While speaking with a friend of mine earlier this week, this was a question posed to me..."Have you ever thought the substance out of something?" After thinking about it, I decided I had done that before, given that my brain doesn't seem to shut down or idle all that much, especially re: things that are important to me. I told my buddy that that was so good, I had to write it down, and that if I ever used it in a book, I'd give him proper credit. After all, it sounds like a fine opening line for a book, in the finest "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" tradition.
After some more thought, I've figured out exactly what he meant by that question. Too much thought is akin to using a chainsaw on a dandelion in the yard...overkill at its worst. It's a good thing to take a hard look at things from every perspective you can find, hopefully finding angles you never saw before in the process. The problem comes when you take something apart and put it back together so many times that it bears no resemblance to what it was when you started thinking about it, nor is it necessarily grounded in reality any longer.
Worse yet, I saw a Tom and Jerry cartoon once where Tom had broken the same vase several times trying to catch the mouse, and the last time it fell, instead of breaking into pieces, it turned into a fine powder and blew away in the breeze. With excessive overanalysis, that's the risk you run...outthinking yourself and reality, thereby messing things up one too many times and having it blow away and out of your life forever.
The moral of the story, kids: it's fine to think deeply about things, but when your thoughts quit making sense and don't resemble reality anymore (like a weightlifter who lifts too much and now has no neck needs to put the weights down and step away from the gym), trust God, do the best you can with what you have, and follow your heart and gut...I think that's all any of us can really do.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
James Baker is the 2006 Version of Neville Chamberlain
Andy McCarthy from National Review lays quick waste to the idiocy being spewed by the Baker Study Group (yes, that would be the same James Baker who advised leaving Saddam in power in '91, among other ridiculously bad choices and egregious failures as a "diplomat"), namely "talking" to our enemies. Until we realize that the terror masters in Iran, Syria, and most of the rest of the Arab world are bent on the destruction of America, the West, and our way of life because they think their God commands it, we are affirmatively making the choice to be ignorant of reality at our own extreme peril. Read the whole thing (all emphasis mine), and realize that Neville Chamberlain in another name and another time is still Neville Chamberlain, only the consequences could be unimaginably worse when chemical and nuclear weapons become involved in what already is a clash of civilization versus barbarism (even if no one in power will say so).
"In the wake of 9/11, the American people did not care about democratizing the Muslim world, or, for that matter, about the Muslim world in general. They still don't. They want Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors crushed. As for the aftermath, they want something stable that no longer threatens our interests; they care not a wit whether Baghdad's new government looks like Teaneck's. To the contrary, Bush-administration officials — notwithstanding goo-gobs of evidence that terrorists have used the freedoms of Western democracies, including our own, the better to plot mass murder — have conned themselves into believing that democracy, not decisive force, is the key to conquering this enemy.
Islamic countries, moreover, are not rejecting Western democracy because they haven't experienced it. They reject it on principle. For them, the president's euphonious rhetoric about democratic empowerment is offensive. They believe, sincerely, that authority to rule comes not from the people but from Allah; that there is no separation of religion and politics; that free people do not have authority to legislate contrary to Islamic law; that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims, and men to women; and that violent jihad is a duty whenever Muslims deem themselves under attack, no matter how speciously.
These people are not morons. They adhere to a highly developed belief system that is centuries old, wildly successful, and for which many are willing to die. They haven't refused to democratize because the Federalist Papers are not yet out in Arabic. They decline because their leaders have freely chosen to decline. They see us as the mortal enemy of the life they believe Allah commands. Their demurral is wrong, but it is principled, not ignorant, and we insult them by suggesting otherwise. ...
So now comes James Baker's Iraq Study Group, riding in on its bipartisan white horse to save the day. The democracy project having failed, this blue-ribbon panel's solution is: Let's talk.
Let's talk with our enemies, Iran and Syria. Let's talk with terror abettors as if they were good guys — just like us...as if they were just concerned neighbors trying to stop the bloodshed in Iraq, instead of the dons who've been commanding it all along. Someone, please explain something to me: How does it follow that, because Islamic cultures reject democracy, we somehow need to talk to Iran and Syria? What earthly logic that supports talking with these Islamic terrorists would not also support negotiating with al Qaeda — a demarche not even a Kennedy School grad would dare propose? There's none. ...
Sitting down with evil legitimizes evil. As a practical matter, all it accomplishes is to convey weakness. This spring — after trumpeting the Bush Doctrine's "you're with us or you're with the terrorists" slogan for five years — Secretary of State Rice pathetically sought to bribe Iran out of its nuclear program with a menu of all carrots and no sticks, and certainly no demand that the mullahs stop fomenting terror. The result? They're still laughing at us, even as they build their bombs, harbor al Qaeda operatives, and arm the militias killing American soldiers in Iraq. ...
For our own sake, we need to respect the enemy. That means grasping that he's implacable, that he means us only harm, and that he must be subdued, not appeased. Negotiating with such evil is always a mistake, for any accommodation with evil is, by definition, evil."
"In the wake of 9/11, the American people did not care about democratizing the Muslim world, or, for that matter, about the Muslim world in general. They still don't. They want Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors crushed. As for the aftermath, they want something stable that no longer threatens our interests; they care not a wit whether Baghdad's new government looks like Teaneck's. To the contrary, Bush-administration officials — notwithstanding goo-gobs of evidence that terrorists have used the freedoms of Western democracies, including our own, the better to plot mass murder — have conned themselves into believing that democracy, not decisive force, is the key to conquering this enemy.
Islamic countries, moreover, are not rejecting Western democracy because they haven't experienced it. They reject it on principle. For them, the president's euphonious rhetoric about democratic empowerment is offensive. They believe, sincerely, that authority to rule comes not from the people but from Allah; that there is no separation of religion and politics; that free people do not have authority to legislate contrary to Islamic law; that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims, and men to women; and that violent jihad is a duty whenever Muslims deem themselves under attack, no matter how speciously.
These people are not morons. They adhere to a highly developed belief system that is centuries old, wildly successful, and for which many are willing to die. They haven't refused to democratize because the Federalist Papers are not yet out in Arabic. They decline because their leaders have freely chosen to decline. They see us as the mortal enemy of the life they believe Allah commands. Their demurral is wrong, but it is principled, not ignorant, and we insult them by suggesting otherwise. ...
So now comes James Baker's Iraq Study Group, riding in on its bipartisan white horse to save the day. The democracy project having failed, this blue-ribbon panel's solution is: Let's talk.
Let's talk with our enemies, Iran and Syria. Let's talk with terror abettors as if they were good guys — just like us...as if they were just concerned neighbors trying to stop the bloodshed in Iraq, instead of the dons who've been commanding it all along. Someone, please explain something to me: How does it follow that, because Islamic cultures reject democracy, we somehow need to talk to Iran and Syria? What earthly logic that supports talking with these Islamic terrorists would not also support negotiating with al Qaeda — a demarche not even a Kennedy School grad would dare propose? There's none. ...
Sitting down with evil legitimizes evil. As a practical matter, all it accomplishes is to convey weakness. This spring — after trumpeting the Bush Doctrine's "you're with us or you're with the terrorists" slogan for five years — Secretary of State Rice pathetically sought to bribe Iran out of its nuclear program with a menu of all carrots and no sticks, and certainly no demand that the mullahs stop fomenting terror. The result? They're still laughing at us, even as they build their bombs, harbor al Qaeda operatives, and arm the militias killing American soldiers in Iraq. ...
For our own sake, we need to respect the enemy. That means grasping that he's implacable, that he means us only harm, and that he must be subdued, not appeased. Negotiating with such evil is always a mistake, for any accommodation with evil is, by definition, evil."
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
A Blogging Lawyer Mercilessly Mocks the O.J. "Book"
If the O.J. "hypothetical" book re: the murders he committed but got away with situation occurred in the legal world, the Anonymous Lawyer muses aloud what it might sound like...simply hilarious. :)
"I've been busy for the past few days finishing up a proposal for a non-fiction book I'm hoping to write. It's about a pair of associates the firm hired a few years back. They started out promising, but we soon realized they couldn't handle the workload and they ended up tragically collapsing in a conference room. It was 3 A.M., and even though normally the firm would still be pretty busy at that hour, it was Christmas Eve, they were the only ones left on their side of the hallway, no one heard anything, and we weren't able to get them medical attention until two days later. So they died. I've long maintained that the firm was not at fault, despite what their families think. But I figured it was finally time to set the record straight in print, so I've put together my proposal for the book: "If We Killed Them, Here's What Their Billable Records Would Look Like." Judith Regan has shown some interest. I expect it to be a pretty quick sale on the open market, and I can probably squirrel the money away somewhere so the families can't collect on the civil judgment they earned a few years back."
"I've been busy for the past few days finishing up a proposal for a non-fiction book I'm hoping to write. It's about a pair of associates the firm hired a few years back. They started out promising, but we soon realized they couldn't handle the workload and they ended up tragically collapsing in a conference room. It was 3 A.M., and even though normally the firm would still be pretty busy at that hour, it was Christmas Eve, they were the only ones left on their side of the hallway, no one heard anything, and we weren't able to get them medical attention until two days later. So they died. I've long maintained that the firm was not at fault, despite what their families think. But I figured it was finally time to set the record straight in print, so I've put together my proposal for the book: "If We Killed Them, Here's What Their Billable Records Would Look Like." Judith Regan has shown some interest. I expect it to be a pretty quick sale on the open market, and I can probably squirrel the money away somewhere so the families can't collect on the civil judgment they earned a few years back."
Monday, November 27, 2006
The Divergence of Lives and Thinning of the Herd
Rob from Robservations relates his experience of growing in his personal and professional lives, and in the process, he outgrows people that he was once close to. I can certainly identify with his experience in substance, although not on the same scale. Rob has seen and experienced many things in his life that I would very much like to experience one day. I am a young enough man to believe that some of these things will happen, yet old enough to know that some of them won't.
Rob's main question is whether having goals, dreams, and ambitions inevitably leads to solitude. I think the answer to that question is no, but I do believe that it leads to a serious thinning of the herd, if you will. I've known quite a few people from high school, college, and even law school, who were content to live out their lives in one place (often the place they grew up in). This is by no means a bad thing, and if it makes them happy, that's what they should do. I was re-introduced to this phenomenon firsthand when I went to my high school's class of 1996 reunion with a friend (I graduated in '97). Many of the people I knew from that class have never left the area, and some of them have never even left the county or the town. They have their lives there, their inner circle, their consistency, and it works for them. Like Rob and Nikki, however, that would not work for me, and I know this. I don't think that being a wandering nomad is the key to happiness, but I also feel that limiting the experience of life to something small, narrow, and myopic would make me very unhappy. While I certainly would like any kids I have in the future to have some roots during childhood, I'd also like them to have some vision, some culture, and for them to at least have a taste of the many great and wonderful things the world has to offer.
As I've become a professional, started experiencing more things in life and meeting more people, I will definitely say that the herd of people to whom I am very close has thinned substantially. Interestingly, the people who have remained are not necessarily the ones who are living geographically close to me. Rather, it's people with the same vision and desires as me, the same zeal with which they pursue their dreams, and the same hunger to experience life in general...those are the ones who are closest to my heart. I'm not sorry to have met the people who have come through my life who don't share my same vision as laid out here...in fact, I thank God for them because they have been part of the rich tapestry of my life in that they have helped provide me a context and contrast to my own perspective of how to experience my life to the fullest. In closing, I once told someone re: romantic relationships that, "Opposites may attract, but similars stay together." Personal growth, differing viewpoints, and divergent lives do not lead to solitude, only to a smaller, more intimate inner circle.
Growing Pains
"There are times where I look at the people around me and truly envy them. I envy them for their positions in life… their views of the world… their satisfaction with their own little well-established circles. You see, no matter how much I try, no matter how much I smile, flirt, laugh, joke, whatever…no matter what…I will never be in that circle. I've seen too much. Experienced too much. Tried too much.
I've sat on the Great Wall of China. Stared across the fjords of Norway. Walked the bridge into Gamla-stan. Looked up at the beautiful ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. I've smelled the polluted waters of Indonesia and enjoyed immensely the simplest of meals in the Philippines. I've drank beer and watched rugby in Australia, danced the samba in Brazil. I've wept tears away from my eyes at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and felt the winds whip across my cheeks at Normandy. I've sipped coffee in Paris, sipped chianti in Sicily, sipped ouzo in Istanbul, shot vodka in Moscow, and sipped sake in Tokyo. I've seen the barber shops in Seoul, the majesty of Taipei 101, and watched the rain whip across the palace gates in London.
Trust me, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've experienced a lot that this world has to offer, and like a greedy little child, the more I experience, the more I want to experience...but that's not the ambitions of those around me.
I come back from my jaunts and it is the same stories, the same relationships, the same spats, the same jokes. There is a comfort there for me, but tonight a good friend of mine saw this same circle of friends through my eyes, and it pained me for her to do so. She'll never see them the same.
I've mentioned on my blog here a good friend of mine, Nikki, several times before. She's a good girl… a medical student that has paid her way through college and saved enough for medical school by stripping when her Dad died of cancer as she was finishing high school. She's now in her second year and doing extremely well, but she's growing…she's starting to hang out with her med school class more and more. She has more in common with them. I understand this, but it has an interesting affect on our mutual friends. Just like I was never fully accepted into the core circle, she's been ostracized from it. She has stories that don't involve them…she has experiences that have nothing to do with their outlook on life. Now, like me…she's feeling the loneliness of what it means to leave one's friends behind and move forward by one's self.
Tonight Nikki and I talked…I sat and listened to her great stories of cram sessions, late night coffee runs, rounds in real hospitals. Hearing the excitement in her voice had me choked up like some PMS'ing chick watching a Hallmark commercial, but nobody else was interested…like me, she has outgrown our friends… and our dreams, our stories, our ambitions are no longer congruent with theirs. Their dreams are to go to the next big party…to spend the rest of their lives here in Raleigh. Big fish, small pond. That's not for me…and apparently not for Nikki either.
So here I sit writing this entry full from yet another slice of homemade pecan pie, my wife snoring beautifully curled up on the couch next to me… her feet in my lap. Nikki studying intently on the floor as she always does, with her books spread out before her in an organized chaos that I'll never comprehend. My heart is heavy tonight though because I know the pain that she feels…it is the same pain I felt the moment I returned from Australia two years ago this coming March. Once one grows it is impossible to go back. I felt it when she thanked and hugged me and my wife earlier…I see it even now as she ignores her roommate calling to tell her that she was able to hook up with some guy she met last night.
It leads me to ask the question… does knowledge and wisdom inevitably mean solitude?"
Rob's main question is whether having goals, dreams, and ambitions inevitably leads to solitude. I think the answer to that question is no, but I do believe that it leads to a serious thinning of the herd, if you will. I've known quite a few people from high school, college, and even law school, who were content to live out their lives in one place (often the place they grew up in). This is by no means a bad thing, and if it makes them happy, that's what they should do. I was re-introduced to this phenomenon firsthand when I went to my high school's class of 1996 reunion with a friend (I graduated in '97). Many of the people I knew from that class have never left the area, and some of them have never even left the county or the town. They have their lives there, their inner circle, their consistency, and it works for them. Like Rob and Nikki, however, that would not work for me, and I know this. I don't think that being a wandering nomad is the key to happiness, but I also feel that limiting the experience of life to something small, narrow, and myopic would make me very unhappy. While I certainly would like any kids I have in the future to have some roots during childhood, I'd also like them to have some vision, some culture, and for them to at least have a taste of the many great and wonderful things the world has to offer.
As I've become a professional, started experiencing more things in life and meeting more people, I will definitely say that the herd of people to whom I am very close has thinned substantially. Interestingly, the people who have remained are not necessarily the ones who are living geographically close to me. Rather, it's people with the same vision and desires as me, the same zeal with which they pursue their dreams, and the same hunger to experience life in general...those are the ones who are closest to my heart. I'm not sorry to have met the people who have come through my life who don't share my same vision as laid out here...in fact, I thank God for them because they have been part of the rich tapestry of my life in that they have helped provide me a context and contrast to my own perspective of how to experience my life to the fullest. In closing, I once told someone re: romantic relationships that, "Opposites may attract, but similars stay together." Personal growth, differing viewpoints, and divergent lives do not lead to solitude, only to a smaller, more intimate inner circle.
Growing Pains
"There are times where I look at the people around me and truly envy them. I envy them for their positions in life… their views of the world… their satisfaction with their own little well-established circles. You see, no matter how much I try, no matter how much I smile, flirt, laugh, joke, whatever…no matter what…I will never be in that circle. I've seen too much. Experienced too much. Tried too much.
I've sat on the Great Wall of China. Stared across the fjords of Norway. Walked the bridge into Gamla-stan. Looked up at the beautiful ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. I've smelled the polluted waters of Indonesia and enjoyed immensely the simplest of meals in the Philippines. I've drank beer and watched rugby in Australia, danced the samba in Brazil. I've wept tears away from my eyes at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and felt the winds whip across my cheeks at Normandy. I've sipped coffee in Paris, sipped chianti in Sicily, sipped ouzo in Istanbul, shot vodka in Moscow, and sipped sake in Tokyo. I've seen the barber shops in Seoul, the majesty of Taipei 101, and watched the rain whip across the palace gates in London.
Trust me, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've experienced a lot that this world has to offer, and like a greedy little child, the more I experience, the more I want to experience...but that's not the ambitions of those around me.
