I'm taking it easy today and tomorrow, mostly studying Japanese, and trying not to exacerbate my sunburn, which, as it peels on my bald head looks like mutant dandruff...or something and seems to be scaring people. The intertubes went out at the guest house so I'm again at the sublime geek heaven that is N-Cafe in Akihabara, where I took care of some online stuff for the university (and I took a few moments to kill some Zombjas)  I note that in seven days, I've been to Akihabara twice and haven' gone to any of the anime, CD or manga stores....hmmm.

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In my undergraduate, inactive enlisted puke opinion General McChrystal is largely right. However that can be said with the benefit of hindsight of McArthur as well and he (quite rightly) got sacked.

I can empathize with McChrystals frustration, but we frequently elect presidents who do not have a great deal of military experience, and ALL presidents face a steep learning curve when they assume the office as NO ONE is versed in everything and the bipolar levels of extreme delegation and hands on engagement necessary is startling to even the most experienced executives ( a group Obama is not a member of). It is the duty of the Military to serve the elected executive.

I am no fan of the current President but he IS  the President. He is the CinC, and a one of this nations soldiers does not air this sort of laundry unless one first resigns, or retires.

A friend once asked if I thought it would have been better to let McArthur slide given that the 6-10 million who might die in a war with china would be dwarfed by the 60-80 million who died in the late 50s and early 60s and the real possibility of ending the Cold War early. 
Of course not.
To allow that sort of insubordination is to open the way for a Caesar, something the founders greatly (and rightly) feared. We are fortunate to have an officer corps that is overwhelmingly professional, whose allegiance is to the nation and its Constitution, and who consider it a point of honor that they are guardians and not threats to our republic. This sort of talk can erode that quickly as happened in Rome and all to many times in our sister republics to the south. Occasionally this occurred for patriotic and principled reasons, but those good intentions almost always paved a short road to Hell.

Obama needs to fire McChrystal. It gives me no pleasure to say this but this situation is bigger than either of these men.

UPDATE: More here. Jerry Pournelle has some thoughts here and here CDR Salamander points out the short term  ramifications of NOT firing McChrystal.

Both the CINC and McChrystal will have lost face in a public manner and will be looked at as weaker; McChrystal will have more enemies in the Administration’s National Security Structure; McChrystal has shown support for your only significant Democrat rival, SECSTATE Clinton. Worst part again is the CINC will also lose face to much of the world - especially with our enemies. In most of their cultures, a General Officer saying such things would be shot or have an unfortunate helicopter accident. They will not view keeping McChrystal on as a signal that President Obama is a firm leader.

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 Well, on the political front anyway.
Nikki Haley has won the Republican nomination for Governor of South Carolina. She won by an impressive margin too.

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No..not that one....no nice boat here. This is worse.

It seems that educrats have decided that friendship is at cross purposes to the education process.

......But increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend? .......

........But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity

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She is gone.

Almost a shame. After all, It's rare indeed  to see someone whose face so closely matches their inner beauty.

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The wrong kind of bears though.

more...

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Via Ace comes this elegant response to question #9 on the census form.

[W]e should answer Question 9 by checking the last option — "Some other race" — and writing in "American." It's a truthful answer but at the same time is a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of unconstitutional racial classification schemes.

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Random, real time stream of consciousness thoughts on the State of the Union speech. Now mercifully hidden below the fold.


Other reactions here, here, here and Wonderduck has one of the healthiest and well grounded SOTUS night posts right here.



more...

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In the comments to an earlier post Steven Den Beste asks how the Christmas rush went at UPS last month.

Specific numbers are, of course, proprietary. However, volume was down a bit overall. It seemed that we had a little more volume going to the stores than last year. It also seemed that residential deliveries were down a bit from last year. Both of these observations are subjective and as I was completely uninvolved in any deliveries this year (for the first time in 16 years) I was in a poor position to gauge, but that was certainly the way things seemed to be rolling. I suppose this makes sense last year the retailers were a bit panicked by the crash and consumers hadn't groked the gravity of the situation, whereas this year consumers are looking at the job market with fear and retailers desperately need to clear inventory for tax purposes.

