Delenda est Carthago

2012-01-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. -- The commander of Air Force Special Operations Command presented the Silver Star medal to a combat controller and more than 30 other medals to special tactics Airmen during a ceremony at Hurlburt Field, Fla., Jan. 18.
According to the citation, [TSgt Clint] Campbell directed 22 air strikes, including multiple danger close employments, resulting in 13 enemy fighters killed. Without regard for his own safety, he ran 300 meters through a gauntlet of enemy fire and then again exposed himself to enemy fire to mark insurgent positions with a 40 mm smoke grenade. Campbell directed an F-16 Fighting Falcon strafing run to neutralize the threat and enable evacuation of the wounded.

Without detracting from the personal valor of TSgt Campbell, The Air Force should improve its air strike to enemy KIA ratio, or find a better way of killing insurgents, like putting poison darts in paper airplanes or something.

Publick Skewl Lessons

2012-01-23T14:09:00.001-07:00

Φ: “So, did you have a good time in public school today?

Γ₂: “Yes.”

Φ: “What did you learn?”

Γ₂: "Spanish!”

Φ: “What Spanish words did you learn?

Γ₂: “Um . . . I forget.”

Φ: “Well, at least we’re getting our money’s worth. Have you joined all the right cliques yet?

Mrs. Φ: [. . .]

Γ₂: “What’s a click?”

Φ: “A clique is a type of alliance.”

Γ₂: “Uhhhh . . . lyeee . . . “

Φ: “An alliance is a set of people that cooperate to prevent outsiders from doing mean things to them, and help each other do mean things to outsiders.”

Mrs. Φ: “Okay, stop it!”

Φ: “Why? What part did I get wrong?

Mrs. Φ: “Well . . . I’m not saying you got it wrong, but . . . you sound like you’re encouraging it.

Φ: “I shouldn’t encourage our daughter to have allies? You and I both know what public school is like without them!

Γ₂: “I made friends! I have six friends now, and four of them are close friends.”

Φ: “Well, friends are all well and good, but allies are what’s important.”

Mrs. Φ: “Hey, listen, Mr. Asperger, I bet Γ₂ will be way more successful at making friends than you ever were!”

Φ: “Quite probably! And she’ll be more successful at making allies, too, for that matter. I don’t have any practical advice to offer here, I just know the theory.”

Γ₁: “How do you know theory?”

Φ: “I read stuff on the internet.”

UPDATE: For anyone having problems with the word verification, I turned it off for the time being. Let me know if you have any more problems.

Casino Jack

2012-01-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

Thoughts about the faux Jack Abramhoff biopic Casino Jack:

I couldn’t help noticing that the movie shows Emily J. Miller going to the FBI with incriminating information on her fiance Michael Scanlon after she discovers that he’s cheating on her. In reality, she went to the FBI after he broke off the engagement.

Sometimes reality just doesn’t satisfy feminist sensibilities.

Fight the SOPA!

2012-01-18T03:00:00.001-07:00

Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

Putin’s Eulogy for Kim Jong Il

2012-01-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Spotted on Facebook:

Friends, comrades...we are here today to mourn the loss of the Dear Leader. Nature celebrated his birth with a double rainbow and a new star, and today it even mourns the loss of the Generalissimo with a glowing mountain tribute.

The Jonger accomplished many things in order to satisfy his people. He was a ferocious cinephile. He believed in the power of the silver screen so much that he "persuaded" foreign filmmakers to come to Best Korea and create such inspirational films as "Sea of Blood" and "Team
America."

When Kim's people were facing one of the most horrific famines in Best Korean history-brought on by those American imperialist pig-dogs-the Dear Leader took it upon himself to invent the most delicious culinary concoction he brilliantly dubbed "double bread with meat." This of course was stolen by those Golden Arch-Enemy capitalist thugs.

Sometimes people ask me "Hey, Putin, what was Kim like---I mean really like?" Well that's a tough question. I mean, how does one explain the brightness of the sun, the feeling of a warm summer wind on their skin or the look of wonder in the eyes of a young child? Words are such clumsy, imprecise tools. So when asked what Kim (or K-Jong as I affectionately called him) was really like, I like to tell people a little story. Back in that magical summer of 1996, I was spending some time in most excellent Best Korea interning as a film student under the tutelage of Master Il. One day, after many long hours of extreme mental and physical exertion, we were strolling back from the film site through one of those windy and ancient country roads just brimming with joyous plants and wildlife, of the type you only find in Best Korea. There were a couple clouds blocking out the sun, save for a little crack that allowed a few strands of golden light to stream through. Kim pointed up at the sky and said to me "Look, Pooty (as he sometimes called me), and look well, for we are looking at the very hand of God, my father, Kim Il Sung--the eternal president! May He love my country as I love it." I looked and then I looked at him. His lips were trembling and I saw a single tear roll down his cheek. They say that Kim Jong-Il was too strong to ever cry, but on that day I realized he was too strong not to cry, for the joy and love he held in his heart for Best Korea was immeasurable. May he live on in his accomplishments and the hearts of his people. May they sing songs of his fabled deeds until the end of time!

Destroying American Jobs, One Government Contract at a Time

2012-01-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

From the Wichita Eagle:

Hawker requests GAO review of Air Force deal

Hawker Beechcraft said Tuesday that it is requesting the Government Accountability Office review the Air Force’s move to exclude it from the bidding process for a Light Air Support aircraft.

Hawker Beechcraft offered the Air Force its AT-6, based on the company’s T-6 trainer. It was up against Brazil-based Embraer’s Super Tucano military aircraft. The AT-6 turboprop is designed for counterinsurgency, close air support, armed overwatch, and homeland defense and security.

Hawker Beechcraft has said that winning the contract – which was expected to have been awarded at the end of October – would keep its T-6 production line operating beyond 2015.

About 1,400 employees in 20 states – including 800 in Wichita – work on the AT-6 and T-6 programs. The number includes how many people work on the programs at Hawker Beechcraft and its U.S. suppliers and partners.

A Time for Choosing answers the question, que bono?

The Obama regime sure seems to favor Brazil for some reason. It may be the fact Obama’s boss, George Soros, has many investments there. As we know, Obama gave the Soros owned Brazilian oil giant Petrobas $10 billion a couple years back, just days after Soros bought controlling interest in the company.

Whitney Pitcher found more about the connection between Petrobas, and Obama’s repeated efforts to stifle American oil exploration. Obama has told the Brazilian leaders he wants America to be their best customer for oil.

Doing some research it seems George Soros has a connection to Embraer through Harbin-Embraer Aircraft a Chinese-Brazilian joint venture, and Hainan Airlines, which Soros owns a significant stake in.

Also, read RedState’s look into the Iran connection.

So basically, Obama is taking jobs from American workers for the benefit of lefty financier and America’s enemies.

All in a day’s work.

Rushing the “New People” Election

2012-01-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

From NumbersUSA:

Report Reveals Senior Officials Pressuring Officers to Rush Immigrant Visas- Despite Fraud

Top Officials within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are pressuring rank-and-file officers to quickly approve immigrants' visa applications, sometimes against the officers' will, according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General.

The report details the immense pressure immigration service officers are under to rubber-stamp visa applications, sometimes while overlooking concerns about fraud, eligibility or security.

One-quarter of the 254 officers surveyed said they have been pressured to approve questionable cases, sometimes "against their will".

Senior USCIS officials said the pressure has heightened after the Obama administration appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as director in 2009, who brought the mantra "get to yes" to the agency.

“A Scotsman walks into a bordello . . .”

2012-01-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

On Ilkka’s recommendation (kind of), I watched the movie Welcome to the Rileys. To recap: a middle-aged couple whose daughter had been killed in a car accident attempt to reform a teenaged prostitute in New Orleans.

The movie makes a nod toward illustrating what a wretched creature a teenaged prostitute would actually be . . . though I hasten to add: only a nod. This is, after all, Kristen Stewart, whereas in real life (or at least the version as represented on HBO documentaries) retail sex workers are for the most part gross and disgusting. But here we see Stewart’s prostitute ignorant of what should be common knowledge, like what a UTI is or how to open a checking account.

Through an barely plausible set of events, Riley meets Stewart in the strip club /bordello where she plies her trade. Now, I guess if I had thought about it, I would have assumed that strip clubs are organized as to extract the maximum amount of money possible out of its clientele. But the movie shows how this works in practice: the client is offered a private lap dance. But then you have to pay for the room. And the room requires a bottle of house champagne. And everything requires a tip. And then you negotiate any, um, special services. Etcetera.

I’m an unlikely patron of the sex trade, but even if I wasn’t, I couldn’t help but be irritated by all this for them same reason I’m irritated by Celebration Cruise Lines: I want and expect price transparency for my purchases. Not bait-and-switch or nickel-and-diming.

Things I Learned at Drug Testing

2012-01-02T04:37:00.000-07:00

I failed my drug test. The results came back "negative dilute", which means that they didn't find anything bad but the concentration didn't meet spec. So all that advice about how healthy it is to drink lots of water gets complicated when it's time to pee-in-the-bottle. The drug testers were noncommital on whether or not over-hydrating would actually hide drug use, but even people who submit samples judged "positive dilute" are given the opportunity to retest. In my case, the second time through I drank no water that morning, only coffee. That seemed to do the trick. In other news, it turns out that Civil Service drug tests give you privacy. Military drug testers are required to observe the sample leave your person. (I have no idea how this works for women.)

The End of Egalitarianism

2011-12-29T01:35:00.000-07:00

Ross Douthat faces off with Dan Savage in a Bloggingheads debate on the role of monogamy in marriage and, parenthetically, the effect of widespread gay marriage on sexual exclusivity.

Before I comment on the specifics, let me recommend the entire debate as well worth the watch. I would add the caveat that even if we take Dan’s protestations of concern for marital stability as being made in good faith, I should note that not all advocates of gay marriage share that concern. Dan’s may be the public face that the gay community likes to show to mainstream audiences, but other homosexuals are more forthcoming about the hope that extending marriage to gays will undermine the social “privilege” of marriage in general.

That said, I was particularly struck with this exchange:

Dan is a fag, but he makes a point not unfamiliar to this corner of the blogosphere: the history of marital dissolution is mostly the story of female emancipation. Ross, as a mainstream so-con, really doesn’t want to go there for regrettable if understandable reasons. But he makes the forceful rebuttal that Dan’s proposed alternative – that standards of monogamy be subject to ongoing negotiation – inevitably benefits the stronger half of the relationship at the expense of the weaker half. Prior to 40 years ago, the stronger half was almost always the husband; thus, our culture yet carries around in its collective memory the image of the philandering Don Draper. Our society’s ongoing effort to elevate the status of women at the expense of men makes this image increasingly anachronistic.

Given the differences between the preferences of men for polygamy and women for hypergamy, Dan is naïve in believing that greater egalitarianism strengthens marriage, and it is cold comfort to a man getting screwed over in family court to know that somewhere, a woman is also getting screwed over.

Happiness is . . .

2011-12-26T15:51:00.001-07:00

Chrome bolt & carrier: +$65.00

Rock River Arms match 2 stage: +$105.00

YHM free float 4 rail w/end cap: +$116.00

To go in and possess the good land which the LORD swore to give your fathers, by driving out all your enemies from before you . . .

Priceless.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

Isaiah 9:6:

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Religion and its Malcontents

2011-12-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

Bret Stephens (via Mangan) writes:

As with religion, [global warming enthusiasm] is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term "climate change" when thermometers don't oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other "deniers."

And more in like vein. This is, of course, a riff on Michael Crighton’s famous “Environmentalism as Religion” speech in which he blames the AGW hoax (among others) on the religious impulse.

As I have written before, I believe this to be misleading. It is precisely at the point where people stop believing in the God of the Bible that they became susceptible to all manner of nonsense in an effort to fill the religion-shaped hole in their psyches. Stephens, et. al are correct to criticize religious approaches to what should be empirical questions, but it never seems to occur to them that the continued effort at undermining true devotional religion is actually exacerbating the problem.

This reminds me how, post-1991, atheists, when confronted with Soviet brutality, claimed that Russian communism was actually a religious movement, official statements to the contrary. (They never seemed to realize this before 1991.)

Similarly, Calvinism has become the go-to whipping boy at Ferdinand’s site on any number of issues as the writers blame if for all that is wrong with the world. Never mind that no observant Calvinist, then or now, actually believes or advocates anything Ferd is attacking; it’s Calvin’s fault anyway because . . . well, I’m not sure, but something about how anything that Ferd doesn’t like is logically consistent with Calvinism by Ferd’s reckoning, and that’s enough.

Yet another example: I’m pretty sure that any reasonable observer would agree that Christianity, especially the fundamental variety, stands foursquare against drunken orgies. Yet, when those orgies turn out badly, sure enough we can find people who blame them on Christianity anyway.

Φ’s First Law: Anything bad is going to be blamed on Christianity and Christians, notwithstanding any amount of actual Christian opposition to the bad thing.

How to Undermine Border Security in a Dozen Convoluted Steps

2011-12-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

From TechDirt, a tale of criminal copyright enforcement against the hip-hop blog Dajaz1.com:

There are so many things about this story that are crazy, it's difficult to know where to start, so let's give the most important point first: The US government has effectively admitted that it totally screwed up and falsely seized & censored a non-infringing domain of a popular blog, having falsely claimed that it was taking part in criminal copyright infringement. Then, after trying to hide behind a totally secretive court process with absolutely no due process whatsoever (in fact, not even serving papers on the lawyer for the site or providing timely notifications -- or providing any documents at all), for over a year, the government has finally realized it couldn't hide any more and has given up, and returned the domain name to its original owner. If you ever wanted to understand why ICE's domain seizures violate the law -- and why SOPA and PROTECT IP are almost certainly unconstitutional -- look no further than what happened in this case.

Wait . . . what?

In fact, as the details came out, it became clear that ICE and the Justice Department were in way over their heads. ICE's "investigation" was done by a technically inept recent college grad, who didn't even seem to understand the basics of the technology. But it didn't stop him from going to a judge and asking for a site to be completely censored with no due process.

ICE? The Immigration and Custom's Enforcement ICE? The gang with the job of protecting our borders -- and failing at it -- is using its scarce resources to . . . investigate domestic copyright infringement? And evidently botching that job, too?

Words fail.

Keeping House in Hollywood

2011-12-15T03:56:00.000-07:00

One of the many reasons that I ultimately grew tired of the TV series Chuck in the second season was the casual way in which it attempted to pass off "shacking up" as a natural, matter-of-course stage in the evolution of romantic relationships. Yes, I get that many people do it; no, I do not accept that this is now the dominant cultural mode.

So I have some appreciation for the way the new television series Whitney is handling the issue of premarital cohabitation, as for instance in this clip:

The remarkable thing about this series is that the two principal characters begin the story already in this arrangement. While shack-ups are no stranger to television (a recurring sitcom theme from Cheers to The Big Bang Theory), they usually begin and end in the course of the series. This is the first series I can recall in which the shack-up is baked in at the get-go.

It will be interesting to see how the series progresses. It will be much more difficult for the writers to have the characters break up a-la Chandler and Rachel without a significantly altering the dynamic they’ve created. But will Whitney and Alex ever get married? I guess we’ll have to see.

The Subtle Dangers of Online Dating Video Profiles

2011-12-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

A little Delta to brighten your day:

Your Future Husband from Bradley Jackson on Vimeo.

Headlines of the Times

2011-12-09T03:48:00.000-07:00

From the Daily Mail:

'Woman on a Tram' to spend Christmas behind bars 'for her own protection' after court views video of her alleged racist rant

The page has a link to another article

Mulsim girl gang who kicked young woman in the head while yelling 'kill the white slag' escape jail after judge hears 'they weren't used to drinking because of their religion'

Pretty much all you need to know about modern Britain.

Boo Celebration

2011-12-08T03:50:00.000-07:00

Phone: [Rrrrrrrrrrrring!]

Φ: “Hello?”

CCL [recorded voice]: “Hello! We want to invite you to take part in a brief survey. In consideration for your participation, you will be offered a chance to receive a free vacation package to the Bahamas! Press 1 to continue to the survey.”

Φ: [presses one]

[Pointless 4 question survey about Obama and taxes follows.]

CCL [recorded voice]: “To thank you for participating in our survey, Celebration Cruise Line would like to offer you a 2-night cruise to the Bahamas.”

Doug: Hello! “This is Doug Brevich. Are you excited about your free trip to the Bahamas?”

Φ: “That depends on how free it is.”

Doug: “Okay, the package is an overnight cruise from Palm Beach to the Bahamas. You’ll spend the day in the Bahamas and then take an overnight trip back. You and your partner will be billeted in an ‘interior state room’. All food, entertainment, facilities, coffee and tea are included. You’ll only be responsible for the port taxes of $59 per person and any other drink you might consume while aboard.”

Φ: “When is the cruise?”

Doug: “You can book the cruise anytime during the next 18 months, excluding major holidays, although we do as for two weeks notice.

Φ: “When do I have to pay?”

Doug: “If you accept this offer today, we will charge your credit card $118 for the two of you.”

Φ: “$118. That’s it. That covers everything.”

Doug: “Yes it does!”

Φ: “Let me consult with my wife.”*

[Brief consultation]

Φ: “Okay, we’ll take it.”

Doug: “Great! Let me get your information.”

[Information passed.]

Doug: “Great! Now let me review your options for travel to Palm Beach . . . .”

Φ: “Thanks, but we’ll arrange our own travel.”

Doug: “How will you get here?”

Φ: “Probably fly into Florida, and drive in from another city. Maybe we’ll drive. I don’t know yet.”

Doug: “I see you live in Flyover Country. That’s a long way to drive!”

Φ: [?]

Φ: “Yes, but we have friends and family that live along the way. It usually works out.”

Doug: “Will you rent a car?”

Φ: “Probably not. We have family in Florida and will probably borrow a car from them. But either way, we’ll figure it out on our own.”

Doug: “Now we’d like to offer you our Extended Stay package for only an addition $599!”

Φ: “No, thanks. The cruise will be fine for today.”

Doug: “Really? You don’t want to have [lengthy description of the Extended Stay package].

Φ: “I’m really not interested. But if I change my mind later, can I sign up.”

Doug: “Good question. I’m not sure. Let me transfer you to someone who might be able to help.”

[On hold for a while.]

Samantha: “Hello! I’m Samantha! Are you excited about your cruise to the Bahamas.”

Φ: “I’m working on it.”

Samantha: “Great! So, I understand you want to decline our Extended Stay package?”

Φ: “Well, where I left off with Doug was, I wanted to know if I could add the extended stay package later.”

Samantha: [Silence.]

Φ: “Hello?”

Phone: [Dial tone].

[Twenty minutes later.]

Phone: [Rrrrrrrrrrrrring!]

Φ: “Hello?”

Doug: “Hello! Did you get an answer to your question?”

Φ: “No, we were disconnected.”

Doug: “Yeah, that happens on our system sometimes. I’m going to transfer you to our telephone receipt specialist who might be able to help you. Stand by.”

[On hold for a while.]

Dominique: “Hi, I’m Dominique!”

Φ: [Oh, sh!t.]

Dominique: “Are you excited about your cruise to the Bahamas?”

Φ: “I’ll be excited when I actually book it.”

Dominique: “So, I understand you want to decline our Extended Stay package?”

Φ: “Well, where I left off was, can I add the package later on?

Dominique: “You can, but then you would have to pay the full retail price of $2200.”

Φ: “In that case, no.”

Dominique: “Why?

Φ: “Because I came prepared to buy a $118 2-night cruise, not a $599 extended stay anywhere.”

Dominique: “But why would you want to come all this way and not stay longer?”

Φ: “We will stay longer, but not in a hotel. We have family in Florida.”

Dominique: “Where do they live?”

Φ: “Across the peninsula.”

Dominique: “That’s not close!”

Φ: “No, it’s not. But it’s close enough to drive in the evening of our departure and drive out the morning of our return. But, we will work these details on our own.”

Dominique: “But I don’t understand why you would come all this way and not stay in Palm Beach!?!”

Φ: [? ?]

Φ: “I don’t have any ambition to stay in Palm Beach. I have the ambition to take $118 2-night cruise.”

Dominique: “But why would you do that!”

Φ: “Because . . . look, Dominique, it’s for the reasons I’ve already given. But none of that is relevant to our transaction today.”

Dominique: “Well, why don’t we just forget the whole thing.”

Φ: “So . . . basically, what you’re telling me after an hour or so of telephone conversations is that the whole thing was always a bait and switch. The $118 offer was only a teaser to talk me into buying a $717 package.”

Dominique: “No, it’s that you want to talk down to me or act like I’m not equal to you.”

Φ: [! ? !]

Φ: “Dominique, I’m not making any statements about you personally one way or the other. What I am saying is that nothing about you selling me a $118 2-night cruise requires you to understand my motivations.”

Dominique: “Well, maybe you don’t really want the cruise.”

Φ: “Look, you people called me. Are we going to do this or not?”

Dominique: “Okay, fine! I’m going to put you on hold for a moment.”

[On hold for a moment.**]

Dominique: “Hello, this is Dominique. This conversation is being recorded for quality control purposes. We will proceed to completing your purchase of [description of cruise]. In addition to the $118 port taxes, you may be charged fuel and gratuity surcharges . . . .”

Φ: Hang on a second. When I spoke to Doug Brevich, he assured me that the $118 covered everything. He didn’t say anything about fuel and gratuity surcharges.

Dominique: “Well, if you’ll let me finish, I’ll explain!”

Φ: [sigh] “Go ahead.”

Dominique: “Celebration Cruise Lines will apply a $12 surcharge per person per day only if oil is selling for over $40 / barrel on the day of the cruise.”

Φ: “Okay, what about the gratuity?”

Dominique: “What about it?”

Φ: “Well, when does it apply? When I order something like room service?”

Dominique: “It’s whenever you tip someone.”

Φ: [Thinking for a moment] You know, Dominique. I’m getting a bad feeling about this. And considering that oil is presently trading well above $100 per barrel, this isn’t shaping up to be the deal I thought it was.

Dominique: “Goodbye then.” [Click]

* This is an abbreviated version of the conversation to this point. In reality, it took 20 minutes to cover all my questions.

** In fact, I was put on hold at least twice, once without any warning.

Bullying, 1970s Style

2011-12-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Trumwill’s post on bullying inspired me to make an observation about the 1993 movie Dazed and Confused, which I just now got around to watching. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that it shows the artists vision of what high school was like in 1976: a binge of sex, drugs, and low-level violence in the context of “freshman initiation” at a public high school. If you haven’t seen the movie, the YouTube clip below contains the first 14 minutes of the movie, although I’ve indexed ahead to the scene that I want to write about.

I haven’t been able to stomach the entire movie yet, so if anyone happens to know if the filmmaker looks back on high school with anything other than sentimentality, you’ll have to tell me.

When I was a preschooler, I would sometimes be playing in my front yard when the school bus disgorged its occupants at the stop near my house. One of the things the school-aged children (“the big kids,” my brother and I called them) did to amuse themselves was to throw rocks at me as they walked by. (For those of you keeping score at home, these were white children in a middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhood, much as in the movie). I was five years old.

