Smash the Machines! Oh...And No Betting Either

Here's a little snippet of news that probably escaped your notice.

This from the NY Times:
"The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups in an online futures market.
The discarded program was met with astonishment and derision almost from the moment it was disclosed.
In the proposed futures market, traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel, say, or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have had the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)."

Another:
"Appalling," " repugnant," and "incredibly stupid" were a few of the choice words used by two U.S. Senators, Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-WA) over a Pentagon proposal to create a futures market aimed at predicting events in the Middle East. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle chimed in, "I must say this is perhaps the most irresponsible, outrageous and poorly thought-out of anything that I have heard the administration propose to date." In reaction, an embarrassed Defense Department swiftly canned the project. What nefarious activity is Pentagon up to? Creating an online betting parlor to enable insider traders at the Defense and State Departments to feather their retirement nests?"

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? What WILL those evil Bushie capitalist warmongers think of next? Betting on the death of millions so they can eat turtle soup and venison served on gold spoons...while the jobless poor huddle around their fuel-barrel fires in our gutted cities.... I makes me want to weep.

Perhaps by now, though, you've come to the conclusion, as I have, that you can take NOTHING that comes from the mainstream press or its political masters on the left at face value. Such a conclusion might have led you here.

And here.
And, eventually, here.

The truth? This was a good idea...no, a series of brilliant ideas, worthy of St Andrews Academy (those who have ears to hear, let them hear). Here, in a nutshell, is why:
Free futures markets are powerful predictors, with proven track records. They are more accurate than opinion and election polls and a lot more accurate than long-range weather forecasting. If you don't believe me, try here. and here.
DARPA set up a policy analysis market (PAM), to trade worldwide in futures contracts dealing with underlying issues in the Middle East (economics, the fate of regimes, etc.), experimenting with them as a form of predictive intelligence gathering. There are many such markets in the private sector, many of them "betting" on nasty things, and they've worked for years.

"Why not harness the predictive power of markets for intelligence purposes? Markets have demonstrated time and time again that people have a lot of dispersed and hidden information that the prospect of profit can lure into the open."
"Why wouldn't terrorists just hop online and start betting if they couldn't either mislead American authorities about their plans or make money to fund more al Qaeda operations?" [Senator] Wyden asked. Why not indeed? If terrorists were trying to use PAM to make money that "would mean that they are giving up information to gain money," says Hanson. "In other words, we're bribing them to tell us what they are going to do. That's kind of like normal intelligence gathering when we bribe agents for information."

Might work, might not. But it was certainly worth a try. You'd never see this side of the matter in the press, though.

"In the end, a promising research program that might have enhanced U.S. intelligence gathering was killed off by cheap moral posturing on the part of a couple of U.S. Senators."
...And fed, I might add, by compliant leftists in the mainstream media.

"Who's incredibly stupid now?"

Monk

Harry Potter and the Garden of Nutbag

The following Lileks essay is remarkably apt, given the sentiments in the posters I posted earlier today. It puts such sentiments in proper perspective as only Jim Lileks can:

In the Sunday book pages of the Strib was an article about the women of Afghanistan. It was discussing the new-found freedoms of women in the post-Taliban society, about girls queuing for school after years of oppression. Quote: “No matter what one’s political misgivings about the war might be, the sight of those girls was a thrilling shock.”

That sentence stuck in my head, and made me think back to October 01, to all the discontent over the Afghan campaign. We’ve forgotten what that was like - the marches in Europe, the predictions of mass casualties, the accusations of empire-building, how it was all about (cue Twilight Zone theme) an oil pipeline, how it would become a quagmire, how it was a quagmire, how we should have used international law to bring OBL to justice. It was the dress rehearsal for Iraq. The same blind sputtering fury; the same protests with Bush = Hitler posters and giant mocking puppets; the same inability to accept that a byproduct of the campaign would be a freer society for the very people the protesters supposedly cared about.

Any mass executions at the Kabul soccer stadium recently? No?

Wonder why.

That book-review quote says it all. We have to honor those who had “political misgivings,” because dissent is a virtue too pure to be stained by truth. Nevermind that the end result of those “political misgivings” would have been another generation of Afghan daughters beaten with bats for winking at a cute guy. Those “political misgivings” would have assured that any young Afghan woman who stepped outside her house and asked to be educated would be whipped with 2 X 4s by the Committee for Flaming Theocracy Gynophobe Committee.

But that can’t be said. People who were wrong for the right reasons will always get a pass.
Look. I don’t have “political misgivings” about a Liberian intervention; I have practical misgivings about using American forces in TFNs, or Totally Farked Nations. I’m on the fence here. I’ve heard compelling arguments against intervention, and I've heard solid arguments about the uniqueness of an American presence in Liberia, considering their attitude towards its distant thrice-removed paternal figure. But if I decide it’s all a big mistake, and I put up a lawn sign and write letters to the editor and show up for candlelight vigils and all the other examples of symbolic busywork, I don’t get to be thrilled when Monrovia is peaceful and thriving again. I get to be embarrassed.

i thought of this today while reading an interview with the director of the latest Harry Frickin’ Potter movie. Oh, he’s a brave man; oh, he’s a truth teller:

Cuaron’s outspokenness is also new to the franchise. Does the evil wizard Voldemort still remind him of George W. Bush, as he said recently? “In combination with Saddam,” he says. “They both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment.”

That last fillip is priceless. It’s like Mick Jagger on stage pointing to the right half of the balcony - they all stand up and scream. Me! Me! He noticed Me!

Let's review. Bush: supported legislation that wanted to open up an obscure distant corner of caribou country for oil production. The legislation failed; the drilling has not occurred.

Saddam: drained the entire southeastern marsh of his nation, diverted the water, ruined wetlands and the Ma’dan, the people who lived in that ecosystem. One could call it Ethnic Cleansing. One could even call it a Hate Crime.

Well, the water is flowing into the marshes again. Saddam flooded them to hamper the invasion. Yeah, that worked well, eh? Now the villagers are returning; now they’re fishing again.

