Another Book Meme

I've been notified by a few friends that I've added a little more vitriol to my posts lately. Reading back, I would tend to agree. I'll try and inject a little more of the positive in my posts instead of being such a rant boy. It hasn't been indicative of my attitude in general, it's just me being lazy in posting. Lazy people criticize and don't offer solutions, and I have been as such lately.

My bad.

Anyway, since I probably won't get to posting anything until later this weekend, here is a cool exercise that The Colossus did yesterday--via the Llama Butchers (a blog that I have to get around to reading more), there is a list of 110 banned books. The exercise is to go through the list, bold which ones you have read and italicize those read in part. Here goes:

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran -- I studied Islam fairly heavily in college.
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - "Machiavelli you’ve told me nothing I don’t already know!" -- Stewie Griffin
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - A beautiful tale that illustrates the redemptive power of forgiveness.
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker - If it wasn't for Gary Oldman, I would never have read this. Thought Gary Oldman made Dracula more scary and sinister than Stoker's.
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - If you are a fan of history, you have to read this.
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell - One my Top 5 list
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell - Top 10 - Is it safe to say that Orwell is getting more relevant as time goes on?
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Didn't read it, but I'm ashamed that I haven't.
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - My buddy Kyle at FromtheStill, along with Colossus, have formed a bond. Big fans of Hemingway. Even though I am a huge fan, I wish he had a better sense of humor.
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant Maybe another time I'll address this, but I read this with more of a Phenomenological point of view.
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X - A book that Muslims (not the Nation of Islam) could learn from today.
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger - The Colossus said this is the most overrated book ever. I am now stealing his garbage to see if he is a closet communist. Top 5 for me.
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison - Had to read Morrison in college. I couldn't get through this without wanting to tear my eyes out and leave them on bookshelf to warn all other readers of the horrors that lie between the covers of this piece of...
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Love Solzhenitsyn, but Ivan Den. is a slow read.
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabinthia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck - I think my attention span is to short for Steinbeck.
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin - To this day, I still have MAJOR issues with Calvinist theology. Not as a Christian, but just as a logical argument.
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - In the context of Philosophy, Freud is actually an interesting discussion topic.
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Skip Bayless - Another Inane Article

If any of you people are sports fans, and know who the insufferable Skip Bayless is, you'll know where I am heading with this. In yet another article designed to "shock" the sports world by thinking outside the box, our fearless columnist puts his hands to the keys in yet another spectacularly stupid article. He argues for the removal of the place kicker, and in doing so has to, um, s-t-r-e-e-e-e-t-c-h, the truth:

After all, New England's Adam Vinatieri has won two Super Bowls with late field goals. Jim O'Brien won one for the Baltimore Colts. And of course, Scott Norwood's wide-right miss stained the careers of Buffalo greats Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Bruce Smith, who could have been remembered for one Super Bowl win instead of four losses.

College football has been equally plagued. How many times have kickers cost Florida State games against arch-rival Miami? More than Bobby Bowden has clichés.

My point: Three-point field goals count way, way too much.

Skip, one problem with Scott Norwood and your memory: the Bills were already losing when Norwood squared away for his 43-yard field goal. What stained the careers of Jim Kelly, Thurmond Thomas and Bruce Smith was not that incident, it was the fact that the Giants (and eventually the Cowboys and Redskins) scored more points than they did in the final game of the year. If said Bills were so tainted, why weren't they capable of putting Lawrence Taylor on his ass to score a touchdown instead of relying on the vilified Norwood to win the game? It's because they weren't capable of such a feat. Lawrence Taylor ended his career with two-Superbowl rings and a crap-load of crack, because he and the Giants defense stopped them from moving the ball foward, and thus tainted the careers of these not-quite-good-enoughs.

Scott Norwood gave them a chance from 43 yards away, but hey don't let that inconvenient fact get in the way of another stupid article that you, without fail, endlessly supply the esteemed readers of ESPN.com.

Anyway, I could care less about the "point" of his article and whether or not he convinces me to abolish the kicker in football. Go read it and see if you are convinced to change the fundamental nature of football by an adult that still calls himself Skip.

Ad Hominem enough for you?

U.S. Elections - Who Has the Uphill Battle?

There has been some blog fodder tossed around about which party is going to come out on top in the next election cycle. Facts remain facts, Republicans were elected with the hopes of restoring some fiscal sanity during the Clinton years, and have failed miserably. They have not been a party of their word, and have only proven that party control of multiple branches of the government increases pork spending exponentially.

Regardless of this fact, I'm unable to predict exactly which party will end up benefiting from the next round of elections, but what I am fairly certain of is low voter turnout.

Recent elections have just been a choice between the two lowest-common denominators, and public interest is beginning to wane. From my vantage point, quite honestly, there aren't even a handful of politicians out there right now that get me remotely interested, let alone excited, as they all seem to be a bunch of lazy fat-cats married more to being in power than to "public service". Now, that's just my seemingly hostile opinion, and does not necessarily extend to voters in general, however I'm a pretty moderate guy that wants to win the war, and if you've lost me, who else have you lost?

The Republicans are spending us into the ground even after 20 years of their complaints about Democratic maleficence. It was just a switch of "pet projects."

But the Democrats are utterly insane. They are too reactionary, politically opportunistic and totally incapable of seeing past their hunger for power, which causes them to act and sound like spineless and perfidious dorks when it comes to winning the War. Would you trust these guys with National Security at any level?

Most of he rhetoric I have been hearing from Republican supporters is, "Yeah, well our guys haven't exactly been great, but look at the idiots on the other side." Is this really what it has come down to? Do we expect so little of our elected officials that we are satisfied to vote for the least incompetent one?

I know this may be a bit cynical, but in general politics is one of those areas that requires so much from an individual, yet offers so little in return. It doesn't completely shock me that we have so little to choose from in our politicians, Republican or Democrat, and a third party won't solve the fundamental nature of this problem either. However, American history has been full of quality men and women who have served their country with honor, so I'm unconvinced that this epidemic is something we have to tolerate in the long-run.

Anyway, I think our current political situation translates into lower turnout overall.

So, here we go again -- hold your nose and pull the lever...

Skiing in San Francisco

Today is a good ski day in San Francisco. Click on the live feed at this link to watch the ski-jump in Pacific Heights.

Very cool, but it stinks that they are doing this during the week.

Maybe I can take my skateboard down it later tonight?

Maybe Jonny Mosley will try to sell me some weed?

Yeah...and maybe I'm a Chinese jet-pilot.

UPDATE: Here is the story.

"International Freedom Center" Will Not Be at Ground Zero

The International Freedom Center, or Moral Equivocation/Why Do They Hate Us Center, has been removed from Ground Zero:

Bowing to pressure from furious Sept. 11 families, Gov. George Pataki on Wednesday removed a proposed freedom museum from the space reserved for it at ground zero, saying the project had aroused "too much opposition, too much controversy."

He left open the possibility that a new spot at the former World Trade Center site could be found for the International Freedom Center, but officials for the proposed museum said they considered the project dead.