Life got a lot worse before it got better.

Fortunately, I missed out on any savage initiation rituals as appear to be institutionalized (as in involving the tacit complicity of adults) in Dazed and Confused, and I exercised sufficient self-preservation to avoid any physical injury. But I lived in a constant climate of fear.

Trumwill writes:

Last spring I mentioned a story at Pitts Elementary where two kids got into a fight, of sorts, and when the detention slips were sent out one of the kids was crying and the other was showing it off to all of his friends. How, precisely, do you punish a kid who shows off his punishment slips to all of his friends?

Which is what brings me to the moment in the film. Here you have a larger, stronger student, a football player, who violently raises his fist to a weaker, possibly younger student. No, he didn’t hit him. But he made it perfectly clear that he could have hit him if he wanted to. No one was there to witness it. There would have been no way for the weaker student to defend, deter, or retaliate. So the message gets sent. And the administration would have to be exceedingly vigilant and discerning to take action against it, even were it to recognize the dynamic at play.

It is common in our corner of the blogosphere to criticize “helicopter parenting”. The excellent blog Dusk in Autumn makes a point of this, and glorifies the 1970s for its relative absence. But it occurs to me that the much closer supervision that my generation provides its children (and as a homeschool family, we are helicopter parents squared) over what we ourselves received narrows the window in which bullies can operate. I don’t know if this is really true – even in Φ’s lily-white little burg, I’ve heard stories about bullying – but it is, then helicopter parenting gets three cheers from me.

Lies, Damned Lies, and I-Just-Want-A-Nice-Guy

2011-12-01T08:17:00.001-07:00

At my family's urging, I just watched the What Not to Wear episode featuring Denise, the flight attendant. It's pretty clear from the get-go that underneath the nigh clown-face makeup and hair extensions, Denise is an exceptionally beautiful and well-built young woman (and unfortunately, the TLC clips at the link don't include any profile shots highlighting just how well-built). The makeover succeeds in upping the class of her appearance considerably.

But I got mad when she told Stacy and Clinton that all she wanted was to "meet a nice, cute, dork". At some point, these kind of lies become cruel in a way that dangling a piece of candy in front of a child is when you have no intention whatsoever of giving the candy to him.

Then again, for a young woman like Denise, there isn't really a winning answer to that question. I suppose I should feel guilty about creating no-win situations for, um, the particular types of woman she represents. I don't though, probably because my "situations" couldn't be more irrelevant to the way she will actually experience her life. But I am willing to admit that had Denise answered that she "wanted to meet a nice, cute, dork who happens to own his own Cessna Citation," which, I think, is a lot closer to the truth of it, I would dismiss her as a gold-digger.

Christian women should be encouraged to (1) be self-aware, and (2) elevate certain priorities over others (and I should say that neither of these is worthwhile without the other). But otherwise, I don't see much point in asking a woman what she wants. Within fairly narrow parameters, we all know perfectly well what she wants: the same things every other woman wants. These things, to the extent they vary, vary with the wider culture. Inviting women to go on about "nice guys" only serves to mislead us nerdy aspies into misdirecting our energies.

Dangerous Lows

2011-11-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

As my followers know, I am a critic, not of vaccinations, nor even of compulsory vaccination programs per se, but of the gulf between the invective some vaccination proponents hurl at non-conformists and the demonstrable risk such non-conformists pose to vaccinated individuals.

Yet these numbers concern me:

It’s probably a bad idea to crowd together this many unvaccinated kindergarteners – most of whom are still learning basic hygiene like washing their hands, using tissues, covering their mouths when they cough, and, you know, not licking doorknobs – all in once place.

But having said that, can any of my readers point me towards a mathematical model of epidemics that account for vaccination rates, breadth and depth of social contact, and virulence? I’ve looked around a bit, but haven’t seen one that was especially compelling.

Corporations will do anything for profit (as long as it's bad).

2011-11-25T05:59:00.001-07:00

This post by Female Misogynist made me think: the liberal narrative likes to paint corporations as so driven by greed that they will do anything for profit, including (as in, for instance, the movie Avatar) killing large numberrs of sentient beings.

Yet whenever Congress is proposing some new business regulation, they always claim that the regulation makes "good business sense", requiring businesses to do only what they would be doing anyway if they acted in their own interests. Not to mention the complaints that corporations would be able to dominate the market with products that liberals claim they want, i.e. shampoo in non-sexist bottles.

Liberals seem to believe that corporations will only do bad things for money, but will happily ignore profit in favor of some racist/sexist/homophobic agenda.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T03:07:00.000-07:00

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.
Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.
William Bradford
Ye Governor of Ye Colony
1623

Stop SOPA

2011-11-23T08:59:00.001-07:00

It turns out that a coalition of internet privacy organizations are observing "American Censorship Day", attempting to mobilize opposition to the so-called "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA), H.R. 3261 and its Senate variant. The same people who brought you the DMCA have united against the rest of us. Congress held hearings on the bill last week.

Fortunately, the bill has attracted some powerful opponents, including Google.

From the website:

The government can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users.
It becomes a felony with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook.
Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the internet more secure wouldn't be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system.

Custody Laws

2011-11-21T02:53:00.000-07:00

This post by Sheila Tone on the role that even theoretically legal marijuana use plays in CPS actions reminded me of a conversation I had with my uncle a couple of months ago and intended to blog about, but didn’t.

I had driven out to the coast to see my father’s side of the family. Although my father is an educated professional, he comes from a working class family whose fortunes vary widely. My uncle, for instance, while never having attended college, found mid-life success as the owner of a couple of small businesses. His children both had behavioral problems that hurt their early potential. One of them seems to have recovered while the other spiraled downhill. It is about this second son that I spoke with him the night we all had dinner together.

I had known that my uncle was raising his own granddaughter, one of two offspring from a relationship my cousin had with his then-girlfriend, the other being taken care of by its maternal grandparents. Cousin Σ has been in and out of prison on petty crimes, while the mother is out west somewhere living at the edge of homelessness. She, too, is a drug addict, a fact the family blames entirely on Σ.

My uncle had legally adopted η and helped the maternal grandparents, not as well off as he is, adopt her sister. Over dinner, he related a story, presumably true, about another set of grandparents that were raising their granddaughter when the child’s mother confronted the family in a restaurant demanding money. When they refused, she summoned the police and demanded that the grandparents give her her daughter. Note that the child, a toddler by this point, had no idea who this woman was. The police asked the grandparents if they had legal custody. They did not. The police then forced them to turn over the little child to a complete stranger right then and there.

The conversation swung back to Cousin Σ, whom his father cornered at gunpoint one evening as Σ was attempting to break into one of his father’s businesses. Shortly thereafter, my uncle visited Σ in jail and presented him with adoption paperwork.

“What’s in this for me?” he asked.

“Son,” his father replied, “the law forbids me from offering you anything in exchange for adopting your child. But I will tell you what I will do if you don’t sign these papers. I’ll go to court and have you declared an unfit parent. I’ll request custody of the girl and get it. And to top it all off, I’ll then seek an award for child support from your worthless ass, and when you can’t pay it, I’ll have you tossed back here in jail.”

That turned out to be persuasive.

I got to observe η over dinner that evening and later during our game of miniature golf. She’s the same age as my younger daughter, and seems to be doing pretty well.

The Rich Get Richer

2011-11-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

Megan writes:

Income inequality has been rising for so long that people have started to assume that it has just kept rising, even when the data show otherwise. We don't want to spend years focused on income inequality, only to learn that the financial crisis fixed it for us.

But I don’t think the charts she shows support her argument:

These graphs don’t say that “the recession fixed it for us”. These graphs tell me that income inequality took a cyclical dip as part of a 30+ year rise back to 1920s levels.

I’m inclined to think that, by itself, this trend is probably bad but not catastrophic. But nothing ever happens by itself, and I’m much more vexed by the percentage of the national wealth going, not to people putting their capital at risk or creating value, but to financiers collecting rents by sitting astride key economic nodes.

Who is “Occupy Wall Street?”

2011-11-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

Chris Roach writes:

My initially measured view of the Occupy Wall Street crowd has given way to real concern about their nastiness and capacity for violence. Dozens have been arrested all of the country. The moderates have departed and are replaced by bored, angry young people. They have attacked police, broken laws, hurled missiles, and all the rest. [Emphasis added.]

But then he appears to miss the point:

[A] great many of the Zucotti Park protesters and their fellow travelers are manifesting that love of destruction and hostility to law that characterized the protest movements of the 1960s . . . . I think it a terrible political judgment by Obama to align himself with this unpredictable group of unemployed (and unemployable) losers.

Without making any judgment about the cause or character of either the 1960s or OWS. I rather agree with Steve that the original OWS protestors are in danger of being ethnically cleansed from their own protest by minorities and vagrants. Good White Liberals have no intellectual or moral antibodies that help them exclude from their midst any Designated Victim Group.

OWS has the feel of a movement that would just as soon dispense the bourgeois instruments of social control, yet they are finding that, in multicultural America, that’s a sure formula for their own extinction. But I wonder: if we were, I dunno, Iceland, how long would we last without those instruments?

Percentiles

2011-11-10T03:12:00.000-07:00

Trumwill and Web go back and forth on what counts as taxation. The question comes up in the context of the response to the OWS slogan – “We are the 99%” – from the Right: “We are the 53%,” i.e., the 53% of the population that pays federal income taxes, specifically those that have a positive number on line 60 of the IRS Form 1040.*

This number, of course, excludes payroll taxes: social security, Medicare, and Medicaid “contributions”, as well as taxes on corporations from which a given taxpayer may receive dividends (which the government taxes again as income). Not to mention state, local, sales and property taxes. National Review’s Kevin Williamson makes this point in a bloggingheads.tv debate below:

On the other hand, social security, while technically a welfare program, is under current law a government pension: paying social security taxes to the government creates a government liability payable directly to the individual taxpayer. Likewise, Medicare taxes.

And state and local taxes are just that: state and local. Granted, some nonzero percentage of sub-national fiscal liabilities are created by federal fiat, and that is a shame irrespective of the particular spending on the merits. But by and large, state and local spending of state and local taxes are spent on state and local priorities at the behest of state and local electorates . Federal spending is a different question.

Corporate taxes are a little trickier: they fall on the rich and poor alike in proportion, not to their overall income, but to the measure in which they own the companies being taxed. For this reason, among others, corporate taxes should be abolished in favor of raising marginal rates. But really: given that wages and salaries are paid pre-tax, how much of the income of the 47% comes from already taxed dividends? I’m thinking, not so much.

So really, federal discretionary spending is funded (not counting Red Chinese loans) by only 53% of the population. National Review’s Rich Lowry (if you can put up with his interlocutor’s screeching interruptions) gives the best explanation yet for why this matters:

Rich is at pains to disagree with the application of this principle – that enlarging the class of non-federal-income-tax-paying citizens correspondingly enlarges the constituency for all-upside increases in federal spending – but he never gets to explain why. He hints that his reasoning is similar to Kevin’s: it’s a lousy way to build a political coalition. I would add that this is especially true now that the relationship between spending and taxes is attenuated at best – remember those Red Chinese loans.

Actually closing the gap in the long term will requires painful cuts in federal spending and substantial income taxes running all the way through that 53%. Unfortunately, the bulk of federal spending is supported by political coalitions sufficiently powerful that, with a few exceptions like Paul Ryan, neither political party has made any serious proposals to meaningfully cut it. Similarly, neither political party has made any serious proposals to raise revenue, and of course both parties actively collaborate against shaping America’s population and economy into ones that would actually generate the wealth necessary to close this gap.

* It could be even more technical than that. I observe from my own 1040 that an additional $800, the “Making Work Pay” credit, was added to my return on line 63 as if it were tax that had been withheld. (It was not.)

Bad, bad teacher!

2011-11-07T17:58:00.000-07:00

I watched the movie Bad Teacher on DVD. A few thoughts:

- The movie is laugh-out-loud funny. Even watching it alone, as I did. Cameron Diaz's portrayal of a shameless goldigger / deadbeat middle school teacher barely phoning it in subverts all the education movie clichés about caring teachers that challenge and motivate their students. Instead, Diaz’s Elizabeth Halsey spends the first semester showing these movies while she sleeps at her desk.

She finally finds her niche though:

Bad Teacher (2011) – “I love Chase Reuben Rossi!”

The following year (SPOILER ALERT) she becomes the school guidance counselor, with all the school’s nerds lining up outside her office, presumably seeking similar transformation.

- The movie is politically incorrect, an observation Steve made in his reviews. The old-money SNAG* (Justin Timberlake) that Diaz seeks to ensnare is, like most SWPLs, a dilettante in diversity, holding up his taste in ethnic food as a bold political statement; this is subtly mocked by Jason Siegel’s cynical gym teacher. Diaz’s vanquished rival is ultimately sent to “bring my zany energy to the underprivileged students at Malcolm X Middle School.” The audience doesn’t even need to have explained to them the implications.

- The movie is dirty. Diaz emits a steady stream of vulgarity as in the clip above, plus there are a couple of truly cringe-inducing sexual situations (if you can call them that).

- The movie is, at a philosophical level, a little disturbing. Diaz is lazy, promiscuous and conniving; a liar, a thief and a cheat. With the exception of the scene above (and even this is obviously not without its moral downside) she shows absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever . . . and yet she is the character we are asked to root for! On comic value alone we are expected to cheer as she blackmails silence from the bureaucrat from whom she steals the state’s standardized test and then frames fellow teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) for her own drug use. What makes this worse is that Amy is a inspirational and successful teacher whose students routinely outscore the entire school on that standardized test. Now, Amy’s sing-song, affected pedagogical style is easily recognizable from my own childhood, and the comic effect comes from seeing her use that style – probably more appropriate to a lower elementary school context in any case – in her adult interactions as well. Still, she (and Justin for that matter) clearly try really hard at being good at what they do, so why are we supposed to hate her and love Diaz? The movie never really explains this.

* Is SNAG still a separate personality type from emo? Or maybe I’m dating myself; I haven’t heard it used since the ‘90s.

Just say “No, thank you.”

2011-11-03T01:01:00.002-06:00

Megan examines a Kenneth Anderson post on the origins of the Occupy Wall Street protestors, the summary of which is that it represents internecine conflict between the “upper tier New Class” (international financiers who have come through the recession relatively well) and the “lower tier New Class” (aspiring members of the “virtuocracy” whose members have been hard pressed by collapse in state and local revenue).

Both pieces should be read in their entirety. But I was struck by something that Megan wrote as she contrasted her experience of red-blue class conflict with that she observed (or didn’t) on Wall Street:

[Y]ou sneer at the customs of the people you might be mistaken for. For aside from a few very stuffy conservatives, no white people I know sneer at hip-hop music, telenovelas, Tyler Perry films, or any of the other things often consumed by people of modest incomes who don't look like them. They save it for Thomas Kinkade paintings, "Cozy cottage" style home decoration, collectibles, child beauty pageants, large pickup trucks, and so forth.

In part, obviously, this is a reaction to the politics of it, since uneducated white people of modest means vote (and attend church) very differently from the hyper-educated but modestly remunerated people in New York or DC. A group of people who are quite empathetic, even tender, in writing about the financial difficulties of lower-middle class whites as workers, can also be quite vicious about them as voters and consumers.

And they're worse when it comes to the tastes of people in successful-but-not-intellectual people like sales(wo)men. The vehemence makes it seem, at least in part, like a way to say "I may have their incomes, but I'm not like them. I'm better."

Similarly, in the 1990s, when I worked with a lot of mostly blue-collar and first-generation college grads (with a fair sprinkling of Ivy Leaguers, to be sure), I didn't hear nearly so much about the rich and how greedy they were--even though in the late 1990s, income inequality was almost certainly worse than it is right now.

As IT consultants, we were mostly working around some of the richest people in the world--investment bankers, traders, and money managers. And they did occasionally abuse their power. I received some rather astonishing invitations from men who were literally my father's age, on the basis of the fact that . . . I had entered their office to check up on something. And one trader at a mutual fund liked to throw things at the IT staff when his screens didn't work--at least until the day he winged one of the techs with a stapler and had to apologize with a very expensive gift.

But in all that time, I'm not sure I heard any complaints about rich people, or even traders or bankers, as a class. Since OWS started, I've occasionally wondered: does this explain why there seem to be so many more educated white kids than long-haul truckers or home health care aides occupying Wall Street? [Emphasis added.]

I love Megan, both for the warmth of her personality and the self-awareness and humanity she brings to discussing the red-state-blue-state divide. But Megan is not a believing Christian, and nowhere has she denied being . . . a woman of her time and place.

Which brings me to the bolded sentence above. Megan has elsewhere described the intrinsically boorish sexual behavior of some of the men to whom she provided IT services, yet I can’t help but doubt that it was her virtue, as such, that was mortified by the “astonishing offers” to which she alludes. So what was it, then, that made what was surely intended to flatter her appearance and disposition so offensive? What made appropriate any other reaction than a simple “no, thank you?”*

Reading about this reaction, in this context, I was struck by the possibility that a dynamic very similar to the blue-state sneer at red-state mores also drives Megan’s reaction to the romantic overtures of Wall Street execs and, more generally, the median female sneer at betas. As elite coastal whites shudder at being mistaken for the denizens of flyover country, so Megan shudders at being mistaken for someone who would accept those kinds of proposals.

Think of it as a reaction to, not just the implausibility of a suggested pairing, but the gulf between its personal plausibility and its perceived social plausibility. If the gulf is small, either because the offer is, in fact, personally attractive, or because the offer is socially outlandish – from a child, say, or Strom Thurmond in his later years – then no offense is taken. This may explain my recollection that in my single years I received less social hostility from beautiful girls than from average girls; the truly beautiful faced no danger extending the appropriate condescension.

But when the gulf is wide – in other words, when a woman isn’t interested but thinks that other people might think she would be – then the reaction is harshly negative. That’s how we wind up with a network of sexual harassment ~~laws~~ policies protecting women from the advances of their workplace peers.

Anyway, that’s my theory for today. Thoughts?

* Actually, given what I think I know about Megan, I suspect this was exactly her outward response.

Slouching towards Dhimmitude . . .

2011-11-01T04:39:00.001-06:00

In the inbox this morning:

Several national pro-America, pro-Family groups including Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs (Stop Islamization of America), Matt Staver’s Liberty Counsel, Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch and Sharia Awareness Action Network organized a national conference for November 11, 2011. The purpose of the conference is to educate leaders and citizens from across the country on what they can do to stop the advancement of Sharia law within the United States. The Preserving Freedom Conference organizers signed contracts with the Hutton Hotel for the two day event. Hutton Hotel is one of thirteen hotels operated by Amerimar Enterprise.

However, Islamic activists protested by placing extreme pressure on Hutton Hotel management officials to cancel the event. Hutton chose to side with these Islamic, Sharia for America advocates by cancelling the event long planned by many pro-American, pro-Family organizations. Matt Staver, Liberty Counsel President wrote a demand letter to Amerimar Enterprise. Click here to read the demand letter.

The link takes you to the full article, plus an auto-emailer to help you express your opinion to Amerimar Enterprise. It’s not much, but it’s a lot more than most of us would do otherwise.

Skin in the Game

2011-10-31T09:50:00.003-06:00

Missionaries in southeast Africa write:

On Tuesday Rosa, who had just lost her home and everything she owned (except her plates and pots that were rescued from the fire), came to the meeting to pay her [microfinance] loan amount with burnt coins that she scavenged out of the ashes. . . . Our Ukhalira group gave a money gift to help her. I’ve encouraged the believers in the group to show God’s love to Rosa. I was encouraged today as I heard that Rosa was refusing to follow traditional ways and her cousin’s demands to hire a man to have sex with Rosa to cleanse away the curse of the fire.

Um . . . yeah. I'm going to go out on a limb here and hypothesize that whoever put forward the notion that curses could be cleansed with retail sex, he was an interested party. Just sayin' . . . .

Almost Done?

2011-10-27T15:37:00.001-06:00

I seldom read or watch the “news”, and seldom believe what I hear or read when I do. But an email from a friend in SWA gives me hope:

The military is grappling with accomplishing something that we don't train for, that we rarely do, and that is, frankly, confusing to us - wrapping up the mission. We train on how to initiate action, how to maintain continuity, progress, change course, and all kinds of things - but simply "stop" doing what we do is not in our vocabulary. I've asked who the next "enduring" point of contact is for projects - and I've received emails simply saying "no one." It's a novel experience.

A lot of people here are in denial - the mission is really ending? Nobody seems to be able to just let go - everyone is driving hard to the very last day, minute, second.

This may be the real thing.

* Sunrise over the Aral Sea.

Yay Pandora!

2011-10-24T07:16:00.001-06:00

Thanks to my mom, I just became acquainted with the free music service Pandora. For the uninitiated, Pandora asks you for an artist, album or track that you like, and then creates a custom virtual radio channel playing songs that are similar to it.

The thing is, Pandora's algorithm for determining similarity is good. Scary good. I haven't devoted much energy to familiarizing myself with the current crop of musicians in a while -- I listend almost exclusively to classical music on my car radio -- and it takes quite a bit for a group to penetrate my consiousness, let alone make my playlist. So, musically, I tend to listen to the same albums over and over.

Pandora saves me from the rut. For instance, one of my favorite CCM groups is Casting Crowns (and even here, the only album I had was Lifesong). So I gave Pandora "Casting Crowns", and it promptly served up tracks I hadn't heard before from my other favorite artists (Newsboys, Mercy Me) . . . and then proceeded to play the work of artists I hadn't even heard of and yet were perfectly pitched to my tastes, ie. not Creed, but not Amy Grant either (Chris Tomlin, Reuben Morgan). And it isn't repetitive: I've stopped and started the application several times and always hear a new set.

Similarly, my "Taylor Swift" channel played Carrie Underwood and introduced me to the group Boys Like Girls.

Pandora is available not only on a PC but on most smartphones, even the Pre. It plays happily in the background while you use other apps, pausing only for telephone calls. I may have to get myself a quality FM transmitter to replace the $10 one I bought a few years ago.

What a wondrous age in which we live!

Diversity is Strength! It’s also . . . corruption in public contracting.

2011-10-20T13:41:00.001-06:00

From Sunday’s Dayton Daily News:

‘Disadvantaged’ firm wins millions in public contracts

Daily News investigation brings up questions of firm’s true ownership.

A wealthy developer, David C. Oakes, and his wife controlled a Washington Twp. company that won millions of dollars in public contracts under a federal program that gives a leg up to companies owned by disadvantaged people, a Dayton Daily News investigation found.

Developer and civil engineer David C. Oakes and his wife, luxury-home builder Shery B. Oakes, controlled TesTech Inc. for years while the engineering company sought lucrative tax-payer-funded contracts claiming Egyptian-American Sherif Adel Aziz of Washington Twp. was the owner, the Daily News found.

