converting them into dead AIDS victims. But the conjunction between the interests of the medical-PC complex and government is just too obvious a stimulus to exactly the kind of dissent-suppressing behavior Duesberg describes to ignore. Maybe the last straw is Clintoon's op-ed on "World AIDS Day" yesterday in the New York Times - no, I'm not going to link to it. The ignorant savage murdering ferocity of the pomo Left is almost certainly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands in the US. Now they are moving to Africa and Asia, since the AIDS "pandemic" has petered out in the Western world. In a wider context, the acceptance of conventional wisdom, as in the global warming, ozone layer and fatty foods scams is once again exposed as the greatest threat to health and freedom in today's world, much more dangerous than AlQaeda, even though they are all pushed by the same people, motivated by hate and envy. It's hard to describe. Go read the book. Duesberg also has a website.

The Canadian protectorate
Several essays have emerged lately talking about the decline of Canadian independence from the US. The relationship is more like that of Monaco vis a vis France than a sovereign nation in its relationship with the US, given Canada's total abdication of responsibility for defending itself. The difference is that you have to imagine that France would put up with a Monaco whose officials call the leader of France a "moron" and an "idiot" and who constantly boast of how much more moral their social system and failed healthcare system are compared with France's and which harbors terrorists that have killed thousands of Frenchmen. How long would France put up with that?