The decision followed months of acrimony over the International Freedom Center, with Sept. 11 families and politicians saying that the museum would overshadow and take space from a separate memorial devoted to the 2,749 World Trade Center dead and would dishonor them by fostering debate about the attacks and other world events.

"Freedom should unify us. This center has not," Pataki said. "Today there remains too much opposition, too much controversy over the programming of the IFC. ... We must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world."

Pataki said the Freedom Center cannot be part of a cultural building located near the proposed trade center memorial. But he left open the possibility that the center could find a home elsewhere on the 16-acre site.

Pataki said he would direct the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. _ the agency he created to rebuild the site _ to explore other locations for the center.

Freedom Center officials, however, said in a statement that they do not believe there is a viable alternative location at the trade center site.

"We consider our work, therefore, to have been brought to an end," the museum said. "We are deeply disappointed that the will could not be found to continue the development of the International Freedom Center at this hallowed site."

A campaign by some Sept. 11 families to oust the museum from space reserved for it at ground zero had grown in recent months to include four police and fire unions, an online petition with more than 40,000 signatures, and several politicians including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

This is fantastic news. For now, George Soros and Moveon.org do not get to urinate on the graves of 3,000 innocent American civilians. Now these people may get the chance to truly rest in peace.

Many thanks to the Take Back the Memorial organization for keeping the pressure on. At the end of the day, the opposition was bi-partisan and notables included Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until Hillary signed the thing (she came out in opposition to it last week) that the effort was truly lost.

Pass it on.

UPDATE: Here is the email I received from the Take Back the Memorial Organization:

We are very pleased to announce that Governor Pataki has announced the removal of the International Freedom Center (IFC) from Ground Zero.

Every (sic) since June 8, 2005 when Debra Bulingame's op-ed, The Great Ground Zero Heist, appeared in the Wall Street Journal, we have fought together for the preservation of the dignity of Ground Zero. With your help, we have achieved a major victory toward that goal.

We will continue to monitor the plans for Ground Zero to ensure that a fitting and proper memorials is built; one that is respectful of the victims murdered that day, their families, the first responders, and the American people.

A press release on the removal of the IFC from the 15 family member groups is expected in the next 24 hours and we will post it @ www.takebackthememorial.org as soon as it becomes available.

Thank you again for your support, prayers, and dedication. We simply could not have done this without you.

Sincerely,

Robert D. Shurbet
Founder/Web Master
TakeBackTheMemorial.org

Mail Call

After my cryptic post-weekend post, my friend Jayne emailed trying to guess exactly what zaniness occurred:

hmm. Curiouser and curiouser. Guess I will just have to wait... but I can't! I am normally quite a patient person, but in this case I will now spend the next seven hours postulating possible scenarios, each more bizarre than the last:

• TF6S was jumping about in a vat of grapes and stepped on a silver penny, at which the owners of the vineyard rushed him in joy for having found the heirloom of their house after 100 years. He was made a complimentary son and is now a bazillionaire, but of course decided that this should remain a secret, and is living exactly as before. Sensitive because: it's a secret, of course.
• TF6S was jumping about in a vat of grapes and suddenly the Pope joined him. In the shock he fell out of the bucket, and in a horrific twist of fate, unfortunately had to have his leg amputated from the knee down. Sensitive because: the Pope reads his blog.
• TF6S was jumping about in a vat of grapes which were actually very small purple extra-terrestrials that opened a wormhole to a distant galaxy under his feet and he slid away into the world's only manned flight outside of our solar system, only to discover the end of the wormhole was the coffee cup in his office. Sensitive because: the aliens read his blog.

Am I getting close? Of course, if any of these scenarios are remotely close to the real thing, I shall go away and bury my head in creosote in shame, as I would not wish amputation on anyone, least of all you. The aliens, though. That might be cool. :-)

Ahhhh! Get out of my head!

::cleaning soda out of nostrils:::

Tom Delay and My Hot Dog

Just saw Tom Delay give his press conference while I was waiting for my Coney Island chili-dog to be made.

Tom claims that this is "the most baseless accusation in American History."

I don't know the details and, for the sake of the country, I hope he hasn't done anything wrong, but he came across slimier than floor of the Market Street Adult Arcade.

But, he's not been indicted for being a slimy guy. Even though he's not helping his case, it's time to wait and see what the evidence is and if he really did what he is accused of.

That sound you hear? That's the result of my Coney Island Dog That's the wheels of justice in motion, baby.

Crunch, crunch....

UPDATE: Penraker has a good synopsis.

Thought for the Day

Have you ever read something that was written so well that there is nothing you can add to it? His essay discusses the basis balance of what pillars Western Civilization is built upon and the tension between finding a balance between them all. Go read his whole post, but here is the thesis to get your started:

I would argue that there are five things that make the West the West.

Although they are often called by different names, I know them as the following:

1. Democracy/The Rule of Law
2. Capitalism
3. Religion (and religious freedom).
4. The Nation State
5. The Scientific Method/Spirit of Inquiry.

These things do not exist independently of each other; indeed, it is only by keeping them in balance that a society functions in a healthy way. They are the pillars on which our community rests -- elevate any one of them too far and you tip over the platform of civil society. Saw one of these pillars through and the platform becomes rickety, and subject to collapse.

Democracy carried too far ends in mob rule. Capitalism carried too far leads to sweatshops and corruption. Religious extemism ends in the inquisition. Unbridled nationalism becomes Fascism. And too much of a love of science leads to Huxley's Brave New World. In other words, any of these good things, carried to an extreme, will undermine and subvert the others. And the neglect of any one of them means that one is living in a society that is, at some level, sick.

Rage & Insanity

...of which I now know the definition of. It is 12:45 am and there has been a car alarm going off and on, off and on for the last 4 hours. Everyone in my neighborhood has probably been half-asleep since then.

The damn thing just quit again, so I don't know what car is doing this even if I went outside to find out. I'll fall back asleep only to awoken from my "slumber" by that @(&*#$(*&$ thing again!

Car alarms are like Cindy Sheehan--utterly useless attention whores that in reality are uncapable of doing what their primary function intended them to do and, essentially, won't just shut the @#*$ up.

However, the funny part in this was that I just had a dream that I went outside to find out whose car was beeping and my friend was standing by a black Acura. He confessed to me that he stole the car. I told him I didn't care, but that I just wanted to go to sleep. So I called the police on him, not for any moral reasons, but because I wanted the g-ddamn thing to stop honking all night...

What does it say about me that my friend is brown?

Poland's Purge

Poland has been fighting for years to purge their government from former communists and they have taken an even bigger step:

Poland’s voters have booted their left-leaning government from power after four years marked by scandal and infighting. Can a coalition of conservative, broadly pro-market parties led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski do any better?

ANOTHER election, another trouncing for the ruling party. Poland has had ten prime ministers since the country ditched communism in 1989, and it is about to get an eleventh. In the vote held on Sunday September 25th—the first since the country joined the European Union in May 2004—the rehabilitated communists who have run Poland for the past four years were given a massive thumbs-down by the electorate. Not for the first time, voters have put their faith in right-of-centre parties promising to give the country more economic oomph without sacrificing social stability.

