Ailsa Craig
Is it sick to love a rock? I've been mooning lately, courtesy of Colby Cosh, over a steep barren "volcanic plug" ten miles off the west

coast of Scotland. It produces seabirds, curling stones and smugglers' caves and not much else. But its barrenness and

uncompromising tenacity in the middle of a wild ocean make my heart go pitter-pat. Oh, you know those things. She - I mean

it's just so cool and beautiful and Scottish. It is, by the way, just south of the Isle of Arran, where my father's family came from,

so maybe that's it, ancestral blood vibrations. I must have received the gene for searock-worship. I could see a religion based on it,

though, nice big temple out there shaped like a curling stone, or is it curling iron? Seabird sacrifice at the winter solstice. Although

probably in December the rock's covered in glaze-ice. Remember in Thomas Mann's "The Holy Sinner" when the "hero" turns into a

hedgehog and goes to live on top of a wild rock for ten years, before he becomes pope? Like that.

I should read that again. I may have got a detail wrong, but maybe not.

Ante up!
Why do I get the feeling that Saddam and the Euroweenies are playing poker with a Texan who knows the game just a little bit better

than they do? Maybe it's wishful thinking, but it's at least possible that the last six months have seen a session of high-stakes

diplomatic five-card stud (whatever that is) that has jockeyed all the other players into exactly the positions Bush wants them to

be in. And when the hands are laid down, I think we know which one's going to contain the 82d Airborne and the US Marines and

GPS-guided munitions by the thousands. Even if it was Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili who said it, there may still be some

truth to the statement that "God is on the side of the big battalions". And it doesn't hurt your chances of having Him on your side

when the opponents have played every combination they've got (oops, here I go into chess analogies) and your bishops still control

two long diagonals. When you add to that the risks of antagonizing the customer who is responsible for the profitability of many if

not most European companies and not a few Asian ones, I don't think it's unrealistic to think that France, Germany and Belgium

are taking risks they may not be able to back up with money. Everybody's quoting Maggie Thatcher about now not being the time

to "go wobbly". On the contrary, as I remember poker, maybe this is just the time to raise the stakes.

Anybody got the chutzpah to envision a generation of REAL American hegemony?

Oops!
Studying for the bar exam, I must be suffering from brain-mush. I can't remember where I posted this comment.

I think it's true, though, and hope to expand on it after the exam, next week. Or maybe sooner, but it might not make

much sense. It's about the massive anti-Americanism on display this past weekend, which I think is a symptom of a

profound social disease among the European "antiwar" crowd:

The anti-Americanism seems to stem from a deeply immature fear of "upsetting the applecart" that may be explained

by the gradual deterioration inevitable under a mixed socialist economy. If you are unemployed and watching Islamic

immigrants flood in to take advantage of absurdly generous welfare systems, you would feel this sort of fear and might

react by thinking, "Don't do anything to get them upset", since you know your government won't do anything to stem the tide.

If you have no resistance in your heart, you might conclude you'd better not have children and your best course of action is

to get angry at a target you think you can affect, the offensively optimistic Americans who you see as making things worse

quicker. Despair becomes a habit and the old verities such as "No victory, no peace!" are mere jokes unsuited to practical

modern half-men. Thank God for America!

Update
It strikes me that the intensity of the anger and concern showed by demonstrators can be seen as a reflection of their impotence

to effect any real change in their home countries, or at least their perception that they are powerless. Turning your anger on the

US only makes sense when the polls offer such "choices" as Chirac and LePen or Schroeder and Fischer, or even Merkel. The

title of this movie? "When Democracies go Bad" or at least stagnant and hopeless. When the people of historical democracies,

who shed blood for their own freedom, demonstrate in the streets by the hundreds of thousands to plead with their leaders not to

get them involved in a thoroughly moral and winnable war and can't even mention the Iraqi people's heartfelt wish to be rid of a

tyrant, something is wrong. What will they say if a million Iraqi immigrants leave Europe and go back to a peaceful and prosperous

Iraq? I wouldn't go expecting a lot of gratitude.