I come back from my jaunts and it is the same stories, the same relationships, the same spats, the same jokes. There is a comfort there for me, but tonight a good friend of mine saw this same circle of friends through my eyes, and it pained me for her to do so. She'll never see them the same.
I've mentioned on my blog here a good friend of mine, Nikki, several times before. She's a good girl… a medical student that has paid her way through college and saved enough for medical school by stripping when her Dad died of cancer as she was finishing high school. She's now in her second year and doing extremely well, but she's growing…she's starting to hang out with her med school class more and more. She has more in common with them. I understand this, but it has an interesting affect on our mutual friends. Just like I was never fully accepted into the core circle, she's been ostracized from it. She has stories that don't involve them…she has experiences that have nothing to do with their outlook on life. Now, like me…she's feeling the loneliness of what it means to leave one's friends behind and move forward by one's self.
Tonight Nikki and I talked…I sat and listened to her great stories of cram sessions, late night coffee runs, rounds in real hospitals. Hearing the excitement in her voice had me choked up like some PMS'ing chick watching a Hallmark commercial, but nobody else was interested…like me, she has outgrown our friends… and our dreams, our stories, our ambitions are no longer congruent with theirs. Their dreams are to go to the next big party…to spend the rest of their lives here in Raleigh. Big fish, small pond. That's not for me…and apparently not for Nikki either.
So here I sit writing this entry full from yet another slice of homemade pecan pie, my wife snoring beautifully curled up on the couch next to me… her feet in my lap. Nikki studying intently on the floor as she always does, with her books spread out before her in an organized chaos that I'll never comprehend. My heart is heavy tonight though because I know the pain that she feels…it is the same pain I felt the moment I returned from Australia two years ago this coming March. Once one grows it is impossible to go back. I felt it when she thanked and hugged me and my wife earlier…I see it even now as she ignores her roommate calling to tell her that she was able to hook up with some guy she met last night.
It leads me to ask the question… does knowledge and wisdom inevitably mean solitude?"
Sunday, November 26, 2006
A Suprisingly Good Turkey Day Weekend with the Family
As the holiday weekend approached, I was contemplating whether or not to go visit my family over Thanksgiving. At the last minute, I decided to go see them, which is a definite departure over years past. Just in terms of time, I will probably have my friends around longer than certain members of my family, so just this once, the friends took a rain check...thanks friends!
First I went home to see my dad, and we visited for a couple of days, had a couple of breakfasts out together, and did more yardwork than I have done in quite some time. We bagged 41 bags of leaves, and we're talking the big lawn bags, not the puny mini-can liners in the kitchen. It seems the old man has developed tennis elbow in his right arm (even though he doesn't play tennis), so he really needed the help, and I was glad to oblige.
On Thanksgiving Day, my dad and I drove to Alabama to visit my uncle/his older brother. My uncle's kids were both there, and we got to see each other for the first time since we were little teenagers. My cousin who is about my age is a dad twice over now, with two adorable little girls and another kid on the way. As my late grandfather used to say, "Someone ought to tell those kids what's causing that (pregnancy)." The cousin who's about my brother's age is out of school now and trying to find her way in the professional world, but may be headed to law school. My aunt and my cousin's wife did a bang-up job on the holiday dinner (except for a couple of sketchy casserole experiments that won't be repeated, lol), everyone ate too much, much football was watched, and great fun was had by all.
As the weekend drew to a close, I spent an afternoon with my brother and nephew before coming back home. I swear, that kid has so much energy, it's unreal. He ran me all around his yard, the neighborhood, the apartment complex, and anywhere else he could find. After a workout at the gym earlier in the day and two days of yardwork before that, I was worn out. That said, it was a great visit and a lot of fun. My nephew is one of the happiest kids I have ever known...he laughs at anything and everything, and he's always got that smile that makes you wonder what he's getting/gotten into.
It's odd though, he is left-handed in everything from writing, to kicking, to playing baseball...and no one else in our family on either side is that way. He's also started school, and at the beginning of the year, he told me his favorite class was coloring (mine was a three-way tie: naps, snack, and recess), but now, since he is learning to read pretty well, he says he really likes reading and learning stuff. I hope that continues, because it would serve him well, making him a genius in addition to being an athlete and a stud, lol...mostly though, I just hope he is happy. My brother and his girlfriend are doing such a great job with them...I am very proud. :)
That's all for now everyone...I hope your Thanksgiving was as good as mine!
First I went home to see my dad, and we visited for a couple of days, had a couple of breakfasts out together, and did more yardwork than I have done in quite some time. We bagged 41 bags of leaves, and we're talking the big lawn bags, not the puny mini-can liners in the kitchen. It seems the old man has developed tennis elbow in his right arm (even though he doesn't play tennis), so he really needed the help, and I was glad to oblige.
On Thanksgiving Day, my dad and I drove to Alabama to visit my uncle/his older brother. My uncle's kids were both there, and we got to see each other for the first time since we were little teenagers. My cousin who is about my age is a dad twice over now, with two adorable little girls and another kid on the way. As my late grandfather used to say, "Someone ought to tell those kids what's causing that (pregnancy)." The cousin who's about my brother's age is out of school now and trying to find her way in the professional world, but may be headed to law school. My aunt and my cousin's wife did a bang-up job on the holiday dinner (except for a couple of sketchy casserole experiments that won't be repeated, lol), everyone ate too much, much football was watched, and great fun was had by all.
As the weekend drew to a close, I spent an afternoon with my brother and nephew before coming back home. I swear, that kid has so much energy, it's unreal. He ran me all around his yard, the neighborhood, the apartment complex, and anywhere else he could find. After a workout at the gym earlier in the day and two days of yardwork before that, I was worn out. That said, it was a great visit and a lot of fun. My nephew is one of the happiest kids I have ever known...he laughs at anything and everything, and he's always got that smile that makes you wonder what he's getting/gotten into.
It's odd though, he is left-handed in everything from writing, to kicking, to playing baseball...and no one else in our family on either side is that way. He's also started school, and at the beginning of the year, he told me his favorite class was coloring (mine was a three-way tie: naps, snack, and recess), but now, since he is learning to read pretty well, he says he really likes reading and learning stuff. I hope that continues, because it would serve him well, making him a genius in addition to being an athlete and a stud, lol...mostly though, I just hope he is happy. My brother and his girlfriend are doing such a great job with them...I am very proud. :)
That's all for now everyone...I hope your Thanksgiving was as good as mine!
Saturday, November 25, 2006
"Prevent" Defense Only Prevents Winning
Tonight, my boys from MTSU, my alma mater, were within 2:30 of winning their first ever Sun Belt conference title and going to their first ever bowl game as a Division 1-A team. They had cruised to a 20-7 lead with less than 3 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter behind a mixture of solidly executed offense and swarming, pressure defense. So, it seems natural that they'd continue doing what brought them so much success all game, right? Wrong! I swear, they must have been watching Tennessee play the last few years...simply maddening.
In a prevent defense, the D-line only rushes 3 men against 5 O-linemen and drops the remaining 8 men back into deep coverage, letting receivers make uncontested catches in front of them. The problems with this approach are twofold: not only does the defense get no pressure, receivers don't get jammed at the line of scrimmage and break off chunks of yardage 10-15 at a time (this matters because, in college football, first downs stop the clock). Simple math tells us that, at this rate, it doesn't take long to go all the way down the field. MTSU trotted out this very nonsense defense tonight late in the game with predictable results.
The Blue Raiders gave up a quick TD pass to bring the score to 20-14, they let Troy recover the onside kick, and then they turned around and played the same defense that had just failed them minutes earlier AGAIN! Troy marched the ball down the field and scored the tying TD and winning PAT with 15 seconds left, and MTSU's final Hail Mary fell incomplete as time expired.
MTSU now has to wait until next week...if Troy wins, they win the conference, get the bowl bid, and MSTU stays home. If Troy loses, then MTSU goes. This loss can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the coaches for playing scared and playing not to lose rather than doing what had brought them success all game and all year. The players didn't deserve to lose such a heartbreaker, but with that kind of coaching, losing is a certainty. I feel bad for the guys, but I'm not surprised. I think using the prevent defense and losing a game once should put a coaching staff on automatic probation, and if it happens a second time, they should be fired, no excuses and no exceptions.
In a prevent defense, the D-line only rushes 3 men against 5 O-linemen and drops the remaining 8 men back into deep coverage, letting receivers make uncontested catches in front of them. The problems with this approach are twofold: not only does the defense get no pressure, receivers don't get jammed at the line of scrimmage and break off chunks of yardage 10-15 at a time (this matters because, in college football, first downs stop the clock). Simple math tells us that, at this rate, it doesn't take long to go all the way down the field. MTSU trotted out this very nonsense defense tonight late in the game with predictable results.
The Blue Raiders gave up a quick TD pass to bring the score to 20-14, they let Troy recover the onside kick, and then they turned around and played the same defense that had just failed them minutes earlier AGAIN! Troy marched the ball down the field and scored the tying TD and winning PAT with 15 seconds left, and MTSU's final Hail Mary fell incomplete as time expired.
MTSU now has to wait until next week...if Troy wins, they win the conference, get the bowl bid, and MSTU stays home. If Troy loses, then MTSU goes. This loss can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the coaches for playing scared and playing not to lose rather than doing what had brought them success all game and all year. The players didn't deserve to lose such a heartbreaker, but with that kind of coaching, losing is a certainty. I feel bad for the guys, but I'm not surprised. I think using the prevent defense and losing a game once should put a coaching staff on automatic probation, and if it happens a second time, they should be fired, no excuses and no exceptions.
Friday, November 24, 2006
A Thanksgiving Resolution Good Year Round
Emperor Misha provides us a Turkey Day resolution we should all be able to keep year round. For the jihadists and their enablers, this one's for you.
"We give thanks for every single lice-infested hadji sent off to Hell by our troops, making a solemn vow among ourselves to not rest, not waver, not falter until the last parasite of the Religion of Murdering Innocents is dead, dead, dead. To those of the Muslim faith willing to join us in the crusade against murder and oppression, we extend our hands in friendship and brotherhood, pledging our sacred honor to our common cause. To those unwilling to seat themselves among us at the table of justice, we promise our eternal determination to exterminate every single last one of you, offering no quarter or mercy, and expecting none in return.
You will either learn to respect the freedom of all of mankind to worship and live as they please as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others to do the same, or we will bury you and piss on your graves. There will be no negotiations, no compromise, no 'respect' for that which must never be respected by freedom-loving peoples.
You will join us or die. No exceptions.
To this we pledge ourselves, to this noble goal of not tolerating the existence of those who would trample the rights of others, to this we pledge our lives. There will be no status quo, no understanding, no peace until every last one of you is worm food. You, the enemies of peace and of mankind, aren't human. You are not worthy of the consideration offered unto human beings, and you will be exterminated like cockroaches. Know this, and keep this in mind: There will be no peace with the likes of you. You are vermin, you are worthless, and you WILL be wiped out, every last one of you, so that our children may live in peace. ...
So help me God."
"We give thanks for every single lice-infested hadji sent off to Hell by our troops, making a solemn vow among ourselves to not rest, not waver, not falter until the last parasite of the Religion of Murdering Innocents is dead, dead, dead. To those of the Muslim faith willing to join us in the crusade against murder and oppression, we extend our hands in friendship and brotherhood, pledging our sacred honor to our common cause. To those unwilling to seat themselves among us at the table of justice, we promise our eternal determination to exterminate every single last one of you, offering no quarter or mercy, and expecting none in return.
You will either learn to respect the freedom of all of mankind to worship and live as they please as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others to do the same, or we will bury you and piss on your graves. There will be no negotiations, no compromise, no 'respect' for that which must never be respected by freedom-loving peoples.
You will join us or die. No exceptions.
To this we pledge ourselves, to this noble goal of not tolerating the existence of those who would trample the rights of others, to this we pledge our lives. There will be no status quo, no understanding, no peace until every last one of you is worm food. You, the enemies of peace and of mankind, aren't human. You are not worthy of the consideration offered unto human beings, and you will be exterminated like cockroaches. Know this, and keep this in mind: There will be no peace with the likes of you. You are vermin, you are worthless, and you WILL be wiped out, every last one of you, so that our children may live in peace. ...
So help me God."
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Stuff I'm Thankful For amd a Heartwarming Story
This list includes a lot of the same stuff as everyone else's, but it's mine, and I have a story to tell too. My family, though few in number, very much flawed and human, and far too rarely seen...I love them, my brother and 5 year old nephew and my Dad especially. I will leave this morning for Alabama with Dad to go see his older brother (an uncle I haven't seen in a couple of years) and maybe some cousins I haven't seen since we were kids...should be interesting.
As for my friends...wow, what can I say other than you guys rock and I love each and every one of you. Our professional/adult lives have definitely put us farther apart in geography than I would like, but I still wouldn't trade you for anything. You're there for me when no one else is, and my life wouldn't be the same without you...it is my honor to call such good people my friends, and I pray they do and would say the same for me. Watching the physical maladies of quite a few people around me, as I get older, I become more thankful every year for my health. I might get sick twice a year when the weather changes and the occasional bout of food poisoning, but that's really about it. Perhaps most of all though I am thankful for my spiritual revival in this past year...it hasn't been easy, and it has cost me some things, but it has been worth it. It's allowed me to see more good in people, to give the credit to God he is so richly due, and it has allowed me to grow up a lot and see the big picture of my life in a way I never thought possible. Lord, it's your show, we just live and play here, and for all of this, thank you.
Another thing I am thankful for is my job, in spite of the craziness and personal ethics dilemmas it sometimes inspires. I have always struggled financially, and this goes back at least 3 generations in my family. If I have anything to say about it, that struggle ends here, with me. Although slower than I would like, my current job has allowed me to make some solid financial progress (I just wish that made my credit score go up faster, lol). Being an Asst. Public Defender is not all sunshine and happiness though, that is for sure. Frankly, most of my clients are guilty as sin, they will tell me so, and it really comes down to what kind of deal I can get them. Worse yet, over half of them are what I refer to as lifers, career offenders who aren't going to quit breaking the law or appreciate my efforts on their behalf, no matter what I do for them. There are some times though, where the job itself brings some non-monetary benefits, I am thankful for that, and that's the topic of my story today.
On Tuesday at arraignments, I was appointed to represent a young woman with a post-Thanksgiving court date. I had a bit of time to talk with her about her case before my cases for the morning were called, and it was just a heartbreaking story. She was originally in court on minor driving charges, offenses that carried fines, no jail time, and at worst, a temporary driver's license suspension. Now, because she twice failed to appear in court (the second of those being a felony), she was looking at as much as three YEARS in jail if she received the maximum sentence.
This young woman was 20 years old, orginally born several states away, and had temporarily come to TN for a fresh start after a horrific childhood. Before her 18th birthday, this girl had been raped, beaten, and abused drugs. She had also been to drug rehab and to a psychiatrist for self-mutilation issues. She had begun to get her life together when her driver's license problems began earlier this year, but things fell apart in a hurry. She became engaged to a man who is on felony probation, missed court the first time because she overslept, and missed it the second time because her best friend was killed in a car accident. Oh, and as for how she got arrested...? Someone broke into her apartment, breaking down her entire living room wall to do so, and stole everything she owned. When she filed a police report, the police ran her name through the computer and found her active warrants for missing court. She was arrested and had a $20,000 bail set because she was deemed a flight risk due to missing 2 court dates.
By the time I got to talk with her in private, she was a mess, sobbing uncontrollably. It was as if the events of her entire life were crashing down on her all at once, like she was finally getting an idea how bad things had gotten and could yet be. More than that, she looked every bit the kid she actually is rather than the hardened young woman she tried to portray herself as of late. In talking to her, I could tell that she was intelligent, not a serious criminal, trying very hard to improve her life, and that she had potential. As a matter of fact, she reminded me of a female version of my brother (before he became a father to my nephew and turned his life around in a major way, and he's now doing great)...so my heart definitely went out to her.
After speaking with the D.A. and telling her all the circumstances, I secured her a plea agreement on misdemeanor charges only, and a sentence of only a few days in jail and the rest of a year on unsupervised probation...not bad for someone facing 3 years if I say so myself. Although my client was scared of staying in jail for any amount of time and missing her fiancee' terribly, she was appreciative of me and thanked me for my time and efforts. God laid it on my heart to do so, so I stuck around a little longer than I normally do with my clients...I told her about some of my personal struggles, things that had happened in my family, and how, despite hard times, we managed to make it through OK thanks to God's grace. By the time we were done speaking, she seemed to have calmed down a bit, and I promised her I would call her mom (who still lived several states away, where my client was born) and her fiancee'.
Since court ran a little long that afternoon, I stopped to call her mother from a gas station on my drive home to see my family. My conversation (where I learned most of the details about my client's past from earlier this post) with my client's mother lasted for almost an hour, and it was some of the best cell phone time I've ever spent. I told her about her daughter's legal situation, the deal I had worked out for her, and even our shared Christian faith. I could hear her mom's voice cracking telling me about all the things her daughter had been through, her efforts to help as best she could, and her own personal pain at not being able to do more. She also told me repeatedly how grateful she was for my help, how thankful she was that someone like me had been appointed to help her daughter, and even that she had prayed for a Christian attorney to represent her baby once she learned of the legal problems. Moreover, she thanked me for taking time out of my life, my schedule, and my trip home to call her and to answer her questions.