The very thought of "social stability" is a cultural canard. The well-intentioned cushion that socialism provides in reality has many problems: sacrificing equality of opportunity for equality of results ends with people getting neither.

In order to implement true reforms, Polish politicians must communicate to the public that a thriving econonomy cannot be tied down by cinder-blocks of central control. History has shown that money + centrally planned government = corruption. The more privatization that occurrs, the faster Poland will be able to root out the corruption that continues to plague their government.

This does not mean pure laze faire, but a market economy that puts the means of production in the hands of its people, instead of the government, while legislating rules that protect citizens and consumers from unfair business practices.

Poland can look to the U.S. and U.K. and then compare their economic ideologies to those of France and Germany. It may be too late for Old Europe, but Poland has the opportunity to drive some real change. Unfortunately, it isn't just a matter of changing government--they need to change their culture.

Where in the Hell....?

I'm still here. Sorry for the lack of output. I'm in the middle of an office move, entertaining an out of town guest and my bunyons are killing me. Ok, no bunyons, but I am trying to be sympathetic to those that have them.

All of this was compounded by one of the most bizzare weekends I have ever had in my life. Bizzare is kind of innocuous without context, and I'm trying to decide whether I should write about in on my blog. Truthfully, I really ought to write about it, but since it involves people that might read this blog, it may be hard to be objective about it.

Anyway, yesterday I did make it up to Sonoma for the Harvest Festival. At one point I was jumping up and down in an oak bucket crushing grapes. In a few years, if you get a bottle of wine from Sonoma, just remember: bunyons.

Comments Deleted - TF6S Caught Drooling at His Keyboard

I'm going to learn to add one of those comment Turing Code thingies...I deleted a bunch of cool comments in the process of deleting about 700 poker/penis comments in the CINDY! thread where Jayne Doodles was being funny and I was trying to be witty. She succeeded where I failed.

I digress. It is officially time to read up on the Turing Code thingy.

First step in learning, stop calling it a "thingy."

Open Thread - For Rick to Hurricane Blog

Rick, for as long as you are able to get a connection, post any updates in the comments section. Then I'll post them to the main page.

Hang tight buddy!

Rick's UPDATES (All Times Pacific):

12:35 pm

Bush gave me gallstones! Well, we attempted to make a break for it and drove for about 6 hours and got 35 miles out of the city. It is so crazy out there...no gas anywhere. And the traffic...you go 4 hours and get 10 miles on some freeways. Anyway, we turned back and have decided to do our best to survive Bush's, er, I mean Rita's fury. It seems to be turning a little towards New Orleans, cause maybe Bush isn't finished with them, so, we may be fine. If not, I've got the boards to cover the windows, just need someone to do the labor since I'm still recovering a bit. Anyway, I'll try to put some posts on here as the storm hits and what we are experiencing, until we lose power and phone lines. Thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers everyone.
-------

It's very quiet in the neighborhood and city. I think a lot more people evacuated than the city had planned for and traffic jams have been record setting. I've heard about people driving 20 hours for what would normally be a 4 or 5 hour drive. So, naturally they ran out of gas and gas cannot be bought in this city. Craziness. We are fine for now.
Posted by Rick at September 22, 2005 06:42 PM

The calm before the storm...

As the storm continues to move a little more further East it appears Houston will be spared the worst of its fury. I guess we have Bush's desire to continue to punish poor black folk in Louisiana to thank for that. He is even coming to Texas today to watch his plan to destroy Louisiana come to fruition. This is what you get when your president is selected and not elected people.

I am just hoping that our power doesn't go out for too long, cause Houston without AC = Hell.
Posted by Rick at September 23, 2005 06:15 AM

To board or not to board...

It is a question I have been grappling with. Do I really need to drill holes into the mortar of my home and put up plywood or not? It seems as though most of the neighborhood opted for "not to board". I bought the boards on Tuesday so I have them and I hope I don't end up looking like a fool as all my windows are blown out and my boards sit in the garage. I'm not really in physical shape to do it anyway since my surgery last Saturday.

Our "hunker down" closet is all stocked with water, radio, land line phone, scrabble, and anything else we might need as we "hunker". I was thinking earlier that 60 mph sustained winds probably wouldn't be that bad, but as I was standing outside I noticed how much the tree limbs were already blowing about in probably 5 mph winds and rethought that notion.

You may well know that the only reason Houston is being spared the brunt of this is that Halliburton is located here. Thank you Dick Cheney, thank you.
Posted by Rick Hamman at September 23, 2005 10:17 AM

ETC

FRIDAY IS SOLIDARITY WITH CINDY SHEEHAN DAY!!!

Cindy Sheehan, everyone's favorite protesting/greiving/bellering halfwit mother, seems to have a bit of a cult following:

Audience members packed into the cavernous hall wearing T-shirts with block letters, that read: I SUPPORT CINDY SHEEHAN. BRING OUR TROOPS HOME. Others donned baseball hats, VETERANS FOR PEACE, or carried makeshift signs, CINDY, YES. BUSH, NO. They waited to hear the celebrity guest for an hour, listening to emotional stories of other military families. The message? Don’t keep our troops fighting a war based on lies. Instead, get on the bus and protest in Washington, D.C., the site of a three-day anti-war rally this weekend.

Ah, the voice of the anti-war movement. Wearing shirt that says, "I SUPPORT CINDY SHEEHAN" is like wearing a shirt that says "I EAT LEAD-BASED PAINT CHIPS--PLEASE, FOR MY OWN GOOD, GIVE ME THE BEATING OF MY LIFE."

This is what the voice of the anti-war movement says to Bush about New Orleans (on Michael Moore's site!):

I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.

Pull the troops out of occupied New Orleans? I wonder how many are still willing to hitch a ride on her bus, destination: off a cliff!

I here-by deem Friday to be SUPPORT CINDY! DAY. Buy your I SUPPORT CINDY T-shirt right here and wear it to work on Friday exposing yourself as a freakin' donk-headed, yellow-bellied nincampoop to show your SOLIDARITY and DEDICATION to the lives of our troops!

Forward this to Zarqawi and George Galloway. Maybe they'll wear a shirt to work on Friday in solidarity too!

Honestly, I think Karl Rove should have sprung for that permit in NYC yesterday. It's a simple formula really: as duration=d increases, the chances of Cindy Sheehan saying something utterly insane approaches one.

Cindy, and I truly mean this from the bottom of my shallow heart, you are a Godsend.

A Note on Forecasting

Here is something that I wrote in the comments at Protein Wisdom in response to this comment by BLT in CO. BLT was responding to the decision that Ray Nagin made to keep New Orleans evacuees from returning with the threat of Rita looming. I'm posting it here because it was really long and kind of post worthy:

I’ve noticed a pattern with Colorado winter weather forcasting: At some point each winter a storm which is predicted to drop several inches (a small storm) will instead unleash a foot or two, catching everyone by surprise and embarrassing the forecasters.