Of course, this was not the objective of the war; hardly. But it’s happened. And it’s irrelevant to the finely-tuned political minds of our culture’s artists. If Bush had called Saddam “a real-life Voldemort” they’d have spit out their tea and laughed themselves silly - such simplistic Hollywood drivel; what else would you expect from an example of doltus Americanus?

But should a director of moving pictures call Bush a real-life Voldemort, and twin him with a fascist who gassed a village for research purposes - ah, there’s a canny lad. There’s a piercing mind.

This director’s movie will open nationwide on 3,000 screens, and it will make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Tell me again about the crushing of dissent. But speak up! The TV is rerunning Baghdad reaction to the death of the brothers, and the celebratory gunfire is deafening. Their political misgivings about American intervention aside, they actually seem happy.

Nurse: 40 ccs of Reuters, STAT!

Monk

More Poster Fun

Oh man! This site was a gold mine of deliciously silly leftist paranoia:

I humbly submit a few more posters for your enjoyment--again, intended to provoke you poor, benighted American Fascist Bastards to Question Bush! and Think For Yourselves! (He's Canadian, you see--note the weird references to the "ministry" of homeland security. For such sentiments, one usually has to go to the People's Republic of Berkeley...)

I especially like the Ford Eradicator poster...as the new owner of an Expedition, it seems perfect to me. I chose most of this selection with an eye to supposedly outrageous sentiments that I'm quite at home with. Some, however, is just True Art. Note the wonderfully convoluted liberal logic in the "ZOG" poster: is Israel or the US a "Zionist government" or his he accusing the US of being neo-nazi and thus thinking the world is controlled by Zionists, or....? Some art just speaks for itself. I leave it to you to figure out.

The last poster, of course, doesn't come from this site, but it sums things up pretty well (sorry for the language--I didn't make it.)

Monk

Posters, Part 1

I gather from the source site [Note 27 Apr 06: I have long since lost the link to the source] that these are intended to be "in-your-face," biting leftist sarcasm, much the way that "Dr. Strangelove" was when in first came out in '64. "We'll put those fascist warmongers in their place!" that movie seemed to want to say. Of course, those of us who have learned to stop worrying and love the bomb are the very ones who enshrine--and memorize--that movie today. The left doesn't remember it.

In a similar vein, I love these. They shall adorn my small corner of the cube farm. Irony always trumps sarcasm.

Monk

American Hero (and Friend)

Wow! National Public Radio did a remarkable job highlighting a true American hero you don't hear much about these days.
For those who don't know, Kinch was my dad's best friend (the grave spoken of in the story is adjacent and identical to my dad's at Arlington). It's great to see Kinch getting the recognition he deserves.

Dot: FANTASTIC JOB!

A few highlights:

July 25, 2003 -- His feat is tucked in the timeline of aviation history -- somewhere between Chuck Yeager ripping through the sound barrier in 1947 and John Glenn making his orbital flight in 1962. But in his day, Capt. Iven Kincheloe, who flew a rocket-powered plane to the edge of space one morning in 1956, was as much a star as those other two famous aviators. NPR's Bob Edwards reports.

Neil Armstrong, a friend and fellow test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1950s, says Kincheloe probably would have been at the center of America's space program. "I know had he survived that he would be very much in the middle of whatever was going on subsequent to that point. He may very well have been selected for the astronaut program. He was certainly capable of doing that -- or he might have chosen to do something else. But in any case, he would be at the forefront out at the edge of the frontier and having a ball doing it."

The NPR site contains loads of pix, video snippets, audio clips and general commentary. Check it out

Monk

Musician Jokes

A young child says to his mother, "Mom, when I grow up I'd like to be a musician." She replies, "Well honey, you know you can't do both."

Q: What do you call a beautiful woman on a trombonist's arm?
A: A tattoo.

Q: What's the difference between a banjo and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you chop up a banjo.

Q: What do you call a drummer in a three-piece suit?
A: "The Defendant"

Q: What do clarinetists use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: What did the drummer get on his I.Q. Test?
A: Saliva.

Q: What do call a guitar player without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: What's the similarity between a drummer and a philosopher?
A: They both perceive time as an abstract concept.

Q: What is the difference between a drummer and a vacuum cleaner?
A: You have to plug one of them in before it sucks.

Q: Why do some people have an instant aversion to banjo players?
A: It saves time in the long run.

Q: What's the difference between a folk guitar player and a large pizza?
A: A large pizza can feed a family of four.

Q: What's the difference between a jet airplane and a trumpet?
A: About three decibels.

Q: What's the latest crime wave in New York City?
A: Drive-by trombone solos.

Q: What is another term for trombone?
A: A wind driven, manually operated, pitch approximator.

Q: What is the dynamic range of a bass trombone?
A: On or off.

Q: What's the difference between a SCUD missile and a bad oboist?
A: A bad oboist can kill you.

Q: Why do clarinetists leave their cases on the dashboard?
A: So they can park in the handicapped zones.

Q: What's the difference between an opera singer and a pit bull?
A: Lipstick.

Q: Why do people play trombone?
A: Because they can't move their fingers and read music at the same time.

Q: How does a violist's brain cell die?
A: Alone.

Q: What do you call a guitar player that only knows two chords?
A: A music critic.

Q: How do you keep your violin from being stolen?
A: Put it in a viola case.

Q: What's the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw?
A: You can tune a chainsaw.

Q: What will you never say about a banjo player?
A: "That's the banjo player's Porsche."

Q: What do a viola and a lawsuit have in common?
A: Everyone is relieved when the case is closed.

Q: Why are harps like elderly parents?
A: Both are unforgiving and hard to get into and out of cars.

Q: How many trumpet players does it take to pave a driveway?
A: Seven- if you lay them out correctly.

Q: What's the difference between an oboe and a bassoon?
A: You can hit a baseball further with a bassoon.

Q: How are a banjo player and a blind javelin thrower alike?
A: Both command immediate attention and alarm, and force everyone to move out of range.

Q: What's the difference between a Wagnerian soprano and a baby elephant?
A: Eleven pounds.