Even to the extent these observations are accurate they may not be typical. Southeastern Virginia got quite a kick in the teeth with the closing down of the meat packing plants, paper mill and sawmill in Isle of Wight County as well as several businesses (trucking companies for instance) dependent on their operations. This happened right before Thanksgiving.

It's also hard to get a good feel for the overall picture because volume was deperessed for several days due to weather delays.

Interestingly, despite the lower overall volume, we had what was, I believe, our heaviest day ever in our building. This was due to the backlog of stuff that had been delayed by the big snowstorm arriving all at once, on what would have already been the heaviest day of the year.

Cardboard tsunami.

All in all not terribly encouraging, but not quite the disaster some had feared. As an aside, the last two days have been exceedingly hectic, due again to dealing with the backlog of weather delays

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With the wave of citizen activism sweeping the country in this time of crisis I can no longer sit idle.

ON THE ISSUES

*As your Representative...whoever "YOU" are....I pledge to work tirelessly to reduce the deficit through budget policies that are flexible...yet firm....bendable yet straight...and FAIR TO EVERY AMERICAN!
*I will also work to protect "you" (my constituents) from the existential threat of the Dero who even now conspire against our democracy.
*I oppose listing the Mothman as an endangered species due to the principle that PEOPLES SAFETY MUST TAKE PRIORITY!
*I oppose deportation for the Bat Child as he is a natural born citizen.
*I support composting toilets.
* I support the teaching of the number eleventy in our schools.

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Via Cdr Salamander, some powerful perspective from Penn Gillette.

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Normally, unless it's just a couple of quick links with little commentary, I put Politics type posts under the fold.

Not today.

I've fitfully tried to write this post since back in  May when It began as a collection of capsule reviews of various films and TV episodes I'd seen at a friends house in Northern Virginia. However a brief conversation we had that afternoon is far more important..and frankly has been difficult to blog about.

Now my friend and I have a lot of shared interests and we tend to agree on a lot considering the considerable differences in our world view. He doesn't believe in the second amendment, nor the tenth amendment, and is for all sorts of  restrictive zoning regulations....yet he calls himself a libertarian. Despite this intellectual incoherence he is a good man and I have developed a great deal of respect for him over the years. His views on matters of govt were likely  formed from his upbringing in the urban Northeast, specifically New York City, where life is so interconnected and dependent upon public services that the notions of individualism, and self sufficiency range from being understandably alien to simply not being understood in quite the same way these concepts are in the rest of the country. I really think that the culture in that part of the U.S. is rather more different  from the rest than is generally appreciated. My worldview, formed in the coastal southeast, is likely just as weird to him.

However, such differences in perspective as his and mine (and there are at least half a dozen distinct examples of this sort of regional outlook not to mention the myriad of ethnic perspectives)  are one of the things that have given the US such a robust ability to deal with issues...but perhaps not for much longer.

You see, at some point during the evening the conversation turned to my experiences in school and I related that for the second time my being allowed into an upper level course was being questioned...that is for the second time in a couple of years I had a fellow student in one of my classes ask how a person with my beliefs was ALLOWED to attend an upper level class.
No really....
The specific example of college idiocy discussed is not really relevant and so is hidden behind this spoiler tag
  The first case was a couple of years ago when I asked a question in a Chinese History class where the discussion had turned to misogyny in China. I asked a question that went like this 'Given the very negative examples of the Empress Dowager and the Soong sisters were there any examples of females on the national level that did not bring ruin and or horror directly or indirectly to the nation? Might those, particularly the example of the Dowager, have contributed to the problem?....This is not an exact quote, its been almost two years, but it is close...the second happened this spring and could actually be tortured into being a partisan statement. We were discussing Champa and how it was conquered by Dai Viet/Viet Nam ultimately with some limited French assistance in the 19th century. I made what seemed to be an obvious point that a conquest by an ethnically and culturally distinct people only 130 years before might have led to the schism after the French withdrawal. Specifically were the later chapters of the Indochina war partially a bid for independence  by the various polyglot peoples who identified with Champa.

