Shot In The Dark

Big Time

La Shawn Barber finally graduated to the big-time; someone has put out an anti-La Shawn site!

She doesn't link it, but it's here. It's not very good - the kind of logic and writing that would embarass a not-too-bright high school kid - but hey, it's still a major status jump for La Shawn!

I can't wait until I get my first semi-literate hate site!

My Least Favorite Time Of The Year

I've always hated New Years Eve.

Compared to the great holidays of religious or personal significance, New Years Eve has always felt like a sordid, depressing, noxious diversion. Comparing Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving to New Years Eve is like putting the Passion up against a bachelors party at Hooters.

The hard part? Trying to entertain kids until midnight, followed by the completely anticlimactic watching of the ratzen-fratzen ball falling. Worse? My kids are beyond the point where the fact that "the ball" drops at 11PM fools them.

Not to say it won't be a fun night. The kids and I will find some New Years festivity or another - last years' Landmark Center party, followed by the street-level fireworks, was a kick. I always enjoy the evening, when all is said and done.

Anyway - Happy New Year!

Predictions, 2005

As we saw yesterday, my non-election predictions were pretty dicey.

Let's try it again.

For 2005 I predict:

• Violence will increase - in the media, to EPIC PROPORTIONS - in the run-up to the Iraqi elections.
• Sunni pro-Ba'athists will hire James Carville to consult on advice for trying to delegitimize the election when it actually happens.
• Notwithstanding that, the election will go very well in 85% of the country.
• That notwithstanding, the mainstream media will focus 95% on the 15% of the country where the election is difficult.
• Taliban violence will continue to subside in Afghanistan.
• Nick Coleman will write an even dumber, uglier column about blogs and bloggers.
• Hundreds of blogs will pile on him, making this week's mau-mau look like a quaint diversion.
• (with a hat tip to Saint) Coleman will attract a major-market columnist as a defender - a Molly Ivins or a Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich, someone huge and clueless. That defender will slam bloggers like he/she never slammed Pol Pot.
• That major columnist will be mortally embarassed by the response.
• The economy will pick up steam, but the media will avoid the "B" word with alacrity.
• Liberal blogger Atrios will tire of delivering thought-free snarks; blog remains dormant most of the year.
• Oliver Willis blames Richard Mellon Scaife
• On a more serious note - George Soros cuts costs, lays off some of the stable of bloggers he supports via Media Matters.
• My dog will finally be successfully potty-trained.
• The Minnesota senate campaign kicks off in earnest by October. A faction within the MN DFL tries to find a spinworthy way to dump the embarrassing Dayton; it leads to a conflict within the party, giving the NARN months of great material.
• Tim Pawlenty is mentioned more and more often as a candidate for the Presidential ticket.

That should do it for now.

World Relief at CQ

Captain is linking to World Vision and their Tsunami relief fund.

Join me in going there to kick in, please.

Instincts

The people of Sri Lanka were brutalized by the tsunami.

The animals, oddly, seem to have rode it out fairy well.

This piece in Slate explains why. It's a fascinating story.

The piece, by Dr. Alfred J. Bedard, explains why so many of the animals, big and small, fled the scene:

First, it's possible that the animals may have heard the quake before the tsunami hit land. The underwater rupture likely generated sound waves known as infrasound or infrasonic sound. These low tones can be created by hugely energetic events, like meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, and earthquakes. Humans can't hear infrasound—the lowest key on a piano is about the lowest tone the human ear can detect. But many animals—dogs, elephants, giraffes, hippos, tigers, pigeons, even cassowaries—can hear infrasound waves.

A second early-warning sign the animals might have sensed is ground vibration. In addition to spawning the tsunamis, Sunday's quake generated massive vibrational waves that spread out from the epicenter on the floor of the Indian Ocean's Bay of Bengal and traveled through the surface of the Earth. Known as Rayleigh waves (for Lord Rayleigh, who predicted their existence in 1885), these vibrations move through the ground like waves move on the surface of the ocean. They travel at 10 times the speed of sound. The waves would have reached Sri Lanka hours before the water hit.

Mammals, birds, insects, and spiders can detect Rayleigh waves. Most can feel the movement in their bodies, although some, like snakes and salamanders, put their ears to the ground in order to perceive it. The animals at Yala might have felt the Rayleigh waves and run for higher ground.

Why would they instinctively flee to higher ground—the safest place to be in the event of a tsunami? Typically, animals scatter away from a place where they are disturbed. So, in this case, "away" may have meant away from the sea, and incidentally, away from sea level. Or maybe it's not as accidental as all that. It's easy to imagine that one of evolution's general lessons is: If the ground beneath your feet starts moving, move up and away as fast as you can.

All pretty commonplace, no?

But this part here is the one that grabbed me:

What about humans - where were our red flags? Humans feel infrasound. But we don't necessarily know that that's what we're feeling. Some people experience sensations of being spooked or even feeling religious in the presence of infrasound. We also experience Rayleigh waves via special sensors in our joints (called pacinian corpuscles), which exist just for that purpose. Sadly, it seems we don't pay attention to the information when we get it. Maybe we screen it out because there's so much going on before our eyes and in our ears. Humans have a lot of things on their minds, and usually that works out OK.

This stuff is fascinating. I'd had no idea that people had any capacity to sense Rayleigh waves; now, I need to figure out how to a) sense them myself and b) use it to my advantage.

Pot, Meet Kettle

Earlier in December, I invited Nick Coleman to appear on the Northern Alliance radio program. We were going to talk, in theory, about the Maxfield School flap between him and Craig Westover.

Coleman responded with an angry, petulant, frankly wierd voice-mail message. I won't circulate the tape or the transcription of the call - it was made with a presumption, one presumes, of privacy - but the gist was that Coleman would be happy to appear on the show, if we met two conditions; paid $1,000 to Maxfield School, and, to quote the maestro himself:

"Um, but why dont' you put together a list of the twelve shittiest things you've written about me, personally, or my wife or my children on your website.

Hmmm? Why don't you send me a list and I'll just, I'll make it easy for you, because I know there's a lot more. But why don't you just put together twelve, your top thirty dozen of the shitty things that you've said about me, and then I'll think about whether I should appear on the radio with you, and talk about something of importance to the people."

Our exchange continued, with Coleman making mysterious comments about his responses to be, both in print and, in an interesting, cryptic aside in one email, legal.

Well, we've seen his print responses - his "Captain Fishsticks" piece and then yesterday's national laughingstock. Pffft. As to legal responses; neither I not any member of the Northern Alliance has ever said anything "Shitty" about Nick Coleman or his family. We've criticized his leaden writing, shoddy reporting, harping politics and non-existant social skills. Fraters satirized Nick Coleman and Laura Billings' marriage, one of the most hilarious bits of web-based satire ever written, and - this seems fairly obvious - clearly satire. Which Nick Coleman can call "shitty" if he likes, but he's a public figure; he's a journalist that "knows stuff", he should be able to handle a little criticism from bunch of peasants writing from paneled offices in their underwear, or whatever.

But the exchange prompted me to think - what standards do we bloggers follow?

The answer, according to Powerline: a hell of a lot more than Coleman has to:

Among other things, the editor advised me that Coleman's attack on us involved no reporting, and that the column's factual misrepresentations were to be read in that light. Moreover, certain of the misrepresentations were to be construed as sarcasm rather than taken at face value.

Finally, according to the editor, Coleman's false assertion that he didn't know and we didn't say whether we might be on the take from some campaign, political party or anonymous benefactor, appeared to violate no Star Tribune standard. In his meeting with Coleman after my discussion with the editor yesterday morning, Coleman had told the editor that he "assumed" we received a stipend from the Claremont Institute. (Wrong. As we expressly stated here in response to Coleman's slander earlier this month, "we are not paid by anyone" for our work on the site. What part of "not" doesn't Coleman understand?)

I asked the editor what standards Coleman's column was subject to at the Star Tribune. He said he didn't know; he would have to research the answer to that question and get back to me. But they do have standards, which is of course a relief!

No editorial oversight. No fact-checking. No standards that anyone can name without research. No public accountability.

So exactly how is it that Nick Coleman is a more reliable reporter than any good blogger, again?

Note to the Star/Tribune Marketing Department

I recently downgraded my cable TV service; I felt no need to pay for programming I largely considered repellent. Upside: No more MTV.

Downside: No History, A&E, Discovery or Spike.

So when Comcast called the other day asking if I'd be interested in getting a very good deal on the first three months of premium cable and that yes, I could block MTV and Nick, I thought "Hmmmmm...". It was a nice price.

And then the guy on the phone said "You also get x weeks of the Minneapolis Star/Tribune thrown in on the deal". The Strib is apparently trying to gussy up their circulation numbers by giving the paper away.

MITCH: "Could I get the deal without the Strib?"

GUY: "Er, no, I can't not give you the Strib".

MITCH: "I want the deal, just not the Strib."

GUY: "You could take the deal and just throw the paper away..."

MITCH: "Nice thought, but it's wasteful, and I don't want to give them any more subscribers. I can't stand their editorial policies, or their editorial writers. You sure you can't just detach the Strib from the deal?"

GUY: "I'm sorry, no".

MITCH: "Dang. I'm going to have to decline the deal."

GUY: "Because of the Strib?"

MITCH: "I'm afraid so."

He seemed kind of confused.

Mitch's Predictions, 2003 Edition

It's almost the end of the year. Time to fess up on my predictions from this time last year.

Last year, I predicted:

1. By this time next year, the link between Al Quaeda and Iraq will be documented. [Hey, we're getting close...]
   
2. Most of the world will doubt that Bin Laden is alive - with evidence pointing toward his death in Tora Bora in December of 2001. [Ooops.]
   
3. Since my political predictions are usually the kiss of death for a politician, I predict Dean will beat Bush by 30 electoral votes. Heh heh. [Tongue firmly in cheek, that one. I will note that I did nail the popular vote number last November]
   
4. I will have a date that isn't an exercise in self-abnegation, or worse, black comedy. Maybe two. [Four, but the situation is still young. The chance for self-immolation is still very much there.]

And then, just before the election, I said predicted a Bush victory in the electoral count, with a 300-238 final score. I had the states nearly right - only Minnesota and Hawaii wrong, as it happened. But the predictions went downhill from here:

The wierd thing is, except for Hawaii, I don't think I'm being especially overoptimistic in making this prediction.

I figure Bush will capture two from the troika of MN, WI and IA; WI seems the least likely to me right now.

As to Ohio, I'm taking Hugh's word for it - with good reason, I think.

Senate: GOP picks up two seats.

House: GOP picks up six.

Court cases embroil at least two states.

Not bad, all in all. However:

Violence will break out in at least a few places, with one fatality as a group of Democrats beats a Republican to death.

Not sorry I was wrong, there.

Next year's predix, tomorrow.

Messages

Given a choice between a useful action and a well-crafted message, the left will take the message every time.

Amid the fuss over yesterday's Nick Coleman rhetorical travesty, this fairly loathsome editorial nearly escaped notice.

You can almost write these things without reading them:

The United States is not stingy," Secretary of State Colin Powell bristled in response to criticism of a paltry $15 million initial U.S. contribution to tsunami-relief efforts. Bulletin for Powell: That's not the way many Americans and most the rest of the world see it.

As the Bush administration is wont to say, actions speak louder than words, and America's actions in recent days have painted the United States as a rich, self-absorbed and uncaring nation that had to be shamed into anything approaching appropriate concern about this catastrophe. The Bush administration's handling of this crisis has been inept beyond belief.

There's a broader context here that bears consideration. Two days before Christmas, the media reported that unprecedented U.S. deficits -- caused substantially by the Iraq war, which most of the world hates, and by Bush's tax cuts for wealthy Americans -- had led the Bush administration to cut substantially its previously agreed contributions to world food programs. By going back on its commitments, the Bush administration forced numerous aid agencies to suspend ongoing programs in many impoverished nations -- including, ironically as it would turn out, Indonesia.

Then a day after Christmas came the undersea earthquake and resulting tsunami waves that very likely will end up taking well more than 100,000 lives while putting millions at risk of disease and destroying both their livelihoods and homes. From the very first hours it was apparent this was going to be an almost unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Yet Bush remained at his Texas ranch where, aides said, he spent time cutting brush and bicycle riding. He uttered not a single public word about what had happened in Asia.

On Monday, the United States announced an initial $5 million in aid, mostly through the Red Cross, to which it said it most likely would add an additional $10 million at some point. Bush still was nowhere to be seen.

The criticism began almost immediately, and it did not come only from a U.N. official. Comparisons were drawn, for example, to the additional $80 billion that Bush has requested for the war in Iraq and the $30 million to $40 million that his January inauguration will cost.

The criticism had an effect. While responding angrily to accusations of stinginess, the administration on Tuesday added an additional $20 million to the $15 million it had announced on Monday. The appearance was clearly that Washington had been shamed into the larger contribution. Bush was still in Texas with his brush piles and mountain bike.

Of course, don't let the fact that it was appearances - appearances fomented entirely by Bush's critics and the left-wing media, mind you - divert you from the fact that the US' original pledge of $15 million was thirty times what, say, the French devoted to the effort, or that that money is just first of what will no doubt be billions of US taxpayer money sent to the area.

No. To paraphrase Billy Crysal's "Fernando", it's better to look good than to do good:

Dressed in a somber black suit and subdued tie, President Bush should have called an impromptu news conference in Crawford Sunday afternoon. He should have reported to the American people and to the world that the United States stood with the suffering people of Asia and would do everything in its power to help them. To that end, he should have said, he has directed that $1 billion be pledged to the relief effort, to be released as needs are identified. Further, he should have said he has been in touch with leaders of the affected countries and offered whatever U.S. military capabilities might be helpful in meeting both the short-term relief needs and the longer-term reconstruction challenges.

This pledge of $1 billion, he should have said, is but the first American assistance in what will be a very long and difficult recovery for the affected region. He should have ended by saying that the American people send their heartfelt condolences to all those who lost loved ones -- and especially to the thousands of parents whose children were lost. We embrace you in your loss, he should have said, and while we cannot make that loss disappear, we will be with you every step of the way as you recover from this disaster.

That's what the leader of the United States should have said, because only he, of all the world's leaders, can say it to such good effect. By example, the United States should have led from the start, because it is the right thing to do and because it so clearly would demonstrate the generosity of spirit and dedication to doing good in the world that Americans feel in their hearts.

We interrupt the fashion parade to note to the dim, worthless little bulb who wrote this that the US DID lead by example! We got the job started!

The Strib, no doubt, prefers the French/UN model of response; heartfelt words matched with bureaucratic miasma and stingy contributions.

Call for Anders Gyllenhal

Iowahawk does Coleman better than Coleman does.

Scary funny.

RIP Sontag

Josh Trevino at Redstate on Sontag:

Let us not pretend that Sontag was a conservative, nor on her way to being conservative; but we can at least take a moment to acknowledge some of the service she rendered to conservatism in its various missions. She was capable of meaningful introspection, or irritating vacillation, depending on where you stood -- and it was noteworthy that you were more prone to the latter view the further you stood to the left. Take Vietnam, for example, whose tyrannical regime, as conflated with the totality of the Vietnamese people (excepting, of course, those countless numbers with the poor grace to flee on the high seas), Sontag celebrated, in the way that self-styled intellectuals did in those days. Vietnam fought America, and America was the enemy, the enemy of which was one's friend. So Cuba too and the Communist experiment in general fell into the orbit of Sontag's approval.

In this she was hardly alone; where she parted ways with her compatriots of those heady days, including those who eventually secured the Democratic nomination for President, was her reevaluation of her love affair with the hardcore left's war on humanity.

Read the whole thing.

Sucking the Pipe?

Thomas Lifson has an intrigueing premise about Nick Coleman:

... I do see an analogy to a well-known practice of some of those bent on extinguishing their own lives. Certain people with access to a gun lack the guts to pull the trigger and blow their own brains out. So instead, they pull their gun on a police officer and threaten to kill him. The practice is known as "suicide by cop." I think Coleman has invented "career suicide by blogger."

Now, earlier on KerrySpot, Jim Geraghty asked:

Just how bad a column can you turn in at this paper before some editor there says, “Eh, not your best work, go back to the drawing board”? Was there not one editor at the Star Tribune who was willing to say, “You know, Nick, an entire column alleging that your critics have small reproductive organs could come across as a bit on the petty side. Could you put in a paragraph or two about some blogs you like?”

Every writer has his critics, and every blogger has his issues and targets that get under their skin and stir up the passions. I’m as guilty of it as anybody. (COUGHratherCOUGHwonkette- COUGHoreillyCOUGH.) But if I ever turned in a piece as packed-to-the-gills with nasty “I hate my critics” name-calling as this one, I hope Kathryn would utilize her in-case-of-emergency tranquilizer dart gun. (To say nothing of the heck Mrs. Kerry Spot would raise.)

Many people have wondered exactly how Coleman keeps getting his rantings in print.

Maybe it's Anders Gyllenhaal's way of giving Nick Coleman enough rope and saving him the trouble of finding an excuse to fire a columnist that he has to realize is becoming an embarassment?

Just a theory.

More on Orbach

Sheila has more on the late Jerry Orbach.

I grew up listening to him on the soundtrack for The Fantasticks and also the soundtrack for 42nd Street - You may not know what a great singer he was. And please - who can forget his chilling turn as the criminal brother of Martin Landau in Woody Allen's brilliant Crimes and Misdemeanors? Apparently, someone else was supposed to play that part...and this person backed out at the last minute. Woody Allen put in a call to Jerry Orbach, and Orbach filmed his scenes in that movie on only 3 days notice. If you ever see that movie again, WATCH Jerry Orbach. And think of the fact that he only had 3 days to create that character, learn the lines. He's fantastic.

I had a spectacularly irritating co-worker about eight years ago who introduced me to Orbach's long history in Broadway musicals. He was by all accounts the consummate journeyman character actor, a class of people who don't get nearly their due in the world of entertainment.

Worried?

Dustbury asks:

What happens if Nick Coleman bumps into Stribmate James Lileks in the hallway? Will there be total annihilation and the release of massive quantities of energy? Now I'm worried.

You needn't worry about a matter/antimatter explosion; the earth is safe.

But we have a more mundane worry; a collision would cause an equilibrium of energy, causing a drain of Lileks' endless, manic energy into Coleman, resulting in a matched pair of Don Boxmeyers.

King Is In The Building

King notes:

I thought it was pretty neat we got under his skin, but we now clearly have Coleman's undies in a twist. That's more cool than words can express.

Does it occur to anyone else that Nick is now riding on NARN's coattails rather than the other way around? Year of the blog, fool!

Tune in to the NARN on Saturday. It's going to be a fun discussion.

Maybe Nick will call in.

Clarifying

Yesterday, I wrote a post in which I said:

Further proof that the Western idiots who are heckling the election process are, indeed, on the terrorists' side.

By which I really mean to say this: I don't think that most Western liberals actually mean to provide aid and comfort to actual terrorist attempts to kill people.

I do think that, for a serious plurality of Western liberals, giving George Bush a black eye is more important than democracy in the Middle East.

Start Canvassing

Jerry Orbach, dead at 69.

Lazy, Cowardly, Trite

Nick Coleman's latest column - his poison-pen congratualation to Powerline for appearing in Time Magazine - tells you everything you need to know about the man who is coming to be regarded as the worst major-market columnist in America today.

It shows what a lazy, trite excuse for a "journalist" that he is. It shows the spiteful, ugly streak that renders unable to obey Will Rogers' classic dictum ("Best to be quiet and have people think you a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"). It shows the extent to which is claims to be a "journalist" show the depths to which the mainstream media, and especially the Star/Tribune, have fallen.

And it displays the endless, crushing intellectual vapidity that has afflicted area bloggers with the "Coleman fatigue" that overcomes us when we see, week in, week out, more of Coleman's lazy, trite, vapid, cowardly output.

Powerline - the ostensible target of Coleman's ostensible writing - probably responds best:

Beyond that, it's hard to say what Coleman's point is, other than the fact that he doesn't like us, or, I guess, any other conservatives, which is hardly news. This is one of his more coherent sentences: "[L]ike talk radio, they are dominated by the right and are only interested in being a megaphone without oversight, disclosure of conflicts of interest, or professional standards." I have no idea what Coleman means by "conflicts of interest," and he never provides a hint. As to "professional standards," he never cites a single instance in which we have misrepresented a source, tried to pass fake documents off as genuine, or, for that matter, even made a mistake. So, again, it's hard to make much of a substantive response.

Coleman seems to be obsessed with our site, even though we rarely mention him. He went so far as to count the number of times we "shilled for votes" in the Wizbang Best Blog contest. (I'd explain the relevance of this to his tirade, only I don't understand it.) It's remarkable that even though he has obviously spent a lot of time poring over our site, he cannot identify a single substantive error that we have made.

Let's go through the column.

WARNING: Substantial portions of a Nick Coleman column follow. Please turn off any heavy machinery.

But as you read it, ask yourself a simple question: What is he talking about? What's his point?

That blogs are dangerous? That Powerline has misrepresented him, the mainstream media...anything? That Powerline's national attention isn't warranted? What?

Coleman begins:

The end of the year is a time to bury the hatchet, so congratulations to Powerline, the Twin Cities blog that last week was named Time magazine's "Blog of the Year!"

Now let me get a new hatchet.

One of my new years resolutions is to start letting some of these straight lines go past. Not all of them - just the ones that are too easy.

These guys pretend to be family watchdogs but they are Rottweilers in sheep's clothing.

Now, unlike Coleman, I actually know Scott, John and Paul. I can't say that I'd like to be sitting across a courtroom from them - or be a target of Powerline's reportorial wrath - but I can think of many species of dog that I'd use before "Rottweiler", none of which I'll mention now since I'd hear about it on Saturday.

They attack the Mainstream Media for not being fair while pursuing a right-wing agenda cooked up in conservative think tanks funded by millionaire power brokers.

They should call themselves "Powertool." They don't speak truth to power. They just speak for power.

What is Coleman talking about here?

That Powerline is, as they say themselves, loosely affiliated with the Claremont Institute?

Or is this a return to the old lefty chestnut, that all of us conservative bloggers take our orders from Karl Rove?

We don't know - and Coleman isn't a skillful enough writer to say (by writing something that makes a point, for example).

The lads behind Powerline are a bank vice president named Scott Johnson and a lawyer named John Hinderaker. If you read Powerline, you know them better by their fantasy names, Big Trunk (that's Johnson) and Hind Rocket (Hinderaker). I will leave it to the appropriate professionals to determine what they are compensating for [...although an actual journalist would have actually contacted one of those professionals. --Ed], but they have received enormous attention from the despised Mainstream Media and deserve more.

I wish I didn't have to do it, because I already get ripped a lot on the site, which thankfully also has had some nice photos of bikini-clad candidates for Miss Universe to keep me company. But I accept Powerline's contempt; I am only a Mainstream Media man, while Big Trunk and Hind Rocket are way cool. They blog.

I work for a dopey old newspaper committed to covering the news fairly...

Let's stop right here.

Does the Strib cover the news fairly? Frequently, yes. Individual reporters, and the newsroom in general, usually do cover the nuts and bolts of the political conventions, car crashes, stamp shows, tsunamis and all the other events, large and small, that they choose to call "news" every day.

But Nick Coleman, Lori Sturdevant, the Strib's editorial board don't "report". They opine.

They have a big, unopposed platform - the Strib's editorial pages and A-section - on which to present their opinions. They have a few editors to perform, one suspects, some basic fact-checking on their opinions (although it's often not enough), and then, poof, it gets published. After it's published, the public can respond; they can write a letter to the editor (which, if it's a conservative, will probably only get published if it makes conservatives sound stupid), or send an email or phone call to the columnist (which will earn you one of their snarling email retorts or a rambling, incoherent voice-mail response and not much more).

In short, Nick Coleman is a blogger.

Read his collected output (assuming you can find it anywhere). Nick Coleman's column is a print blog, combining everything a fair-to-poor blogger brings to the table - caustic, ranting, cursorily fact-checked opinion - with feedback mechanisms so rudimentary they'd embarass even a lousy blogger.

The difference? If Coleman were a blogger with a circulation of 300,000 daily visitors who wrote something like this...:

If Extreme bloggers, who know nothing that happened before last Tuesday, had the same commitment to serving the public, I wouldn't have a problem. But like talk radio, they are dominated by the right and are only interested in being a megaphone without oversight, disclosure of conflicts of interest, or professional standards.

...there would be an avalanche of people pointing out that:

• The Powerguys' names and think-tank affiliations are clearly stated on the site, unlike Coleman's.
• Their political affiliation is not a matter of coy guesswork, unlike (in theory) Coleman's; the reader knows it up-front and can gauge her reactions to their writing accordingly.

Back to Coleman:

Time magazine's "Blog of the Year" is not run by Boy Scouts. It is the spear of a campaign aimed at making Minnesota into a state most of us won't recognize. Unless you came from Alabama with a keyboard on your knee.

A real journalist, at this point, would show evidence that there is a "campaign" to deface Minnesota. We've already caught Coleman slandering Alabama, although since Coleman's blog appears in a newspaper, not many Strib readers heard about it.

