Mailvox: random shots

Gregg gets hissy:

Are you waiting for the debate to turn in your favor? Won't happen as long as I am here.

Actually, just letting you ramble seems to be turning the debate in my favor here...

Mike thinks resistance is meaningful:

I can assure you, that if you take that pacifistic attitude toward a modern equivalent of the Roman Empire that it will kill off christianity down to the last man, woman and child unless people are willing to deny being christians.

Yes, they will. The Bible predicts this. I think we can and should resist this, but the effort will be ultimately futile as the struggle is not one against flesh and blood. The Bible talks often of deception, one need only look at the long-term joint effort of Democrats and Republicans alike to build world government to see that this deception is at work on both sides of the American political spectrum. Remember, George Bush himself stated that he went to war in Iraq in order to uphold the viability of the United Nations.

Craigp believes in Jesus Christ and George Bush, presumably in that order:

I think a chrsitian that does not vote for Bush or does nto vote at all is being deceived and manipulated, and I say shame on them

I find this rather humorous, considering how it is almost precisely backwards. I predict Craig is going to be one very, very angry individual once he realizes the President's true colors and allegiances.

The most significant comment was from the White Buffalo:

As a matter of fact He was against even having men ruling men polticially as He refused to give Israel a king until He finally relented and gave them good old Saul.

This appears to be one of the most obvious signs that God would lean libertarian, if one assumes He takes an interest in politics. Not only does He refuse to use His power to control men and their behavior, but we have a Biblical example of His preferences in the matter. In God's eyes, it is clearly both ideal and possible to have a state where men do not rule over other men.

And finally, Gregg also fails to note something important:

The greatest system ever devised, came from men who believed that our rights came from God and that governments were instituted among men (that means by men) to preserve those rights.

That system has not only been radically altered, but completely abandoned. It is a hollow shell, left in place to deceive. The fact that the names of the offices remain essentially the same does not mean that it is the same system of highly decentralized, strictly limited republicanism. Modern Switzerland, with its powerful cantons and strong limitations on the central state, is much closer to the historical American system than the modern United States.

Mailvox: The White Buffalo cogitates

I've been listening to a great set of sermons by Greg Boys. I'd be very interested in hearing what your regulars thoughts are on the idea that politics and government have nothing to do with Jesus, and that nations and worldly power are the exact opposite of God's approach. Greg contrasts the Kingdom of the World with the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of the World is about "power over." Those who have the sword decide, and the aim is to gain the sword. Jesus introduced the idea of the Kingdom of God being a "power under" approach. Serve to enact change, humble yourself to enact change, even go so far as to die to enact change.

So now we have this political debate raging about who is on God's side, and WWJD in an election, with all kinds of people (your regulars very much included - and I have done this mistakenly many times as well) claiming a "Christian" approach. But a simple look at the history of the church shows that any combination of the church with politics is the death nell of the church remaining the instrument of the Kingdom of God on earth. As soon as Constantine made Christianity the state religion, the church atrophied. Because Constantine changed the equation to power over from power under, and despite the fact that it was now Christians who had the sword and could enact righteous laws that God would like, they were abandoning the approach Jesus invented. And the Kingdom of God does not advance with power over.

I agree with this assessment; I'd be perfectly comfortable voting libertarian even if I thought the question of for whom one voted was a matter of life or death, but I don't believe that it is. I think the notion of those who believe that God wants an individual to vote for any specific candidate for President is massively mistaken, and approaches rather closer to blasphemy than I generally like to tread now that I am a Christian.

God does not often engage in idle and helpless wishing. He demands, and His concerns are beyond our understanding. Meshing Church and State has always worked to the advantage of the latter and the detriment of the former. It's a pity that so many Christian conservatives don't recognize that picking up the favored weapon of the enemy is inherently corrupting.

Government is god

KLO notes something highly significant:

Andy McCarthy is reading through the 120-page Patriot Act ruling (on one provision of!) that came down yesterday. He highlights this classic passage--for Black Robes' Greatest Hits: "Personal freedoms, on the other hand, are far more unique. As individualized by constitutional ideals to embody our sense of human dignity, decency, and fair play, they attach to each individual by promise of the very government which creates those basic rights and is charged to protect them, and upon whose faithful adherence to their underlying principles and aims their enduring enjoyment depends."

Government, Creator, whatever....

Not to rain on their parade, but....