Q: Why are violist's fingers like lightning?
A: They rarely strike the same spot twice.

Q: How many guitar players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 13 - one to do it, and twelve to stand around and say, "Phhhwt! I can do that!"

Tuba Player: "Did you hear my last recital?"
Friend: "I hope so."

Q: How does a young man become a member of a high school chorus?
A: On the first day of school he turns into the wrong classroom.

Did you hear about the Tenor who was so arrogant the other Tenors noticed?

Q: What do you call a hundred conductors at the bottom of the Ocean?
A: A good start.

Q: How can you tell when a singer is at your door?
A: The can't find the key, and they never know when to come in.

Q: How do you get two bass players to play in unison?
A: Hand them charts a half-step apart.

Q: What's the difference between a dead chicken in the road, and a dead trombonist in the road?
A: There's a remote chance the chicken was on its way to a gig.

Q: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?
A: A vocalist.

Q: How do you get a guitarist to play softer?
A: Place a sheet of music in front of him.

Q: Why can't voice majors have colostomies?
A: Because they can't find shoes to match the bag.

Q: What's the perfect weight of a conductor?
A: Three and one-half pounds, including the urn.

Q: What do all great conductors have in common?
A: They're all dead

Q: What's the definition of optimisim?
A: A bass trombonist with a beeper.

Q: What do you do if you run over a bass player?
A: Back up.

Q: How do you reduce wind-drag on a trombonist's car?
A: Take the Domino's Pizza sign off the roof

Q: How do you get a clarinetist out of a tree?
A: Cut the noose

Q: What do you throw a drowning bass player?
A: His amp.

Q: How do you get a three piece horn section to play in tune?
A: Shoot two of therm.

Q: What's the difference between a bull and a band?
A: The bull has the horns in the front and the asshole in the back.

Q: How many vocalists does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None. They hold the bulb over their head and the world revolves around them.

Q: How many drummers does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None, they have machines for that now.

Q: How can you tell if the stage is level?
A: The drool comes out of both sides of the drummers mouth.

Q: How do you get a trombonist off of your porch?
A: Pay him for the pizza.

Q: What's the last thing a drummer says before he gets kicked out of a band?
A: "When do we get to play MY songs?"

Q: What's the difference between a tuba and a vacumn cleaner?
A: You have to turn one of them on before it sucks.

Q: How do you define a perfect pitch?
A: When the Saxaphone lands in the MIDDLE of the dumpster.

Q: What do you call a musician with a college degree?
A: Night manager at McDonalds

Q: Why are violas larger than violins?
A: They aren't. Violists heads are smaller.

Q: How are trumpet players like pirates?
A: They're both murder on the high Cs.

Monk

Musician Jokes: The Defininitive Collection

Thought y'all might enjoy these.

A young child says to his mother, "Mom, when I grow up I'd like to be a musician." She replies, "Well honey, you know you can't do both."

Q: What do you call a beautiful woman on a trombonist's arm?
A: A tattoo.

Q: What's the difference between a banjo and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you chop up a banjo.

Q: What do you call a drummer in a three-piece suit?
A: "The Defendant"

Q: What do clarinetists use for birth control?
A: Their personalities.

Q: What did the drummer get on his I.Q. Test?
A: Saliva.

Q: What do call a guitar player without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: What's the similarity between a drummer and a philosopher?
A: They both perceive time as an abstract concept.

Q: What is the difference between a drummer and a vacuum cleaner?
A: You have to plug one of them in before it sucks.

Q: Why do some people have an instant aversion to banjo players?
A: It saves time in the long run.

Q: What's the difference between a folk guitar player and a large pizza?
A: A large pizza can feed a family of four.

Q: What's the difference between a jet airplane and a trumpet?
A: About three decibels.

Q: What's the latest crime wave in New York City?
A: Drive-by trombone solos.

Q: What is another term for trombone?
A: A wind driven, manually operated, pitch approximator.

Q: What is the dynamic range of a bass trombone?
A: On or off.

Q: What's the difference between a SCUD missile and a bad oboist?
A: A bad oboist can kill you.

Q: Why do clarinetists leave their cases on the dashboard?
A: So they can park in the handicapped zones.

Q: What's the difference between an opera singer and a pit bull?
A: Lipstick.

Q: Why do people play trombone?
A: Because they can't move their fingers and read music at the same time.

Q: How does a violist's brain cell die?
A: Alone.

Q: What do you call a guitar player that only knows two chords?
A: A music critic.

Q: How do you keep your violin from being stolen?
A: Put it in a viola case.

Q: What's the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw?
A: You can tune a chainsaw.

Q: What will you never say about a banjo player?
A: "That's the banjo player's Porsche."

Q: What do a viola and a lawsuit have in common?
A: Everyone is relieved when the case is closed.

Q: Why are harps like elderly parents?
A: Both are unforgiving and hard to get into and out of cars.

Q: How many trumpet players does it take to pave a driveway?
A: Seven- if you lay them out correctly.

Q: What's the difference between an oboe and a bassoon?
A: You can hit a baseball further with a bassoon.

Q: How are a banjo player and a blind javelin thrower alike?
A: Both command immediate attention and alarm, and force everyone to move out of range.

Q: What's the difference between a Wagnerian soprano and a baby elephant?
A: Eleven pounds.

Q: Why are violist's fingers like lightning?
A: They rarely strike the same spot twice.

Q: How many guitar players does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 13 - one to do it, and twelve to stand around and say, "Phhhwt! I can do that!"

Tuba Player: "Did you hear my last recital?"
Friend: "I hope so."

Q: How does a young man become a member of a high school chorus?
A: On the first day of school he turns into the wrong classroom.

Did you hear about the Tenor who was so arrogant the other Tenors noticed?

Q: What do you call a hundred conductors at the bottom of the Ocean?
A: A good start.

Q: How can you tell when a singer is at your door?
A: The can't find the key, and they never know when to come in.

Q: How do you get two bass players to play in unison?
A: Hand them charts a half-step apart.