I won't lie, I was more than a little choked up myself, but I managed to keep my composure while telling her that I was just doing my job, that I would continue helping her daughter with her legal issues as best I could, and that I would pray for her and the entire family that God would help things turn around for this young woman. I also told her that I was simply paying it forward and helping to build good karma...heaven forbid a son or daughter of mine might find themselves in a similar situation somewhere down the line (in trouble with the law, several states away, basically broke, and me unable to do anything immediate to help them), but if they did, I can only pray that my child would be appointed a competent, discerning attorney with a good heart who would do everything in his/her power to comfort them and help with their legal situation.
Let's be real people, these lifers I spoke about earlier, they don't have a chance and aren't going to be productive citizens no matter what I do. I do the best I can with what I have, providing them a competent and Constitutional defense consistent with the oath I swore as an attorney and my duty to my clients. Attorneys have a sacred trust and a mountain of responsibilities, but no matter what you've heard, most of us aren't heartless, money-grubbing parasites...we are just like everyone else, decent, hard-working people hoping our career is not just a job and a paycheck, but rather that our efforts make a difference in the lives of others and that we leave the world and the people in it better than we found them.
That said, any lawyer will tell you that it's times like this, the story I just told, that make practicing law worthwhile. Being able to help this young lady, to stand up and advocate for her, to comfort her mother, and maybe even to help her pull her life out of this death spiral before it's too late...but even more than that, to be sincerely appreciated and thanked for it, well, it's a feeling I can't describe. It isn't enough to make me forget about the lifers or to practice this type of law forever, but this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my young legal career. So, on this Thanksgiving Day, I thank God for all the wonderful things and people in my life, for the trust He has placed in me to do things as important as this, and for the path He yet has for me to walk. Life is good, and I'm excited to see what the Lord will do next...Happy Turkey Day to everyone, eat as much as you can and love even more than that!
As for my friends...wow, what can I say other than you guys rock and I love each and every one of you. Our professional/adult lives have definitely put us farther apart in geography than I would like, but I still wouldn't trade you for anything. You're there for me when no one else is, and my life wouldn't be the same without you...it is my honor to call such good people my friends, and I pray they do and would say the same for me. Watching the physical maladies of quite a few people around me, as I get older, I become more thankful every year for my health. I might get sick twice a year when the weather changes and the occasional bout of food poisoning, but that's really about it. Perhaps most of all though I am thankful for my spiritual revival in this past year...it hasn't been easy, and it has cost me some things, but it has been worth it. It's allowed me to see more good in people, to give the credit to God he is so richly due, and it has allowed me to grow up a lot and see the big picture of my life in a way I never thought possible. Lord, it's your show, we just live and play here, and for all of this, thank you.
Another thing I am thankful for is my job, in spite of the craziness and personal ethics dilemmas it sometimes inspires. I have always struggled financially, and this goes back at least 3 generations in my family. If I have anything to say about it, that struggle ends here, with me. Although slower than I would like, my current job has allowed me to make some solid financial progress (I just wish that made my credit score go up faster, lol). Being an Asst. Public Defender is not all sunshine and happiness though, that is for sure. Frankly, most of my clients are guilty as sin, they will tell me so, and it really comes down to what kind of deal I can get them. Worse yet, over half of them are what I refer to as lifers, career offenders who aren't going to quit breaking the law or appreciate my efforts on their behalf, no matter what I do for them. There are some times though, where the job itself brings some non-monetary benefits, I am thankful for that, and that's the topic of my story today.
On Tuesday at arraignments, I was appointed to represent a young woman with a post-Thanksgiving court date. I had a bit of time to talk with her about her case before my cases for the morning were called, and it was just a heartbreaking story. She was originally in court on minor driving charges, offenses that carried fines, no jail time, and at worst, a temporary driver's license suspension. Now, because she twice failed to appear in court (the second of those being a felony), she was looking at as much as three YEARS in jail if she received the maximum sentence.
This young woman was 20 years old, orginally born several states away, and had temporarily come to TN for a fresh start after a horrific childhood. Before her 18th birthday, this girl had been raped, beaten, and abused drugs. She had also been to drug rehab and to a psychiatrist for self-mutilation issues. She had begun to get her life together when her driver's license problems began earlier this year, but things fell apart in a hurry. She became engaged to a man who is on felony probation, missed court the first time because she overslept, and missed it the second time because her best friend was killed in a car accident. Oh, and as for how she got arrested...? Someone broke into her apartment, breaking down her entire living room wall to do so, and stole everything she owned. When she filed a police report, the police ran her name through the computer and found her active warrants for missing court. She was arrested and had a $20,000 bail set because she was deemed a flight risk due to missing 2 court dates.
By the time I got to talk with her in private, she was a mess, sobbing uncontrollably. It was as if the events of her entire life were crashing down on her all at once, like she was finally getting an idea how bad things had gotten and could yet be. More than that, she looked every bit the kid she actually is rather than the hardened young woman she tried to portray herself as of late. In talking to her, I could tell that she was intelligent, not a serious criminal, trying very hard to improve her life, and that she had potential. As a matter of fact, she reminded me of a female version of my brother (before he became a father to my nephew and turned his life around in a major way, and he's now doing great)...so my heart definitely went out to her.
After speaking with the D.A. and telling her all the circumstances, I secured her a plea agreement on misdemeanor charges only, and a sentence of only a few days in jail and the rest of a year on unsupervised probation...not bad for someone facing 3 years if I say so myself. Although my client was scared of staying in jail for any amount of time and missing her fiancee' terribly, she was appreciative of me and thanked me for my time and efforts. God laid it on my heart to do so, so I stuck around a little longer than I normally do with my clients...I told her about some of my personal struggles, things that had happened in my family, and how, despite hard times, we managed to make it through OK thanks to God's grace. By the time we were done speaking, she seemed to have calmed down a bit, and I promised her I would call her mom (who still lived several states away, where my client was born) and her fiancee'.
Since court ran a little long that afternoon, I stopped to call her mother from a gas station on my drive home to see my family. My conversation (where I learned most of the details about my client's past from earlier this post) with my client's mother lasted for almost an hour, and it was some of the best cell phone time I've ever spent. I told her about her daughter's legal situation, the deal I had worked out for her, and even our shared Christian faith. I could hear her mom's voice cracking telling me about all the things her daughter had been through, her efforts to help as best she could, and her own personal pain at not being able to do more. She also told me repeatedly how grateful she was for my help, how thankful she was that someone like me had been appointed to help her daughter, and even that she had prayed for a Christian attorney to represent her baby once she learned of the legal problems. Moreover, she thanked me for taking time out of my life, my schedule, and my trip home to call her and to answer her questions.
I won't lie, I was more than a little choked up myself, but I managed to keep my composure while telling her that I was just doing my job, that I would continue helping her daughter with her legal issues as best I could, and that I would pray for her and the entire family that God would help things turn around for this young woman. I also told her that I was simply paying it forward and helping to build good karma...heaven forbid a son or daughter of mine might find themselves in a similar situation somewhere down the line (in trouble with the law, several states away, basically broke, and me unable to do anything immediate to help them), but if they did, I can only pray that my child would be appointed a competent, discerning attorney with a good heart who would do everything in his/her power to comfort them and help with their legal situation.
Let's be real people, these lifers I spoke about earlier, they don't have a chance and aren't going to be productive citizens no matter what I do. I do the best I can with what I have, providing them a competent and Constitutional defense consistent with the oath I swore as an attorney and my duty to my clients. Attorneys have a sacred trust and a mountain of responsibilities, but no matter what you've heard, most of us aren't heartless, money-grubbing parasites...we are just like everyone else, decent, hard-working people hoping our career is not just a job and a paycheck, but rather that our efforts make a difference in the lives of others and that we leave the world and the people in it better than we found them.
That said, any lawyer will tell you that it's times like this, the story I just told, that make practicing law worthwhile. Being able to help this young lady, to stand up and advocate for her, to comfort her mother, and maybe even to help her pull her life out of this death spiral before it's too late...but even more than that, to be sincerely appreciated and thanked for it, well, it's a feeling I can't describe. It isn't enough to make me forget about the lifers or to practice this type of law forever, but this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my young legal career. So, on this Thanksgiving Day, I thank God for all the wonderful things and people in my life, for the trust He has placed in me to do things as important as this, and for the path He yet has for me to walk. Life is good, and I'm excited to see what the Lord will do next...Happy Turkey Day to everyone, eat as much as you can and love even more than that!
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Thanksgiving Weekend Football Picks
This week's football picks had to come a bit earlier than usual thanks to the long holiday weekend which has football starting on Thursday. I'm looking forward to good food and good games, and a nice tryptophan-induced sleep coma or several...all games on the usual day unless otherwise noted, so enjoy!
NCAA
LSU @ Arkansas (Fri.)- This is the big SEC game of the week...LSU won't win the West but could keep its outside hopes of a BCS bowl alive with a win, while the Hogs could continue their meteoric rise up the rankings and into national title contention with a victory. LSU has one of the better defenses in the country, probably better than Arkansas has faced all year, while Arkansas has perhaps the best tandem of RBs in the country in Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. LSU has been mistake-prone in its losses this year, so this strength on strength game will come down to who makes fewer turnovers. While LSU has more talent at QB, even average play at the helm should be enough for Arkansas to win, and they'll get it. Expect a huge day for the Hogs ground game and a close win (sorry Kandi), Arkansas 24, LSU 20.
Troy @ MTSU- The Blue Raiders are one win or a Troy loss away from their first Sun Belt title and a bowl berth as a 1-A team. While Troy's passing game is a little better than that of MTSU, MTSU is the better team on defense, on sppecial teams, and in the running game. This looks like the year for my boys at my undergrad alma mater, so MTSU should get clinching win number 8 at home in the 'Boro, Blue Raiders 30, Troy 17.
Notre Dame @ USC- This game has the biggest BCS implications of any this weekend, and as much as it galls me to say it, I am rooting for the Irish in this one so that an SEC team has a better shot at the national title game.. Write that down, it may be a while before it happens again. Notre Dame's offense has been on fire since losing to Michigan, but that's been against subpar competition, while USC has recovered OK from the shocking upset at Oregon State. Notre Dame's offense is better, but USC has the better defense, and this is a home game for them. That should be enough for USC to squeak out a win and secure the #2 spot in the BCS if they beat UCLA next week, Trojans 23, Irish 21.
Kentucky @ Tennessee- Only Notre Dame's four plus decades of domination over Navy is a longer win streak than the Vols' 21 straight wins over the Wildcats. In the last few years, the 'Cats have played UT tough, especially in Lexington, but this game is in Knoxville. Kentucky coach Rich Brooks has done as much with as little as any NCAA coach around, coaxing 7 wins out of a mediocre team to get them bowl-eligible and maybe saving his job in the process. Wildcat QB Andre Woodson has also come of age this year, playing better than anyone expected thanks to putting in the hard work off the field to match his above average athletic skills. All that said, Erik Ainge is a better QB now than Woodson will ever be, and he has three quality RBs who are all healthy and can help open up the passing game. Kentucky's weakness is and always has been their defense, and the can't pull out enough stops on D to keep UT from outscoring them. The Vols should take this one in a shootout in Knoxville, Vols 45, Wildcats 28.
NFL
Broncos @ Chiefs (Thurs.)- The Chiefs are struggling a bit offensively trying to get QB Trent Green back into full swing after a vicious hit and resulting concussion sidelined him a few weeks, while Denver is trying to recover from blowing a 17 point lead to the Chargers last week. Kansas City RB Larry Johnson is probably the second best back in the league behind LaDainian Tomlinson, but the Broncos will be keying on him with a D hungry for revenge and a return to respectability. Denver QB Jake Plummer has struggled mightily this year, and if he plays badly here, Vandy alum Jay Cutler may see some playing time this season before taking Plummer's job for good in 2007. That would be better for Denver in both the short and long term, so I am rooting for the Chiefs to win and Plummer to bomb like he usually does. Kansas City, at home and struggling for a playoff spot should keep this game close, but I think Denver has too many weapons to lose to this team even at Arrowhead...Broncos win a close, low scoring game 17-13.
Giants @ Titans- Very quietly, the Titans are starting to play a little better, and while they won't win more than 6 games this year, they won't be a pushover either. The running game has picked up, and that can only help take pressure of rookie QB Vince Young, who is improving slowly but steadily. The Giants are in real danger of the wheels flying off completely this season. Two weeks ago, they were playing the Bears for NFC supremacy and thinking No. 2 seed and maybe Super Bowl...now they are in the middle of the playoff pack, beset with injuries to key players, and intra-team squabbling is threatening to tear the team apart. If the Titans avoid a collapse like they pulled against the Ravens, they should win this game. The improved running game should have its way against the Giants' depleted D, and Giants QB Eli Manning looks awful. Take the Titans in a mild upset in Nashville, Titans 27, Giants 17.
Bears @ Patriots- People are talking about this game like it is a Super Bowl preview, but it isn't...the Pats simply aren't that good this year. New England will win the AFC East and the No. 3 seed, and perhaps a wild-card game at home, but I wouldn't pick them on the road at Indianapolis or San Diego. This week, there is no weather advantage for the Pats because the Bears play at equally cold and blustery Soldier Field. The Patriots still have an elite QB in Tom Brady and a good amount of talent on both sides of the ball, but too many losses in free agency have depleted this from a perennial Super Bowl contender to a mere playoff team. The Bears field perhaps the best D in the NFL and a budding star in PK Robbie Gould, a solid running game, and great return men on special teams. If Bears QB Rex Grossman can stop turning the ball over, the Bears might win this one bigger than people think...count Grossman in for 2 INTs and the Bears in for a win by about the expected margin, Chicago 20, Pats 10.
NCAA
LSU @ Arkansas (Fri.)- This is the big SEC game of the week...LSU won't win the West but could keep its outside hopes of a BCS bowl alive with a win, while the Hogs could continue their meteoric rise up the rankings and into national title contention with a victory. LSU has one of the better defenses in the country, probably better than Arkansas has faced all year, while Arkansas has perhaps the best tandem of RBs in the country in Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. LSU has been mistake-prone in its losses this year, so this strength on strength game will come down to who makes fewer turnovers. While LSU has more talent at QB, even average play at the helm should be enough for Arkansas to win, and they'll get it. Expect a huge day for the Hogs ground game and a close win (sorry Kandi), Arkansas 24, LSU 20.
Troy @ MTSU- The Blue Raiders are one win or a Troy loss away from their first Sun Belt title and a bowl berth as a 1-A team. While Troy's passing game is a little better than that of MTSU, MTSU is the better team on defense, on sppecial teams, and in the running game. This looks like the year for my boys at my undergrad alma mater, so MTSU should get clinching win number 8 at home in the 'Boro, Blue Raiders 30, Troy 17.
Notre Dame @ USC- This game has the biggest BCS implications of any this weekend, and as much as it galls me to say it, I am rooting for the Irish in this one so that an SEC team has a better shot at the national title game.. Write that down, it may be a while before it happens again. Notre Dame's offense has been on fire since losing to Michigan, but that's been against subpar competition, while USC has recovered OK from the shocking upset at Oregon State. Notre Dame's offense is better, but USC has the better defense, and this is a home game for them. That should be enough for USC to squeak out a win and secure the #2 spot in the BCS if they beat UCLA next week, Trojans 23, Irish 21.
Kentucky @ Tennessee- Only Notre Dame's four plus decades of domination over Navy is a longer win streak than the Vols' 21 straight wins over the Wildcats. In the last few years, the 'Cats have played UT tough, especially in Lexington, but this game is in Knoxville. Kentucky coach Rich Brooks has done as much with as little as any NCAA coach around, coaxing 7 wins out of a mediocre team to get them bowl-eligible and maybe saving his job in the process. Wildcat QB Andre Woodson has also come of age this year, playing better than anyone expected thanks to putting in the hard work off the field to match his above average athletic skills. All that said, Erik Ainge is a better QB now than Woodson will ever be, and he has three quality RBs who are all healthy and can help open up the passing game. Kentucky's weakness is and always has been their defense, and the can't pull out enough stops on D to keep UT from outscoring them. The Vols should take this one in a shootout in Knoxville, Vols 45, Wildcats 28.
NFL
Broncos @ Chiefs (Thurs.)- The Chiefs are struggling a bit offensively trying to get QB Trent Green back into full swing after a vicious hit and resulting concussion sidelined him a few weeks, while Denver is trying to recover from blowing a 17 point lead to the Chargers last week. Kansas City RB Larry Johnson is probably the second best back in the league behind LaDainian Tomlinson, but the Broncos will be keying on him with a D hungry for revenge and a return to respectability. Denver QB Jake Plummer has struggled mightily this year, and if he plays badly here, Vandy alum Jay Cutler may see some playing time this season before taking Plummer's job for good in 2007. That would be better for Denver in both the short and long term, so I am rooting for the Chiefs to win and Plummer to bomb like he usually does. Kansas City, at home and struggling for a playoff spot should keep this game close, but I think Denver has too many weapons to lose to this team even at Arrowhead...Broncos win a close, low scoring game 17-13.
Giants @ Titans- Very quietly, the Titans are starting to play a little better, and while they won't win more than 6 games this year, they won't be a pushover either. The running game has picked up, and that can only help take pressure of rookie QB Vince Young, who is improving slowly but steadily. The Giants are in real danger of the wheels flying off completely this season. Two weeks ago, they were playing the Bears for NFC supremacy and thinking No. 2 seed and maybe Super Bowl...now they are in the middle of the playoff pack, beset with injuries to key players, and intra-team squabbling is threatening to tear the team apart. If the Titans avoid a collapse like they pulled against the Ravens, they should win this game. The improved running game should have its way against the Giants' depleted D, and Giants QB Eli Manning looks awful. Take the Titans in a mild upset in Nashville, Titans 27, Giants 17.