Egyptians are not a protected minority group under the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, or DBE, program. However, Aziz gained entry into the program as an African-American, saying he could trace his heritage to an African Nubian tribe through his religion.

Let me explain how this worked ten years ago. Businesses that achieve DBE status are allowed to win public contracts at up to 10% more money than the actual lowest bidder. The reason I know this is because at a major Air Force installation on the Florida panhandle, the contract for base services had been held by the ManTech corporation for a number of years. But one year, the contractors started identifying themselves by a new name (I forget what; doesn’t matter in this context). It turned out that a DBE had gotten the contract, and then turned around and subcontracted the entire operation back to ManTech, taking a 10% cut for themselves and . . . well, just themselves actually. The contract winner didn’t actually have any employees nor any interest at all in actually doing the work. All they had was a Designated Victim who could overbid by the 10%.

Keep in mind, none of this was a secret. It was apparently entirely lawful.

Continuing . . .

Federal and state officials are investigating possible violations of DBE law by Aziz and have questioned TesTech’s relationship with two other companies controlled by David and Shery Oakes: CESO Inc. and Design Homes and Development Co., the Daily News has learned.

The newspaper's investigation, which followed a July 7 raid by FBI and federal transportation agents, uncovered a pattern of activities that raises questions about the true ownership of TesTech, and whether Aziz runs the company as he has repeatedly told government officials.

For example:

At the same time Aziz was seeking disadvantaged status in 2004 and calling himself the sole owner of TesTech Inc., Shery Oakes was telling a different government arm that she and David Oakes owned TesTech. Shery, who like Aziz is an Egyptian-American, and David, who is white, are too wealthy to qualify for DBE status.
Shery Oakes was twice listed on 2007 campaign finance reports ad TesTech’s owner. David Oakes also signed paperwork filed with the Ohio Department of Health as TesTech’s president years after it received DBE status.
Federal law requires that DBEs be independent from any other company to ensure that those qualifying for disadvantaged status actually run the business. Yet a company owned by David Oakes, CESO Testing Technology, for years held federal and state licenses on equipment needed in TesTech’s work. The two companies also had the same headquarters and shared letterhead, personnel and equipment.
The name TesTech appears interchangeably with CESO Testing Technology and CESO Inc. in documents the companies filed with government entities. Some documents list David Oakes as Aziz’s boss. And though CESO Testing Technology was doing business under the TesTech name in Ohio, it never filed the required registration with the state.

Neither Aziz nor the Oakeses agreed to be interviewed for this story, though in a prepared statement released Sept. 23 Aziz said, “I am currently and always have been the sole owner of TesTech Inc.”

TesTech provides environmental assessments and a variety of engineering services that include drilling, field and laboratory testing and inspection work at construction sites. The company’s public clients include Dayton International Airport; Dayton Public Schools; the county engineers in Montgomery, Warren and Greene counties; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The company also won engineering work on federally funded highway projects, including reconstruction of Interstate 75 through downtown Dayton. Private sector clients have included WalMart and Target. According to its website, TesTech has 85 employees in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Missouri.

The company reported annual sales in 2009 of $5.7 million, according to documents Aziz filed with the city of Dayton.

The DBE program that TesTech used to win public contracts was meant to redress discrimination. It gives small businesses owned by women, members of certain minority groups and other disadvantaged people preferential treatment in winning government contracts.

The federal government has an “aspirational goal” of giving DBE companies 10 percent of contracts funded by the U.S. Transportation Department, said Steve Faulkner, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation, which administers the program in Ohio.

“Having DBE status gives you a piece of the pie,” said Eric Chaffee, who chairs the Project for Law and Business Ethics at the University of Dayton Law School.

Penalties for DBE fraud can range from fines and restitution to exclusion from federal contracts and even imprisonment. The Transportation Department’s Inspector General in fiscal 2008 helped to obtain 67 federal indictments, 09 convictions, 104 administrative actions against companies and the collection of $544 million in fines and restitution.

More recently, the g0vernment stepped up enforcement after the Government Accountability Office in 2009 and 2010 found fraud and abuse in other federal contracting set-aside programs. “The main group that gets hurt (by DBE fraud) is the DBE owners who aren’t fraudulent,” said Tim Lohrentz of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development in Oakland, Calif. Fraud also puts legitimate contractors of all races at a competitive disadvantage, he said, and “it puts doubt in the public mind about the program as a whole.”

Can’t have doubt about the program, now can we. How touching the concern about the harm to “legitimate contractors of all races”, when putting white contractors at a “competitive disadvantage” is the point of the whole freakin’ program!

Continuing . . .

Federal Raid

On July 7, federal agents executing a sealed warrant removed boxes from the Galleria building at 8534 Yankee St. The building, which is owned by the Oakes-controlled Yankee Partners LLC, houses the headquarters of TesTech, CESO Inc., and Design Homes.

Aziz, in a statement released after the raid, said, “We have been in discussions with the DOT over the last few years, responding to their questions about our company and we have cooperated fully.”

Federal officials wouldn’t comment and have filed no charges.

The Montgomery County Republican Party also has its headquarters in the Galleria building, paying $1000 a month in rent. Party Chairman Greg Gantt said he moved the headquarters there last year after seeking out a landlord who was supportive of the party.

The Oakeses and their companies are major political donors, contributing at least $79,700 since 2002 to the county GOP and mostly Republican national, state, and local candidates.

“I don’t see any real connection between whatever issues are going on with the Department of transportation and our leasing space from (the Oakeses),” Gantt said. “Based on my personal knowledge with them and what personal conversations we have had, they have a conservative Republican philosophy and that’s why they are supportive (of Republicans).”

I tried looking up the Oakeses on OpenSecrets.org, but all I could find was about $2500 in donations to congressman Mike Turner.

[Boring section about case details deleted.]

Continuing . . .

Minority heritage questioned

Ohio and federal transportation officials are moving to strip TesTech of its DBE status. On March 18, ODOT sent a letter to Aziz giving him the reasons for the decertification: Officials believe he is not a member of a recognized minority group, makes too much money to qualify and isn’t the true majority owner.

Aziz appealed the finding, signing the letter “president and Sole Shareholder” of TesTech. A November hearing is expected.

Aziz won the DBE certification on appeal in 2005 after being turned down by the state in 1998 and 2004.

To be eligible for DBE status, companies must be at least 51 percent owned by socially and economically disadvantaged people, and those owners must be in control of day-to-day operations. There are limits on a company’s gross receipts, and the personal net worth of a disadvantaged owner cannot exceed $1.3 million, an amount that was increased in January from $750,000.

Right. Because having a net worth of six times the national median just isn’t enough. The truly disadvantaged have a net worth ten times the median.

TesTech benefited greatly from its DBE status. It’s impossible to know how much in taxpayer money the company was paid or how much it obtained as a DBE because TesTech did business with so many government entities. But a Daily News review of area and state contracts found TesTech was paid at least $4.7 million since 2003 by the Ohio Department of Transportation, Montgomery County, the city of Dayton and Dayton Public Schools.

TesTech’s DBE status assisted it in getting much of that work, contract documents and interviews show.

Um . . . duh? What would be the other reason to have DBE status?

Continuing . . .

TesTech was incorporated in Ohio in 1997 by local attorney James Weprin, who has incorporated various Oakes companies. After being turned down as a DBE by the state of Ohio in 1998, the company gained limited DBE status in 2002 through the Columbus Airport Authority and a year later through the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. After Ohio approved TesTech as a DBE in 2005 it was certified by Michigan and Kentucky. Aziz withdrew TesTech from Michigan’s DBE program in 2009 and the company was decertified by Kentucky in 2010 after TesTech briefly dropped out of Ohio’s program.

Aziz, 49, holds bachelor’s and master's degrees in engineering, respectively, from Egypt’s Cairo University and Wright State University. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1991. Aziz and his wife, Dr. Nancy Zaki, own a $643,390 Washington Twp. home built on land they bought from Shery and David Oakes Ltd. in 2004 according to the Montgomery County Auditor.

Aziz gave sharply different versions of his net worth to two separate government entities last year.

In April 2010, when he applied for the city of Dayton’s set-aside programs for small, disadvantaged and minority businesses, he said he had a negative net worth of $46,145. But when he reapplied in October 2010 for DBE status in Michigan, Aziz stated his net worth of $470,697.

I don’t see any reason to believe either of these numbers, but it says about the state of mortgage lending when an Egyptian immigrant can borrow that kind of money with so little capital.

[More boring case history deleted.]

Continuing . . .

The Oakeses live in their $2.3 million home in Washington Twp. where they hosted a major fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society, the Cattle Baron's Ball, in August 2010. Shery, 51, and her family emigrated from Egypt in 1965 and she was naturalized in the United States in 1974. Her father, Bushra Migally, was a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin, where Shery earned a bachelor's degree in business administration. In 1987 she established Design Homes and Development Co., the most high-profile of the couple's many companies. In 2007 reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith's lavish post-funeral reception was held at a $ 14.9 million vacation property in the Bahamas built by Design Homes and owned by Shery Oakes. It is not clear if she still owns the property. Shery also is chief executive of DHDC Inc., a real estate, construction and civil survey services company. She successfully applied for Minority Business Enterprise certification through the state for DHDC, stating she is an African-American. The MBE program, which does not place limits on personal net worth, opens doors to set-asides for public contracts but not the federally mandated access to the big pot of transportation money available to DBE companies.

In 2004 Shery sought state assistance for construction of a new headquarters for the various Oakes companies. In her application, she identified the "Oakes Companies" as CESO Inc., CESO Testing Technology, TesTech Inc. and Design Homes - "all owned by David and Shery Oakes."

"All of the Oakes Companies work hand in hand for each other in services,” she wrote in the application filed with the Ohio Department of Development. “No changes in ownership will occur.”

That same year Aziz applied for federal DBE status, telling ODOT he was the owner of TesTech.

Does anyone still get rich by creating value anymore? Or is it always just value transference.

[More boring ownership history deleted.]

Concluding . . .

Troubling questions

Experts on DBE fraud say the results of the Daily News investigation raise troubling questions about the true ownership of TesTech.

"It certainly sounds like you have an affiliation problem here," said Edward DeLisle, a Philadelphia attorney who specializes in DBE fraud cases. "The highest officer has to be the disadvantaged person. It (the title of president) certainly would signify that he (Oakes) has control."

DeLisle said fraud in DBE contracts is becoming more common.

In today's down economy, "you're seeing companies, just to stay alive, creating companies run by people that claim to be disadvantaged," he said. "Companies are getting desperate, especially in the construction industry where the private industry has pretty much dried up."

The U.S. Transportation Department's inspector general lists DBE fraud as its top priority. Common fraud schemes include use of front companies that do little or no actual work, or partnering in illegal ways with DBEs, according to the IG website and a number of experts an the program.

"The biggest one we see is, they will hire somebody to be the designated minority or veteran," said Earl Gregorich, who heads the Small Business Development Center at Wright State University. "(It's) kind of a straw man situation. It’s the most common because it's the easiest one to pull off."

Contact these reporters at (937) 225-7455 or lhulsey@DaytonDailyNews.com and (937) 225-2264 or tbeyerlein@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Lynn Hulsey is an investigative reporter who covers government and politics for the Dayton Daily News. She is a graduate of the University of Dayton and has reported for the paper since 1995.

Tom Beyerlein has won state and national journalism awards for investigative business reporting.

Let’s review the yummy diversiness:

First generation immigrants claiming benefits for “discrimination;”
Politically connected real estate developers;
Racial redistribution at the expense of whites; and
Government corruption.

When I first heard of this story, I almost couldn’t believe it. Not because the story is unlikely; on the contrary, it’s all too likely. But rather because I usually read about this kind of thing at Half Sigma, or iSteve, or VDare. But in fact, this one article is the only reporting in the country on the Oakes/Aziz connection, and the bulk of it is behind the Daily News subscriber firewall. I only found out about it because I have friends in Ohio. It’s almost as if the media don’t want us to know about corruption in DBE contracting.

What's a Fundamentalist?

2011-10-20T04:36:00.001-06:00

The Inductivist points to Add Health study that measures the difference in property crime rates between religious fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists. The results are as I would have expected, but what grabbed my attention was the way fundamentalism was measured:

White Add Health respondents (sample size = 3,489) were asked, "Do you agree or disagree that the sacred scriptures of your religion are the word of God and are completely without any mistakes?"

This is a far better question than the one the GSS asks for similar purposes: going from memory, "Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally word for word?" Now, any educated Christian knows perfectly well that the Bible contains an abundance of allegory, metaphor, and analogy, none of which was intended to be taken literally; that's what those words are for. So they pick option two: "the Bible is the inspired word of God that should not be taken literally word for word." Which fuels Half Sigma's assertions that "religious" people are less intelligent. That said, and as Inductivist points out, there may be other evidence for the claim. But the GSS question is a poor way to measure it.

From the Archive: Infiltration of the Chaplaincy

2011-10-17T01:48:00.000-06:00

From May 13, 2005 Washington Post:

DENVER, May 12 -- An Air Force chaplain who complained that evangelical Christians were trying to "subvert the system" by winning converts among cadets at the Air Force Academy was removed from administrative duties last week, just as the Pentagon began an in-depth study of alleged religious intolerance among cadets and commanders at the school.

"They fired me," said Capt. MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran minister who was removed as executive officer of the chaplain unit on May 4. "They said I should be angry about these outside groups who reported on the strident evangelicalism at the academy. The problem is, I agreed with those reports."

I did a bit of googling on Chaplain Morton at the time. Turns out she had a paper trail. Read the abstract of her paper submitted to the 30th Annual Conference of the Association for Moral Education (reproduced below) last year.

II. “Corruptive Interpretations of Institutional Culture Change; the Moral Consequences of Pervasive Christian Fundamentalism.”

Authors: Christopher J. Luedtke, United States Air Force Academy

Chaplain MeLinda Morton, United States Air Force Academy

Abstract: Religious belief systems and practices comprise morally forceful elements within a determinative cultural nexus. Nominally secular institutions, seeking to change institutional culture, must address the attendant power dynamic and articulated moral focus apparent within constitutive religious milieu. This paper examines contemporary articulations of American Christian Fundamentalism in an attempt to determine the potential change response of a cultural nexus inclusive of leaders and members espousing the moral grounding and religious perspective of Christian Fundamentalists. Particular to this consideration is the Fundamentalist moral response to gender integration within contemporary, federally funded, military undergraduate educational institutions.

But who is Chris Luedtke? An instructor at USAFA sent me this tidbit:

Several Christian teachers here used to take out a "Christmas Card" ad in a December issue of the base paper. We'd put in something along the lines of "We believe Jesus is the reason for the season. If you'd like to know more, feel free to contact one of us."

Suddenly this Luedtke guy started showing up at the CLM meetings (Christian Leadership Ministries) and told us he was just there "to monitor." Along with him came the new chaplain, Whittaker I think his name was. They ended up harassing us out of running the ad anymore. They did their part to stop "Pervasive Christian Fundamentalism."

He’s still in, by the way.

Delenda Est Carthago: connecting the dots since 2004.

From the Archives: the Cult of Diversity

2011-10-13T08:13:00.000-06:00

THE SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE
CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
WASHINGTON DC

JUL 31 2005

SECAF/CSAF Letter to Airmen: Diversity and the United States Air Force

To the Airmen of the United States Air Force,

Today’s Air Force is composed of America’s finest men and women. From all walks of life—rural farms, inner cities, and every place in-between—young Americans are drawn to the call of Integrity, Service and Excellence. We celebrate this diversity, recognizing that such a mix of experience leads to a breadth of perspective and broader horizons, and ultimately innovative ways to maximize our combat capabilities for the Joint Team.

Harnessing such magnificent differences into an effective, coherent team takes solid leadership,quality training and a conscious effort toward mutual respect on all our parts. Tolerating harassment of any type is no different than committing the offense. As we become a leaner, more lethal force, we simply have no place for such potentially criminal or divisive behavior.

We are all Airmen, and under enemy fire the race, religion, sex or geographic origin of the Airmen fighting next to us is irrelevant. We expect you to exhibit a similar whole-hearted respect toward your fellow Airmen – your Wingmen – wherever you work today.

The United States’ first national motto, “E pluribus unum,” means “out of many, one.” Initially, the motto referred to the formation of our great Nation for the thirteen colonies. Is subsequently took on new meaning as people from all over the globe immigrated here, making the U.S. a multicultural “melting pot,” Today, that phrase reminds us that we’re in this fight together. Let’s make sure the efforts and innovations of all Airmen are welcomed and appreciated. Your Nation demands no less.

Michael W. Wynne
Secretary of the Air Force

T. Michael Moseley
General, USAF
Chief of Staff

Hoarding Social Capital

2011-10-10T18:39:00.000-06:00

I wound up the last post thusly:

I speculate that the motivation behind a lot of the animosity that socially adept kinds of people show towards PCC is precisely that they lose a lot of their social status and power when the rules get written down for everybody to learn equally.

As I thought more about it, I was reminded of one of Steve’s posts:

I want to note a social trend, that's reflective of a general theme: that in contemporary society, a lot of the rules for successful living aren't spelled out for people the way they used to be. This means that people who are smarter and/or raised in better social settings and/or naturally inclined toward successful life choices will still pick up the messages, but lots of other people won't . . . .

[C]onsider single motherhood and the term "bastard." A century ago, single motherhood was deterred, among other ways, by heaping opprobrium on the children of single mothers. That was cruel, but also pretty effective. Today, the term "bastard" has lost almost all connection with its original meaning. Nice people today would be shocked by the notion that society should discriminate against a child just because his parents weren't married. That's hardly the child's fault, now is it?

In fact, society is now deeply uncomfortable with the notion that we should be impolite to single mothers themselves . . . .

Not surprisingly, this decline in "preemptive discrimination" to deter single motherhood means we now have far more bastards. On the other hand, we don't see many bastards in the upper reaches of society, outside of celebrity bohemian circles. In fact, upper middle class life is evolving in directions that quietly but effectively discriminate against not just bastards, but also against the children of divorce . . . .

I suspect that people of ornery and/or impulsive dispositions inherited from their screw-up parents are less likely to make it to the upper reaches of society than in the past. In older times, parents with screw-up inclinations were more likely to be deterred by explicit social pressures against bastardy and divorces.

The whole thing is worth the read. But I want to open the subject of the ethic of “non-judgmentalism” by way of example.

The LCMS church we attend is, for the most part, solidly middle class. We do have a couple of families that are well-to-do yet have a family history here that keeps them coming back, and we also have a couple of, judging by their appearance, a couple of poor families.

The teenaged (I assume) daughter of one of those latter families attends sporadically. She’s never particular well-dressed – thus I discern her socio-economic status – but one Sunday about a year ago her attire was especially egregious. She was wearing a pair of cut-offs cut off too high. And by too high, I mean high enough that if my own daughter were to wear them at the beach, I would probably say something. But this girl was wearing them to a worship service.

This display bothered me enough that I brought it up, first to my wife, and then a few weeks later in the context of our Sunday school class. (The class is heavily participatory and the discussion ranges widely; you can take my word that it was in a relevant context.) I was unwilling to embarrass the young lady by name, but it was recent enough that I believed anybody who had seen her should have been able to figure out to whom I was referring.

What bothered me was my inability to get buy-in that somebody – and here I mean specifically one of the women in the church, since I have a vague sense that it would be inappropriate for me – should speak to this young lady in private and explain to her the standards of dress for Sunday churchgoing. What I instead got was – at least among those who bothered to respond – was a vague appeal to the importance of being welcoming to all comers. This bothered me because I know the daughters of these families and I know that they know what respectful attire looks like because they make sure that their own daughters abide with those norms.

Yet confronted with the opportunity to share that cultural capital with someone who didn’t have it – I am reasonably sure that the girl dressed as she did from ignorance rather than malice – everybody took a dive, and dressed up their hoarding in the language of non-judgmentalism.

ISAF Pussy*

2011-10-06T02:36:00.000-06:00

The unsung heros of ISAF HQ are the large number of cats that patrol the campus for vermin. They receive no billeting for this service, but they do tend to congregate around the chow hall for some reason.

* Why, what did you think I meant? Pervballs.

Where the Line Is

2011-10-03T15:57:00.000-06:00

Sofia writes:

Male-female friendships can work, but I don’t think they can be sustained with the kind of regular interaction you see with best friends. And, they usually don’t center around emotional substance. If I have to randomly assign a gender to someone with whom I would rather have an intellectual or abstract conversation, I would probably choose a man 9 times out of 10. Adversely, if I want someone with whom I could discuss something emotionally based, I would probably opt for a woman 90% of the time. I will go ahead and state that male-female friendships with that kind of heavy emotional content is boundary-crossing. If you have that kind of connection with the opposite sex — the kind usually sought out for romantic relationships — what is really prohibiting you from eventually f’ing this person?!

This put me in mind of a conversation I had with Trumwill a while back about Pensacola Christian College, a school that has achieved some notoriety for its heavily regulated social life. Let me begin by saying that I am not an uncritical defender of PCC, whose enforcement mechanisms strike me as Orwellian, and Trumwill basically persuaded me that their lack of accreditation is less a bold statement of independence than yet another instrument of control.

Yet the people most inclined to point-and-sputter at PCC are not especially motivated by its lack of due process, to which they have evinced no particular attachment. Rather, they are driven to hysterics by the rules themselves, and on that subject I stand by my comment at HitCoffee:

The actual student conduct standards are on pp 31 - 33 of the student guide. My reading is that they are on the right side of the bell curve when it comes to evangelical Christian colleges, but they’re still on that curve. And now that I think about it, I’m not sure they would have made much difference to me personally. Restrictions on music? I already listen to classical and Christian contemporary. No movies? I didn’t see many anyway (I couldn’t afford them either in time or money.) Don’t dress like a slob (or a slut)? This is just the grown-up dress code we all follow now without being told, so I might as well have got started in college.

No touching? A nerd’s paradise! Seriously, nothing sux to a guy without a girlfriend like watching that guy flaunt his higher status.

I would elaborate that while it’s easy to make sport of PCC’s nitpicky rules once we see them written down in black and white, any socially mature adult carries around a vastly more complex mental schema governing his social interactions, especially interactions with the opposite sex. I would further assert as generalities that this is more true of women than of men, and even more true of those whose lifestyles resemble that of a Sofia or, once, a Sheila Tone, than of those whose lifestyles resemble that of Dr. Φ. I bet either of them could explain exactly the socio-sexual distinction between, for example, speaking with a fellow student while walking to class and stopping to speak with him.

Indeed, my own lack of intuition in this regard was brought home to me recently in a conversation I had with Mrs. Φ. For reasons I cannot recall, we were comparing the relative attractiveness of the young woman I mentioned at the end of this post and her older sister. I expressed my preference for the older sister, my wife expressed hers for the younger. But the conversation wound up like this:

Mrs. Φ: “Anyway, older sister is just weird. She’s got bizarre ideas about vaccinations [she’s against them] and diet. And she lacks social grace. She’s loud and uncouth. All the women at church thought so.”