Q: What's the difference between a dead chicken in the road, and a dead trombonist in the road?
A: There's a remote chance the chicken was on its way to a gig.

Q: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?
A: A vocalist.

Q: How do you get a guitarist to play softer?
A: Place a sheet of music in front of him.

Q: Why can't voice majors have colostomies?
A: Because they can't find shoes to match the bag.

Q: What's the perfect weight of a conductor?
A: Three and one-half pounds, including the urn.

Q: What do all great conductors have in common?
A: They're all dead

Q: What's the definition of optimisim?
A: A bass trombonist with a beeper.

Q: What do you do if you run over a bass player?
A: Back up.

Q: How do you reduce wind-drag on a trombonist's car?
A: Take the Domino's Pizza sign off the roof

Q: How do you get a clarinetist out of a tree?
A: Cut the noose

Q: What do you throw a drowning bass player?
A: His amp.

Q: How do you get a three piece horn section to play in tune?
A: Shoot two of therm.

Q: What's the difference between a bull and a band?
A: The bull has the horns in the front and the asshole in the back.

Q: How many vocalists does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None. They hold the bulb over their head and the world revolves around them.

Q: How many drummers does it take to screw in a bulb?
A: None, they have machines for that now.

Q: How can you tell if the stage is level?
A: The drool comes out of both sides of the drummers mouth.

Q: How do you get a trombonist off of your porch?
A: Pay him for the pizza.

Q: What's the last thing a drummer says before he gets kicked out of a band?
A: "When do we get to play MY songs?"

Q: What's the difference between a tuba and a vacumn cleaner?
A: You have to turn one of them on before it sucks.

Q: How do you define a perfect pitch?
A: When the Saxaphone lands in the MIDDLE of the dumpster.

Q: What do you call a musician with a college degree?
A: Night manager at McDonalds

Q: Why are violas larger than violins?
A: They aren't. Violists heads are smaller.

Q: How are trumpet players like pirates?
A: They're both murder on the high Cs.

Monk

Researchers Define a "Conservative" (Your Tax Dollars at Work, Part 432)

Your Tax Dollars At Work:

Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

BERKELEY - Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

- Fear and aggression
- Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Need for cognitive closure
- Terror management

Seems to me that describes the Berkeley faculty and the average anti-war protestor or PETA-freak pretty well. I must be a "radical.

Read the whole, disgusting, tax-dollar-wasting thing.

POWER TO DA PEOPLE, BABY!

Monk

Kabul Today

This recent first-hand experience of Afghanistan after OEF provides a very interesting contrast with the doom and gloom of the US/Brit media:

"Despite dozens of missteps, made mostly with good intentions, it has been the understated but forceful American influence, not the UN and the hundreds of NGOs, that has taken the major gambles here. The Americans have displayed admirable flexibility in altering tactics and strategy when necessary and achieved this dicey, delicate transition."

Please read all of it

If Women Ruled thed World, Part I of ?

Monk

Advice for the Democrats

A lengthy post, but very thought provoking. Interesting regardless of what side of the political fence you're on.

The author makes some excellent points, particularly with regard to homeland security. I tell you what: if this war were nearer to victory, I would seriously consider voting for a Demo who a) wasn't a human dung-beetle (as pretty much all of them this year are; as Herren Hillary is also), and b) promised to dismantle the Gestapo of Homeland Security.

The section on "solutions" says why I won't, of course. If we fail to pursue our current foreign policy, we will recapitulate the fate of Rome in a matter of decades at the most. For all intents and purposes, Europe's already gone.

July 17, 2003 / 12:01 PM ET

ADVICE FOR THE DEMOCRATS

I used to like the Democrats. Heck, I used to be a Democrat. But their handling of the whole Iraq war issue reminds me of why I’m not a Democrat anymore. On the other hand, I’m not a Republican, either. So here’s some advice for the Democrats on how they can more effectively criticize the Bush administration on this and other issues.

Intelligence Failures

Forget this “where are the weapons?” and “Bush lied!” stuff. It’s not flying. Heck, it’s even getting refuted, over and over, by the strongly pro-Democrat Daily Howler. This issue is a loser. As the Howler writes:

Let’s make this as simple as possible. If you’re going to accuse public officials of conducting a “hoax” (Nicholas Kristof), you can’t refuse to publish their explanation (Kristof) and you can’t bury their explanation at the end of a long, front-page article (the Post). You can’t pretend you don’t know what they’ve said. And no, you can’t make the kind of factual presentation made on Monday night’s Hardball.

Ouch. It’s a loser, and though it generated some sound and fury last week and over the weekend (conveniently eclipsing Bush’s enormously important AIDS and trade initiatives in Africa), it now seems to be a tale told by idiots, signifying nothing. As the Howler points out, Bush’s speech said that Iraq was trying to get nuclear material from Africa and that our information came from the British. The British still stand by this and there’s not much evidence that they’re wrong. Bush’s critics have conflated one bogus document relating to Niger with Bush’s statement about all sorts of other evidence relating to Africa, a continent of which Niger is, of course, only a small part. (You can read more on the subject at the Howler links above, and here.)

So where’s the administration vulnerable? Well, there are important process issues here: There may have been bad intelligence (with, tantalizingly, the possibility that the French were feeding the allies forged documents) and there’s a real question of why people fell for it. (It’s also possible that there were obviously-forged documents saying things that were, in fact, true, in order to discredit other evidence to the same effect: Such things are far from unknown in the world of espionage.)

But this is a side issue at best. More importantly, there’s the administration’s unwillingness to look into the intelligence failures leading up to September 11. That the September 11 attacks occurred isn’t, by itself, proof that people dropped the ball, but there’s reason to think so, and the Bush administration has been notably reluctant to look into the matter, or to have anyone else do so. But learning from failure is vitally important in wartime, as is accountability on the part of those who fail. We’ve seen precious little of either. Nor is there anything unpatriotic about raising such questions - though it would help to avoid cheap partisan shots in the process.