So yes; Coleman is a blogger in all but physical medium. Not a good one...:

But enough. It's time for auld acquaintance to be forgot. So as a gift to Powerline, let me try my hand at some blogger-style "fact-checking."

1) "It's totally unexpected," Johnson, the banker, told the newspaper after Powerline won "Blog of the Year."

But the Aw Shucks Act doesn't fly. Powerline campaigned shamelessly for awards, winning an online "Best Blog of 2004" a week before the Time honor. That online award was a bloggers' poll, and Powerline linked its readers to the award site 10 times during the balloting, shilling for votes.

Actual fact-checking would have shown that not only was the Wizbang Awards a pretty tongue-in-cheek honor, for which everyone shilled their readers for votes, but that - this is important - it was unconnected with the Time award.

2) "We keep it very much separate from our day jobs," said Hinderaker, meaning the boys don't blog at work.

But they do. Johnson recently had time at his bank job to post a despicable item sliming Sen. Mark Dayton. If I had the money they think I do, I'd put it all in TCF. Then I'd pull it out.

Were Coleman in any way accountable to fact, he'd have it pointed out to him that:

• Hinderaker was referring to the actual conduct of their professional lives, not the hours that Coleman thinks the Powerguys are punched in down at the office
• A rudimentary blogger (to say nothing of a competent journalist) would know that Hinderaker, as a successful lawyer, and Johnson, a bank vice president, probably earn their keep with their employers. And since Coleman himself is enough of a reporter to note that Johnson works for former GOP poobah Bill Cooper, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that Johnson's blogging is probably pretty safe.

Back to Coleman.

3) Powerline sells thousands of dollars in ads, including one for T-shirts that say, "Hung Like a Republican."

But does Powerline or its mighty righty allies take money from political parties, campaigns or well-heeled benefactors who hope to affect Minnesota's politics from behind the scenes? We don't know, and they don't have to say.

But a real journalist would find out before leaving the allegation hanging out there.

John Hindreaker notes:

It's been a long time since I went to law school, but I think there is a technical term for journalists who make charges that they know to be untrue.

John's right.

The term is "really bad blogger".

Another Endorsement

Bin Laden endorses the violence in Iraq by way of derailing the election:

In an audiotape broadcast Monday by Al-Jazeera satellite television, a man purported to be Osama bin Laden endorsed Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and called for a boycott of next month's elections there.

The new tape, together with one that appeared online earlier this month, continues a new political slant adopted by the al-Qaida leader, whose past proclamations have been more a call to arms than a promotion of a cause. They appear to back up recent suggestions by Middle East experts that bin Laden may be trying to become more of a political leader than a terrorist.

And, more importantly, confirms that the wave of violence sweeping Iraq today is intended to derail the vote.

An Al-Jazeera announcer said the speaker on the tape also called for attacking pipelines, planting mines and killing people who work for the occupation forces.

Further proof that the Western idiots who are heckling the election process are, indeed, on the terrorists' side.

Yglesias: All You Need Is Clairvoyance

Matt Yglesias has been, with a few exceptions, a generally-intelligent leftyblogger. However, he provides further proof of Berg's Axiom: Liberals should be required to pass a test before commenting on defense, the military or foreign policy.

He wrote last week about an article in the Foreign Policy Research Institute by Marc Sargeman.

Says Sargeman in his article (italicized for comparison with Yglesias)

Indeed, there are not that many terrorists in America. There have never been any sleeper cells. All the terrorists are fairly obvious. The FBI cases we see in the press tend to unravel. The Detroit group has been exonerated, and the prosecutor is now being prosecuted for malfeasance on the planted evidence. He allegedly knew exculpatory facts that he did not present to the defense. The only sleeper America has ever had in a century was Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel, who was arrested in the late 1950s and exchanged for Gary Powers, the U2 pilot. Eastern European countries did send sleepers to this country, men fully trained who “go to sleep”—lead normal lives—and then are activated to become fully operational. But they all became Americans.

Sargeman is correct, as far as we know - and as re: Eastern European sleepers, we know a lot since the fall of the wall.

But - and this is a serious question - couldn't the difference in motivations matter? Eastern European sleepers were sent here after being taught that ineluctable forces of history were rendering the West obsolete; they could see with their own eyes that it wasn't true. Now a Moslem would be sent here after being indoctrinated in a much deeper-rooted ideology; one raised from birth in an ideology that believed in both the corruption of the West and the religious need to convert or kill them would find a lifetime of proof. Religion is a much more powerful motivator than Marxism's materialistic tropes.

It's a theory.

Sargeman continues:

In order to really sustain your motivation to do terrorism, you need the reinforcement of group dynamics. You need reinforcement from your family, your friends. This social movement was dependent on volunteers, and there are huge gaps worldwide on those volunteers. One of the gaps is the United States. This is one of two reasons we have not had a major terrorist operation in the United States since 9/11. The other is that we are far more vigilant. We have actually made coming to the U.S. far more difficult for potential terrorists since 2001.

And I'll allow that there might be something to this. But the problem with sleepers is that while you might know that you've found some of them, you don't know that you've found them all until either some external event allows you a look at the other side's files (as with the USSR, but as will likely never happen with the Islamofascists), or one of them comes out of hiding and does something nasty (or, possibly, defects).

Food for thought, to be sure. Now, on to Yglesias' conclusions, in which he refers to the Moslems' perceptions of "near" enemies (in the Middle East) and "Far" enemies (in the West):

It's worth keeping in mind as you read this that Sageman's study is limited to "the ones who actually targeted the 'far enemy,' the U.S., as opposed to their own governments." One of the problems, I think, with the "war on terrorism" frame is that it leads to undue emphasis on these people -- the small number fighting the "far enemy," i.e., terrorists -- to the exclusion of the larger number of people attracted to the Salafi movement who either lack the inclination or the capacity to hit the far enemy. On one level, it's natural for us to be primarily concerned with people trying to attack us. On another level, despite the horror of the Madrid train bombing or even 9/11 itself, the United States and Spain are both perfectly fine notwithstanding the loss of life and destruction of the infrastructure.

In 1939, the Germans had no capacity for long range strategic bombing; they never really developed one during the war. At the end of the war, they had both atomic bomb and long-range strategic missile programs; it was a matter of time and effort before they developed the ability to nuke New York (although exactly how much time and effort is a matter of historical theory and hypothesis, thankfully).

Are most terrorists focused on the "near" enemy? Probably, if only through proximity; if my ideology bade me to attack a non-Minnesotan, I'd probably start with Wisconsin before I dealt with Maryland, too.

The problem with this notion is that it doesnt' matter if only 1% of terrorists focus on us; if that 1% gets control of airliners or nuclear weapons or a car full of nail bombs at the Mall of America during Pokemon Festival, it doesn't matter that so few of them tried, only that one of them got through. Which is why we fight a "war on terrorism".

More importantly, had we let Islamofascists topple more governments and get more governments and safe areas under their control - as they vanquished or co-opted the "near enemy" - they would have had the funding and breathing room to focus more on the "far enemy". It's a basic tenet of military history; when in a war of any type, it's better to seize and hold the initiative, because if you don't, a smart enemy surely will.

And with that initiative, they would pick the time and place where the war will be fought.

Again - if we don't take the lead in the war on terror, they will.

Blog Flogging

Note to all my my Russian Orthodox friends; fell free to send your friends advance orders o Blog, Hugh Hewitt's doubtlessly-essential book on the phenomenon we're all marinating in.

I'm going to have to pre-order a copy myself...

Fresh?

This past week is, by a long shot, the longest break I've taken from blogging in the nearly three years I've been doing "Shot In The Dark".

Wow. I can see why Sullivan takes those biennial months off.

I'm writing from a place that was, from ages 5-18, my second home; the Alfred Dickey Library in Jamestown, ND. They finally added an internet terminal (read: one), which is where I'm at today.

Otherwise the library, which was built in the late 1800s, has changed hardly an iota since I was maxing out my library card in elementary school. Even most of the staff seems familiar; fiftyish women with permanent perms.

The only real change? There seem to be fewer books - whole shelves are gone, making the building a lot more roomy but a lot lower-content, it seems. Worse, the back room - once full of musty older books, including some historical treasure troves from the twenties through the forties - is mostly given over to modern fiction - read "best-sellers" - which is a turn for the worse.

Jamestown has changed a lot in the almost-twenty years since I left here; the town I grew up in seemed frozen in the forties and fifties, its glory days. Today, many - maybe most - of those old landmarks are going away. The junior high school - built in the twenties - is gone. The sixties-vintage senior high is now the "Middle School", and the city has a new High School, built up on "the hill..."

...which is how you can tell I'm a Jamestown native. Jamestown is mostly built in the valley of the James River, known as the world's longest unnavigable river; the older part of town is all in the valley - but the bluffs surrounding the town, which lead up to the level of the actual prairie, are inevitably called "hills"; Mill Hill on the south, Hospital Hill on the north, and so on. Growing up in and rarely leaving the valley, I was somewhere in my teens before I realized that neither of them were hills at all.

Anyway, most of the town's development since the seventies has been up on "the hill", and it's probably a telling event that the new high school - a relatively huge concrete neo-stalinist concrete building that at first sight looks like a NORAD control bunker - is built on "the hill" by the airport. In the eighties, the commercial center of town moved to "the south hill", with the Buffalo Mall (the town's first successful mall), then K-Mart and finally WalMart. Now, the town's emotional center moves to "the north hill", with the high school joining Jamestown College (my alma mater, natch) in looking over the town below.

So things are a little slower downtown than even the bucolic pace I grew up with, although Main Street hasn't completely dried up and blown away; three years ago, at my 20th reunion, many of us who'd left after high school were amazed at how much life there actually was here compared to the near-desert we remembered from the dismal eighties.

It's been strange coming back here, for the first time in a couple of years. This fall it'll be 20 years since I left. I'm past the throat-clutching terror I used to feel at the thought of spending the rest of my life here; I'm not past not only remembering the reasons I fled here after college, but seeing those reasons right in front of me as I drive or walk around the town.

There's another post or two coming on this subject, natch. But I'm off to take the kids sledding. Gotta try to wear them down a bit, before we head off on the six-hour drive back to the Cities.

More later. Expect a return to regular blogging tomorrow.

And a zillion thanks to Steve Gigl for filling in - it's been fun reading!

Surprise, Surprise

The media is reacting to the current fighting in Fallujah like...well, like they react to all combat; as if the sky is falling.

We took their base; what did the "analysts" in the major media expect? That the terrorists would quietly cry "uncle" and go home?

More later.

Merry Christmas

(Guest post by Steve Gigl.)

I'd try to say something profound and moving, but that's simply not what I'm good at. Instead, I'll just link you to an excellent entry by the other Steve G.:

Merry Christmas! Happy Chanukkah! Seasons greetings, if you're an atheist. May our next holiday season see the same prosperity and domestic peace to which we have become so accustomed.

I'll add one more thing, for people who are spending Christmas alone, or who feel that lately, Christmas hasn't been measuring up the Christmases of their youths...

...My aunt and my grandfather died in 1994. I lost an uncle in 1995. My mother went in 1997, and I lost my grandmother last year. I'm estranged from my sister. We don't go to Kentucky any more for the holidays. We don't have Christmas turkey at my grandmother's house, around the old familiar dining table. It's easy to feel as though Christmas--the joy of a real family Christmas--is lost to me forever.

But it isn't. And tomorrow, you could meet someone or make a friend and change your life forever. This time next year, you could be among people you don't even know yet, having the time of your life. Look at me.

So don't give up hope. You never know when life is going to turn around and make a waste of the effort you've put into pessimism.

Merry Christmas, and safe travels!

Bigger shares of a shrinking market

(Guest post by Steve Gigl)

In other news, I see that Fox 9 (KMSP)'s ratings are getting some news. I've preferred their newscast to most of the others, but I was disappointed in the last couple of weeks with the way they've turned towards the breathless, "you're going to die if you don't tune in after the commercial break!" delivery and writing, the same style that has turned me away from both WCCO and KSTP. Here's hoping they settle back down soon.

The best news about the news?

November was mourned by local TV executives because of the sharp drop-offs in overall viewers for most late-night news programs, which produced lower ratings overall. They consoled themselves by looking instead at the percentage of viewers -- the share -- watching their shows.

People are still turning away from TV news. How's that for a blogger's Christmas present?

And that's probably all I'll have to offer today, other than to wish everyone a warm, safe, and Merry Christmas!

Trying not to gloat

(Guest post by Steve Gigl)

Greetings from another neighboring state, where it's quite cold -- I think it got to a balmy 0 degrees this afternoon. Unlike Mitch, I hate the extreme cold, so I console myself by noting that there's about 6" of snow here in Green Bay. In other words, we've at least got the correct visual effects for the holiday.

The main topic of conversation here can hardly come as a surprise. All in all, the parts of the game I didn't sleep through (hey, we're on vacation, I've had a whole 10 hours of sleep in 2 nights, and all I missed was Favre's interception...) were played about as expected: almost no defense, competent offense. The only surprise was just how calm and together the Packer offense looked during those last two drives.

Oh, and Saint Paul: "The Mad Pooper" played a moderately decent game, didn't he? Just thought I'd mention it...

Greetings from the Deep Frreeze

Mitch here. I'm writing from my Dad's basement. In my underwear. Laura Billings was right!

I'm in Jamestown, North Dakota right now, and crikey, it's cold out there. And dang, it feels good. As much as Minnesotans carp and cavil about the weather, the winters in Minnesota are really kinda wussy compared to up here. It may be the biggest thing I miss about North Dakota.

I have also been almost completely cut off from the news this last few days. The major issues of concern when I return to regular blogging next week:

1. The high price of dog kenneling
2. Minnesotans' abysmal winter driving habits
3. Hey, why hasn't the media been reporting the drop in gas prices?

A million thanks to Steve Gigl for keeping this blog from going completely fallow. I have to confess that after the mental meatgrinder of the election, having a few days off is really incredibly nice.

Anyway - Merry Christmas to you all!

Spoiled by self-esteem?

(Guest post by Steve Gigl)

Just out of curiousity (and prompted by this entry at SCSU Scholars): is there an easily determined starting date for the nationwide emphasis on self-esteem in education? A few Google searches suggest that it became popular in the 1980s, which might suggest that I am a "victim of self-esteem."

I have a couple of questions about all this, but first some personal history...

I did well in school, from grade school all the way through most of college (just one rough spot in undergrad and one in grad school so far). That's not boasting, because as most adults know, success in school doesn't translate to success after graduation.

As it turns out, my performance up through the first couple of years of college wasn't the result of hard work (although I wasn't a complete slacker), nor was it a result of built-in understanding or genius. The real hard work came later, when I realized that there were some basic math and science skills that I didn't have; while I passed the courses in which those skills were introduced, I never really learned the subject matter well enough to apply it to other situations.

Plus, in the first couple of years of college, I realized that I didn't know, er, anything compared to many people around me. Meeting people smarter than me was nothing new, but I eventually realized that I also didn't know how to learn some of that stuff, and I certainly didn't have the work ethic to drill myself on physics and calculus problems the way I should have. Still, even though college was less forgiving, I was helped mightily by the grading curves and got by with decent grades.

I had one class as an undergrad in which the professor, the notorious Dr. Peria, didn't let people slide by. I damn near failed the class, and ended up retaking it because a) I was stubborn and actually interested in the material, and b) I could erase the original D from my GPA if I did better. As you would hope, I learned a lot more the second time around and earned a much better grade. So I probably owe what little studying ability I have to Prof. Peria, the ornery old coot, but even at 28 I'm still "learning how to learn" complex concepts.

Well, all that blather was to set up two questions: 1) Is it likely that I am a recovering "victim" of self-esteem-based education, spoiled by earning praise and good grades even though I wasn't learning some of the basics? 2) Does anyone else out there in my age group (late 20s) suspect the same thing of their education?

No, I'm not looking for victim status; that's why I couldn't resist putting scare quotes around "victim" when I used it. I am merely wondering whether I might be a case study of self-esteem-emphasis in education, while freely admitting that I might just be a whiner who was slow to adapt and put his nose to the grindstone.

Shut up shuttin' up!

(Guest post by Steve Gigl)

Scott McGerik, possibly in response to this Strib editorial (or the recent discussion over the FAA considering allowing cell phone use on airplanes), explains why people might be overstating a perceived lack of mobile phone etiquette in our society today. His basic rule of thumb, which makes a lot of sense to me, is this:

My thought is that if a face-to-face conversation is socially permissible in a given situation or location, a technology-mediated conversation is also permitted.

I heard a different tune this week from Dennis Prager, who openly stated that he would engage in civil disobedience against anyone next to him on a plane that used a cell phone.

My own opinion lies somewhere in between those two, as illustrated by considering a couple of Scott's points:

A frequent complaint is that people talking on mobile phones are loud. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not.

But they often are. My experience is that some people are loud on cellphones, and others aren't. And I suspect from my own cell phone use that it might have as much to do with the phone as it does with the person. Some phones -- and I suspect the shorter, non-flip phones like mine are a large portion of them -- simply do not return the feedback of the speaker's voice to the ear the way we expect them to. Since we don't hear our voice through the speaker, we ramp up the volume until we do (at which point we are SPEAKING QUITE LOUDLY).

As such, I think that a lot of people raise their volume when they talk on cellphones. And loud-talkers on cell phones seem more prevalent than, er, "free-range" loud-talkers, which is why so many people (including me on occasion) complain about loud mobile phone conversations.

I'm with Scott in that I don't buy the complaint that it's "confusing or distracting" to hear half of a conversation. Us office-dwellers hear that all the time, and it's fairly easily tuned out. The same is true about ringing cell phones in the office; the other phones ring more often and are usually louder. The cutesy ring tones can get irritating after a while, but that's a matter of taste more than anything.

Another of Scott's points:

At a restaurant, I figure that ringing cell phones are generally acceptable assuming that the people at the table are accepting of them.

I'd say it depends on the restaurant. If the restaurant is a nice quiet one and you wouldn't raise your voice or laugh uproariously without attracting unwelcome attention, then I would say the cellphones should be just as quiet regardless of what the people at your table think.

Scott goes on to suggest that a movie theater is not a good place for a mobile phone conversation, something with which many people (but obviously not enough, or we wouldn't have anything to complain about) would agree.

Some have opined that because mobile phones are so new, users have not learned proper etiquette. I assume the opposite, namely, that others have not learned to tune out mobile phone-mediated conversations and other mobile phone related distractions.

I'm of the opinion that both are true. There are clearly some people who don't bother to think about what their loud conversation is revealing about themselves, let alone how they are impacting those around them. And there are others -- and I would include myself on this one -- who still aren't used to having people talking on the phone in certain situations.

Either way, the first cellphone company to include subvocal microphones as an accessory is probably going to win a Nobel Prize (the Peace prize, for keeping people like the anonymous Strib editorialist from committing cellphone rage).

Not really hockey blogging (yet)

Apparently, Mitch is a masochist, because he's invited me to pollute his blog while he's otherwise indisposed for the next few days (don't worry, he'll still be posting occasionally). For those 99.99% of you who haven't heard of me, I'm Steve, and I blog (semi-regularly, according to Doug) at Helloooo, Chapter Two.

It's been suggested that I should cover hockey nonstop, just to irritate Mitch. And with Gopher hockey that would normally be easy for me, but tonight My Lovely Wive (MLW) and I were headless-chickening all over town trying to find a particular Christmas gift. (OK, to be fair, we only had to go to Maple Grove and then Albertville, but for us that's a busy night.) Since then we've been cleaning house and wrapping presents while listening to Christmas music, and therefore completely missed the Gophers slaughtering powerhouse Merrimack 6-2.

The really sad part? MLW's little brother is in the hockey band and was planning to drop by after the game tonight, and we still didn't think to check the game out on TV. Oh well. Anyway, they play Northern Michigan tomorrow at 8 in the Dodge Holiday Classic finals.

And that's the kind of exciting, insightful commentary you can expect from me (well, at 12:10 AM at least). Join me tomorrow later today as I discuss the relative merits of paper vs. plastic at the grocery store!

Guest Blogger

While my posting will be very light through at least Monday, the blog will hopefully not be completely fallow.

Steve Gigl from Helloooooo, Chapter Two will be filling in as able.

It should be a cool weekend all around!

Into The Freeze

I'm off for a four-to-five-day trip to see my parents in North Dakota. Posting will be light, to say the least - you may not see much of me until Tuesday or so.

"But Mitch, whenever you say that, you end up posting more than usual". Perhaps, under normal circumstances, that happens. But this is not normal; my parents still use dial-up, and I don't know anywhere in either of their cities (Mom got the western half of North Dakota in the divorce, and Dad got the eastern half) with wi-fi.

So, as usual, barring any problems, I'll see you early next week.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Slammin' Solstice, Rockin' Ramadan, Kwazy Kwanzaa, or a Whoppin' Whatever You Celebrate to each and every one of you!

The Point and its Missing

Flash from Centrisity took a whack at the Northern Alliance's and Craig Westover's criticisms of Nick Coleman's Maxfield columns yesterday.

Flash says:

There are no fewer then a half dozen members of the Right Wing Axis and their surrogates bashing away at this issue, and only one who is making any reasonable attempt to focus on the kids, albeit his goal is still the same as the rest.

Now, Flash, this is just plain absurd. I'm every bit as "focused on the kids" as you are - I have as many kids in the Saint Paul schools as you do, and you know it.

But Nick Coleman's article wasn't "Focused on the kids" in the first place; it was focused on trying to drum up illiterate, unfocused hysteria over school funding. It was saying "if you're critical of the way the way the school district spends money (lots of it) and teaches your children (spotty), you're a rancid bastard. Just shut up and pay what you're told to".

As Craig Westover correctly pointed out, we need to distinguish between Public Education as an ideal and as an institution. The ideal - having a population that is educated enough to sustain a democracy - is something everyone supports.

The institution? That's another thing. I've been writing about the issue for years, of course, from my own odd perspective (I'm a conservative; my father taught high school English for nearly forty years; I didnt' come to this issue as a reflexive critic, although my experience with the SPPS in the past few years has made me much more critical of way the SPPS' system works). And after all that, I really just have more questions:

• Why are we spending nearly 50% per student more than North Dakota spends, and getting the same test scores (note: I think test scores are a fairly worthless means of measuring accomplishment, but they're all we have).
• If you answered "But North Dakota doesn't have the same problems that urban Minnesota schools have" - you're partially right. Now - why does Minnesota have those urban problems? What philosophy led us to the point where urban schools have to deal with all the problems, while suburban schools have to build additions to hold all their money?
• In a system that spends $11,000 a year on students, why do classrooms do without books, copier paper, programs that actually reach students (music, art, athletics) and impact the students and public, while the administration relentlessly expands? Cynics would say that it's because the district and its (DFL-dominated) board are passive-aggressively passing the pain for any "budget cuts" on to the parts of the system the public sees most immediately, th parts that affect the children as opposed to the Administraton of the Minnesota Federation of Teachers. Cynics say that. On that account, I've become one of them.

More after the holiday.

Incoming

Training for Eternity is a blog by a chaplain currently serving in Iraq.

His post today, on the attack in Mosul that claimed 19 lives today, is an essential.

Read it. Absorb it. The vultures will soon be trying to exploit this bloody, tragic, but - this is important - militarily pointless attack for their political gain.

Let Them Eat Sheepskin

I have a number of friends who went to Ivy League schoolsFrom an early age, they knew to play up to their teachers; they knew in the third grade that those little "A" and "B" tokens on their report cards were what really mattered in life.

And I periodically get into discussions about education, including my belief that too much of American secondary education is focused on the "college track". In American high schools, it's the college-bound kids that are considered the success stories. And in many cases, they are - which has the unfortunate effect of creating huge meta-clicque, with the establishment favoring the kids who are pursuing the college path (which, indeed, was the path chosen by most of their teachers, most of whom will have to maintain the motivation to get a Masters degree during their careers.

"So what about the kid who has a genius for working with his hands? The kid who doesn't care, for the moment, about polishing the teacher's apple, but loves tearing down engines or building things? The kid who has a talent for taking care of people, doing daycare, cooking great food - things that are noble, useful, needed skills that demand people with drive and passion, but don't require a college degree? Why should we look at at their not joining the paper chase as a "failure"?

My Ivy Leaguer friends look at me with the look a steer gets when you whack it on the noggin. "But if you don't drive them toward college, you're in effect discriminating against them". Er, no, you're just not setting up the college path as the best path there is. That's it.

They look at me like I'm wearing a pointy hood.

Matt Yglesias - a Hahvahd guy - riffs on a David Adesnik post on the subject.

The piece, called,
College For Everyone, starts:

David Adesnik asks an interesting question -- what if we did something good and liberal and made obtaining a college degree near-universal? By and large, I think this would be an excellent thing for many of the reasons David cites. This would have a dynamic effect on the sort of jobs that exist in America and allow a larger proportion of the population to have better jobs. Still, it's worth noting that there are certain sorts of non-tradable unskilled jobs that would have to get done anyway. You can't outsource janitors or construction workers or landscaping, etc. Now in the context of a workforce that was, on the whole, extremely well-educated and productive these jobs might just become higher paying.