Then for the next month or more, every storm that comes near Colorado will be hailed as a major snowfall producer (!!) yet these storms will typically produce only an inch or two.

I’m wondering if the same will now hold true for hurricanes: that massive (and potentially unnecessary) evacuations will be made for even the smallest, just in case.

I responded:

"BLT, your illustration strongly emphasizes some key difficulties when trying forecast: (1) your model is only as good as your assumptions and (2) determining your risk threshold. Being a guy who makes his living building forecasting tools, let me try to expand on your thought(s).

In the last 20 years, with the proliferation of multifaceted and relational databases, we’ve been able to expand the quantity of assumptions that a given model can operate under. Despite this monumental improvement, the human decision of deciding what information is relevant or not is still the crux of the problem.

For instance, if I want to forecast GE’s ability to pay off its creditors, the 3 year incremental increase/decrease in borrowing combined with sales pipeline data would be relevant, where-as the ratio of executives wearing brown versus black shoes would not be relevant. Bits of information in my example here are easy to assume, but fringe pieces that can influence final results are more difficult to predict. Plus, the ability to understand and account for all the variables involved is a Herculean task.

Naturally, this leads to the next point, if I am unable to account for all variables, choosing to ignore outliers, how much risk am I willing to tolerate that one of these variables can, pardon the pun, put me under water?

The aggregate risk tolerance of a population tends to move in a herd from too much to too little. This manifests itself in the various market bubbles and their subsequent explosion (or really implosion). In the Dot.com bubble, everyone saw people making money off of small companies with aspirations of being the next “Netscape.” It was irrational to think that 30 companies a week were capable of producing a product that was as revolutionary (hindsight shows us that even Netscape was unable to sustain itself), however folks threw caution to the wind and most were left holding nothing but their asses after these companies imploded. Their irrational behavior that once caused them to completely ignore risk (i.e. hearing quotes like “This market is different"), now causes them to knee-jerk in the opposite direction. Some folks that were trading penny stocks in 2000 are now afraid to move money into anything other than CDs in 2005.

With total consistency, whether you are talking about markets, hurricane preparations or snow storms, the fundamental character of humans never change. They get greedy as hell, they ignore risk and lose it, then instead of looking back critically, they try to shift blame on someone or something else. The breadth of the pendulum swing caused by these knee jerk reactions is the only unknown, and it is dependant on willingness of the outliers to listen to those in the middle who are able convince the extremists on either end of the fallacious assumptions their arguments are based on.

With Katrina, Jeff has done a great job at showing how much the media spectacle has sensationalized events to the point where very few people have been able to understand any truth that happened there. It is utterly repulsive to see it revealed, and all the media has accomplished, by scaring the living bejesus out of people, is the assurance that next time, people will be so unwilling to take risks that they will go to silly extremes to protect from the next “Big One.” Mayor Nagin will likely order an evacuation (school buses and all), and if the storm misses or loses steam at the 12th hour and produces a little afternoon shower, you can bet the house that the media will be standing downtown with their cameras, passive-aggressively mocking the overreaction. These spineless vultures did it with NASA in Challenger and Columbia disasters, and there is no reason to assume they won’t do it again here.

Note: I’m venturing close to building a strawman argument with my examples in market behavior above, as they mostly reflect some extreme outliers; however I do think that the behavior is consistent with actual results that history has proven correct.

Ultimately, this comment is a forecast, and we’ll see if I’m wrong. The perfidy and shamelessness of the media has yet to disappoint me in my lifetime."

Back

Hey everyone, the TF6S experience is back in full swing. Well, maybe a chip shot for now since work is pretty heavy, but I am back from the wedding.

The guy who designed this site, Kyle, and my friend this weekend have proven that there is a trade-off between fun and elaborate. Both close friends had relatively simple ceremonies where the wedding party wasn't responsible for much other that to not trip down the isle. Seriously, NO ONE was even remotely stressed and it showed in terms of how much fun people were having together.

Best man responsibilities this weekend were so choice, I highly recommend you jump at the opportunity if present. All I had to do was to make sure that the marriage license, rings and bulletins got to ceremony. Not being one who is ever satisfied with the B-plus answer, I earned some extra credit by ensuring that everyone was filled with booze and that the bride's wedding party was flirted with the whole weekend.

How crazy-go-nuts did it get? At one point some swing music came on, and at my initiative, a young lady unexpectedly left her feet in a twirl and a flip.

I think they are still trying to get her out of that tree.

Bonus--grandma pinched my buns.

So much for bumpin' and grindin'.

How were your last few days? I missed everyone.

Goldstein = Santiago

Yesterday, the Colossus pondered whether we should rally around a symbol, or a hero, in our fight against Islamic extremism (like Santiago Matamoros in the Spanish fight against the Moors). This is a bit of non-sequitur, but I have a nominee: Jeff Goldstein.

Jeff Goldstein has been a rhetorical thunderstorm, striking hyperbolic lightening rods held by the media during the Katrina aftermath. He's been relentless at poking holes in the memes, lazy arguments and partisan posturing that has been passed off as axiomatic in the debate over the responses to the disaster.

Today, he hits it out of the yard. I hate to "Amen" without any critical thought, but Jeff takes out Andrew Sullivan in doing so. My hand is forced. Let's just go to the clip:

All of which brings me to the point: pace Sullivan, et al., it is my contention that the hyperbolic and emotionally-charged coverage of Katrina is responsible for amplifying problems with the federal response, problems that are not nearly so severe as partisans looking to score political points (and having taken their cues from faulty, myopic, and uninformed reportage) make them out to be. Cleanup and rescue is proceeding much quicker than expected; like relief and rescue workers, the Army Corp of Engineers has overcome tremendous obstacles to fix the several levee breaches, using the kind of improvised ingenuity that is their hallmark; the death toll is far below the original estimates; and so on.

But what is the message our enemy in the war on terror has received? What should happen in the event they attack a city?

Panic. Divisiveness. Unpreparedness. Finger pointing —the very things that Andrew helpfully points out are likely to embolden them. That is, their perception of the situation the ground in New Orleans—which, it’s turning out, is far less dire than was reported—is what is of interest to those who wish to attack us, and they now likely believe that such a strike will lead to widescale civil breakdown and panic, not to the kind of careful and competent response we saw in MS and AL, and that we’re now beginning to see, after the hitch caused by local unpreparedness and a poor management of their city and regional plans for evacuation and first response, in LA as well.

Someone pass this man a cigar.

Seriously.

Two New-to-Me Blogs

There are two new blogs that you'll see over the right side-bar that I want to highlight:

The first is Security Watchtower. They have a lot of security/defense posts that contain a lot of data. This site here is mostly narrative, and I have a hard time finding sites that summarize good data. For example, if you look two posts below, you'll see the nifty graphic showing the "Most Wanted List in Saudi Arabia." This site contains copious amounts of data, along with lots of other cool graphics. It is a must if you are into Security/Defense issues.

