Bloggerpalooza!

The information is at Creekside. The gathering is at Olympia Pizza. If you're a lotus-eater and within range of Denman and Nelson in Vancouver on Sunday, we're going to be there. There will be pipes, drums and stone-hurling later in the day. Alison has the list of speakers.

The march of the wingnuts

Via Lindsay we get a list of all the wingnuts who have taken to blaming the victims for yesterday's slaughter at Virginia Tech. The blame is being cast all over the place, including taking a shot at co-ed dorms as the root cause for someone going right of their nut.

By far the worst out there, however, is that admirer of 15-year old girls, John Derbyshire.

As NRO's designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy? It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can't hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad.

Yes, yes, I know it's easy to say these things: but didn't the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It's true—none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.

First, Derbyshire admits he's a chickenhawk, and we can use any definition of that word that we want to.

Second, Derbyshire has a point: Why didn't all those students count the shots? I mean, there was fuck all else going on at the time, right?!

Derbyshire then suggests, based on his own pathetic markmanship, that the shooter couldn't possibly have been that good. This leap of logic defies all facts. The guy managed to kill 33 people and send several others to hospital in critical condition. Then there is the suggestion that a .22 round can't do any real damage. I wonder what kind of blubbering mess Derbyshire would become if somebody grazed his earlobe with a .22 round?

Finally, there is the Derbyshire bravado that, given he was probably going to die anyway, he'd rush the guy. Really. How, pray tell, would he do that while he's slipping in his own shit just trying to stay on his feet?

Salvage decided not to let Derbyshire get away with it and sent him an email... to which Derbyshire replied. That alone indicates that Derbyshire is more of an idiot than we all realize and Salvage makes the point well. His exchange is definitely worth reading.

James Wolcott finds the wanker community picking on another target, namely the gun control community fronted by Sarah Brady, whose husband Jim Brady took a bullet in the head during the March 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

Roy, at Alicublog takes on a wingnut who can't seem to understand why the shooter wasn't dealt with before because he seemed weird. The wingnut is Ace O Spades, who has a history of odd behaviour and Roy is only too willing to point it out and suggest that Ace's idea has some merit.

If we lived in the kind of world Mr. Spades favors, he'd be in a nuthouse quicker than you could say Preventive Detention. For the moment we live in another kind of world, and one which I prefer -- though it's nice to know that, once that other world comes around, it will have an upside.

And there's more. Lots more. Because the wingnuts just can't stand it when reality doesn't look like an episode of 24.

A US liberal church is under fire from it's world body

The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican church, has agreed to meet with the heads of the US branch of that church, the Episcopalian House of Bishops. The Archbishop, Dr. Rowan Williams is in Canada this week for a retreat with the Canadian House of Bishops. The visit to Canada looks pretty benign, even if, behind closed doors there are likely to be some fairly serious discussions.

The US Episcopalian church is on the ropes with the Archbishop.

The spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans said Monday he has agreed to an urgent request for a meeting with U.S. church leaders as the Anglican fellowship nears a split over the Bible and sexuality.

[...]

Last month, U.S. Episcopal bishops affirmed their support for gays and rejected a compromise plan that would have required the Americans to give up some authority to theological conservatives outside the U.S. church.

[...]

The latest plan emerged from a February meeting of Anglican leaders, called primates, in Tanzania – and it included an ultimatum for the U.S. church.

Episcopalians were given until Sept. 30 to unequivocally pledge not to consecrate another partnered gay bishop or authorize official prayers for same-sex couples. Otherwise, the church could have a much-reduced role in the communion.

As part of the Anglicans' demands, Episcopalians were told to accept a "primatial vicar" and special committee that would oversee U.S. dioceses that reject Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who supports gay relationships.

Drag all that in for a minute. This is one of those worm-turning moments. The US branch of the Anglican church is more liberal than the rest of the world's Anglican churches.

Leading the noisy conservative charge in the Canadian Anglican camp is Anglican Essentials Canada, co-led by Reverend George Sinclair, rector of St. Alban's in Ottawa. And what would the good reverend like changed?

Nothing.