Meltdown
I guess I pushed the wrong buttons too many times. This blog has exploded and I can't seem to figure out how to delete all the cabbage. I'll just blog along and see what happens. I've sent an email to BloggerPro, but haven't heard back. I can only trust they can figure out how to get things going. Now I have to go study for the bar exam - one week left! In limbo for a bit.
Robert Speirs

Not Fair!
OK, I'm supposed to be studying for the Bar. I am studying for the bar. I take a break to do a little blogging, check out International Sentinel and see the blogroll entry for the Prague Post. I've always liked the idea of living in Prague, heard a lot about it, so I go there, bookmark it and an irresistible force leads me to this article. I mean, what's a beerophile to do? Especially when it features this photo?

Great idea - but!
Tom Friedman has a good idea for the Security Council - de-Frogicize it. But how? Does the UN Charter allow for one of the founding nations to be booted off the Security Council by majority vote? If so, why hasn't the USA been booted out long ago? And why can't France just veto such a move? And God, if we did that, would they keep sending Chateauneuf duPape to Florida? I love that stuff. By the way, the dumbass Franco/German - but I repeat myself - idea to send thousands of "lightly armed" UN troops to Iraq to enforce the arms inspectors' efforts is so lame I can't see how anyone can use it as a fig leaf to cover their lack of recognition of the threat Iraq poses. Luckily, I think we can depend on Saddam to reject it out of hand, therefore strengthening Bush's position that real war is necessary. Will the Weasels once again play into the strategy of the WeaselMaster? Stay tuned. This whole thing is getting like a too-long soap opera, with twists and turns and innovative possibilities that haven't a chance of success being bruited about as though they hadn't been brought up before (via Instapundit). DenBeste is worried about it, but he seems to have been on a bit of a hysteria kick lately. I must say his nightmare scenario featuring the French attacking US carrier battle groups must have been induced by something a little stronger than Chateauneuf duPape! He certainly does a good engineer-like job of laying out every single possibility, but enough is enough. Hmm, come to think of it, he hasn't considered the possibility that Saddam actually is French. That moustache is awfully Froggish.

More than just intellectual dishonesty
John Podhoretz has a good column on the intellectual dishonesty of those who just now announced their support for Bush's war preparations because of Colin Powell's speech to the UN Tuesday. He's right, for someone to say they had read and heard everything that's been out there about Saddam and Powell's summing up of it was all that was needed to change their minds makes no real sense. Podhoretz says it's because Powell's regarded as a quasi- or even "closet" liberal, so his words are more to be trusted than Rumsfeld's or Wolfowitz's or Rice's or, heaven forfend, Bush's. And there's some truth to that. This approach shows the limited honesty and fearful approach to foreign policy that marks most "liberal" so-called intellectuals. But I think it shows something more. And that's racism. Because Powell is black, liberals find it very difficult to express distrust of what he says. That's what got - and is still getting - the execrable coward and fool Cynthia McKinney national attention. Liberals have built a philosophy on the notion that black people, solely because of their color, have a special insight to things, especially to power. For them to mistrust Powell would mean they'd have to back off that frame of mind, which they are far too chicken to do. A "person of color" couldn't possibly be advocating the "genocide" and "aggression" that a stupid cracker like Bush wouldn't hesitate for a minute about waging on the Third World. Yes, it's just that crude and stupid, but good enough for cocktail parties and faculty lounges. There's an added bonus for liberals here. If the war does come out badly, that is, if the liberals' demands for no mass bloodletting or civilian casualties are not met, they can always blame it on Powell. What good liberal could have ever thought that a wonderful minority paragon could trick them like that? Oh, well, Belafonte was right.