The problem being that if you jam someone who's primarily a "doer" rather than a "thinker" or, as often as not, a "paperwork and process maven", and jam them into college, they are not going to be especially well-educated or productive - any more than if you put Matthew Yglesias, Hahvahd graduate, into chef school and told him that no other path through life was of as much value.

Yglesias:

On the other hand, you might have a replay of the European situation where rising productivity (and a robust welfare state) made it hard to find people willing to do these jobs for the customary low wages, and instead of paying higher wages the governments chose to simply import unskilled labor.

Yglesias exhibits a conceit that he shared with my other Ivy-league friends; the idea that all jobs you don't get into from the college track are all basically the same.

And we all know college graduates in Psychology or less-vital Humanities who are working at Blockbuster, and who ten years after college are busy selling shoes; you might not know the people who went to work, or to vocational school and are making more money than the bottom 40% of lawyers, working as airline mechanics - or the ones who earn perfectly fine, sometimes excellent, livings as LPNs, daycare providers, carpenters, chefs, mechanics and a zillion other things that can't, and won't, be shipped overseas anytime soon.

That would be okay, too, from my perspective. It's often not realized, but allowing immigrants into the developed world to work for what are low waged by developed standards but high ones by developing world standards is one of the more effective ways to ameliorate global poverty. But if immigration to the US were to rise substantially in this way, there might be increasing pressure to do what Europe did and turn the immigrants into a helot class of "guest workers" rather than full-fledged citizens-to-be. That, in turn, could have many of the bad consequences we've seen from Europe's illiberal immigration regime.

Right. Which means the "Educated" class in this country needs to learn that "Lack of a degree" means neither "uneducated" nor "Helpless in today's economy".

The other thing to note about education, of course, is that while upgrading the workforce does excellent things to improve the economic outlook for future people it does almost nothing -- indeed, can in some ways be harmful -- to current adults. When Bush answersed outsourcing questions during the debates with reference to the need for better education, he was sketching an appropriate policy response for the long term, but being completely insensitive to the problems these dislocations cause for people who face economic distress right now. To some extent, there's less you can do for currently-existing people than for hypothetical future-people, but that's not an appropriate excuse for doing nothing.

But is college better than nothing? Certainly if you're wired that way, and if your passions and interests and curiousity drive you toward the academic life (to the extent that college is, in most places, still academic), but that accounts for about half the popularion.

We need to:

1. De-stigmatize vocational education, apprenticeship, and on-the-job training for non-academic-track careers in the eyes of the educational establishment
2. Encourage more of our society to seek further development of everything that makes them a person - their minds, their skills, and whatever it is that drives them and, incidentally, puts food on the table and pays the rent.
3. Make primary and secondary education better; there's no reason that people shouldn't know what they need to be good, productive citizens, whatever their vocational choice, well before they graduate from high school.

College is a fine thing; I graduated from one. Are my friends who went through vo-ed and now work as plumbers and policemen any less important than the Harvard poli-sci grad? To say the least, no.

More kids need to know that.

Day-Brightener

No matter how bad your day is, someone's got it worse.

UPDATE: Although not as bad as it is for people who post these things without checking Snopes first: the final photo in the series is apparently doctored.

I feel like Dan Rather.

Taking a Break from Cleaning

Not enough to write about anything substantial, of course...

But I figured I'd direct you over to Sheila, who is on one of her tears again.

This time it's Sidney Lumet; probably 2,300 posts on the subject in the last five days or so.

I wonder - when Red goes bowling, does she roll 22 balls in eight lanes simultaneously? Just curious.

Back to cleaning.

Cough Cough

I'm in the throes of a major pre-trip housecleaning now. Posting will be light until later today.

It's truly been one of those weeks where I wish this was a group blog.

What To Write About

Joe Gandelman, sitting in for Dean Esmay, wrote a piece the other day that I've been thinking a lot about lately.

The past six weeks, since the election, have seen a lot of blogs and bloggers taking a deep breath and going "well...what now?"

I know that now many blogs find their hits diminishing as compared with election week highs. record blog readerships overall, and then a drop afterwards (people burned out by reading political commentary or just needing a break from the election). But the general trend for a good number of blogs (such as Dean's World and my own The Moderate Voice, which seems to be enjoying moderate steady readership with an increasingly loyal group of readers from both parties) remains steady overall growth.

Very true. On Shot In The Dark, traffic is down about a third from its October, pre-election rates - but still way ahead of the summe, and slowly growing again. Put another way - if you'd told me last April that I'd be whining about getting 1,800 visitors a day, I'd have thought you were crazy.

But not everyone's seen it that way:

What's amazing as we head into this post-election era is the number of blogs that have simply been abandoned. I have an extensive blogroll on my blog which I personally use all the time. I have had to remove at least four blogs in recent weeks because they were still dated early November. And this week I'll go through the whole blogroll and remove some more. It's a pity because these people had SOMETHING TO SAY that probably could be said after the election, too — and I'm talking about people in the right and on the left, not just one ideology.

Indeed, there had been a phrase before the election about blogs "likely to be around after the election" and I used to dismiss it, figuring people wouldn't let the end of the election end their ability to use this incredible new communication form which allows people to write without an editor's intervention or a corporate publisher's forum. But I was wrong.

Call me more cynical than Joe - it's reasonable - but I figured we'd see a big shakeout. The last six months before the election felt, in some ways, like working in the dotcom world in 1998; everyone wanted to be there; not everyone knew why they wanted to be there, but they could sense something going on, and they wanted a piece of it - whatever "it" was.

"It" was only partly the election, I think. In some ways, being among other bloggers in the weeks before the election felt like wandering the streets of downtown Minneapolis the nights the Twins won the '87 and '91 World Series. We were hordes of strangers, united by a common passion, and for a moment everyone was everyone's best friend. We bought rounds for people we'd never seen; we hugged women we'd never have approached a day earlier or a day later, and they hugged back rather than calling the cops.

Blogger get-togethers weren't quite that effusive - but the underlying feeling was there. And now comes the feeling we got in November of '87 and November of '91 - when the snow falls, the confetti's swept up, and life resumes its regular mundanity.

Or does it? Gandelman:

What does it mean in the post-election world? Well, with more than a million weblogs, it means that each person has to make their own decision about what they want to write about what other want to read. This likely means more diverse subjects...which is not a bad idea. The polarized, partisan nature of the blogosphere probably won't change, although it will be muted somewhat until major battles emerge (and return full force during mid-term elections).

I don't know.

This is just a breathing spell, I think, just like the little mini-doldrum after the '02 election (which few people noticed, because they were either in the first rush of excitement over starting their blogs, or hadn't heard of them yet).

But things will pick up. We have an unending - indeed, possibly a brewing - war in the local media, with the PiPress maybe breaking out of the liberal ghetto and getting some intellectual cojones, with a lot of bloggers emboldened by the example of Powerline and some of our other local blogs out sniffing at the heels of big media, big education, big business for their own "Rathergate", and, for all I know, dozens of people trying to write cross-gender literature experiments/softcore porn blogs to see if they can out-do Layne. And of course, we're going to have an amazing political season in '06, and it's going to start a lot sooner than you think.

Things are going to get more interesting; if you're one of the horde of new bloggers that's come up in the past year or so, the key is to just keep writing. It becomes its own reward after a while, even if you never land that first Instalanche, and the better you get, the more likely that 'lanche is going to be.

So hang in there.

Just Go Away

I live in Saint Paul. I have two kids who attend Saint Paul schools - one in elementary school, and on in Junior High. I'm up to my ears in Saint Paul schools - their strengths, their weaknesses, the whole works - every single school day. There is nothing - nothing - that Nick Coleman at his scoldiest can tell me about the Saint Paul public schools today.

Brian "Saint Paul" Ward, ironcally, also lives in Saint Paul. He does not have kids, in the Saint Paul school district or anywhere else. Whichs is probably why he had the time to write the post that I wanted to write, basically, on Coleman's latest installment of the series.

One of a till full of money quotes:

Back to the predictions, last week we said Coleman would engage in:

Clintonian parsing of language. He'll try to make us believe there is a difference between "textbooks" and "books in classrooms." Any readers who made the mistake of confusing the two will be blamed for their own ineptitude. Then he'll question the secret, evil motivations behind anyone who could possibly make the mistake of misreading a Nick Coleman column.

Coleman, in his charming way, did just that:

Deliberate idiocy is a terrible thing. When I wrote about a book shortage at Maxfield Elementary School in St. Paul Nov. 14, I made it clear that the books that were in short supply were reading books -- books needed to boost the literacy levels of kids who attend the school.

Sadly, "literacy" turns out to be a hard word for public school bashers to understand. Literacy means an ability to read and comprehend. But the professional bashers of public school education seem to have poor reading comprehension. Either that, or they are mean as snakes. I'm leaning toward snakes.

Fans of strict verification can review Coleman's columns from
Nov. 14 and Dec. 5 to see if there is any distinction made in types of books or a specific mention of "reading books." (Trusting souls and the lazy/casually disinterested can take my word for it, there isn't). And even if there were such references (and there aint!), the distinction is meaningless. What other kinds of books are there in schools, besides "reading books"? Did Coleman think we were referring to "bunion massaging books" or "books used to serve lunch on"?

Craig Westover - whom Coleman nicknames "Captain Fishsticks" in a display of the rhetorical aplomb that has earned him his nickname, "The Furious Monotone" - also responds.

Doug from Bogus Gold takes a different tack:

Obviously most people will focus on Coleman's continuing attempt to portray his previous columns about the Maxfield Elementary School in St. Paul as something other than the misleading hucksterism they actually were. I'll leave the straightening of that issue to people like Craig Westover, Swiftee, and Coleman-mocker supreme, Saint Paul of Fraters Libertas; all of whom are far better equipped than I to comment on the specifics of Nick's educational bufoonery.

However, this being Sunday, I'd like to focus on our holier-than-thou columnist's subtle reference to the Holy Gospel. Though I may disagree with Nick on matters of education (therefore, I be a pirate, me hearties!) , I surely cannot disagree with the real-life parable Nick was kind enough to offer as perhaps a kind of olive branch to his (swashbuckling) opponents.

He goes on to do just that - read his piece.

Swiftee gives Coleman's piece the kind of wondrous fisking that many of us old-timers - Saint, Ed, Trunk and I - are just getting too burned out on Coleman Fatigue to do any more; it's good to see some of the young 'uns stepping into the gap.

In fact, if you flip around a lot of the better local blogs, you'll find a phalanx of local bloggers, "fact-checking Coleman's ass", exposing for all who are willing to see the biased, shrill, joke that Nick Coleman has become.

What have I to add, after all that?

Let's jump back a bit. As I mentioned earlier, I have kids in the Saint Paul schools. As I've said a time or two, my daughter actually attended Maxfield. I have spent more time at Maxfield school than Nick Coleman ever will.

The last paragraph of his column brought up two questions:

But where is Fishsticks and his crew? I asked Wiley. Why aren't all your critics here? She laughed wearily.

"Because this is something positive," she said. "If there was a shooting around here, they'd all show up. They're making a crusade against us. I wish they'd just leave us alone."

First: I asked Coleman and Wiley to comment on the story. Wiley never returned my call. Coleman attached a bunch of absurd conditions on his response; half of them just plain nonsense, half of them the sort of thing that anyone calling himself a "journalist" would know is a really, really dumb joke. He had no intention of actually meeting the public, much less his critics - he can only exist in an environment where he has complete control, his column. And that's fine - I really don't want to talk with Nick Coleman; that voice would have made me tune out, even it the studio. But the truth is, "their critics" - the proper word is "customers" and "taxpayers" - were indeed there, and we wanted a conversation. Emphasis on the past tense.

Second: Wiley's comment was downright strange; does she really wish we'd "leave them alone?" Conservatives and Republicans have been leaving the inner cities, sick of the hectoring, nagging urban establishment that has one hand ever-deeping in your wallet, while the other slaps you and calls you ugly names, in droves. It's not just bitter little trolls like Nick Coleman - who is becoming the print equivalent of Howard Stern, needing to piss people off more and more to get anyone to notice him. No, it's the institutions, including Education Minnesota itself, which not only leans left (no big news there) but whose members have been bringing a more combative, overt sense of political and social indoctrination into the classroom.

So does Principal Zelma Wiley really want us to just go away? That's part of her school's problem in the first place.

The Old Fashioned Way

No problem here:

Rep. Maxine Waters (news, bio, voting record)' family members earned more than $1 million in the last eight years doing business with candidates, companies and causes she helped, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Waters' daughter and son pocketed fees from campaigns endorsed by the congresswoman while her husband worked for a bond underwriting firm that received government business from her political allies, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Waters, an influential Democratic lawmaker since 1990, whose district includes parts of Los Angeles, would not answer detailed questions on the business dealings, insisting her family's fortunes were kept apart from her political activities.

"They do their business and I do mine," said Waters, 66. "We are not bad people."

No worse than the Annans, really, when you get right down to it.

Blog of the Year

Time Magazine has named Powerline "Blog of the Year".

Congrats, guys!

Although keeping you humble shouldn't be a problem with this...:

...hitting the stands tomorrow.

Congrats, gents! It'll be fun NARN show on 1/1.

(At least tell me you got in a plug for the show? Guys?)

We Are The Fools

Ed Driscoll looks back at Live Aid, on the occasion of the release of the four-CD retrospective set:

DURING THE SHOW, The Who performed their '70s anthem, "We Won't Get Fooled Again." The Boomer and MTV generations frequently forget how often they get fooled again.

While Live Aid was spectacular television, it was just another in a series of Big Events from people who believed that throwing money at a problem eventually solves it. Eerily, it forecast how the left would interact with Iraq: Substitute Mengistu for Saddam Hussein and it's amazing how all the rest of the players stay the same--the BBC, the United Nations, and celebrities who believe that despots can be reasoned with to do the right thing. We won't get fooled again? Of course you will.

RTWT.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Canadian blogger Ken Finney of Cerdipity has drawn some fun cartoons of the Powerguys and Captain Ed this week.

He has a lot of good stuff, actually - I love the Roger Simon bit. Check it out.

Anatomy of a Booking

The big news in the Northern Alliance this past week is Nick Coleman's reporting on a shortage of books - textbooks? - at a school in Saint Paul, as well as his "The Schools Are Burning!" jeremiad, and the Pioneer Press' Craig Westover's questions about the facts in the Coleman piece.

Now, today I may be merely a guy who writes withering social commentary in my underwear. But there was a time when I used to produce news and talk radio. And a vestigial voice in the back of my head said "let's get everyone in the same room". So I contacted all the principals, as it were, of the story: Westover, school principal Zelma Wiley, and of course Nick Coleman.

Last Sunday, I tried to book Nick Coleman to appear on the Northern Alliance show this weekend, to help kick off a discussion on schools, their funding, school choice, taxes, and so on.

Let's just say the discussion was interesting; curious phone messages, threats to slime me in his column ("I'd hate to have to write about how you cut and ran" being an excerpt) and much more.

I'm sitting on the story while I see where it goes - say, if I have to set any facts straight. But in lieu of an actual discussion on the Maxfield editorials (Ms. Wiley has also demurred on appearing), we'll be discussing the media exchange on this issue on the NARN show tomorrow.

Cutting and running. That's me.

That Horrible Bush Economy

The economy is the worst since the Great Depression.

Remember that?

Either do these guys:

Business leaders across Minnesota and the rest of the six-state Minneapolis Federal Reserve district are more optimistic about the economy for 2005 than they have been at any time since the Fed began surveying them in 1989.

And the upbeat attitude among executives spanned a wide spectrum of industries, from construction and manufacturing to retailing and software. None of the eight categories of businesses polled expects a down year.

"I was surprised it was so broad-based," said Toby Madden, the Minneapolis Fed's regional economist.

Although late word has it that John Hinderaker predicts a depression.

Oh, yeah - and all us newly-minted heartless Minnesota conservatives are letting our fellow man starve in the street, too:

For the fifth consecutive year, Minnesota has been ranked No. 1 in the United Way of America's "State of Caring Index."

They Can Be Taught

Democrat Brent Budowsky writes not to bury Reagan, but to praise him:

When historians reflect back one thousand years from now, the era from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan will be seen as a period of epic triumph in human history and these two giants will be seen as the Indispensable Americans, the twin pillars of the triumph of democracy over fascism, Communism, and totalitarianism of every kind.

It is true that, as a Democrat, I opposed many of Reagan’s policies, and would do so again today. It is also true that there were other giants on the world stage also worthy of humanity's high honors for their work in those days, especially Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev. And it is true that every American president from Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush made some singular contribution in the great continuum of American leaders.

But Reagan had a unique combination of extraordinary gifts and visions. He was the right man at the right place at the right time, and he was large enough to see the moment, seize it, and shape it. Whatever disagreements Democrats may have had pale in comparison to his achievements for human freedom and world peace.

One down. A few million to go.

A Worthwhile Experiment?

WCAL is dead and gone (barring an administrative coup d'etat with the FCC). The former Saint Olaf school station, in Northfield, MN, was easily the most interesting classical music station in the Twin Cities area; it exhibited a vastly greater sense of programming adventure than KSJN (99.5), MPR's music flagship in the Twin Cities.

Although I covered the purchase when it was first announced, and did my little bit to publicize the efforts to derail the sale, there wasn't really much to be done; it was a friendly sale from the beginning (Saint Olaf, curse their stodgy, stingy Scandinavian hides, wanted out of the radio business).

So I'll tip a glass (of free-range organic distilled yak milk) to the memory of WCAL, and hope that KSJN improves; they could stand to take a little walk on the wild side (in the classical-music sense of the term).

That - and my standing objection to the notion of government support for Minnesota Public Radio as an institution in the first place - set aside, though, I have to say - at first blush, I like what MPR wants to do with the signal:

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) told its staff Thursday that the new WCMP will present a diverse musical mix that targets "listeners who have grown up in the digital generation" -- read: younger ears -- with an emphasis on local artists.

Among local and national performers offered as examples: Mason Jennings, the Replacements, Olympic Hopefuls, the Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams, Joni Mitchell and U2. The station also will dip periodically into vintage material from the likes of Chet Baker, Johnny Cash and Ella Fitzgerald.

"Welcome to the anti-format," Steve Nelson, KCMP's new program director, said in a press release. "Music listeners don't categorize themselves into narrow niches and stay there. They listen to more kinds of music than ever before. And much of what they want is not currently available on radio in the Twin Cities."

In other words, a station that sounds like my MP3 player. Which is a good thing.

And as far as working at the station itself goes:

"Our staff will be hanging out in clubs, searching the Internet, reading music magazines and streaming music from around the globe to find the best music."

Wow. Sounds like a week at the NARN, only with money!

Speaking of Which...

...where in the Twi Cities does one get the "kick-ass Oaxacan tacos" referred to in the story below?

Just because an article is trite, exudes bitterness and bad character, and relies on the crudest, most propagandistic stereotyping doesn't mean we can't learn something...

Panthers in the Snow

Warning: Serious military history wonkery to follow. Disregard if necessary

As Trunk notes, today is the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.

People bloviating about the CIA's intelligence failures and lack of armored Humvees today should read up.

In December of 1944, most Americans believed that Hitler was on the brink of collapse; after a relatively slow, bloody advance across France (from the beaches to the German border in seven months), we thought Hitler was one good offensive away from caving in to the combined assaults from the east and west.

And yet Hitler managed to amass a huge force in the rugged Schnee Eiffel, and on the morning of December 16, launched his attack; the goal was to try to seize the port of Antwerp, in Belgium, and hopefully tip the war against the Western Allies. The weather cooperated; it was one of the worst winters of the 20th century in Europe, with overcast skies that grounded the air support that was, in fact, the Allied ground forces biggest weapon.

The attack caught the Americans completely by surprise. Despite the fact that Germany had attacked through the Ardennes in 1914 and 1940, Eisenhower didn't believe that the Germans could force an attack through the area; the the Schnee Eiffel were thinly manned by American units that were either exhausted (the Second Infantry Division had been mauled in the Hürten Forest) or very, very inexperienced (the 106th Infantry Division was composed mostly of men who were just out of basic training, and were woefully underprepared for combat). The initial barrage and the fury of the initial attack overwhelmed many Americans; two thirds of the 106th Infantry, 8,000 men, surrendered after being cut off, one of the biggest mass surrenders in American history.

The American front shattered like a pane of glass; but the shards of glass proceeded to inflict a thousand cuts on the German blitzkrieg. The stories of heroism, brutality, and American pluck are legion, some legendary, some forgotten:

1. Trunk refers to the epic stand of the 101st Airborne (and a brigade of the 10th Armored division) at Bastogne, where the paratroopers and tankers, surrounded by seven German divisions, held the crucial road junction for a crucial week while General Patton turned his Third Army around and moved it north; Division chief of staff Tony MacAuliffe's reply of "Nuts" to a German surrender demand is an American legend, and the second-best "last great act of defiance" in history [*]. The battle - immortalized in many movies, most memorably in 1949's Battleground with James Whitmore, and the miniseries Band of Brothers - is one of the most-famous in US history.
2. Perhaps a more miraculous story - a single understrength scout platoon of 18 men from the 394th Infantry Regiment/99th Infantry Division held a dug-in position near the Belgian village of Lanzerath, direct above a road that was slated to carry Kampfgruppe Peiper, the spearhead of the German 1st SS Panzer Division - the elite of the German elite - after being cleared by a regiment (2,000 men) from the German 3rd Airborne Division. The platoon - led by Lieutenant Lyle Bouck - held the German paratroopers off for a whole day, losing two dead, inflicting 500 casualties on the Germans, buying time for the rest of the 99th Infantry to reorganize for the key battle of Elsenborn Ridge - and delaying Kampfgruppe Peiper for a solid day, a day that threw his timetable off fatally. (Outraged by the upset to his timetable, Peiper's unit began shooting prisoners, including over 100 American POWs at the village of Malmedy, a war crime for which Peiper was tried after the war).

   Bouck's platoon was cut off from most communication, and the men eventually surrendered; while most survived the war, their story remained untold for nearly 40 years.

   Thirty-six years later, on 25 October 1981-following a book by John Eisenhower mentioning the exploits of the I&R Platoon at Lanzerath and an expose by columnist Jack Anderson and subsequent congressional and presidential interest-the eighteen men of the I&R Platoon were awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, four Distinguished Service Crosses, five Silver Stars, and ten Bronze Stars with V devices, thereby becoming the most heavily decorated platoon for a single action in World War II.

3. The Bulge was one of the great events in...race relations. Even before the Bulge, the ghastly casualties among infantry and tankers had led to a nasty manpower shortage; the Bulge buried the needle on the crisis meter. Black troops had been strictly segregated since the Civil War; believing that blacks weren't cut out for combat, the high command relegated them mostly to support units (the truck drivers that kept the Army supplied were largely black). The attitudes of the high command seem amazing in this day and age; Eisenhower didn't think blacks could hack it; Patton, assigned a black tank unit (the 761st Tank Battalion, which became an elite unit and is now subject of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Brothers In Arms), was outwardly supportive, but inwardly very opposed to the notion). The Bulge changed that; black volunteers were drawn from among the rear area cooks, mechanics and truckers, hastily formed into platoons, given white officers, and fed into the line. The black soldiers acquitted themselves very well, obviously - Steven Ambrose tells of teams of black soldiers with bazookas prowling the battlefield, searching for German tanks. The major point being that they earned the only respect that mattered - that of their white comrades and the junior officers that led them - who became the senior officers that finally dispensed with the myths about the black soldier and abolished segregation in the Army a few years after the war.

Out of gas, the offensive stalled sometime after Chrismas when the weather cleared, bringing the full weight of US air power to bear on the Bulge.

The Bulge is remembered in popular culture for the heroism of people like MacAuliffe and Bouck and thousands of other GIs who, cut off from their units and wandering in small groups through the hills, fought on, delaying the Germans in innumerable skirmishes; that's as it should be. But there was another lesson; war is messy. We had all the advantages, in theory - complete command of electronic intelligence, air supremacy, overwhelming numbers and secure supply lines - and we were still dealt a brutal surprise and an epic disaster, averted only via epic heroism.

My interest, beyond simple interest in military history? Two units from the North Dakota National Guard, the 188th and 957th Field Artillery Battalions, fought in the Bulge. That unit included a lot of the guys from my hometown, Jamestown, alongside their classmates who served in the South Pacific in the 164th Infantry (whose story I'll write this spring, I think). Middle-aged pillars of the community when I was a kid, the ones that are still around are old men, today. I'd hate to have anyone think that what they did was forgotten.

So we remember.

[*] The first being, of course, British Colonel John Frost, whose battalion of 600 paratroopers, surrounded by a German SS division at Arnhem, Holland, replied to a surrender demand "We haven't the facilities to accept your surrender".

Gays For Bush

Rich Tafel, former leader of the Log Cabin Republicans, notes that Bush doubled his showing among gays from 2000.