The world's Anglicans, a least those opposed to the progressive steps taken by the US Episcopal church, would like to stop time. They would like to on forever observing rules laid out in the 39 Articles of Religion and the Solemn Declaration of 1893. The Anglican Essential crowd believes in being biblically faithful and keeping the Anglican church historically authentic.

That's gibberish to most people, including me, but it can be interpreted as meaning the "old church". Older than Leave It To Beaver.

Sinclair, and those who follow and support his view, are using the "old church" as an instrument to deny gay and lesbian members of the Anglican church the right to have their marriages blessed by their church. In fact, what Sinclair is suggesting is that homosexuals are violating the teachings of the Bible. Their failure to observe is grounds for excommunication since their refusal to repent is a denunciation of the church. (Article xxxiii)

Excommunication? Yup. It's still there, right in the Anglican Articles of Religion.

The Anglican church is nothing more than the "English" church and it's existence is rather messy. In truth, the Anglican church has been a platform for a variety of branches of Christian worship. While it was Henry VIII who precipitated a definitive split from the Roman church, it was his daughter Elizabeth I who finally formalized it. Before all that however, the Anglican church existed with Roman papal supremacy. The Magna Carta does not refer to the Roman church in article one; it refers to the English church.

Why is all this important?

Well, because the Anglican church was in the practice of burning people, chopping off their heads and torturing heretics. Queen Mary, during her reign, did not attempt to abolish the Church of England; she was simply going to restore papal supremacy. Her father, Henry VIII did not have to create a Church of England; it was already there. He simply gave the the Pope the heave-ho and eliminated Roman influence. The Church of England, or Anglican church, made a pretty regular habit of burning heretics. Henry's change was to modify the definition of heresy so that it no longer included criticizing the Pope or criticizing any edicts the Pope issued.

Mary re instituted heretic burning as a national pastime, although she never did scorch a noble. She restricted her heretic burning, in the name of the Anglican church, to poor confused peasants and non-compliant clergy.

The point here is that somehow the Anglican church has managed to move forward, yet Sinclair and his kind are trying to freeze it in time.

What's their real problem? Are they afraid that homosexuals are staring at them? Do they find the thought of homosexual sex repugnant? What's bugging these people?

If it's the vision in their minds, let me give them one of heterosexual sex that should turn their stomachs. This guy.... with anybody.

********
Full disclosure: I am not a member of the Anglican church... or any other church for that matter. I don't care what happens to the Anglican church. My focus is on the fact that certain members of the Anglican Communion are using that platform to promote their homophobic garbage.

Welcome to the Hand Basket

Are there any reasons for hope?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I see none at all frankly.

Now that's not to say that unreasoning hope oughtn't to continue but its important to acknowledge the irrationality.

There aren't really any indications that the anthropogenic destabilization of our planet's atmosphere is going to be addressed with anything even remotely like the urgency required.

There are the same number of indications that the christ-deluded western world is thinking rationally in regards to the mohammed-deluded eastern world. Or vice versa. (Death threats sure to follow I'm sure - don't bother, I'm alive and that's quite enough of a threat.)

On the economic front there's no indication that capitalism's market growth model shows any signs of correcting it's gigantic destructive failure.

Welcome to the hand basket.

Education and knowledge.

Via Ezra, interesting results from a new Pew Poll on knowledge of current events among the American public:

Distinct patterns emerge when these results are analyzed by key demographic groups. Education proves to be the single best predictor of knowledge. Holding all other factors equal, levels of knowledge rise with each additional year of formal schooling. At the extremes, these educational differences are dramatic: People with postgraduate degrees answer, on average, about 17 of the 23 questions correctly, while those who did not finish high school average only about eight correct answers.


But an increasingly educated American population isn't translating into a more informed public, because the level current-events knowledge is falling across all education groups:

But a deeper analysis of the five identical questions asked in both 1989 and 2007 reveals a surprising pattern: Americans didn't do as well in 2007 compared with how similarly-educated Americans performed in 1989. Across the board, scores declined significantly among college graduates, those with some college as well as for those with a high school education or less.

...What keeps the overall knowledge scores from declining is that college grads still know more than less well-educated Americans - even if they know less in absolute terms than college grads in the past - and there are proportionally more of them now than there were 18 years ago. Currently about 27% of the public are college graduates, compared with 17% in 1989. At the same time, there are fewer people who have only a high school education (50% now compared with 60% in 1989). Education still leads to increased knowledge about prominent people and events in the news - but it does not confer as much of an advantage now as it did in 1989.