Physics and religion
OK, maybe I should say science and psychology. I struck me in my quasi-spiritual readings the other day that the regular Objectivist metaphysics, epistemology and all are fine for regular life. Sort of like the way Newtonian physics will allow you to calculate everything you need to know to track an artillery shell or send a space probe to the Moon. But when it really gets down to the nitty-gritty, in the realm of the very large and the very small, the very energetic and the very weak, you have to pay attention to Einstein and Planck and Heisenberg and those guys. So maybe in the realm of religion, which deals with "emergency ethics" and the questions that you don't REALLY need to know the answers to in order to function every day, maybe one has to go beyond the usual sense impressions and reasoning. Maybe you have to explore internally a bit and see what works when you're in a foxhole on Vimy Ridge waiting for the Germans to open up with their walking artillery barrages or when you have to decide whether to commit the troops of the 101st Airborne to a parachute drop into Basra, as W. may just have done, maybe then you need more than just everyday reason. Maybe the level of certainty you need to attain to jump out of an airplane into a biowarfare-contaminated killing ground is a bit beyond that which can be reached by calculation. Which brings us to the real question: How do you make those decisions and how can they be made better? More later.

NATO as the new UN
Mark Steyn, in the Spectator, advocates quitting the UN. I heartily agree, but he overlooks the role of NATO, starting at least with Kosovo, as a truly effective international organization. It makes sense to expand the mission of NATO to cover other than military matters, and to expand NATO. Oh, and kick France and Germany out, too. Having an organization of buddies with whom you have pledged to go to war if any is attacked, and whom you trust to support you, beats the UN whining shop all hollow. Why not merge NAFTA and NATO and the other military treaty alliances we have cobbled up all over the world? Now that would be an international organization that truly reflects the power relationships in the world, as Steyn mentions the UN used to during the Cold War. Including Israel might be a little tricky, but would be worth thinking about. Make places like Pakistan and Indonesia and Morocco choose between having good relations with the US and continuing their Zionism-bashing.

Better Health for Florida!
Some doctors in Florida are going on strike, sort of. The article doesn't say whether the strike extends to Tallahassee, but it can't hurt. Every time there's a doctor's strike, you see, death rates drop dramatically. Almost makes you think the job of a doctor is to get rid of the surplus population, like a veterinarian. Nah. They kill too many perfectly productive and wanted patients. The vets, I mean. But at least they do it on purpose.

I'm rich!
Let's see, 20% of 20.5 million dollars is - yes! - over a million dollars! All I have to do is follow the instructions of this nice fellow from the Ivory Coast:

FROM :MR & MRS SENIOR TRAORE
EMAIL: tsenior1@zwallet.com

MY EFAX: +1-775-766-3513

KINDEST ATTENTION,

PLEASE PERMIT ME TO MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE IN SO
INFORMAL A MANNER. THIS IS NECESSITATED BY MY URGENT NEED TO REACH A
DEPENDABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY FOREIGN PARTNER. THIS REQUEST MAY SEEM
STRANGE
AND UNSOLICITED BUT I CRAVE YOUR INDULGENCE AND PRAY THAT YOU TAKE MY
REQUEST VERY SERIOUS.

I AM MR SENIOR TRAORE, A REKNOWNED BUSINESSMAN IN
ONE OF THE REBEL-HELD TOWNS, BOUAKE (ONE OF THE WAR
ZONES IN IVORY COAST) I RECEIVED INFORMATION FROM A
RELIABLE SOURCE WHO DESCRIBED YOUR COUNTRY
AS BEING ECONOMICALLY CONDUCIVE FOR INVESTMENT AND
HER PEOPLE AS TRANSPARENT AND TRUSTWORTHY TO
ENGAGING BUSINESS WHICH MADE ME TO WRITE YOU. AS YOU MAY WANT TO
KNOW
AND TO MAKE YOU LESS CURIOUS,I GOT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS FROM
AN INTERNET SITE THAT PORTRAYED YOU (YOUR ESTABLISHMENT) IN GOOD
LIGHT.

ON THE 17TH OF SEPTEMBER 2002. THE REBEL LEADERS,UNTIL THEN WERE
LOYAL
SOLDIERS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF PRESIDENT LAURENT GBAGBO
CONTACTED ME IN MY OFFICE WITH THE BUSINESS OF IMPORTATION OF
ARMOURIES. WITHOUT THE PREMONITION OF WAR, I ACCEPTED THE JOB. THE
SOLDIERS
PAID ME THE SUM OF TWENTY MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES
DOLLARS (US$ 20.5) ON THE SPOT AND TOLD ME TO EXPEDITE ACTION. SINCE
I AM
NOT INTO IMPORTATION OF ARMUNITIONS AND BECAUSE OF THE URGENCY, I
IMMEDIATELY STARTED MAKING SEVERAL CONTACTS WITH
BUSINESSMEN ACROSS THE GLOBE.