He discusses why:

Gays who voted for President Bush had a simple logic. They recognized that both candidates opposed gay marriage for political purposes. Their primary concern was the war on terror. They believed that we are engaged in a war for the future of our country and our way of life. They believed that the rise of militant Islam is a real and deadly threat. They believed that our country, with all its faults, is a force for good in the world. They believed that our enemy cannot be reasoned with. They believed that we needed a leader who understood the world in terms of moral values, and they didn't scoff when the president used the words "good" and "evil" to describe the battle against terror. They realized we've made mistakes, but also realized that the only thing worse than making mistakes is not even trying. Many gays understood all of this and voted for President Bush, showing that they are people as well as gay people and that they have concerns beside their group interests. They wanted someone who in the difficult months ahead would stand firm in his beliefs.

The whole thing is worth a read not only in re gays, but other traditional minority groups who turned out for the GOP in record numbers in November.

Party Of The Working Man In Action

I caught a few minutes of the Wendy Wild show the other day. She and (presumably) her producer were talking about Wal-Mart's new food stores; one of them mentioned that some Wal-Marts carry wine.

WENDY (or the producer - their voices are pretty indistinguishable): "Wow. I bet that's good wine".

WENDY (or producer): "Chez Des Moines!"

W(op): "Better buy a bottle opener, because there's not gonna be a cork!"

W(op): "I...

I flipped back to listen to Hewitt's commercial.

Delusions of Hauteur

Jennifer Vogel is a Minneapolis-area writer; she's written for the City Pages, as well as many similar handouts; her writing always seemed steeped in a sort of hostility that I figured had to have an explanation (and I was right).

Her latest, in a Seattle handout, dings on the Twin Cities' suburbs.

I live in Saint Paul, a lonely Republican in a sea of Democrats. Yet I just can't handle the suburbs; the notion of driving to get to a store offends me. And yet I find myself drawn to defend them, on pure principle.

The article is that bad.

Your challenge; read the piece - named "F*CK THE SUBURBS", in a style that means Ms. Vogel has a fine future as a leftyblogger - and tell me you don't think it was written by a particularly petulant college sophomore who hasn't cracked a history book since eight grade.

Minneapolis and St. Paul sit on either side of the upper Mississippi River, in what amounts to the middle of nowhere. For three hundred miles in any direction, there are no cities of size, only prairie, gas stations, and big open sky. We may be on the Mississippi but no one comes here by boat. There are no containers from Japan piling up on the dock. People arrive by bus and car, dusty and road-worn, mostly from the small towns of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas--places where ambitious and misunderstood kids grow up despising their parents' lives.

"Dusty cars". Right. We're a bunch of Okies from "Grapes of Wrath".

The article is a parade of stereotypes; we have the noble, misunderstood refugees from small towns:

...a haven for people who wanted more and wanted to do more, a stage for re-imagining one's self, the way home towns never are.

...who have one major flaw...

For years, being a city in the Midwest--at least this part of the Midwest--meant drawing from a rural population that was mostly white. But that wasn't all bad. [What percent "bad" was it? -- Ed] A homogeneous citizenry, along with harsh winters [Pfffft -- Ed.], made it easy for people around here to be generous with each other, to foster Minnesota's legendary brand of nice, peace-loving liberalism.

This liberalism, to Vogel (and much of the local left) reached its apotheosis:

Pockets of radicals have existed all over the state, socialist Finns up on the union-heavy Iron Range being a fine example. But it was in the urban centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul, respites from the big nowhere, that our progressive values were forged. Through the years, city pols have organized workers and fought for health care and public housing and education--men like Minneapolis' Floyd B. Olson, a socialist who served as governor during the 1930s, and former Vice President Walter Mondale (Minnesota, with the exception of the District of Columbia, stood alone in choosing Mondale for president in 1984 over Ronald Reagan). But never were we city dwellers more proud than when Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. --a small-town boy who grew up to be mayor of Minneapolis--stepped up the microphone at the 1948 Democratic National Convention and convinced the party to finally take a stand against segregation.

So, to Jennifer Vogel, Minnesotans - an insulated, isolated people, stereotypical Scandinavians - created a bastion of predictable, liberal insitutional compassion.

Remember that. We'll come back to it.

Yes, everything in Minnesota's urban centers was going along famously. Back pats all around. Then minority people started moving in, transforming our pasty Shangri-la into a more typical, and much more interesting, metropolis. The last decade alone has seen an enormous influx of black people from other parts of the U.S. and from Africa, as well as of Mexicans and Hmong. In part, that's because word got around that this was a somewhat cushy place to live (MinnesotaCare, the state health plan, keeps people from dying in the streets).

Let's try to keep this straight here: the insular white people created a society that draws and sustains people who would otherwise die in the streets?

If you're black, Mexican or H'mong, how does that sound to you? Like an insular, white person is slandering you?

Oh, yeah; Vogel's wrong. The Twin Cities were far from a "pasty Shangri-La"; southern European immigrants dominated Saint Paul's Swede Hollow; the West End had a very elaborate Italian community dating back to the teens; Highland Park has been described as a Jewish ghetto; Rondo was a thriving black community - but never mind. This is about stereotypes, to Vogel.

According to the Census Bureau, more than 30 percent of Minneapolis and St. Paul dwellers are non-white--16 percent are foreign born. That's a remarkable transformation. Suddenly, we've got zaub ntsuab, kick-ass Oaxacan tacos, and stores trying to sell marzipan to Somalis.

Leave aside that it wasn't "sudden" at all; African-American history in Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities, predates the Civil War. The place was a destination for freed slaves before the War; the Dred Scott case started after the slave lived at Fort Snelling...

...oh, I know. I'll shut up. History isn't as interesting as kick-ass oaxacan tacos.

Not everyone has been thrilled about the presence of darker faces. As the city changed, the "family values" folks moved away.

Well, to be fair, the "liberal" city governments - the ones run by the Hubert Humphreys that Vogel raves about earlier in her article - did their part; Urban Renewal was as hard on inner-city black neighborhoods as anything, as Minneapolis demolished the Gateway neighborhood, and both cities built freeways through the hearts of their African-American and immigrant centers; Saint Paul's Rondo neighborhood, an Afro-American neighborhood which dated well back into the 1800s, was paved over to build I-94; Phillips and the North Side and Saint Paul's West End, historic immigrant neighborhoods that brought us the pizza and bagels and other "kick ass Oaxacan tacos" of their eras, were gutted by a generation or two of the "liberal" politicians whose records the likes of Vogel whitewash.

But what's a little history to Jennifer Vogel? She's got to get to some serious slander!

The history of suburbs is a complex thing - at least as complex as the history of Scandinavian Minnesota liberalism. They resulted from a slew of factors; the dismantling (by liberal, urban governments) of urban institutions and infrastructure under the aegis of "Urban Renewal"; the efflux of jobs from the urban core, as companies fled rising real-estate prices and tax rates; a generation of GIs returning from World War Two with a brutal work ethic and a yen for tranquility in their off-hours. In fact, the 'burbs and that sense of Minnesota liberalism are intertwined pretty tightly. But we'll get to that.

However, they didn't move all the way away. Oh, no. They moved to the suburbs. Tract housing began to sprawl in all directions as many wild-eyed whities climbed over each other to get the hell out of town. And good riddance, I say. Except that these defenders of all that's wholesome have formed a band around the city, a ring of red that's threatening to strangle the very idea of beneficent government. They recline out there on their patio furniture, drinking Zima while squinting to see the edges of their lawns, and complain about the harrowing nature of city streets they never walk.

Leave aside the mewling stereotypes (Zima? Huh? I suppose true nobility is inferred by kick-ass Oaxacan tacos). Vogel bemoans the 'burbs' "threat" to the "benificent government" that those insular scandinavians created in the forties and fifties, not seeing that the 'burbs are an extension of that same idea.

Minnesota liberalism was how scandinavian farmers - with their communitarian Lutheran heritage - reacted to the grinding poverty of their anscestral countries and the fairly spartan nature of life in Minnesota up until well into the 20th Century. It brought stability to subsistence farming; it derived predictability from life on the land; it took these attributes and imposed them on government and its subjects - along with the same suffocating sense of social control that the likes of Vogel fled earlier in the article, manifested as government bureaucracy instead of small-town culture.

So when Vogel sneers...:

Suburban life is a perverted response to the perceived problems of the city, where urban unpredictability and diversity are supplanted by the Olive Garden and visits to the biggest mall in the country

...she ignores the fact that it's not a rejection of the desire for social control that spawned Minnesota liberalism; it's an extension of it. The grandchildren of the Swedish farmers that voted for the politicians that institutionalized the staid, passive-aggressively harsh communitarianism of their Lutheran churches (leading to Hubert Humphrey's fabled golden era of Minneapolis) are the ones that created the staid, passive-aggressively communitarian suburbs, places that embody all of the impulses of those Norwegian farmers and Finnish miners; lavishly-funded schools, orderly societies, social discipline enforced by relentless peer pressure.

You can't separate the climate that created the fabled Minneapolis from the one that created the reviled 'burbs. Walter Mondale lives in North Oaks today; the descendants of Humphrey live, if memory serves, in the posh Kenwood enclave, insulated from the tussle of urban life by freeways and four-lane arterials.

Back to Vogel, for whom anger replaces historical perspective:

Suburbanites drive downtown for work--occupying jobs that rightfully should go to city dwellers [Why? Because someone lives north of 62nd street, they're more qualified for a job than someone who lives south of 62nd street? And that's better than saying skin color or gender or affectional orientation are qualifications...why?--Ed.]--but then they and their earnings hightail it out before sundown, presumably when the human sacrifices begins. They may return in the evening every once in the while for a showing of Riverdance, but only with the car windows rolled all the way up.

These are exactly the people the Republican Party is looking for. President Bush visited Minnesota--mortifyingly, now a swing state--eight times during his recent campaign. But he didn't speak much in the city (his one appearance in downtown Minneapolis was met with fierce protests; a Bush supporter got punched in the nose).

Ah. That fabled tolerance in action.

He lavished attention on the suburbs, places like Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, and Blaine. His message simply doesn't play well in the city, where people value breathable air and aren't offended by gay couples marrying, where enemy is forced to brush up against supposed enemy and eventually both learn to tolerate each other and live together.

Unless they're Republicans. Then they get punched in the nose, while Jennifer Vogel titters in righteous glee.

The message hits home in the fearful, angry, awful, isolated burbs. Minneapolis, it should be noted, voted 78 percent in favor of John Kerry; St. Paul, 73 percent. But in Chanhassen, just 20 miles from Hennepin Avenue, the very heart of Minneapolis, Bush drew 62 percent of the vote.

Vogel acts like this is a Minnesota phenomenon. In fact, if you look at the electoral map of counties, that's true everywhere.

Luckily, the sheer number and determination of urban voters overwhelmed the suburban backlash. It's thanks to the electorate of the Twin Cities that Minnesota remains, just barely, a blue state. And within the city, much of the credit goes to our newest citizens--the Hmong, Mexicans, and Africans--who tend to vote like city-dwellers.

As do all immigrants - for a generation or two. They, like most urban consituencies, are beholden to the left for a lot of things.

But Americans of hispanic descent who've been in the US for more than three generations tend to vote conservative. The Democrat hold on blacks is eroding; Asians, the biggest free-marketeers of all, won't stay Democrat long.

A favorite scene from the election took place at my local polling place, in a historically Polish neighborhood. An African woman wearing bright robes stood in a gray plastic voting booth with her ballot. She spoke only a little English, so she asked for assistance. A poll volunteer approached and embarked upon a lengthy explanation. The African woman interrupted. "Kerry," she said loudly. "I want Kerry." That was that.

The liberal model in action; people voting for names they've memorized.

But no mind; Vogel's going for the big finish:

So, sorry suburbs. As Minneapolis and St. Paul become more diverse, they will only become more liberal. ...Incessant carping and fear mongering won't change that. So tell you what, suburbs: Why not find jobs in your own towns--the suburbs you cling to like bulletproof vests--so you don't have to drive to the city at all?

Have you looked at the commercial real-estate market lately? They are. And the city people are coming out to work with them (as, indeed, I did for most of the last ten years), creating yet another urban problem, a lack of mass transit from the urban core to where the jobs are.

Then we could tear down a few parking ramps and cancel Riverdance for good. In fact, why not pick up and move all the way away? It's true that when you're attached to a city in the middle of nowhere, it's hard to think of where else to live. But, hey, I believe there's an Olive Garden in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. A nice red state. And a couple of Wal-Marts, too.

And when they - the people who built the cities, and the suburbs, and the malls and the freeways and the Olive Gardens, the scandinavians, freed slaves, Italian immigrants, somali cabbies and Russian bakers - do go to Sioux Falls, taking the money and the companies they own and run and work for with them - the guys who make those kick-ass Oaxacan tacos will follow.

Because without their commerce, nobody will either buy the tacos or advertise in the papers that pay Jennifer Vogel to write "F*CK THE SUBURBS".

"I Got It Bad, Got It Bad, Got It Bad..."

Jenna Bush looking at a teaching job in DC.

Let the Van Halen references begin.

You Know You've Made It...

...when you get your own cartoon.

Like Powerline did.

On the other hand, I'd be afraid to see what a "Shot in the Dark" cartoon would look like...

Blogger Challenge: Final Day

Today is the last day of Spirit of America's Blogger Challenge.

Please donate!

The Northern Alliance team continues to lead the team competition, holding the same $5,000 lead we've had over the Castle Aaaargh team. The Arghies are doing their best - even getting creative - but the real competition now is for second; Roger L. Simon is drawing from the deep pockets of the Hollywood elite with a last-minute surge in third place.

Fun aside, the charity is a good one - sending our troops the supplies they need to help rebuild Iraq. Please give anything you can spare.

Scrappleface Does It Again

Scrappleface branches out into flash animation with this hilarious send-up.

Even so, it's almost too much; look at the first half of the video. Scott Ott seems to have scoured the web to find pictures of people who have turned into self-caricatures, choked with rage, intolerance and hatred. And using Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" for the soundtrack - poignant yet treacly and overwrought - juxtaposed with the bland mundanity of the endless montage of people whose families were machined-gunned before their unbelieving eyes candidate lost an election...oy. Beggars imagination.

Via Blair.

UPDATE: I'm told it's not a parody, and that Scott Ott was not involved.

Real Diversity

Erin O'Connor writes about the formation of a Black Republicans Club at the U of Pennsylvania:

. If one believes that campuses should be places where minority groups can express themselves freely, in all their wide cultural variety, then Penn's Black Republicans club must be a good thing. If one believes that campuses should be places where a variety of political viewpoints are represented, and where, as a consequence, those viewpoints are subjected to the bracing test of vigorous public debate, then Penn's Black Republicans club must be a good thing.

Worth a read.

UPDATE: U Penn and Penn State are not the same thing. Who knew? Thanks to Dave in Pgh, the commenter who corrected me...

Reality Sets In?

Shortly after the election, a liberal talk host - the loathsome Fast Eddie Schultz - declared "the election was all about God, Guns and Gays to those people!"

At the time, of course, we knew it was a crock; it's the war, stupid.

Now, even the media knows it.

This from Editor and Publisher:

A new Gallup poll shows that the public values “values” less than November exit polls suggested, but another survey from the same outfit released today shows a historic surge in Republican party affiliation.

In Gallup's latest poll this month, those identifying themselves as Republicans jumped to 37% of the public, with Democrats now clearly trailing with 32%.

Democrats have long held more party members than Republicans. During the Clinton years, the bulge was about 5% to 6%. As recently as late-October of this year the Democratic edge was 37% to 34%.

The crux - as conservative blogs and talk radio have been holding for the past month?

Another Gallup poll also released today showed that, contrary to many press reports, “values” ranked well behind the war in Iraq, terrorism and the economy as a prime concern of Americans.

Suppose we'll hear that on the Dan Rather report?

Didja catch that, Fast Eddie?

Burning Cycles

My readers send me the best stuff.

And, sometimes, the hardest stuff to do.

I've spent the last hour working on fisking something so biliously awful, it couldn't have even gotten in the Strib. And fisking it is proving to be more work than I can fit into a frenetic morning.

Discuss amongst yourselves. I'll have my bit up later today.

Winter Driving Advisory

The Strib editorial board, shocker of shockers, shifts into scold mode.

And so do I.

They're doing their annual jeremiad about the evils of the Sport Utility Vehicle.

Most of it is the standard anti-SUV boilerplate; they stop barely short of suggesting a Suburban is a form of, er, compensation.

However, they make a point:

Combine a truck-sized mass with car-sized brakes and an elevated center of gravity, and what do you get? A behemoth that an inexperienced or inattentive operator can quickly turn into a hog on ice. Even seasoned SUV drivers tend to forget, until further along into winter, how all that extra momentum translates into longer braking distances and reduced maneuverability, especially in the slush. Don't believe it? Just watch them slip and slide.

A few simple, ugly facts here:

• Most SUV drivers are sedan, minivan or wagon drivers that bought a bigger vehicle. For the most part, they've spent no time learning how their big honkin' four-wheel-drive vehicles actually work, and how they're different than the vehicles they used to have.
• Four-wheel-drive will help you go through crappy conditions; it will not help you stop in crappy conditions.

If I had a dollar for every time I looked in my rearview mirror as I hunkered down and concentrated on keeping my Saturn or Tempo from swapping ends on an icy two-lane, to look in my rearview mirror and see some Blazer or Cherokee driver swerving in and out of traffic like he's joyriding down the Autobahn in a Ferrari on a gorgeous July day, I could pick up the tab for the first round at the next Blogger Bash.

Your four-wheel-drive vehicle will make you go forward. It will not keep you going forward when your wheels are grabbing for concrete and only finding glare ice. It will not help you stop when you see a whole lot of taillights 200 feet away and you're doing 70 on the ice. And when you slam on the binders at 65 on black ice and turn sideways, four-wheel drive will not keep you from flipping over when your high-center-of-gravity SUV hits dry pavement.

I've told the story about my encounter with a moron in an SUV; it's serious business:

As for safety, figures show that when an SUV gets into a collision, its occupants are more likely to die than if they'd been in some other type of vehicle, with rollovers a big contributing factor. For every 100,000 registered SUVs in the United States last year, 16.42 occupants died in accidents, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The comparable figures were 15.17 for pickup trucks, 14.85 for passenger cars and 11.2 for vans.

That last figure is especially interesting in light of last week's U.S. Census Bureau report showing that SUV use has surged more strongly in Minnesota than any other state in the last five years, while the state fell from first to fifth in the ratio of vans to licensed drivers. In broad terms, you might say we seem to be trading the vehicle most likely to save us from roadway fatality for the one most likely to kill us.

Not to mention the folks we collide with; when an SUV hits a sedan broadside, the sedan's driver is 22 times more likely than the SUV's driver to die. Some take this grim statistic as evidence in favor of buying an SUV in self-defense; in truth, it argues better for a sedan with state-of-the-art passenger protections, on top of its naturally superior maneuverability.

Maybe. It does seem to suggest that a lot of incompetent drivers with "better you than me" attitudes are screeching blissfully down our icy, crowded highways.

It's a Miserable Life

The Man uses Christmas to keep The People down. The Power Structure uses Christmas to further entrap the clueless worker in tentacles of materialism, to dull their minds to the injustice around them.

There. Now you don't have to read the new Syl Jones column

But in case you must...

Syl Jones, "journalist, playwright and corporate communications consultant", offers us a glimpse into the miasma of the Jones family holidays:

Look around you. See the people driving 30 miles per hour over the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic, honking their horns because you're driving too slowly? They're celebrating. Those people drinking a little too much and talking a little too loudly? They're celebrating, too. Don't forget the disgruntled sales clerks and shopkeepers, the irate customers and the kids yelling, "But I want it!"

Yes, it's "that most wonderful time of the year," according to Johnny Mathis and countless bards a-singing.

Next from Syl Jones:"The birth of a newborn is a most blessed event - if you consider immense pain, a risk of dying from post-birth complications, nearly two decades of financial enslavement, and the fact that the baby is going to eventually die eight or nine decades from now, blessings. "

Note to Syl Jones; there's a silver lining on that dark cloud - although I realize acknowledging it would jeopardize your career...

People are apparently celebrating many things: Christmas, Hanukkah, the New Year, the winter solstice, even Kwanzaa. In the depths of winter, such occasions bring a welcome measure of warmth, helping us to stay connected to family and friends despite the weather.

But each year, the true spirit of the season is unmasked in malls, parking lots and grocery stores, not to mention behind closed doors. There is something slightly sinister lurking beneath the joy, a sense of irritability and tension bred by relentless materialism and the frustrated desire for true peace and happiness.

It's the other way around.

For the vast majority of people, the holidays (I celebrate Christmas, how about you?) are a time of joy; there's a layer of stress spread on top, of course, because of the commercialization of the holidays, into which so many people buy.

But then, that's a choice each of us makes. Me? I spend a day buying presents for my loved ones, send out cards if I remember (and lose no sleep if I don't), and look forward to, if not the most wonderful time of the year, at least the happiest and most memorable. Your mileage may vary, but those are my choices.

Psychologists have long noted that feelings other than joyfulness frequently surface this time of year. Sadness, loneliness and the yearning for a connection that should be there but isn't -- this is the authentic experience of many during the holidays. Although the suicide rate rises only slightly from Christmas through New Year's Day, no one has measured the irritability rate. Judging from parking lots, department stores and other centers of mayhem, it's significantly higher.

Then stop hanging around parking lots and other centers of mayhem! Life is too short.

Perhaps such feelings are a natural reaction to the underlying deceptions of the season and to unmet expectations about the "magic" of the holidays, especially Christmas.

Wha?

In this season, the only expectations that are unmet are the unrealistic ones that you set for yourself. If you expect to enjoy some good company, see your family (for the first time in a year, in my case), and just relax, the season is generally a pretty good one.

However you may feel about it, the only thing magical about Christmas is its resilience despite underlying religious and philosophical contradictions.

Most objects and traditions associated with Christmas have nothing whatever to do with the birth of Christ. The Christmas tree, for example, predates Christianity by centuries, extending to the Druidic sorcerers who performed magic and cast spells. Tree decorations like candles and apples (later signified by round ornaments) were intended to worship the gods Odin and Baldur.

There's nothing wrong with that -- if you want to worship Odin and Baldur. Ditto the Roman deities Saturnus and Solarus, whom the patricians and plebeians honored using the precursor of the Christmas tree. Interestingly, Egyptian worshipers of Isis and Horus actually brought palm branches into their homes during the winter solstice as a way of commemorating what might today be called "the circle of life." This connects both Christmas and Easter -- often called the holiest of Christian celebrations -- with pagan worship.

Which is fine, except who gives a s**t? We're celebrating the birth of Christ. You can do a conga down Hennepin Avenue, if you like, a tradition that certainly has nothing to do with a birth in Palestine 2000-odd years ago, and it's still celebrating Christmas.

Of course, paganism and the worship of spirits, along with elements of the natural world, are making a major comeback. In a free society -- which is what we claim to be -- who cares what or whom we worship? Whether it's the baby Jesus or the festival of lights, commercialism or Satan himself, "it's all valid," the argument goes. So what if Santa Claus is not only a lie but also a God surrogate to which we eagerly expose our children?

Does it really matter? Well, think about it: How would you feel if, years after your suffering and death, you discovered that people were honoring you using symbols and associations that you found abhorrent?

Jones is speaking for Christ now?

What if the celebrations themselves depicted you as a baby in a manger and left the mistaken impression that this is how you wanted to be remembered?

That's what Easter is for, if you take the Christian tradition seriously. And for all the non-Christians who celebrate Christmas, then it's not really an issue, is it?

Whatever you believe, it's a good idea to think carefully about what you are celebrating, whom you are honoring, and the deeper meaning of certain symbols and practices. Most of us want and need to express appreciation for the gift of life, family and friends. Buying into Christmas seems to be the easiest way to do so, which is why people have been doing it for years.

But is it the best way? At what point does a healthy desire to celebrate contradict core values and cherished principles? When does freedom morph into mental and emotional enslavement? Does buying into Christmas become a seasonal entrapment from which we can never escape? Or can we find the courage, in light of all the above, to finally say that enough is enough?

Many of us do.

In the meantime, those of you who like Syl Jones are slaves to your depressive urges, your focus on all that is ugly and perverted, and your niggling pecking at theological pseudo-issues; Take a deep breath. Pare down your gift list, and order your stuff online. Focus on whatever it is your tradition bids you to, this season. Take lots of pictures of your kids. Drink too much eggnog.

And if you see Syl Jones, tell him you don't read the Strib and you haven't read one of his columns in years Merry Christmas.

Presented Without Much Comment

Minnesota's ten Democrat electoral college representatives met yesterday, and...

Defeated Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry likely is going to get one less electoral vote nationally than he should have -- 251 instead of 252 -- because of an apparent mistake Monday by one of Minnesota's 10 DFL electors.

One of the 10 handwritten ballots cast for president carried the name of vice presidential candidate John Edwards...

The funny part? Edwards was...

...(actually spelled "Ewards" on the ballot)

The party of education, in action!

Bumper Sticker of the Day

"What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?"

Give!

Two days to go in the Spirit of America Blogger Challenge. Please go to the Northern Alliance Team Page and give what you can.

Jim Hake writes:

On Thursday, Omar and Mohammed from Iraq the Model and Friends of Democracy,
Kerry Dupont from SoA and I met with President Bush in the Oval Office. It
was a half-hour meeting with the President. Paul Wolfowitz was also there.
I'll be posting more information in the next two days but here are two
items.