Granted, it's a comparison across only five questions, which is problematic given that the distribution across types of question has been changing. (People seem to know more about issues and are less good at name recognition than in the prior survey.) Still, it raises pretty interesting questions. Despite Pew's language, the relative increase in knowledge across the the three education categories appears to have increased slightly between 1989 and 2006. Individuals with a college degree are 44% instead of 39% more likely than somebody with high school or less to answer four or five questions correctly. A simple explanation would be that as Americans get more education on average, more marginal people, in terms of being informed about and involved in society, are entering each education category, pulling down the category averages while the individual effect of education on knowledge of the world remains unchanged. Or maybe there's something more complicated at work.

The Abyss

I was going to link to a whole pile of studies to do this post, and decided not to. It’s not that there isn’t a lot, it’s that there’s almost too much. It’s that they don’t prove anything to you or, in this case with some importance, to me.

I was going to link to various stories about servicemen and servicewomen returning from some of the worlds worst places and events, having more than a little difficulty getting their minds to calm down and their consciences to absolve them of the moral dilemma. There are lots of those stories out there, and they’re not hard to find. Find them if that helps.

My grandfathers both fought in the Great War, 1914 – 1918. They both survived and shortly afterwards, emigrated from Great Britain to Canada. They had always described that move as a means to escape the rigidity of the British class structure. One of them eventually told me it was also to escape the memories of what he had been through during the war.

One became a policeman and the other a radio technician. Both spent their lives as troubled men, unable to escape the memories of the horror of the battle known as The Somme. They spoke very little of their experiences. In their homes there was always a stiffness around them. One of them loved to play with children – for a while. Then he would sink into his chair in silence, an unread book in his lap and stare at the floor until called for the next meal. Sometimes that was hours. My Grandmother would tell me, “It’s the war,” and never offered any further explanation.

The truth is, both of my grandfathers were troubled men and, while one of them seemed to adapt to life thousands of miles away from the muddied fields of Belgium and the sooty streets of Manchester, the other could never escape the horror of his experiences so long ago.

It probably didn’t help them that just over twenty years after their participation in the “war to end all wars”, they sent five of their six sons off to do it all over again. They too survived the second great war having fought in the Battle of the Atlantic, the Dieppe Raid, Ortona, The Scheldt and, as an added infliction, the disaster at Ostend which saw the destruction of the Canadian-manned 29^th Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla.

My father and one uncle, stayed in the service. They would go on to fight in Korea. In the years as I was growing up I would ask them about their particular experiences and receive no answer. I was told I was too young to know. I watched my uncle slide into acute alcohol abuse and spend a lifetime recovering; a short lifetime. Before he died the only thing he said about his experiences in war was that he hoped we had, as a people and a species, found a way to stop destroying the consciences of young people by sending them to do unnatural things.

I never understood that until much later.

I was just short of thirty-years old when my own call came. I had been in the services, both British and Canadian, for over ten years. If there had ever been a sense that with war came glory and with combat came the test of one’s character, it ended that day. A sense of fear replaced everything. Oh, there was a sense of duty and some excitement, but this was the real thing and the real thing was extremely dangerous.

In the months that followed the fury of unrestrained combat was unleashed. Ships were destroyed, comrades were killed, aircraft were shot down and I killed the enemy, at close quarters. I didn’t think much about it then. I emerged, glad to have survived, a little the worse for wear and satisfied that the incessant fear was over.

In subsequent years I would be called to one more war which, thankfully, was extraordinarily short. In the years that preceded and followed it however, there were missions to places which had been engaged in the worst horrors humans can wreak upon each other.

We had arrived to protect people and in every case, we had arrived far too late. From Cambodia to Haiti, the earth was strewn with the remains of those who sought the solution to their problems in the killing of others. And nothing was solved. The poverty, starvation, disease and corruption remained as firmly entrenched as when the killing had started, only by the time we had arrived the hatred was on display in the rotting corpses and over-filled morgues.

Had we arrived early enough to prevent it, it would have started after we left. And we would have been involved to such a degree that we too would have had to deal with the aftermath of the personal effects.