Disturbingly, the Fraters Libertas are more than a little excited about a 100-year old woman:

Emma Torkelson, 100 year old resident of the Broen Memorial Home in Fergus Falls, MN registered to vote for the first time in her life on Friday Sept. 24, 2004. Wayne Stein, Otter Tail County Auditor was on hand to receive her registration application and also her absentee ballot request form. Mr. Stein had no recollection of there being any older first time registers in Otter Tail County history. State Representative Bud Nornes also paid a visit to congratulate her. Emma's absentee ballot will arrive in the mail in October, and her family will be there to share the experience with her when she casts her first vote - for George W. Bush....

Emma states she's not ever been "a politician" but the president's stance on abortion and the marriage amendment have made her want her to vote this year. Her parents were life long Democrats, and she figured she always was one too. They both voted, and she can't say why she never did. When asked if she'll vote again in four years she stated "I suppose I will, if I am still living."

I'm just wondering how the news that big government Republicans are beginning to appeal to lifelong Democrats should be seen as a positive development by the conservative Republicans that make up the core of the party. Sure, Mrs. Torkelson is sound on abortion, and I applaud that, but I still see this sort of thing as more of an indication that the Republican party is moving to the left than one that the nation is warming to the apparently outdated Republican concepts of freedom and liberty.

On conspiracy theory

This blast from the past seems appropriate:

One of the easiest ways to dismiss something out of hand is to label it conspiracy theory. Although the word "conspiracy" simply refers to the act of joining together in secret agreement to do a wrongful act, tacking it on as an adjective somehow evokes images of unfounded fears and even paranoia.

But is it reasonable to believe that there are truly none who wish to do wrong, or to think that if such men exist, they will always be foolish enough to declare their intentions openly?

History speaks eloquently on the subject. In the 1,129 years of the great Byzantine empire, the average reign of an emperor was 12 years. This is a bit longer than the eight years we now allow our president, but is rather short considering that the Byzantine position ostensibly offered supreme power and lifetime tenure. But if it wasn't unheard of for a ruler of Constantinople to die peacefully in his bed, it was also not the norm.

For example, in the 135 years following Maurice's peaceful succession of Tiberius Constantine, seven of the empire's 12 rulers saw their reigns end in assassination or execution. Of the five who were not slain outright, two were deposed, and one, Constantine IV, was only able to keep his throne by mutilating his two fraternal rivals....

Has anything changed today? On the surface, the answer is certainly yes. But is it truly reasonable to think that human nature has changed much over the 549 years that separate us from the last days of Byzantium? I submit not, especially considering that we are closer to the 11th Constantine, Dragatses, than was the first Justinian to Julius Caesar. Nor can democracy be considered some kind of magic antidote, as the subsequent careers of successful politicians such as Alcibiades and Adolph Hitler inform us.

But where does that leave us, then, if the leopards have not changed their spots, but remain undetected despite stakes that would take Caesar's breath away? The Marxian theory of history has been thoroughly discredited. The Great Man theory cannot explain the dichotomy between the proven conspiracies of yore and their seeming absence today. The Accident theory is a vapid ontological argument. Only the much-belittled conspiracy theory of history, which stubbornly insists that events are not always as they appear on the surface, holds together in this light when examined in a historical and logical manner.

United scams on America

David Hackworth reminds us of the Jessica Lynch fiction:

Lynch, it turns out, wasn't wounded in action, she was badly banged up in a vehicle accident, which occurred while she and her mates were trying to escape a guerrilla ambush. She not only never fought with her rifle and trench knife as the Pentagon had leaked, she never even got off a shot – because she was out cold from the time of the collision until she woke up in the hospital, where the Iraqi docs couldn't wait to transfer their well-cared for but terrified patient to Special Ops control....

Lynch garnered a Bronze Star for her "heroics," the Purple Heart for "wounds received in action," a mega-buck book deal – and millions of proud Americans got to view her "gallantry and sacrifice" in an NBC TV docudrama. To keep the press bamboozled, she was locked up under tight control in Army hospitals with a convenient bout of amnesia. In its micro way, the Lynch scam symbolizes the miasma of deception surrounding the invasion and the ugly unsolvable occupation already causing the direst consequences to our national security.

Not only was the WMD claim erroneous, but it is now looking increasingly likely that Saddam Hussein did not gas the Kurds in 1988 as has widely been reported. The fact that the reported fatalities range from 80,000 to 300,000 should probably have been the first clue that something was wrong; Jude Wanniski suggests: "start with Stephen Pelletiere, the CIA's top analyst covering this period. Give him a call or send him an e-mail. He will be happy to talk to you. You can then call Pat Lang of the DIA, who will back up Pelletiere. They will explain to you that there was no genocide at Halabja."

Remember, the government is almost pathologically willing to lie. It has lied repeatedly and poorly about Lynch, TWA 800, Waco, OK City, Ron Brown and Vince Foster, and the chances are very high that it is lying some significant manner about Iraq, 9/11 and everything from mohair subsidies to milk-price supports.