About half way into the meeting the President said to Omar and Mohammed, "I
want you two to know that we are going to stay until the job is done. It
doesn't matter what the rest of the world says. It doesn't matter what the
UN says. We are going to stay until the job is done. It's important that
your country knows that." It was a powerful and moving moment.

After talking about Spirit of America, Pres. Bush turned to Omar and
Mohammed and said, " You see gentlemen, that is the beauty of America. I
never met this man before but he's out there helping to win this war on
terror just as much as Wolfie here. That's what I believe in." He went on
to talk about the importance of private-sector, grass roots initiatives like
SoA.

This is big stuff, folks. Please help SOA.

Tell Us What You Really Think

Juan Cole attacked the bloggers from Iraq the Model.

Jeff Jarvis attacks back

The man is pond scum. I know no other way to say it. This guy Cole (supported by your tax dollars in Michigan) decides that if he disagrees with someone, he should imply that that someone must be backed by the CIA or other nefarious forces. Prof. Cole is too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the liberal irony in that; back in the day, when people disagreed with those on his side of the political spectrum, people on the other side implied that they must be backed by the Soviet Union, by Commies. It's an old trick, Prof. I'm ashamed of you for using it.

But not surprised.

Read the whole thing.

Its Own Reward

I, uuuuuuuuuuuuuh, actually heard, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, Nick Coleman on, uuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm, "Straight Talk Radio," the, uuuuuuuuuh, local FrankenNet affiliate last, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, night.

Rocketman and Saint, naturally, got to writing about it before me.

Trunk:

I think Air America exists mostly so it can be ridiculed by conservatives, so a lengthy response probably isn't necessary, but two quick points suggest themselves. First, we are about as far from being "anonymous" as you can get. Apparently Nick Whoever hasn't thought to click on the "about us" link, nor has he read the articles about us in Time and other publications, nor has he taken the trouble to Google us. Great research, Nick.

Second, we have, in general, no objection to being paid. On the contrary. As it happens, though, we are not being paid by anyone, although we do get a little revenue through Blogads. Again, Nick Whoever's research skills seem primitive at best.

Saint:

The former host of the KSTP Sunday afternoon shift (before the marketplace decided an extra two hours of Car Talk was infinitely more listenable) and beleaguered Star Tribune lead columnist was on and talking fast and loose, and despondently, about politics. I didn't hear his specific shots at Hinderaker, but I did hear and jot down this verbatim comment (regarding conservatives in Minnesota): These people are working constantly to turn Minnesota into Alabama. I feel discouraged.

That last part should maybe be the new Wendy Wilde Show slogan. At least when Nick Coleman is substitute hosting.

I have, blessedly, little to add.

Oh, balonely. Yes, I do.

Among the "stuff" Nick Coleman knows, broadcasting isn't one of them. I'm not talking about content - more on that in a bit - but the mere Radio101 techniques you should know to get on the air, much less after wasting years of KSTP's weekend airtime.

First, Nick; take the food out of your mouth. It sounds awful. And if it's not food, then try talking into a tape recorder to hear what you sound like, and fix whatever it is that makes you sound like you're just waking up after a four-day bender.

In the fifteen minutes I listened, never once did Coleman mention the station's branding; not once did he give the phone number (assuming the local FrankenNet affiliate takes calls). And of the fifteen minutes I heard, at least three were taken up with Ums and Aaaaahs.

Which was, in retrospect, better than his interview with the local ex-marine who, if memory serves, headed Veterans for Kerry. The "salient" observation? That Rumsfeld is a disaster because he said "you go to war with the military you have, not the military you want"; Coleman muttered something like "well, he's sure doing a great job", sort of like Atrios on the air.

He also mentioned that he's "a journalist". On the local FrankenNet affiliate. As he guest-hosted a limpid but utterly un-detached, partisan, un-journalistic program that any good blogger would be embarrassed to associate with.

I'm going to let that just dangle out there.

Where Stars Go To Die?

I'm watching (briefly) the Golden Glob award nomination announcement (being carried live on the Today show - there's some news judgement).

The presenters? Some starlet I've only dimly heard of, but I know she's been in the biz for a while. And Brendan Fraser. And Mira Sorvino.

That call from the producer of the Golden Globs must be the most dreaded call in showbiz.

Vindication?

Last year, Hugh Hewitt asked the Northern Alliance to predict the date of Hussein's potential execution for his alleged crimes against the Iraqi people.

I predicted January, 2007, if at all. I was the most pessimistic entry in the Fraters' dead pool on the subject.

And, as it happens, probably too optimistic even at that.

Trunk V. Coleman V. Westover V. Wiley V...

Trunk at Powerline combines his own writing with links to Brian "Saint Paul" Ward, King Banaian, and others to write the most complete synopsis yet of the tangled rhetorical and editorial web that is the flap between Nick Coleman and Craig Westover.. "Why is it that an intensely partisan hack like Coleman doesn’t even have to print a clarification for his tall tales, while a scholar like [former education secretary] Dr. Yecke is subjected to such scrutiny?", he asks; the answer's in there.

By the way, invitations have gone out to Nick Coleman, Craig Westover, and Maxfield Elementary School principal Zelma Wiley to appear on the Northern Alliance show next Saturday. I'd like to get to the bottom of this story.

Armor This

Suddenly, the armored Humvee is is the cause celebre among people who, a year ago, thought the term Armored Humvee was something pertaining to the impeachment of Clinton.

The latest National Review editorial notes the context in which the issue exists, starting with last week's tempest in the hummus container:

None of this is to say that [the planted question to Rumsfeld about the issue at the Q and A session with the troops] wasn't a fair one, and — judging by the reaction it got from the troops — one that is understandably much on their minds. Every armchair general now knows we need more up-armored Humvees. But as Rumsfeld put it, in a statement that caused much media heartburn, you go to war with the army you have, and ours has yet to be truly transformed to deal with 21st-century threats.

Remember: When Rumsfeld showed up at the Pentagon for his second stint as secretary of Defense, the army was hell-bent on building the Crusader, a "mobile" artillery system that couldn't even fit into a C-130 transport plane. It wanted to build the Comanche helicopter, an aircraft conceived in 1983 with our Soviet adversary in mind. The army was caught in a bad Cold War flashback. As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, "Even as the armored Humvee proved itself in small conflicts around the globe, the Army failed to buy more because it was focused on preparing for major wars with other large armies — rather than low-end guerrilla conflicts."

Remember - in May of 2003, the US military had to switch between two vastly different types of war.

The first phase - the one whose mission President Bush rightly declared accomplished on the deck of the USS Lincoln - was a "hot war" different only in scale and pace from the one envisioned against the Soviets twenty years earlier; it differed only in the particulars from the one we waged a decade and change earlier in Kuwait; a war that perfected the Blitzkrieg originally envisioned by Liddell-Hart in the twenties and Guderian in the thirties. We took a heavy, mechanized force with heavy air support, and we out-thought, out-maneuvered, out-paced, and when good and ready, out-gunned the enemy, also a (putatively) modern, mechanized army. It's the kind of war where armored Humvees don't much matter, because if everyone's doing their job, Humvees are only getting shot at very rarely. An enemy who's trying to keep from getting immolated by F-16s, perforated by A-10s, shelled by M-109s, having his tanks torn apart by M-1s two miles away in the dark, isn't going to care about Humvees.

Then came the next phase - the sort of low-intensity (to outsiders) guerrilla battle that we've been fighting ever since. Contrary to the left's tropes, it's a war we fight very well; remember Afghanistan? It's a type of war that requires patience, political will (the left continues to forget that the military won nearly ever battle in Vietnam; the failure there was strategic and political), and being able to not only react to changes quickly and effectively, but to be able to drive the enemy's decisions rather than be driven by them. In that last sentence are subjects for a dozen posts.

But as re the Humvees:

Once improvised explosive devices began to take their awful toll, the U.S. military did all you can ask from a military force encountering an innovative and persistent enemy — it adjusted to circumstances. First, the Pentagon sent up-armored Humvees from around the world to the Iraqi theater. Then, it started producing more of the up-armored Humvees, a specially manufactured vehicle that provides the most protection to its occupants and heretofore was typically provided to military police. As a second-best option, it began using specially manufactured add-on kits to beef up a vehicle's armor, although this doesn't protect against explosions beneath the vehicle. And as a last resort, it began adding non-manufactured steel plates to some vehicles.

According to General Steven Whitcomb, who is in charge of ground troops in Iraq, commanders in Iraq want 8,100 up-armored Humvees. The military has produced 6,000 so far, and is churning out more than 400 more per month. Roughly 10,000 Humvees have been fitted with add-on kits. So, of the 19,000 or so Humvees in theater, 15,000 have some form of protection. Of 30,000 total wheeled vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan, roughly 22,000 have some sort of armor. Whitcomb relates that the last full brigade that deployed into Iraq from Kuwait had roughly 1,000 wheeled vehicles and almost every one of them had armored protection of some sort. Vehicles without armor are now typically loaded onto military trucks and driven into Iraq that way.

The armored Humvee was a G-list priority before the war, and until the past few weeks got to the B-list, at the very furthest. Why?

Is it frustrating that only 400-something up-armored Humvees are being produced a month? Yes. Some combination of the contractors' manufacturing capacity, the congressional-funding process, and the complexity of the military's contracting system are responsible. We wish the Pentagon leadership had more vigorously applied its creativity to this problem. Of course, it is not impossible to imagine, had, say, the contracting process been short-circuited, a hue-and-cry going up about some company's "sweetheart deal" to produce Humvees. And perhaps reporters would now be attempting to get soldiers to ask Rumsfeld about that.

Perhaps? It's happened already; attempts to short-circuit the military contracting system, as well as the Army's procurement process (which makes the Food and Drug Administration look drunk with youthful recklessness by comparison) have drawn the ire of competing businesses and the media.

Research

Dean Esmay has an interesting piece on media perceptions of scientific research.

Science is like the military - the media just doesn't seem to get the basic precepts underlying the discipline:

If in the 1990s you had done a review of studies on low-fat diets, you would have found that almost all of them contained statements like, "Low-fat diets may be associated with lowered risk of unfavorable serum lipids. Our study of seems consistent with that hypothesis in that..."

Studies containing such highly qualified statements would regularly be pointed to as "proof" that high-fat diets make you fat and kill you and low-fat diets make you thin and save your life.

Now, is that because the studies were bogus? If you think so then you simply don't know enough about science.

Real scientists very, very rarely draw sweeping conclusions. The most important thing they publish is data, not vague general statements. In point of fact there was a lot of value in most of those studies that "supported" the low-fat diet hypothesis. That the hypothesis itself became steadily shakier with time didn't make the studies wrong or bad. It means the researchers were testing the hypothesis, and providing valuable data while doing so. Eventually most of the field came to the same conclusion: "You know what? Despite all our testing, we just can't validate this hypothesis. We thought maybe we could but we just can't."

And the conventional wisdom changed.

The conventional wisdom he's talking about regards global warming, actually:

When it comes to global warming there are three facts that I'm often amazed don't get more attention:

1) Most climate scientists are fairly certain that the Earth's average temperature has been higher any number of times in the past than it is now, and

2) Most climate scientists will affirm that atmospheric CO2 levels have been much higher at times in the past than they are now.

3) There's not much evidence that CO2 levels and average atmospheric temperature are more than marginally correlated.

And one of the bigger bombshells of the last year was when the most commonly cited study on atmospheric temperature trends over the last millenium to demonstrate a sharp recent increase in global temperatures was shown to be mathematically flawed.

My own opinion, for whatever it's worth: Lomberg is right on the most important matter: trying to "fix" global warming by spending trillions of dollars would be inhumane and irresponsible. For the costs associated with such questionable nostrums as the Kyoto protocol, we could do far more to provide clean air and water for most of the world's population, and do far more for extinct species preservation and nature conservation. The Earth has been much hotter (and had much higher CO2 levels) in the past, and the notion that we can control the temperature of the Earth the way we control the thermostat in our homes is absurd.

And in any case, panic over rising ocean levels and global catastrophes isn't just unfounded in science: it's pseudoscientific hysteria.

There's more.

Unintended Consequences

First things first: Harassment of women is a bad thing. Don't do it. I sure don't.

Second things second: the way women get harassed on the street in major cities, especially places like New York and Chicago, is a disgrace. A lot of guys need to learn a lesson, and I'll at the very least noddingly support groups that combat it - at least to a reasonable extent. By "reasonable extent", I mean education.

I say this because if I ever saw anyone putting something like this under my windshield wiper:

Hey Guys Wanna Get Laid? Then Stop Harassing Women!

I would promptly say to them "Yes, those pants do make your ass look fat. And my sister had shoes like that - 'til Dad got a job. And that hair - did you cut it with a weed whacker?"

Because, whatever their pants, shoes, butts or hair, they'd deserve it. Assuming that someone is a harasser because they pee standing up is the nadir of cretinous bigotry.

That is all. Carry on.

Blogger Non Grata

MyDD wonders if the Democrats really "get" blogs as well as their post-Dean hype says they do:

There's something wrong when the chairs and executive directors go on and on with their praise toward the internet that's brought millions into the coffers of the DNC, and then turns around and kicks Joe Trippi and his band of bloggers out of the meeting room when the "closed" Q & A with the DNC Chair candidates occurs.

I've often wondered if the culture shock within Democrats wouldn't be worse than among the GOP.

More later.

More:

Nevermind the bizarre disconjunct of their kicking us out while they eye the DNC coffers from the internet's small donor with greed. Put aside their praise for Terry McAuliffe having figured out how to hook up 2 million new activist small donors, while they kick out the activists that help make it happen. We want to hear what they are going to do to reform the DNC inside the states, because it's inside the states, not just in DC, that this reform needs to happen.

Since I was kicked out of the Q & A "closed" meeting with the candidates, I can freely blog it (if I had stayed, I certainly would not have). In that meeting, a couple of DNC candidates had the fortitude to tell these states what they needed to do, and for that, they not only got the least number of votes in the exit poll that we did, we had respondents that singled out that they would not support Harold Ickes, just because he told them the truth.

What Ickes told the state executive directors, and the state chairs, was that they needed to get their shit together, to build up their own in-state small donor base, to put together a business plan, and quit whining about getting a hold of the DNC's money. It's the truth. Go and look at some of these state Democratic Party websites, they are pathetic. Even the good ones suck. Ickes told them to get to work, they didn't like that, so he's in my top three. A lot of these states didn't get jack for this election, but a few of them, most importantly, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, and Iowa got millions and millions, and they not only failed to win (except Michigan), not only are their rumors of financial corruption I've heard about a few of those, but they are not being held accountable.

I'm all for taking DC to task, Democrats there need it; but we need to reform the Party at the state level too. After being inside their meetings for three days, I can tell you, many of these states have directors and officers that need a good reform-minded kick in the ass out the door a lot more than we did.

Here's how it seems to me: Changing the GOP is like changing a business; you'll run into inertia and internal politics, but if the ideal makes enough people vote with their dollars and feet, it'll work. Changing the Democrats seems more like changing a religion; people in the party seem to treat their politics more like a faith at the core of their lives than Republicans do.

Your mileage, naturally, may vary.

Rotting in Web Hell

Don't click on this link to the Repeal Conceal website, which formed in 2003 to try to re-disarm crime victims and make Minnesota a safer place for criminals.

It's gone.

And I'm still here.

I feel very good now.

Thanks, Savage Fans

Yesterday, while speaking with Jim Hake of Spirit of America, we challenged the listening public to put the Northern Alliance's pledge total over $11,000, or we'd pre-empt an hour of Michael Savage.

Well, thanks to all you Savage Rerun fans out there, we made the goal with a solid half-hour to spare!

There are still three days to go in the challenge, and we'd love to catch Little Green Footballs - so please, please send a buck or two to the Spirit of America, via the Northern Alliance donation page.

Red Zone

One of the best of the many wonderful interviews we've had on the NARN show is Steven Vincent, who turned his experiences of driving, solo (or with an Iraqi guide) around Iraq into Into The Red Zone, perhaps one of the best books I've read about Iraq.

Vincent now has a blog - In the Red Zone, natch - and it certainly deserves some attention; it's already in my first-tier of blogs about Iraq.

Read it, link it, pass it around.

Cage Match

Craig Westover gets a response from Nick Coleman, and responds.

I'm going to do them all one better. I'm going to invite all the principals - Coleman, Westover, and Maxfield Elementary School principal Zelma Wiley on to the Northern Alliance show in an upcoming broadcast.

More later.

Leaving Europe

On a continent full of craven one-worlders, the Dutch always were a quiet exception.

In 1983, I went with my college choir to Europe. We learned one national anthem; Wilhelmus Van Nassouwe, the Dutch national hymn. "It's wierd", said the director; "most places in Europe, people could care less about their national anthem, but in the Netherlands, they love it".

"The Netherlands", to much of the Dutch public, is not an idle, specious concept.

So this story is interesting.

The Netherlands have a long reputation as a liberal nation - in both the classical and modern senses of the term.

Many of the ideas of the free market and individual liberty that animated the American Revolution gestated in Holland. It's worth noting that Holland was a destination to many seeking religious freedom before the Industrial Revolution.

They were a moderate monarchy and an early adopter of democracy (although, we need to note, they were also fairly cruel colonists in places like Indonesia).

And while they have a reputation among American conservatives as a caricature of weak-kneed nannystatists, the Dutch in fact had more spine than much of Europe. While Holland was conquered during the Blitzkrieg in 1940, the Dutch Army fought hard; according to Walter Lord in Miracle at Dunkirk said the German infantry held more respect for the Dutch troops than either the British or (naturally) French opposing them. The Dutch resistance was among the first in Western Europe to organize, and while it fought against some daunting challenges (Holland has no mountains and few forests to hide in), was quite effective at rescuing downed pilots, smuggling Jews to safety, and sabotaging the German war effort. During the Cold War, while their unionized military drew guffaws from Americans (at a time when the US military wasn't much to write home about, itself), they also built the best-equipped Army and Navy on the continent; the Dutch Marines had and have the best reputation among any soldiers on the European mainland.

I mention this by way of saying that calling the Dutch a nation of spineless pansies is to speak from less than complete information.

And yet, the Dutch middle- class are, in growing numbers, packing up and leaving.

Escaping the stress of clogged roads, street violence and loss of faith in Holland's once celebrated way of life, the Dutch middle classes are leaving the country in droves for the first time in living memory.

The new wave of educated migrants are quietly voting with their feet against a multicultural experiment long touted as a model for the world, but increasingly a warning of how good intentions can go wrong.

The article, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, notes that for the first time in living memory the Netherlands have a net efflux of population; more people are leaving than immigrating.

There are many reasons - the climate of violence, the murders of populist politician Pim Fortuyn and filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the sense that the nation is degenerating - as one person said:

Frans Buysse, the head of Buysse Immigration Consultancy, said he received more than 13,000 hits on his emigration website in November, four times the usual level. His office in Culemburg is flooded with fresh applications.

"Van Gogh's death was a confirmation for them of what they already sensed was happening," he said. "They're accountants, teachers, nurses, businessmen and bricklayers, from all walks of life. They see things going on every day in this country that are quite unbelievable. They see no clear message from the government, and they are afraid it's becoming irreversible, that's why they are leaving."

The tales range from exhaustion with Holland's epidemic of road rage incidents, to fears that it is no longer safe to go shopping.

Another couple says:

Ellen, 43, a lawyer and banker who votes for the free-market Liberals, said the code of behaviour regulating daily life in the Netherlands was breaking down.

"People no longer know what to expect from each other. There are so many rules, but nobody sticks to them. They just do as they want. They just execute people on the streets, it's shocking when you see this for the first time," she said. "We've become so tolerant that everybody thinks they can fight their own wars here. Van Gogh is killed, and then people throw bombs at mosques and churches. It's escalating because the police and the state aren't doing anything about it.

"There's a feeling of injustice that if you do things right, if you work hard and pay your taxes, you're punished, and those who don't are rewarded. People can come and live here illegally and get payments. How is that possible?

"We didn't think about how we should integrate people, to make sure that we actually talk to each other and know each other, instead of living in ghettoes with different rules.

Unlike the immigrants, Evans-Pritchard notes, the immigrants are the middle class:

Unlike most earlier waves of migration to the new world, this one is not driven by penury. The Netherlands has a per capita income higher than Germany or Britain, and 4.7 per cent unemployment.

"None of my clients is leaving for economic reasons. You can't get a visa anyway if you haven't got a work record," said Frans Buysse.

That is very bad news for Western Europe.

Tomorrow on NARN

Big day tomorrow on the NARN broadcast. We'll be talking with Ann Coulter, Jim Hake of Spirit of America, and Mark Stutrud of Summit Brewing Company, the finest microbrew in the upper midwest.

During which we'll find out a) what's up with liberals, b) what's up with Spirit of America, and c) how Summit gets so dang good.

Plus Week in Review!

That's tomorrow from noon-3 on AM1280 The Patriot, as well as live streaming via our website.

Is It Scrappleface, or is it...

Technically...

Bill Moyers, whose journalistic reports on PBS have been missed by most Americans for 30 years, retires this month but fails to leave the customary void, according to a journalism expert.

"Normally when a veteran newsman leaves, there is that sense of loss," said an unnamed professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, "but all of our metrics indicate that Americans are unlikely to note the absence of Bill Moyers, let alone struggle to reach emotional closure."

A spokesman for Mr. Moyers suggested that, during his three decades of low visibility, "Americans may have done sufficient pre-mourning to assuage the grief of final separation."

Humor, or journalism?

LaShawn Cracks the Code

LaShawn Barber - one of my favorite bloggers - writes:

Now that I know just how much Ann Coulter irritates liberal bloggers, I’ll be linking to her columns more often. I even lost a Weblog Awards endorsement of a feminist blogger for writing favorably about Coulter, a true feminist! You win some, you lose some.

I'll have to try this.

In fact, we'll up the ante; tomorrow, the NARN will be interviewing Coulter, at 1PM Central.

Join us live on AM1280 The Patriot, or on our webstream.

Titanic Survivors Demand More Iceberg Encounter

So, all you responsible, moderate Democrats out there; what do you think of this?

A scathing e-mail from the head of MoveOn's political action committee to the group's supporters on Thursday targets outgoing Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) chairman Terry McAuliffe as a tool of corporate donors who alienated both traditional and progressive Democrats.

"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base," said the e-mail from MoveOn PAC's Eli Pariser. "But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers."

Under McAuliffe's leadership, the message said, the party coddled the same corporate donors that fund Republicans to bring in money at the expense of vision and integrity.

"In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive," the message continued. "Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."

Pariser urged MoveOn supporters to help support a DNC chair with a bold vision to represent Democrats outside Washington. Democrats will vote at their February meeting in Washington on a successor to McAuliffe

So, Democrats; MoveOn "bought" the Democrat party?

That McAuliffe has been a disaster as DNC chair has been amply proven in Congress, the White House and state houses around the country.

But - and I'm asking this sincerely of Democrats - does MoveOn's vision seem like a better plan?

Are you really going to rally behind MoveOn darling, Mad Howard Dean?

In an America that's moved to the right steadily for the past forty years, is pushing the party to the left really the answer to your party's continued decline?

Developing...

Snow Thing Like Snow

We're still waiting on snow here in the Twin Cities.

Last night, as we were getting ready to go on teh air for our Hewitt fill-in, we were talking down the circuit with Hugh's producer, Generallissimo Duane in LA.

Duane, who'd seem to be a lifelong Los Angeles resident, repeated something I've heard from Californians my whole life:

The great thing about Southern California is that you're a two hour drive from any kind of weather you want.

I hear this, and just shake my head. How depressing.

Granted, I'm a winter person. To me, driving to get to snow is like paying for sex; it's unnatural, and just a tad immoral.

But, again, I love winter. Real winters, mind you - the ones we have here in Minnesota are kind of wussy. In 19 winters in MN, I haven't found a winter that even caught my attention, after growing up in North Dakota.

No, really.

CBS Vs. Blogs

The story's all over the place: on the virtual eve of the final Memogate report on CBS' malfeasance during the TANG memo controversy CBS' David Paul Kuhn released a story showing that two bloggers - John Lauck of DaschlevThune and James Van Beek of South Dakota Politics - who were paid for their blogging.

It was, of course, the main topic last night when the NARN sat in for Hugh Hewitt; Kuhn's article calls, not at all subtly, for regulation of blogs:

Like all media, blogs hold the potential for abuse. Experts point out that blogs' unregulated status makes them particularly attractive outlets for political attack.

“The question is: What are the appropriate regulations on the Internet?" asked Kathleen Jamieson, an expert on political communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communications. “It’s evolved into an area that we need to do more thinking about it.

“If you put out flyers, you have to disclaim it, you have to represent who you are,” Jamieson said. “If you put out an ad you have to put a disclaimer on it. But we don’t have those sorts of regulations for political content, that is campaign-financed on the Internet.”

First Amendment attorney Kevin Goldberg called blogs “definitely new territory.”

“[The question is] whether blogs are analogous to a sole person campaigning or whether they are very much a media publication, which is essentially akin to an online newspaper,” said Goldberg, who is the legal counsel to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

“Ultimately, I think, the decision will have to come down to whether the public will be allowed to decide whether bloggers are credible or whether some regulation needs to occur.”