The Saudi Connection

It seems pretty obvious that the root of Islamist terror worldwide is in Saudi Arabia. That’s where the money, the ideology, and often the terrorists themselves come from. The Bush administration has been awfully friendly with the Saudis, as has the Bush family. It may be, as blogger Steven Den Beste writes, that we’ve gone easy on the Saudis as part of a longer-term strategy, and that the administration will start tightening the screws now that the liberation of Iraq reduces the Saudis’ leverage. I hope that’s true, but there’s no question that there’s a lot of room to criticize in the administration’s relations with the Saudis.

Homeland Security

Homeland security is, as I’ve written already, ripe for criticism. It’s about empowering bureaucrats, not about protecting America. From the pointless absurdities of airline security to the Homeland Security Department’s new focus on non-terrorist-related issues, it’s a happy hunting ground for people looking for idiocies to attack. You could make a good commercial based on tweezer confiscation alone, and millions of frequent fliers would laugh.

And here’s a wedge issue: The Bush administration’s Transportation Security Administration is strangling the popular armed-pilots program with bureaucratic folderol. This is likely to be especially unpopular with pro-gun swing voters in swing states like Tennessee and Pennsylvania, and raising the issue would put Bush on the defensive: Does he control his own bureaucracy, or is he anti-gun?

Communications

Lots of people are worried about media concentration. This can be put in more basic terms: There are lots of channels, but they stink. There are lots of movies, but they mostly stink too. And there are lots of radio stations, but they all play the same crap.

There was an effort a while back to make it easy for individuals and community groups to set up low-power FM stations (which, thanks to technology, now costs only a few thousand dollars), but commercial broadcasters and NPR shot it down claiming that there would be interference. Now a new study done for the FCC says that the interference issue is bogus. (You can read a short account here and a longer one here. The latter report notes that the FCC, which is controlled by Republican appointees, buried the report in the comment section of its Web site and made no public announcement.) This issue ties together two good themes - sympathy for the little guy, and widespread dissatisfaction with radio. The FCC can be cast in the role of the “Mr. Dickless” character from Ghostbusters, an interfering bureaucracy that’s really a tool of bad guys. And, given recent Democratic hostility to mega-broadcaster Clear Channel, a boost for independent radio would offer a bit of payback.

Solutions

My biggest advice for the Democrats is to come up with positions, not just criticisms. This is particularly true on the war, where, as blogger Ed Cone notes, the Democrats have had a real problem:

If a Democrat wins next year, what would be the future of Bush’s aggressive military strategy of addressing state-sponsored terrorism emanating from the Middle East? What will our message be toward Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria? How much time and money would a Democratic president devote to nation building? Those are answers I’d like to hear.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t want to go to war, it’s done. We are where we are. Where we go next is the key. . . .

Screwing up on nation-building in Iraq will lead to more terrorism and undermine our status in the world. The same is true in Afghanistan. That’s why Democrats should lay off the trusty quagmire rhetoric and avoid politicizing the reconstruction process. There is no quick exit or cheap solution if we do it right.

Quagmire talk and after-the-fact finger-pointing doesn’t help. We need to hear solutions. We’re not hearing those. The same is true on the economy. You can savage Bush’s tax cuts, but if you want to make the deficit an issue, you’ve got to be willing to talk about spending cuts, too. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re not serious, and you’ll come across as a kvetcher, not a serious alternative.

Those are my main suggestions. Want more? Here’s one from James Morrow: Lower the drinking age. The increase in the drinking age from 18 to 21 was a federal encroachment on traditional state affairs, foisted on the country by a Republican administration. Democrats are having trouble firing up younger voters. This should help. And with a war on, the “old enough to fight = old enough to drink” argument seems a pretty strong one.

OK, that’s my advice for the Democrats. There may be better advice for them somewhere else, but judging by their actions they’re not taking it.

Monk

Back Again After 500 Years

A thought-provoking article concerning what we have done to ourselves and what we must do next:

Back Again, After 500 Years

A new mosque opens in Spain. Good news? Not necessarily.

For the first time in six centuries the muezzin's cry echoed over Spanish Granada with the inauguration in that city of a new mosque last week. The call to prayer hadn't been heard in the old capital of Moorish civilization since the last Muslim king was expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.

A rather ominous remark by a top mosque official was quoted approvingly in the Muslim coverage. The new mosque, he said, would be "one of the purest sources of Islam."

Here, then, is a precise illustration of the West's complicity in its own troubles.

The mosque seems customized for Spanish soil and the traditions of Spaniards only aesthetically. Spiritually and politically--which are the same thing to hardline Islamists--the mosque remains a product of forces from outside Spain.
The problem hardly concerns Spain alone. The U.S., Britain, Germany, France--all have paid a price for their nuance-free welcome to all brands of Islam. Underpinning this welcome is the well-intentioned liberal tradition that we don't tell anyone how to worship. It may be time, however, to take a closer look at our own responsibility.

But there is some inspiration for those fighting on the Hearts and Minds Front in the larger war:

Why shouldn't Spain actively try to re-create Moorish standards of Islam in doctrine as well as in brick and mortar? It can start by sponsoring a Spain-inspired creed within its own borders. We in the West complain incessantly about anti-Western thought in Saudi-inspired madrassas, or religious schools, around the world. We demand that they open up to a freer market of ideas, but we shy from entering the marketplace. We can start within our own borders by sowing new ideas in mosques and madrassas. The benefits will accrue as much to Islam as to the West. After all, the grandeur of Moorish culture grew not out of a pursuit of purity but from the irritant of exposure to other cultures.

The whole thing

Monk

"Impressive Speech"

Good follow-up on the speech from James Lileks. He's got it about right, I think:

Impressive speech by Blair today. I wonder how much press it will get. It sounded not at all like a Bush peroration, but when you pare away the accent you realize that both men are best suited by words that are tart, blunt, stark, and resolute. Not to say there aren’t differences - Blair’s speeches sound like the work of a keen and fierce intellect that has come to a certain conclusion by logical deduction. His heart has been informed by his head. In the case of Bush I think it’s the other way around. I suppose that’s the difference between being the leader of a nation that was attacked, and the leader of a nation whose ally was assaulted. What I found most invigorating about the speech was the tenor - the tune, not the notes. It was a speech sung in the key of War, and reminded us that we are just midway through the end of the beginning. If that.