TWO DAYS LATER, HEAVY FIGHTING BROKE UP IN CENTRAL BAOUKE AND
KORHOGO,
EVERYWHERE WAS IN DISSARRAY AND I LOST EVERYTHING THAT TOOK ME SO
MANY
YEARS TO ACQUIRE. I HAVE NO OPTION THAN TO DO AWAY WITH THE US$20.5M.

MY WIFE AND I QUICKLY MADE AN ARRANGEMENT WITH A RED
CROSS RELIEF WORKER WHO USED HIS OFFICIAL VAN TO
MOVE THIS MONEY TO ABIDJAN, ALTHOUGH HE DID NOT KNOW
THE REAL CONTENT OF THE BOX. PRESENTLY, THIS FUND
HAS BEEN DEPOSITED WITH A SAFE RELIABLE SECURITY
COMPANY IN ABIDJAN WHERE I AM HIDING FROM THE REBEL
WHO DECLEARED ME WANTED. I DO NOT WANT TO INVEST
THIS MONEY IN ABIDJAN DUE TO UNFAVORABLE ECONOMIC
CLIMATE. AS A RESULT, I KEPT THE MONEY IN A CUSTOM
BONDED WAREHOUSE WITH THE SECURITY COMPANY. SO THAT
I CAN NOT LAY MY HANDS ON IT UNTIL IT GETS TO YOUR
COUNTRY, WHERE I WILL COMMENCE INVESTMENT.

THE ONLY ASSISTANCE WE NEED FROM YOU WHICH I BELIEVE
YOU WOULD DO FOR US ARE THE FOLLOWING:

1. MAKE IMMEDIATE ARRANGEMENT TO TAKE THE DELIVERY
OF THE CRATE (FUND) AT THEIR EUROPE OR ASIA
COMMISSION AGENTS.

2. ASSURANCE FROM YOU THAT YOU WILL NOT SIT ON OUR
SHARE WHEN THIS FUND GETS TO YOUR COUNTRY.

MY WIFE AND I AGREED THAT YOU SHALL BE ENTITLED TO
20% OF THE TOTAL AMOUNT WHILE THE PRINCIPAL SUM WILL BE INVESTED IN
A
VIABLE BUSINESS VENTURE WITH YOUR ADVICE. MOST IMPORTANTLY, I WILL
LIKE TO BUY A PERSONAL HOUSE WHERE MY WIFE, MY TWO SONS AND I WILL
RESIDE.

UPON CONFIRMATION OF YOUR INTEREST TO HELP US AS OUR
FOREIGN PARTNER TO CLAIM THE CRATE FROM THE SECURITY
COMPANY ON OUR BEHALF AT ANY OF THEIR COMMISSION
AGENT CLOSER TO YOU, I SHALL FURNISH YOU WITH THE
DETAILS OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE CONSIGNMENT TO BE
SCHEDULED IN YOUR FAVOUR BY THE SECURITY COMPANY
PREPARE AN AIRWAY BILL AND TAG THE CONSIGNMENT IN
YOUR FAVOUR. YOUR PRIVATE FAX AND TELEPHONE NUMBERS
ARE NEEDED TO ENHANCE THE SPEEDY CONCLUSION OF THIS
TRANSACTION (OUR ONLY HOPE IN LIFE NOW) URGENTLY.

KINDLY TREAT AS URGENT AND CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY
THROUGH THE ABOVE E-MAIL ADDRESS (tsenior1@zwallet.com
)
I HAVE NOT ACQUIRED A NEW PHONE AS I LOST ALL MY PROPERTIES IN BOAUKE

YOURS FAITHFULLY,

MR SENIOR TRAORE


Hey, Ivory Coast! He must have been reading Conundrum! No blood for cheese OR cocoa! Á bas les Froggies! I would be a hero to this poor oppressed African fellow, who could also be a valuable business partner, dealing in arms all over the world. Ha! My fortune is made. He did say he would be taking my advice on the best way to invest the money. Boy, have I got some ideas! Must get right back to him before the French track me down. Or, more worrying, before the Burkinabes or Gbagbo's people get on to me. Isn't international currency smuggling a profitable and fun business? I'll be busy for a while. Let's see, where can I hide that crate of money, just for now? I know, it's tempting just to run off with the whole 20.5 mil, but I'm not like that. I want a long-term profitable business relationship. There are SOME ethical people left in the world. Thank you, truth and light and justice, you've found your boy!