Bears @ Patriots- People are talking about this game like it is a Super Bowl preview, but it isn't...the Pats simply aren't that good this year. New England will win the AFC East and the No. 3 seed, and perhaps a wild-card game at home, but I wouldn't pick them on the road at Indianapolis or San Diego. This week, there is no weather advantage for the Pats because the Bears play at equally cold and blustery Soldier Field. The Patriots still have an elite QB in Tom Brady and a good amount of talent on both sides of the ball, but too many losses in free agency have depleted this from a perennial Super Bowl contender to a mere playoff team. The Bears field perhaps the best D in the NFL and a budding star in PK Robbie Gould, a solid running game, and great return men on special teams. If Bears QB Rex Grossman can stop turning the ball over, the Bears might win this one bigger than people think...count Grossman in for 2 INTs and the Bears in for a win by about the expected margin, Chicago 20, Pats 10.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Ralph Peters on Success in Iraq, Part Deux
A couple of weeks ago, I linked to another Ralph Peters column suggesting that U.S. forces should be withdrawn if all they are going to do is be pawns in the Iraqi political process, supporting one faction over another. In this article, he lays out in his characteristic blunt, no-holds-barred style some of the things that must be done if the Iraq mess is to be fixed. In America, political correctness means the erosion of our common culture and belief systems, division of the country along ethnic and racial lines, and risiculous minority set-asides. In Iraq, that same political correctness is getting many Iraqis and our soldiers killed in ever greater numbers, and is pushing the country further along toward civil war. For me, it's very simple, take off the gloves and let the troops do their jobs, or bring them home...read it all.
ARABIAN NIGHTMARES
By RALPH PETERS
November 15, 2006 -- YESTERDAY, 80 terrorists in police uniforms raided an Iraqi research institute in Baghdad, rounded up 100-plus male students, loaded them into vehicles in broad daylight and drove away.
They couldn't have pulled it off without the complicity of key elements within the Iraqi security services and the government: "our guys." The students probably will be executed and dumped somewhere. Partly for the crime of wanting to study and build a future, but primarily just to step up the level of terror yet again.
Apart from highlighting the type of regime of which both Shia and Sunni Arab extremists dream - a land of disciplined ignorance and slavish devotion - the mass kidnapping also highlights the feebleness of our attempts to overcome ruthless enemies with generosity and good manners. With Iraqi society decomposing - or, at best, reverting to a medieval state with cell phones - the debate in Washington over whether to try to save the day by deploying more troops or withdrawing some is of secondary relevance.
What really matters is what our forces are ordered - and permitted - to do. With political correctness permeating our government and even the upper echelons of the military, we never tried the one technique that has a solid track record of defeating insurgents if applied consistently: the rigorous imposition of public order. That means killing the bad guys, not winning their hearts and minds, placating them, or bringing them into the government...killing them.
If you're not willing to lay down a rule that any Iraqi or foreign terrorist masquerading as a security official or military member will be shot, you can't win. That's just one example of the type of sternness this sort of fight requires. With the situation in Iraq deteriorating daily, sending more troops would simply offer our enemies more targets - unless we decided to use our soldiers and Marines for the primary purpose for which they exist: To fight.
Of course, we've made a decisive shift in our behavior difficult. After empowering a sectarian regime before imposing order in the streets, we would have to defy an elected government. Leading voices in the Baghdad regime - starting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - would demand that we halt any serious effort to defeat Shia militias and eliminate their death squads. Killing Sunni Arabs would be fine, of course. The Maliki government's reason for being is to promote Shia power.
Reportedly, our CentCom commander, Gen. George Abizaid, just had a "come to Jesus meeting" (metaphor fully intended) with Maliki, warning him that our continued support is contingent on the government moving to impose public order and protect all of Iraq's people. The result is predictable: A few law-enforcement gestures by daylight, some reshuffled government appointments - and more sectarian killing. From the Iraqi perspective, we're of less and less relevance. They're sure we'll leave. And every faction is determined to do as much damage as possible to the other before we go. Our troops have become human shields for our enemies.
To master Iraq now - if it could be done - we'd have to fight every faction except the Kurds. Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to kill mass murderers and cold-blooded executioners on the spot? If not, we can't win, no matter what else we do. Arrest them? We've tried that. Iraq's judges are so partisan or so terrified (or both) that they release the worst thugs within weeks - sometimes within days. How would you like to be one of Iraq's handful of relatively honest cops knowing that any terrorist or sectarian butcher you bust is going to be back on the block before your next payday? And yeah, they know where you live.
Our "humanity" is cowardice masquerading as morality. We're protecting self-appointed religious executioners with our emphasis on a "universal code of behavior" that only exists in our fantasies. By letting the thugs run the streets, we've abandoned the millions of Iraqis who really would prefer peaceful lives and a modicum of progress. We're blind to the fundamental moral travesty in Iraq (and elsewhere): Spare the killers in the name of human rights, and you deprive the overwhelming majority of the population of their human rights. Instead of being proud of ourselves for our "moral superiority," we should be ashamed to the depths of our souls.
We're not really the enemy of the terrorists, militiamen and insurgents. We're their enablers. In the end, the future of Iraq will be determined by its people. The question is, which people? Our naive version of wartime morality handed Iraq to the murderers. Will our excuse for a sectarian bloodbath be that we "behaved with restraint?"
Any code of ethics that squanders the lives of tens of thousands and the future of millions so we can "claim the moral high ground" is hypocrisy worthy of the Europeans who made excuses for the Holocaust. If we want to give Iraq's silent - and terrified - majority a last chance, we would have to accept the world's condemnation for killing the killers. If we are unwilling to do that, Iraq's finished.
ARABIAN NIGHTMARES
By RALPH PETERS
November 15, 2006 -- YESTERDAY, 80 terrorists in police uniforms raided an Iraqi research institute in Baghdad, rounded up 100-plus male students, loaded them into vehicles in broad daylight and drove away.
They couldn't have pulled it off without the complicity of key elements within the Iraqi security services and the government: "our guys." The students probably will be executed and dumped somewhere. Partly for the crime of wanting to study and build a future, but primarily just to step up the level of terror yet again.
Apart from highlighting the type of regime of which both Shia and Sunni Arab extremists dream - a land of disciplined ignorance and slavish devotion - the mass kidnapping also highlights the feebleness of our attempts to overcome ruthless enemies with generosity and good manners. With Iraqi society decomposing - or, at best, reverting to a medieval state with cell phones - the debate in Washington over whether to try to save the day by deploying more troops or withdrawing some is of secondary relevance.
What really matters is what our forces are ordered - and permitted - to do. With political correctness permeating our government and even the upper echelons of the military, we never tried the one technique that has a solid track record of defeating insurgents if applied consistently: the rigorous imposition of public order. That means killing the bad guys, not winning their hearts and minds, placating them, or bringing them into the government...killing them.
If you're not willing to lay down a rule that any Iraqi or foreign terrorist masquerading as a security official or military member will be shot, you can't win. That's just one example of the type of sternness this sort of fight requires. With the situation in Iraq deteriorating daily, sending more troops would simply offer our enemies more targets - unless we decided to use our soldiers and Marines for the primary purpose for which they exist: To fight.
Of course, we've made a decisive shift in our behavior difficult. After empowering a sectarian regime before imposing order in the streets, we would have to defy an elected government. Leading voices in the Baghdad regime - starting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - would demand that we halt any serious effort to defeat Shia militias and eliminate their death squads. Killing Sunni Arabs would be fine, of course. The Maliki government's reason for being is to promote Shia power.
Reportedly, our CentCom commander, Gen. George Abizaid, just had a "come to Jesus meeting" (metaphor fully intended) with Maliki, warning him that our continued support is contingent on the government moving to impose public order and protect all of Iraq's people. The result is predictable: A few law-enforcement gestures by daylight, some reshuffled government appointments - and more sectarian killing. From the Iraqi perspective, we're of less and less relevance. They're sure we'll leave. And every faction is determined to do as much damage as possible to the other before we go. Our troops have become human shields for our enemies.
To master Iraq now - if it could be done - we'd have to fight every faction except the Kurds. Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to kill mass murderers and cold-blooded executioners on the spot? If not, we can't win, no matter what else we do. Arrest them? We've tried that. Iraq's judges are so partisan or so terrified (or both) that they release the worst thugs within weeks - sometimes within days. How would you like to be one of Iraq's handful of relatively honest cops knowing that any terrorist or sectarian butcher you bust is going to be back on the block before your next payday? And yeah, they know where you live.
Our "humanity" is cowardice masquerading as morality. We're protecting self-appointed religious executioners with our emphasis on a "universal code of behavior" that only exists in our fantasies. By letting the thugs run the streets, we've abandoned the millions of Iraqis who really would prefer peaceful lives and a modicum of progress. We're blind to the fundamental moral travesty in Iraq (and elsewhere): Spare the killers in the name of human rights, and you deprive the overwhelming majority of the population of their human rights. Instead of being proud of ourselves for our "moral superiority," we should be ashamed to the depths of our souls.
We're not really the enemy of the terrorists, militiamen and insurgents. We're their enablers. In the end, the future of Iraq will be determined by its people. The question is, which people? Our naive version of wartime morality handed Iraq to the murderers. Will our excuse for a sectarian bloodbath be that we "behaved with restraint?"
Any code of ethics that squanders the lives of tens of thousands and the future of millions so we can "claim the moral high ground" is hypocrisy worthy of the Europeans who made excuses for the Holocaust. If we want to give Iraq's silent - and terrified - majority a last chance, we would have to accept the world's condemnation for killing the killers. If we are unwilling to do that, Iraq's finished.
Monday, November 20, 2006
The Proper Care and Feeding of Servers
A friend forwarded this to me, and I seriously think everyone should read it, and that goes double for anyone who has never waited tables before. I think if everyone had to wait tables for even a week or two, then the food service world would be a much more pleasant and patient place in which to do business and relax. I am totally sympathetic to all these tips and have added some notes of my own. Follow these rules and your server will love you...and unless you have that one in a billion uber-rude server who deserves whatever is coming to them, ignore these tips at your own peril.
If you're a Christian and you don't tip at least 15%, then shame on you! Did you know that Sundays are the worst days to wait tables, especially in the mornings, because the "after church rush" are some of the consistently worst tippers ever...how pathetic! It's OK if you gave all your money to Jesus, it really is, but if this is the case, then you should go home and eat a sandwich. Also, tip your car-hop at Sonic! Don't tell me she doesn't really do anything...oh yes she does! She brings your food to you no matter what the weather is like, she runs her butt off, she's answering the speaker, making ice cream, making sure you have extra ketchup, napkins, etc., and bagging orders! Don't tell me she isn't doing anything but bringing you your food!
Also, if your steak comes out cooked at the wrong temperature, the vegetables are cold, or something is wrong with your drink, more often than not, that isn't the server's fault. Unless it's very obvious that the server got your order wrong, don't take it out on them by docking their tip for something the kitchen, the bar staff, or even the computers might have been responsible for...give them the benefit of the doubt. Finally, if you know the place closes at 10 P.M., do NOT bring a party of 10 in at 9:57 and ask, "Hey you guys still open?" with a smile on your face. Servers, esp. the ones who are closing, will hate you for this because that means they have to go home another hour or so later...ditto for the kitchen guys. If you must eat out late, go someplace that's open 24 hours or somewhere you know the hours and can get there at least a few minutes before closing.
1. IF you can afford to go out to eat., but you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to go out to eat.
2. This is 2006...10% or less than $2 is not acceptable anymore. Standard tipping for AVERAGE service should be 15%, GOOD service is between 18 and 20%, and GREAT service should start at 25% and go up. If your service was bad enough that you feel compelled to tip less than 15%, discreetly find a manager and tell them why...most are very understanding and will try to help make you happy, because they want you to come back.
3. I understand that 10% is good enough for God. That's fine, but this isn't church.
4. If you wanted fast food, you should have gone through a drive-thru. If you order a well-done steak, your ticket time will be longer because it takes longer to cook a steak all the way through. If you order a filet well done, I will hand you a Slim Jim, mock and ridicule you without mercy, and eat the 30 dollar steak myself...you have been warned.
5. It's really not necessary to snap at me or wave your hand in the air like you're having a spasm or get up and follow me. I saw you, I acknowledged you, and you saw me acknowledge you. Hold on and sit down...I am coming, I promise.
6. When I take the time to be courteous and introduce myself, please don't be rude and cut me off...manners people!
7. I follow a strict rule that you should never reward bad service with a good tip; however, you should also never punish excellent service with a crappy tip because you're a cheap jerk or because of something that wasn't the server's fault.
8. Please don't take it out on me because you have had a bad day. I'm here to make it better, so relax.
9. When I deliver your food and ask if there is anything else, you can tell me. I asked. didn't I? Don't get all bent out of shape because I'm not psychic and cannot read your mind. How the heck am I supposed to know you needed A-1 unless you speak up?
10. I know sometimes you can't help it, but do you really have to ask for something every single time I walk past the table?! I mean really, Jessica Simpson is not even that high-maintenance.
11. Hi! Look around you, and notice that you are one of probably twenty people I am waiting on...so if you have to wait for a minute, be patient. I promise I will take care of you as soon as I possibly can.
12. Treating a server like a piece of crap and the scum of the earth because we are serving you is the quickest way to get the worst service you ever thought possible. We are people too and you are no better than me... I don't give a crap what you do.
13. Just think about it like this...your tip left on the table is how I pay my bills. I am making $2.13 an hour. No, I don't get a paycheck. After taxes and claiming tips, I'm lucky if I even see one. Remember that next time you decide to be cheap.
14. Servers are usually serving to get through college and will probably one day have a better job than the jerk that thinks she's better than you...it's not a career.
15. Last but certainly not least... Don't assume that my job is easier than yours and I am some dumbsh*t who can't get a better job. The restaurant business is a fast-paced environment with a high stress level, and you don't even see all the things we do behind the scenes. So have some respect. I don't come to your office and treat you like sh*t for sitting on your a$$ all day do I?! No. I don't.
16. Most people do not know that we pay taxes based upon what we claim to make. News flash: we have to claim at least about 10% of our sales. What this means is if you are one of the scum of the earth that doesn't tip, I just paid taxes on your meal that I worked to serve you. This means I just paid to serve you. Better yet, if you walk out on your tab, chances are I just paid for your meal! Karma people...Karma!
If you're a Christian and you don't tip at least 15%, then shame on you! Did you know that Sundays are the worst days to wait tables, especially in the mornings, because the "after church rush" are some of the consistently worst tippers ever...how pathetic! It's OK if you gave all your money to Jesus, it really is, but if this is the case, then you should go home and eat a sandwich. Also, tip your car-hop at Sonic! Don't tell me she doesn't really do anything...oh yes she does! She brings your food to you no matter what the weather is like, she runs her butt off, she's answering the speaker, making ice cream, making sure you have extra ketchup, napkins, etc., and bagging orders! Don't tell me she isn't doing anything but bringing you your food!
Also, if your steak comes out cooked at the wrong temperature, the vegetables are cold, or something is wrong with your drink, more often than not, that isn't the server's fault. Unless it's very obvious that the server got your order wrong, don't take it out on them by docking their tip for something the kitchen, the bar staff, or even the computers might have been responsible for...give them the benefit of the doubt. Finally, if you know the place closes at 10 P.M., do NOT bring a party of 10 in at 9:57 and ask, "Hey you guys still open?" with a smile on your face. Servers, esp. the ones who are closing, will hate you for this because that means they have to go home another hour or so later...ditto for the kitchen guys. If you must eat out late, go someplace that's open 24 hours or somewhere you know the hours and can get there at least a few minutes before closing.
1. IF you can afford to go out to eat., but you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to go out to eat.
2. This is 2006...10% or less than $2 is not acceptable anymore. Standard tipping for AVERAGE service should be 15%, GOOD service is between 18 and 20%, and GREAT service should start at 25% and go up. If your service was bad enough that you feel compelled to tip less than 15%, discreetly find a manager and tell them why...most are very understanding and will try to help make you happy, because they want you to come back.
3. I understand that 10% is good enough for God. That's fine, but this isn't church.
4. If you wanted fast food, you should have gone through a drive-thru. If you order a well-done steak, your ticket time will be longer because it takes longer to cook a steak all the way through. If you order a filet well done, I will hand you a Slim Jim, mock and ridicule you without mercy, and eat the 30 dollar steak myself...you have been warned.
5. It's really not necessary to snap at me or wave your hand in the air like you're having a spasm or get up and follow me. I saw you, I acknowledged you, and you saw me acknowledge you. Hold on and sit down...I am coming, I promise.
6. When I take the time to be courteous and introduce myself, please don't be rude and cut me off...manners people!
7. I follow a strict rule that you should never reward bad service with a good tip; however, you should also never punish excellent service with a crappy tip because you're a cheap jerk or because of something that wasn't the server's fault.
8. Please don't take it out on me because you have had a bad day. I'm here to make it better, so relax.
9. When I deliver your food and ask if there is anything else, you can tell me. I asked. didn't I? Don't get all bent out of shape because I'm not psychic and cannot read your mind. How the heck am I supposed to know you needed A-1 unless you speak up?
10. I know sometimes you can't help it, but do you really have to ask for something every single time I walk past the table?! I mean really, Jessica Simpson is not even that high-maintenance.
11. Hi! Look around you, and notice that you are one of probably twenty people I am waiting on...so if you have to wait for a minute, be patient. I promise I will take care of you as soon as I possibly can.