Blair is, at heart, a socialist; I’ve no time for half the stuff he wants and most of the stuff he’d agree to. But he’d get my vote. We can argue about the shape and direction of Western Civ after we’ve made sure that such a thing will endure. I haven’t heard every single speech Tony Blair has made since he popped on to the political scene; I don’t know if he argues for increased license fees for domestic gerbils with the same passion and force. But today he sounded like a man who knew things, who knows that the threat is still grave, and cannot understand why others seek transient political advantage in exploiting those sixteen words. The people are worried, your majesty! "Oh, let them eat yellowcake."

When I hear a speech like Blair’s, I have to check the calendar. And the calendar is usually wrong. It may say 2/23, or 7/16, or 4/30. But I know what the date is, and the date is 9/12. It’s going to be 9/12 for a long time to come.

Original here

Monk

The Spread of Freedom Is the Best Security for the Free

From Tony Blair's speech yesterday:

This is a battle that can't be fought or won only by armies. We are so much more powerful in all conventional ways than the terrorists. Yet even in all our might, we are taught humility. In the end, it is not our power alone that will defeat this evil. Our ultimate weapon is not our guns, but our beliefs. (Applause.)

There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit, and anywhere -- (applause) -- anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack.

And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify around an idea. And that idea is liberty. (Applause.)

The entire speech is better still. Words worthy of Churchill.
The full text.

Monk

News from Birkenstockia

For those in California, here are your tax dollars at work.
For those outside the People's Republic, here's more of what we expect:

Steve Hinkle, a student at California Polytechnic State University, was posting fliers around campus last November 12 that advertised a speech to be given the next evening. The fliers contained a phoato of the speaker, black conservative Mason Weaver, and the words "It's OK to Leave the Plantation," the name of a book in which Weaver likens African-American dependence on government programs to slavery.

When Hinkle approached a public bulletin board in the lounge of the campus Multicultural Center, some African-American students who were sharing pizzas nearby objected. They told Hinkle not to post the flier because they found it "offensive" and "disrespectful." By all accounts, his response was something like, "How do you know it's offensive? Why can't we talk about it?" The offended students then said that the flier violated the Multicultural Center's "posting policy," and threatened to call the campus police. Hinkle left, without posting the flier.

That was not the end of the matter, however. One black student did call campus police, with what was recorded as a report of "a suspicious white male passing out literature of an offensive racial nature." She and others also urged university authorities to discipline Hinkle, a member of the Cal Poly College Republicans, for what she called "hate speech" (i.e., the flier).

Incredibly, university authorities did just that, under the pretext of punishing Hinkle for "disruption" of what complaining students later claimed to have been a Bible study dinner and meeting. (Nobody had told Hinkle that this was a "meeting" at all, and he saw no Bibles.)

This episode provides a window into the politically correct censorship that pollutes so many of our nation's campuses. For seeking peacefully and politely to exercise his First Amendment rights, Hinkle was subjected to a seven-hour disciplinary hearing, from which his lawyer was barred. He was found guilty of "disruption" of the "meeting." And he was ordered to apologize to the offended students, in writing, or face much stiffer penalties, possibly including expulsion. All of this is to go on Hinkle's permanent record, perhaps hurting his chances of getting into graduate school.
....
Campus censorship lives on, often justified under the guise of enforcing vague rules against racial or sexual "harassment." Administrators typically interpret these rules to encompass any speech that offends nonwhite students or insults the left-liberal-radical-feminist-postmodernist orthodoxies of the academic class. The rules are typically enforced by campus kangaroo courts with no semblance of fairness.

Monk

Bush Lied for Dummies

A very good single-source treatment of the recent "Bush Lied!!!!!" foolishness:

Monk

From: Damnum Absque Injuria

July 15, 2003

BushLied (TM) for Dummies

Last night, while watching a discussion on Hannity and Colmes over the "Bush Lied" meme, Mrs. Xrlq asked me what all the fuss was all about. After explaning the basics to her, it occurred to me that many other people might have been wondering the same thing, but were afraid to ask. Here it is, in a nutshell:

Shortly before President Bush's State of the Union address, the British government learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

President Bush, in his State of the Union address, uttered the infamous 16 words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The CIA signed off on the speech, noting that the British government had indeed learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

British intelligence still stands by its findings.

The CIA has subsequently backed off from its position, apparently on account of some new intel showing that the average Democrat is too stupid or lazy to distinguish a statement prefaced by "the British government has learned that ..." from one prefaced by "the CIA has independently confirmed that ..."

So there you have it. Seriously. Of course there are other details to thes story, but that's all they are, details, and for the most part, distracting ones to boot. Here are a couple of the more common canards:

What about those forged documents purporting to implicate Niger? Well, what about them? The Brits didn't rely on them, and neither did Bush. He said Saddam attempted to buy the stuff from Africa, not from Niger, and certainly not from "knee-ZHAIR," as Bush's more pretentious critics like to pronounce it.

"If the CIA couldn't confirm it, Bush shouldn't have said it." Well, that's a question on which reasonable minds will have to differ. If we have any real reason to think American intelligence is that much more reliable than British intelligence, then I suppose it might not be such a good idea to quote British intel in any context. But I do not believe that to be teh case, and in any event, Bush's 16-word "lie" made it very clear that he was relying on the findings of the British government, not on anything the CIA had confirmed independently. If you're mad that the CIA didn't have an opportunity to review the intel in question, that anger should properly be directed at France (hat tip: Howard Veit, via Daily Pundit), not at the Bush Administration.

"Wait a minute! Bush said outright that 'Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa!' He didn't qualify that by saying the Brits had learned that, blah blah blah..." This is because you are watching a Democrat commercial featuring a dowdified version of the statement. Try watching the original speech instead.