Nietzsche would be proud
Friedrich Wilhelm always said he was proud to be Polish rather than 100% German, so we are following his lead in, possibly, according to this article, moving a ton of USA GIs from German to Poland in the next few years. The Poles are all for it. It may be the death blow to the German economy, or at least the prospect of such a blow may destroy whatever chances Schroeder still has of surviving politically after his crushing defeats today in Niedersachsen and Hesse. Not inconsiderable parts of Deutschland, by the way.

It's Oil Over
Have the leftists miscalculated? What if the US DOES take over the oil of Iraq? What happens then? Can Kuwait and Saudi Arabia be far behind? What if the disposition of the entire oil resources of the Middle East is dictated from the Oval Office? What's Chirac going to do when it gets cold and damp in the Elysee Palace then? Hainh? Do we now see why France, which gets half or more of its oil from the Middle East, is so desperately opposed to the US conquest of Iraq? Do we now see the future Chirac sees? OPEC replaced by the Republican Party? If I were he, I'd be worried.

War and truth

Had an interesting exchange with Emperor Misha over on Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. Lots of suppressed feelings and memories about my days opposing the Vietnam War are bubbling up. Here are a couple of points I made:

A lot of us who fiercely opposed the Vietnam War, to the point of not allowing ourselves to be drafted for any reason, and are now in favor of taking out today's true enemies of freedom in Iraq are being called chickenhawks by the same people, in some cases, as those who went to Vietnam with their eyes and mind closed, because they didn't have the guts to oppose the war.
Misha replied, in part:
"All the Vets of that war that I know thought they were doing the right thing..."
So I riposted:
I can't completely agree, oh mighty imperial one. Some of the "gung-ho, Kill Cong!" Nam vets were blind to what they were doing, especially after 1968. Or they didn't care and didn't want to know. Getting your ticket punched on the way to a military - and political - career was NOT a good reason to participate in a totally screwed-up mess like Vietnam. That said, my opposition to the Vietnam war, I now realize, was not as grounded in knowledge and justice as I thought at the time. I let too much emotion get in the way, as the killing fields of Cambodia and the 1977 China-Vietnam war showed clearly. But you're right that a certain proportion of Nam vets really thought they were doing the right thing. It was the Lyndon Johnsons and Robert MacNamara's and Ho Chi Minhs and Maos who caused all the needless suffering. I just hope we can trust our leaders this time to take the ball all the way down the field, as they should have in 1991.

Qaddafi seeks a queen
This story shows the tender side of the Libyan madman Qaddafi. Then as you read on you discover oil may be involved. Who could have imagined? But, then who knew there was a kingdom in Uganda called "Toro" with a ten-year-old king? Maybe Muammar can teach the sub-Saharan Africans how to blow their money on armaments and turn their nations into international pariahs. That's about all he's ever done for Libya. I wonder what Orianna Fallaci would think? She had an interview with M.Q. back in the Seventies, I think, her first big exclusive. I even seem to remember it was in the New York Times Magazine.

Not so sad
I felt as shocked as anyone else when I heard about the Columbia tragedy. The name will now be ranked with Challenger when we talk of American bravery and accomplishment. But it struck me that the astronauts were all doing exactly what they wanted to do, they had been in space and conducted a lot of experiments. And their lives were in a real sense fulfilled. So what they did was not a sacrifice, but a dedication. It's comparable to those of us who commute to work dying in a car accident. Or, say your company sent you overseas for a mission that tested all of your skills, broadened your experience and heightened your love for your work. And it had worked wonderfully, you had brought back the big contract or made the big scientific discovery or signed the big star and you had had a good time. If you died in an airplane crash on the way back, would that really be so bad? I know it's banal to say it could happen to anyone, but it could. The difference is, especially now that we've had two serious, major catastrophic failures in space, that the element of danger is much closer than anyone had thought for at least the last ten years. So the risk from now on will be considered to be at a much higher level. But the program will go on, with a new sense of commitment. And each time a shuttle, or whatever other craft we come up with, touches down on that runway after screaming in all the way from space, we will all breathe a big sigh of relief and thanks.