Plus one of the authors, Mixed Humor, is a Mets fan. That's grounds for immediate recognition at Tenfingers6Strings.

Second blog: Stackable Bards. This is a another group blog that my blog buddy Jayne Doodles is a part of (Well, not that she let me know or anything ::::hurrumph!:::). I found them while vainly searching to see if I was getting any links at Technorati. Thanks for the link guys!

Anyway, there are a some folks posting over there that have been on Jayne's blogroll that I haven't had a chance to get to yet. I'm looking forward to hitting that site regularly.

Go and say hello.

Stuff

Sporadic to light posting likely until next Monday. I'm working feaverishly to prepare for being the best man at my buddy's wedding this weekend in Wisconsin. I'm taking my laptop with me, mostly to finish work, but I might get a chance to drop a line here and there.

Most likely I will try to hone my picking-up-chicks-at-weddings skills. I'm out of practice, as my good friend Kyle at From the Still can attest from the nightmare I caused all the bridesmaids at his wedding.

Kyle gave me some good advice. He said, "From one bourbon drinker to another, it is not good to get a woman to like you by getting her drunk....unless of course she was in a sorority. Then you're cool. But under no circumstances should you ever do that impression of David Lee Roth again."

Anyway, I find it odd that this summer I have had to escape to Canada and Wisconsin for better weather than San Francisco.

I should quit my bitchin' as my cousin just emailed to haze me about going up to Calistoga on Sunday for some pool time and a massage, while he is toiling away working for "The Man."

Luck or Preparation

Much to my dismay, I haven't linked to Marc Schulman in a while. Marc has a really good September 11th post here. Marc has been another indefatigable blogger, committed to providing sound analysis and a consistent narrative about what is going right with this war.

On a critical note to the lack of preparation at all levels in Gulf Region, I do share Marc's fear:

That’s what scares me now. Here we are on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 and no lives have been lost on American soil to terrorism since that day. Is this happy circumstance attributable to preparation or luck? No one can know for sure, but prior to August 29, I would have given the nod to preparation. Now, I give it to luck.

I share his fear, but I don't know if I take it as far, yet. I think there is a little of both preparation and luck involved. Luck always comes into play, and as I've explained earlier, you can set your strategy on a course to "create" your own luck. Geo-politics and international wars have far too many variables that can be controlled by even a super-power state-actor, and it is even more fluid with democratic countries, but aligning your strategy in the proper direction can cause particular elements to start "falling your way." This does not mean that set-backs and changes that break in the favor of your enemy will not occur.

The essential question now is this: how much do we owe the lack of terrorist attacks since September 11th to preparation versus luck? This is a very difficult question to answer with the subject matter being convoluted by the thinking of our a significant portion of our citizens that continually seeks a homerun solution (instant gratification) and the quantity of hyperbole that is being passed off as "analysis."

Our homeland has many vulnerabilities, and Marc pointed out a big one. What was keeping a well timed terrorist operation aimed at blowing up the levies in New Orleans? This attack could have dwarfed the death and mayhem that we saw in the aftermath of Katrina.

Well, the view of the administration after September 11th was that we would always be vulnerable to attack, and the only way that we can prevent future attacks is to take the fight to them. Sitting back in a defensive posture in a country which, rightfully, protects individual rights is playing to our weaknesses and to al-Qaeda's strengths.

Al-Qaeda has been shifting resources to fighting in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This does not mean that there aren't operations planned for attacks in the U.S., it just means that a large portion of their resources has been diverted towards fighting in their back yard. Not only have they been diverted, they've been baited into a fight that plays to our strengths (all-out military engagement).

The Saudi wild-card, I think, has been one of the most interesting components to this strategy. The House of Saud supported and fed al-Qaeda for years. After September 11th, we pleaded with the Saudis to cut off and actively resist them. Self-preservation combined with greed and a warped ideology led the House of Saud to balk. However, in the aftermath of the invasion in Iraq, al-Qaeda tried to force the House of Saud's hand against us. In typical al-Qaeda fashion, they tried to "move" the Saud's through bombings and murder. The result of their strategy so far has been this:

All but seven of the top al-Qaeda's most wanted in Saudi Arabia have been killed or captured. Even though I wouldn't trust the Sauds with much, they are clearly fighting back, and doing quite well, in opposition to al-Qaeda. This is an extremely important strategic development since the invasion of Iraq.

It is really hard to quantify all of this, but it is hard to argue that al-Qaeda's operations haven't been significantly interrupted by our strategy, with the help of some unlikely allies in the region.

This leads me to the fear that Marc has. Al-Qaeda doesn't need 100,000 troops with armored divisions to strike a blow against us. They are schrewd, intellegent, resourceful and extremely adept at using our weaknesses against us. My fear is that we citizens are dropping the ball, while al-Qaeda is still far from being rendered a facile organization. Bush hasn't exactly asked us to sacrifice much, but I think this is partly a deflection, as I don't think we'd be very willing to give up much.

Getting hit again is still a high probability, and I don't think there is much substative change that our leaders could pose in the meantime to make that much of a difference without the support of the majority of the population. Some would blame Bush for this rancor which has caused this division, but as someone who has lived in the Bay Area for over five years, the rancor was thick and deep way before the war. The aftermath of Katrina has revealed that most people, on both sides, would rather act like children than step-up, provide solutions and get things done.

So, Marc, we'll see how long our luck lasts.

September 11th - Yesterday

For those that have been around here for the last few months, you can pretty much count on light content at TF6S on the weekends. When I do post on the weekends, I usually write some long winded thing--the bulimic approach to blogging. Even though this Sunday was September 11th, I decided instead to take the weekend off. Saturday, I spent all day with some good friends watching college football, BBQing, getting into a reserve wine collection (yeah, that's how Californians do football), and generally screwing off.

Yesterday, I drove by myself from San Francisco to my getaway up in Calistoga, CA. I sat by the pool and wrote my toast to my friend who is getting married on Saturday. By the end of the day, I swam a few laps, got a massage and finished a book. Lounging by the pool is something I needed as I've been tasked to run the full-court press at work.

I spend all year trying to put September 11th into context on this site. For one day, I felt as if I didn't have to. This is the one day where I hope that people get some perspective in their lives and, even if they are completely opposed to our responses afterwards, will shut up for one day to allow us to morn the 3,000 people who were literally, not figuratively, murdered on that morning.

So, I walk into a gas station and read the first story on the front page of S.F. Chronicle and read this:

Four years ago this morning, the nation's priorities changed.

As rescuers tore through the rubble of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, President Bush vowed that fighting terrorism would be the central focus of his presidency.

The nation has twice gone to war; more than 2,000 American soldiers have died, and many more Iraqis and Afghans have been killed. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent; security barriers have been erected; air travel has become an ordeal; and Americans have adjusted to a new way of life.

And since the late summer of 2001, not a single terrorist has struck the United States.

Instead, on the fourth anniversary of the nation's worst terrorist attack, America is confronting an even deadlier calamity, brought on by Mother Nature.

Hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- are dead along the Gulf Coast. Billions of dollars will be spent rebuilding New Orleans and the surrounding area, and the Bush administration is preoccupied with another form of disaster.

The cruel irony has prompted some to question whether the country's obsession with terrorism has left it vulnerable to other disasters. Rather than credit the administration for staving off terrorist attacks, many believe that unreasonable fears borne from the Sept. 11 attacks drove the country, and its leaders, to overreact to the terrorist threat and divert precious resources from the near-certain catastrophes of nature.

Financier George Soros told 1,000 participants in a Washington terrorism conference last week that the so-called war on terrorism has "done more harm than good. ... It has diverted our attention from other vital" missions.

Even those who remain exceedingly worried about terrorism found reason for concern after watching the response to Hurricane Katrina, which -- unlike a terrorist attack -- came with a few days' warning.

"This provides vivid insights into what (a terrorist) situation might be like," said retired Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "It makes me even tenfold more worried -- if that's possible -- than I was before."

Much has been written about the lasting legacy of Sept. 11 as it relates to the nation's foreign policy, politics and psyche. But the timing of Hurricane Katrina has also prompted a conversation about the cost of focusing on terror.

"This terrorism paranoia has (created) unbalanced priorities," said Ben Wisner, an adviser to the United Nations on disaster risk, and a visiting professor at Oberlin College in Ohio.

"People have been taught like Pavlov's dogs; when the terrorism bell rings ... people salivate. They become hyper-aware of it to the extent that they don't pay attention to other risks," Wisner said.

"We live in a continent with very severe winters, hot summer, volcanoes, coastline, hurricanes, earthquake. ... The fact is these natural hazards affect people every year and in the aggregate kill a lot of people. We have to be concerned with the big picture."

For the past four years, terrorism has been the big picture in Washington. The administration's focus on war and terror was evident as Katrina blew through the Gulf Coast. The day the storm devastated New Orleans, Bush left his vacation home in Texas and flew to California, where he delivered a speech on the war in Iraq.

So, from this I can gather that those who have decided to do something about the threat caused by people who fly airplanes into buildings packed with civilians minding their own business, is nothing more than Pavlovian response. No where in this story is the mention of an organization who openly declared war on us in 1996. Al-Qaeda is mentioned exactly zero times and it's our (the terror fighting group) priorities which are unbalanced.

While the Left continually wanders aimlessly throughout the world in search for the allusive Utopia continually denied to them by George Bush and the Republicans, I wax nauseous on these words by Mark Steyn:

the fourth anniversary of the start of the war. That is, if you believe it's a ''war'' A lot of people didn't want to, even in those first days.

...It wasn't a "tragic event" or even one of a series of unfortunate events. It was an "attack," an "act of war." I sat at the lunch counter with a guy who'd tuned out the same station on the grounds that "I never heard my grampa talk about 'the tragedy of Pearl Harbor.' " But, consciously or otherwise, a serious effort was under way to transform the nature of the event, to soften it into a touchy-feely, huggy-weepy one-off. As I wrote last year: "The president believes there's a war on. The Dems think 9/11 is like the 1998 ice storm or a Florida hurricane -- just one of those things."

I didn't know the half of it. If an act of war is like a hurricane -- freak of nature, get over it -- it's evidently no great leap to believe that a hurricane is an act of war. Katrina was thus "allowed" to happen because Bush "hates black people." The Army Corps of Engineers was instructed to blow up New Orleans' 17th Street levee so that the flood would kill the poor people rather than destroy the valuable tourist real estate.

Whatever. As part of their ongoing post-9/11 convergence, the left now talks about Bush the way the wackier Islamists talk about Jews...

...On this fourth anniversary we are in a bizarre situation: The war is being won -- in Afghanistan, Iraq, the broader Middle East and many other places where America has changed the conditions on the ground in its favor. But at home the war about the war is being lost.

I'm almost at the point of resignation that America can expect another hit in the mouth ala September 11th. Our enemies were dead right when they assumed that we would be too deluded in our self-loathing to continue with this fight. Seemingly intellegent people have gone off the deep-end, and write articles about September 11th that quote elitist U.N. officials (who apparently subscribe to the behaviorist school of psychology) that don't even mention the murderers, who are part of a well financed organization, and have plans to do it again...and again. We're beating them badly, but they are still out there waiting for us to pick-up our ball and go home short of our goal.

Then, they'll regroup and strike again. The Left, along with a significant portion of the far right, regardless of intentions, are trying to get us to stand down. We cannot let this happen.

Marines Still in Control of Qaim

Someone let the knee-jerk reactionaries know what the Marines think about the report of al-Qaeda holding the Iraqi border town of Qaim. The invaluable Bill Roggio does some follow-up here:

The Washington Post had this story right when they referred to al Qaeda’s declaration as a show of force, yet proceeded to project an image of al Qaeda strength and command of the city. Perhaps they should have crosschecked the statements of their unidentified sources in Qaim with the battalion of U.S. Marines currently stationed there.

Since Bill scooped the story, read his whole post. The short of it: al-Qaeda, while is still engaging and fighting hard in the region, are not anywhere close to "capturing" and "holding" Qaim (where a battalion of Marines are firmly planted).

I commented on this story here. I felt that a scenario where al-Qaeda not only came out and captured a town, but also publically asserted itself in the aftermath, belied their strengths:

Al-Qaeda's strength relies on it's unpredictability and the ability to operate as a losely connected movement under the radar. Al-Qaeda is better at playing the role of bombing soft-targets and slipping back into the populace. Not only are they good at spreading terror, they are masterful at frustrating a superior enemy. While America desires a moment where all of al-Qaeda comes together to fight the Americans in an all-out fight, al-Qaeda normally disintegrates, retreats and regroups away from the scene.

So far, each time al-Qaeda decided to make a stand against U.S. forces, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, they have been severely routed. These situations were always a test of America's will. For example, they turned Fallujah into a safe haven, because, just as they believed before September 11th, America would be too averse to casualties to follow through. Even though they expected America to attack, they believed that the bloody images and scenes of death on CNN would cause an uproar at home, thus causing the leadership to fall short.

Quite naturally, this story baited the doomsayers. Al-Qaeda is quite adept at information warfare, and this latest tactic could very likely have been deliberate. Their goal is to make us believe that despite our modern army, superior resources and past successes, we cannot contain or beat this allusive and schrewd enemy. They want American perception to reflect despair and defeat. Although these adjectives describing al-Qaeda are correct, the conclusion that we cannot beat them is wrong.

For a better picture and a more accurate perspective on how we are going about defeating the insurgency in Western Iraq (our strategy and how it is playing out), read Bill Roggio's posts here here here and here.

Images of October

Two images for my new blog friend, and Red Sox supporter, Colossus from this Mets supported site, because let's face it, pictures are better than words because some words are big and hard to understand *:

Yushchenko Fires Cabinet

I haven't had time to really dig into this, but Viktor Yushchenko just fired his cabinet:

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday sacked his cabinet and appointed a loyal and moderate ally to take over as prime minister from the populist Yulia Tymoshenko, after accusing her of engaging in divisive conflicts with other members of his political team.