Saint Paul schadenfreude

Saint Paul takes no small pleasure:

It appears the chill wind has blown through Brian Lambert's cubicle at the Pioneer Press. Some months ago we were alerted to the pending "reassignment" of the entrenched veteran entertainment columnist. I now point you to the archive of his recent work.

It's all over. His sneering, partisan voice, hectoring us from what should have been a non-political beat has been silenced once and for all. And that silence is golden for conservatives all over town.

The Silence of the Lambert. Not bad, not bad at all. That's one thing I very much like about the Fraters... they're about the only guys I've run across in the media with the same open disdain for fake bonhomie that I have.

Why Bush will win

Peter Robinson writes on NRO's Corner

The nation has experienced four wartime presidential elections in which a candidate who was, broadly speaking, anti-war challenged a candidate who was, by contrast, pro-war. In brief:

During the War of 1812, Governor De Witt Clinton of New York attempted to unseat President James Madison, who was running for a second term. Whereas Clinton and his supporters derided the conflict as “Mr. Madison’s war,” Madison insisted instead that the war had proven “just and necessary.”

Madison won.

In 1864, General George McClellan attempted to deny President Abraham Lincoln a second term, accepting the nomination of a Democratic Party that denounced the Civil War as “four years of failure.” Although McClellan argued for a continuation of the war, he attempted to have the issue both ways, making it clear that he remained open to some form of negotiated peace. Lincoln insisted instead on outright victory.

Lincoln won.

In 1968, Hubert Humphrey proved increasingly critical of the war in Vietnam as election day approached. By contrast, Richard Nixon remained committed to the defense of South Vietnam.

Nixon won.

In 1972, George McGovern proved unambiguously dovish, calling for an withdrawal from Vietnam, while Richard Nixon remained, once again, committed to American war aims.

Nixon won.

It's pretty clear that given the choice between war and peace, Americans, like most people throughout history, will choose war. The wisdom of this is a matter for another debate, but the logical conclusion is hard to escape. Bush is a pro-war President, ergo he will win. You can't out-martial the Commander-in-Chief, it's just not possible.

Easier links

Thanks to Christian, you can now link to posts here without having to load an entire month's worth of archives, which I'm told can be considerable. If you click on one of the dates, you'll see what I mean. FYI, just in case you're interested.

Fraud at Harvard

Tribe’s mea culpa comes just three weeks after another prominent Harvard faculty member—Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree—publicly apologized for copying six paragraphs almost word-for-word from a Yale scholar in a recent book, All Deliberate Speed.

Last fall, Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz also battled plagiarism charges. And in 2002, Harvard Overseer Doris Kearns Goodwin admitted that she had accidently copied passages from another scholar in her bestseller The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.

University President Lawrence H. Summers told The Crimson in an interview last week—before the allegations against Tribe surfaced—that he did not see “a big trend” of plagiarism problems at the Law School as a result of the charges against Ogletree and Dershowitz, but indicated that a third case would change his mind. “If you had a third one, then I would have said, okay, you get to say this is a special thing, a focused problem at the Law School,” Summers said of the recent academic dishonesty cases.

He declined comment last night.

I suspect that historians will likely look back on the ascension of the left as the destruction of the academy. It is ironic that they enjoy accusing Christians as anti-intellectual, considering that it was Christians who started nearly every major university. And with the decline of Christianity will come the decline of scholarship, as the cause of truth is rendered secondary to questions of politics and power.

It's worth noting that the only new colleges being founded are Christian colleges, as the atheized universities gradually devolve into morasses of plagiarism, political correctness and low-grade minds filled with secular dogma.

Call me Annabella

Not a great week, not a bad week, but the White Buffalo gained on us, Zerb passed us, and we're in 39th place, 44 points behind the leader. We can't even use Annabella as an insult for WB anymore, as a crushing 109-point week put her 14 points in front of us. But it's a marathon, not a sprint, and we're still in it. Our Week 3 record wasn't great, but we gave up only one high-point game so the points were all right. 8-6 last week, 28-18 overall.

Fantasy, on the other hand, was grim. This appears to be one of those years where everyone goes off against me; Space Bunny's team scored only 10 points after laying 40 on me last week in handing Chokechain an easy win, while Big Chilly racked up almost 40 himself. Daunte and the Oakland D were good, but Peerless Price is looking utterly worthless and Ahman Green scored one pathetic point. Things had better turn around fast.