No Blood for Cocoa!
The International Herald Tribune has the oh-so-sad story of the French coming a-cropper in the Ivory Coast. (via Instapundit) And good old Glenn also links to a Reuters story about the peace accord, signed to so much acclaim at Marcoussis, falling apart. Hmm, what is that on those signs? "Chirac - murderer, criminal, terrorist?" They must mean Bush. And, gee, who would have thought the agreement would have been drawn up so totally incompetently, when the UN, in the person of Kofi Annan himself, was present at the signing and blessed the whole thing? Since it was the French, of course, they didn't have to go through that messy and inconvenient business of convening the Security Council and voting for a resolution and forming a coalition. And, not-oddly enough, neither IHT or Reuters mention the THIRTY DEATHS of Ivorians - black Africans - at the hands of French soldiers reported here on Conundrum a couple of weeks ago. Those darn Africans, they are so ungrateful for all the blood and treasure France has dedicated to their welfare for so many years. Just like the Algerians, Senegalese, good old Emperor Bokassa in Congo-Brazzaville, those lovely boys in Chad, the pious Algerian killers, the Malagasys and all the other wonderful successes French policy has had in Africa. What can you expect from Africans, after all? A people who don't see "la gloire" in remaining part of France can hardly be expected to act in a civilized fashion. Eh, bien, vee vill just haf to go criticize zee cowboy Americaines!

Frogs go home! Save us, U.S.A!
Why do I feel these protesters in the Ivory Coast are going to be disappointed? But why do we even have a State Department if it can't stand up to the French when they've been colonialistically oppressing black Africans for weeks now and are turning around and trying to force their former puppet government to accept an agreement that will not do anything to stop the civil war? Maybe the French habit of surrendering is so ingrained they are forcing it on their former colonial client states. Oh, and did I mention the French sent troops? Without asking the UN? And killed thirty Ivorians? And now are telling their puppets to surrender! It's a tour de force!

"Old Rumsfeld"
Rumsfeld certainly seems to have got LeMonde's attention by his statement that France and Germany are the "Old Europe" and, impliedly, the "New" and more important Europe supports US aims in Iraq and the war on terror. Despite calling him "brutal in a typically Midwestern way", LeMonde actually agrees with Rummy but protests that France and Germany are still important (pathetic, isn't it?). But the editorial also points out, correctly I think, that Scandinavia still opposes the war and American hegemony. The EU hates to see the potential new members all through Eastern Europe are less afraid of American power than they are. Kind of undermines their whole globalization/socialism world view, doesn't it?

Still no global warming
Fourteen degrees - or was it eleven? - in Tallahassee today and global warming is sinking fast as a respectable topic of discussion. Here's a thorough debunking from several years ago. Like that will make any difference to the natural disaster crisis people whose whole livelihoods and ideologies are driven by the need to find something wrong with the way people are living, something they can be paid to make people feel guilty about, from SUVs to fatty foods to plastic shopping bags to cigarettes. When I lived down by the Kennedy Space Center, old-timers used to say that the thunderstorms were much stronger and more intense since the space shuttles started going off. Right. The global warming article reports that Drake in the 1500s sailing along the Florida coast saw fires everywhere. No doubt wildfires for millions of years have been putting huge amounts of "greenhouse gases" and soot into the atmosphere. In recent decades wildfires have been reduced to a fraction, at least temporarily, of their usual reach and power. Ever hear the global warming geeks talk about that? Not hardly.

Collin May on Europe, or, at least, "Old Europe"
"Innocents Abroad" has all the dirt you just knew was under the "Axis of Weasels'" carpets. Read the whole blog. You'll love it.