Ah. Regulation. That'll work. Just like McCain-Feingold kept money out of politics.

The lesson to bloggers, of course, is to disclose any sponsorship you get. Ed puts it well:

I don't think they meant to hide anything, and working on a campaign for money doesn't necessarily invalidate a blogger's point of view. After all, the NARN guys did volunteer work for Bush here in Minnesota and I did some promotion for Pam Ward, a candidate for the Minnesota House who ran a fine campaign but lost to an entrenched candidate. We blog on politics because we love campaigns and issues; why wouldn't we be involved?

However, the difference is that we clearly stated on our blogs the relationships we had with the campaigns, and none of us accepted money outside of paid blogads, which of course are plainly visible on our sites. Jason writes an impassioned defense, but he can't be serious in expecting his readers to know his status as a paid Thune consultant because the Argus Leader wrote about it once back in July. Responsibility for disclosure should be on the blogger, not his or her readers.

Of course, both Lauck and ">Van Beek have responsed to CBS.

Behind it all, of course, is the fact that CBS is about to face the biggest embarassment of its corporate life - perhaps the biggest journalistic debacle of all time. The timing of the Kuhn story is too cute by half by trying to smear blogging as a medium.

The difference, of course, is that very few bloggers portray themselves as impartial and balanced, whether they're paid or not. CBS, laughably, does.

Caught In Passing

Flash from Centrisity notes:

The contextually challenged of the NARN are taunting Nick Coleman, again, this time on education. They are trying to screed him into a corner so they can call him a liar. Now I'm not a big fan of anyone with the last name of Coleman, but I can't sit back and watch the NARNiacs imply that which is clearly not the case.

Flash goes on to peck at a quote he believes I took out ot context:

See, rhetorical questions were asked of a situation from a 'couple of years ago', not now, today! The outpouring of support received through the Coleman column provided two followups, Nick's Dec 4 piece:

And he tries to answer Saint Paul from Fraters' question:

So which is it? Either "we don't have enough books" or "all of our classrooms have the textbooks they need."

Well, St. Paul, it's both, and yes it can be both. The innovative and dedicated staffs of the public school districts are doing the best they can with the limited resources that are available. Maxfield clearly had a shortage of adequate reading materials 'a couple of years ago', but due to a resourceful staff and compassionate neighbors, the stock on the shelves are growing. Is that good enough, I don't think so, but it is enough that they can get by. And is that what we want for our future, enough for them to 'get by'

Right.

But Flash misses the point.

The point - for me at least - isn't so much whether there are books on the shelves at Maxfield Elementary School, although one might ask why a district that spends nearly $10,000 per student could allow that to happen.

No, the problem we're talking about is Nick Coleman. When he says things like...:

How did we get to the point in Minnesota that we have a school in a minority neighborhood of our capital city where there aren't enough books?

If you don't find that situation outrageous, you are part of the problem.

...and...

When you are trying to teach reading in a climate of spending cutbacks, hostility from political leaders who control the purse strings and public indifference toward the poor, you are between a rock and a hard place.

...and...

The point is, when we expect teachers to buy supplies and turn to charity for the books that our schools need, something has gone dreadfully wrong.

...and...

We know what happened, don't we? The poor are being punished for being poor and the politicians, instead of doing their damnedest to get things solved, are doing their damnedest to pass the buck. Highways are more important than kids.

...he's doing what he usually does; ignoring the causes for an issue to twist it grossly out of context to take a clumsy whack at whomever arouses his boundless, shambling ire.

Note in the quotes above the people Coleman is dinging on; everybody who disagrees with Coleman politically. Not a word about the School District, which spends a fortune on each child, and pays for massive administrative overhead without a whimper, and yet runs a chain of inner-city neighborhood schools that are dreaded and avoided like the plague by city parents who pay attention) whose problems go far, far deeper than a lack of books, and did long before the putative Dark Ages of Republican leadership began.

Not a word about Maxfield's institutional history - the school (where my daughter went to Kindergarten) has a long history of administrative turmoil that long predates the Pawlenty administration.

No. Coleman's villain is all of you that voted against the candidates that Coleman endorses. All of you who seek accountability for all the money we put in the school districts' coffers.

Flash continues:

Maybe those on the Right can start to comment on the other issues that plague inner city schools, the high transient rate with kids coming and going in classrooms like a revolving door, lack of parental support at home prohibiting their ability to succeed, parents that would rather blame the school for their child's behavior and performance, rather then having adequate expectation of their students own behavior and performance.

Dunno, Flash - I've written a lot about education. I'm a critic of public schools. For that matter, I criticize Catholic schools, and any school that takes a room full of eight-year-old boys and tells them to "Park your ass in the chair for six hours a day and learn what we tell you" and calls it education.

But that's a separate subject. No, the point of all of our writing - Saint's, Craig Westover's and mine - is that Nick Coleman uses his position as a columnist as a clumsy, context-challenged cudgel, swinging blindly like a big drunk mick flailing blindly after mixing gin with beer too late in the evening to bash on whomever arouses his emnity. As I noted in my piece yesterday, Coleman seems to have a problem with little nuances like context; he goes easy on things like inconvenient facts.

Does Maxfield have enough books? Maybe. Do they have enough money? Why not? Can the system under which they operate ever really function? We don't know, and we'll never find out with the likes of Nick Coleman on the beat.

By the way, I found this via Luke Francl at New Patriot, who said:

Over at his blog Centrisity, Flash gives our right wing friends at the Northern Alliance Radio Network a lesson in criticial reading. You see, they seem to have some problems with context and sequentiality.

Not really - butit seems Francl has a hard time with "Theme".

As well as fact-checking:

Flash takes NARN to school with fine style. But then, he is a teacher.

Actually, he's not.

Sorry, local leftybloggers. School's in session, and you can all take your places.

Noted in Passing

We all know that the less TV you watch, the more engaged your brain becomes.

So perhaps this should perhaps have come as no surprise.

Study War Some More

Nick Coleman has been an embarassment of fisking riches this week.

Or just an embarassment. You pick.

His editorial earlier this week - "We don't always fight the good fight" - is one of the most cripplingy-irresponsible things I've seen, and even more ineptly written than most of Coleman's wretched, nepotistic ouevre.

First things first; I challenge you to find a theme for this piece. It starts out, it seems, as a broadside against war in general; the mall front of the State Capitol is getting crowded, it seems:

Walk through Minnesota's memorials on Pearl Harbor Day and there is no doubt: We are a fighting people.

The 20-acre grassy mall that stretches from the State Capitol to the noisy trench of Interstate Hwy. 94 is nearly full of memorials, most of them to the honored dead of our many wars.

There is a wall with the names of the Minnesotans who died in Vietnam. A memorial to the dead of the Korean War. There are plaques in a Court of Honor memorializing those who served in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and two World Wars, and plaques honoring civilians, women, prisoners of war and the missing.

After a planned Fire Fighters Memorial and a Workers Memorial go up, the mall will be full.

From there, it evolves into one of his customary, incoherent jeremiads against George Bush Republicans Iraq:

Unless a couple of parking lots along 12th Street are eliminated, it's going to be tough to squeeze in one more memorial:

The one for the dead in Iraq.

Iraq was not the watchword on Tuesday, the 63rd anniversary of the day that lives in infamy and that marked the beginning of the Good War, the war won by the Greatest Generation, now fading into rest. On this Dec. 7th, as always, we remembered those heroes and what they did. But this year, remembrances of a good war collide with fears of a bad one.

A thousand Americans have died in combat in Iraq. As a journalist, I have been to three funerals for soldiers killed in action. I have watched children weep for a lost father, sisters bear their grief for a brother with crudely etched tattoos on their arms, teachers mourn the loss of a gifted student who will study war no more.

Tragic, sure - but did you ask them, "as a journalist", what they believed about the war that had claimed their loved one?

I'm wondering if it might not fit Nick's agenda.

Now, here's the part of the column - the irresponsible part, sure, and the part that's becoming not just a regular part of Nick Coleman columns, but is actually verging on the cliche; the part I'm going to start calling the "Nickie" of the column. The term "Nickie" means "an unsupported assertion that the author seems to assume the audience won't question him on".

There've been some really hooters for Nickies lately; after the election, Coleman blamed the failure of an Alabama constitutional amendment on Republicans' incipient racism; a little research showed that it was actually over the Democrats to sneak a back-door tax hike in through the amendment.

Then, last week, the Nickie concerned school funding; Craig Westover and the Fraters are on this one.

And now:

Only three funerals, but that is three more than our president. He maintains that things are going wonderfully well despite intelligence reports that say he is wrong, despite increasing numbers of attacks on our troops, despite the cities we have destroyed in order to make them safe, despite the toll of November, the bloodiest month so far.

So many places to start with this one:

• Perhaps Coleman would favor us with naming those "intelligence reports" to which he's referring? Perhaps one of the many convenient "leaks" that the CIA manages to have when they have a quibble with the President? We'll never know - because that's more "stuff" that Nick "knows". It's a Nickie.
• Damn right the President doesn't attend funerals. How inappropriate would that be - having the Secret Service searching the mourners, tying up traffic, probably going through the coffin for bombs (how would Nick Coleman treat that, hmmmm?) all for a dubious political point?

Coleman continues:

So on a cold, gray, windy day in December on which we remembered an old Good War, it was hard to see how the war we have will get from the bloody mess it is today to the hallowed memories of tomorrow.

But then, had Nick Coleman been writing in 1942-5, he'd have had trouble seeing how we'd have gotten from innumerable fiascoes - like the "quagmire" on Guadalcanal, MacArthur's ineptitude in 1941 (failing to disperse his air force against air attack), the Dieppe raid, the horrible casualties of our Army Air Corps bomber crews or the fact that they were sent on daylight raids with no fighter escorts, the carnage at Omaha Beach, the failure to "plan for the bocage" in Normandy, the complete failure to provide enough fuel to drive Patton or Bradley across France in 1944, the diversion of so much effort into Montgomery's "Market/Garden" campaign in Holland, the scandal that was the Sherman tank (or indeed the entire Patton doctrine of building tanks - American armor design policy from 1930-1944 was a bizarre muddle of ideas) to the ceremonies we observed on Tuesday, either.

"I see no parallels between WWII and Iraq," said Annette Luther, a 23-year-old woman from Minneapolis. "We had a noble and just cause in WWII, but I am worried that we don't have those things in Iraq."

It's unclear either why there needs to be a parallel or why Miss Luther is a source of any interest on the subject.

A good war is hard to find.

If Nick were to ask, "as a journalist", any of the veterans that he flitted amongst this past Tuesday, he'd probably find that it was impossible.

Next, Coleman changes subjects. Again.

Tuesday's Pearl Harbor remembrance, in spitting snow, took place beside the 4-inch naval gun that fired the first U.S. shot in World War II. A crew of sailors from St. Paul used the gun to sink a Japanese submarine before the bombs fell on Pearl. Now it stands forlornly and neglected at the edge of the mall, looking like it might blast the Minnesota History Center across the interstate. It isn't shipshape: Thick gray paint, slapped on in layers, is peeling in places, rusting in others. A proper WWII memorial is planned for the center of the mall, but for now, a decrepit gun from the USS Ward is all we have. [And it's a wonderfully affecting memorial, at that. Does it need a coat of paint? Sure, but you'd have to be a moron not to get the significance - Ed.]

The Ward sank in a kamikaze attack three years to the day after Pearl Harbor, but the historic gun had been removed in recognition of its place in history...[a visitor] O'Keefe and I checked the names of the gunners against the names on another plaque listing all the St. Paul sailors aboard the Ward. They were all from St. Paul, those guys who fired that first shot: Knapp, Fenton, Nolde, Domogall, Gruening, Peick, Flanagan, Bukrey and Lasch.

"Wow," O'Keefe said again. "I finally get to see it and here it is: Rotting away."

Even war memorials turn to dust. Putting them up is the easy part.

So - do we have too many memorials, or is it not enough? Should the President start ghoulishly flitting around funerals, like Nick Coleman? Should we take up a collection to slap a coat of paint on the 4-inch gun on the MNDOT grounds?

Do I have to start diagramming these things?

Coming Or Going?

This is a tale of two people, telling two stories.

One of the people is in both stories.

Do the stories add up? You be the judge.

Nick Coleman, November 14:

How did we get to the point in Minnesota that we have a school in a minority neighborhood of our capital city where there aren't enough books? If you don't find that situation outrageous, you are part of the problem.

Coleman, December 4:

Last Tuesday, after announcing another massive state deficit, Gov. Tim Pawlenty continued to cling to his no-new-taxes pledge he made to the Tax Evaders League (they call themselves the Taxpayers League) like a pilot clutching the stick on a plane whose wings have been shot off. Some had hoped that after two years as governor Pawlenty might have become big enough to say he won't stand idly by while the schools go down.

Nope. He is standing by. Idly.

The school raiders who want to move public education dollars away from "government schools" to privately run schools are grinning.

Zelma Wiley, the principal of the school that is the subject of both of Coleman's columns, in the PiPres:

Earlier this year, our school launched a drive to collect books for students to borrow, take home or keep. Our students love to read. Unfortunately, many don't have access to books at home (95 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch). Our goal was to satiate our students' hunger for books at home and supplement the great work being done by teachers and community partners in our classrooms.

Each day, our talented staff works hard to help all of our students reach their individual potential. In addition, we are blessed to have incredible support from community members, including 300 volunteers who consistently tutor our students.

If Mr. Westover and Mr. Stern had visited our school, they would have seen our hard work paying off. They would have seen that all of our classrooms have the textbooks they need. They would have seen that we know with precision how every dollar we receive is being spent to help our students learn. And they would have seen students from diverse backgrounds improving and achieving.

But they never bothered to drop by our school.

Indeed, Ms. Wiley, they did not. In fact, given the limitations on schedules and distances, it's a safe bet to say that nearly nobody in the Twin Cities did.

But I have.

My daughter went to kindergarten at Maxfield, eight years ago. The experience was...all right. Not the worst I've had with my kids at the Saint Paul Public Schools. Not so good that I didn't find another place for my son, two years later.

But that's not the point. While most of the people in the Twin Cities - and, more importantly, most of the readers of the Star/Tribune - didn't visit Maxfield, they rely on those in the media who do visit your school to tell an accurate story when they do.

Saint Paul from Fraters asks the question we all need to ask:

So which is it? Either "we don't have enough books" or "all of our classrooms have the textbooks they need." Either our schools are burning or they're working for the students, community, and state. These extremes are far enough apart to prevent even a serial fabricator like Nick Coleman to claim they're both correct.

Two possibilities exist for these dual interpretations of reality. Principal Zelma Wiley of Maxfield Elementary is blatantly lying in one of her statements. And if so, we need to know, was she lying then, or is she lying now?

The other possibility is simply that Nick Coleman got the reporting horrendously wrong in his column. Twice. Wrong facts, wrong quotes, wrong conclusions. And now he's using this to self-righteously bludgeon the body politic for increased taxes on the people. Despicable. And if Coleman is at fault in this case, remember, it's not the first time he's done this. (Recall this whopper of incompetent reporting regarding the Minneapolis Police Department).

Who's right and who's wrong? Wiley or Coleman?

Who, indeed?

We spend a lot of money on education in Saint Paul - nearly $10,000 per student. Is it not being spent on the children? That's the story Nick Coleman wants you to believe; heartless conservatives ripping the books from the shelves of underserved, primarily-minority schools; the "Tax-Evaders League" (question to David Strom; have you ever evaded paying your taxes? Do you perhaps have a defamation suit here?) running roughshod over the futures of the children!.

But then, according to Ms. Wiley herself, things at Maxfield are doing OK; the book drive was apparently planned - the sort of things schools have always done to stretch their money.

Which is it?

As Saint points out:

(Actually, Coleman's wrong either way. Either he's making up facts to fit his conclusions, or he's naively accepting whatever a public official is telling him and irresponsibly running with it).

We, as news consumers, can't say what the truth is. It's up to our media institutions, those that are publishing these contrary views of reality, to sort this one out.

So what is Nick Coleman - a liar, or a lousy reporter?

(And didn't he call bloggers both of those?)

Curious? Maybe the Strib would like to know. Ask them

Pod People

So I finally listened to a podcast today. Oliver Willis is doing one.

People analogize podcasting to radio as blogging is to, say, newspapers.

The analogy is close, but no cigar. Blogs, like newspaper columns, connect with readers through one medium - text, prose, writing. All other things (production value, technical issues) being equal, one good writer is about the same as any other good writer, separated only by their command of the subject and differentiated mainly by their style. A good blogger can write about like a good newspaper writer; a really crappy, screedmongering hack of a blogger is about the same as Nick Coleman, although Coleman gets paid.

But I digress. Audio - podcasting in this case - adds another dimension to the process; spoken delivery. So not only do you have the matter of command of the material and your ability as a writer (and, let's be honest, editor) to deal with; you also introduce your skill as a speaker, engineer and producer into the mix. We jump from two skills to five - and failure at any of them makes your product look/sound off-putting.

Which is not to say that podcasting doesn't sound like an interesting concept; Willis does sound, as he repeatedly says, like a geek in his basement (try talking INTO the mike, Ollie; the dropoff in volume between your opening song and your actual screed is kinda wrenching), and he's no more in command of content than he ever is (i.e., better than Atrios, worse than Flash), but then isn't that what blogging is about?

Of course, you can't tell by reading someone if they're a geek in a basement, unless someone writes that way. With audio, you can sound like a geek in your basement if you're recording in a top-flight recording studio but sound like a dork anyway.

But don't let that stop you. For me to rip on podcasters for those shortcomings opportunities for improvement would be like Nick Coleman ragging on bloggers.

Money Changes Everything

Business Week on the Business Of Blogging:

Now advertisers are realizing there is a market emerging in the blogosphere. Already, the growth in regular online advertising, estimated to be about 35% this year, will far outpace the spending increases for any other sector of the media world. Add to all this the fact that about 11% of Internet users today are inveterate blog readers, and the blogging scene starts to get mighty compelling for marketers.

Don't expect a repeat of the dot-com rush that inflated the Web bubble of the late 1990s. "This is a long game, with lots of ebbs and flows," says Henry Copeland, founder of media-buying firm BlogAds. Blogging isn't about to lead to vast wealth anytime soon, says Copeland, but he does expect "more money to [flow to] more authors as smart advertisers bypass publishers and pay authors directly for their audiences." BlogAds is placing ads on 50 to 100 blogs a day for up to 20 advertisers, including Sharp Electronics Corp. and Walt Disney Co. Just six months ago, the firm served 20 blogs for about 10 advertisers.

The big question; will the BlogAds model continue to click now that the elections are over and blog traffic - at megablogs like Powerline as well as lowly operations like Shot In The Dark - is waaaaay off?

It was interesting; I made nearly $200 in the weeks before the election; I haven't moved a single ad in the month since.

Still, the story is developing - much more than I'd thought it would in the first year and a half that I ran this blog.

Oughtta Be In Pictures Onstage

London's Royal Court Jerwood Theatre is presenting MY Name Is Rachel Corrie, about the life of the American pro-Palestine activist who (depending on who you ask) was either murdered by an Israeli bulldozer or sat down in the path of a dozer driver who couldn't see her and inadvertently ran her over as she tried to shield a house that had been tied to terrorists.

Charles Johnson has discussed Corrie's history more than most.

Alan Rickman, the villain in Die Hard and star of Truly, Madly, Deeply - one of the best "chick flicks" ever - directs.

You Know Who Your Friends Are

Prominent Democrats leap to Kofi Annan's Defense:

Some House Democrats are coming to the defense of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) after several Republican lawmakers called for his resignation because of allegations of corruption in the organization's oil-for-food program.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (news - web sites), D-Ohio, sent a letter Wednesday to Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), saying criticism of Annan is "disgraceful and premature."

"There has been no hint of impropriety on the part of the secretary-general, who on numerous occasions has proven his honesty and integrity," the letter said.

It was signed by 19 Democrats and independent Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

On Monday, Democratic Reps. John Conyers of Michigan and Donald Payne of New Jersey sent a letter to House colleagues in support of Annan.

"To decide that the secretary-general must resign is an absolutely premature conclusion to draw when there is no evidence or even allegations that the secretary-general profited from the oil-for-food program," they said.

Remember when "appearance of impropriety" was convincing enough for most of them?

Google: Kos Not News

According to JotSheet, Google News has removed Daily Kos from its list of sources.

What used to seem like contradictions in terms...

Strange Bedfellows, Part II

DC from Brainstorming noticed something about our competitors in the Blogger Challenge, the team from Castle Aaaaargh!:

It's one thing to give your all to raise money for the troops and the people of Iraq, but the competition has degenerated from ruthless to sheer desperation when you allow paedophiles for kim jong-il to join your team.

Ewwwwwwwwwww!

I consider, John, his lovely wife Beth, Army of One, and Teresa all friends of Brainstorming, making this latest development all the more disturbing. What could drive them to join forces with such evil?

Is there nothing beneath these people?

Can't we all just get along?

We have exactly a week to go in the Spirit of America Blogger Challenge; please go to the Northern Alliance Team page and donate to this very worthy cause.

By the way, we'll be talking with SOA leader Jim Hake at 7:30 Central when we fill in for Hugh Hewitt.

Ugh

Taking son to doctor - and not feeling especially well myself.

More posting later today.

Sheepdogs

The Sheepdogs

Most humans truly are like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.
Their lives serene upon Life's farm,
They sense no threat nor fear no harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat; there is no need.

To the flock, sheepdog's are mysteries,
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fetid reek of the carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told,
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.

But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves attack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the rout,
Comes the cry, "Turn the sheepdogs out!"

Thus is our nature but too our plight
To keep our dogs on leashes tight
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Until he has us by the throat,
We pay no heed; we take no note.
Not until he strikes us at our core
Will we unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolf pack's wrath
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.

And the wolves will learn what we've shown before;
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

(Via Poisoning Pigeons)

Did They Jump...

Trunk introduces the new John Podhoretz column:

Richard Thompson and Linda Thompson's mordant 1982 album documenting the breakup of their marriage is titled "Shoot Out the Lights," and one of the album's highlights is their jointly written song "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?" John Podhoretz's New York Post column today brings that song to mind.

I haven't even read the Podhoretz piece yet, but Trunk's intro alone is worth the trip...

They Said It Couldn't Happen

Karzai sworn in:

Three years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan's first popularly elected president, Hamid Karzai, was sworn in Tuesday in a dignified, heavily guarded ceremony attended by hundreds of Afghan and foreign guests, including Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

In a brief inaugural address, Karzai expressed his thanks to the Afghan people, who defied Taliban threats to participate in largely peaceful national elections in October, and to the United States, which led the international coalition that ousted the Islamic fundamentalist regime in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

They said it couldn't be done. In fact, many of them ridiculed the very notion.

As they are with Iraq today.

2005 is going to be an amazing year.

But Karzai, 46, also made references to the challenges ahead, promising to continue the disarmament of regional militias and to curb the booming trade in opium, of which Afghanistan is now the world's leading producer.

Although the Taliban failed to make good on threats to disrupt the ceremony, Karzai reminded his audience of the continuing challenge from the militant group, whose low-level guerrilla campaign has hampered reconstruction efforts in large swaths of the country, especially in the south and east. "Our fight against terrorism is not yet over," said Karzai, 46, who dressed for the occasion in a traditional green cape and a black lambskin cap

Pearl Harbor Digest

Michelle Malkin has a knack for publishing mini-digests of vital links on major holidays and other important days . Her annual Thanksgiving articles are always founts of inspiration.

Today, Pearl Harbor Day, is no exception. She quotes the White House:

Today, we honor those who fought and died at Pearl Harbor, and we pay special tribute to the veterans of World War II. These heroes hold a cherished place in our history. Through their courage, sacrifice, and selfless dedication, they saved our country and preserved freedom. As we fight the war on terror, their patriotism continues to inspire a new generation of Americans who have been called to defend the blessings of liberty.

Read the linked articles - they are all great.

If you know any World War II veterans - and they're passing way too quickly - thank them.

UPDATE: My parents were both far too young for World War II - Dad was five when the war started, Mom just one year old. My grandparents were all too old, I guess - my paternal grandfather was nearly 50, while my maternal grandfather (so the family legend has it) taught science at an Army Air Corps ground school.

My ex father-in-law, however, was 20 years old and had been married to my ex-mother-in-law - for one week. He and some large number of his brothers (Al was one of ) went to their various recruiting stations the next morning, and signed up. My ex-FIL, Al Schirmers (who passed away about four years ago) joined the Navy.

After going to cook school, he was sent (with the sort of logic one associates with the military) to the USS Iowa as a Gunner's Mate. He was involved in the mission that took FDR to Casablanca - and, on the way home, managed to break his back when a recoil spring on a 20mm Oerlikon antiaircraft cannon jumped loose during cleaning, throwing him off one deck to a lower deck.

Sometime during that period, his older brother Chet - who'd joined the Navy during the Depression - was killed when his destroyer, the USS Porter, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Solomon Islands.