That’s what this is. It’s about what happens after. It’s about holes: holes in the psyche. There are plenty of names for it. Today’s flavourful term is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is described as a “condition”. No one wants to call it a combat wound.

In the decades that have passed since my first shooting war, I have thought little about what happened to me. I used to think about the people I served with and those who did not find their way home. I used to think about the good times and the loss of them when a friend fell. I used to think how they would never know what I know because their life ended too early. That was always painful enough.

Recently, however, something ignited in my mind. I don’t know what it is but it’s unpleasant at the least and terrifying at worst. The nightmares of past events come more often and with more clarity. And, in the middle of a conversation with people who know nothing of my history, I suddenly recall an event which sends my mind flying in a thousand different directions.

Back then, I used my weapon precisely as I was trained to do: automatically, surgically and as an extension of my arms. Often, I did not feel it kick into my shoulder or hear the metallic working of the action. Now, I can feel the trigger and the pressure against my index finger as I release the round that will kill the human in front of me. I can see the faces of mere boys who were given no choice but to die by my actions. In a particular instance, I replay an event which at the time I could not afford to second-guess. And I now wonder if the wounded young conscript laying in a fire-pit ahead of me was not reaching for his weapon but crossing himself in the style prescribed by his Catholic faith. I put two rounds into his chest before he could finish his act and I will never know whether he intended to kill me or whether he was simply asking for help from his God.

My mind randomly and with no warning suddenly erupts with one thought: “You are a killer.” It is something I have to fight back because when it happens I can see the edge of an abyss. It is a debilitating feeling that no matter what I have done in my life or what good I do, I will always be a killer; someone whose conscience was able to repress remorse for over two decades.

Those are the worst times. They come and they go. And now I understand the troubled times experienced by my antecedents: The unwillingness to tell others what they had experienced. There is a feeling of despair, moments of shame, and a fear that by verbalizing it, it will only promote something worse.

It might. Or, it might not.

The one feeling that nags at me is that no one will truly understand what is happening unless they were there. Can anyone truly know the sound of bullets whizzing by unless they have experienced it? Can they understand the shock of killing another human at close range? And can they understand that somehow, it should have all ended with me.

I understand my elder relatives’ misgivings in relating the stories of their wartime experience. It is a hugely difficult thing to do. But had they done it, more of us would have known the truth. From the first time a comrade drops like a sack of potatoes and never gets up, to the first time you watch a bullet from your rifle tear into the body of another, spreading flesh and bone over a narrow arc, any glory that might have been associated with being a warrior vanishes.

There is no glory. There is only a lifelong regret and a wish that things had been different.

I know now that those who preceded me wished that they were the last generation to ever have to go to war. Their hope was that the human condition could change and war could be made obsolete. That was my hope too.

It was not to be. We have sent yet another generation of young men and women off to become permanently scarred with first-hand knowledge of war. In time they will return and those who have had to experience the worst war has to offer will pay heavily. They will experience the dismissal of their difficulty to deal with the turmoil in their minds and the humiliation of having to try to beat back depression, anxiety and a simmering anger.

They will look into the abyss and, as a so-called enlightened society looks on knowing nothing of what agony exists in their minds, wonder what lies at the bottom.

Secular End Timers

Famine, plague, pestilence and global conflagration.

Looking forward to them? Think they'll ultimately be a good thing for humanity, a cleansing experience?

They're all looming within the lifetimes of the younger humans alive today - your young children or grand children. The generations beyond your children or grand children won't have to worry about the looming famine, plague, pestilence and global conflagration because they'll be in the thick of all of it. All that will be looming for them will be the open ended question of whether humanity survives the experience.

But that's all to the good for end timers.

End timers come in all kinds of configurations. They're not limited to the kind of religious sociopaths Tony Robinson goes on about in The Doomsday Code. Which you should watch if you haven't already, just to bring yourself up to speed.

End timers also come in a secular configuration.

The secular configuration of end timers are the ones trying to score partisan political points regarding the ways to try to address the looming threat.

You see, the looming threats of famine, plague, pestilence and global conflagration are not as important or urgent or real to them as are their partisan political considerations.

They have a primitive tribalist imperative to vanquish who they perceive as their domestic political foes that supercedes almost every other consideration.