Φ [hotly]: “That is so not right! Even were I to concede the merely physical component of the comparison – and I don’t – older sister has vastly more social self-possession than younger sister. Older sister always greeted me warmly whenever we saw each other while we lived there and especially when we’ve visited since. Younger sister pretty much ignored me the whole 2 1/2 years.

Mrs. Φ: “Maybe that’s true, but the circumstances were different. Older sister is married, you are friends with her husband, we got together in groups at Bible study. Younger sister is single, and single women DO NOT FRATERNIZE with married men. It just isn’t done.”

Φ: “Well . . . first of all, that rule sux. And second of all, in this particular comparison, the difference went beyond context. Older sister would stop and talk to me even when we were just milling around in the sanctuary, and what’s more, she seemed genuinely happy to do so. Younger sister, in contrast, never said word one to me even when the context would seem to allow it. I remember one specific instance when she was minding the nursery and I came to collect Γ. You’d think that I would at least get a ‘good morning,’ but no. Not. Word. One. The effect was not a positive one.

Mrs. Φ: “Don’t you think that you might be a trifle oversensitive to this kind of thing given your, um, social background?”

Φ: “Maybe. But I know the difference between nice and not-nice. I pick nice.”

On the other hand, it occurs to me that there are two specific advantages of a heavily-regulated place like PCC for someone like me: I wouldn’t have to guess about what the social rules are, and I would have less opportunity to take things personally.

Less charitably, I speculate that the motivation behind a lot of the animosity that socially adept kinds of people show towards PCC is precisely that they lose a lot of their social status and power when the rules get written down for everybody to learn equally.

Credit Give and Take

2011-09-29T07:01:00.000-06:00

George W. Bush speech after capture of Saddam Hussein:

The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them.

Barack Hussein Obama speech, Sunday, May 1, 2011:

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as I continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan . And finally, last week, I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad , Pakistan .

Tobacco Management II: Field Report

2011-09-25T23:58:00.000-06:00

I had my first cigar a few weeks ago at my advisor’s farewell and graduation party. It was a Java (or I think it was; I also had my first Jack Daniels, so my recollection of the evening might be a little off). J, the other PhD graduate who gave it to me said he bought it in a tobacco shop for $15, although they seem to be available online for about half that.

J assured me that the cigar would be “smooth”. Although I lack any basis for comparison, but I was surprised how easy smoking turned out to be. (I hasten to add that it’s less easy to look cool doing it, which I assuredly did not.) I knew in advance that I would never get through a whole cigar, so I asked for and received about an inch and a half worth. J warned that a cigar that short might burn a little, but that really wasn’t my experience beyond the one time I accidentally inhaled.

I had expected that whatever effect one would get from tobacco smoke would be felt immediately, but that turned out not to be true. I gamely puffed away about a quarter inch before saying, “Don’t take this personally, but your cigar is doing nothing for me. It’s mainly just a lot of work.” But I had no sooner snuffed out the remainder when I began to feel it: a pleasantly dizzying sensation. I might say that the cigar intensified the effect of the Gentleman Jack, but “intensify” seems a poor choice given that the cumulative sensation was very mellowing. I found myself uncharacteristically relaxed and talkative.

A word on the after effects. I drank plenty of water that evening, so I didn’t have anything like a hangover the next morning, but both my breath and the clothes I was wearing felt and smelled like an ashtray. And . . . I woke up the next morning thinking about cigars! Along the lines of, “Mmmm, cigars . . . .” Kind of a lot. Fortunately, the craving went away by midday, but I can kinda see how someone who woke up in the morning with those kind of thoughts and who had tobacco on hand would be tempted to light up.

Applied Rationalizing

2011-09-22T18:38:00.000-06:00

In an otherwise thought-provoking post on adultery and divorce, Athol Kay writes:

Which leads us obviously to the question of "What about the children?"

My feeling is that someone who is a terrible spouse, is very frequently a terrible parent.

An alcoholic husband, is an alcoholic father.

A Batshit Crazy wife, is a Batshit Crazy mother.

A chronically unemployed husband, is a chronically unemployed father.

An absent cheating wife, is an absent neglecting mother.

A criminally involved husband, is a criminally involved father.

A slovenly hoarding wife, is a slovenly hoarding mother.

And I'm sure you get the idea....

So yeah... what about the children? Shouldn't you be doing something?

Unsurprisingly, I’m oppose divorce on first-order grounds. Perhaps surprising is that I do so knowing that what I ask – spending one’s entire life intimately attached to another human being – is supremely unnatural. So I get the frustrations and disappointments, and I understand that many people will fail to keep the vows they make. Yet I reply: be as happy as you can, enduring what you must.

Precisely because the project is so difficult, we should be especially keen to avoid abetting the female (and let’s face it, when we’re talking about people who initiate divorce, we’re usually talking about women) tendency towards self-rationalization, and nothing reeks of self-rationalization like claiming to be getting divorced “for the good of the children.”

First of all, the data on the negative outcomes for the children of divorce is sufficiently established that it hardly needs citation. I’m frankly surprised that Athol writes as if he is unaware of it.

But second of all, let’s walk through the list above: alcoholism, unemployment, infidelity, criminality, slovenliness, and “batshit crazy” (by which I assume Athol means mental illness). Of these, only two, alcoholism and mental illness, have any relationship to a child’s physical safety, and not always even then. The other flaws are certainly bad examples to set for children, assuming the children are aware of them and lack any forceful countervailing influence. More than likely, though, it is the aggrieved wife that brings her husband’s shortcomings to the children’s attention as a way of self-validation, which kind of deprives her of the moral high ground regarding bad examples.

Even so, the parenting would have to be, not just bad, but pathologically bad for single parenthood to be the preferred solution. The generality is that children are made worse off by divorce; that you happen to know of counterexamples doesn’t mean you are smart enough to predict yourself one of them.

Is this a compelling reason for a woman (or a man, for that matter) to stay in a bad marriage? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that someone contemplating divorce should be fully cognizant of the tradeoff he is making: his own happiness and well-being (possibly) for his children’s (probably).

Your Air Force In Action

2011-09-19T12:22:00.000-06:00

From the archives of The USAFA Educator, Fall 2006

DF’s Inclusive Excellence Initiative

Col Rita Jordan, Professor and Head, Department of Management

Higher education is at a defining moment as institutions of learning look to educate students to become multiculturally proficient, informed about the human and natural world, and empowered to act responsibly and with moral courage in a fast-changing, stratified, and globally interdependent world.

Globalization is changing the face of the world, making it more competitive, both economically and intellectually. The United States cannot expect to continue as leader if its largest pools of talent remain untapped. Therefore, organizations are aspiring to a more heterogeneous workforce, one that enables leadership to draw upon the abilities and perspectives of all members to offer a range of creative solutions.

Higher education is responsible for producing this next generation of leaders, of all races and ethnicities, who can be agents of change and who will lead people and ideas in diverse workplaces. Multicultural skills and knowledge now are integral to the flexible, inquisitive, and synergistic thinking that is a hallmark of an educated person.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has had a long standing interest in diversity efforts that value die contributions of all students. This initiative is known as "Inclusive Excellence." In an inclusive excellence curriculum, faculty create appropriate learning experiences that chart pathways of success for all students. To better understand AAC&U's initiative, two key definitions are offered:

Diversity - individual differences (e.g., race/ethnicity, class, gender, country of origin, cultural, political, religious, or other affiliations) that can be engaged in the service of learning.
Inclusion - consists of an active, intentional, and on-going engagement with diversity in people, in the curriculum, and in the communities (social, cultural, intellectual, and geographical) with which individuals might connect in ways that would increase awareness, content knowledge, cognitive sophistication and empathic understanding of the complex ways individuals interact within systems and institutions.

The Dean of Faculty's Inclusive Excellence Initiative is a developmental approach which extends beyond merely increasing the number of women and minorities on faculty. It also seeks to develop and enhance faculty understanding of the value and importance of inclusion resulting in integration of multicultural experience opportunities with course learning goals. Inclusive excellence is fundamental to DF's Learning Focused Initiative and integrally linked to USAFA's educational outcomes.

Attack of the Yalies

2011-09-15T09:56:00.000-06:00

OneSTDV turned me on to Tiffany Alvord, whose collaboration with Kurt Hugo Schneider produced an amazingly virtuoso Taylor Swift medley.

OneSTDV thinks that while her talent is impressive, Alvord's commercial potential is limited. I’m inclined to disagree, and for once feel like I’m getting in on the ground floor, or at least qualifying myself as an early adopter.

But here’s a question for my more pop-culture savvy readers: is my impression correct that these kids really did come out of middle class backgrounds in Nowheresville, PA to achieve YouTube stardom, completely bypassing the studio system? Not even Taylor Swift did that!

(For those of you keeping score at home, I could find no evidence that Schneider is Jewish, while Sam Tsui is part Chinese and Alvord is apparently a Mormon.)

An unrelated question: what are the copyright implications of recording a song that somebody else wrote? Commercial performers do this all the time, but I assume they have to buy permission. Does it matter that the song is released non-commercially?

Considering themselves wise . . .

2011-09-13T10:34:00.001-06:00

Robin Hanson celebrates 9-11:

In the decade since 9/11 over half a billion people have died worldwide. A great many choices could have delayed such deaths, including personal choices to smoke less or exercise more, and collective choices like allowing more immigration. And cryonics might have saved most of them.

Yet, to show solidarity with these three thousand victims, we have pissed away three trillion dollars ($1 billion per victim), and trashed long-standing legal principles. And now we’ll waste a day remembering them, instead of thinking seriously about how to save billions of others. I would rather we just forgot 9/11.

Do I sound insensitive? If so, good — 9/11 deaths were less than one part in a hundred thousand of deaths since then, and don’t deserve to be sensed much more than that fraction. If your feelings say otherwise, that just shows how full fricking far your mind has gone.

Let’s help him out:

Of last decade’s half-billion dead, most succumbed to natural causes and accidents. Don’t take it personally.
Of those that died by direct human agency, most shared no meaningful ties of blood, culture, or nation with us. I wish them no ill, but I haven’t the energy to feign much sympathy.
Of those that were Americans, most were killed by other Americans. These may, in fact, deserve more attention than they receive; if so, we should start by reporting them honestly.

The attacks on 9-11 were especially salient because a sizeable number of our fellow countrymen were dramatically murdered by aliens on behalf of an alien ideological agenda. That this commands special attention among Americans is pretty basic to an understanding of human nature, and if Robin’s feelings say otherwise, that just shows how full fricking far his mind has gone.

More foolishness:

I am a proud resident of Fairfax County, in the U.S. state of Virginia. Today, I want to warn my fine fellow Fairfax folk: we interact too promiscuously with outsiders! For example, we are allowed to buy things made outside Fairfax, and leave the county to travel or work. Fairfax firms can even choose outsiders as investors, employees, and suppliers . . . .

I pretty much stopped reading right there, since I long ago outgrew a taste for comparing actual human ties and sentiments with fictitious ones. But as long as we’re playing reductio ad absurdum, let me have a go at it:

I am a proud resident of the Hanson household. Today, I want to warn my fine fellow Hansons: we allow outsiders too much access to our domicile. Non-Hansons are allowed to enter at will without so much as a by-your-leave. They consume more of family resources than they contribute, they strain the carrying capacity of the living room sofa during “What Not to Where,” and they fail to respect household social norms like flushing the toilet and not hitting others . . . .

Once we come to see our nation as an extended family, then the sentiments of ordinary Americans become a lot more understandable, perhaps even to economists.

News from Our Coming Alien Overlords

2011-09-12T08:17:00.000-06:00

[The following is from a recently-arrived chain mail. Snopes examines it in detail.]

"You old white people. It is your duty to die."
HISPANIC LEADERS SPEAK OUT!

Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets: "Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die ... Through love of having children, we are going to take over.”
Richard Alatorre, Los Angeles City Council: "They're afraid we're going to take over the governmental institutions and other institutions. They're right. We will take them over ... We are here to stay."
Excelsior, the national newspaper of Mexico, "The American southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot."
Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez, University of Texas; "We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in our population ... I love it. They are shitting in their pants with fear. I love it."
Art Torres, Chairman of the California Democratic Party, "Remember 187 — proposition to deny taxpayer funds for services to non-citizens — was the last gasp of white America in California."
Gloria Molina, Los Angeles County Supervisor, "We are politicizing every single one of these new citizens that are becoming citizens of this country ... I gotta tell you that a lot of people are saying, "I'm going to go out there and vote because I want to pay them back."
Mario Obledo, California Coalition of Hispanic Organizations and California State Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Governor Jerry Brown, also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton, "California is going to be a Hispanic state. Anyone who doesn't like it should leave."
Jose Pescador Osuna, Mexican Consul General , "We are practicing 'La Reconquista' in California."
Professor Fernando Guerra, Loyola Marymount University; "We need to avoid a white backlash by using codes understood by Latinos ..."

Are these just the words of a few extremists? Consider that we could fill up many pages with such quotes. Also, consider that these are mainstream Mexican leaders.

THE U.S. VS MEXICO:

On February 15, 1998, the U.S. and Mexican soccer teams met at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Mexican even though most lived in this country. They booed during the National Anthem and U.S. flags were held upside down. As the match progressed, supporters of the U.S. team were insulted, pelted with projectiles, punched and spat upon. Beer and trash were thrown at the U.S. players before and after the match. The coach of the U.S. team, Steve Sampson said, "This was the most painful experience I have ever had in this profession."

Did you know that immigrants from Mexico and other non-European countries can come to this country and get preferences in jobs, education, and government contracts? It's called affirmative action or racial privilege. The Emperor of Japan or the President of Mexico could migrate here and immediately be eligible for special rights unavailable for Americans of European descent. Recently, a vote was taken in the U.S. Congress to end this practice. It was defeated. Every single Democratic senator except Ernest Hollings voted to maintain special privileges for Hispanic, Asian and African immigrants. They were joined by thirteen Republicans. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have repeatedly stated that they believe that massive immigration from countries like Mexico is good. They have also backed special privileges for these immigrants.

Corporate America has signed on to the idea that minorities and third world immigrants should get special, privileged status. Some examples are Exxon, Texaco, Merrill Lynch, Boeing, Paine Weber, Starbucks and many more.

DID YOU KNOW? Did you know that Mexico regularly intercedes on the side of the defense in criminal cases involving Mexican nationals? Did you know that Mexico has NEVER extradited a Mexican national accused of murder in the U.S. in spite of agreements to do so?* According to the L.A. Times, Orange County, California is home to 275 gangs with 17,000 members; 98% of which are Mexican and Asian. How's your county doing?

According to a New York Times article dated May 19, 1994, 20 years after the great influx of legal immigrants from Southeast Asia, 30% are still on welfare compared to 8% of households nationwide. A Wall Street Journal editorial dated December 5, 1994 quotes law enforcement officials as stating that Asian mobsters are the "greatest criminal challenge the country faces." Not bad for a group that is still under 5% of the population.

Is education important to you? Here are the words of a teacher who spent over 20 years in the Los Angeles School system. "Imagine teachers in classes containing 30-40 students of widely varying attention spans and motivation, many of whom aren't fluent in English. Educators seek learning materials likely to reach the majority of students and that means fewer words and math problems and more pictures and multicultural references."

And did you know that at the hospital these illegals cannot be turned down if they can't pay and they certainly don't pay. I saw a man on TV who took his Caucasian neighbor to an emergency room. He was slowly bleeding to death yet he had to wait for three hours for emergency treatment because the staff was busy giving prenatal treatment, cold and flu remedies, aspirin, etc., to illegals who could not speak English. They were all treated for free. When the bleeding Caucasian man's turn finally came they would not touch him until he proved that he had insurance.

Because of the overwhelming number of illegals in this country, this past year alone 84 hospitals in the Los Angeles area went out of business.

If you think there is something seriously sick going on in our country you had better write a letter to your congressman letting him know how you feel. Soon it will be too late so you might consider getting a head start and enrolling in a Spanish class.

* This is the one fact that Snopes claims the email gets wrong: “In December 2005, the Mexican government extradited Raul Gomez García to the U.S. to stand trial in Colorado for the murder of Denver Police Officer Donald Young and the attempted murder of Officer John Bishop.” The link is to the U. S. Embassy in Mexico. Wikipedia gives the details:

While murdering a police officer is usually a capital offense in Colorado, on June 9, 2005, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrisey announced that Gómez-García would be charged with second degree murder and first degree attempted murder. These charges posed a maximum of 32–96 years in prison. Morrisey justified the charges, stating, "It is my understanding that I would be prohibited from extraditing him if I sought first-degree murder charges in this case."

Interview Tips and Tricks

2011-09-08T01:40:00.002-06:00

I've been on three interviews now during which I have been asked a variation of this question:

The most popular variant is: "What would you do if you got behind on a project?" Not knowing the correct answer, I answer honestly: "Revisit the requirements." This is also the true answer in that I became familiar with the research to which Alice refers, although I usually wind up saying that working harder is an option if the work is sufficiently interesting.

But let me throw the question to my readers: what are interviewers expecting here? The simplistic answer is: "Sure, I'll work 14 hour days for you, such is my dedication to my work." But I'm pretty sure that's not it.

Another tricky one: having gone in to interview for a job in field X, the interviewer starts asking my thoughts on related fields Y and Z. Not knowing the correct answer, I answer (somewhat evasively) by talking about my experience in fields Y and Z to the extent I have it. If I don't, or if I'm otherwise cornered, I answer honestly: "While I will consider all offers, I believe my greatest potential lies in field X." But again let me ask my readers if they know what's being sought? This one, it seems, could go either way. On the one hand, the company might actually have work in fields Y and Z and needs employees to be flexible about their assigned tasks. On the other hand, saying that you'll do whatever sounds ingratiating and poorly specialized.

Secrets of Success

2011-09-05T08:33:00.001-06:00

From The Pawnbroker (1964):

I guess I should object to Sol Nazerman’s assertion that the Jews don’t have a land myth; on the contrary, at 3800 years old, Zionism takes the cake for the most enduring land myth in history.

Otherwise, several things stand out:

Sidney Lumet made this movie in 1964. I’m guessing that the image of a Jew operating a small independent shop in an inner city neighborhood resonated with audiences back then in a way that it doesn’t today. Besides the fact that Gentiles are today actively discouraged from thinking of Jews at all except as yet another victim class, most Jews today have evolved beyond the “middleman minority” role.
As Andrew Young got himself fired for pointing out, Jewish shopkeepers were replaced in the inner city by Koreans, who were themselves replaced by Persians and Arabs. Their experiences have much in common with one another: a high degree of frugality; cultural insularity; and strained relations with the surrounding community.
Sidney Lumet gives us an unromantic view of the inner city that has more in common with The Wire than with media portrayals of “the black experience” in most of the intervening period. It shows, not just crime, but a wide range of dysfunction including prostitution and drug addiction. But this dysfunction, or the perception of it, is behind the negative views that middleman minorities have of most of their customers.
I was surprised to find nudity in this film. The MPAA rating system wouldn’t be introduced until 1968, and the Hays Code was still in effect. Can anybody think of instances of other mainstream films from this area that show a woman’s breasts?

Tech bleg: I had no sooner uploaded this movie to YouTube when I received an email:

Dear Phi:

Your video, The Pawnbroker (1964) - Secrets of Success, may have content that is owned or licensed by UMG.

Wow! How did YouTube figure this out so fast? Could material copied from a DVD, decrypted, and edited in Windows Live Movie Maker still have metadata that would identify its origins? Because it boggles the mind that YouTube has a computer that can recognize a particular movie scene.

Thought for the Day

2011-09-05T07:43:00.000-06:00

Jimmy Stewart schools Lee Remick on wifely decorum.

Well said.

A possibly related article at Scragged: Friends Don’t Let Friends Shag Feminists.

People I Know

2011-08-28T23:30:00.000-06:00

Networking.

I had heard about this for years, and it always scared the crap out of me. Network, I thought. I don’t have a network. I just have people I know.

“Well, what do you think a network is?” my father asked me.

I dunno. I guess I thought it was a set of relationships cultivated for mutual profit. I never did that. For one thing, I’m pretty sure I would suck at it. I have no idea how to start such a relationship, nor how to maintain it. And how would I hold up my end of the bargain? I myself never got in anywhere but through the front door.

A while back, my cousin asked me about civil service jobs. I had never been in the loop on a civil service hire and had no idea how the process worked. So I asked one: how do you get in the Civil Service? USAJOBS.gov, he replied.

This was a rather naïve reply, or perhaps naïve of me to accept it at face value. First of all, my cousin surely wasn’t interested in the Civil Service without knowing about the federal government’s human resources website. Second, not all of the jobs advertised therein are “real”, i.e. position for which the government is actively recruiting. They are rather “potential” job openings that might materialize at some point based on expected attrition. And third, not all vacancies are filled from applicants to USAJOBS. Many agencies have what is known as “direct hire” authority: they can bring in whoever they want without advertising, formal competition or much in the way of outside oversight. For instance, while I was in Afghanistan, the agency from which I exited the Air Force hired a whole bunch of people I knew from school this way.

And yet . . . when I needed it, the network was there. Not, mind you, in the obvious place: my boss. Or her boss. But coworkers. Neighbors. Friends from church. My advisor. People I Know.

What’s scary about this is that, with one exception, all the callbacks I’ve received from potential employers have been with the support of the network I didn’t even know I had. Supposedly, employers actually prefer to hire people this way, but this strikes me as counterintuitive. From an employer’s perspective, why would I want to limit my applicant pool to people my current employees happen to know, or to hire people whose loyalty is less to the company than to their own network?

And from an job seeker’s perspective . . . well, what if my next door neighbor hadn’t worked for an engineering firm with a new contract? What if a friend from church wasn’t a program manager with a research institute and could put my resume in front of the right people? These all seem like pretty close-run things, especially since my wife usually puts most of the effort into maintaining these friendships in the first place.

I expect that the people most handicapped by this system are fresh graduates. Not only do they not have a lengthy work history in the field they are just now looking to enter, but the list of People They Know is probably limited to other students also just starting out. Plus they don’t have wives yet.