Mr Yushchenko said Ms Tymoshenko and his national security chief, Petro Poroshenko, who had earlier resigned, had "lost their team spirit and trust" and had forced him to play the role of arbiter between competing institutions within his own administration.

Yushchenko promised that his main focus would be on stamping out corruption from the Soviet-era bureaucrats that have infected the Ukrainian government for decades. Prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was a prominant figurehead in the Orange Revolution and definitely turned a few heads with her firey oratory and youthful appearance.

My first impression is that it looks like this was more about Yushchenko being fed up with being dragged into a baby sitter role over a couple of subordinates that refuse to work with each other than about corruption. Neither Tymoshenko or Poroshenko were elected, so Yushchenko was well within his rights to can a couple of bickering teammates, even though it seemed that Tymoshenko was a genuine reformist who wanted to clean house. Her first project was reprivatizing many of the corrupt industrial assets that were handed to some boys tight with the previous regime.

Before being sacked, Tymoshenko was listed by Forbes as the 3rd most powerful woman in the world.

Some Lights Back on in New Orleans

Some of the lights are back on in New Orleans. This is only trival in comparison to the many horrific scenes we've seen in the last few days, but it does give us a bit of insight into the nature of "making things right."

Making things right in the case is going to be a long, arduous process of pumping out water, restoring order, and picking up everything that is broken. There is not going to be a sudden moment when all the news cameras come in and see everything fixed--quite the contrary, I expect them to be in full force for the next few months criticzing every relief and clean-up effort taking place as not being good enough. It will take little wins like this one (restoring some power) compounded with a lot of other little wins in the future to make things right again.

I'm sure there will be a blog like Arthur Chrenkoff's that will emerge to serve the purpose of gathering the back page news items which give a more accurate picture of the clean-up than doom, gloom, incompetence and failure (it won't be this one, as I don't have the time, nor the gumption, to sift through all the media rabble). It doesn't take a very insightful person to point out how much everything sucks. It does, however, take a particularly keen, an observant person with a little integrity to look through it all and point out where we can hope while others despair.

Anyway, here is an image of one small win: the lights are partially on in downtown New Orleans.

UPDATE: In the comments section, my "Michigan Cousin" tells how Detroit Edison is making a contribution to the above picture:

You'll be glad to know that you are remotely related to one of the workers who is putting those lights back on. Detroit Edison sent a crew of 70 to help out, and they are thrilled to be there physically contributing. They have already gone beyond the call, putting out their own money to purchase much-needed items for those suffering through this.

I'm sure there are an awful lot of businesses working with the relief organizations to make significant contributions like this one. If anyone knows of any others, feel free to share.

Go read Ian's Idle Brains now.

Sully Advisory - Red-Lining (Filed Under: Who Gives a Crap?)

Is there a name for someone who is so past being relevant, that they have already dried off and drove home from the trip to ocean to "Jump the Shark?"

Well, some good folks, like Ace, still have the "Andrew Sullivan Freak-out Advisory" up and I noticed that it is red-lining at "Filled with Heart-ache at Such Gobsmacking Vileness." Even though I hate cats, I share the common trait of getting my nose into stuff that all facts are telling me not to go near. Oh boy, did I put my nose in it.

Andrew Sullivan is indeed red-lining. If it wasn't for those putrid colors of white on navy accosting me as I clicked on his site, I would have thought that I came across the blog written at the emotional level of a first grader who had their favorite TV show shut off by their parents in the middle of Teletubies. The proposed Federal Marriage Ammendment did to Andrew's intellect what Hurricane Katrina did to the Gulf, except it's been a long time past that anyone gave a crap about saving him.

He jumped the shark, and that was an awful long time ago.

Al-Qaeda Sticks It's Head Out

In Iraq, it looks like al-Qaeda is asserting itself in ways that bely their strengths:

Fighters loyal to militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi asserted control over the key Iraqi border town of Qaim on Monday, killing U.S. collaborators and enforcing strict Islamic law, according to tribal members, officials, residents and others in the town and nearby villages.

Residents said the foreign-led fighters controlled by Zarqawi, a Jordanian, apparently had been exerting authority in the town, within two miles of the Syrian border, since at least the start of the weekend. A sign posted at an entrance to the town declared, "Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Qaim."

Al-Qaeda's strength relies on it's unpredictability and the ability to operate as a losely connected movement under the radar. Al-Qaeda is better at playing the role of bombing soft-targets and slipping back into the populace. Not only are they good at spreading terror, they are masterful at frustrating a supierior enemy. While America desires a moment where all of al-Qaeda comes together to fight the Americans in an all-out fight, al-Qaeda normally disintegrates, retreats and regroups away from the scene.

So far, each time al-Qaeda decided to make a stand against U.S. forces, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, they have been severely routed. These situations were always a test of America's will. For example, they turned Fallujah into a safe haven, because, just as they believed before September 11th, America would be too averse to casualties to follow through. Even though they expected America to attack, they believed that the bloody images and scenes of death on CNN would cause an uproar at home, thus causing the leadership to fall short.

They were wrong about Fallujah. The Marine-led offensive into the city routed al-Qaeda. Much of the leadership escaped before the offensive began, however those who remained were destroyed.

Most commentary outside of Iraq doesn't realize that al-Qaeda has no support within Iraq, but that much of the mixed signal coming from Iraqis has to do with the fact that they are still extremely fearful of them. Al-Qaeda is ruthless and promises brutalilty and death to anyone who won't support them. As long as it looks like America will waiver in it's support, the locals either offer "support" for al-Qaeda, or passivity. This is purely for survival.

However, with the offensive in Western Iraq that is still on-going, the local population is starting to believe that American forces are going to support them through this war. Prior to our operations there, it was unheard of to hear quotes from tribal leaders (especially Sunnis) like this:

Zarqawi's fighters have shot and killed nine men in public executions in the city center since the start of the weekend, accusing the men of being collaborators with U.S. forces, said Sheik Nawaf Mahallawi, a leader of the Albu Mahal, a Sunni Arab tribe that had clashed earlier with the foreign fighters.

Dozens of families were fleeing Qaim every day, Mahallawi said.

For local fighters now, "it would be insane to attack Zarqawi's people, even to shoot one bullet at them," the tribal leader said. "We hope the U.S. forces end this in the coming days. We want the city to go back to its normal situation."

The local Sunni fighters are incapable of matching al-Qaeda's sophistication and would be routed without U.S. support. Mahallawi knows that if the U.S. doesn't come to his rescue, he and his supporters are as good as dead.

Al-Qaeda has chosen to make their stand in Qaim to accomplish either of the following: to test America's will, if we back down, you can be sure the tribal leaders will be less likely to support us in any future endeavors. Or they will take the city over, spread terror, then dissolve away and retreat without being destroyed. They are testing America's capabilities and want the local population to know that America is incapable of protecting them from death. Either way, al-Qaeda feels like they gain.