Learning humility

One of my favorite quotes is posted on the wall of my old gym. It says "This room is for the weak, that they might grow strong. This room is for the strong, that they might learn humility." The best thing about weights is that there is no pretense with the iron. You either beat them or they beat you. No middle ground.

When I started lifting, I was the same height that I am now, but I was precisely 40 pounds lighter and I couldn't even bench 135 one time. Today, I knocked out three reps at 300, (with plenty of help on the last one) and stupidly decided to go for 315. I was feeling good, nice and fired up, and it didn't do me a bit of good. It might as well have been a mountain on top of my chest, because it wasn't going anywhere. The trainer helped me put it back, we looked at each other and he laughed. "No way," he said, and I had choice but to agree.

That's genuine humility. Knowing your limits and accepting them. I've never seen any purpose in the false sort, though. We are what we are. Some are highly intelligent and foolish. Some are stupid and wise with experience. It's not directly related, but one reason I like Peter King, the sportswriter, is that while he writes about whatever he pleases - I was so happy his daughter went to college so we could stop hearing about her stupid high school softball team - he's never afraid to admit he's wrong. Today, he wrote:

"Speaking of mea culpas, I have one. In the Sports Illustrated NFL Preview issue, I was running down the Lions' recent drafting woes, and I referred to the lack of production Detroit was getting from its top picks like Andre Ware, and I threw Reggie Brown in there as an example of a bust. Brown, of course, was paralyzed in his second NFL season. Why did I do it? Brainlock. Not thinking. Idiocy. All of the above. So I'd like to apologize to the readers who were offended by this. Shoot, I'm offended by it, and I wrote it. My fault."

"I'm offended by it, and I wrote it." I think I'll steal that one and save it against future needs. While I'm quite content with how things turned out with regards to the discussion of the last few weeks, I have a feeling that sooner or later, it will come in handy.

Mailvox: hearing from the Malkin fans

YR writes:

The sneak attack at Pearl Harbor was an act of war you fucking twit. I am proud to have nuked their gook asses. They were cruel evil motherfuckers. Man you are an idiot. Ever served in the military, you fucking dweeb? Get a LIFE man. People like you should be deported and shot. You talk all this crap, but have ZERO military experience. The Japanese attack on 7 December 1941 was act of war fuckwit!!!!!!! We should have tortured their citizens exactly like they did with ours. So we put some Japanese Americans assholes in camps, so what? Many of them colaborated with the mother nation, Japan!!!! Midget subs were the first to attack on that infamous day. LEAVE the USA if you hate it so much!!

I'm sure it does Michelle Malkin's heart good to know that in her place, she's got eloquent folks like these defending her position. Did they have midget subs? Sweet Cthulhu, I must completely revise my analysis!

Enough is enough

A few people have emailed to express this sentiment today, which is funny considering that I considered today's column my final public word on the matter unless a) they start interning people or b) someone challenges me to a public debate on the subject.

The irony is that even though it has already been admitted that the forgeries aren't genuine and the story that Dan Rather was biased and willing to lie in order to elect Democrats was hardly surprising, I count two front page stories and three columns on Dan Rather and CBS on WND alone today. Townhall features 15 columns on Rather on its Columnists page, running as many as three per day. Conservatives just can't get enough of it, apparently. But they deem my three columns in four weeks on internment over the top and bordering on obsessive. Right....

Anyhow, it's of no concern to me. It never has been and it never will be. There's a reason why I call my column Defending the Mike. Those down with PE will understand.

By the way, I should probably mention for the sake of those readers who have expressed concern with my audience retention that more people are reading my boring, bludgeoned equine of a column than are reading any other column on WND today, including the big headline pieces. Three times more than some of those ever-fascinating CBS columns. Not that it matters. I mean, you don't honestly think that I believe a world that is truly concerned with Britney Spears's marital status is all that interested in anything that happened in the 1940s, do you?

Mailvox: dumb enough to defend Malkin

KC sets himself up:

Boy it reeeeeeeeeeally gets to you Ms.Malkin won't respond to your nonsense. Are all your columns going to be devoted to this? Perhaps she has dismissed you because of your thumbnail bio which includes the words "Christian Libertarian." Oooh good now we all know you're not one of those blockheaded Christians, you're one of the "open-minded" kind,coooool. And we know you're smart, cause as you constantly remind everyone, your in Mensa which I guess gives you the abilty to time-travel and know the loyalties of all the Japanese that were rounded up and to also read minds. Very impressive indeed!

And if you're using atheist Al Franken as a reference you're really lost. The Bible says "A fool says in his heart there is no God."