U.S. Companies Confusion over the Applicability of Afghani Tax Exemptions to DOD Contractors

2011-08-22T17:08:00.000-06:00

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CORRESPONDENCE ROUTING SLIP

Action Agency: UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY & LOGISTICS

Action Required: REPLY DIRECT - COMPONENT HEAD MUST SIGN

Coordinate With: GC USP

Document Type: INCOMING

Special Instructions: FORWARD COPY OF REPLY TO CMD, R00M 3C843

Subject: U.S. COMPANIES CONFUSION OVER THE APPLICABILITY OF AFGHANI TAX EXEMPTIONS TO DOD CONTRACTORS

Suspense Date: July 1 2011

Routing Date: June 13 2011

CONTROL #: OSD 07202-11

INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION

OFFICE
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY REAR
UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, COMPTROLLER
UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PERSONNEL & READINESS
DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE GENERAL COUNSEL CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS ,OF STAFF SECRETARY OF THE ARMY
SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE
SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

OSD 07202-11

Marion C. Blakey
President and Chief Executive Officer
AEROSPACE INDOSTRIES ASSOCIATION
1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1700
Arlington, VA 32209-3928
(703) 358-1000
June 8, 2011

The Honorable Hilary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

The Honorable Robert M. Gates
U.S. Department of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301

Dear Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates:

On behalf of the more than 350 members of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA)I am writing this letter to raise an issue that is having a serious impact on U.S. companies supporting U.S. Government (USG) military operations and foreign policy in Afghanistan. The issue concerns the confusion over the applicability of Afghani tax exemptions to Department of Defense (DOD) contractors. The DOD's position is that the exemptions apply to both DOD prime contractors and their subcontractors, and the Afghani Ministry of Finance (MOF) Is taking the Position that the exemptions only apply to DOD prime contractors. The potential impact has ranged from the detention of contractor personnel and seizure of contractor property, contractors being precluded from performing work and DOD treating the taxes as "unallowable, to otherwise avoidable tax audit compliance costs. We respectfully request that the DOS and DOD move to immediately resolve this issue with the Afghani government. As you are aware, paragraph four of the U.S. - Afghanistan Bilateral Agreement, ratified by the Afghani Government through Diplomatic Note Number 202 on May 281 2003, provides that

The Government of the United States of America, its military and civilian personnel, contractors and contractor personnel shall not be liable to pay tax or other similar charges [landing, navigation, over flight or parking charges or overland transit fee or tolls] assessed within Afghanistan.

Although the language in the Bilateral Agreement (Note 202) seems to imply that USG subcontractors are not liable for taxes, the MOF informed businesses performing work under DOD contracts that they must collect Afghani taxes from their subcontractors or their business 1icerses will be revoked. Once a license is revoked, the MOF can remove the contractor from Afghanistan, detain contractor/subcontractor personnel, and seize equipment. Any of these actions will send a dangerous message to the contractor community and, in turn, will adversely impact our ability to support U.S. foreign policy and military operations in Afghanistan.

Both the DOD General Counsel, In a March 28, 2011 fact sheet, and the Commander of International Security Assistance Force/U.S. Forces - Afghanistan, by letter to the MOF dated March 9, 2011, have confirmed that under the Bilateral Agreement (Note 202) and Military Technical Agreement, DOD contractors, subcontractors and their non-Afghani employees are exempt from taxation by the Government of Afghanistan. This position competes with the position by the MOF. As such, the DOD has instructed its contractors and their subcontractors to ignore Afghani tax bills - effectively making the taxes, when paid, unallowable costs. As a measure of caution, individual companies may request private letters of rulings from the MO seeking tax exemption status in the hopes that the MOF would agree. This precautionary measure, regardless of how the MOF rules, results in additional contractor costs that the DOD may also view as unallowable. If the taxes are required and are deemed as unallowable there will be a negative financial impact on the DOD contractors.

In addition, DOD contractors and their subcontractors are incurring tax audit compliance costs -- costs that would be avoided if there was a consensus between the MOF and the USG. Simply stated, the confusion has led to go/no go decisions for DOD contractors and their subcontractors.

Finally, certain DOS programs are taxable and contain DOS programs an exempt from Afghani taxation, creating an additional layer of confusion. There is no benefit to the USG when contractors receive different tax treatment depending an the agency they serve. It is our view that the preferred outcome is that all USG contractors have the same tax-free treatment regardless of which USG agency has contracted for their services.

We strongly request that the DOS and DOD work together to resolve this issue with the MOF, including obtaining the MOF's acknowledgement that the USG's position applies to all contractor work in Afghanistan since 2001 and that rulings from or other filings with the MOF are not required to establish tax exemptions for USG work. We would prefer that all USG contractors, both prime and subcontractor, working an behalf of the USG in Afghanistan, be exempt from all Afghani taxes (corporate, business profit, personal, etc.). However, if the USG decision is that USG contractors must pay Afghani taxes, contractors should be reimbursed for those taxes by the USG. Either position is workable, but the current confusion cannot be sustained. I would be happy to discuss this important issue further with you or your designated representatives at your convenience.

Best regards,

Marion C. Blakey

Dr. Dad

2011-08-19T09:40:00.002-06:00

I defended my dissertation this week. And changed my blogger profile (although a sufficient level of scorn and ridicule from my readers will persuade me to change it back).

Now if I can just find a job . . .

A Robust Paradigm

2011-08-15T23:11:00.000-06:00

Steve points to the New Scientist:

Stone Age toe could redraw human family tree

Um . . .

I don’t want to make any dogmatic statements about the merit of this research, given the sorry state of most scientific reporting in general. But I do want to point out that, to a layman, the news that a single toe is cause to “redraw the human family tree” suggests that the paradigm underlying the “scientific consensus” on human evolution is pretty dang fragile. What happens when, next week, they find another toe?

Imagine if an undergraduate, performing a lab in CHEM 100, reports unexpected results. Is the professor’s reaction to exclaim, “Omigod, you’ve just revolutionized the field! We’ll have to redraw the periodic table stat!” No. Rather, he assumes the student did the experiment wrong. I’m not sure if this assumption is really the best way of nurturing a scientific mind among undergraduates, but it is assuredly correct. Such is the stability of the principles of chemistry.

Love, Afghan Style

2011-08-13T17:04:00.001-06:00

From a comment at HitCoffee:

Don't know about Africa, but last spring I got tagged to do escort duty for some NGO-types visiting ISAF HQ. I wasn't involved in the substance of their visit, they just needed a warm body to stand out by the front gate to shepherd them in. We wound up waiting a long time because the NGOs got hung up at one of the more outer layers of security. Which surprised me, since whenever I drove through those same checkpoints I had never had to so much as roll down my window. (Which was convenient, since our bullet-resistant windows didn't actually roll down.)

But I digress . . . I don't remember the names of most of the NGOs whose reps visited us, which is too bad, since I would happily rub their names in the mud if I could. But we did have a rep from Save the Children. At some point after the introductions, I said to him, "So, 'Save the Children'. What are you guys doing to keep the Afghans from buggering little boys?"

To my surprise, the answer wasn't dumb looks. StC did in fact have programs of engaging people, and especially community and religious leaders, on this problem. The rep even told me something that I didn't know: some 60% of boys in Afghanistan are raped. We got to talk quite a while about this, but in keeping with the point of your post, what got me was the reaction to my question by the other reps present. It wasn't just that they didn't seem to know anything about pederasty in the country they were supposed to be servicing, let alone have any programs to fight it. It was that, confronted with the facts of the matter, their first reaction was . . .

. . . to laugh.

And the reaction didn't really get any better. They were kind of captive to our conversation (most of it took place in line at the ISAF security check) but mostly stood there in embarrassed silence. But when the StC guy mentioned the 60% number, a woman rep said, "Well, that's an interesting factoid," in a tone of voice that said, no, it really wasn't.

B@stards. Come the revolution, when we put these NGO internationalists against a wall, this will be one of the reasons.

But . . . Save the Children. They do good work.

As an aside: (possibly) related post at iSteve.

Air Force Hispanic Casting Call

2011-07-16T10:27:00.001-06:00

From: XXX, XXX Civ USAF AFMC HQ AFMC/PA

Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 3:43 PM

To: AFMC 1A (All Center and Installation Commanders); AFMC 1B1 (All ABW Deputies); AFMC 1C (All General Officers); AFMC 1E (Center CVs); AFMC 1G (All Chiefs Of Staff); AFMC 1H (HQ 2 Ltr Directors); AFMC 1I (HQ 2 Ltr Dep Directors); AFMC 1J (All HQ Execs); AFMC/PA Wing Chiefs Plus

Cc: XXXXXXX, XXXXXX Gen USAF AFMC HQ AFMC/CC; XXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXX C LtGen USAF AFMC HQ AFMC/CV; XXXXXX, XXXXXX X V Civ USAF AFMC HQ AFMC/CA; XXXXXXXX, XXXXX X Col USAF AFMC HQ AFMC/CS; AFMC/PA All

Subject: Casting Call for Nat'l Air Force TV Commercial

Commanders, Leaders, Wing PA chiefs:

AF Recruiting Service is seeking our assistance in wide distribution of attached questionnaire for a casting call for an Air Force TV commercial to air next year. Commercial is focused on diversity and will feature one African-American and one Hispanic officer. Highest caliber officers (0-3 thru O-10) from careers other than Pilot (Space, Medical, Computers, Cyber, Intel, PA, JAG, Engineer, etc.) are encouraged to apply.

Quick deadline of July 22. Individuals should complete questionnaire ASAP. Completed packages (application, photo and video if possible) should be emailed to xxx.xxxxxxxxxxx@us.af.mil as instructed on the questionnaire.

XXX XXX, GS-15

Director, Office of Public Affairs

HQ AFMC

2011 Broadest Landscape Commercial Questionnaire.docx

Project: Air Force Recruiting Service manages the Air Force’s national marketing campaign. For FY12, our newest television spots will include two commercials focused on our broadest landscape efforts. One African-American and one Hispanic Officer will be chosen as our talent for these commercials.

What we are looking for:
African-American and Hispanic Officers
Male and female
Captains, Majors, Colonels, Generals
Variety of careers – Space, Medical, Computers, Cyber, Intel, JAG, Engineer (no Pilots)

Questions
Name:
Age:
Hometown:
Degrees:
Current Duty location:
Gender:
Rank:
AFSC:
Job Title:
Email (work/home):
Phone number (work/personal):
Marital Status:
Fluent in Spanish:

If chosen, will you be available in August for the filming of this commercial?

What was your commissioning Source?

If ROTC/OTS, where attended college?

What is your current job description?

List your career highlights or accomplishments:

What are your previous assignments?

Have you deployed and if so where?

Where are your parents living?

Do you have any brothers or sisters? If so, what are their occupations?

Where did you grow up?

Why did you join the Air Force?

Who or what played the biggest role your decision to join USAF?

What does being an Air Force officer mean to you?

Give a brief description about yourself and your journey to becoming an Air Force officer?

Please include a full length photo (does not have to be official) of yourself in the UOD and if possible email a short video clip (taken from iPhone or Flip camera) 2-3 min explaining how joining the Air Force has impacted your life. Email complete package to: xxx.xxxxxxxxxxx@us.af.mil

Φ’s Last Post?

2011-06-04T11:40:00.000-06:00

Here is the picture of the inside of the aircraft flying into SW Asia:

Here is the picture flying out:

This could mean several things. None of them are good.

Here is a picture of a C-17 cockpit right before leaving Bagram Airfield:

I had planned to surprise my children at home, who had not been told of the exact day of my arrival. But it turns out that the TSA allows families of redeploying servicemen to greet them at the gate. So I was the one surprised.

Thus concludes the first half of my life. And unless I land a Civil Service job (H.T.: Prof Hale), I can’t warrant how much free time I’ll have for blogging. But right now, I’m up to my eyeballs in a combination of out-processing, job hunting, dissertation writing (still, dammit!) and all the home repairs that slipped while I was away.

Ditto for blog reading. I treasure all of your writing, but as my Google Reader now has 500+ unread items in it, I think it’s time to adjust my expectations.

Meanwhile, I’d like to extend an offer to any of my regular commenters who aren’t presently writing anywhere else to become co-proprietors here at Delenda est Carthago. I can’t offer any money, but I can offer a built-in readership of north of 100 daily. Samson is the obvious candidate who comes to mind, but I will consider all offers.

Modes of Religion

2011-05-21T01:57:00.000-06:00

In the movie Traitor, Don Cheadle plays a Sudanese-American Muslim working deep cover to penetrate an Islamic terrorist network.

Since I’m recommending the movie, I don’t want to give away too many plot points. But the movie nicely illuminates several analytical points I want to make about religious psychology.

Religion – any religion, really, but especially Islam in our present historical moment – exists in at least two psychological modes. On the one hand, there is “true” religion, or elite religion as I have referred to it in earlier posts. This is religion at its purest theological essence. My own religious tradition, orthodox Presbyterian, excels (and is recognized to excel) at addressing the central tenets of Christianity: “what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man”, in the words of the Westminster catechism. On the other, there is religion as an expression of ethno-cultural nationalism, less an ethical code or spiritual insight than a component of in-group loyalty. It is this second mode at which Islam as practiced especially among expats (and perhaps among Russian Orthodox) succeeds wildly and at which American Protestantism fails. Indeed, one reading of the New Testament is that Christianity was in its essence a reaction against the extent to which Judaism had become little more than a shibboleth, elevating circumcision and other symbolic gestures of loyalty to the ethnic Jewish community above true righteousness. (Arguably, it is in this mode that Judaism persists to this day.)*

It is in this context that I want to recall the John Updike novel Terrorist, about a half-Arab young man in New Jersey who falls in with a radical cleric and volunteers to become a suicide bomber. The novel was criticized for presenting an inauthentic portrait of an actual terrorist as far as its central character was concerned, which is true – but I think that’s the point Updike was making by showing the tension between Islam as a theology (as represented by the young man) and Islam as an expression of ethnic nationalism (as represented by his confederates). Ultimately, the elite nature of the young man’s faith is precisely what makes him back away from executing his plans.**

Similarly in the movie Traitor. Cheadle is far more of a devout Muslim in the elite sense than the Arabic terrorists he his trying to stop, who are motivated by anger at the “crimes” of Westerners against their people (the precise nature of which are never elaborated). This particular aspect is perhaps overplayed, and I was especially disappointed that the Christian FBI agent (Guy Pierce) is only shown in religious observance at the point of duress. Why is it that Hollywood is willing to portray devotion to an alien religion in a positive light but feels the need to mute that devotion when the subject is a Christian?

That said, the movie is about as right-wing as a terrorism movie of this caliber could hope to be. There isn’t a treacherous white Christian who turns out to be the real bad guy (although the movie makes a couple of feints in this direction). “Racial profiling” gets handled far more lightly than we would expect, and indeed, the movie explicitly shows the danger posed by immigration since the terrorist network infiltrates the U.S. on student visas. Although the ethnic origins of these terrorists look far more ambiguous than is likely in the real world, they and their moles inside American intelligence are for the most part obviously Arabic or African.

The movie may not break any artistic ground, but it squarely hits what it aims at. It invests the audience in the characters, creates plenty of suspense and just enough action, and keeps us guessing throughout. So, two thumbs up.

* Just to clarify: as an ethno-nationalist myself, I tend to see the absence of in-group solidarity in American Christianity as a shortcoming, and am almost uniformly disappointed with the church’s haphazard and incoherent forays into politics and policy.

** Also just to clarify: it is not the business of American policy, and surely beyond its competence, to attempt to cleave “true” Islam from “nationalist” Islam. In point of fact, nationalist Islam has become such the dominant mode that our endless appeals (a la Gen Petraeus) to an allegedly “authentic” non-terrorist version is surely beside the point. Perhaps because I can identify with Islam’s nationalist aspirations that I can recognize how dangerous it is when allowed to flourish on our shores.

Sold Down the River on the Liberal Plantation

2011-05-19T01:52:00.000-06:00

Megan considers an academic paper on partisanship and the anti-war movement. She observes:

Have you noticed all the huge antiwar demonstrations in the last twelve months? Yeah, me neither. It turns out that a lot of the energy for the movement seems to have been provided by Democrats who are a lot less worried about wars conducted by Democratic presidents. Or at least who believe that advancing the Democratic agenda is much more important than trying to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sadly, this is not limited to the anti-war movement. I can think of three other examples.

Environmentalists once understood – correctly – that greater human populations put greater stress on the environment and that immigration into the U.S. put greater stress on American environmental goods specifically and the global environment generally. Yet the environmental movement has completely abandoned its opposition to immigration, sometimes in exchange for cold cash, but more often to assure its organizations a seat at the table of the grand Left-wing Democrat coalition.
The leadership of the labor movement, from Samuel Gompers to Cesar Chavez, once understood – correctly – that as the supply of cheap immigrant labor went up, the ability of labor unions to command higher wages for their members went down. Yet our present crop of union organizations, most conspicuously the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), agitates for more immigration on the grounds that more low-wage workers = more low-wage dues-paying union members, even if the union fails at increasing wages. And, yeah, it also assures them of a seat at the table of the grand Left-wing Democrat coalition.
The feminist movement advertises itself as the protectors of women’s interests. Yet in the 1990’s in two high-profile cases involving the mistreatment of women – Bill Clinton’s alleged rape of Juanita Broderick and O.J. Simpson’s murder of Nicole Brown – the leadership of feminist organizations suddenly went mute: in the first instance, to protect a politically valuable ally; and in the second, to avoid offending blacks. Again, the titular objectives took a back seat to assuring a seat at the table of the grand Left-wing Democrat coalition.

Megan quotes someone claiming that the Tea Party faces similar pressures, yet I can’t think of any examples of Right wing partisanship this egregious.

Flirt-deaf Men

2011-05-17T01:58:00.000-06:00

An interesting article from the Daily Mail (H.T.: Savvy) about how men can’t tell whether a woman is ‘flirting” or “being friendly”, commonly mistaking one signal for the other.

The researchers also found that women overestimate men's ability to pick up on sexual signals.

They argue that many females wrongly believe that the men are well aware of their attempts to woo, but are just not interested in responding.

"Failure to pursue could be an indicator of misperception but could easily be explained by noninterest,” the scientists write in the journal Psychological Science.

In contrast, women are very aware that males get the wrong end of the stick when they are simply being friendly.

This is because, the researchers argue, men who misconstrue a friendly gesture as a come-on are more likely to follow through with inappropriate behaviour.

Such embarrassing encounters will lodge more keenly in a woman's memory, and she will also be more likely to discuss it with her friends.

Of course, this is the only time men get feedback, too. When we make Type II errors, we generally never know it, going our way thinking our assumption that the young lady was “just being friendly” was correct. So you can see how exclusively negative feedback would over time make us very conservative in our estimation of female attraction.

This line was funny:

"The average bloke either doesn't realise that we fancy him until we are giving birth to his children in the labour ward; or he presumes all women fancy him all the time.”

I find it comforting – and therefore suspicious – to think that those kind alpha girls were actually flirting with me back then.

Γ’s Story

2011-05-15T13:51:00.000-06:00

As is:

Quietly he padded along really silently. Staring around with icy grey ghost eyes. He could stare down a human with those eyes, if he wanted to. Dimmed by hazy heat of the night his sleek black coat still gleamed faintly. In and out he had no boundaries, (do to his canny ability to unlock doors). Taking orders from one only. This cat went by the name of Pouncer.

As for the only one that he listened to she was the girl. Who was the girl? Her name is Aquilla. She sort of owned Pouncer. Pouncer mostly completely actually liked her. She would have been completely normal except for her eyes. They were a vivid shade of purple.

Then there was Mister Rooster, Pouncer arch enemy. Rooster liked to chase Pouncer vigorously. Unfortunately Mister Rooster was not afraid of Pouncer. It was always the other way around. Mister Rooster was mean and nasty.

One fairly normal evening Pouncer quietly sat on the roof. When out of the blue he heard a piercing yell from the front of the barn. “Quit it, ow, stop it” Aquilla was getting chased by Mr. Rooster. Looking up she spotted him. “Pouncer help me!” “I can’t.” He said. Aquilla made a disparaging noise, and ran inside.

“You could have helped me,” growled Aquilla, “instead you just stood there.” “I had a fairly good reason to.” Replied pouncer. “No you didn’t,” said Aquilla savagely as she sat on the bed, “you just didn’t want to get pecked!” He met her gaze. “I have other reasons.” Tired by the days events Aquilla instantly went to sleep and dreamed about psychotic roosters and defiant cats.

When Aquilla woke up she was very grumpy, very tired, and very short tempered. “Where have you been,” demanded Pouncer, “the eggs are stone cold.” “Exactly why do you care seeing as you sleep half the day?” Aquilla said grumpily. “Accusing me of sleeping half the day is an unfounded accusation.” Pouncer said reproachfully. “Because I do nothing of the sort.” Aquilla snarled. “Don’t be such a grouch.” Scolded Pouncer. “Just leave me alone.” Snapped Aquilla. “Fine.” Said Pouncer coolly, with that he left.

Thinking time was hard to find in the barn. Because of all the noise, it was near impossible. Therefore when Aquilla found some, she used it to its fullest extent. How to get rid of Mister Rooster? She had to but how? “Stop thinking so hard, you will hurt yourself.” Chided pouncer. “Do you have any ideas?” “As a matter of fact I do.” “You do, tell me” Pouncer told her and they decided to put the plan into action the following day.

She finished what she was doing, and went inside for lunch. “Good, you’re on time.” Said pouncer. “At least you are happy,” said Aquilla. When lunch was over they took a walk outside. “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”, Said Mister Rooster. “Oh be quiet!” Complained Pouncer. For that, he got chased. Since she was tired when Aquilla went to bed she went right to sleep.

Aquilla was outside. Evening had just begun and the sun was setting. Staring up at the sunset she knew that she was dreaming. She knew she had to wake up but could not bring herself to do it. As she watched the sunset showed a picture it showed the plan failing. Because she had slept too late. Finely her hand found her leg which she pinched hard. She woke up with a start just in time to hear her alarm go off.

“u-u-u-h-h” said aquilla. “What kind of sound is that?” Questioned pouncer. “It’s [5:00] in the morning, what else do you expect me to say.” “Just get up.” In the end the plan whet perfectly. They trapped mister rooster in a box. When the post lady came they told her it was a special delivery to the psychotic rooster facility. The post lady looked puzzled but took the box any way. “I am glad he is gone, he drove me mad.” Aquilla did not answer for she was fast asleep. Γ

War of the Elites

2011-05-13T01:14:00.000-06:00

An article in the Small Wars Journal entitled “Development in Afghanistan’s Counterinsurgency: A New Guide” is worth reading in its entirety, as it questions the efficacy of our dumping billions of dollars into Afghan infrastructure as a way of fighting the Taliban. But one aspect jumped out: the importance of co-opting social elites:

Both population-centric COIN and development theory rely on a basic formula that can be summarized as follows: popular grievances cause insurgency, so counterinsurgents should adopt a set of methods that gain the support of “the people” by redressing these grievances.6 This formula, which shall be called the “grievance formula,” has three critical weaknesses, all of which bear directly on the employment of development aid. All three result from a failure to assign adequate importance to leaders, who are the central actors in counterinsurgency.7 They shall be addressed in order.

The first of these weaknesses is that grievances do not cause insurgencies. Insurgencies are caused by determined elites who have the talents required to organize military operations, operate shadow governance structures, and mobilize the population against the government. Grievances can make their job easier, but are not essential to their success. In a given counterinsurgency, we often find a lack of insurgent activity where the population has numerous grievances, and intensive insurgent activity where it has relatively few grievances. By contrast, we seldom find a lack of insurgent activity where able insurgent elites are present, and we never find intensive insurgent activity where such elites are absent.