They believe that the possibility of joining forces within our own borders to begin to try and ward off the looming Four Horsemen is only possible if they can join forces with those of exactly the same mind as they on every single other issue. If someone doesn't believe in some particular bit of dogma unrelated to famine, plague, pestilence and global conflagration then they're not fit to ally with on anything. Especially not on something that could generate as much publicity as famine, plague, pestilence and global conflagration.

They're perfectly OK with joining forces with other nations, with global governmental entities or with global non governmental organizations. They take great pride in repeating over and over that all humanity must unite together in order to counter these threats.

But don't expect them to join forces or make alliances with anyone outside their own domestic partisan political tribe. The people in those other tribes aren't really part of humanity.

For them - for the secular end timers - this in itself would be the end of the world. They see it as being co-opted, subsumed. They see it as a loss of identity, a loss of purpose, of face and reputation. A loss of votes. A loss of life itself.

The famine, plague, pestilence and global conflagration would be nothing in comparison.

May and Dion

There's a kind of denial at work in the partisan debate about this agreement.

Does partisanship blind people to understanding that what the planet faces is going to require everyone cooperating and collaborating with everyone else? Apparently so.

I'm going to be 60 at my next birthday so I'm not likely to have to deal with too many of the consequences before I shuffle off this mortal coil. I've also never brought children into the world so I don't have that pushing me either.

But if you're under 40 and especially if you're under 30 your middle to later years are going to become very complex and uncomfortable.

Honest to christ I'm about near to giving up on humanity. I am beginning to think that, like homo erectus before us, we are an evolutionary dead end.

Except that unlike any other human like species before us we will self exterminate.

Getting it wrong and getting corrected: On Al Gore's solar panels

Glenn Reynolds puts all his legal training to to work, digs in and does some research to come up with the facts surrounding this post.

... Gore is moving forward with plans for solar panels to help power his mansion.
[...]
I've given Gore a lot of well-deserved grief - on this blog over his use of "carbon offsets" to present himself as "carbon neutral" even as he continues to consume large quantities of carbon-based energy, but he deserves praise for trying now to "walk the walk" and live the way he has long urged others to live in terms of using clean, renewable energy.

Reynolds contribution? Well, a boost.

AFTER ALL THE FLAK HE GOT for his Belle Meade mansion's energy use, Al Gore is installing solar panels. Ecototality has a report, and photo.

I was a little suspicious of this, particularly after the link provided in Ecototality's post indicated that there was a zoning problem surrounding Al Gore's desire to put solar panels on the roof of his house.

So I went to my reality-based environmental science type to see what was being said there. Sure enough, Coeruleus did what neither Reynolds nor Ecototality seemed to want to bother with: real research.

Gore wanted to install solar panels as part of a renovation project he undertook shortly after he bought his house. Though his electric utility would have allowed him to do that, local zoning rules prohibited solar panels. Since these rules were changed two weeks ago he's now applying for a permit, but he may not get it because the roof on his house is not flat.

Wolfowitz wants to attack corruption. Unless he's getting laid. Then it's OK.

Paul Wolfowitz, architect of The War Without End™ and now president of the World Bank has a little ethics problem. He publicly apologized for being such an overtly corrupt turd.

World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz publicly apologized yesterday for the "mistake" of personally orchestrating a high-paying job and guaranteed promotions for a bank employee with whom he is romantically involved, as new details of his role in the arrangement emerged and staff members angrily demanded his resignation.

Wolfowitz attempted to address about 200 staffers gathered in the bank's central atrium but left after some began hissing, booing, and chanting "Resign. . . . Resign." He had approached the gathering after holding a news conference in which he said, "I made a mistake for which I am sorry."

OK. So he apologizes for personally orchestrating all those cool perks for his personal pelvic affiliate. But there's more.

... the bank ethics committee, citing conflict of interest regulations, ruled that she had to leave the institution. It agreed to give her a pre-departure promotion to compensate for the career disruption. Until yesterday, Wolfowitz and his aides had insisted that "all arrangements concerning Shaha Riza were made at the direction of the bank's board of directors." Bank sources said, however, that neither the board nor the ethics committee was aware of the terms of the final agreement.

Umm, that makes Wolfowitz a goddamned liar, doesn't it? Pop a chocolate covered WMD and think about that for a minute.