12. Treating a server like a piece of crap and the scum of the earth because we are serving you is the quickest way to get the worst service you ever thought possible. We are people too and you are no better than me... I don't give a crap what you do.
13. Just think about it like this...your tip left on the table is how I pay my bills. I am making $2.13 an hour. No, I don't get a paycheck. After taxes and claiming tips, I'm lucky if I even see one. Remember that next time you decide to be cheap.
14. Servers are usually serving to get through college and will probably one day have a better job than the jerk that thinks she's better than you...it's not a career.
15. Last but certainly not least... Don't assume that my job is easier than yours and I am some dumbsh*t who can't get a better job. The restaurant business is a fast-paced environment with a high stress level, and you don't even see all the things we do behind the scenes. So have some respect. I don't come to your office and treat you like sh*t for sitting on your a$$ all day do I?! No. I don't.
16. Most people do not know that we pay taxes based upon what we claim to make. News flash: we have to claim at least about 10% of our sales. What this means is if you are one of the scum of the earth that doesn't tip, I just paid taxes on your meal that I worked to serve you. This means I just paid to serve you. Better yet, if you walk out on your tab, chances are I just paid for your meal! Karma people...Karma!
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Bill Simmons on Saddam, A.I., K-Fed, and Dane Cook
Bill Simmons writes some of the funniest stuff ever, mixing in a blend of dry humor, pop culture, and sports references that has no peers (see uproariously Britney/K-Fed commentary below, although the Dave Chappelle/Dane Cook joke only makes sense if you've seen "Trading Places"). His Friday column was no exception, and I'm posting my favorite questions and answers from his most recent mailbag column, which don't occur nearly as frequently as I'd like. Sometimes it's the little things that make me happy, so enjoy!
Q: We have to give it up for K-Fed. Yeah, he's getting a divorce. Yeah, he left his pregnant girlfriend. And yeah, he looks like a rat. But he turned a career as a greasy backup dancer who probably had nothing but his expenses paid for into half of Britney's fortune, a record deal, mainstream celebrity status and is now fighting John Cena in a WWE ring. This would be like me going to a Sixers' game, nailing the half-court shot at halftime and then securing a $40 million, five-year deal from Billy King to be an "ambassador" for the organization. --Pete, Stoney Creek, Ontario
SG: I couldn't agree more. You know, we make fun of K-Fed, but if this was one of your friends, wouldn't you be high-fiving him right now? Three years ago, he had no career and no life ... now he's a multimillionaire with a record contract, and he can say he was married to Britney Spears and even had two kids with her that she gets to support. And if that's not enough, she's paying HIM alimony. And we're calling this guy a LOSER? He's a winner, I say.
Q: I'm 99 percent positive that Randolph and Mortimer Duke recently wagered $1 that they could turn the funniest, most successful stand-up comic into a disturbed bum on the street and turn a random unfunny guy off the street into the hottest comic in the land with TV specials and a feature film. How else can you explain the fall of Dave Chappelle and the rise of Dane Cook? It is the only answer. Looking good Dane Cook! Feeling good Dave Chappelle! --DeVito, Washington
SG: There's still a month left in 2006, but that's the E-Mail of the Year so far.
Q: My buddies and I were talking about appropriate punishments for dictators like Saddam Hussein, and we came up with an idea that works for everyone and could raise money for the International Criminal Court without using tax dollars. Why not charge admission for people to look at convicted dictators in their jail cells, kind of like a zoo for genocidal megalomaniacs? Think about it: you put them in small, basic cells behind plexiglass and charge 25 euros to watch them go about their day. Tourists could get baked at a local coffee shop and head over to the jail to gawk at Slobodan Milosevic sitting on a cot watching "90210" reruns. You could even charge extra to feed them falafel pellets and shawarma biscuits. This would be a far worse fate for a once-proud dictator then being executed. Who wouldn't pay 25 euros to watch Saddam Hussein in his underwear eating Cheetos? --Kris, Washington
SG: DeVito from Washington, you've been bounced! That's the new Greatest E-mail of 2006. And just for the record, I'd pay 200 euros to see dictators in zoo cages.
Q: So, one day last week I see Sixers GM Billy King in a restaurant in Philly. I started thinking "Does he deal with ordering food the same way he signs NBA players?" If he ordered the steak, if it's an OK steak but nothing fantastic, does he offer to pay double or triple the market value for it? Maybe there could be a show where Billy King negotiates car prices for people who stand by dumbfounded as he offers $27,000 for a 1987 Toyota Camry with 167,000 miles. -- Adam, Philadelphia
SG: I had a sarcastic follow-up joke here ... then I remembered that my favorite baseball team just spent $51.1 million for the right to negotiate a free agent contract for a Japanese pitcher who's represented by Scott Boras. I'll shut up now.
Q: We have to give it up for K-Fed. Yeah, he's getting a divorce. Yeah, he left his pregnant girlfriend. And yeah, he looks like a rat. But he turned a career as a greasy backup dancer who probably had nothing but his expenses paid for into half of Britney's fortune, a record deal, mainstream celebrity status and is now fighting John Cena in a WWE ring. This would be like me going to a Sixers' game, nailing the half-court shot at halftime and then securing a $40 million, five-year deal from Billy King to be an "ambassador" for the organization. --Pete, Stoney Creek, Ontario
SG: I couldn't agree more. You know, we make fun of K-Fed, but if this was one of your friends, wouldn't you be high-fiving him right now? Three years ago, he had no career and no life ... now he's a multimillionaire with a record contract, and he can say he was married to Britney Spears and even had two kids with her that she gets to support. And if that's not enough, she's paying HIM alimony. And we're calling this guy a LOSER? He's a winner, I say.
Q: I'm 99 percent positive that Randolph and Mortimer Duke recently wagered $1 that they could turn the funniest, most successful stand-up comic into a disturbed bum on the street and turn a random unfunny guy off the street into the hottest comic in the land with TV specials and a feature film. How else can you explain the fall of Dave Chappelle and the rise of Dane Cook? It is the only answer. Looking good Dane Cook! Feeling good Dave Chappelle! --DeVito, Washington
SG: There's still a month left in 2006, but that's the E-Mail of the Year so far.
Q: My buddies and I were talking about appropriate punishments for dictators like Saddam Hussein, and we came up with an idea that works for everyone and could raise money for the International Criminal Court without using tax dollars. Why not charge admission for people to look at convicted dictators in their jail cells, kind of like a zoo for genocidal megalomaniacs? Think about it: you put them in small, basic cells behind plexiglass and charge 25 euros to watch them go about their day. Tourists could get baked at a local coffee shop and head over to the jail to gawk at Slobodan Milosevic sitting on a cot watching "90210" reruns. You could even charge extra to feed them falafel pellets and shawarma biscuits. This would be a far worse fate for a once-proud dictator then being executed. Who wouldn't pay 25 euros to watch Saddam Hussein in his underwear eating Cheetos? --Kris, Washington
SG: DeVito from Washington, you've been bounced! That's the new Greatest E-mail of 2006. And just for the record, I'd pay 200 euros to see dictators in zoo cages.
Q: So, one day last week I see Sixers GM Billy King in a restaurant in Philly. I started thinking "Does he deal with ordering food the same way he signs NBA players?" If he ordered the steak, if it's an OK steak but nothing fantastic, does he offer to pay double or triple the market value for it? Maybe there could be a show where Billy King negotiates car prices for people who stand by dumbfounded as he offers $27,000 for a 1987 Toyota Camry with 167,000 miles. -- Adam, Philadelphia
SG: I had a sarcastic follow-up joke here ... then I remembered that my favorite baseball team just spent $51.1 million for the right to negotiate a free agent contract for a Japanese pitcher who's represented by Scott Boras. I'll shut up now.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
A Sadly Accurate Societal Diagnosis
This brief but rousing post from the Musings of a Geek with a .45 blog takes a mighty swing of the clue bat and crushes one out of the zip code. As writer Dave Kopel so eloquently stated once in a piece advocating that teachers who have concealed-carry permits be allowed to carry at school to protect the school, themselves, and their students, "To some people, the notion that teachers or students should engage in active resistance is highly offensive, and the idea that teachers and students should be encouraged to learn active resistance is outrageous. Our nation has too many people who are not only unwilling to learn how to protect themselves, but who are also determined to prevent innocent third persons from practicing active defense. A person has the right to choose to be a pacifist, but it is wrong to force everyone else to act like a pacifist." I say it often, but it's easy to read it all with this one, because it's both short and spot-on.
"I reflect that some people will actively reject a diagnosis of national pussydom as being a central cause of many of our various national symptoms, but I also reflect that people often reject a diagnosis not on its merits, but because they fear that the antidote is worse. In the minds of many people, the opposite of "pussy" is the sort of slope headed, testosterone poisoned tattooed tough guy bully, incapable of nuance or reason that most of us learned to detest in junior high school. Sadly missing from our national conciousness is a positive template or role model of a whole, complete and balanced human being capable of the full range of human expression that includes: mental agility, a well calibrated moral compass, and demonstrable courage, who knows when to run, fight or negotiate, and is equally facile in all three. Sadly, people who exhibit such traits are dubbed heroes, and placed separate and apart from common men, behind a velvet rope, thus relieving the masses from the burden of having such expectations placed upon them.
We can no longer afford to be a nation of the craven, allowing our public policies to be driven by the cowardly and the pusillanimous who seek the illusion of zero risk and absolute safety. We are called to be a nation of heroes, each and every one of us, to practice in our everyday lives the traits we find noble and admirable, until we awaken one day to find that we accept and embrace our own magnificence. In so doing, we serve ourselves and our nation well."
"I reflect that some people will actively reject a diagnosis of national pussydom as being a central cause of many of our various national symptoms, but I also reflect that people often reject a diagnosis not on its merits, but because they fear that the antidote is worse. In the minds of many people, the opposite of "pussy" is the sort of slope headed, testosterone poisoned tattooed tough guy bully, incapable of nuance or reason that most of us learned to detest in junior high school. Sadly missing from our national conciousness is a positive template or role model of a whole, complete and balanced human being capable of the full range of human expression that includes: mental agility, a well calibrated moral compass, and demonstrable courage, who knows when to run, fight or negotiate, and is equally facile in all three. Sadly, people who exhibit such traits are dubbed heroes, and placed separate and apart from common men, behind a velvet rope, thus relieving the masses from the burden of having such expectations placed upon them.
We can no longer afford to be a nation of the craven, allowing our public policies to be driven by the cowardly and the pusillanimous who seek the illusion of zero risk and absolute safety. We are called to be a nation of heroes, each and every one of us, to practice in our everyday lives the traits we find noble and admirable, until we awaken one day to find that we accept and embrace our own magnificence. In so doing, we serve ourselves and our nation well."
Friday, November 17, 2006
Gotta Be "The Notebook" or Bust
Being the big reading nerd that I am, I sometimes get on a reading kick, sometimes it's a particular genre that grabs hold of me, while others it's a particular author. I just finished my third Nicholas Sparks book in a week, first "The Notebook", followed by "The Wedding", and finally, tonight, "A Bend in the Road". I really like his writing style, and the man surely knows how to tug some heartstrings. I am, in reading Sparks' works, reminded of Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail", where she tells Tom Hanks, "So much of what I see in my life reminds me of something I read in a book, but shouldn't it be the other way around?" At first I didn't grasp the profound depth of that statement, but it really hit me after reading these books. I am not naive enough to think that the background and the details of my own story will necessarily be like it is in "The Notebook"...after all, that part of it is fiction...the happy ending, however, is very real, and I am pretty sure I couldn't settle for anything less.
I believe in the existence of the total package of love, and the kind of passionate love I read about in this book is a fine example. The power this kind of love holds should not be underestimated. The Bible uses many words to describe love, but the the quality that comes most immediately to mind for me when I think of love is perseverance...and that takes many forms. It's everything from refusing to settle for less than your heart's desire, to holding on against extremely long odds, to walking out the road you are on with a person to the very end and getting the answers you seek, come what may. My prayer is that, when this type love comes along for me, I don't reject it out of hand simply because I can't conceive of it and don't believe it is possible...I truly hope that I can just accept it as it comes, begin the journey in earnest, and enjoy the ride.
I don't know yet how my love journey will end...I only know that God promises us the desires of our heart, and I'm sure he knows the kind of love I seek and how important it is to me that I find it. As hard as it has been and may yet be, if I continue to passionately persevere, I do know that my journey will end with the answers I seek and the love I have longed for...and as for the details, well, that part of my book hasn't been written just yet, and I'm excited to see what God can come up with. :)
I believe in the existence of the total package of love, and the kind of passionate love I read about in this book is a fine example. The power this kind of love holds should not be underestimated. The Bible uses many words to describe love, but the the quality that comes most immediately to mind for me when I think of love is perseverance...and that takes many forms. It's everything from refusing to settle for less than your heart's desire, to holding on against extremely long odds, to walking out the road you are on with a person to the very end and getting the answers you seek, come what may. My prayer is that, when this type love comes along for me, I don't reject it out of hand simply because I can't conceive of it and don't believe it is possible...I truly hope that I can just accept it as it comes, begin the journey in earnest, and enjoy the ride.
I don't know yet how my love journey will end...I only know that God promises us the desires of our heart, and I'm sure he knows the kind of love I seek and how important it is to me that I find it. As hard as it has been and may yet be, if I continue to passionately persevere, I do know that my journey will end with the answers I seek and the love I have longed for...and as for the details, well, that part of my book hasn't been written just yet, and I'm excited to see what God can come up with. :)
Thursday, November 16, 2006
November 19 Weekend Football Picks
No commentary today, just picks...except for this, UT better not lose to Vandy this weekend, or their name is M-U-D!
NCAA
Auburn/Alabama- This game is always a slobber-knocker, no matter where it is held. Tide coach Mike Shula is not on the hot seat yet, but it's getting warmer because he can't seem to beat winning teams in big games. A win over Auburn would certainly help his chances. The Tigers aren't nearly as bad as they played against Georgia last week, but I don't think they are necessarily a top 10 team either. Alabama played a very hot LSU team tough for 4 quarters last week on both sides of the ball, and if they can repeat that performance at home, they should pull off the upset. This is my upset special of the week (hope you like this one Leigh), Tide 20, Auburn 17.
MTSU/South Carolina- MTSU has played lights out against Sun Belt competition all year, and they even played Maryland very tough before getting squashed by Oklahoma. South Carolina is a bit better than Maryland but not quite as good as the Sooners. MTSU will stay in the game and not get embarrassed, but the Gamecocks will win this one at home 34-23.
Tennessee at Vanderbilt- The Vols lost to Vandy last year for the first time in about 2 decades, capping off a miserable season and costing them a bowl bid. Despite getting absolutely throttled by a white hot Arkansas team last week in Fayetteville, the Vols still have more talent in every phase of the game than the Commodores. The Nashville crowd will be rowdier and have more Vandy fans than usual, but a couple of early scores would take them out of it. UT returns the favor and officially ends Vandy's bowl dreams, Vols 41, Commodores 17.
Michigan @ Ohio State- This is definitely the most hyped, premier game of the week. It pits an outstanding Michigan D and a good Wolverines offense against a great Ohio St. offense and very good D. The slight edge in tailbacks goes to OSU because of their depth, while the wideouts on both sides are outstanding, a wash. As always, big plays, special teams, and turnovers will determine the outcome, but this year, Troy Smith is better than Chad Henne, and between that and the Buckeye crowd, Ohio State should sail into the national title game with a hard fought win...Buckeyes 27, Michigan 20.
NFL
Bears at Jets- Last week, the Jets sprang the upset on Tom Brady and the Pats in a rainstorm at the Meadowlands, while the Bears whipped an injury-depleted Giants squad. Bears QB Rex Grossman has struggled all year against good blitzing teams, and Jets coach Eric Mangini is one of the best at devising these schemes. Jets QB Chad Pennington has done well all year managing the game and not turning the ball over, but the offense still needs to score more. The Bears are better on D and should bottle up the Jets for most of the game, but Bears turnovers keep it close until the end...Chicago wins a low-scoring game 16-13.
Falcons at Ravens- Steve McNair led the comeback last week against a sorry Titans team playing not to lose instead of playing to win, and now they have a three game division lead despite losing LB Ray Lewis to injury indefinitely. The Falcons last week lost to a bad Browns team because they couldn't score and because Mike Vick kept turning the ball over, and their D has been decimated by injuries. That is a bad mix coming to play the Ravens in Baltimore, and if they keep turning the ball over that way, the Falcons will get blown out of the stadium. The Ravens improve to 8-2 here, they beat the Falcons 30-17.
Chargers at Broncos- This should be a very fun game to watch, but who knows whether it will be a shootout or a defensive war. Absent inclement weather, I'd say it will be a shootout. Despite the talent on Denver's D, Charges QB Phillip Rivers is playing as well as any QB this side of Peyton Manning, and having LaDainian Tomlinson, the game's best RB, doesn't hurt. The Chargers' D has been hurt by injuries and suspensions, and the Bengals hung 41 on them last week and still lost. If Broncos' QB Jake Plummer craps the bed here and throws a bunch of picks, it will seal the deal of him being gone at season's end. Chargers win close in a high-scoring game, Bolts 44, Broncos 38.
