So: the Imperial legions have killed ... well, not Hannibal, exactly, but what was billed as a high-ranking Carthaginian. I'm sure that the "insurgency" is now over with.
Unless it's not.
Free advice for Generalissimo El Supremo Jorge Boosh: declare victory and leave -- right the hell now. Redefine the mission. You've done that enough times; you should be good at it by now. The Empire invaded Iraq in order to kill the antichrist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That was the mission all along. "Mission accomplished." Now call the legions back to Rome, before some more of them actually get caught using their M-16s to win the hearts and minds, and other anatomical regions, of Iraqi toddlers, their pregnant moms, and their lame-legged grandpas.
It's your big chance, Decider! But it's time-critical. Get it done now!
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Good Timing
So, I set an appointment with my dentist about five months ago for my annual checkup/cleaning ("annual" because I don't grow any placque, not to speak of). The appointment's tomorrow morning at 8:00. I completely forgot about it, but the office called a couple of days ago to remind me, so that's good. I'm planning to go there in the morning, before work. So, I'm eating supper tonight, and all of a sudden, the piece of bread I'm chewing on has something hard in it. Two somethings-hard. Yeppers, it's a crown, most of which has broken and come off. I have four of them. Or I should say, I have about 3.2 of them, soon to be four again, I'd guess.
No political significance ... just better timing than usual, that's all.
No political significance ... just better timing than usual, that's all.
Rise to the Bait, Boobs
It seems that the GOP's proposed constitutional amendment forbidding the states to join men with men or women with women in sodomatrimony has failed. But lo, how many are the failures of this farcical gesture! They are a multitude of failures, indeed.
The amount of time for which Dishonest Abe's party has been in power is becoming especially tiresome to me, because it's making me awfully monotonous. All I do is write bad things about the pachyderms. Cross my heart and hope to die, if the jackasses turn the tables, I'll be dogging them, too, and for almost exactly the same things. But I have no idea how soon that might happen, so I'll have to ask you to take my word for it.
Meanwhile, a few observations from my home in Reactionary Utopia:
1. What I mean by "marriage" is an arrangement invented by God. It is not threatened in the slightest by any alleged attempt by human governments to "redefine" it. The state is, of course, able to give any exotic definition to the term "marriage" that it wishes; outside of the potential for low entertainment, I care not. But then, I am already resigned to the fact that the state is simply organized compulsion (and other forms of evil). It surprises me from time to time, but seldom disappoints me, since my expectations of it are pretty much rock-bottom anyway.
2. Homosexuality is at least as old as recorded history, and no doubt rather older. Scripture clearly views homosexual acts as sinful, and I view scripture as authoritative, so that takes care of what I think about the matter -- to whatever microscopic extent my opinion may have been demanded. (Scripture takes a similar view of gluttony, and drunkenness, and the excessive accumulation of the material goods of this world, and -- most emphatically! -- of gossip; and again, I accept the authority of the word of God, even as I stand guilty of many infractions thereof.) Admittedly, my knowledge of history is far from encyclopedic, but if there has ever been a widespread demand on the part of homosexuals to enter into the forms of family, I'm not aware of it. Be that as it may, though -- if some, or all, homosexuals want to refer to themselves as "married," then obviously the term doesn't mean the same thing in their speech that it means in mine, but -- to (obliquely) paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.
3. One possible reason for people's being upset about the possibility of widespread, legally-recognized sodomatrimony is that people don't want the supply of government goodies currently handed out to married folk to be diluted by being shared with large numbers of homosexuals. I'm thinking of favorable tax treatment and whatever else there is. To which it seems to me that there's an obvious answer: get rid of the "goodies." For everyone, that is. It would be much harder for our rulers to get us at each other's throats if we weren't glued to their teats, like so many newborn puppies. If we weren't so busy rooting for milk, maybe we'd quit nipping at each other and start noticing what they are doing to us.