You'd think after being booed, hissed at, exposed for pressuring the HR department of the World Bank and getting his girlfriend more money than the Secretary of State that he'd be a little on the contrite side of things and just keep his mouth shut. But, oh no! He proves how unbelievably dumb he really is:

Wolfowitz bemoaned that the controversy threatens to overshadow the official agenda of the bank's annual spring meeting opening here today -- including ratification of a global anti-corruption strategy and funding to reduce poverty in Africa.

Timing is everything, isn't it?

The e-mail is in one of those tubes

Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is having none of it. He's more computer savvy than the Republicans believe he is.

The White House's claim that e-mails sent on a Republican Party account might have been lost was challenged Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, who quipped that even his teenage neighbor could find them.

"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor as the dispute over the firing of federal prosecutors continued at a high pitch.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."

But, you know, the White House staff is just trying so hard to find those darned missing e-mails.

White House officials insisted the administration was making a genuine effort to recover any missing e-mails that had been sent on an account sponsored by the Republican National Committee.

"I understand his point, but he's wrong," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

"We're being very honest and forthcoming," she added. "I hope that he would understand the spirit in which we have come forward and tried to explain how we screwed up our policy and how we're working to fix it."

Well, perhaps they're not trying hard enough. Or maybe they're trying too hard. But, you know, if the accounts were through the Republican National Committee there's a really good chance that all those emails went through the RNC file servers which were probably running, oh... say, Microsoft Exchange Server, just as an example. Even on an RNC Blackberry, the traffic is going through a server... somewhere.

And now all that traffic is deleted?

No problem. Go to this place and put in a rush order. Buy all of the recovery programs offered. It will still be cheaper than a Halliburton no-bid contract. Get a warrant. Better yet, don't bother. Just declare that you're looking for terraists and get a warrant later on... after you've got what your looking for.

Done.

And, if that doesn't work, the NSA may be able to help.

Do the Republicans really think everyone is dumb enough to believe the "internet ate my email" story?

Sorry. I didn't mean to ask that.

"Let's do lunch" takes on a different meaning when there's a crocodile around.

For those who are considering getting a crocodile as a pet, you might want to read this.

A zoo worker had his forearm reattached Thursday after his colleagues recovered the severed limb from the mouth of a 440-pound Nile crocodile, an official said. The crocodile severed Chang Po-yu's forearm on Wednesday at the Shaoshan Zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung when the veterinarian tried to retrieve a tranquilizer dart from the reptile's hide, zoo officials said.

Severed it. Bit it right off. Now, being a natural born coward when it comes to 440-pound sharp-toothed reptiles, I would have been poking that critter with a length of stick long before I ever stuck my arm in the cage. The report didn't say where the tranquilizer dart was on the crocodile's hide, but get this part.

As Chang was rushed to the hospital on Wednesday, a zoo worker shot two bullets at the crocodile's neck to retrieve the forearm, said Chen Po-tsun, a zoo official. "The crocodile was unharmed as we didn't find any bullet holes on its hide," Chen said. "It probably was shocked and opened its mouth to let go of the limb."

So... what are the odds the tranquilizer dart was ineffective? Bullets seemed to ricochet off this beast. And I wasn't joking about the "pet" part.

Chen said the zoo purchased the crocodile from a local resident who had kept it as a pet.

Perhaps the owner decided to give up the thing rather than take it to a crocodile obedience school.

At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning...

With respect and condolences to the family and friends of Trooper Patrick James Pentland, The Royal Canadian Dragoons; and, Master Corporal Allan Stewart, The Royal Canadian Dragoons.

Audax et Celer

If Thompson runs for president, his running mate will be the one to watch.

You may remember this post where you were directed to a wingnut who got all excited about former Republican senator Fred Thompson running for president of the US in 2008. You may recall the excitement wasn't over Thompson's qualifications, but over a possible campaign poster.

It turns out Fred Thompson has had cancer for three years in the form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He disclosed the fact because, if he wants to be president, people have the right to know there could be a problem carrying out the duties of that office sometime in the future.

Jill puts the situation right out there and pushes the button on the way-back machine to bring up the decade old debate about the health of candidates seeking the presidency. She also points a finger at Katie Couric who did a hack-job on Democratic presidential contender, John Edwards, for continuing his campaign even though his wife has cancer.