NCAA
Auburn/Alabama- This game is always a slobber-knocker, no matter where it is held. Tide coach Mike Shula is not on the hot seat yet, but it's getting warmer because he can't seem to beat winning teams in big games. A win over Auburn would certainly help his chances. The Tigers aren't nearly as bad as they played against Georgia last week, but I don't think they are necessarily a top 10 team either. Alabama played a very hot LSU team tough for 4 quarters last week on both sides of the ball, and if they can repeat that performance at home, they should pull off the upset. This is my upset special of the week (hope you like this one Leigh), Tide 20, Auburn 17.
MTSU/South Carolina- MTSU has played lights out against Sun Belt competition all year, and they even played Maryland very tough before getting squashed by Oklahoma. South Carolina is a bit better than Maryland but not quite as good as the Sooners. MTSU will stay in the game and not get embarrassed, but the Gamecocks will win this one at home 34-23.
Tennessee at Vanderbilt- The Vols lost to Vandy last year for the first time in about 2 decades, capping off a miserable season and costing them a bowl bid. Despite getting absolutely throttled by a white hot Arkansas team last week in Fayetteville, the Vols still have more talent in every phase of the game than the Commodores. The Nashville crowd will be rowdier and have more Vandy fans than usual, but a couple of early scores would take them out of it. UT returns the favor and officially ends Vandy's bowl dreams, Vols 41, Commodores 17.
Michigan @ Ohio State- This is definitely the most hyped, premier game of the week. It pits an outstanding Michigan D and a good Wolverines offense against a great Ohio St. offense and very good D. The slight edge in tailbacks goes to OSU because of their depth, while the wideouts on both sides are outstanding, a wash. As always, big plays, special teams, and turnovers will determine the outcome, but this year, Troy Smith is better than Chad Henne, and between that and the Buckeye crowd, Ohio State should sail into the national title game with a hard fought win...Buckeyes 27, Michigan 20.
NFL
Bears at Jets- Last week, the Jets sprang the upset on Tom Brady and the Pats in a rainstorm at the Meadowlands, while the Bears whipped an injury-depleted Giants squad. Bears QB Rex Grossman has struggled all year against good blitzing teams, and Jets coach Eric Mangini is one of the best at devising these schemes. Jets QB Chad Pennington has done well all year managing the game and not turning the ball over, but the offense still needs to score more. The Bears are better on D and should bottle up the Jets for most of the game, but Bears turnovers keep it close until the end...Chicago wins a low-scoring game 16-13.
Falcons at Ravens- Steve McNair led the comeback last week against a sorry Titans team playing not to lose instead of playing to win, and now they have a three game division lead despite losing LB Ray Lewis to injury indefinitely. The Falcons last week lost to a bad Browns team because they couldn't score and because Mike Vick kept turning the ball over, and their D has been decimated by injuries. That is a bad mix coming to play the Ravens in Baltimore, and if they keep turning the ball over that way, the Falcons will get blown out of the stadium. The Ravens improve to 8-2 here, they beat the Falcons 30-17.
Chargers at Broncos- This should be a very fun game to watch, but who knows whether it will be a shootout or a defensive war. Absent inclement weather, I'd say it will be a shootout. Despite the talent on Denver's D, Charges QB Phillip Rivers is playing as well as any QB this side of Peyton Manning, and having LaDainian Tomlinson, the game's best RB, doesn't hurt. The Chargers' D has been hurt by injuries and suspensions, and the Bengals hung 41 on them last week and still lost. If Broncos' QB Jake Plummer craps the bed here and throws a bunch of picks, it will seal the deal of him being gone at season's end. Chargers win close in a high-scoring game, Bolts 44, Broncos 38.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Conventional Wisdom is Deadly Denial
From Emperor Misha, we get a fine recap of not-so-distant history. People never remember that Adolf Hitler laid out EXACTLY what he was going to do in books, speeches, etc. before he actually did it. Millions of people died because no one was willing to believe that he would actually do these things. They were so horrible as to defy the comprehension of reasonable men and went against "conventional wisdom". So now it is, a few short decades later with the howling, scimitar-wielding, barbarians of the "Religion of Peace". All anyone has to do is listen, and they will tell you their exact goals and plans to be carried out in the name of their pedophile prophet...the utter destruction of Israel, a global caliphate under Islamic rule and "law", and dispatching of all apostates and infidels (that would be us) with extreme prejudice. It gets awfully tiresome pointing this out again and again. Misha, myself, and others feel like Winston Churchill from the WWII era, derided as racists, exaggeration artists, and worse...and so it will be, right up until the time an American city or several glow in the dark for the next 10,000 years. It's pretty clear what's coming, and while willful ignorance may work for a while, it isn't a solution. Read it all.
"Out With the Old, In With the New"
There comes a time, in any field of human endeavour, where the paradigm changes so profoundly that any adherence to old "tried and true" principles are not merely ineffectual, they're downright counterproductive.
...any warnings about Islam today are dismissed as crazy and hyperbolic interpretations of the very words of the Koran.
"Conventional wisdom says…"
The most deadly words in the English language.
Conventional "wisdom" made it possible for Neville Chamberlain to keep pretending that negotiations would solve the issue when a prompt response to the invasion of the Rheinland would have ended Hitler's reign in a matter of weeks and saved untold millions of lives. "Conventional wisdom" is also known as "denial." As a result, the world was thrown into a war that lasted for 6 years and ended up making the horrors of WWI look like a diplomatic note of moderate concern.
While the French and the British were busy pondering their conventional wisdom and fighting the last war again, the German Panzers were going through their lines like a hot knife through butter, and by the time they realized that their doddering old fossils of eras gone past were about as useful as screen doors on a submarine, Adolf's armies were at the gates of Moscow.
Just like the Greek held desperately on to the conventional wisdom of the invincibility of the phalanx while the Romans were busy chewing their pretty parade ground formations into bloody shreds with their small unit tactics and individual leadership principles. Just like the Austrians, Prussians and Russians were too busy admiring their massed infantry formations to notice that Napoleon's artillery were turning the nice, huge targets into ground meat. Just like the British and French were sending their troops to their deaths in WWI while the Germans were having a field day overheating the barrels of their machine guns.
That is no different from the situation we're facing today. None of our so-called leaders have had an original idea in at least 30 years, and they're not about to have one if it jumps into their laps and chews their flabby man-breasts off. They're yesterday's news, brought up in an era where we were facing a rational enemy unwilling to sacrifice themselves in an attack on even their worst enemies.
So they continue to treat radical Islam as a rational enemy, something to be negotiated and reasoned with, and they continue stubbornly to live in a fantasy world of their own making where the Koran doesn't mean what it literally says (just as pre-WWII leaders refused to take Adolf Hitler's own words at face value), because they simply cannot fathom the existence of an ideology as hateful as that.
As was the case with Adolf Hitler's death camps, they know full well what is going on, but they just don't want to live in a reality that allows for that, so they make up a fantasy world of their own where they can pretend that a loaded gun pointed at your midriff doesn't really mean what it says. With every fresh outrage, they'll feign outrage and surprise, claiming that nobody could have possibly predicted that.
Denial. It is not a virtue, it is a psychological disorder, and people suffering from it have no business leading a homeowner's association, much less a nation at war against a foe numbering in the billions.
Nobody likes the inevitable conclusions from realizing the true nature of the war we're in, but nobody is served by denying the facts...least of all the millions that will have to die between now and the point where we finally learn the lesson. We can keep pretending that this war isn't what it is, that the stated, literal goals of our enemies and the "holy" book that they follow aren't what they're clearly spelled out to be for anybody who can read, and we can keep doing so for a while yet. But our unwillingness to face reality, our desire to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that we can create a reality more to our liking simply through wishful thinking will only cost more lives.
Just ask the millions who died as a result of our identical behavior prior to WWII. No, wait, you can't...they're all dead, murdered by denial and good intentions. Millions of lives snuffed out unnecessarily, millions of families wiped out, all because mankind wouldn't face reality as it WAS and step up to the plate. Just like the thousands of lives that were brutally ended on 9/11 because nobody could possibly imagine that such a thing could ever happen, because it hadn't happened before, right?
And here we are, making the exact same mistake, deliberately and willfully pretending that we live in a world that doesn't exist because we don't like the reality that we've been dealt. Millions of future lives are in the balance, right now, and if you don't wake up from your slumber and face the FACTS, you will be complicit in their deaths.
It's time to throw out the old brooms, it's time to clear out the cobwebs, it's time to face the world as it IS, not as we would LIKE it to be. If we don't, we'll be as derided and hated as the Chamberlains of old, and we will deserve every bit of it.
Thatisall."
"Out With the Old, In With the New"
There comes a time, in any field of human endeavour, where the paradigm changes so profoundly that any adherence to old "tried and true" principles are not merely ineffectual, they're downright counterproductive.
...any warnings about Islam today are dismissed as crazy and hyperbolic interpretations of the very words of the Koran.
"Conventional wisdom says…"
The most deadly words in the English language.
Conventional "wisdom" made it possible for Neville Chamberlain to keep pretending that negotiations would solve the issue when a prompt response to the invasion of the Rheinland would have ended Hitler's reign in a matter of weeks and saved untold millions of lives. "Conventional wisdom" is also known as "denial." As a result, the world was thrown into a war that lasted for 6 years and ended up making the horrors of WWI look like a diplomatic note of moderate concern.
While the French and the British were busy pondering their conventional wisdom and fighting the last war again, the German Panzers were going through their lines like a hot knife through butter, and by the time they realized that their doddering old fossils of eras gone past were about as useful as screen doors on a submarine, Adolf's armies were at the gates of Moscow.
Just like the Greek held desperately on to the conventional wisdom of the invincibility of the phalanx while the Romans were busy chewing their pretty parade ground formations into bloody shreds with their small unit tactics and individual leadership principles. Just like the Austrians, Prussians and Russians were too busy admiring their massed infantry formations to notice that Napoleon's artillery were turning the nice, huge targets into ground meat. Just like the British and French were sending their troops to their deaths in WWI while the Germans were having a field day overheating the barrels of their machine guns.
That is no different from the situation we're facing today. None of our so-called leaders have had an original idea in at least 30 years, and they're not about to have one if it jumps into their laps and chews their flabby man-breasts off. They're yesterday's news, brought up in an era where we were facing a rational enemy unwilling to sacrifice themselves in an attack on even their worst enemies.
So they continue to treat radical Islam as a rational enemy, something to be negotiated and reasoned with, and they continue stubbornly to live in a fantasy world of their own making where the Koran doesn't mean what it literally says (just as pre-WWII leaders refused to take Adolf Hitler's own words at face value), because they simply cannot fathom the existence of an ideology as hateful as that.
As was the case with Adolf Hitler's death camps, they know full well what is going on, but they just don't want to live in a reality that allows for that, so they make up a fantasy world of their own where they can pretend that a loaded gun pointed at your midriff doesn't really mean what it says. With every fresh outrage, they'll feign outrage and surprise, claiming that nobody could have possibly predicted that.
Denial. It is not a virtue, it is a psychological disorder, and people suffering from it have no business leading a homeowner's association, much less a nation at war against a foe numbering in the billions.
Nobody likes the inevitable conclusions from realizing the true nature of the war we're in, but nobody is served by denying the facts...least of all the millions that will have to die between now and the point where we finally learn the lesson. We can keep pretending that this war isn't what it is, that the stated, literal goals of our enemies and the "holy" book that they follow aren't what they're clearly spelled out to be for anybody who can read, and we can keep doing so for a while yet. But our unwillingness to face reality, our desire to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that we can create a reality more to our liking simply through wishful thinking will only cost more lives.
Just ask the millions who died as a result of our identical behavior prior to WWII. No, wait, you can't...they're all dead, murdered by denial and good intentions. Millions of lives snuffed out unnecessarily, millions of families wiped out, all because mankind wouldn't face reality as it WAS and step up to the plate. Just like the thousands of lives that were brutally ended on 9/11 because nobody could possibly imagine that such a thing could ever happen, because it hadn't happened before, right?
And here we are, making the exact same mistake, deliberately and willfully pretending that we live in a world that doesn't exist because we don't like the reality that we've been dealt. Millions of future lives are in the balance, right now, and if you don't wake up from your slumber and face the FACTS, you will be complicit in their deaths.
It's time to throw out the old brooms, it's time to clear out the cobwebs, it's time to face the world as it IS, not as we would LIKE it to be. If we don't, we'll be as derided and hated as the Chamberlains of old, and we will deserve every bit of it.
Thatisall."
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Tuning Into the O.J. Trainwreck
This is a complete embarrassment, and it would be funny if it weren't so sad given the fact that two people died...I don't even have a joke here. From ESPN.com, we learn that O.J. is going to give an unrestricted interview to Fox about how he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife and her lover, if he had actually done it you know. It's an embarrassment to our country and to our justice system that this man is walking around free right now...him and Michael Jackson both. The O.J. verdict proved that a verdict could be bought if the purchaser cared nothing for the cost, and our country and our perception of equal justice under law has never been the same since. People will tune in and watch this because it's like a grisly car wreck you can't turn away from, or like anytime Mike Tyson decides to speak on TV...whichever you prefer. I won't lie, I will be tuning in too, because I've never seen a guilty murderer speak on live TV before...simply unbelievable.
"O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes," the network said in a statement. "In the two-part event, Simpson describes how he would have carried out the murders he has vehemently denied committing for over a decade."
The interview will air days before Simpson's new book, "If I Did It,'' goes on sale Nov. 30. The book, published by Regan, "hypothetically describes how the murders would have been committed."
"O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes," the network said in a statement. "In the two-part event, Simpson describes how he would have carried out the murders he has vehemently denied committing for over a decade."
The interview will air days before Simpson's new book, "If I Did It,'' goes on sale Nov. 30. The book, published by Regan, "hypothetically describes how the murders would have been committed."
Monday, November 13, 2006
December 7, 2008, by Raymond Kraft
From the New Media Journal, Raymond Kraft paints a very plausible scenario of what might happen if we don't take the threat of terrorism as seriously as we should. I hope this day never comes, but I fear it might. I am somewhat of an alternate history/reality buff, so this stuff appeals to me...check it out, an interesting read.
"December 7, 2008, began inauspiciously.
At 0753 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the attack that had triggered America's entry into World War II, sixty-seven years before, was ceremoniously commemorated, an honor guard, taps, a 21-gun salute, the bugle's notes and the rifles' crack drifting across the bay to the USS Arizona memorial, where Admiral Arthur Peterson, USN Ret., laid a wreath in memory of the sailors sleeping below, one of whom was his own grandfather.
On the West coast it was 1053, and in Washington D.C. it was one fifty-three in the afternoon, 1353 military time.
In 2006 America, tired of War in Iraq, had elected Democrats to modest majorities in both houses of Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In the spring of 2007, on a narrow, party-line vote, Congress, led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer refused to authorize spending to continue the war in Iraq, and set September 30, 2007, as the deadline for complete withdrawal of American troops.
President Bush spoke to the country, to the American forces in Iraq, to those who had been there, and to the Iraqi people, to apologize for the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of the American congress and the tragedy he believed would follow after leaving task of nurturing a representative and stable government in Iraq half done, his voice choked, tears running down his stoic face, a betrayal of emotion for which he was resoundingly criticized and denounced in much of America's media.
The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised the new Congress for its clear vision and sound judgment. America's Democrats rejoiced and congratulated themselves for bringing peace with honor and ending the illegal war based on lies that George Bush had begun only to enrich his friends in the military-industrial complex, and promised to retake the Presidency in 2008.
"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."
At 1000 on September 30, 2007, precisely on schedule, the last C-5A Galaxy carrying the last company of American combat troops in Iraq had roared down the Baghdad runway and lifted into the air. Only a few hundred American technical and military advisers and political liaisons remained in-country.
The Galaxy's wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left Iraq. Sunni militias, Shia militias, and Al Qaeda militias ravaged and savaged the country, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis known or suspected to have collaborated with the Americans, killing Shias for being Shias, Sunnis for being Sunnis, Americans for being Americans, and anyone else who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
By noon, not one of the American advisers and liaisons left behind remained alive. Many had been beheaded as they screamed. Most of their bodies were dumped in the river and never seen again. In the next thirty days more than a million Iraqis died. The General Assembly of the United Nations voted to condemn the violence, and recessed for lunch and martinis. In America, there was no political will to redeploy back to Iraq. And after a few months of rabid bloodletting, the situation in Iraq calmed to a tense simmer of sporadic violence and political jockeying, punctuated by the occasional assassination, while several million refugees fled the country. Only Kurdistan, in the north, which had thrown up a line of its Peshmurga fighters to keep the southern violence away, remained stable and at relative peace.
In the spring of 2008 America began its quadrennial circus of a national election, and in November elected a Democrat, the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as it next president, to the surprise of few. Her running mate, to the surprise of many, was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose intelligence, charisma, and reputation as an indefatigable campaigner for gay marriage and the homeless of San Francisco helped solidify Clinton's support among liberal Democrats who only grudgingly forgave her for not openly opposing the Iraq war sooner, and the Clinton-Newsom ticket went to the top with a narrow 50.2% lead over Republican John McCain's 49.8% of the popular vote, despite, or perhaps because of, Clinton's and Newsom's lack of foreign policy and military experience.
America, or a slim voting majority of it, felt it had had all the war it ever wanted to see, and Hillary had led her party to a glorious (if narrow) victory with the unambiguous slogan: "Clinton & Newsom: No More War." Crowds at every whistle stop had cheered and chanted, No more war! No more war! No more war! At victory parties George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were hung and sometimes burned in effigy, enthusiastic crowds chanted "No more war!" many times more, and local bands cranked up the theme from the first Clinton electoral victory, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone...," and indeed, it was.