4. Overlook -- for a moment -- the GOP's obvious, poll-driven pandering to what they hope will continue to be the über-gullible evangelicals, and look at their idea of a solution to the maybe-problem of activist judges requiring the states to "marry" those in the inverted fraternity (and sorority) who desire such. These evil activist judges tell the poor helpless little elephants that the U.S. Constitution requires that state and local governments provide sodomatrimony as an option to all. Now, a legislator who actually had a serious objection to this might respond by impeaching an activist judge or two, or by simply removing the question from the jurisdiction of the offending court. Both remedies are constitutionally available right now. But the GOPpers are not that sort of legislator. Instead, they furrow the brow; they get all righteously indignant; and they thunder, "Judge So-and-So says that the Constitution requires sodomatrimony! I know perfectly well that it requires no such thing! So we'll show him ... we'll amend the Constitution so that it doesn't require sodomatrimony! (which ... it ... already ... doesn't ... but ... never ... mind) And I mean so that it really, really, really doesn't require it!"
To amend the Constitution is to say that the evil activist judges must have been right -- it really must mandate sodomatrimony, after all! I mean, who "amends" something that isn't flawed, right?
Of course, "trying" to amend the Constitution has an important virtue, in the eyes of our Gee Oh Pee lawfakers: it won't happen. It's beyond their power. Impeaching judges, on the other hand, can be done today -- no amendment needed. Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 is already there; again, no amendment is necessary. But neither of those remedies would be any good: they would require the GOP Congressional majority to take action and be responsible for it. And they would eliminate a very important source of red-meat boob bait, whereby they tell us rubes, "Better vote for us! We'll appoint the right kind of judges! We'll amend the constitution!" No, that would never do, would it?
5. Look at another aspect of the GOP "solution:" it forbids -- yet again! -- the several states from doing something. Yes, indeed, a further centralization of power.
But cheer up, evangelicals. The fight's not over yet. From the news story:
The amount of time for which Dishonest Abe's party has been in power is becoming especially tiresome to me, because it's making me awfully monotonous. All I do is write bad things about the pachyderms. Cross my heart and hope to die, if the jackasses turn the tables, I'll be dogging them, too, and for almost exactly the same things. But I have no idea how soon that might happen, so I'll have to ask you to take my word for it.
Meanwhile, a few observations from my home in Reactionary Utopia:
1. What I mean by "marriage" is an arrangement invented by God. It is not threatened in the slightest by any alleged attempt by human governments to "redefine" it. The state is, of course, able to give any exotic definition to the term "marriage" that it wishes; outside of the potential for low entertainment, I care not. But then, I am already resigned to the fact that the state is simply organized compulsion (and other forms of evil). It surprises me from time to time, but seldom disappoints me, since my expectations of it are pretty much rock-bottom anyway.
2. Homosexuality is at least as old as recorded history, and no doubt rather older. Scripture clearly views homosexual acts as sinful, and I view scripture as authoritative, so that takes care of what I think about the matter -- to whatever microscopic extent my opinion may have been demanded. (Scripture takes a similar view of gluttony, and drunkenness, and the excessive accumulation of the material goods of this world, and -- most emphatically! -- of gossip; and again, I accept the authority of the word of God, even as I stand guilty of many infractions thereof.) Admittedly, my knowledge of history is far from encyclopedic, but if there has ever been a widespread demand on the part of homosexuals to enter into the forms of family, I'm not aware of it. Be that as it may, though -- if some, or all, homosexuals want to refer to themselves as "married," then obviously the term doesn't mean the same thing in their speech that it means in mine, but -- to (obliquely) paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.
3. One possible reason for people's being upset about the possibility of widespread, legally-recognized sodomatrimony is that people don't want the supply of government goodies currently handed out to married folk to be diluted by being shared with large numbers of homosexuals. I'm thinking of favorable tax treatment and whatever else there is. To which it seems to me that there's an obvious answer: get rid of the "goodies." For everyone, that is. It would be much harder for our rulers to get us at each other's throats if we weren't glued to their teats, like so many newborn puppies. If we weren't so busy rooting for milk, maybe we'd quit nipping at each other and start noticing what they are doing to us.