Vonnegut at 84

I just don't do heroes. I admire many people for their deeds and their character, but I stop short of making them heroes.

I like to think I'm doing them a favour.

Once someone is placed upon that hero's pedestal it's easy for someone else to push them off. Better that they stay on the ground, able to quickly regain balance and, should they fall, getting back on one's feet is less of a climb.

When I first read Slaughterhouse Five I never understood it. That was probably what Kurt Vonnegut intended. Years later, after reading it again, I understood it all too well. And for the life of me, I cannot explain why.

There will be editorials and obituaries, eulogies and testimonials to mark the passing of Kurt Vonnegut. There will also be, because of the times in which we now live, attempts to knock the late Kurt Vonnegut off his pedestal. Those attempts will fail because Vonnegut, while accepting of admiration for his work and opinions, never took a place above others. He stayed on the ground.

Thousands of news items and thousands of blogs, just like this one, will attempt to say goodbye to Kurt Vonnegut.

I would do that too if it wasn't for one thing which keeps niggling at the back of my mind. He would probably laugh at the concept. He would probably tell us that we aren't saying goodbye to him as much as we are saying it to ourselves.

He would probably tell us that we should have said "goodbye" when he possessed the ability to answer.

He doesn't. So I won't.

Two dead; three wounded from roadside bombs

Two more Canadian soldiers have been killed and three wounded, apparently from roadside bombs, in Afghanistan.

A military official in Kandahar says two Canadians have been killed and three injured in two separate attacks in Afghanistan.

Col. Mike Cessford, deputy commander of the Canadian contingent in Afghanistan, says the two roadside bomb explosions happened west of Kandahar city.

The blasts happened about two hours and one kilometre apart.

How is rolling over an IED protecting people, anyway?

Stockwell Day: BEADWINDOW ZERO TWO

I don't know if BigCityLib has an armed services background or whether there is a formal communications security awareness there, but M.J. certainly picked up on the breach committed by Stockwell Day in his latest bit of self-serving blather.

Machine gun barrels close to my head didn’t detract from the fact that sunrise in Kandahar felt a bit like sunrise right here in the constituency.

Being on the far side of the planet in Afghanistan, my body’s ‘awake’ system kicked in fully at 3 a.m.

How poetic. Except that if Stockwell Day's "awake" system kicks in at 3 a.m. Afghanistan time, given that he was 11 1/2 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time, that would suggest that he's not fully awake until 3:30 p.m. PDT and 6:30 p.m. when he's in Ottawa. He wasn't there long enough to adapt to the time zone. But that's minor stuff. We already know Day is off in his own world most of the time. He goes on to advise us all of the security awareness he possesses.

For security reasons I can’t give you a lot of detail about the Canadian Forces camp out there on the outskirts of the ancient city of Kandahar.

No kidding! So why then go into, you know, details?

The full moon was lighting up the desert floor and the lookout towers on the walls at each corner of the large compound were casting long shadows across the camp.

I could make out the silent silhouettes of two guards in each turret.

“Great time for early morning chat” I said to myself as I headed towards the nearest tower. I made sure to make the appropriate noises as I climbed the rusty steel ladder to the platform of the sentry post.

As I pulled myself up through the trap door I was greeted curiously by the two armed guards, machine guns and all.

That, Mr. Day, is known as a disclosure of "Essential Elements of Friendly Information" (EEFI) and is a communications security breach. Where I come from, that gets you a nasty little rebuke called a BEADWINDOW, as described in the current version of Allied Communications Publication, ACP 124(D), paragraph 103. From the EEFI list:

Friendly or enemy capabilities or limitations.

No, it's not a significant breach, but given Day's role, he shouldn't be saying anything at all. And every little bit of information gets swallowed up by the opposition. To suggest otherwise is to have lax communications security awareness.

Day's column goes on with some information which is, in fact, worth advising his constituents about, but his need to wax poetic and demonstrate his affinity for things military actually makes the whole thing a classic Day washout. Towards the end he links everything but Ogopogo to the prime minister and the Vimy Ridge Memorial. And then he wrote this:

At the recent student Vimy send off from our local Legion, a misty eyed veteran whispered hoarsely to me, “They really are taking up the torch, they really will remember when we’re gone, won’t they.”