President Bush had been a very lame duck since the 2006 election, and with a Democratic Congress could do little but veto most of the bills it sent him. The Democrats couldn't override his vetoes, so for nearly two years almost nothing important had been accomplished by anyone on the Hill or in the White House. After the 2008 election it was transition time, flocks and herds of thoroughly demoralized Republican staff began leaving Washington in search of greener pastures, Congress adjourned for the Holidays, Democrats came house hunting, and Clinton and Newsom began the briefings they would get from a fully cooperative Bush administration on the state of the nation and the state of the world they would inherit and have to cope with for the next four years, or eight, and in those last weeks of November both Hillary and Gavin seemed to age rather quickly. The exhilaration of the campaign was over, and the weight of a tumultuous world began to settle on their shoulders.
Back in early October, 2006, North Korean President (for life) Kim Jong Il had announced the detonation of a nuclear bomb deep in a tunnel in the stony mountains of North Korea. The seismic signature had been small, and American intelligence at first doubted whether it had been a nuclear explosion at all. Traces of radioactive emissions were detected a few days later, and the intelligence estimate revised to conclude that it had been a failed test that produced perhaps only 10% or less of the expected yield, only 0.5 to 1.5 kilotons, not the 20 kilotons, at least, that Western intelligence had anticipated.
Kim Jong Il gloated. The deception had worked. The Americans were thinking in terms of long range intercontinental ballistic missiles with huge warheads that they could shoot out of the sky with their sophisticated billion-dollar anti-missile defense systems. He was thinking in terms of small warheads carried by small, medium range cruise missiles that could be launched from many places, and infiltrated close enough to slip in under the radar and hit America's coastal cities.
On the evening of December 6, 2008, a junior analyst in the National Security Agency was going over routine satellite photo production of ship movements in the Atlantic and Pacific within a thousand miles of the US coasts. Late in the shift he thought he saw something through a haze of fatigue and caffeine, and called a supervisor over to talk.
"Look," he said, photos up on several computer screens, more printed out and spread across his desk, "See? These boats, not big ships, fishing boats, yachts, they've been moving in along shipping lanes for several days, across from the South Pacific toward the West coast, up from the South Atlantic toward the east. Nothing very unusual, they're all small and slow, and scattered up and down the oceans, it seems, but if you look at the times and courses..." and he pulled out a chart he had plotted, "They're approaching so they will all arrive at about the same time, or all be about the same distance off the coast at about the same time...," he trailed off.
The supervisor looked a bit quizzical. "Coincidence? Probably. You need more sleep. Too much fun in the night, eh? Let me know if you see something we can do something with." And walked away.
At 0723 Hawaii time on the 67th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack three old fishing trawlers, about 100 miles apart, and each about 300 miles off the east coast, launched six small cruise missiles from launch tubes that could be dismantled and stored in the holds under ice, or fish, and set up in less than an hour. The missiles were launched at precisely one minute intervals. As soon as each boat had launched its pair, the skeleton crew began to abandon ship into a fast rubber inflatable. The captain was last off, and just before going overboard started the timer on the scuttling charges. Fifteen minutes later and ten miles away, each crew was going up the nets into a small freighter or tanker of Moroccan or Liberian registry, where each man was issued new identification as ship's crew. The rubber inflatables were shot and sunk, and just about then charges in the bilges of each of the three trawlers blew the hulls out, and they sank with no one on board and no distress signals in less than two minutes.
The missiles had been built in a joint operation by North Korea and Iran, and tested in Iran, so they would not have to overfly any other country. The small nuclear warheads had only been tested deep underground. The GPS guidance and detonating systems had worked perfectly, after a few corrections. They flew fifty feet above sea level, and 500 feet above ground level on the last leg of the trip, using computers and terrain data modified from open market technology and flight directors, autopilots, adapted from commercial aviation units. They would adjust speed to arrive on target at specific times and altitudes, and detonate upon reaching the programmed GPS coordinates. They were not as adaptable and intelligent as American cruise missiles, but they did not need to be. Not for this mission.
They were small, less than twenty feet long, and only 18 inches in diameter, powered by small, quiet, fuel-efficient, high-bypass turbofans, and painted in a mottled light blue and light gray ghost camouflage. Cruising at 600 knots, just below the speed of sound, they were nearly impossible to see or hear. They came in under the radar until they reached the coast. After that they were lost in the ground clutter. Nobody saw it coming.
At precisely 0753, Hawaii time, 1353 in the District of Columbia, sixty-seven years to the minute after the Pearl Harbor attack began, the first of six missiles to hit the Washington area exploded in a huge white burst of nuclear fire just 500 feet above the White House, which disappeared in a mist of powdered plaster and stone, concrete and steel. President Bush and President-Elect Clinton had been meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Mrs. Clinton's national security adviser, reviewing the latest National Security Estimate, when they instantaneously turned into a plasma of the atomic elements that had once been human beings. No trace remained.
Alarms immediately began going off all over Washington, and precisely one minute later the second missile exploded just as it struck the Capital dome, instantly turning thousands of tons of granite that had one moment before been the nation's center of government into thousands of tons of granite shrapnel that shredded several square miles of Washington like a leviathan Claymore mine. At precisely one minute intervals, four more 3 kiloton nuclear weapons exploded at an altitude of 500 feet AGL above the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters, the NSA headquarters, the FBI headquarters, all of which were fully staffed in the middle of the day. In five minutes, the government of the United States of America was decapitated, and a quarter million of the people who made the place run were dead, or dying, or had simply disappeared.
Also at 1353 Eastern time, a missile had blown off just above the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City, and thousands of years of collective financial knowledge and experience evaporated in the nuclear flame. In one minute intervals, others had hit the financial centers of Boston and Baltimore, and the Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.
Simultaneously, within the same 10-minute window of hell, nuclear tipped cruise missiles devastated the largest intermodel shipping facility on the West coast at San Pedro harbor, exploded just above the Library Tower in central Los Angeles, and short circuited the computer technology ghetto of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara County, big time. One exploded ten feet away from the top of the Bank of America Building in San Francisco and set much of the east slope of the city ablaze. Another giant fireball flared among the phalanx of office towers along the Capitol Mall in Sacramento, instantly obliterating Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state government of California, the largest state economy in the US, the seventh largest economy in the world. Two ripped open the heart of Portland, Oregon, one shattered the financial district of Seattle, and the last one turned the Microsoft campus into a pillar of fire and smoke, wiping from the face of history, in a second, the IT giant that had revolutionized global communications.
It was 0803, Hawaii time. Ten minutes.
Three million Americans dead. And not a trace of the assault fleet remained on the surface of any ocean.
Vice-President Elect Gavin Newsom was in his bedroom at home in Pacific Heights, his window overlooking the Golden Gate and the Marin bluffs. He thought he heard an oddly loud crack of thunder and saw a flash reflected on the hills across the inlet, but it was a clear day and nothing else seemed out of place. He continued packing for the return trip to Washington, his second since the election, to continue his transition briefings and begin organizing his staff. His nomination as Hillary's running mate had come as a huge surprise, and he was elated.
Someone rapped on the door, loudly, twice, and without waiting for a reply the senior Secret Service officer on his detail opened it and stepped quickly in. "Come with me, now," he said. Gavin was startled. "I need to finish packing," he replied.
"No time, sir. Something has happened. Very big. I fear. No details yet. We have to get you out of here, NOW! RIGHT NOW! GO! GO! GO!" He grabbed Newsom's arm, swung him around, and pushed him out the door, where two other Secret Service agents flanked him down the stairs and out to a running black Suburban waiting in the garage. They pushed him into the back seat, jumped in, and the driver gunned the engine, out the drive, down the street, tires squealing. Nobody spoke until they were headed over the Bridge, northbound at seventy-five miles an hour, weaving through the traffic which wasn't yet the gridlock it would soon become.
"What the hell's going on?" he finally demanded.
"Okay. This is what I know," the officer said. "The US has apparently sustained multiple nuclear attacks in the last fifteen minutes, including Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Financial district. We're not sure how many, at least ten, maybe twenty. Lots of dead. Got the White House, the Capital, the Pentagon. Our job is to get you on an airplane at the nearest functioning airport, that'll be Novato, and get you to a safe place. Prestissimo."
"Where?" Newsom asked. Things were moving way too fast now.
"Don't know yet. We'll get orders."
The Air Force Learjet had been airborne for two minutes when a cell phone buzzed, and the Secret Service captain answered it and handed it off to the Vice President Elect. "It's Mr. Cheney, sir," he said.
"Gavin?" Dick Cheney asked. "Yes, sir," Newsom replied, subdued, for the events of the last hour had sobered up his elated mood considerably.
"Okay, Gavin. I don't know what you know, so I'll tell you what I can. There have been approximately 20 nuclear strikes on government and financial targets in the US, about an hour ago. No real damage estimate yet, except that it's awful. A hundred times 9/11, maybe a thousand times. I happened to be at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and have moved into Cheyenne Mountain to set up a temporary HQ, until we get things sorted out. As you know Cheyenne was vacated by NORAD a few years ago, so we have plenty of space. You will be flown here, nonstop."
"I know you haven't a lot of national and international experience." Cheney had thought of saying that Newsom had none, but Newsom would be too painfully aware of that. He didn't need reminding. "The President is missing and presumed dead. So is Mrs. Clinton. So you may become the next president, in about six weeks. I don't know. he Constitution says the Vice President succeeds a president who is dead or disabled, but it doesn't say what happens if the President Elect dies before being inaugurated. I suppose the Court will have to answer that, if we can cobble one together by then. In the meantime, I will assume you will be inaugurated. You'll have a steep learning curve, a real steep curve. All presidents do, under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances."
The next day a hard winter storm roared down the West coast from Alaska, pelting rescue workers in bombed out city centers with hard, cold rain, that did not let up for a week. People alive but injured or trapped in the wreckage died of hypothermia before they were found. Two days later, a cold front out of Canada brought heavy snow to the Northeast. Millions were already without electricity, and in a week of subzero weather hundreds of thousands more died. More than four million, altogether. More than one of every one hundred Americans.
Al Qaeda had picked December 7 because it was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and because, just before Christmas, the Infidel holiday, it would destroy the Christmas shopping season so important to so many retailers, driving another nail into the national economy of the Great Satan. And it would destroy the festive spirit of the season for millions of Americans, perhaps for all. The perfect psyop. Psychological warfare. And the weather forecasters had predicted severe winter storms on both coasts during the week immediately after disaster.
Al Qaeda leaders had calculated, correctly, that by turning up the violence in Iraq during the weeks before the 2006 election it could achieve an anti-war Democratic Congress that would vote to end America's wars in the Middle East, and then by turning down the violence in Iraq after the election of an anti-war Democratic Congress, it could lull America into a false sense of safety and security in anticipation of the "peace in our time" that America's new ruling party had promised would follow from what Al Qaeda perceived, correctly, as America's retreat before the unstoppable determination of the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Jihad. America did not call it that, of course. The Americans thought they were just ending a bad and illegal war ginned up by George W. Bush to depose Saddam Hussein who had proven not to have WMDs after all, the ones the Americans had never found, the ones buried in Syria. Al Qaeda saw more clearly. It was a capitulation, a de facto surrender of the Middle East to the coming Islamic Caliphate that would someday rule the world. The martyrs of Islam had beaten the Great Satan to its knees. In time they would cut off its head.
By Christmas, the American economy had imploded. Inflation soared, unemployment soared, businesses closed, cities that had suffered direct hits became ghost towns. Tax revenues evaporated, leaving state governments without funds to pay unemployment benefits or teachers' salaries. With the New York Stock Exchange gone, stock trading ended, and values plummeted. Retirement assets and pension funds disappeared in a wink. Nobody knew what to expect. Real estate crashed, and major banks filed for bankruptcy. With the collapse of the American economy, the largest on earth, the most productive country on earth, with just 5% of the global population producing one third of the global economic output, the rest of the global economy fell into chaos. Oil shipments stopped, food shipments stopped, and in that winter millions of people in third world countries starved to death.
The America era was over.
"In the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany was poised to dominate the earth. France, the low countries, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and much of Poland had been overrun by the Germans. All of Europe, save neutral Sweden and Switzerland, was in the hands of Hitler's friends and allies: dictators or monarchs who ruled fascist Italy, Vichy France, Franco's Spain, Portugal, the Balkan countries, Finland, and above all the Soviet Union."
"A single German division under General Erwin Rommel, sent to rescue beleaguered Italians in Libya, drove Britain's Middle Eastern armies flying and threatened the Suez lifeline; while in Iraq a coup d'etat by the pro-German Rashid Ali cut the land road to India. In Asia, Germany's ally, Japan, was coiled to strike, ready to take Southeast Asia and invade India. No need to involve the United States; by seizing the Indies, Japan could break the American embargo and obtain all the oil needed for the Axis Powers to pursue their war aims.
"Hitler should have sent the bulk of his armies to serve under Rommel, who would have done what Alexander did and Bonaparte failed to do: He would have taken the Middle East and led his armies to India. There he would have linked up with the Japanese. Europe, Asia, and Africa, would have belonged to the coalition of dictators and militarists."
"The Nazi-Soviet-Japanese alliance commanded armed forces and resources that utterly dwarfed the military resources that the holdouts, Britain (with its empire), and the United States, could field. The English-speaking countries would have been isolated in a hostile world and would have had no realistic option but to make their peace with the enemy, retaining some autonomy for a time, perhaps, but doomed ultimately to succumb. Nazi Germany, as leader of the coalition, would have ruled the world."
"Only Hitler's astonishing blunder in betraying and invading his Soviet ally kept it from happening." - David Frompkin, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University, writing in What If: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (Putnam 1999) pp. 308, 309.
History is made, wars are won and lost, cultures and nations and civilizations come and go, rise and fall, as much by blunders as by victories.
The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."
"December 7, 2008, began inauspiciously.
At 0753 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the attack that had triggered America's entry into World War II, sixty-seven years before, was ceremoniously commemorated, an honor guard, taps, a 21-gun salute, the bugle's notes and the rifles' crack drifting across the bay to the USS Arizona memorial, where Admiral Arthur Peterson, USN Ret., laid a wreath in memory of the sailors sleeping below, one of whom was his own grandfather.
On the West coast it was 1053, and in Washington D.C. it was one fifty-three in the afternoon, 1353 military time.
In 2006 America, tired of War in Iraq, had elected Democrats to modest majorities in both houses of Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In the spring of 2007, on a narrow, party-line vote, Congress, led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer refused to authorize spending to continue the war in Iraq, and set September 30, 2007, as the deadline for complete withdrawal of American troops.
President Bush spoke to the country, to the American forces in Iraq, to those who had been there, and to the Iraqi people, to apologize for the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of the American congress and the tragedy he believed would follow after leaving task of nurturing a representative and stable government in Iraq half done, his voice choked, tears running down his stoic face, a betrayal of emotion for which he was resoundingly criticized and denounced in much of America's media.
The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised the new Congress for its clear vision and sound judgment. America's Democrats rejoiced and congratulated themselves for bringing peace with honor and ending the illegal war based on lies that George Bush had begun only to enrich his friends in the military-industrial complex, and promised to retake the Presidency in 2008.
"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."
At 1000 on September 30, 2007, precisely on schedule, the last C-5A Galaxy carrying the last company of American combat troops in Iraq had roared down the Baghdad runway and lifted into the air. Only a few hundred American technical and military advisers and political liaisons remained in-country.
The Galaxy's wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left Iraq. Sunni militias, Shia militias, and Al Qaeda militias ravaged and savaged the country, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis known or suspected to have collaborated with the Americans, killing Shias for being Shias, Sunnis for being Sunnis, Americans for being Americans, and anyone else who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
By noon, not one of the American advisers and liaisons left behind remained alive. Many had been beheaded as they screamed. Most of their bodies were dumped in the river and never seen again. In the next thirty days more than a million Iraqis died. The General Assembly of the United Nations voted to condemn the violence, and recessed for lunch and martinis. In America, there was no political will to redeploy back to Iraq. And after a few months of rabid bloodletting, the situation in Iraq calmed to a tense simmer of sporadic violence and political jockeying, punctuated by the occasional assassination, while several million refugees fled the country. Only Kurdistan, in the north, which had thrown up a line of its Peshmurga fighters to keep the southern violence away, remained stable and at relative peace.
In the spring of 2008 America began its quadrennial circus of a national election, and in November elected a Democrat, the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as it next president, to the surprise of few. Her running mate, to the surprise of many, was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose intelligence, charisma, and reputation as an indefatigable campaigner for gay marriage and the homeless of San Francisco helped solidify Clinton's support among liberal Democrats who only grudgingly forgave her for not openly opposing the Iraq war sooner, and the Clinton-Newsom ticket went to the top with a narrow 50.2% lead over Republican John McCain's 49.8% of the popular vote, despite, or perhaps because of, Clinton's and Newsom's lack of foreign policy and military experience.
America, or a slim voting majority of it, felt it had had all the war it ever wanted to see, and Hillary had led her party to a glorious (if narrow) victory with the unambiguous slogan: "Clinton & Newsom: No More War." Crowds at every whistle stop had cheered and chanted, No more war! No more war! No more war! At victory parties George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were hung and sometimes burned in effigy, enthusiastic crowds chanted "No more war!" many times more, and local bands cranked up the theme from the first Clinton electoral victory, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone...," and indeed, it was.