Unfortunately, that is a pretty dangerous supposition. The squeeze is on, and al-Qaeda, not America is running against the clock. Unless they can get us to back down, we will squeeze them out very slowly. Don't look for any crescendos in this fight. We can only pick them away one at a time, but al-Qaeda is strategically losing. Their Muslim brethern have turned against them in force, it is now up to us to lead the way to finishing the job.

There is only one thing for us to do and the late Jimmy Valvano said it perfectly: "Don't Give Up...Don't Ever Give Up!"

UPDATE: Stephen Green picks up the same story and offers a broader solution.

Defending Clinton

My last few posts defended the current President from fallacious attacks from the Left. Being an equal opportunitist when it comes to cutting through hyperbole, I want to defend our previous President from the same. Bill Quick takes a jab at Clinton as him and Bush Sr. announce a relief fund for Hurrican Katrina victims:

I am so sick and tired of GHWB providing ethical cover and legitimacy to this lying, perjurious scumbag (Clinton). He should be shunned by decent people. No, the end does not justify the means.

With all the shameful, partisan vitriol we've seen in the last few days, two ex-Presidents from opposing parties get together in a show of genuine cooperation to announce a measure that will help the relief cause, and there are still some that cannot resist taking pot shots.

I personally don't have any rancor towards Mr. Clinton and am rather glad that, unlike the borderline treasonous actions of another ex-President, Jimmy Carter, I'm happy that he is trying to do something positive to help.

I'm not here to defend the morality of the man (I could care less), but punditry like this can be accurately labeled from a skit a few years ago called, "Who's More Grizzled?" on Saturday Night Live featuring Robert Duvall and Garth Brooks. A final question asked to these two working class guys in flannel shirts, spitting tobacco, "What are you thoughts on immigrant labor?"

Garth Brooks: "Well, if you have a good back, we could use you."

Robert Duvall: "The day I set foot on that beach in Normandy, I never wished more that there was a god in heaven, and I was never more certain that they wasn't."

Garth Brooks: "Damn...you are grizzled..."

Malaise? Hardly

We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.

David Brooks editorializes in the NY times today on how he views today's America--and its rather grim. It is a view where people have lost confidence in their leadership, and he lists a myriad of reasons, after mentioning Katrina, why this is so:

Over the past few years, we have seen intelligence failures in the inability to prevent Sept. 11 and find W.M.D.'s in Iraq. We have seen incompetent postwar planning. We have seen the collapse of Enron and corruption scandals on Wall Street. We have seen scandals at our leading magazines and newspapers, steroids in baseball, the horror of Abu Ghraib.

Public confidence has been shaken too by the steady rain of suicide bombings, the grisly horror of Beslan and the world's inability to do anything about rising oil prices.

Each institutional failure and sign of helplessness is another blow to national morale. The sour mood builds on itself, the outraged and defensive reaction to one event serving as the emotional groundwork for the next.

America, for good or for bad, was never the same after September 11th. That was the day that we became vulnerable. The public began asking questions, and our voyeuristic media, watched and recorded how we "felt." Brooks refrains in his editorial from mentioning a few events. Being that we are not the hopeless type, a little more than one month after 9-11, the United States and a coalition of allies masterfully executed the destruction of al-Qaeda's sanctuary, removed the Taliban from power, and paved the way for the first free democratic elections in the dark history of that country. Afghanistan is now an ally in the GWOT and we accomplished it in less than 3 years.

The media has been rather silent on the issue.

Attention drifted back to Iraq, who we were still at war with. Saddam Hussein was shooting at us and laughing at the U.N. for 10 years since the cease-fire to end Desert Storm. Strong debate over what to do about this meglomaniacal dictator in light of 9-11 polarized not only this country, but the world. At one point and time, everyone made the decision to support this, or not. Some felt that we were becoming too paranoid and that our fear was unfounded, while others urged a stronger approach.

The limitations of international organizations came to the forefront as a Cold-War institution, the U.N., wasn't able to resolve this issue without war. Either Saddam kept giving us the finger, or we'd go in there and clock him. Apparently Congress agreed, as they gave the President the authority to use force in order to get Saddam to comply with the dozen U.N. resolutions he was violating. Bush, in April of 2003, risked his whole presidency on that fact, ignored his critics, and gave the order for a mission that had no precident. At ever turn, America would have to improvise, learn from mistakes and literally write the book on counterinsurgency.

Saddam Hussein was no idiot. He had a lot of money, and after watching years of CNN, understood that for America to be defeated, she would have to be defeated at the polls. Tommy Franks engineered a lightening strike against Iraq that had the American coalition occupying the entire country in less than a month. Even though Saddam's army was humiliated again, they weren't all dead. They went underground, had stores of munitions and lots of cash. From here they would begin the ball rolling on an insurgency that was incapable of defeating the Americans on the battlefield, but focused on ripping her apart at home.

In summer and fall of 1944, the Allies were cruising through Europe and the Germans were being beating back. The Third Army, commanded by Patton, was moving so quickly, his tanks were running out of gas before the supply lines could catch up; the Allies thought they would be home before Christmas.

On December 16th, Hitler would remind them all that the enemy always gets a say in the course of events, and counterattacked with over 500,000 men. It was an intellegence failure of epic porportions. Germany was able to move 500,000 men into a concentrated spot within smelling distance of the American front lines, and acheived complete surprise.

Needless to say, the war would not be over. Hilter was desperate, and some would argue still in a position where he couldn't win the war, but he struck back and hit hard. Instead of recriminations, Eisenhower accepted responsibility, and ordered Patton north to hit the Germans. Many good men had to die due to this last-ditch effort, but it was not needless. It was a point where the Allies picked themselves off the ground, and tenaciously fought back to hold off the German advance. It would be at least another year, but V E Day couldn't of happened if we turn and ran when the supposedly "defeated" German Army staged their last stand.

Today, 50% of the people in this country continue to view Iraq through the prism of Bush. The Democratic leadership, instead of seeing the conflict in Iraq as a conflict between freedom and repression, have decided that they too are unable to see this without looking through the same prism. They hate him with such a passion, that they are unable to understand from recent history that war is not about avoiding mistakes, it is about moving on from them when they do occur. Watching the frothing of the mouth that has come from them as they try and assign blame to each piece of bad news, first made me shake my head in disbelief. Vapid arguments like Fahrenheit 9-11 were laughable in their silliness.

I agree, David, that people are mad as hell. I'm one of them. I'm sick and pissed off at the utter insanity that is spewing from half this country when we are in the middle of a war. It is a war in which we have utterly destroyed the enemy in every major engagement, and one where al-Qaeda and fundamentalist Islam has began to loose support amongst the majority of Iraqis.

Is this fight over? No-freaking-way. Civil War there is a real possibility, but for the first time, leaders in that country are saying things like, "Let's use the political process to solve our differences." Can you tell me of a case where someone in an Arab country made such a suggestion in the last century?

Anyone? Bueller?

Brooks mentions Enron as well