The insurgent elites obtain popular support by doing the government’s job better than the government is doing it, particularly in the areas of security and governance. When choosing whether to support to the insurgents or the counterinsurgents, the number one criterion for most people living amidst an insurgency, including most Afghans at the present time, is security. Governance comes second, and development is well back in third place.8 This ordering differs from that in population-centric COIN, which puts governance first, and development theory, which puts development at the top. Support of the government increases sharply as security improves, somewhat less sharply when governance improves, and very little when development improves. In Afghanistan and numerous other cases, the insurgents have been able to control large amounts of territory with little or no expenditures on development, by outperforming the government in security and governance.9

. . . .

In other insecure areas, the insurgents allow development to proceed in order to leech off of it. Numerous development contractors in Afghanistan pay protection money to private security companies or local power brokers because the counterinsurgents lack sufficient forces in the area, and oftentimes this money falls into Taliban hands through intimidation or collusion. Military superiority also allows the insurgents to reap the economic benefits of completed projects. For instance, the United States spent more than $100 million repairing and upgrading the Kajaki hydropower plant to provide electricity to Helmand and Kandahar provinces, but last year half of its electricity went into areas where the insurgents control the electric grid, enabling the Taliban to issue electric bills to consumers and send out collection agents with medieval instruments of torture to ensure prompt payment. The consumers in these places use the power for the irrigation of fields that grow poppies, which in turn fuel the opium trade from which the Taliban derive much of their funding.

Where good governance is lacking, development money often finds its way into the pockets of corrupt officials or shady businessmen. Development spending without good governance also exacerbates corruption within the government, by encouraging unscrupulous and rapacious individuals to enter into government service. Some positions in the Afghan government are sold for tens of thousands of dollars to such individuals, ensuring that the buyers will seek to squeeze large sums from foreign donors and ordinary Afghans in order to recoup their investments. Some senior Afghan officials have become so addicted to the money they skim from aid programs that they abet the insurgents as a means of convincing foreign donors that additional spending is required.

. . . .

Success in security and governance, and also in development, depend more than anything else on the quality of the leaders in the local area. The second weakness of the grievance formula lies in its contention that effectiveness in COIN hinges on finding the right methods, and its inattention to finding the right leaders.13 Most COIN methods, whether in security, governance, or development, do not work in all cases, and most succeed only when implement by leaders with the proper capabilities. Insurgent and counterinsurgent leaders use their intellects to determine the combination of methods best suited to mobilizing the population, co-opting elites, and capturing or killing implacable enemies in their areas, and then draw on a broad range of leadership attributes to implement those methods. In most counterinsurgencies, the side with the more talented and motivated leaders ultimately prevails.

. . . .

In dispensing development aid, the first challenge facing the counterinsurgent leader is deciding on the beneficiaries. Herein can be found the third deficiency in the grievance formula, the treatment of “the people” as an undifferentiated mass. As a consequence of the reigning COIN and development theories, the United States routinely has funded and continues to fund numerous projects in Afghanistan that provide the same benefits or job opportunities to everyone in the community.15 The commanders who have made the best use of development aid in counterinsurgency, however, have figured out that aid benefits the counterinsurgency most when aimed at the elites of a society, and have invested much effort into finding the right elites and seeking to influence them with aid.

Within any society, only a small minority of the population has the talent, resolve, and social status to organize economic, political, or military activities that will antagonize violent insurgents. The members of this elite group must be co-opted or else rendered incapable of abetting the insurgents. Co-option of elites differs in important ways from the “mobilization” by which most of the population can be brought to support the counterinsurgents. Mobilization requires changing people’s allegiances and leading them. Co-option requires only changing allegiances, for elites do not need others to lead them, and can themselves lead and mobilize substantial numbers of people. With co-option, as with mobilization, the security and governance lines of operation are generally more important than the development line in altering an individual’s allegiance, but development spending can have a greater impact in co-option than in mobilization. It can be concentrated on the few individuals capable of leading the rest of the community, and this concentration can ensure that those elites remain above others in power and wealth, which elites usually believe they deserve in such circumstances since they are taking the most risks and doing the most difficult work.

. . . .

A development strategy focused on bolstering a society’s elites will ensure that socioeconomic inequality persists, and it will let the society’s elites decide how much wealth should go towards poverty alleviation, which may or may not be as much as we would like. The international community, however, must be disabused of the idea that eradicating inequality and poverty in Afghanistan lies within our reach, as well as the idea that such an outcome is required for the success of the counterinsurgency. We have not been able to eradicate inequality or poverty in our own countries, despite far larger expenditures, much better governance, and an absence of insurgency. We can, nevertheless, take some comfort in the fact that the average Afghan will be better offer economically and socially if our side prevails than if the Taliban returns to power. Ending insurgent violence will allow NGOs and governmental development organizations to operate freely and much more effectively throughout the country. In addition, by influencing which elites gain the most power, we can help weed out the most predatory and corrupt of them, which will do much to facilitate long-term stability and prosperity.

There’s a lot in this article. The authors are very candid about the kind of government NATO has wound up creating here in Afghanistan: a government of thieves (and pederasts, while I’m at it). But it also occurred to me how America’s “meritocracy” has successfully co-opted anybody likely to effectively challenge the elite’s multiculturalist paradigm. Thus we have continue runaway immigration in the teeth of widespread popular opposition.

Heroes

2011-05-12T01:48:00.001-06:00

The Cub Scouts write:

The boys and families of Cub Scout Pack 3 in Flyover Country would like to thank you tremendously for your service and your sacrifice.

While we are learning how to “Do Our Best” and “Be Prepared” – you are living it.

We want you to know that while you are standing in harm’s way away from home – we are thinking of you.

We know that many of you sat in Cub Scout meetings as we do now and we hope to have your courage if we are ever called to be in a position like yours.

Please accept this package as a reminder that we believe you are and your unit are True Heroes! Thank you.

Pack 3

Flyover Country

I am filled with self-loathing.

It’s bad enough that Americans are over here being shot and blown up for no good purpose – and I didn’t even get to do that. After nearly 20 years of riding a desk, I came over here with visions of riding in convoys and shooting ragheads, only to find out I’m still riding a desk, except now it’s in a dirty overcrowded connex instead of an office building.

It’s not even that I’ve finally realized that I’ve spent the last 20 years, not protecting and defending the constitution of the United States against all enemies, but instead creating a sideshow to distract ourselves from its subversion. That our military adventurism, especially post-9/11, has been for the sole purpose of hiding the fact that our very nation is being given away to our mortal enemies.

No, what fills me with despair tonight is that our propaganda has become so metaphysically pristine in its effectiveness that across the country roomfuls of little boys now believe, as I myself once believed, that the soldiers in Afghanistan are somehow securing the blessings of liberty to them their posterity.

How Do You Know

2011-05-10T01:06:00.000-06:00

How Do You Know: If Reese Witherspoon has ever looked hotter in a movie, I can’t remember it. And her acting, as she plays a recently cut professional softball player, required her to purge most of her femininity, a very different kind of role for her. This doesn’t make her character especially likable, but as with Amy Adams in The Fighter, I respect the chops.

Low femininity may be what we would expect of a professional softball player, but it makes her an atypical specimen to whom few of the usual generalizations we make about women in these here parts apply. She finds herself the center of a love triangle involving a supplicating beta (Paul Rudd) and a womanizing alpha (Owen Wilson) who nonetheless also comes across as a supplicating beta. While we the audience are assured that her character is good in the sack, it is evident she doesn’t seem to know or understand much about male psychology with regard to relationships.

Here is a scene that nicely illustrates all of these character traits:

Call me whatever you want, but Wilson has a point here. Considering that Witherspoon had dated him and that he obviously carried a torch for her, Rudd was in fact a sexual competitor, and it was very bad form for her to be caught with him in Wilson’s apartment. Yes, I also understand how Witherspoon objects at this characterization of what she considered their shared space, but part of that sharing is accepting limits on their personal autonomy. Wilson gets this, even as he struggles with it; Witherspoon seems not to have a clue.

I won’t ruin the story, but the takeaway is this: it is one thing to get a woman’s hamsters going by making her suspect you might be, um, exercising your options; it is quite another to flat-out confirm those suspicions. No amount of alpha cred makes a woman tolerant of unapologetic cheating.

Let me say in summary that, while watchable, this is not an especially great film. It raises more questions than it answers. It clearly wants us to root for Rudd without giving us a compelling reason why we should. And while its characters are not wholly implausible, they are too odd to provide us much insight into sexuality or relationships in general.

“Americans make the best tourists.”

2011-05-09T04:49:00.000-06:00

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Because they’re not mean, just ignorant,” replied the USAF colonel, embed in one of the ministries as an “Afghan Hand”, which meant he grew out his beard and wore civilian clothes. His politics are decidedly to the left of mine, so I was kind of surprised to hear him say something nice about American tourists.

“I was in France in 2003,” he continued. “Because of its opposition to the Iraq invasion, France was in the doghouse in America. One of the consequences of this was that American tourism to France had dropped to almost nothing.

“But I was visiting [some French town] and I saw that it was festooned with American flags! I asked the locals about this, and they said they were trying to get the Americans to come back. ‘If we’re going to have tourists, please let them be Americans.’ They gave two reasons. First, they spend money across the economic spectrum. Asian tourists, in contrast, only buy from the high-end stores, reflecting their obsession with brand-name status. But Americans will also buy stuff at little places nobody will ever hear of.

“The second reason is that, even though Americans don’t know much about the places they visit, they’re teachable. If you explain to an American that local customs require that he do or not do thus-and-so, they say, ‘Oh, okay.’ Other Europeans may know more, they just don’t care, and Asians are even worse.

“Americans seldom appreciate how unrepresentative the 'chattering classes’ of Europe are of either their governments or their common people. This was especially true in the late 00’s, by which time many countries had elected center-right governments. I spoke with Europeans who had experience with diplomats representing both the Bush and Obama administrations, and they told me that, whatever else you might say about him, with Bush’s diplomats you knew what you were getting. If Bush said something, you knew he meant it. But with Obama? You could never be sure if the story would be the same from one day to the next.”

Whither Civility?

2011-05-07T02:09:00.000-06:00

Via Half Sigma, an interview with Brad Scharlott, who describes an email he received from Bill McAllister:

Last week I sent a copy of my paper to Sarah Palin’s former press secretary asking if he had any comments, since he is mentioned in an unflattering way. He went ballistic. He called me a “scumbag” who is “in the service of evil.” He said he would slap me if he ever saw me, and that in a former age he would have challenged me to a duel. And then, under the heading “Brad Scharlott disgraces your university” he sent that critique of me in an email to all my colleagues in my department. I’m guessing he was used to using strong-arm tactics like that in Alaska.

HS believes this reaction says something substantive about Scharlott’s allegations. Scharlott himself seems to think it has something to do with Alaska. But the weird thing is, I seem to read about these kind of tantrums on a regular enough basis to notice a pattern connected to politics. (Though not regularly enough to recall any specific example. Sorry.)

One advantage of having a blog is that I can express my opinions about other people in terms far less moderate than I would ever use in real life. Because in real life, people of my class and profession do not call each other scumbag. We have thought it about a lot of people. We may sometimes refer to each other in those terms. But directly picking a fight like that? Never mind colleagues; I’ve fought lawsuits with people with more restraint. I don’t want to claim any moral high-ground here: such restraint seems in my own self interest. Verbal escalation seems a way of getting in to serious trouble with no obvious upside.

But I wonder: what is it about a person that causes them to attempt basically junior-high-school level verbal bullying? Is it just a matter of class? Is it the personality type (or T-cell level) of people inclined to go into working politics? Does this kind of vituperation work often enough to make it a viable tactic on a routine basis?

But maybe I’ve just lead a sheltered life?

CAIR and Hamas

2011-05-06T01:58:00.000-06:00

From Pajamas Media:

Last Thursday, I reported here exclusively at PJM on a DOJ memo dated March 31, 2010, from Assistant Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. The memo effectively ended the prosecution of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Omar Ahmad — in addition to the prosecution of other prominent American Muslim leaders — for helping support the Hamas terrorist organization. This decision, according to my source, was not made based on the overwhelming evidence that had been compiled over the past decade by the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, but was made due to potential political embarrassment for the Obama administration and out of fear of inflaming the American Muslim community.

But another troubling claim came out during our interview: “Muslim outreach” programs by U.S. government agencies to terror-tied Islamic groups have directly interfered with ongoing terrorism investigations’

The DOJ’s behavior here is not especially surprising. I had pretty much decided that our government – Democrat and Republican – is led by quislings, so everything else is just coloring in the details. But I am surprised at CAIR.

That CAIR, Hamas, Al Qaeda share the same goal – to a first approximation, the destruction of Western Christendom and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate, notwithstanding the different specific fronts at which they attack us – is obvious to anyone not blinded by political correctness. But CAIR, at least momentarily, forgot the way terrorist organizations and political organizations work together. By itself, terrorism, defined as the premeditated attack on non-combatants by non-state actors, almost never “works”: almost all Western governments have standing policies never to negotiate with terrorists, and we seldom violate those policies. But what they will do is what we are in fact doing: respond to terrorism by finding political organizations that advertise themselves as advancing the interests, by non-violent means, of the same demographic from which the terrorist organization draws its members and surrender to them, concession by concession. So while the terrorists seldom achieve power in the sense that its leaders replace the existing government, it wins on policy by seeing its objectives granted to an organization seeking identical ends.

CAIR has fulfilled its role in this symbiotic relationship quite well. But it would ordinarily have been exceedingly risky for them to have formal ties with Hamas. I say “ordinarily” because for one thing there was a chance that the USDOJ would have done its job and enforced the law against CAIR. But for another, the popular tolerance for seeing their self-government surrendered will not survive the widespread realization that the “good Muslims” to whom they are surrendering are in fact the very same Muslims who are murdering them. CAIR should have realized this.

As it happens, CAIR’s allies at USDOJ are covering for them. But it could have gone badly.

Redistribute Sex

2011-05-05T01:56:00.000-06:00

For those who haven’t followed it, Robin Hanson called attention to a video in which college students in favor of “wealth redistribution” are asked their opinion about “GPA redistribution”. Unsurprisingly, their reaction is negative yet largely incoherent.

Robin writes:

My point isn't to say one can't come up with reasons to treat these differently. One could, for example, argue that we prefer differing school signals to help employers sort people into jobs, to achieve higher productivity so that the pie is bigger when we redistribute money. My point is that most people can't think of such reasons, making it pretty unlikely that such reasons are the cause of their opinions.

Robin then allowed that little can be learned from the inability of college students to instantly articulate their objections to such an off-the-wall proposal as GPA redistribution. On reflection, XPostFactoid lists some objections, which Megan rebuts, although I think she give short shrift to this point:

[I]t's still true that student performance bears a closer relationship to grade than the social utility of the average person's work does to that person's earnings.

More specifically, metrics for assessing student academic performance are specifically contrived to measure individual mastery of the subject matter. Leaving aside for the moment Half Sigma’s notion of the difference between “value creation” and “value transference” in the modern economy (a notion I find broadly persuasive, by the way), consider that if GPA was accumulated the same way as wealth in the market economy, then students would be free to exchange the answers to test questions they know for answers they don’t know – complete with IP protection! But of course, this isn’t allowed: testing conditions are set up to most resemble those of subsistence farming, in which wealth and GPA are only a function of an individual’s ability to extract them from the raw earth.

If we really want students to reconsider the morality of wealth redistribution, then Brandon’s comment on Megan’s post is apropos:

But what about sex redistribution? It's not fair that a small number of people are having lots of sex with many attractive partners while others have sex only infrequently with unattractive partners, if at all. The government needs to step in and do something to address this inequity.

I chimed in:

So much of the welfare/affirmative action/civil-rights apparatus, in effect if not in design, redistributes wealth and opportunity from men (who create and control it) to women.

Yet not only will women object to redistributing the resource they control, they have set about dismantling such equality-inducing arrangements such as marriage / legally enforced monogamy as once existed.

Conservatives believe in economic freedom, and we are prepared to tolerate a fair amount of economic inequality to preserve it. Yet we frown on social inequality and would enforce social regulation to prevent it.

Liberals, in contrast, believe in economic equality and happily redistribute wealth to that end. But they believe in “social” (i.e. sexual) freedom and positively revel in the inequality that results.

Hollywood: “Bin Laden’s death is tragic and all, but at least it will help Obama fight the real enemy.”

2011-05-04T01:12:00.001-06:00

Or words to that effect.

Adam Levine: "I dont know how I feel about 'celebrating' death. But im just glad this happened during a good man's presidency."
Kim Kardashian: "Osama Bin Laden is dead!!! I can't wait to hear President Obama's announcement!!!"
Pete Wetz: "Wow obama 1, 2 punch: lion king video than osama dead. seriously i wanna see who runs in 2012..."
Jimmy Fallon: "Got Bin Laden AND interuppted Celebrity Apprentice? Win for Obama all around."

I remarked a few years ago that the MSM covered the war, not from a strategic perspective on American power and security, but solely in terms of its impact on domestic politics. I see nothing has changed.

This comment is just stoopid on a couple of levels:

Lady Gaga: "an historical moment in the fight against hatred."

Bad spelling notwithstanding, this was the smartest comment:

Snoop Dogg: "Rip to everybody who was taken on 911. Let the troops bac home n lower gas prices let's live happily ever after. Bring the soilders bac home asap! They r missed! We love how they fight for us now let's fight for them!!"

Justin Bieber

2011-05-03T01:23:00.000-06:00

I just acquainted myself with the Top 10 Most Disliked YouTube Videos (H.T.: Ace). Five of them belong to Canadian singer Justin Bieber.

Not being a 12-year-old girl, and not having any 12-year-old girls yet*, I hadn’t to my knowledge ever laid eyes on young Justin, although I had come across his name in many of your blogs, usually as a punch line to a joke. As I watched his videos, especially “One Less Lonely Girl”, I struggled to articulate what it was about him that I found . . . annoying. Fortunately, Wikipedia was there to help:

Bieber has often been criticized for looking and sounding younger than his age, his teen-pop music, image, and frequent media attention.

I would add, I think, that Bieber shows no particular talent in these videos. His looks and his voice are unexceptional other than belonging to a boy of 17 instead of 13. Most of the competent dancing in his videos is done by others; his own moves are pedestrian by the standards of the industry. I doubt he composes his own music, although I couldn’t find any statement to this effect. But his seems exactly the kind of over-produced, manufactured stardom for which The Backstreet Boys take so much grief**.

And there’s something especially galling about the way his videos show attractive women falling at his feet. And knowing that, yup, they probably do that in real life too. Pisses me off.

But that said, is he really worth all this?

He has been a frequent target for internet bloggers and message board posters—notably by users of internet message board 4chan, users of YouTube,and various Facebook groups. Pranks have included a successful campaign to push "Justin Bieber Syphilis" to the top of the Google Trends Hot Searches list; hacked YouTube videos that were altered so as to redirect users to adult websites or trigger pop-up messages saying that Bieber had been killed in a car accident; his Last.fm photograph being changed to pornographic images; various rumors circulated, from rumors that Bieber had died, joined a cult, or even that his mother was offered $50,000 to pose topless in Playboy magazine—none of which were true.

Good heavens, what has the kid done to motivate his haters that much?

It seems out of proportion to me. But one clue might be this: Bieber identifies as Christian, although of an apparently latitudinarian sort (he passed on the opportunity to speak against fornication). He did speak negatively against abortion, although not in a political context. And his statement on homosexuality to Rolling Stone (“It’s everyone’s own decision to do that. It doesn’t affect me and shouldn’t affect anyone else.”) prompted this remark: "It is not clear whether he intended to label homosexuality as a lifestyle choice." What a totalitarian ideology liberalism has become! It’s not enough to be tolerant of homosexuality; you have to believe the correct thing about it!***

Otherwise, I don’t know why Bieber is hated so much. Thoughts?

* My daughters have thus far shown zero interest in the kind of things that tween girls are thought to obsess over. The eldest’s favorite TV show is How It’s Made. I think I have a true nerd girl.

** I want to write a retrospective on the music of the 80s and 90s. Pursuant to this, I want to ask my readers: hypothetically, is admitting to an enjoyment of The Backstreet Boys a socially acceptable preference, or is it a surefire ticket to blogosphere-wide mockery and ridicule?

*** As it happens, I myself don’t think homosexuality is a “lifestyle choice”, only because I think something is really, really ~~wrong~~ different at a visceral level about a man who would want to do the kind of things that homosexuals are alleged to do.

Lesbianism, though, I kind of get.

Reflections on bin Laden’s Death

2011-05-02T00:32:00.001-06:00

Today, I am proud to have been here. Not yesterday. Probably not tomorrow. But today, I am .

A few thoughts:

President Obama deserves some credit here. He brushed aside diplomatic concerns and gave his support to aggressive operations inside Pakistan, with or without Pakistani cooperation. This was always a high-risk strategy (and may yet generate blowback), but it seems to have yielded fruit. Yet weirdly, judging from his speech a few hours ago, Obama seems more interested in leveraging his success for support of his domestic agenda rather than a specific set of goals with respect to terrorism.
Operationally, bin Laden’s death does little to diminish the near-term threat of terrorism. Al Qaeda – and Islamism in general – has always been a highly distributed movement, with very little in the way of command and control from the top. bin Laden himself is something of a figurehead at this point.
Which is not to say that figureheads are strategically valueless. Long term, whether Osama’s death discourages would-be jihadists or provokes them to renewed efforts remains to be seen; certainly our military is predicting the second in the near term, given our worldwide elevation of alert levels and force protection measures.
Back to the blowback: this is probably not good for the government of Pakistan. Either they helped us – and collaborated with the enemies of Islam – or they didn’t – and were powerless to stop a military operation in their capital city. Either way (and let’s face it; nothing will stop Pakistanis from believing both simultaneously), the credibility of Pakistan’s government just took a nosedive.
Obama ought to get a short-term bump in the polls because of this. But more people may start to question our continued presence in Afghanistan, given that we now have what we came for. These questions will be most urgent if, as we are expecting locally, the Afghanis riot in protest. Since Obama is unlikely to withdraw from Afghanistan, unlikely to see his nation-building efforts result in sustainable progress, and unlikely to undertake meaningful steps to promote American security like controlling our borders, I predict Obama will find it difficult to translate this event into 2012 electoral victories.

Bleg: Tobacco Management

2011-05-01T23:00:00.000-06:00

I’m thinking of taking up smoking.

I hear tobacco elevates the mood and concentrates the mind. I need those things right now. A lot.

Mainly, I’m just trying to get through this deployment, but given that nicotine is supposedly more addictive the marijuana, I’ve got to be prepared for the possibility that I won’t be able to stop once I get home. However, my reasoning is that, at 42, I’ll probably die of something else before the lung cancer catches me.

But I have some questions:

Where do I go to learn how? Is there a class? Can anybody recommend a beginner’s brand of tobacco? What kind of platform (pipe, cigar, cigarettes, bong, etc.) is easiest to get started on?

How do I manage the side effects? I’m concerned about the smell. Only smoke outside, obviously. Can cigarette smell wash out of clothes, or should I plan on having an outfit dedicated to smoking? Is it safe to wash my smoking outfit with regular clothes, or should I keep the laundry separate?