In both cases the response was nearly identical, in that  female classmates interjected to question not only the premise but legitimacy of the question and in both cases wanted to know how someone who thought like me was allowed into an upper level class. In the first instance, that young lady asked the instructor to ...you know....DO SOMETHING! In that case the instructor ( who as it turns out is a survivor of one of Mao's work camps)  did indeed do something...she answered the question and asked the young lady to sit and calm down.
In the later case the instructor blanched and seemed to try to blow off the question but two young women were so agitated by it and they followed me out of the class demanding an explanation wanting to know how someone like me got into 400 level class without being ...I dunno....caught?

My friend was quite appropriately appalled and we marveled at the ability of the myrmidons to miss the point of college. I joked that I had obviously missed my political correctness codebook...
....and at that point everything changed....
My friends mood changed, he gave me a stern look and told me that amongst his progressive friends, anyone who used the phrase "Politically Correct" was considered to be a bigot because they want to be able to say such things as 'ni**er' and 'fa##ot'. He went on to say that he agreed and anyone who used the phrase...he thought less of.

Now I should have said that on the rare occasions that I find anyone spouting such passive agressive Orwellian fucktardery I think much less of them.

But I didn't....I've known this guy too long and known him to be too good a person for that.
So, I defended my position but he cut me off and flatly said that he was not going to debate this....it is a sign of bigotry, and racism.... the end.

I almost walked out...
Being called a racist comes under fighting words.


If it had been nearly anyone else it would have ended right there, but I've known him for over a decade. He is a genuinely good guy.
His "advice" however, is not just wrong, it is destructive.

Here is why....

Courtesy is a very desirable impulse...but when it is enforced by government it is not genuine courtesy....it becomes Political correctness and that is just about the greatest threat to the nations discourse there is. While not quite as bad as it was a few years ago college is like walking on eggshells and its getting worse again. A viewpoint, an opinion, a word is declared intolerant..to protect someones feelings of course...the list expands because "feelings" are fragile things, especially if one loses an argument. Racial slurs are beyond the pale of polite conversation but now we have people looking for "code words" This is a power play...to control the floor and shut down debate. It is a testament to how far we have come that Americans, by and large are disgusted by racists, so much so that calling someone a racist is the equivalent of slaping them with a glove....but without the opportunity of a duel to clear their name...racists are quite properly pariahs in polite society. This gives the truly vile a tool in Political Correctness  the number of "code words" and taboo viewpoints expands until finally....talking about POLITICAL CORRECTNESS defines one as a racist homophobe.

One could simply acquiesce and call it what it is, an Orwellian mind game to declare opposing viewpoints double-plus-ungood...of course in a matter of months my friends progressive acquaintances would inform him that the words Orwellian and double plus ungood are...well...the language of racists and homophobes...

This has been going on on for decades and a whole generation of students and now voters has learned to keep their heads down on this. Noted racist Dave Barry has some no doubt deeply offensive observations.

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 I just learned about the Senators passing. I started to write something but after a quick look around I scrapped my post when I realized that I could not improve in any way on this post by Steven Den Beste, which I will quote in full....

I don't think there's ever been an issue on which I agreed with Ted Kennedy. But I do believe he loved this country, and tried to serve it to the best of his ability, and tried to change it for the better.

I believe he was misguided, but I don't believe he was evil. I think he was a patriot.

We should all remember that we can deeply disagree with our fellow citizens without hating them.

Sincerest condolances to the family and friends of the Senator.

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^{source unknown}

Oh boy....I'd missed this. Actually I'd heard about it but put it in the same bin with the insane rantings of the birth certificate truthers.Alas, I was wrong. There is a movement to repeal the 22nd Amendment. Now that Obamas's in office we don't need no steenking term limits.. In fact HJ Resolution 5 was one of the first bills brought before the current congress.

Too much can be read into this of course, there is no indication that its gone very far, but, as Neo points out, it puts the Governments position on Honduras in a rather different light.

It certainly doesn't do a damned thing to set peoples minds at ease. I think it's a bad idea all round but it seems particularly ill conceived regards timing. Why would they do that now?

UPDATE: No seriously, It seems politically stupid and likely to give ammo to the opposition. WTF?
UPDATE2: Unrelated....but the above .gif is appropriate to this. Waugh...Waugh I say.