4. Overlook -- for a moment -- the GOP's obvious, poll-driven pandering to what they hope will continue to be the über-gullible evangelicals, and look at their idea of a solution to the maybe-problem of activist judges requiring the states to "marry" those in the inverted fraternity (and sorority) who desire such. These evil activist judges tell the poor helpless little elephants that the U.S. Constitution requires that state and local governments provide sodomatrimony as an option to all. Now, a legislator who actually had a serious objection to this might respond by impeaching an activist judge or two, or by simply removing the question from the jurisdiction of the offending court. Both remedies are constitutionally available right now. But the GOPpers are not that sort of legislator. Instead, they furrow the brow; they get all righteously indignant; and they thunder, "Judge So-and-So says that the Constitution requires sodomatrimony! I know perfectly well that it requires no such thing! So we'll show him ... we'll amend the Constitution so that it doesn't require sodomatrimony! (which ... it ... already ... doesn't ... but ... never ... mind) And I mean so that it really, really, really doesn't require it!"
To amend the Constitution is to say that the evil activist judges must have been right -- it really must mandate sodomatrimony, after all! I mean, who "amends" something that isn't flawed, right?
Of course, "trying" to amend the Constitution has an important virtue, in the eyes of our Gee Oh Pee lawfakers: it won't happen. It's beyond their power. Impeaching judges, on the other hand, can be done today -- no amendment needed. Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 is already there; again, no amendment is necessary. But neither of those remedies would be any good: they would require the GOP Congressional majority to take action and be responsible for it. And they would eliminate a very important source of red-meat boob bait, whereby they tell us rubes, "Better vote for us! We'll appoint the right kind of judges! We'll amend the constitution!" No, that would never do, would it?
5. Look at another aspect of the GOP "solution:" it forbids -- yet again! -- the several states from doing something. Yes, indeed, a further centralization of power.
But cheer up, evangelicals. The fight's not over yet. From the news story:
But the defeat is by no means the amendment's last stand, said its supporters.Yes, they'll "keep bringing it up," every other year or so, when a little political pornography is needed to mobilize their electoral vassals. Yes, Mr. Boehner, I'm sure that many House members are feeling an urgent need to get on the record for the edification of the somnolent voters back home. World without end, amen, amen.
"I do not believe the sponsors are going to fall back and cry about it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "I think they are going to keep bringing it up."
The House plans a redux next month, said Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
"This is an issue that is of significant importance to many Americans," Boehner told reporters. "We have significant numbers of our members who want a vote on this, so we are going to have a vote."
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Strange Days, Indeed
Our military heroes require ethics-training sessions in order to know that shooting noncombatants isn't good. Iraqi civilians are receiving posthumous promotions from gimp-legged nobodies to fierce, AK47-armed IED-buriers. And now the damnable, Amurka-hating "media" are guilty of prisoner abuse right here in the USA, at the infamous Abu Pendleton prison in California:
Tuesday, June 6, 2006; Posted: 10:40 a.m. EDT (14:40 GMT)How exactly the frenzied media are able to cause this egregious mistreatment of the heroic Troop in question (presumably by other heroic Troops, somewhere inside a Troop facility) is not clear. However, if getting the corpsman away from the frenzied media is all that's needed, I'm sure the CIA can arrange a quiet airplane flight -- a rendition, so to speak -- to somewhere that no media have ever seen. It's happened before. I expect it can happen again.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Navy investigators have evidence that U.S. Marines may have committed "premeditated" murder in the April shooting death of an unarmed Iraqi man in Hamdaniya, a military officer close to the inquiry told CNN.
The incident is unrelated to a criminal investigation into the alleged massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November.
...
An attorney representing the Navy medical corpsman, expressed concern that the media frenzy surrounding the case "has contributed to the current conditions my client is enduring at the Camp Pendleton Brig."
"There are known terrorists incarcerated in military facilities around the world who enjoy more freedom and less restriction than he is experiencing," Jeremiah J. Sullivan said in a statement issued to the media.
"During the one brief period per day he is allowed to utilize the recreational yard, my client remains shackled at the hands, waist, and ankles. Anytime he walks within the recreational yard he is escorted by at least one military prison guard who grasps onto his waist shackles at all times. The balance of his time is spent in solitary confinement," Sullivan said.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Are We There Yet, Daddy?
Charley Reese, posted at Antiwar.com:
The keyboard warriors here in the States -- even, or especially, the war supporters who now affect to be scandalized that the war hasn't been well-managed -- often fault il Duce for not having an "exit strategy." And they're right as far as they go -- that's not good. What's worse, though, is what Mr. Reese brings up: the lack of an exit criterion. Yes, I know, we've all heard about standing down as Iraqis stand up. But, judging from the fortress "embassy" being built, and the permanent bases we hear about, it doesn't sound as if any hypothetical "stand-down" being contemplated by Chimpy involves any exit, exactly.