He's Dead Already

In an interesting sidelight to the last post, if you follow the links to the London Telegraph story and then do a bit of Googling, you will find that the defendant's lawyer is a muslim member of the Dubai Society (who may be the same Jew-bashing "Arab League legal affairs expert" the BBC sometimes quotes) and the prosecutor is an Indian.

Sublime irony (sublime in the sense that Burke meant it: tinged with dread): a man steeped in the hadith and shari'a is defending civilization's cause against a Hindu.
Not a true Brit to be found around, excepting Martin himself.

Such a nation is dead, I tell you.

Dead.

Monk

Why Europe Will Not Save Mankind from Howling Barbarism (aka Islam)

If anyone has doubts that America is the only power capable of defending civilization against the legions of Mordor, read the links below.

A nation that acts in such a manner is dying. Britain is by far the best of the lot. France and Germany actively pander to the savages; Russia routinely disses us even though fighting our fight in Chechnya. In the US, we kill people who "need killing" (as they say in Tejas). Only a nation with the will to do so can successfully defend liberty.

I mentioned this a few days back. Here's some of the story...

Tony Martin will not be released from jail. He will remain inside for the crime of defending his property for the full five year period of his sentance (he was initially sentanced to life).
The parole board just decided that he poses an unacceptable threat to people who may in the future break into his home .....

Here's more on "burglar's rights"...

Government lawyers trying to keep the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin behind bars will tell a High Court judge tomorrow that burglars are members of the public who must be protected from violent householders.

(Looney) Toons For Our Times...

Straight from the Acme School of Looney Leftist Internationalism comes this hysterical screed. I mean "hysterical" in every sense possible:

Yahoo! News Wed, Jul 09, 2003

Whether, Not Who, is the Question About the 2004 Election
By Ted Rall

NEW YORK--He has canceled elections in Iraq. He will probably cancel them in Afghanistan. Will George W. Bush put the kibosh on elections in the United States next year?

I can hear the goose-stepping jackboots now...

People who have spoken out against Bush are talking exit strategy--not Alec Baldwin style, just to make a statement, but fleeing the U.S. in order to save their skins.

Good riddance. I'll contribute to your ticket fund: one-way, to France or Pakistan (our choice), non-refundable

To these people, whether or not the 2004 elections actually take place as scheduled is the ultimate test for American democracy. At Guantánamo Bay the United States is converting a concentration camp into a death camp where inmates will be executed without due process or legal representation. It's easy to come up with a scenario in which canceling the 2004 election could be made to appear reasonable. Imagine that, a few weeks before Election Day, "dirty bombs" detonate simultaneously in New York and Washington. Government, media and political institutions and personnel lie ruined in smoking rubble and ash; hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered. The economy, already teetering on the precipice, is shoved into depression. How could we conduct elections under such conditions?

And, by implication, the bombs were planted by Devil Dubya's Evil Minions....Mwa ha ha! Why! Do! You! Think! This! Madman! Wants! More! Nukes!?! -- see Red Leader: I have read Michael Moore

The Cold War lasted 46 years; does Bush intend to remain in office that long?

Why, yes. Thank you for asking.

Still, you have to hand it to him: The fact that Democrats are terrified of ending up imprisoned by an American Reich is the ultimate tribute to Bush's artful bullying--and sad confirmation of the impotence of his would-be, should-be opponents.

I like the way that rolls out....Devil Dubya: Soooper Geeenius!

And so on...

What a maroon!

A' b'de a'b'de a'bde . . . that's all folks!

Monk

Guns, Guns, Guns!

It's hard to argue with Rachel "Imagine No Liberals" Lucas:

What are they smoking in Australia?
July 2, 2003

A reader named Kentsh sent me this link, to a story about how Australia is engaging in yet another "gun buyback" program, which basically involves spending a lot of government money to take guns away from people who obey the law and none away from criminals, all because two people were killed at a university last year.

It's the nation's second gun crackdown. The Federal Government spent about $315 million buying back more than 600,000 guns after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

Yeah. And according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and as reported by the incredibly useful GunFacts, violent crime went up substantially after that first gun grab.

In 2001-2002, the homicide rate increased 20%. In Sydney, robbery rates with guns rose 160% in 2001, and even more in the previous year.

From the firearm confiscation to March 27, 2000, gun murders went up 19%, armed robbery went up 69%, and home invasions went up 21%.

What was going on before the gun grab in Australia? Quite fascinating, really: in the 15 years before gun confiscation, firearm-related homicides had dropped nearly 66%, and firearm-related deaths (non-homicide) had fallen 50%.

On the off chance that the reality is still not sinking in, here are the changes in Australian crime rates from before the ban in 1995 to the period from 1995-2000:

Armed robbery +170.1%
Kidnapping/abduction +144.0%
Assault +130.9%
Attempted murder +117.6%
Sexual assault +112.6%

And remember, those figures come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Institute of Criminology, and The Sydney Morning Herald - not the NRA or the tooth fairy.

So we go back to our Australian buy-back idiocy:

Noel McNamara from the Crime Victims Support Association...says governments should ban all firearms.
"We think that Australia would be much better off to follow the United Kingdom where they banned all guns after the Dunblane school shootings where 16 students and a teacher were murdered, and one must wonder if Australia followed their example how many of our poor souls would be alive today, especially after the Port Arthur tragedy."

Ah-hem. Noel McNamara is an unmitigated idiot. Or he simply gains a lot of pleasure from ignoring factual data.
According to The Guardian on September 3, 2000, "A continuing parliamentary inquiry into the growing number of black market weapons has concluded that there are more than three million illegally held firearms in circulation - double the number believed to have been held 10 years ago - and that criminals are more willing than ever to use them. One in three criminals under the age of 25 possesses or has access to a firearm."

In the U.K., handguns were used in 3,685 offenses in 2000 compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40% (from the Centre for Defense Studies at King's College in London, July 2001). And remember, British police only record a gun crime as a gun crime when there is a conviction, so if the crime remains unsolved, it's not recorded in the gun crime statistics. Do the math.