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The Honduran military has overthrown  President Zelaya and shipped him to Costa Rica....but...it does not appear to actually be what we normally think of as a coup.

Fausta explains...

It seems that the President of Honduras ordered the military to administer a plebiscite to amend the constitution in a manner directly in violation of said constitution. The amendment in question? He wanted his term limits removed.  As I understand it, the military refused to carry out illegal orders, the congress  more or less impeached the president with the blessing of the supreme court....and he was removed....but not imprisoned or killed.

The fact that Chavez is deeply upset is reason enough to pause and reflect on whether our governments condemnation of this action is not wrong headed (though it is perhaps, understandable). Military ousters of civilian governments, particularly in Latin America, are worrisome as they often lead to a very dark place. However, it does not appear that this is a military takeover as they reportedly acted on a congressional and supreme court request and the elected legislature has appointed a successor....from the same party as the ousted president.... Also, the military does not seem to be running the country.

Whenever a military overtly "assists" in the transfer of power in any capacity beyond security, it is good and proper to be skeptical, but this doesn't seem right now to be anything but the institutions of a republic working as designed.

And yes, I'm thawing out the crow....just in case.

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Dita Von Teese call your office!

Tactical Corsets!

Every girl should have a tactical corset!

For too long, women have had to compromise practicality for beauty. Men got pants with cargo pockets and built-in knee pads, women got clothes whose only built-in feature was cuteness. But why should men get all the high-speed low-drag tactical toys?

Tactical gear is no longer an all boys club. Tactical Corsets bring female operators MILSPEC features like MOLLE modular pouch attachment webbing and self-adjustable quick-release buckles in a load-bearing carrier designed to support the female form. And we're just getting started.

 

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Ugh! 2 politix posts in a row....

.... and this one has to stay above the fold due to the need to stamp out a bit of asshattery.

OK Kids, this will come as a shock to some of you but the President of the United States did not read the Irish PM's speech...in its entirety...thanking himself in the process.

The story seems to have begun with a rather muddled AP report.

More on this here. (Via The Instapundit)

Sad that we need the UK's Telegraph to put this to rest.

The Science Babes observe that it is sadder still that so many of us have to play cleanup for our own 2-didgits over this and stuff like the idiot birth certificate story.

I mean it's not like there are not real things to get upset about.

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An attempt at live blogging the presidents second press conference.
Has been moved where it belongs...below the fold.
more...

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1 Re: tent cities:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424881,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7297093.stm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26776283/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2991742/Tent-cities-of-homeless-on-the-rise-across-the-US.html

Seems mostly out West.
""What you're seeing is encampments that I haven't seen since the '80s," said Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, an umbrella group of homeless groups in west coast cities."
Recession tent cities, not depression tent cities. Yet.

Compare and contrast reportage for extra credit

Posted by: pulpjunkie at Wed Mar 25 10:45:14 2009 (/V3DX)

2 Thanks Tim.

Not sure what I need to do to get extra credit.

The BBC story had the other linked stories scooped by 6 months.

The AP story is run in both the FOX and MSNBC links.

The MSNBC story focuses more on the casino closings and Reno in particular.

All are from last year. I haven't heard anything about this recently, though frankly given the situation I can't imagine things haven't gotten worse.

Thanks for the tip!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wed Mar 25 18:58:26 2009 (lmrlC)

3 Mere seconds after I commented it gets the flashing blue lights on Drudge.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKqkjyYkFN8w&refer=worldwide

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wed Mar 25 19:09:28 2009 (lmrlC)

4 I'd completely missed the dates on those stories. They were among the top Google hits for "tent cities in the USA", since my initial search for "tent cities" alone turned up a news item from Ontario, which I took to be in Canada, but turns out to be near LA. Huh.

The world is confusing.

Posted by: pulpjunkie at Wed Mar 25 21:19:41 2009 (/V3DX)

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OK. I have very little time right now but this needs to be said.

Give the POTUS a break.

The other night the President made a self deprecating comment about his bowling score. In the process he offended some people. It was not a politically correct comment and was inartful for a political leader to utter. 

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