When he got out of the hospital, he was assigned as a "Plankholder" - a member of the commissioning crew - for a brand new destroyer, the USS Collette. And it was on the Collette that he served the rest of the war, as a gun captain on a 40mm Bofors gun mount.

He never talked much about the war - but one year, in 1990, I built a model of the Collette for Christmas for him. I did a bunch of research, and learned an awful lot about Al's time at sea. The Collette shot down a number of planes, wiggled its way out of some impossible jams. Once, on picket duty, four Japanese "Betty" torpedo bombers approached from all four points of the compass - a nearly impossible predicament. Nonetheless, the Collette got out of the jam, shooting down two of the Japanese bombers and dodging the others' torpedoes. On the way among these adventures, Al spent 18 months without setting foot on dry land; the ship refuelled and reprovisioned at sea continuously. The Collette was involved in the first destroyer sweep of Tokyo Bay, and was present at the signing of the surrender.

After the war, Al came home, learned cabinetmaking on the GI Bill, built one of the first houses in Crystal, then helped build St. Rafael's Church as well as most of the cabinets and countertops in the northwest suburbs (if you have a house built between 1950 and about 1970 anywhere north of 394 and west of the River, and have old cabinets that weigh more than your car, it's probably a Schirmers job), and had five kids, including my ex-wife.

I think about him when I realize that he spent the better part of four years on one ship or another; I get bored and restless if I'm in the same cubicle for more than nine months.

Islamists, Please Take Note

This has got to piss off the Islamofascists:

They are Sgt. Angela Magnuson, Sgt. Kristen Pagel and Sgt. Jessica Fisher, of the North Dakota National Guard; according to Alois, "Charlie's Angels".

Spirit of America in Afghanistan

Sgt Hook reports on Spirit of America's impact in an Afghan village.

He writes:

. He was a heavy set man who resembled Santa Claus without the red suit but there was no mistaking the steely confidence of a leader of men in his eyes. I couldn’t help but wonder what stories he might tell given the right circumstances. After explaining that I had thousands of children’s shoes given to me by Americans back home to be delivered to the Afghan children, I asked if he would allow me the honor of delivering them to the children of his village(s). The mayor delightedly accepted my offer adding that it was he and his villagers who were honored and that when I returned it would not be necessary for all of the security forces that had accompanied us. In fact, he professed with a spark in his eyes that we could walk from our base to his village and he guaranteed our safety.

Two weeks later we approached that same LZ in a CH47D Chinook helicopter loaded full of shoes, clothing, and school supplies. We spent hours in the hot desert sun fitting children for shoes and sorting the other supplies that had been donated from across America. Afterwards we were invited to share bread and tea with some of the elders who expressed their gratitude to us repeatedly. I thought that it was important to impress upon them that these generous offerings that we had delivered were not from me or my soldiers, but from mothers and fathers and children across the United States who are genuinely hoping and praying that the people of Afghanistan will succeed in being free and live a life ripe with liberty. With that spark in his eye, the mayor looked into my face, pausing for effect, and asked me to thank the benevolent people of America and to pass on an invitation for all to visit his village. We stayed a little while longer watching as the children ran around the stone walls under construction that soon will be their school seemingly testing out their new footwear, smiles all.

Only time will tell if that exchange will have an impact on the future of Afghanistan and her people and if they find the will to keep the rat bastards terrorists out of their villages. I can tell you that our visit to the village of Jildalek would not have happened if not for the Spirit of America as they funded the shipment of many of the goods that were donated.

>Click on the SOA link at the top of my right margin, please, and give.

Posted by Mitch at 07:02 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Hewitt Tonight

The NARN will be filling in for Hugh Hewitt tonight on his national show.

We'll be talking with the usual Tuesday crew - Frank Gaffney and K-Lo, as well as lots of time for call-ins.

Tune in!

Cue Conspiracists

Ohio certifies its November 2 vote count.

Bush's margin of victory is a tad smaller than his unofficial election-night one - 119,000 votes versus 136,000.

Let the snivelling begin.

DLC Joins "Venomous Fury"

Last week, the Star/Tribune's editorial board unleashed a ludicrous diatribe against Senator Norm Coleman and his investigation of Kofi Annan and the Oil for Graft scandal. The editorial said:

This is really all about Annan's refusal to toe the Bush line on Iraq and the administration's generally unilateral approach to foreign affairs. The right-wingers hate Annan and saw in the food-for-oil program a possible chink in his armor.

So what's the motivaton for this?

The world deserves a full and thorough accounting of what transpired. The sooner the United Nations can get past this matter, the sooner it can get back to the important business of making itself an effective instrument for collective security against terrorism, failed states, and acts of genocide, a goal that Annan has strongly supported. The secretary general should place this critical mission ahead of his personal interests, and step aside. Given his own lack of credibility on the oil-for-food program, this step is the price Annan must pay to help restore the U.N.'s credibility, and to salvage his legacy as secretary general.

That's the Democratic Leadership Council, the moderate Democrat faction that spawned Bill Clinton and Joe Lieberman.

So, Strib editorial board - are they pawns of Bush and Rove?

Is the DLC carrying water for the neocon agenda?

Or has the Star/Tribune's collective dementia gone far past caricature?

Question for any Star/Trib staffers who may be reading this: what do people inside the Strib think about working for an organ whose editorial board is too awash in agenda to tell the story? What do they think about that board's serial swerves into hatchet-jobbery and...dishonesty?

What's it like walking behind the emperor and telling the jeering crowd "no, he's really wearing a fabulous black turtleneck?"

Failure and Forgetfulness

Americans have short memories. Few things we remember as faintly as failure. Even on today, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, one of America's worst failures.

When the left would talk about the "quagmire" we face in Iraq, it's useful to remember; we've been here before.

In the early days of World War II, the US Army settled on the "Sherman" tank. Relatively small, easy to build in huge numbers, and with armor and a cannon that were quite competitive by early 1942 standards, it seemed until D-Day like an adequate decision.

You have to do some digging into history to realize how wrong that decision was:

the Third Armored Division, which began the Normandy campaign with 232 M4 tanks, would see 648 of its Shermans destroyed in combat, with another 700 knocked out of commission before being repaired and returned to service—a cumulative loss rate of 580 percent. Casualties among tank crews also skyrocketed, producing an acute shortage of qualified personnel.

Armored divisions suffered over 250 percent personnel casualties during the 11 months it took to drive from Normandy to the Elbe (and an Armored division had about 11,000 men, and most of the casualties came from the tank and rifle battalions that made up about half of their strength). US commanders expected to lose four or five Shermans (each with a crew of five men) for every German Panther or Tiger tank destroyed - in fact, the tactics, supply chain and personnel system adapted themselves to account for that assumption, in a calculus that seems positively ghoulish to us today (no American soldier has been killed by a through-the-armor shot on an M1 Abrams, ever, in two wars and two large "peacekeeping" actions).

So how much of that horrid episode do Americans remember today?

Also in the early days of World War II, with the US Pacific Fleet's battleships burned out and lying on the bottom of Pearl Harbor (itself a result of horribly-flawed decision-making), the navy's submarines had to take up the job of fighting the Japanese fleet. Unfortunately, due to interwar budgetary and business decisions, their torpedoes had an unfortunate tendency to bounce off their targets without exploding - as in, a majority of the time. Worse, the Navy's bureaucracy fought against solving the problem, insisting it was bad shooting or maintenance on the part of the subs' crews. The fiasco cost the lives of thousands of American submariners. Do we remember that fiasco today?

For the first two years of World War II, Army Air Corps bomber crews (flying B-17 and B-24 bombers) involved with trying to bomb Germany into submission through endless daylight raids over Germany's industrial heartland were assigned 25-mission tours of duty. Until late 1943, only very few men survived their entire tour; they were shot down in vast, flaming droves. The movie Twelve O'Clock High starring Gregory Peck is a classic that portrays some of the ghastly odds, dry fatalism, and the hopeless courage that kept that generation of Americans flying against odds that are, today, completely forgotten.

Victor Davis Hanson ties the story - both the movie and the original airmen - to today:

In juxtaposing the dreadfulness of what the airmen went through (centered around the bravery and eventual breakdown of group Commander Gen. Frank Savage) with the calm of the post-bellum English countryside, director Henry King reminds us how easily we forget horrors of the immediate past. No one in the town, or indeed back home in America, other than the families of the dead, recalled a Bishop, Cobb, Wilson, or the thousands of Savage's anonymous flyers who perished in doing their part to bring down the Third Reich. The tragedy of Stovall's war, King seems to suggest, is that the inferno in the skies was but a blink of the eye from its dividends of victory and rural tranquility — and that we all are of short memory, allowing even the worst nightmare to retreat into the oblivion of everyday life.

The numbers from World War II are numbing, when you think about them; 400,000 Americans were killed during the war. Do you remember even hearing that number in high school? Much less the specifics - the 3,500 dead submariners? The 50,000 who died in the "safe" Air Force? The 50,000 casualties we took advancing up the boot of Italy, a campaign most Americans never learn about?

But the cycle has begun again, says Hanson:

I fear the same may be said of Afghanistan and even Iraq in a year or two. Indeed, we already see how few talk of what it was like in the very dark days of September 2001. The country was reeling from 3,000 murdered; a trillion dollars were lost to economic dislocation; and the prospect of going 7,000 miles to the other side of the world to root out Dark-Age killers that had grown emboldened by a decade of American appeasement was considered too frightening.

Do we now remember the impassable peaks, the snowy haunts of the Taliban that were too high for us, or Kabul, the dreaded graveyard of all imperial expeditions? It was just a few months ago, it seems now, that we were admonished about the fury of retaliation to come for daring to fight during Ramadan, the impossibility of working with a nuclear and Islamic Pakistan, and the Wild West nature of Afghanistan's tribes so impossible to forge into the stuff of consensual government. And it was worse still than all that: the cries on the hard left of millions of refugees to come; the European warning about thousands of dead from indiscriminate American bombing; the need to adjudicate 9/11 by jurisprudence rather than arms; and the crazy conspiracy theories of pipelines, neo-cons, 'Jews,' Likuds, and CIA plots.

Have we also already forgotten the controversies, the buzz, and the insider conventional wisdom that consumed us during the days of uncertainty over Mullah Omar's televised rants; Osama's promises of an American graveyard in the Hindu Kush; the diplomats' trial balloon of a proposed coalition government with the wretched Taliban; the panacea of an all-Islamic peace-keeping force; Johnny Walker Lindh's conflicted high-school years; and a thousand other crises of the hour that sent our statesmen into all-night emergency sessions, our generals into desperate improvisations, and, yes, Americans into battle and on occasion to their deaths?

Well, some of us haven't.

But Hanson is right. It's more or less faded from public view.

Part of that's inevitable. And under normal circumstances, it's not only understandable, but desirable; it's unhealthy for a person to dwell on pain and loss eternally.

But tis, fo course, is not "normal circumstances". It's a war. We couldn't "Get over" Pearl Harbor until the cause was eradicated.

Do we remember all this and more when we talk nonchalantly now of elections in Afghanistan or the decency of the Karzai government? Is there a Frenchman or a German to be had at least to say in retrospect, "Yes, you were not the cowboys we slurred you as, but brought something good where there was only evil before"? Do we ponder if but for a second how improbable — indeed, how absolutely preposterous — it was at the time to even suggest that the Afghan people would soon stand in line hours to vote, freed from those who had so sorely oppressed them?

Have we forgotten what foul and cowardly folk the Taliban were — thugs who lynched women, shot homosexuals, blew up civilization's icons, destroyed a century of culture in Afghanistan, promised us death and worse, and then ran out of town in the clothes of women with what plunder they could carry? Do any of us recall the brave Afghans and Americans, both the planners in Washington who were libeled and the soldiers in the field who routed these butcherers?

Indeed, not only do Americans not recall that last, the Afghans; one presidential candidate bastardized their legacy for political gain.

And the cycle, says Hanson, will continue:

So, I think, it will be too even in Iraq, improbable as that may now seem to some. Already we have forgotten the long ride to Baghdad — when our ex-generals warned of thousands of dead to come in a deadly siege, and were trumped by relief workers who assured us of millions more refugees. Then there were the cries of defeat when our forces plowed through a windstorm — as our supposed Dresden-like shock and awe were suddenly mocked not as too terrible but as laughably impotent. We grow depressed now at the canned pessimism of our talking heads who predict failure in post-bellum Iraq — forgetting that these same prophets swore to us just months ago that thousands would die getting to Baghdad...Does anyone at all remember any of that? And where now are Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, Hans Blix, and all the other wizards of the moment, come and gone off the media shows and best-seller lists, who assured us that we were either liars, fools, or naifs? Do we remember now how the old Wesley Clark once praised the team of George Bush, how the old Anonymous wrote an earlier book warning of Saddam's ties to al Qaeda, or how the old Clintonites a decade ago insisted that Saddam Hussein was brewing WMDs?

Yet despite them all, and after this bloody month of November, here we are now on the eve of elections — the most unlikely of all events in the last half-century of civilization. Just think of it: In place of the past Hussein mass murdering and the present ogres of Fallujah, we are to witness an effort to jump-start democracy in the heart of the caliphate of old, right between the world's worst two governments in Syria and Iran, amid treacherous folk like the Saudis, Jordanians, and al Jazeera cheering the insurgents on.

Perspective is difficult to get under the best of circumstances - and when we have media that is actively subverting perspective, it's harder still.

Anyway - read the whole thing.

A New Look

Sheila O'Malley's blog has a new look and a new name - The Sheila Variations.

New L'nF, same cool stuff.

Above All, The Agenda

Kweisi Mfume saved the NAACP, nearly ten years ago.

Now, public pronouncements aside, he's been kicked to the curb.

Armstrong Williams' story on the subject in Human Events ends like this:

The final tear came after the election. Mfume suggested sending a letter to President Bush, mapping out ways that they could work together to help the community. Bond rejected the idea. Mfume sent the letter anyway. To Bond, this was an unforgivable. A few weeks later, Bond had Mfume voted out. The message was clear: There is no room within the NAACP for intellectual diversity. Just loyal servitude to the Democratic Party.

Getting from point A to point Z is an interesting - and telling - journey. Read the whole thing.

This is a crime. This is a shame. This is the sad state of the nation’s most storied civil rights organization.

Condolences

My condolences to the Banaian family; King's father-in-law passed away over the weekend.

Our Sordid Newspaper

We talked about this on the NARN broadcast Saturday. Captain Ed and Powerline both wrote about it - that's the tough thing about sharing an Alliance with a bunch of guys who are always writing.

But I digress, because the real subject here is the continuing embarassment that is the Minneapolis Star/Tribune; it's so bad there's room for a thousand screeds, and that embarassment was in fullest bloom in Saturday's editorial on Norm Coleman, Norm Coleman, the evil that is the common blogger, Norm Coleman and...oh, yeah, that Annan guy.

The editorial is entitled Going after Annan/A sordid move by Coleman, which is a fascinating choice; not often would an ostensibly-responsible organization choose to show how completely disconnected it is, not only from morality but from the simplest facets of telling the complete story above the lede.

Good old Norm; it appears there's nothing he won't do for a headline, or for his GOP masters.

Yeah. Like his job on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations.

Perhaps we need to forgive the Strib; they're not used to Minnesota Senators doing their jobs: We had 12 years of Paul Wellstone's gleeful grandstanding, and we've gotten through four more of Mark Dayton's almost-scary incoherence, sure, but if you don't remember Rod Grams, you really have no concept of Minnesota Senators actually doing the jobs they were sent to Washington to do.

The nerve of that Coleman.

Minnesota's junior senator made quite a splash this week with his call for the resignation of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, a splendid public servant whom the city Sen. Norm Coleman once governed has considered a semi-native son since his years at Macalester College. Even if he had never set foot in St. Paul, Annan would deserve far better than the stuff Coleman is dishing out.

John Dillinger, Al Capone and Ma Barker also lived in Saint Paul. Does the Strib think they should have gotten a break? Damn that sordid J. Edgar Hoover, picking on ex-short-time-St. Paulites!

Annan attended MacAlester as an exchange student. So what?

Is Nick Coleman writing this tripe?

The ostensible reason for seeking Annan's resignation? It was on his watch that Saddam Hussein diverted billions from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program designed to relieve the humanitarian burden on Iraqis suffering as a consequence of U.N. sanctions.

Note that no one has the slightest whiff of proof that Annan knew about, condoned or profited from this scandal.

"Ostensible" reason.

Love that word. Especially tied to the - words fail me - idiotic notion that Annan's ignorance (much as it beggars the imagination to think Annan wouldn't have known that his son was on the take. But just for those of you who take the Strib seriously; yes, there is a "slight whiff" of evidence that Kofi Annan was involved; per Claudia Rosett:

Oil-for-Food was run out of the U.N. Secretariat, reporting directly to Annan, who regularly signed off on the six-month phases of the program. Without his approval, the contracts would not have gone forward.

Even if we assume that everyone on the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food staff, as well as Kofi Annan himself, was indeed ignorant of Kojo Annan's involvement with Cotecna, it is hard to buy the argument that Kofi, while signing off regularly on the program's workings, was simply oblivious to the details. Not only was Kofi Annan the boss, but he was directly involved from the beginning. Kofi Annan's official U.N. biography notes that shortly before his promotion to Secretary-General "he led the first United Nations team negotiating with Iraq on the sale of oil to fund purchases of humanitarian aid."

It was Annan, who in October 1997 brought in as Oil-for-Food's executive director Benon Sevan, reporting directly to the Secretary-General, to consolidate Oil-for-Food's operations into the Office of Iraq Program. And it was shortly after Sevan took charge that Oil-for-Food, set up by Kofi Annan's predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, with at least some transparency on individual deals, began treating as confidential such vital information as the names of specific contractors, quantities of goods, and prices paid.

Slight whiff? We're into "overwhelming stench" territory here.

Furthermore, when the scandal surfaced, Annan appointed former Fed chairman and man of impeccable honor Paul Volcker to thoroughly investigate the matter. Volcker's report, which both he and Annan have promised will be made public, is still a work in progress.

Unmentioned by the Strib; Volcker's investigation has no power to subpoena. It has no power to coerce anything from anyone at the UN. The impeccably honorable Volcker's report will be "in progress" until hell freezes over, if it's substantive investigation you're looking for.

Norm Coleman has no such constraint. That's gotta bug the Strib.

So why is Coleman so exercised, aside from the prospect of juicy publicity? Well, he says, Annan isn't cooperating very well with Coleman's Senate subcommittee, which also seeks to investigate the matter. The United Nations hasn't provided documents the subcommittee needs.

The sanctions were imposed by the U.N. Security Council, the food-for-oil program was initiated by the Security Council, and Annan works for the Security Council. He does not work for the U.S. Senate.

Indeed, he does not work "for" anyone. He's above the law in pretty much every sense of the term. And this should nauseate Americans in general, above and beyond the travesty that is the Oil for Food scandal.

And it should scare the bejeebers out of you; it's to the UN that the likes of John Kerry and the Strib want the US to defer on matters of foreign policy.

We'll come back to that. This next is hilarious:

Readers also should know that this isn't a new issue, and it has very little to do with the oil-for-food program. For months before the election, the right-wing constellation of blogs and talk radio was alive with incendiary rhetoric about Annan and the oil-for-food scandal, not to mention accusations that the mainstream media were soft-peddling it to protect Annan. This is really all about Annan's refusal to toe the Bush line on Iraq and the administration's generally unilateral approach to foreign affairs. The right-wingers hate Annan and saw in the food-for-oil program a possible chink in his armor. They went after it with a venomous fury. Coleman seems only too eager to aid their cause.

In this paragraph - one lousy paragraph! - we see a virtual shopping mall of intellectual and moral bankruptcies, a sort of DSM-4 of the symptomology of the Strib's moral and intellectual retardation; the mind reels at trying to catalog all of them.

• Isn't it always about "hate", to us conservatives? No matter what evidence we gather - and Claudia Rosett has gathered it, make no mistake about it - to the Strib's editorial board, anything we say or do is always about hate. Or at least that's what they tell their dwindling readership. It's the foolish, not-too-bright coward's way out of argument he/she is factually and intellectually unable to win.
• Of course we are angry; The UN betrayed us. The United States won a war against Hussein 13 years ago - only stopping with the liberation of Kuwait at the behest of the UN, by the way - and spent the whole time since then holding up vastly more than its end of the bargain. Now we see that the UN was actively complicit with the French, Germans, Russians, and Hussein himself in rendering our compliance irrelevant, indeed foolish.
• Due to the UN's complicity - including alleged payoffs of the UN weapons inspectors that the left once and still holds up as the solution to the Iraq WMD program - the blood and treasure that the US sacrificed in the 13 years since the first Gulf War has been rendered not only irrelevant, but in fact shown to have been the guileless work of a nation played for a collective sucker.
• "Constellation of Bloggers and talk radio", huh? Well, it's nice to have graduated from pajama-clad hate-drenched howler monkey, I guess. But you'd have to be someone who relies on the mainstream media for all your information, or a complacent idiot (pardon the redundancy) to not know that the "constellation" has more than enough evidence for a thinking person to conclude that it's not rhetoric, but incendiary facts.
• Annan's refusal to "toe the line" on Iraq? Bollocks. It's the UN's complicity in rendering "the line" completely meaningless", and - this was Captain Ed's point yesterday on the show - making sure that there was no non-military means of getting at the truth about the scandal!
• "Generally unilateral"
• "Venomous fury?" Indeed. Americans should be furious. We, as a nation, have been played for morons. In the case of those of you who believe the Strib's pronouncements at face value - or, sorry to say, the 48% of you who voted for the candidate who would have the UN, the body that has mocked us for the past 13 years, "globally test" our foreign policy - that diagnosis seems unfortunately accurate.

Back to the editorial:

Numerous Star Tribune readers have pointed out -- appropriately, in our view -- that if Coleman wants to investigate scandal, he need not go as far afield as the United Nations. He could start with those really nice contracts that Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm, Halliburton, got in Iraq. He could move on to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

But he's not. Other people are investigating those allegations (and, it would seem, coming up with squat). Coleman has his job to do, and - standing on the shoulders of the likes of Duelfer and Rosett - is doing it well.

Which is, I suspect, is what's gotten the Strib and those "numberous readers" so exercised.

There is so much from the last four years that Coleman could find to keep himself busy. Just about every aspect of the Iraq misadventure smells to the high heavens. But of course investigating those things would be unpleasant for those Coleman so fawningly seeks to please. What an embarrassment.

Is there really "so much" to investigate, Strib editors?

Isn't that your job?

Of course it is. And you keep trying to do it, supposedly. And it's always, as you say, an embarassment. Indeed, most of your (collective) "investigations" into all the ingredients of the "misadventure" indeed "stink to high heaven"; the four-year obsession with Bush's Air Guard record ended with forged documents, a disgraced news division, and a bunch of mere bloggers walking on air. Weeks-long attempts to pin Abu Ghraib on senior officials came to naught. Missing explosives? Not missing at all. Quagmire? Pfffft - 70% of Iraq is in fine shape; Kurdistan is more peaceful than Minneapolis itself.

In the meantime, when presented with a real scandal, underscored by real evidence, where's the Strib?

Where indeed?

The editorial board of the Minneapolis Star/Tribune is a true communal embarassment to Minnesota. They preside over a local media and polling machine that is more demonstrably in the bag for the Democrats than any media operation in the United States. They act in the most bald-faced fashion as de facto hatchet men for Democrat candidates - remember Rod Grams? When they've crossed paths with the lowly bloggers of the Northern Alliance - the Powerguys and Captain Ed - they have consistently come across like ill-informed, petulant, snarling teenagers who've been caught fibbing about their homework.

They are the sordid embarassment.

But it's worse than that. They are not journalists - not in the sense of the word I was taught, way back when, by people who actually took the word seriously. They are PR flaks - by omission or commission, it matters not which - for an agenda.

That, truly, is sordid. And deeply embarrassing.

Tomorrow's Anniversary

Tomorrow is, of course, the 63rd anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

Minnesota has, of course, a close connection to the events. 82 Minnesota navy reservists were on board the USS Ward when the Ward spotted a Japanese midget submarine off the entrance to Pearl Harbor, hours before the air attack that launched the war. The "A" (forward) gun on the Ward, manned by a crew of Minnesotans, fired the first shots of the war, sinking the sub.

The Ward's old "A" gun is on the grounds of the state Transportation building. Increasingly, the links to the war are monuments; the veterans are passing away faster every years, as did indeed Russell Reetz, one of the crewmen on that "A" gun.

Stumbling Towards Glorious

I'm way too busy. Kids, job, blog, talk show, house, rudiments of a social life - something's gotta give.

For me, traditionally, that something is television - especially televised sports. I just don't ever sit in the living room watching sports. Never. I haven't watched an NFL game in at least a decade.

So for the most part, I've let the ebbs and flows of the NFL pretty much pass me by (although the Vikings don't so much ebb and flow as they congeal).

That being said...

This is so freakin' cool!

I've been a Bears fan since I was about four years old. Not "fan" to the extent that I really follow the team or anything - I just always want the Bears to win. Every season, I predict the Bears will go all the way. Unlike Vikings fans, I've been right once.