The entire article is well worth your while.
President Bush teared up on Memorial Day and said we must complete the mission in Iraq to honor the 18,000 wounded and 2,400-plus dead.[Emphasis added.]
Well, I have a question. What is the mission?
Is it to overthrow Saddam Hussein? He's been overthrown and is awaiting execution by a kangaroo court we selected to do the hit.
Is it to allow the Iraqi people to hold elections? They've held three elections – one for an interim government, one for a Constitution, and one for a permanent government, which is now in place except for two Cabinet positions.
The keyboard warriors here in the States -- even, or especially, the war supporters who now affect to be scandalized that the war hasn't been well-managed -- often fault il Duce for not having an "exit strategy." And they're right as far as they go -- that's not good. What's worse, though, is what Mr. Reese brings up: the lack of an exit criterion. Yes, I know, we've all heard about standing down as Iraqis stand up. But, judging from the fortress "embassy" being built, and the permanent bases we hear about, it doesn't sound as if any hypothetical "stand-down" being contemplated by Chimpy involves any exit, exactly.
The entire article is well worth your while.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Toward a Theory of Empire
"Isolated incidents." "A few bad apples." Yes, but the isolated incidents seem to be forming a pattern. Haditha. Ishaqi. Abu Ghraib. Even those who favor Bush's war should be alarmed on utilitarian grounds: "Remember _______!" is apt to be a very effective recruiting slogan for the "insurgent" and "terrorist" organizations that El Presidente claims to be fighting.
From the Ishaqi story:
But, on to the theory. Conservation laws are very important building blocks for theory in physics; many processes are profitably analyzed in terms of conservation principles, which say: in a certain kind of process, the amount of some physical quantity present before the process is the same as the amount after the process. The usual conserved quantities in physics -- depending on the process involved, of course -- include mass, charge, total energy, kinetic energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, and so on.
Today, I propose a conservation law that might be applied to world affairs. Simply put: in certain kinds of places, such as artificial nation-states that were welded together by outsiders and consist of multiple natural sociological groups of people who share little besides mutual antipathy, the number of Saddams before regime change and after regime change tends to be a constant. To the U.S. this means: to depose Saddam is to replace him -- with yourself.
In my vanity, I was tempted to refer to this as "Bartleby's Law." But I've overcome the temptation. I propose instead to call this principle "The Law of Conservation of Saddams."
(Nobel Prize committee: just feel free to leave my invitation to Stockholm next year in the replies below.)
From the Ishaqi story:
The US army has also announced that coalition troops in Iraq are to have ethical training following the alleged incident in Haditha.Surely Mr. Pannell is mistaken ... it's quite unbelievable that "many Iraqis" could possibly be cynical about the impeccable intentions of the U.S. The Americans are the guys in the white hats, as Dubya has explained so many times now. And if you can't trust Dubya, whom can you trust?
However, the BBC's Ian Pannell in Baghdad says the move is likely to be greeted with cynicism by many Iraqis, as the troops have long been accused of deliberately targeting civilians.
But, on to the theory. Conservation laws are very important building blocks for theory in physics; many processes are profitably analyzed in terms of conservation principles, which say: in a certain kind of process, the amount of some physical quantity present before the process is the same as the amount after the process. The usual conserved quantities in physics -- depending on the process involved, of course -- include mass, charge, total energy, kinetic energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, and so on.
Today, I propose a conservation law that might be applied to world affairs. Simply put: in certain kinds of places, such as artificial nation-states that were welded together by outsiders and consist of multiple natural sociological groups of people who share little besides mutual antipathy, the number of Saddams before regime change and after regime change tends to be a constant. To the U.S. this means: to depose Saddam is to replace him -- with yourself.
In my vanity, I was tempted to refer to this as "Bartleby's Law." But I've overcome the temptation. I propose instead to call this principle "The Law of Conservation of Saddams."
(Nobel Prize committee: just feel free to leave my invitation to Stockholm next year in the replies below.)
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