And what about smoker’s breath? Stained teeth? I’m pretty sure Mrs. Φ doesn’t want to kiss an ashtray. How do prevent or mitigate these effects?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Standards of Consent

2011-04-30T01:57:00.000-06:00

“Would you want to live as a vegetable?”

This is the question proponents of physician assisted suicide will often ask of its detractors. The honest answer to which is, “it depends on the alternatives.” If I get to choose between a persistent vegetative state and a quick end, then the quick end is preferable.* But a quick end is seldom on offer. The choices usually come down to PVS and a slow, lingering death by dehydration. When those are the options, PVS starts to look a lot better.

Unfortunately, it probably won’t be up to me. When Mrs. Φ and I redid our wills around six years ago, we were also presented with a living will that basically said that in the event of PVS, “extraordinary treatment” should be withheld. But when I asked that the will stipulate that food and water IVs should not be withdrawn, I was told, essentially, that there was no such document that would be legally recognized.

And from what I have read (although I can’t link the source; maybe one of you readers can help me out here), judges have been known to grant power of attorney to whichever relative of a non-communicative patient wants to end his life.

Death by starvation has become so common for the elderly that we’ve achieved informally what the Dutch achieve directly:

Despite the fervent assertions of atheists to the contrary, again and again we see that their political objectives revolve around two things, sex and death. They can't even hide behind the defense that "assisted death" is voluntary, because in the Netherlands, at least 20 percent of the legal euthanasia is performed without the patient's consent.

Vox’s observation linking sex and death reminded me of the myriad of ways a man can be considered guilt of rape, especially #16:

She would make the sex act a presumed crime whenever a woman cries rape. The burden would be on the defendant to prove “that express and present consent was explicitly obtained at the time of the actual sexual interaction, not before or after . . . .” Only if the defendant is able to establish “express, present, and uncontroverted consent to the sexual interaction at issue” does the burden shift to the prosecution to prove withdrawal of consent, and “withdrawal of consent can happen at any time during the sexual interaction.” (The latter point about withdrawal is not objectionable under the contract law theory of consent.)

We’ve reached the point where the legal standard of “consent” is now lower for killing someone that for having sex with her. If a woman is non-communicative, then the law assumes that she does not consent to sex if she claims later to have not done so. But if an old person is non-communicative, then he is assumed to consent to being starved to death, and conveniently will never contest that assumption.

Somehow, this just strikes me as an odd state of affairs.

* Although my choosing it does not imply a corresponding obligation on those around me to accede to my wishes. My views on this are complicated.

Shy vs. Timid

2011-04-28T23:37:00.000-06:00

SavvyD writes:

Somewhere along the line, philosophies sprouted up that made church people think you had to want to marry someone to be able to even approach. Well, that's a lot to ask someone to figure out without having spent any time with someone.

This brought to mind a young lady, E, with whom I was acquainted back when I lived in South America.

First, some background: as a teenager, I spent eight or so months of the year at an English-speaking boarding school in a different city than where my parents worked. When I was at home, we went to church obviously, which was pretty much the extent of my contact with the native population, and my lack of fluency in the language had a bi-causal relationship with my introversion.

Anyway, last summer, out of the blue, I received a Facebook message from J:

Você mudou tanto na aparencia, que fico imaginando aquele adolescente tímido que passou por nossa igreja em [City-State-Country] um dia..... um grande abraço.*

tímido?

Timid!?!

My Mom had to remind me who this girl was, and in the process reminded me who E was:

Well, J of course is from [City] and a friend of E, and that's who originally found me on Facebook and then probably alerted J. Do you remember E, one of my piano students (I think) who was more obvious about her crush on you? She would come over to see you and then the two of you would sit in near silence, you from lack of interest and she from awkwardness. She would come to see me as well sometimes and I got tired of having to carry the conversation.

She also clarified the translation:

"Timido" means shy, which would have been accurate, don't you think? If you answer J, she'll tell E, who I bet will then contact you via Facebook. Girls never grow up.

As an aside, it occurred to me how the words “shy” and “timid” carry positive and negative connotations of what is essentially the same behavior or state of mind. There is probably a philosophical point to make somewhere about how guys (and I mean me, specifically) often use the positive connotations of “shy” as a crutch for our own lack of courage in the face of attractive women.

But that’s a point for another day. Let me share my own recollection of E. She was a girl around my age or so, very tall (but not as tall as me) and slender. In retrospect, she was quite attractive, and I can’t remember why this wasn’t obvious to me at the time.

No, that’s not quite right. I do know why it wasn’t obvious. I spent high school crushing on a girl at school, the prettiest alpha girl of the bunch and one who kept tantalizingly free of any declared romantic attachments. And E wasn’t her.

Yeah, I know: beta.

But there were other obstacles. As my mom indicates, E was very reserved, more so than I was, in fact. I strain to remember her ever saying anything, or even smiling.

But I do remember this: one evening after church, as everyone milled around, I came to be standing by an open window looking out at the darkness. I don’t remember if I was already standing there, or if E called me over, or if she had a friend call me over. But anyway, I was there, and E was there, and E indicated she wanted to hold hands with me.

Um . . .

So we held hands. It may have been the first time I held hands with a girl. It felt really . . . weird.

I received a letter from my Mom at school that next semester. (Kids, this was back before the internet, and nobody ever called long distance except in emergencies. So we wrote words on actual paper called “letters” which had to be physically carried from one city to the next. Hard to believe, isn’t it?) Mom relayed an inquiry from E asking if we had a relationship, or words to that effect.

My reasoning at the time was as follows: I was going to graduate high school that year or the next and then return to the U.S. for college. Since there was no prospect of taking her with me, and I in any case wouldn’t be established financially for five or six years, what were we supposed to do in the mean time? Have her “wait” for me that long on the slim chance that we would still be interested in each other six years later?

It was with me exactly as Savvy described: I couldn’t resolve a path to marriage and family with E, and I was unwilling to start a romantic relationship on any other basis.

I candidly explained all this in my reply to my Mom, saying finally (and I remember the exact words), “We are not in each others’ futures.” Mom conveyed the message. I can’t recall ever seeing E again after that.

Question: would my present self counsel a different course of action to my past self?

Sadly, yes. I say sadly, because I still think my reasoning then was conscientious (or at least, that variety of conscientious that mothers tend to approve of). But I now know the alternative sucks too.

So my present self would say to my past self: go for it! Be honest with her about what your plans are, but if she’s still game for a date-stamped relationship, well then: she’s cute, and she’s making it easy! And face facts: alpha girl isn’t available, especially to your nerdy ass.

And believe me, you really, really don’t want to get to be 23 without having had a girlfriend, without having been kissed, on the grounds that you weren’t ready to get married the next day. Because when you’re 23, the girls, even (or especially) the girls at church, will expect you to have already done those things, and they’ll hold your lack of experience against you. A lot.

I hate that my experience in life has led me to give that kind of advice. But there it is.

* Yes, I get that you figured out what country this is. That doesn’t mean I want you commenting about it on my blog. Respect the pseudonyms.

Movie Potpourri V

2011-04-27T01:18:00.000-06:00

Four Lions: I’m not sure how much this movie actually teaches us about British-born jihadists; indeed, it would give us false comfort to think that they are all quite this incompetent. But this movie had me in stitches almost the entire time. A must see.

Dinner for Schmucks: Pretty typical Steve Carell movie.

Eclipse: Considering how often the mannerisms that defined Kristen Stewart’s Bella have been parodied, I can understand why she felt she had to drop them. I’m disappointed, though. I liked those mannerisms. But the problem is that Stewart didn’t really replace them with anything, leaving her performance feeling flat. Plus her hair looked . . . weird. Artificial, like she was wearing a wig or something.

The Switch: Jennifer Aniston is plenty attractive for her age (mine, FWIW), and she’s a good-enough actress for the roles she takes. But what is it about her on-screen presence that I find so . . . annoying?

He’s Just Not That Into You: This movie was painful to watch. I just don’t have much of a stomach for watching people be mean to each other, even when they deserve it. And . . . come on, Ginnifer Goodwin’s Gigi is too cute in both her personality and appearance to have been left out in the cold by as many guys in real life as she was in the film. (That said, the real-life Ginnifer Goodwin looks kinda scary when she’s not in character.)

The King’s Speech: A born beta forced by circumstances to alpha-up, George VI learns game from a guru.

Seriously, this was the best movie I’ve seen from last year (and I’ve seen a lot). Notwithstanding its liberties with the historical record, dramatically it nonetheless gets both the little things and the big things almost perfect. A scene that got to me: George comes home after his accession, and his daughters come running towards him and then freeze in front of him, and we watch as Elizabeth, her face glowing, instructs Margaret that they should curtsy, and we just know that this was exactly the kind of little girl the future QEII was. And I liked the way the movie set up a David-and-Goliath story between George VI and Adolph Hitler, whom “Bertie”, watching him in a newsreel, recognized as being strong precisely where he himself was weak.

Megamind: Good-nerd-turned-bad fights bad-nerd-turned-good for Tina Fey to great 80’s soundtrack. What’s not to like?

I really think this was Will Ferrell’s best movie performance. Honestly, I spent the first half of the movie thinking it was Robin Williams (or an appropriately subdued version of Robin Williams).

Orgazmo: Hear me out on this. I resisted watching this movie; obviously, it is thematically, um, well, kinda gross. We of course have what would become the Parker and Stone trademark style of profane, gross-out humor. But on the other hand, there isn’t any nudity, and anything that looks like sex is kept carefully off camera.

Unlike the majority of South Park episodes, Orgazmo doesn’t seem to have any social commentary that I could discern. It is more or less a straighforward account of Joe Young (Trey Parker), a young Mormon man who reluctantly signs on to appear in a porn production – provided he doesn’t have to actually have sex. This portrayal of Mormonism is, of course, a caricature – but it is a friendly caricature, much in the way that Ned Flanders is a friendly caricature of Evangelical Christians. The pornographers are also caricatures -- evil and stupid – and Joe Young must confront and defeat them.

It’s all totally unserious, but with the exception of bad language, it’s difficult to find much to object to.

Game Tip o’ the Day: How to Hold a Glass

2011-04-26T01:58:00.000-06:00

Here is an iconic scene from the movie Good Will Hunting:

Watch how Ben Affleck holds his beer at, for instance, 0:48. Notice how the bottom two fingers (pinky and ring) come off the can?

GWH is too well made a movie for this to be an accident. Affleck’s character is a working-class schlub in a reasonable-paying but really go-nowhere job. Something is being communicated here with the pinky lift. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be good.

Contrast that with how Don Draper and Roger Sterling hold their glasses in this collage of Mad Men scenes at, for instance, 0:34:

Notice how both of them keep their lower two fingers on the glass and lift their index finger.

Mad Men is also too good a show for this to be an accident. Jon Hamm’s and John Slattery’s characters are intended to be the princes of Manhattan. Everything they do is calculated to project wealth, power, status and sex-appeal. The way they are holding their glasses are cool, even if I don’t understand why.

But I have a theory. Personally, raising my index finger instead of my pinky is something I have to think about. It doesn’t come naturally. Perhaps that’s the point: the cool way of glass-holding indicates a higher level of self-possession.

Thoughts?

One at a time.

2011-04-25T03:39:00.000-06:00

My ten-year-old struggles with writing. It’s one of those deficits that kind of snuck up on us. She exceled in everything else, and when Mrs. Φ would ask people about it, they would say, “Don’t worry; eventually she’ll suddenly catch on and there won’t be a problem.”

Except . . . she didn’t catch on, and at the end of last year, as we looked at her barely legible writing, we realized that she was now behind her age group.

So, we enrolled her in a writing class. Here she has made hard-fought progress, although it still takes her a disproportionate amount of time to produce a handful of complete sentences.

Recently, however, I discovered among the “notes” on my iPod, which Γ borrows from time to time, a series of narratives that, it turns out, she had written just for fun! They weren’t entirely original; she would borrow the backdrop from the books she enjoys – Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, etc. – and create, if not entirely new plot lines, at least new conversations and events. And she was using compound sentences too, with dependent clauses and the like. It wasn’t perfect of course, but it was still amazing what she was getting right.

Perhaps it’s just a hand-eye coordination problem associated with handwriting, not an actual inability to form a coherent sentence. Odd, though, this doesn’t show up anywhere else; Γ taught herself origami from library books, and draws better than I ever could. Hoping to encourage independent writing, I resolved then to get her a netbook for her next birthday present, something she call her own and use to practice both typing and composition.

Today, I received my very first email from her:

DEAR daddy, I am doing a persuasive paper. I chose the "persuading someone to believe what I believe what I believe" kind. Can you give me some ideas about what to argue and which side to take. Please respond as quickly as possible. Γ

On one level, I know that all dads think that the sun rises and sets by everything their little girls do, no matter how modest. But . . . yeah, I just busted out with pride at the fact my daughter could write an email like this, that she valued my input enough to ask for it, and that she was writing a persuasion paper. When I was 10, I’m pretty sure the most complicated thing I ever wrote was a book report.

I replied:

Here's what comes to mind:

1. Reepicheep: valiant hero or annoying rodent? Explain.

2. Taylor Swift sings: "Marry me, Juliet, you never have to be alone . . . I talked to your Dad; go pick out a white dress . . . ." Should boys always talk to fathers before asking girls to marry them? Why or why not?

3. Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius said that man has the capacity to choose to follow God of his own free will. John Calvin said that God must first regenerate a man’s will to give him that capacity. Who is right, and why?

4. Which is the better present to get, the Legos Hogwarts Castle or the Hello Kitty AR-15? State your reasons.

5. Which is better to have in our backyard: a trampoline or a hot tub?

“I’m so ready to get rid of that trampoline,” Mrs. Φ told me over Skype later.

“Oh?”

“I’m tired of having to lean out the back door every few minutes and yell, one at a time! ONE AT A TIME!”

“On the other hand, it is a status booster among the neighborhood kids that don’t have one. They’re always excited at the opportunity to come over and use it.”

“In a few years, the girls would probably rather have the hot tub. Γ has already lost interest in the trampoline, and her little sister probably will eventually.”

“I guess a hot tub could be status booster.”

“Of course, at that age, you’ll probably still be wanting to lean out the back door yelling, one at a time! ONE AT A TIME!”

Happy Easter Spring Spheres

2011-04-24T01:52:00.001-06:00

From the Seattle News:

A sophomore at a local private high school thinks an effort to make Easter politically correct is ridiculous.

Jessica, 16, told KIRO Radio's Dori Monson Show that a week before spring break, the students commit to a week-long community service project. She decided to volunteer in a third grade class at a public school, which she would like to remain nameless.

"At the end of the week I had an idea to fill little plastic eggs with treats and jelly beans and other candy, but I was kind of unsure how the teacher would feel about that," Jessica said.

"I went to the teacher to get her approval and she wanted to ask the administration to see if it was okay," Jessica explained. "She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat 'spring spheres.' I couldn't call them Easter eggs."

Hijacking American Policy

2011-04-23T01:34:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Justin, I’ve been reading up on the Morgenthau Plan. This was America’s 1944 – 1947 policy of German deindustrialization, created and enforced by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, his assistant (and Soviet agent) Harry Dexter White, and OMGUS officer Bernard Bernstein. The ethnic loyalties of these gentlemen is a matter of record.

A bit of context is in order. Germany had always been a food importer, exchanging its manufactured goods with its European neighbors to feed itself. The early postwar limitations on manufactures meant that it would need humanitarian relief supplies to survive. Yet under the concurrent food policy, these relief supplies were prohibited to ethnic Germans, even going so far as to instruct American occupation forces and their families to destroy excess food supplies rather than letting them fall into the hands of German civilians. The result was as in Nazi concentration camps or Soviet Ukraine: millions of people, mostly children and the elderly, died from malnutrition and disease, and economic recovery of the whole of Europe was retarded.

Reading about these events sickens me – but then, in 2011 I’m pretty much over WWII. I can’t say with any honesty how I would have felt in 1945. The Morgenthau plan was leaked to the media at the time, and I’m heartened to read that it had to be executed in the teeth of popular and Congressional opposition. On the other hand, the humanitarian consequences, such as they are, of American policy toward our present enemies doesn’t rank very highly on my give-a-sh!t list. I’m struck by Roosevelt’s statement on the Morgenthau Plan:

Too many people here and in England hold the view that the German people as a whole are not responsible for what has taken place – that only a few Nazis are responsible. That unfortunately is not based on fact. The German people must have it driven home to them that the whole nation has been engaged in a lawless conspiracy against the decencies of modern civilization.

In recent decades, American presidents have asserted in the face of the available evidence that that hostile foreign governments could only conduct their actions by oppressing the will of their own people. Clearly, an earlier generation of leaders had no such romantic notions. (And neither do our present enemies. The head terrorist in the movie Traitor justified his attacks on American civilians by quoting the Gettysburg address: our government is “of the people, by the people, and for the people”, therefore we should be collectively liable for it.)

But here’s the thing: my attitude towards this story is similar to my attitude towards our de-facto alliance with Israel. It’s not so much that I object to the policy, it’s that I dislike the idea that the policy is a function of narrow minority ethnic grievances rather than of the interests of the American people. In the case of the Morgenthau Plan, the answer is obvious: the destitution of Germany and impoverishment of Europe allowed Soviet subversion to spread. It was to counter this influence that the policy was ultimately abandoned in favor of the Marshall Plan. I’d like to think that American policy is as self-correcting today as it was then, yet I can’t honestly see much evidence for it.

Clueless Evangelicals

2011-04-22T01:09:00.000-06:00

. . . because sometimes you have to throw a flag on your own team.

RBC Ministries publishes a daily devotion guide called Our Daily Bread that is popular among evangelicals. I was introduced to it in high school myself and have used it off and on for some 27 years, more consistently so since I’ve had children with whom we have daily scripture reading.

In its commentary on Romans 5, the January 7, 2011 devotion began:

I read these words on a young woman’s personal Web site: “I just want to be loved—and he has to be amazing!”

Isn’t that what we all want—to be loved, to feel cared for by someone? And so much the better if he or she is amazing!

The one who fits that description most fully is Jesus Christ. In a display of unprecedented love, He left His Father in heaven and came to earth as the baby we celebrate at Christmas . . . .

and on in like vein.

Where to start?

Truth be told, I don’t have daily devotions to have every tick of my social critique reinforced. And it may be that I have eaten too much of the tree of knowledge for my own good.

But.

Really? Are you seriously telling me that you read this expression of the culture’s license to unbridled female hypergamy and the only reaction you could muster is, “oh, look, what a cool metaphor for Jesus!” Because if that’s the extent of your cultural engagement, if “don’t fornicate” is truly the limit of your moral imagination, then frankly, you will have deserved your own irrelevancy.

Diversity at Work: Cleveland Edition

2011-04-21T01:26:00.000-06:00

From FoxNews.com:

School officials in Ohio have launched an investigation after a beating of a student was videotaped and posted online, Fox 8 reports.

The fight was recorded outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Career Campus in Cleveland just before the school let out for spring break, according to the station.

Do we even have to watch the video?

Here are the stats on Martin Luther King, Jr. High School. The “career campus” gets a 2/10 from GreatSchools.net.

Children of War

2011-04-19T01:13:00.000-06:00

A friend in Iraq writes of a rocket attack:

Last night I slept at another FOB. Word on the street is that it is all quiet over there, and I was looking forward to finally a night of sound sleep that comes with that sense security that one will not be bombed that night. After I had been out cold for a few hours and was happily dreaming away, I dreamt what I thought I wouldn't dream - the awful sound which warns us of an "incoming! incoming! incoming!" missile. I tried arguing with myself in my dream. It's just a dream, right? It's all quiet here, right? I'll just lay here in bed and act like nothing is happening and it'll go away...

Boom! The "Containerized Housing Unit" aka "CHU" shook. So did the bed. Then came the adrenaline and I was instantly wide awake. Turns out, the incoming alarm wasn't a dream, it was prelude to an earthquake. I quickly rolled over and thudded full-body-length onto the CHU floor, laced my fingers with hands behind my head to protect myself from the bomb blast, and wondered at how wonderfully clear and thoughtful and focused my adrenaline-fueled mind had become. I heard my boss, who had just won a prestigious award that night and will be leaving soon, the reason for our overnight to this place, hit the floor as well. Our lone civilian, a kindly older gentleman, continued the labored breathing of sound sleep. At this moment, I said something ungodly to my boss, "Holy Crap! I thought they weren't bombing over here anymore...!" plus some other stuff stating the obvious, his reply was cut short...

Boom! The CHU walls shuddered, and I felt the energy wave from the bomb blast in the cold floor of the CHU travel up and down and through my body. The soundwave was louder, indicating this one hit substantially closer. My mind raced - were they walking the ordinance in a line? This would be a change of tactics indicating more effective targeting on the part of those motortrike mini-rocket rocket launcher terrorist guys (and gals). Don't they know they should have used a Harley? If you are going to launch missiles off the back of a motortrike, it should be a modified Harley. Harley's show a bit of class and style. Maybe Monster Garage needs to get involved over here.

Here’s the atypical thing: my friend grew up on the Dhahran Compound in Saudi Arabia (fictionally portrayed as the scene of a terrorist attack in the movie The Kingdom):

My mind raced back to when I was 15 years old, laying in my bed, listening to the incoming missiles from Iraq during the Gulf War, feeling the house shake and shudder, and listening to the window glass rattling in the frame. Being bombed is much the same experience at 35 years old as at 15. One day after church I talked briefly with a woman who had experienced being attacked by mortars as an MK in Vietnam, and my mother experienced this as well during two wars - II and Gulf. I find it's an experience us bombees can connect on. If the gentlemen (gentleterrorists?) launching the missiles are indeed walking the ordinance, the next one would be either very close or right on top of us, and I pray "Yea though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me" ...

Some of us have been in what is essentially the same war for our entire lives.

Republican Budgeting: “Our voters are morons!”

2011-04-18T01:11:00.000-06:00

Professor Hale has the numbers:

The 2010 budget was $3.456 TRILLION. In 2011, that amount is expected to be $3.818 TRILLION. A 38 Billion reduction makes that only $3.79 $TRILLION which is still more than 300 Billion more than the record setting budget from last year. Thanks for that, Congress. That also still gives us more than $1.6 trillion in deficit this year, another record for an administration that recognizes no boundaries.

So basically, Congress cut nothing. Obama asked for a $362B increase in spending and the Republicans’ great accomplishment was to give him 90% of it. Megan says that the nation’s total AGI was $7,583B last year, which if I remember my macro is roughly the size of the economy. That makes the federal share of the economy now around 50%.

Back to Prof Hale:

I heard the news Saturday morning that "we had a deal". This was followed up by President Obama making a personal appearance at the Lincoln Memorial and telling tourists, "we are open for business". I also heard that both side would work out the details and vote on this later in the week. Forgive me for being pedantic, but this is our national government. There is no "deal" in national government. There are spending authorization bills, that get voted on and approved in both houses and then get forwarded to the President for signature. As far as I can tell, THAT DID NOT HAPPEN! It seems that our previously out-of-control government is still out of control and is continuing to spend money that it has not been authorized to spends according to law and the Constitution. "Deals" are not good enough.