When I was a kid, it was hard being a Bears fan. Vikings fans in North Dakota are an even bigger bunch of jack-booted droogs than they are in Minnesota. And yet when I was a kid I sat and thrilled when the then-lowly Bears would beat the Vikings (most famously in 1971, when the Bears came back from a two-touchdown deficit inside the two-minute warning to beat the Vikes by three points, with Kent Nix at the helm.

The '86 Bears, of course, expiated much of the loser cachet from the seventies' Bears; the Payton/Dent/Singletary/McMahon years were great ones for Bears fans both boiling and lukewarm. The nineties and the new century have both been returns to form (at least for those of us who came to the Bears after their great heyday from the thirties through their '63 NFL Championship, their last until '86).

But days like today are glorious, joyous reminders of everything the Bears represent; When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose; and decade in, decade out, the arrogance of the Vikings is matched only by their ineptitude and the pure glee I (and all Bears fans) feel when they get tripped up by our lowly, loveable Bears.

So a loud, wet raspberry to all of you Vikings fans. And next year? All the way, baby.

'tis Michele's Season

Michele Catalano's 24 days of Xanax.

Yes, it does strike close to home. Why are you asking?

Spirit of America - T Minus 10 Days

With ten days to go in the Blogger Challenge with Spirit of America, the Northern Alliance team has pulled to within $500 of Little Green Footballs.

The closest thing we have to "competition" is from the guys 'n gals at Castle Argghhh! Fighting Fusileers for Freedom!. The Arrrrgh team has taken its share of shots. I'll keep those shots in perspective; partly because so many of the Aarrrrghies are veterans, and partly because if they were so terriffic, they'd know that the word was spelled "Fusiliers".

Donate today!

Cracks

In an odd display of almost-synchronicity, Mark Desrosiers at New Patriot asks:

Um, so is there any chance we can convince Mark Dayton not to run in 2006? Not that Kennedy would beat him or anything, it's just that after the office-closing incident I'm convinced I can carve a stiffer spine out of a banana.

So close to what we at the NARN were thinking:

Banana-spined? Check.

Democrats are quietly embarassed of the not-quietly-embarrassing Dayton? Check.

Convince him not to run? Not check. Please, Dayton - your party needs you. Honest.

Kennedy won't beat him? In our wierd state, assume nothing - but if the truth about Mark Dayton gets out, Kennedy will squash him. Granted we have a media oligopoly in the Metro that's dedicated to making sure the truth about Dayton stays tucked safely away...

...but for once, they have competition. It's not just their game anymore.

I for one (and speaking for my homies) am looking forward to '06. Oh, Lordy, am I.

My Favorite Honky

The NYTimes turns to Steve Martin for perspective on the new exhibition of King Tut artifacts:

IT is fitting that so many major news organizations have asked me to herald the coming to the United States of the artifacts from King Tut's tomb. After all, I'm the one who wrote the silly song about him. I stepped over the backs of many Egyptologists who wanted to write this article, but it's better that they learn their lesson now: silly song writers are powerful and vicious people who will stop at nothing to write an article about subjects they have treated in a silly way.

And, lest you'd wondered:

It does strike me as ironic that the song has become the standard reference work on the subject of King Tut. Many of the lines in the song are now believed to be fact. In this article I should - as a serious scholar - set the record straight:

King Tut was not "born in Arizona."

He did not live in a "condo made of stone-a."

King Tut did not "do the monkey," nor did he "move to Babylonia."

King Tut was not a honky.

He was not "buried in his jammies."

The song does, however, make a valid assertion that scholars still regard as a breakthrough: King Tut was, as explained in the song, "an Egyptian."

In next Sunday's Times: Susannah Hoffs and Vicki Peterson's theories on how how Egyptians really walked.

(Via Red and, by extension, Tommy)

Thoughts Needed

Please keep your thoughts not only with Ukraine, but with King who's covered Ukraine so very well. King's in the midst of a family medical emergency.

For Your "Sitting in your Underwear, Drinking Beer and Eating Gas-Station Burritos" Pleasure

Doug from Bogus Gold reviews four uncommon supermarket salsas.

Mmmmm.

Perfect accompaniment for an evening of solo bacchanalianism.

By the way - tonight's my anniversary; I've been single (in fact, if not in the eyes of the law) for fiv years.

What impeccable timing, Doug!

At Least I'm Not Alone

A few years ago, while on a "date" (I put it in scare quotes because "trial by misery" was probably more appropriate), I sampled a restaurant/bar in Apple Valley for an interminable evening.

As Chumley points out, it wasn't just the date that was miserable.

His review is a classic, and not just for this line:

I'm all for good seasoning, but when there's so much peppercorn that they could have served me sewer rat and I wouldn't have known the difference there's a problem.

Whew.

Politics

David Strom shows why he's successful in politics.

Where Have You Gone, Harry Truman?

One of my questions during yesterday's dustup with the New Patriot's Chris Dykstra was "What does winning the war mean to you?"

In light of this piece by Peter Beinart, a better question might be "do you think your movement can ever get serious about the thret that faces us?"

Money quote:

During World War II, only one major liberal organization, the Union for Democratic Action (UDA), had banned communists from its ranks. At the Willard, members of the UDA met to expand and rename their organization. The attendees, who included Reinhold Niebuhr, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, Walter Reuther, and Eleanor Roosevelt, issued a press release that enumerated the new organization's principles. Announcing the formation of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the statement declared, "[B]ecause the interests of the United States are the interests of free men everywhere," America should support "democratic and freedom-loving peoples the world over." That meant unceasing opposition to communism, an ideology "hostile to the principles of freedom and democracy on which the Republic has grown great."

At the time, the ADA's was still a minority view among American liberals. Two of the most influential journals of liberal opinion, The New Republic and The Nation, both rejected militant anti-communism. Former Vice President Henry Wallace, a hero to many liberals, saw communists as allies in the fight for domestic and international progress. As Steven M. Gillon notes in Politics and Vision, his excellent history of the ADA, it was virtually the only liberal organization to back President Harry S Truman's March 1947 decision to aid Greece and Turkey in their battle against Soviet subversion.

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But, over the next two years, in bitter political combat across the institutions of American liberalism, anti-communism gained strength. With the ADA's help, Truman crushed Wallace's third-party challenge en route to reelection. The formerly leftist Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expelled its communist affiliates and The New Republic broke with Wallace, its former editor. The American Civil Liberties Union (aclu) denounced communism, as did the naacp. By 1949, three years after Winston Churchill warned that an "iron curtain" had descended across Europe, Schlesinger could write in The Vital Center: "Mid-twentieth century liberalism, I believe, has thus been fundamentally reshaped

Big clinker: Do you see that sort of conscience in the Democratic party today?

I don't. Show me.

During the campaign, the Democrats wore that issue only reluctantly and after immense, wracking contortions. What sign is there that the Democrats can get serious about Islamofascism?

Beinart tries to sound optimistic...

Had history taken a different course, this new brand of liberalism might have expanded beyond a narrow foreign policy elite. The war in Afghanistan, while unlike Kosovo a war of self-defense, once again brought the Western democracies together against a deeply illiberal foe. Had that war, rather than the war in Iraq, become the defining event of the post-September 11 era, the "re-education" about U.S. power, and about the new totalitarian threat from the Muslim world that had transformed Kerry's advisers, might have trickled down to the party's liberal base, transforming it as well.

Instead, Bush's war on terrorism became a partisan affair--defined in the liberal mind not by images of American soldiers walking Afghan girls to school, but by John Ashcroft's mass detentions and Cheney's false claims about Iraqi WMD. The left's post-September 11 enthusiasm for an aggressive campaign against Al Qaeda--epitomized by students at liberal campuses signing up for jobs with the CIA--was overwhelmed by horror at the bungled Iraq war.

...but it doesn't work. Note the references to campaigns "...against Al Quaeda", as if our war were like a James Bond movie, and if we can only find Doctor Evil in his secret lair all will be saved.

Beinart tries to end on a hopeful note:

Today, the war on terrorism is partially obscured by the war in Iraq, which has made liberals cynical about the purposes of U.S. power. But, even if Iraq is Vietnam, it no more obviates the war on terrorism than Vietnam obviated the battle against communism. Global jihad will be with us long after American troops stop dying in Falluja and Mosul. And thus, liberalism will rise or fall on whether it can become, again, what Schlesinger called "a fighting faith."

Of all the things contemporary liberals can learn from their forbearers half a century ago, perhaps the most important is that national security can be a calling. If the struggles for gay marriage and universal health care lay rightful claim to liberal idealism, so does the struggle to protect the United States by spreading freedom in the Muslim world.

Would that it could be. I'd love to know that my liberal neighbors and I could at least share this.

But the mainstream of the left doesn't see "spreading freedom" as a valid goal, because for far too many of them the US and its democracy are not that much better than the systems they replace. You can look a long time, and largely in vain, for any reference from the left to the people murderd by Hussein or the Taliban. You can look even longer to find any reference on the left to the real scope of the war; to so many on the left, it's all about Al Quaeda.

Again, best of luck with that. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Mas Latinos?

I'm a Republican. I live in the city.

And one of my (political) life's eternal frustrations is not so much conservatives' inability to reach out to blacks, latinos and asians - people like Brett Schundler show that it's doable - as it is conservatives unwillingness to try.

Case in point: The Hispanic numbers in this past election.

Commentators as diverse as Mickey Kaus, Michelle Malkin, Steve Sailer, and Ruy Teixeira , as well as a variety of pollsters have been trying to peck away at the President's numbers among hispanics last month; while the President claimed 44% of the Latino vote, various pundits are trying to force it down to 42, 41 or even 39%.

The reason? Some pundits think that to appeal to Latinos is to pander to those who want to eliminate our borders.

Rubbish. Some of the most fervent opponents of open borders and ludicrous reforms of immigration are immigrants who came here legally. And the notion that all Hispanics are beholden to the illegal immigration vote is wrong - many Hispanic families have been in America longer than (if you're of Northern, Eastern or Southern European descent) yours.

Ruffini strikes the chord I'm looking for:

I have two notes of advice for conservatives who are trying to diminish the President's gains with Hispanics. You often wonder why people think you're unreasonable anti-immigration zealots. Stuff like this is why. You're employing all manner of hairsplitting and technical minutae in an attempt to destroy any notion that Hispanics might be moving into the mainstream of American society. This isn't even a big debate over the fundamentals of amnesty or open borders -- but a technical dispute over the NEP estimates -- yet still the obsessive focus on diminishing Hispanic integration remains. This is what makes you sound unreasonable, not your macro position on immigration.

On the numbers - whether 45% or 41%:

And that's not necessarily bad news if you're a skeptic of immigration. In fact, it would be smart for you to embrace the 42-44% estimate.

Why? Because on balance, the Republican Party is still to the right of the Democrats on immigration, and yet the GOP has staged historic gains with Hispanics while their voting population has grown dramatically. Kerry proposed something much closer to amnesty for illegals -- and Hispanics weren't baited. Besides, the shift to the President had more to do with values than with immigration. The good news for immigration reformers? Hispanics aren't moved by promises of amnesty or open borders.

The GOP gained in a lot of areas in this past election. But at least in Minnesota, the only space left to explore is in the city - and until the MNGOP (as nationally) sheds its tin ear about ethnic minority voters, I'm afraid the party is hamstringing us who live here.

Trope Of The Morning To You

Chris Dykstra of New Patriot responds to a Brian "Saint Paul" Ward piece in Fraters, which criticized in turn an earlier New Patriot piece which recycled claims that the US used napalm on civilians in Fallujah.

Got all that? Good. Onward.

Brian's point - that the left (as manifested in New Patriot, a collective (what else) of local leftybloggers) is too busy recycling wives' tales and urban legends about US actions and intentions to bother with things like fact-checking.

Dykstra's response:

Saint Paul employs the time honored conservative tactic of crying "Socialist" when presented with a set of ideologically contrary facts.

Let's get to the "Facts" in a bit. Brian didn't "cry socialist", merely observed that "New Patriot"'s rhetoric is frequently not unlike listening to SWP shills at Fringe Fest.

When confronted with a very uncomfortable moral dillema - That it is obviously wrong to use napalm in civilian populations - he accuses the neutral observer with false moral clarity.

Now, the "facts" - the assertion that the US used napalm on civilians in Fallujah; a Google search shows that while there are many published allegations, that napalm was used, not one comes from a source more credible than Aljazeera.

Aljazeera has served as a cheerleader for the jihadis in Fallujah, acting in the same capacity Baghdad Bob served nearly two years ago. During the initial assault, they passed on "eyewitness reports" of US vehicles blazing in the streets, with American bodies piled around them - numbers that would themselves have accounted for nearly all the Americans killed in the entire campaign.

So what does Aljazeera provide as evidence? More "eyewitness accounts", and a photo of a child being treated for a small injury (and as a parent who's hauled kids to the emergency room enough to have been able to use it as an address for tax purposes, I know - there are no "small injuries" if you're the child or his family; do not go there with me, you'll regret it).

Napalm doesn't give small injuries; it's a jellied gasoline dropped in tanks, which sluices over and sticks to everything it touches before it ignites, causing the most ghastly burns imaginable. It's truly a horrible weapon, designed to demoralize - yes, terrorize - the enemy.

It's also, if anything, less subtle than conventional bombs. It creates massive orange gouts of flame visible for miles, following by dense, unmistakeable black smoke.

I say this by way of saying that, as much as the mainstream media was embedded with the troops, it seems highly unlikely that if napalm were actually used that only Aljazeera would have the story. What do you suppose the odds are?

Dykstra:

As much as St. Paul would assign the qualities of self-righteousness and cynicism to me I ask in return: When is the right going to get real? Although it is a war crime to drop napalm on civilian populations (it is, of course, endlessly arguable whether or not Falluja is a civilian population so let's agree to disagree), that's not the only thing that bothers me about it.

I'm guessing that "the use of civilians as shields to prevent one from being attacked is also a war crime" isn't the one he's thinking about right now...

Number two on the list is that the use of a weapon like that it is so unbelievably, tragically stupid. It is particularly stupid to use it in pursuit of an asinine war, ineptly run.

Leaving aside that Dykstra seems content to believe Aljazeera at all costs - why is the weapon itself stupid? More tragically stupid than any of the myriad other means that humans turn each other into hamburger in wartime? More tragic and stupid than an M16 (whose bullet rips tissue to shreds), or the M-1's HEAT round (which directs its explosion through its target, sending a jet of molten armor, masonry or dirt at 20,000 feet per second into whatever it's protecting), or the Daisy Cutter (which creates an instant firestorm, a fireball that sucks all the oxygen from a quarter of a mile away, above or below ground), or a rusty butcher knife that saws its living victims' head off?

As to whether the war is either asinine or ineptly run - that's an argument that we could take a long time with; stating either as simple facts is both logically perfunctory and factually slippery.

Dykstra continues:

See, St. Paul, the thing is, I want to win the war on terror. This isn't about right and left. It's about winning a war.

Right, and good. So did Howard Dean and John Kerry - where "war" means "finding Bin Laden". Not to put words in Mr. Dykstra's mouth, but ones' definition of "the war on terror" can be important.

In order to win it, we have to come to grips with the fact that the war in Iraq and the way we are waging it is not making us safer. We are selling the soul of our nation to make our enemy stronger.

Another dubious assertion stated as "fact".

In this case, though, Mr. Dykstra provides a source that can be called reliable without herniating one with laughter:

Here's some socialist propaganda that supports my argument, not that you or this administration would ever listen (two bits if you can guess the source)...

It was a Department of Defense memo that said (I'll abbreviate it here) that our military effort is radicalizing Moslems, bringing them out of the woodwork on the side of the terrorists. The memo has been floating around for a while, and it states an opinion driven by one track of analysis, and ignores a number of things that are very germane:

• It's forcing Arabs to one pole or the other; in Iraq, large numbers of Arabs, indeed Moslems in general, are also coming out in support of their democracy. Arabs in many other countries don't have that option, of course - there are exactly three majority-Moslem democracies in the world right now (two years ago there was only one).
• Since Mr. Dykstra does indeed say he wants to "win the war", then one needs to note that the war in Iraq serves a goal that one must achieve to have any hope of winning any war; it seizes the initiative, fights the war on our schedule and tempo rather than the enemy's, denies the enemy a place to organize and a big ATM, and most importantly fights the war on their turf rather than ours.

Inept? It's why Libya and Syria are so quiet these days. It's why the Mullahs are blustering to (literally) save their lives. It's why the Saudis are quietly, frantically trying to clean house. It's why the Indonesians, Filipinos, Turks and Indians are getting serious about the Madrasses and the influences they're spreading, as well as the terrorists in their midst.

A little napalm? Keep it in context. But first, prove that it happened. Sorry - Aljazeera's word doesn't cut it.

It occurs to me that the most interesting exercise might be to ask my liberal readers; what does "Winning the War" mean to you? I mean, in specifics.

The Challenge

The PiPress' Craig Westover wrote a fascinating piece that touches on several topics close to my heart (and frequently found on this blog).

He starts with the Strib's paeon to WELLSTONE!, the documentary, which I wrote about a while back:

In a local newspaper article lavishly praising the documentary film "WELLSTONE!" there appeared this remarkable statement: "Like Illinois' Democratic Senate shoo-in Barack Obama, he [Wellstone] cared more about public morality (the policies that define a culture's decency) than private morality (the actions that determine an individual's character)."

Yikes! If that is not the definition of a police state, then at the very least it's the manifesto of a ruling elite for whom the individual is but a means to the end of their utopian vision. It's the blueprint for a society that is not held together by the inherent morality of its people but cemented by whatever coercive policy is required for the state to enforce a collective view of "social justice."

Collective morality is insidious. It robs individuals of the necessity of making individual moral decisions that build individual character. When government uses force to impose pseudo "public morality," it destroys authentic morality that otherwise naturally governs the voluntary interactions of individuals one with another. It robs recipients of government largess of their self-esteem. It robs coerced benefactors of their natural ability to be truly benevolent. It robs society of its moral vigor.

Where is the moral virtue in A and B getting together to rob C for the benefit of D, which is the format of so many Democrat proposals?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, like Wellstone's.

Westover turns the corner into the real topic:

Such moral myopia presents real opportunity for conservatives. But as Democrats dismissed the moral sentiment swirling about issues like gay marriage and abortion, conservatives are guilty of conceding to Democrats and moderates within their own party the moral high ground on domestic issues. There is no reason to do so.

Traditional conservative principles of limited government and free-market solutions to domestic problems are morally superior positions to positions that deny individuals choice about the schools their children attend, the kind of retirement plan they want or the kind of health care they need.

Because the policies that conservative principles beget are justified by their results rather than just good intentions, conservative policies are not far removed from the traditional liberal belief that government policy ought to empower the less powerful, not domesticate them.

But there is a catch. Taking the moral high ground from Democrats on social issues requires more than conservatives serving lunch to one another or blogging among themselves. They won't win converts to their cause by reaffirming their virtue to each other. They can win - they can unite the country - only by repeatedly making their case to now captive Democrat constituencies that aren't particularly predisposed to hear their message. That takes some guts, and, dare I say, "moral courage." It requires authentic conviction in one's beliefs. Conservatives might even, occasionally, have to lead with their chins.

There remains the little matter of convincing a population that's grown up being indoctrinated in the virtues of collectivism that these are in fact good things - especially difficult in Minnesota, with its crippling Scandinavian communitarianism.

But this touches on a subject of long-standing, intense interest; Republicans can, indeed, only win if we drive the moral imperatives of our campaign - the morality of choice, of liberty - into the "Blue" areas. It's something at which the GOP has made slow, painful gains; numbers among blacks and hispanics were sharply up in this past election. And yet here in Minnesota, the GOP has largely written off the inner cities, paying them only the most perfunctory lip service, using them to try to draw some funding away from races in more electorally productive suburban and outstate districts.

That's why the Bret Schundler campaign in New Jersey has me so jazzed; if he can win (and he's a dark horse), he can help introduce his brand of pragmatic, deeply moral fiscal and governmental conservatism into the GOP's national dialog. It's one we need to have, and Schundler is one of very few I've met in the GOP that can lead it at a national level.

Whew

I think I fixed the comment problem.

Plus, thanks to Captain Ed, this blog (and several others in the NARN world) have MT Blacklist installed, which has made un-spamming this site a lot easier.

I should also be able to start un-banning some of the IP addresses; if you've found yourself unable to comment before last week, that should clear up.

MT Experts?

For some reason, my comment section is rejecting all incoming comments.

Any MT gurus out there have any idea how I can fix it?

If so - drop me a line at comments at the domain shotintthedark, then a dot info.

Comment Spammers Caught

ST. PAUL (AP) - A group of "comment spammers" - entrepreneurs who leave "spam", or unsolicited advertising, in the comment sections of "blogs" - were gunned down in a mysterious shootout in Saint Paul today.

Police are investigating, but as yet no leads have been uncovered.

Police say the shadowy gunmen believed responsible were apparently applauded by a group of website owners as they left the building. Witnesses are reportedly being extraordinarily - some would say "gleefully" - uncooperative.

I Have No Idea

My comments section is acting up, rejecting pretty much everyone.

I'll get to work on it.

First Annual Webster Words Contest

NZ Bear - a favorite of the Northern Alliance - has a fun one today:

Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that blog, defined as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks," was one of the most looked-up words on its Internet sites this year...

The list:

1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

Bear's response, of course; write a sentence using all ten words.

You know I can't resist.

To wit:

It is incumbent on a guy with a partisan blog, acting as a lonely electoral insurgent (as if he was a cicada in a hurricane), to assert his sovereignty, even though the ignorant might call demand his defenestration, or even call him a peloton, even though they had no idea what "peloton" meant before the Bear wrote about it...

Your turn.

So...Good? Bad? Indifferent?

So - are the Minneapolis school closings a a prudent response to economic and demographic realities in the city?:

Minneapolis school board members are poised to adopt a reasonable facilities plan that would close 17 schools and shift programs in several others. The decision is long overdue, but the board used a much improved, more inclusive process to make these tough decisions.

Or a symptom that Republicans hate the city and its people?

I get so confused.

Political? Or Just Slimy?

Stephen Gardner's former employer responds to charges that they fired Gardner for criticizing John Kerry.

While they state a standard-sounding case...:

For purely financial reasons,we had to reduce management expenses.A decisi n was made to
consolidate field management from five managers to three.The tw affected field managers resided in
the areas where our business had the most significant decreases.Mr.Gardner was one of th se
managers.

...but then they note:

To help offset the elimination of Mr.Gardner ’ s supervisory position,Millennium offered Mr.
Gardner other non-supervisory work,which he decided not to take.

...which is a pretty standard dodge that companies use to avoid having their unemployment insurance rating dinged. It's not a layoff, if the person quits (because he doesn't want a job many grades below his or her qualifications).

So there is deniability. Whether it's genuine or merely plausible is still up in the air.

Crushing of Dissent

IRS agent-turned-tax-dissenter goes to trial:

Joseph Banister, 41, a leading figure in the "tax honesty" movement, was taken into custody Nov. 19 by IRS agents and released on $25,000 bond after pleading not guilty.

Joseph Banister

A Certified Public Accountant in San Jose, Calif., Banister has been telling his clients they don't need to file federal income tax returns because the 16th Amendment, which gives Congress "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes," was never properly ratified.

He'll lose, of course. Read Vox for more.

I'm pretty convinced that the bulk of the reason for our current tax system is so the feds can dangle cases like this over our heads, lest we get uppity...

Coleman: Annan Must Go

Norm Coleman calls for Kofi Annan's ouster in today's WSJ.

While many questions concerning Oil-for-Food remain unanswered, one conclusion has become abundantly clear: Kofi Annan should resign. The decision to call for his resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the U.N.'s collective nose.

Mr. Annan was at the helm of the U.N. for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.'s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses. The consequences of the U.N.'s ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.

Much, much more. Read it.

Muir's Return

Chris Muir's Day By Day returns today after a long hiatus due to the death of Muir's mother.

Good to have you back, Chris.

The F Word

One of my least-favorite words in the world is "Fascism" and its various related adjectives.

During the late eighties, I lost count of the number of times I heard graduates of places like MacAlester and Carlton Colleges, or the U of M College of Liberal Arts, use the terms so imprecisely it seemed to lose all meaning; for a while, I thought "Fascist" had become a general-purpose word to express mild perturbance with things: "My fascist landlord told me I had to get rid of my dog"; "They pre-empted 90210 this week, the fascists!"; "My boss told me to be at work on time; what a fascist".

But lately, the use has gotten, while arguably better-aimed semantically, even more crudely pointed.

The moonbat left has cried "Fascism" ever since long before George Bush's election in 2000 was confirmed.

Wikipedia defines "Fascism" as:

...any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that:

• exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
  
• uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
  
• engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and
  
• espouses nationalism and sometimes racism or ethnic nationalism.

Just saying.

History Repeats

The Blogger challenge starts today!

That's right - the challenge, which supports Spirit of America, actually begins today and runs through December 15.

The Northern Alliance team has already raised a ton of money, and is in second place and sloooooowly gaining on Little Green Footballs.

Of course, the competition is a distant second to the cause, here - helping Spirit of America rebuild Iraq. They're involved in an array of projects that provide direct help to Iraqis and the troops that are involved in the reconstruction.