Ah... the ever present "misty eyed veteran". Unnamed, unknown and unreported anywhere else. Convenient, but unverifiable. A name, Stockwell, a name. Lest we come to believe that it is just another bit of literary license being taken to make your prose more poetic.

Applicants must be willing to receive Medal of Freedom

The war in Iraq is going so "well" and "successes" are just piling up faster than lemmings running off a cliff that the Bush administration is looking to create a war czar. (Emphasis mine)

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

Hmmm. If things were going well in either Iraq or Afghanistan it is a simple fact that Bush, or Cheney, would be taking all the credit for anything that looked like success. The US already has civilian and military leadership in place for both theatres.

This spells quagmire faster than you can say "fall-guy".

Bush/Cheney aren't looking for a war czar. They're looking for a scapegoat.

Crooks and Liars has more.

BONUS: Pudentilla over at Skippy's has a couple of multiple choice questions on this subject that you must try to answer, here and here.

(Hat tip Canadian Cynic)

Powertools does heroes. (And leaves out a few details)

Shorter Ass-Rocket: If I had been captured... well, if I had actually ever been in combat... well, if I had actually ever been anywhere near a real war zone... well, if I had actually ever been a member of any armed services, I would have dispatched myself with heroism. But I've never actually done any of those things which makes me fully qualified to pass judgment on those who, you know, join the service, go to war and get captured.

McCain rarely talks about his own Vietnam era heroism, and he would be the last person to criticize the British hostages for their less than inspiring performance over the last couple of weeks. But that story can only remind us of the extraordinary courage and integrity that McCain showed under the most trying conditions possible.

Really?!

Well, Hindraker, I don't doubt McCain limits his discussions when it comes to his "heroism" in Vietnam. And he should be the last person to criticize the behaviour of the Royal Navy personnel taken captive by Iran. Unlike McCain's situation, where the US was a belligerent in a war with North Vietnam, Britain is not at war with Iran.

Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I [McCain] did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant.

Faith of My Fathers
Page 193
John McCain

Reds Say PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral . . . Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of United States Commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner.

United Press International
June 4, 1969

McCain lost five planes in his naval flying career. Bush just quit showing up for training with the Air National Guard.

But hey! At least they seem to have set aside the inter-service rivalry.

Laura Bush really doesn't know, does she?

The annual White House Easter Egg Roll was held yesterday. US First Lady Laura Bush made happy with the first event of spring on the White House lawn. Readers need to be made aware now that Easter Monday is a secular event.

Well, sort of. Egg Rolling is traditional, but in some countries it is known as Dyngus Day or Wet Monday. Wet Monday involves boys sneaking into girls bedrooms and waking them by tossing multiple buckets of water on them. This is apparently a pre-Christian thing. But then, so are Easter eggs.

But I digress.

Thousands of kids dressed for winter weather scrambled for eggs - Easter eggs, that is - at a White House ceremony dating back to the 19th century

The annual White House Easter Egg Roll, started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878, typically has been a rite of spring in Washington. But on Monday, it was afflicted by winter's parting bite - cold air and even colder grounds. Undaunted by any of this, the young guests sprang into action under the watchful eyes of their families, hostess Laura Bush and several Bush administration Cabinet secretaries.

"In Washington, we know spring has arrived when the White House lawn is filled with children for the Easter Egg Roll, one of the happiest traditions here at the White House," the first lady said.

The cold would explain why the White House went with Egg Rolling instead of tossing water on the females. (Take that anywhere you like, I was thinking more in terms of hypothermia.)

Anyway, after running around rolling eggs with spoons the little ones were treated to a special reading by Laura Bush of a book which one can only assume is on the shelf of the White House library. Remember, there were several cabinet secretaries in attendance.

After her welcome, the first lady sat in one of the area's designated reading nooks and read "Duck for President," by Doreen Cronin. It's a story of a duck who gets sick of farm chores and decides to run for office - first for head of the farm, then governor and, finally, president. In the end he decides running the country is too much work and goes back to the farm.

Oh. My. Gawd.

(H/T TBogg)

(Click on image for an even better description of Cronin's book)