Lastly, in case anyone's still thinking that the U.K. has this gun thing all figured out, handgun homicides in England and Wales reached an all-time high in 2000 - several years after they almost completely banned personal handgun ownership.

There's more, there's SO MUCH more, but I'm preaching to the choir here. Basically I just want to say that the facts are clear and simple, so that even toddler monkeys could probably understand them, and even so, governments in places like Australia still Do. Not. Get. It. They're either smoking waaay too much doobage or they've genuinely been brainwashed by lying psychos along the lines of Michael Moore.

So good luck down under with all the hysterical gun grabbing. Sounds like it's gonna work out really nicely for your law-abiding citizens. Or not.

Her excellent blog is here.

Monk

Worth Thinking About

Very cogent, very disturbing. Not sure I agree entirely, but worth thinking about...

Asia Times, 8 Jul 03

"Did someone in Washington take Kant literally and set about devising a constitution for devils with the Arab world in mind? Does it matter? Washington must talk about democracy in the Arab world...as in the Jewish joke about the man who sees a shop whose windows are full of clocks. He enters and tells the proprietor, "I want to buy a clock." The proprietor responds, "I don't sell clocks." "Then what do you do?" "I am a mohel [ritual circumciser]." "Then why do you put clocks in the window?" "What do you want me to put in the window?"
Which brings us to the threat of radical Islam. "You are decadent and hedonistic. We on the other hand are willing to die for what we believe, and we are a billion strong. You cannot kill all of us, so you will have to accede to what we demand." That, in a nutshell, constitutes the Islamist challenge to the West.

Neither the demographic shift toward Muslim immigrants nor meretricious self-interest explains Western Europe's appeasement of Islam, but rather the terrifying logic of the numbers. That is why President Bush has thrown his prestige behind the rickety prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. And that is why Islamism has only lost a battle in Iraq, but well might win the war.

Not a single Western strategist has proposed an ideological response to the religious challenge of Islam. On the contrary: the Vatican, the guardian-of-last-resort of the Western heritage, has placed itself squarely in the camp of appeasement. Except for a few born-again Christians in the United States, no Western voice is raised in criticism of Islam itself. The trouble is that Islam believes in its divine mission, while the United States has only a fuzzy recollection of what it once believed, and therefore has neither the aptitude nor the inclination for ideological warfare."

Monk

Yes! It's the RonCo Voice-O-Matic!

All & Sundry (especially Fingers & The Voice):

Coming Soon: The Ronco Voice-A-Matic

In 2002, Line6 debuted their GuitarPortproduct, an interface through which electric guitarists can plug their trusty Stratocaster or Les Paul into the USB port of their computer. As part of its software, it allows guitarists to download patches that are often excellent recreations of the tones used by Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and other guitar heroes. I have no doubt that within a few years, a similar product will be available for budding vocalists. Who do you want to sound like? Al Green? Paul Rodgers? Barbra Streisand? Aretha Franklin? Simply dial in a patch and sing into the Ronco Voice-A-Matic!

Read the whole article.


Knowing Microsoft, I'd wind up playing guitar like Al Green and singing like Jeff Beck. Hmmmmm......

Monk

Juxtapositions, Again

In the blackened hell that is Baghdad, only terror reigns (apparently):

Washington Post
July 3, 2003
Pg. 1

Blackouts Return, Deepening Iraq's Dark Days
Lack of Steady Electricity Is Biggest Obstacle to Reconstruction, Officials Say
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, July 2 -- Two months after Iraqis fired AK-47s into the night sky to celebrate the resumption of electrical service, crippling blackouts have returned to the capital and the rest of the country, impeding the restoration of public order and economic activity, and creating a new focus of anger at the U.S. occupation.

In Baghdad, a vast city of high-rise buildings, bustling markets and scorching summer temperatures, most residents received more than 20 hours of electricity a day before the war -- enough to run elevators, air conditioners and other staples of modern life. Today, the capital got about eight hours of power. On Tuesday, it was even less. And for a few days last week, there was none.

The persistent blackouts -- U.S. and Iraqi specialists blame sabotage, looting, war damage and the failure of old equipment -- have transformed a city that once was regarded as the most advanced in the Arab world to a place of pre-industrial privation where shopkeepers hawk their wares on the sidewalk, housewives store food in iceboxes and families sleep outdoors.

Let's put this in context. How long did it take to rebuild this?



Something more than two months, I suspect.

How many died in the city depicted? (Just over 15,000 -- one raid, one day, early in the bombing campaign)

How many have died in Baghdad? A few dozen?

How many city blocks have been blasted into ruin? None?

To the editors of the WaPo and the "citizens" of Iraq: Quit yer whinin'!

Monk

More Wierd Juxtapositions

From yesterday's WaPo:

Annan Requests U.S. Peacekeepers in Liberia
By Colum Lynch, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 2, 2003; Page A18

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 -- For a second straight day, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the United States today to lead an international peacekeeping force in Liberia as the Bush administration came under increasing pressure from Britain, France and some West African countries to send U.S. troops to the country to halt a worsening civil war.

U.N. officials estimate that as many as 5,000 troops, including 2,000 Americans, would be required to restore order in Liberia.

From Yahoo News (AP):

Dean Calls for Intervention in Liberia
Wed Jul 2, 6:51 PM ET
By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer,

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a prominent opponent of the war in Iraq, called Wednesday for dispatching U.S. troops to Liberia to head off a human rights crisis. "I would urge the president to tie our commitment to assist in this multilateral effort to an appeal to the world to join us in the work that remains to be done in Iraq," Dean said. Dean called for a short-term deployment of roughly 2,000 U.S. troops as part of an international effort to stabilize the African nation.

Wazzup w' dis? France? Koffi Annan? Dean? Who's next? Kim Jong Il?

What's their motive?

Is this just an ironic recognition of the world's helplessness against violence and brutality in the absence of US power, or is it driven by a cynical pleasure at seeing American boys die on CNN? ("We got zem now, Koffi! Wait 'til ze RPGs start to fly in Monrovia!")

You decide.

Monk