Has anyone figured this out yet?

Freaks & Geeks

2011-04-17T23:04:00.000-06:00

Freaks & Geeks, by episode:

Episode 1: Dad is a doofus. A well-meaning doofus perhaps, but a doofus nonetheless. If the series made clear that this was only the way his children perceived him (a sleight the series pulls off remarkably well with the guidance counselor), that would be one thing, but the Mom gets a full three dimensions, while Dad only gets one.

Episode 3: The series doesn’t seem to have much in the way of character development. No, that’s not it. It’s got character development, but the characters seem to “reboot” after each episode. You think that they arrive at some sort of self-awareness from the trauma (by high-school standards) they experience, but then the next episode starts, and they don’t seem to have learned anything.

Episode 4: Busy Phillips’ Kim Kelly is the most consistently authentic rendition of a teen slut I can recall seeing on television. Kinda dumb, kinda dumpy. A bit of a bitch. I swear I’ve known (or rather, known about) at least one girl exactly like her.

Episode 11: I’m so disappointed in Lindsay. It’s not just that she was bullied into borrowing the family car without permission. It’s not just that she wrecked it. It’s that after her parents unground her for a slumber party, she then abuses their trust so unabashedly by bailing on the slumber party to go hang out with the very people who keep getting her into trouble.

Okay, be honest: how many of you actually worked the problems from the mathlete competition. I did . . . eventually . . . with a calculator. Do mathletes really work trig problems in their heads?

Episode 12: Lindsay lies again, says she’s headed to the library, heads to hang out with the freaks.

The gang takes the garage door opener that Neal found in his Dad’s car and biked around the neighborhood to see what house it matched. The funny thing is the opener to my garage also activated the door to the house across the street from where the future Mrs. Phi was living. I had all kinds of fun freaking out the owners making them wonder why their garage door kept opening and closing.

Episode 13: Public school lunches where they actually ask you what you want to eat? In 1980? Gimme a break!

Episode 14: Cindy breaks up with Todd, decides that she wants to start dating “nice guys”, i.e., Sam. Sam actually shows some trepidation here.

Episode 15: Good gawd, what is it with this, “I’m going to trust you with my (or somebody else’s) most intimate secrets and you have to promise not to tell anyone ever.” They always tell. Maybe not in real life, but on teevee they always betray you. You’d think teevee characters would have figured out that in their fictional universe, if you don’t want everyone to know something, keep your mouth shut.

Nick’s dad gives away Nick’s drums on the grounds that they distract him from school. It has occurred to throughout the series how painful school must be for people on the bottom half of the bell curve. Parents tell them to do well in school, but they’re never going to be anything but below average.

And Lindsay’s back to her army jacket. And gets bullied into trying marijuana for the first time after holding out the entire series.

Episode 18: Question: what do you say to your child when he/she tells you that your spouse is cheating on you?

In this case, Mrs. Schweiber says almost exactly what I would have said: that’s grownup, husband-and-wife stuff. What matters is that we both love you. That’s not to say that hell’s not breaking loose two minutes from now, but to the extent possible, it won’t involve you.

Conclusion: Outstanding series. I think, though, that the show wisely quit while it was ahead. It would have been difficult to come up with another season’s worth of interesting things to say about high school, given the limitations of the format.

The Race That Must Not Be Named, Part II

2011-04-16T01:02:00.000-06:00

From FoxNews.com:

America's Third War: American Teens Recruited by Mexican Drug Cartels

“American Teens”?

No names, no pictures. But after that “Texas Men” business, does anybody want to take a guess what the real nationality – citizenship notwithstanding – of these drug mules actual is?

The true value of citizenship is that it provides a bright, defining line between “us” and “not us”. But once citizenship has been polluted, as ours surely has, we’re forced to rely on relatively crude distinctions like “Mestizo”, etc.

Diversity at Work: Borders & Customs Corruption

2011-04-15T01:56:00.000-06:00

From MSNBC:

In the Mexican drug war, U.S. authorities are finding a disturbing trend: an increase in American law enforcement officials corrupted by wealthy Mexican criminals who pay them to look the other way as illegal drugs and immigrants flow north into the United States.

In the last five years, nearly 80 U.S. Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers have been arrested along the Mexican border, and according to federal authorities, hundreds more officials are under investigation.

At a U.S. Senate hearing, it was revealed that Mexican cartel members are infiltrating American law enforcement. There was also testimony that during a hiring push that began five years ago to add thousands of Border Patrol and CBP officers, only 10 percent of the initial applicants were given polygraph tests.

So it’s not even that Mexican drug money is corrupting American law enforcement. It is that federal affirmative action hiring policies are putting Mexican cartel agents in American law-enforcement uniforms.

Smart move, guys. Real slick.

Tired of Life

2011-04-14T01:53:00.002-06:00

On somebody’s recommendation, I overcame my aversion to network fare and started working my way through the NBC series Life. I quit, however, after watching back-to-back episodes involving violence against (1) a homosexual, and then (2) an Iranian couple. Both of these were set up initially as “hate crimes”.

Let’s ignore for the moment that actual hate crimes are so vanishingly rare that the Left has to invent them out of whole cloth. What bothers me about entertainment that tries to be “topical” about crime is the complete absence of context. The mere possibility of a “hate crime” sends us into national convulsions: wall-to-wall media coverage about how evil conservatives are, protests and riots, Jesse Jackson, etc. Yet in Teeveeland, all of this is missing. It’s as if nobody cares that a hate crime has taken place – nobody, that is, except our intrepid detectives who must overcome society’s indifference.

This was the same hogwash that constituted part of the reason I couldn’t stomach Justified after the first episode.

While I'm at it, here is another series that disappointed me: Dexter. I recently found it listed among the greats and thought I'd give it a try.

While a serial killer (in the clinical sense of having a psycho-sexual urge to kill) who only acts out his impulses as a vigilante could be a compelling story, so far this isn't it. A artistically daring show would keep in audience in a perpetual state of moral conflict, at once rooting for its protagonist and horrified by him at the same time, much as we were conflicted about, say, Tony Soprano, who commanded both our admiration and disgust. But Dexter, his running internal monologue to the contrary, is too normal, too virtuous in his behavior, only killing murderers whom the audience has been rigorously convinced deserve what they are getting. The series came close to moral ambiguity with episode 5, where Dexter kills a married couple as they profess their love for each other, but here the show cheats by cutting away from the scene at the last moment.

Also, what weird casting decision decided that Dexter's sister should have a Minnesota accent, never mind that she grew up in Florida and none of her other family members has one?

Really, though, there is very little in the series that couldn't be shown on basic cable. Occasional f-bombs, maybe some blood-spattered crime scenes. Not normally what people expect from Showtime.

Seeing as how Dexter is in its 6th season, I want to ask: does it get better? I'm interested in hearing not just from fans of the show but from people who also thought season 1 was weak and that it improved in subsequent seasons.

Boo W.

2011-04-13T01:34:00.000-06:00

From Fox News:

[Former President] BUSH: [The U.S.-Afghan Women's Council] is big because it will have an impact over the years. The idea of liberating women, empowering women, encouraging women, educating women in Afghanistan is all part of laying a foundation for lasting peace.

My concern of course is that the United States gets weary of being in Afghanistan, it is not worth it, let's leave. And Laura and I believe that if that were to happen, women would suffer again. We don't believe that's in the interests of the United States or the world to create a safe haven for terrorists and stand by and watch women's rights be abused.

The Republican party, or at least the conservative faction of it, needs to state plainly what you my readers already know: George W. Bush is a liberal. He’s a liberal now, he was a liberal as President, and his policies reflected that liberalism.

This is no mere matter of score-keeping. Loyalty to Bush has kept important segments of the Republican Party from openly identifying the cause of the housing crisis: the dismantling of lending standards that allowed poor minorities to borrow money beyond their means and inflate the housing bubble in the process. And the party’s failure to criticize those policies allow the policies to continue even today.

International Women’s Day (Afghanistan Style)

2011-04-12T01:19:00.000-06:00

From the Guardian:

Musa Khan, the governor of Ghazni province, once associated with the fundamentalist warlord Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, marked international women's day on 8 March. Unfortunately, he appeared to have missed the point of the event.

According to Alex Dietrich, the head of a US military female engagement team operating in Ghazni, in a morning of speeches, only two women were invited onstage to participate. Instead ranks of burqa-clad women watched a group of men dominate proceedings with speeches on the importance of practising marital obedience.

Khan told them they should not leave their homes without permission from their husbands. "At the end the men sat down for a feast, while the women waited outside in the cold for some of their leftovers," Dietrich said.

Banking Alternatives

2011-04-11T01:16:00.000-06:00

From the March 2011 Civil-Military Fusion Centre paper, “The Increasing Role & Potential of Islamic Finance in Afghanistan” (behind the firewall at www.cimicweb.org):

Islamic finance is also guided by Sharia‟s banning of “usury”, which is the charging interest or high fees for the use of money. More broadly, Islamic principles suggest that money should not be self-generating (i.e., that it has no time-value and should not grow without work and/or risk-taking).

While Islam forbids interest-bearing loans, this restriction does not mean that the finance industry is forced to operate with limited profits. Rather, Islamic law forbids financial products which are based on debt rather than on real assets and actual economic activity. In other words, an investor should not profit without producing something or accepting a degree of risk (as in an investment). As such, an Islamic “loan” may be provided insofar that it is not seen as creating debt for the recipient (or an expectation of interest on the part of the loan provider), according to the Islamic Finance Council of the United Kingdom.

The loan-provider, under Islam, is understood more appropriately as an investor or financier who gives funds, for instance, to an entrepreneur and who will benefit to the extent that the entrepreneur is successful. Therefore, the financier will profit if the recipient profits and will lose money if the recipient‟s enterprise is unsuccessful. Hence, loans may only be taken to finance profitable undertakings, and, as stated in an article from the INSEAD business school, Islamic finance would disallow the provision of loans to purchase luxury items for the wealthy – as occurred in the case of the recent Kabul Bank crisis – or basic needs for the poor (which, under Islam, should be addressed through charity (or zakat) rather than loans).

So basically: no consumer credit, no demand deposits.

I’ve heard elements of this system advocated by American commentators. Steve Sailer has advocated limiting consumer credit through interest rate caps, and I think Ron Paul has criticized the mismatch between borrowing long and lending short.

Since the financial crisis, I’ve been much more open to alternatives in the banking system. But the alternatives are not without a downside:

Recent research by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggests that Islamic banks fared better than conventional banks during the global economic crisis which began in 2008. Islamic banks’ aversion to securities which are not based on real economic activity shielded them from the sorts of debt-based investments and instruments which led to the initial phase of the economic crisis in many Western countries. Islamic banks, hence, have also been increasingly trusted by depositors, and their asset levels have continued climbing throughout the economic crisis. In many respects, Islamic banks out-performed their conventional peers.

Yet, once the “banking crisis” began to affect the broader economy – slowing consumption, construction and production on a global level – Islamic banks were more vulnerable than conventional banks as a result of their investments in a narrow range of sectors (e.g., energy and construction) and their relatively permissive approaches to risk management. By 2009, however, conventional banks‟ profitability was down only 15% relative to 2007; for Islamic banks, which were then facing the full effect of the crisis for the first time, profitability was down nearly 50%.

The IMF ultimately does not take any position on the relative appropriateness of either Islamic or conventional banking but does highlight the relative benefits of each and the importance of reforms which can mitigate their respective risks.

And this is in addition to the dangers Megan has warned about: drying up consumer credit in the banking sector will drive many poor people to loan sharks, payday loans, and the like, plus substantially lower aggregate consumption and thus production.

Indentured Servitude in Afghanistan

2011-04-10T01:26:00.000-06:00

It seems the perpetual indebtedness created by America’s student loan program was such a great idea, we exported it to Afghanistan.

From the NYT:

The Muhammads are indentured servants, bought and paid for by Gul Bacha, who purchased their contracts from a kiln owner in Pakistan, where they had been living as refugees. Like tens of thousands of Afghans, the Muhammads are trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of poverty that keeps them indebted to their employers — a situation common at many of the dusty brick kilns that dot the countryside, as well as in some other industries, particularly in rural areas.

After decades of violence, Afghanistan has few banks, and the people who labor at the kilns would almost surely be too poor to qualify for loans. Instead, they borrow from their employers, who generally pay them pennies an hour for their grueling labor — barely enough to survive and too little to pay off debts that only grow with each passing year.

For a vast majority of workers, there is no escape — for them or for their children, who are bound by their parents’ contracts. Their best hope is that the boss will sell their contract to another kiln, where they might be paid more. No matter what, the loan will follow them. In some cases, children are held as their parents’ collateral.

It is illegal for children younger than 15 to work long hours or do heavy labor, and the government says it is trying to provide education and help to families so they do not have to send their children to work at the kilns.

The use of child labor is also a concern of NATO forces in Afghanistan, particularly those involved in reconstruction programs. Yet kiln owners and contractors say bricks made by children are routinely used in NATO projects.

A spokesman for the international security force in Afghanistan, Lt. Bashon W. Mann, said that the force conducted frequent inspections at construction sites and that the coalition had no knowledge of having used building materials made by children.

Banana Prøn

2011-04-09T00:08:00.000-06:00

We get fresh bananas once per month here at ISAF. Here is my April ration:

I’ve been here way, way too long.

White Ethnic Cleansing

2011-04-08T02:07:00.000-06:00

Via Steve, a WaPo article on white flight from diversity:

More than half of the United States’ 100 largest cities relied on Hispanics and Asians to grow and would have seen their populations decline without them over the past decade, a Washington Post analysis shows.

What seems lost on the WaPo is that these Hispanics and Asians have driven out the extant White population or deterred them from moving there. Had there not been immigration, the opportunities these cities afforded would have been snapped up by Americans.

The article continues:

“The real energy in cities is going to be from Hispanics coming in,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. “Cities in the industrial Midwest could use an infusion of new immigrant minorities coming in. Cleveland and Detroit haven’t done well; they’re not attracting enough Hispanics.”

This has cause and effect exactly backwards. The job growth drives the influx, not the other way around. But if the WaPo is so sure of itself, then let’s make a law forcing immigrants to move to Detroit and Cleveland, just to see what happens.

Chain mail: Afghanistan Edition

2011-04-07T01:32:00.000-06:00

From the Pajhwok News Agency (article text requires subscription):

Mobile phone users in Kabul have started receiving text messages warning them that if they do not send on the names of Allah to several other people, they will endure a lifetime of misfortune. While most people in Kabul do not want to insult their religion, they say they cannot afford to send out to so many people. The messages are being sent out by all mobile phone companies, but the companies deny they have a role in the texts. The head of telecommunications services at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) said that they had not received any complaints so far. (2011032o)

Democrat Budgeting: The Thelma & Louise Plan

2011-04-06T01:54:00.001-06:00

On Paul Ryan’s proposed plan to reduce the deficit, Megan writes:

The wildly disproportionate fury and outrage which greeted both Bowles-Simpson and the Ryan plan from the left indicate that progressives have so far failed to come to grips with the fact that they are going to have to compromise . . . . [T]hey're going to have to ultimately accede to some spending cuts, because this is one policy area where doing nothing is literally not an option.

Well, the left has to compromise to save the country. But they don’t have to compromise in an absolute sense, any more than Thelma & Louise have to stop their car at the edge of the cliff. Bankruptcy and suicide is always an option. Just ask the Greeks.

Megan continues:

[W]hile some of the gap is going to be closed by tax increases, some of it is going to be closed by spending cuts. And not just defense cuts, or seemingly trivial changes to physician reimbursement rates that we hope will snowball over time, but actual cuts in services that people currently want and expect to get from government--but do not want or expect to pay for.

I fear Megan understates the problem. My own assessment is that these very people – the ones who want government services without government revenue – presently hold the balance of power in our country. In theory, the left and right could reach a compromise on taxes and spending (although even here I may be assuming too much). In practice, however, the center is determined to prevent exactly that compromise.

Bleg: CGI Sex

2011-04-05T01:47:00.000-06:00

The news that Natalie Portman’s ballet performance in Black Swan was a product of computerized special effects got me thinking about the STARZ series Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

Now on the one hand, Spartacus is performed by mainstream (if largely B-listed) actors and actresses. So for that reason I’m pretty sure that I’m not watching, you know, actual pornography.

But that only raises the question: during the scenes (and there is usually one per episode) in which one of the male characters is shown with one of the female characters grinding their pelvises, no stitch of clothing to be seen anywhere . . . then I can’t help but wonder how the line between acting and reality doesn’t get, you know, blurry in that situation. (Warning: Link NSFW)

So here’s my question to whichever of my readers has insider knowledge on this subject: how are these scenes actually done so as to protect the, I dunno, professionalism of the participants? Are we looking at high-quality animation? Are the actors and actresses actually wearing Teflon clothing that is then digitally replaced by skin tones? Or maybe they’re all just inhumanly, um, disciplined mentally?

But I’m beginning to wonder about how much of even plain ol’ TV nudity is real. Take for instance the HBO series Rome. The show almost had me convinced that this was actually what actress Polly Walker looks like. But Lindsay Duncan? The actress was 55 at the time of filming, ye t she is shown with an impossibly gravity-defying figure. That’s got to be CGI again, right?

Our Cosmopolitan Overlords

2011-04-03T23:20:00.000-06:00

Robin writes:

If there must be rich folks, what would you want them to be like? You might want:

They mostly work, instead of living lives of leisure.

They or their parents are mostly self made, vs. coming from long rich families. You probably sympathize more with parents wanting to help their kids than their great-great-grandkids.

They compete fiercely for positions in orgs that themselves compete strongly globally, assuring you their wealth isn’t from local insider clubs.

They don’t promote national conflicts or wars, but instead look to what’s good for the world.

They give most of their wealth away, to especially innovative and socially valuable charities.

Every one of these is wrong.

Working rich take jobs from people who actually need to earn a living.
The prevalence of multi-generational wealth is only an indicator of a lack of social mobility. It is not a substitute for it.
The jobs the rich take are likely to be high prestige, high value transference jobs.
I don’t want the rich to consider what’s good for the world. I want them to consider what’s good for their fellow citizens.
Such charities to which the rich contribute are likely to be (1) universities, museums, and other institutions that benefit mainly other rich people or (2) organizations that further dispossess white middle-class Americans.

Robin then drops the other shoe: his list of qualities describes the elite we actually have; with the exception of the third one, I agree. But Robin, despite his valuable contributions to understanding human nature, remains an effete cosmopolitan, a man with no loyalty to nation or soil. Of course he doesn’t mind that our elites undermine these things. But many of us do.

But let me prescribe the one area in which the rich could make a positive contribution: venture capitalism. I would much rather the rich put their wealth at risk to create jobs and fund the next breakthrough technology that will improve our lives. We don’t need or want any more charity or i-bankers.

Pleasantly SurprisedUPDATE: Expectations Met

2011-04-02T10:55:00.002-06:00

In all honesty, after yesterday’s events in Mazar-e-Sharif, I had this post already written in my head. It was going to be titled “Profiles in Cowardice” or “Be-TRAY-us Redux”, which tells you most of what you need to know about where my baseline expectations have fallen.

So you can imagine my gratification when I heard this during the COMISAF standup:

Well, obviously what took place in Mazar is tragic, horrific, reprehensible and beyond any comprehension by any religion and it was good to see President Karzai put out a condemnation statement last night, along with of course the NATO secretary general and many others. The fact is that this event in the United States, which drew all of about twelve people, never would have drawn interest out here had it not been for the way it was echoed and highlighted, and that is a tragedy in and of itself frankly. We’re going to have to watch very very carefully to see if this escalates elsewhere in the country now, keep our finger on the pulse of various events . . . .

Again, this is a very worrisome development. I’m not sure what repercussions it will have for the international community. I think we need to ensure that it is the first topic on the senior security shura today, so for DCOS STRAT Engagement, please make sure that we would like an explanation from the Minister of Interior what is being done, what has been done, what will be done. We need to contact the religious leadership we have established relationships with. Tell them that they need to do some serious soul searching because it is my impression that elements of the religious establishment are the ones that fanned the flames on this and poured gasoline on it, and frankly, they probably have to do, again, a bit of internal examination to ask themselves if this was something they want to be associated [with], is this something their religion stands for in Afghanistan and so forth. There is a fine line between a peaceful demonstration and violence in this country. And they obviously – their actions at the end of the day – got out of control. It’s interesting, because President Karzai has cautioned once or twice, he’s noted that peaceful demonstrations don’t always stay that way in Afghanistan, and yet this is how this came about . . . .

But indeed, there’s got to be some serious soul searching here by people who are supposed to be giving moral guidance to citizens of this country.

Now, while the boss of course put some thought into this – he’s nothing if not careful – keep in mind he was speaking extemporaneously without a prepared text. Obviously, this was not the speech I would have given; I was over my illusions about the true essence of Islam by September 12, 2001. But note what he did not do: he did not attack Terry Jones for exercising his constitutional rights, he did not try to play both sides by calling for “mutual tolerance” or any of the multi-cult phrases of national suicide. He instead put the blame squarely where it belonged, no equivocation.

Well done, sir.

UPDATE: I noticed P4 giving a press conference Sunday. Here he is "protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States." Pathetic. (H.T.: månesteiner in the comments.)

Manchild vs. Womanchild

2011-04-01T02:19:00.000-06:00

Hey!

Cases Of Shaken Manchild Syndrome On The Rise

On a serious note, does anybody have any data on the relative prevalence over time of post-college-age men and women still living at home? ONN is obviously poking fun at what has become a cultural stereotype: slacker twenties guy living in his parents’ basement. But has the number of such guys really grown over the last thirty years compared to the number of girls?

That said, this is one double standard I kind of get. I don’t have any sons, but if I did, I’m pretty sure my baseline expectation of them would be that, post-college, they should be making their way in the world. But my daughters? In theory, they can stay until they get married.

In theory. In practice, I can see all sorts of obstacles that would need to be overcome. First, domestic responsibilities. Mom and Dad really don’t want to be cleaning up after you when you’re 23. In fact, we don’t really want to be nagging you to clean up after yourself either. So be prepared to do your share of cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc., and still keep your room looking presentable.

Second . . . what are your long-term plans, exactly? Waiting to get married isn’t a bad plan, but are you making good use of your time? I recall spending a week at a friend’s house while I was house-hunting in a new city. He had two daughters, the younger of which was still living at home. She might have still been college aged, but she wasn’t attending. She had a part-time job doing something or other that left her with lots of free time. But what bothered me was that she would stay up watching television most of the night. The picture she presented was: slacker. I thought to myself then that I would have a hard time watching my daughter spend her time like this.

On the other hand, I knew (of) another young lady that forewent college and career in favor of staying home until she got married. (Full disclosure: it was the younger sister of the woman I blogged about here, although the video I referenced has since been taken down.) But she had the reputation of being unusually productive doing volunteer work in her church and community. And she did, in fact, get married fairly young.