President Bush had been a very lame duck since the 2006 election, and with a Democratic Congress could do little but veto most of the bills it sent him. The Democrats couldn't override his vetoes, so for nearly two years almost nothing important had been accomplished by anyone on the Hill or in the White House. After the 2008 election it was transition time, flocks and herds of thoroughly demoralized Republican staff began leaving Washington in search of greener pastures, Congress adjourned for the Holidays, Democrats came house hunting, and Clinton and Newsom began the briefings they would get from a fully cooperative Bush administration on the state of the nation and the state of the world they would inherit and have to cope with for the next four years, or eight, and in those last weeks of November both Hillary and Gavin seemed to age rather quickly. The exhilaration of the campaign was over, and the weight of a tumultuous world began to settle on their shoulders.
Back in early October, 2006, North Korean President (for life) Kim Jong Il had announced the detonation of a nuclear bomb deep in a tunnel in the stony mountains of North Korea. The seismic signature had been small, and American intelligence at first doubted whether it had been a nuclear explosion at all. Traces of radioactive emissions were detected a few days later, and the intelligence estimate revised to conclude that it had been a failed test that produced perhaps only 10% or less of the expected yield, only 0.5 to 1.5 kilotons, not the 20 kilotons, at least, that Western intelligence had anticipated.
Kim Jong Il gloated. The deception had worked. The Americans were thinking in terms of long range intercontinental ballistic missiles with huge warheads that they could shoot out of the sky with their sophisticated billion-dollar anti-missile defense systems. He was thinking in terms of small warheads carried by small, medium range cruise missiles that could be launched from many places, and infiltrated close enough to slip in under the radar and hit America's coastal cities.
On the evening of December 6, 2008, a junior analyst in the National Security Agency was going over routine satellite photo production of ship movements in the Atlantic and Pacific within a thousand miles of the US coasts. Late in the shift he thought he saw something through a haze of fatigue and caffeine, and called a supervisor over to talk.
"Look," he said, photos up on several computer screens, more printed out and spread across his desk, "See? These boats, not big ships, fishing boats, yachts, they've been moving in along shipping lanes for several days, across from the South Pacific toward the West coast, up from the South Atlantic toward the east. Nothing very unusual, they're all small and slow, and scattered up and down the oceans, it seems, but if you look at the times and courses..." and he pulled out a chart he had plotted, "They're approaching so they will all arrive at about the same time, or all be about the same distance off the coast at about the same time...," he trailed off.
The supervisor looked a bit quizzical. "Coincidence? Probably. You need more sleep. Too much fun in the night, eh? Let me know if you see something we can do something with." And walked away.
At 0723 Hawaii time on the 67th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack three old fishing trawlers, about 100 miles apart, and each about 300 miles off the east coast, launched six small cruise missiles from launch tubes that could be dismantled and stored in the holds under ice, or fish, and set up in less than an hour. The missiles were launched at precisely one minute intervals. As soon as each boat had launched its pair, the skeleton crew began to abandon ship into a fast rubber inflatable. The captain was last off, and just before going overboard started the timer on the scuttling charges. Fifteen minutes later and ten miles away, each crew was going up the nets into a small freighter or tanker of Moroccan or Liberian registry, where each man was issued new identification as ship's crew. The rubber inflatables were shot and sunk, and just about then charges in the bilges of each of the three trawlers blew the hulls out, and they sank with no one on board and no distress signals in less than two minutes.
The missiles had been built in a joint operation by North Korea and Iran, and tested in Iran, so they would not have to overfly any other country. The small nuclear warheads had only been tested deep underground. The GPS guidance and detonating systems had worked perfectly, after a few corrections. They flew fifty feet above sea level, and 500 feet above ground level on the last leg of the trip, using computers and terrain data modified from open market technology and flight directors, autopilots, adapted from commercial aviation units. They would adjust speed to arrive on target at specific times and altitudes, and detonate upon reaching the programmed GPS coordinates. They were not as adaptable and intelligent as American cruise missiles, but they did not need to be. Not for this mission.
They were small, less than twenty feet long, and only 18 inches in diameter, powered by small, quiet, fuel-efficient, high-bypass turbofans, and painted in a mottled light blue and light gray ghost camouflage. Cruising at 600 knots, just below the speed of sound, they were nearly impossible to see or hear. They came in under the radar until they reached the coast. After that they were lost in the ground clutter. Nobody saw it coming.
At precisely 0753, Hawaii time, 1353 in the District of Columbia, sixty-seven years to the minute after the Pearl Harbor attack began, the first of six missiles to hit the Washington area exploded in a huge white burst of nuclear fire just 500 feet above the White House, which disappeared in a mist of powdered plaster and stone, concrete and steel. President Bush and President-Elect Clinton had been meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Mrs. Clinton's national security adviser, reviewing the latest National Security Estimate, when they instantaneously turned into a plasma of the atomic elements that had once been human beings. No trace remained.
Alarms immediately began going off all over Washington, and precisely one minute later the second missile exploded just as it struck the Capital dome, instantly turning thousands of tons of granite that had one moment before been the nation's center of government into thousands of tons of granite shrapnel that shredded several square miles of Washington like a leviathan Claymore mine. At precisely one minute intervals, four more 3 kiloton nuclear weapons exploded at an altitude of 500 feet AGL above the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters, the NSA headquarters, the FBI headquarters, all of which were fully staffed in the middle of the day. In five minutes, the government of the United States of America was decapitated, and a quarter million of the people who made the place run were dead, or dying, or had simply disappeared.
Also at 1353 Eastern time, a missile had blown off just above the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City, and thousands of years of collective financial knowledge and experience evaporated in the nuclear flame. In one minute intervals, others had hit the financial centers of Boston and Baltimore, and the Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.
Simultaneously, within the same 10-minute window of hell, nuclear tipped cruise missiles devastated the largest intermodel shipping facility on the West coast at San Pedro harbor, exploded just above the Library Tower in central Los Angeles, and short circuited the computer technology ghetto of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara County, big time. One exploded ten feet away from the top of the Bank of America Building in San Francisco and set much of the east slope of the city ablaze. Another giant fireball flared among the phalanx of office towers along the Capitol Mall in Sacramento, instantly obliterating Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state government of California, the largest state economy in the US, the seventh largest economy in the world. Two ripped open the heart of Portland, Oregon, one shattered the financial district of Seattle, and the last one turned the Microsoft campus into a pillar of fire and smoke, wiping from the face of history, in a second, the IT giant that had revolutionized global communications.
It was 0803, Hawaii time. Ten minutes.
Three million Americans dead. And not a trace of the assault fleet remained on the surface of any ocean.
Vice-President Elect Gavin Newsom was in his bedroom at home in Pacific Heights, his window overlooking the Golden Gate and the Marin bluffs. He thought he heard an oddly loud crack of thunder and saw a flash reflected on the hills across the inlet, but it was a clear day and nothing else seemed out of place. He continued packing for the return trip to Washington, his second since the election, to continue his transition briefings and begin organizing his staff. His nomination as Hillary's running mate had come as a huge surprise, and he was elated.
Someone rapped on the door, loudly, twice, and without waiting for a reply the senior Secret Service officer on his detail opened it and stepped quickly in. "Come with me, now," he said. Gavin was startled. "I need to finish packing," he replied.
"No time, sir. Something has happened. Very big. I fear. No details yet. We have to get you out of here, NOW! RIGHT NOW! GO! GO! GO!" He grabbed Newsom's arm, swung him around, and pushed him out the door, where two other Secret Service agents flanked him down the stairs and out to a running black Suburban waiting in the garage. They pushed him into the back seat, jumped in, and the driver gunned the engine, out the drive, down the street, tires squealing. Nobody spoke until they were headed over the Bridge, northbound at seventy-five miles an hour, weaving through the traffic which wasn't yet the gridlock it would soon become.
"What the hell's going on?" he finally demanded.
"Okay. This is what I know," the officer said. "The US has apparently sustained multiple nuclear attacks in the last fifteen minutes, including Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Financial district. We're not sure how many, at least ten, maybe twenty. Lots of dead. Got the White House, the Capital, the Pentagon. Our job is to get you on an airplane at the nearest functioning airport, that'll be Novato, and get you to a safe place. Prestissimo."
"Where?" Newsom asked. Things were moving way too fast now.
"Don't know yet. We'll get orders."
The Air Force Learjet had been airborne for two minutes when a cell phone buzzed, and the Secret Service captain answered it and handed it off to the Vice President Elect. "It's Mr. Cheney, sir," he said.
"Gavin?" Dick Cheney asked. "Yes, sir," Newsom replied, subdued, for the events of the last hour had sobered up his elated mood considerably.
"Okay, Gavin. I don't know what you know, so I'll tell you what I can. There have been approximately 20 nuclear strikes on government and financial targets in the US, about an hour ago. No real damage estimate yet, except that it's awful. A hundred times 9/11, maybe a thousand times. I happened to be at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and have moved into Cheyenne Mountain to set up a temporary HQ, until we get things sorted out. As you know Cheyenne was vacated by NORAD a few years ago, so we have plenty of space. You will be flown here, nonstop."
"I know you haven't a lot of national and international experience." Cheney had thought of saying that Newsom had none, but Newsom would be too painfully aware of that. He didn't need reminding. "The President is missing and presumed dead. So is Mrs. Clinton. So you may become the next president, in about six weeks. I don't know. he Constitution says the Vice President succeeds a president who is dead or disabled, but it doesn't say what happens if the President Elect dies before being inaugurated. I suppose the Court will have to answer that, if we can cobble one together by then. In the meantime, I will assume you will be inaugurated. You'll have a steep learning curve, a real steep curve. All presidents do, under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances."
The next day a hard winter storm roared down the West coast from Alaska, pelting rescue workers in bombed out city centers with hard, cold rain, that did not let up for a week. People alive but injured or trapped in the wreckage died of hypothermia before they were found. Two days later, a cold front out of Canada brought heavy snow to the Northeast. Millions were already without electricity, and in a week of subzero weather hundreds of thousands more died. More than four million, altogether. More than one of every one hundred Americans.
Al Qaeda had picked December 7 because it was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and because, just before Christmas, the Infidel holiday, it would destroy the Christmas shopping season so important to so many retailers, driving another nail into the national economy of the Great Satan. And it would destroy the festive spirit of the season for millions of Americans, perhaps for all. The perfect psyop. Psychological warfare. And the weather forecasters had predicted severe winter storms on both coasts during the week immediately after disaster.
Al Qaeda leaders had calculated, correctly, that by turning up the violence in Iraq during the weeks before the 2006 election it could achieve an anti-war Democratic Congress that would vote to end America's wars in the Middle East, and then by turning down the violence in Iraq after the election of an anti-war Democratic Congress, it could lull America into a false sense of safety and security in anticipation of the "peace in our time" that America's new ruling party had promised would follow from what Al Qaeda perceived, correctly, as America's retreat before the unstoppable determination of the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Jihad. America did not call it that, of course. The Americans thought they were just ending a bad and illegal war ginned up by George W. Bush to depose Saddam Hussein who had proven not to have WMDs after all, the ones the Americans had never found, the ones buried in Syria. Al Qaeda saw more clearly. It was a capitulation, a de facto surrender of the Middle East to the coming Islamic Caliphate that would someday rule the world. The martyrs of Islam had beaten the Great Satan to its knees. In time they would cut off its head.
By Christmas, the American economy had imploded. Inflation soared, unemployment soared, businesses closed, cities that had suffered direct hits became ghost towns. Tax revenues evaporated, leaving state governments without funds to pay unemployment benefits or teachers' salaries. With the New York Stock Exchange gone, stock trading ended, and values plummeted. Retirement assets and pension funds disappeared in a wink. Nobody knew what to expect. Real estate crashed, and major banks filed for bankruptcy. With the collapse of the American economy, the largest on earth, the most productive country on earth, with just 5% of the global population producing one third of the global economic output, the rest of the global economy fell into chaos. Oil shipments stopped, food shipments stopped, and in that winter millions of people in third world countries starved to death.
The America era was over.
"In the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany was poised to dominate the earth. France, the low countries, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and much of Poland had been overrun by the Germans. All of Europe, save neutral Sweden and Switzerland, was in the hands of Hitler's friends and allies: dictators or monarchs who ruled fascist Italy, Vichy France, Franco's Spain, Portugal, the Balkan countries, Finland, and above all the Soviet Union."
"A single German division under General Erwin Rommel, sent to rescue beleaguered Italians in Libya, drove Britain's Middle Eastern armies flying and threatened the Suez lifeline; while in Iraq a coup d'etat by the pro-German Rashid Ali cut the land road to India. In Asia, Germany's ally, Japan, was coiled to strike, ready to take Southeast Asia and invade India. No need to involve the United States; by seizing the Indies, Japan could break the American embargo and obtain all the oil needed for the Axis Powers to pursue their war aims.
"Hitler should have sent the bulk of his armies to serve under Rommel, who would have done what Alexander did and Bonaparte failed to do: He would have taken the Middle East and led his armies to India. There he would have linked up with the Japanese. Europe, Asia, and Africa, would have belonged to the coalition of dictators and militarists."
"The Nazi-Soviet-Japanese alliance commanded armed forces and resources that utterly dwarfed the military resources that the holdouts, Britain (with its empire), and the United States, could field. The English-speaking countries would have been isolated in a hostile world and would have had no realistic option but to make their peace with the enemy, retaining some autonomy for a time, perhaps, but doomed ultimately to succumb. Nazi Germany, as leader of the coalition, would have ruled the world."
"Only Hitler's astonishing blunder in betraying and invading his Soviet ally kept it from happening." - David Frompkin, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University, writing in What If: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (Putnam 1999) pp. 308, 309.
History is made, wars are won and lost, cultures and nations and civilizations come and go, rise and fall, as much by blunders as by victories.
The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Border Fence to be Defunded...Color Me Unsurprised
The headline from this Washington Times story says Democrats expect to "revisit" the border fence bill that was passed just before the election. Roughly translated, that means the thing will be defunded, scrapped altogether, or changed to some "virtual fence" nonsense that will just make sure that there's a nice video record of the illegal immigrant invasion of the U.S. and the steady erosion of our sovereignty. Outside of a few courageous representatives, there is a complete lack of will in the D.C political class to police the border and enforce immigration laws, and some even want to aid and abet the invasion of a new generation of mostly welfare-dependent, mostly Democrat voters. Republicans just think they are the minority party now...if they allow this invasion to go forward and the invaders to become citizens, they will be the minority party forever, and the U.S. might as well be the E.U. This is a terrible development, but completely unsurprising...God help us.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
This Veteran's Day, R.I.P. Maggie Dixon
Today is Veteran's Day, and it's also my brother's birthday...my little bro is 25 now, and I can't believe it. Happy Birthday Brian, you're the best. :)
Today is set aside to honor the warriors who go into battle and defend us, our nation, and our way of life...freedom. This Veteran's Day, I'd like to honor someone who wasn't a soldier herself, but who played a role just as important as a soldier...a basketball coach who helped young women athletes/soldiers-in-training to become quality people in addition to fierce defenders. Maggie Dixon, age 28, electrified the NCAA by taking a women's hoops team from Army that had become accustomed to losing on the court as much as the football team had on the field in recent years, and turning them into Patriot League champs and taking them to the NCAA tournament in her very first year as a coach. Although they lost to the Lady Vols in the 1st round, the turnaround was nothing short of miraculous...but more than that, the passion with which she lived and coached, her love and concern for her players and her family, and her drive to succeed touched everyone around her.
Sadly, Maggie died in April of a congenital heart defect at the ripe old age of 28, only a year older than myself. She made such an impact at Army that she was given a military funeral and memorial service, an honor usually reserved for generals and others who have given their lives in service to our country. This article is just heartbreaking, and this reminds me a lot of Abraham Lincoln...having accomplished so much against such long odds, then dying before seeing the seeds (s)he planted grow to full fruition and before getting the credit (s)he so richly deserved. This Veteran's Day, here's to you Maggie Dixon, you lived well, you impacted some of our young defenders' lives in the best of ways, and for that, we are in your debt...thank you for your service. Not many can say this, but the world is a substantially better place for your time here. May God welcome you, and may He comfort your family as they grieve your loss and celebrate your life.
Today is set aside to honor the warriors who go into battle and defend us, our nation, and our way of life...freedom. This Veteran's Day, I'd like to honor someone who wasn't a soldier herself, but who played a role just as important as a soldier...a basketball coach who helped young women athletes/soldiers-in-training to become quality people in addition to fierce defenders. Maggie Dixon, age 28, electrified the NCAA by taking a women's hoops team from Army that had become accustomed to losing on the court as much as the football team had on the field in recent years, and turning them into Patriot League champs and taking them to the NCAA tournament in her very first year as a coach. Although they lost to the Lady Vols in the 1st round, the turnaround was nothing short of miraculous...but more than that, the passion with which she lived and coached, her love and concern for her players and her family, and her drive to succeed touched everyone around her.
Sadly, Maggie died in April of a congenital heart defect at the ripe old age of 28, only a year older than myself. She made such an impact at Army that she was given a military funeral and memorial service, an honor usually reserved for generals and others who have given their lives in service to our country. This article is just heartbreaking, and this reminds me a lot of Abraham Lincoln...having accomplished so much against such long odds, then dying before seeing the seeds (s)he planted grow to full fruition and before getting the credit (s)he so richly deserved. This Veteran's Day, here's to you Maggie Dixon, you lived well, you impacted some of our young defenders' lives in the best of ways, and for that, we are in your debt...thank you for your service. Not many can say this, but the world is a substantially better place for your time here. May God welcome you, and may He comfort your family as they grieve your loss and celebrate your life.
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