But KC, didn't you read my column today? Don't you recall that Malkin claimed on WBAL radio that she had already responded to what you call my "nonsense"? So, how could it possibly bother me, unless she lied when she said that? The answer, as you obviously know, is that she lied and she has not responded to the many, many issues I have raised with regards to her factual inaccuracies and erroneous assertions. But her mendacious response doesn't bother me at all, as in the course of the last month she has been forced to reveal to every impartial observer that she did no research on the very foundation of her thesis, that she does not have even a History Channel-level grasp on the events of WWII and that she prefers to lie rather than admit that she was wrong.

I'd only hoped to destroy some of the false assertions in her book, to see her destroy her own character was far outside the scope of anything I'd expected or desired.

As for Alice, well, the broken clock analogy would not seem out of place here. It's clear there is at least one lying liar who claims to be on the political right. It is true that I am a Mensan, be further astounded that I even know how to use an apostrophe, a punctuation device with which your obviously unacquainted.

Finally, when did Jesus Christ teach us to lie in order to maintain our TV viability and sell books? Blessed are the media whores, for they shall see their names on the New York Times Bestsellers List.... Another verse from the Book of Vulpes, I suppose.

JN adds:

Michelle is a real class person. Why are you nitpicking? Have you gone mad? Al Franken is less than a shadow of a human being. You must decide where you stand, with righteousness, or with evil. How dare you even suggest Al Franken was right? You are losing your credibility, wake up! Try living in the present, there is nothing to gain by questioning our motives for interning the Japanese in the forties!

What little I know of Michelle Malkin does not suggest that she is a class person, unless class is demonstrated by intellectual charlatanship, cowardice and dishonesty. Al Franken is certainly a clown, but he was correct about both Sean Hannity's math skills and Bill O'Reilly's literary ability. If I am losing credibility with some conservatives because I am committed to the truth, however uncomfortable, I think that is more of a statement on the lack of integrity of those particular conservatives than anything else.

I had a feeling that that reference to Franken might sting a bit.

Mailvox: it's all in Grimm

DG has the answer:

I am so sorry to hear this rubbish being bandied about as though all of you knew what you were talking about. (Re: The Japanese internment camps and their need for being.) I have yet to read what we were told at the time of these interments, so I am taking it upon myself to tell you what we, as school children, were told. We at that time were allied with China. We were told that the reason the Japanese families were sent to camp was for their own protection. It was as simple as that, and the reason was accepted as logical and humane, for the people were angry and wished to strike out against an enemy. At least that was the rationale at the time. I was a twelve year old kid and had many Japanese friends, and yes, it angered me that these people were singled out and sent away, but the logic behind this made sense.

Yes, military historians often assert that one of the best ways to understand the rationale behind events of the past is to study what adults were telling children at the time. No doubt we should revisit "Little Red Riding Hood" to learn precisely how Clovis defeated the Visigoths at Vouillé.

Where do you go with this, except to stand mute, in awe?

Modern internment

If the Malkinites will permit us to move on from the historical internment debate and look at what John Leo suggests is the present one, I'd like to encourage people to consider the what is the fundamentally leftist notion of internment. First, does the following statement sound more characteristic of left-wing or right-wing thought:

We have to do something even if it won't do any good.

You see, the technological imperative suggests that it will soon be impossible to prevent the damage wrought by a single individual, if it is not already. Whether it is a matter of nuclear miniaturization, biological weaponry or nanotechnology, the massive and powerful edifice of the central state is growing increasingly vulnerable to the actions of one man.

The only genuine defense against an unstoppable danger that is limited as to its area of effect is decentralization. But decentralization is also highly conducive to individual liberty, which is why the central state resists it even when its own survival is supposedly at stake. For example, if Leviathan is beheaded in Washington DC, the plan is not to turn power over to the 50 governors of the sovereign states, but to FEMA, an even stronger central authority than the current Federal government.

Internment will only be one of the many totalitarian solutions proposed, if not imposed, in the wake of a serious attack on the USA. I think it is a short-sighted and foolish betrayal of principle for conservatives to look to the state to protect them from something it manifestly has not been able to protect them and from which it will likely never be able to protect them.

The other possible defense against a threat from resident aliens lies in immigration controls and deportations, but since the global statists have latched onto flooding the population as an excellent method of destroying national sovereignty, this is not even up for mainstream discussion despite its Constitutional viability in comparison with internment. I can't help but think what a surprise it will be to many conservatives when they finally realize that they are more likely to be candidates for internment than those they were envisioning would be the targets.

Mailvox: hindsight ahead of time

Ran tries attaching electro-shock paddles to the dead horse:

Vox - Like many armchair generals, you operate with the benefit of hindsight. Planners and leaders in 1942 had to assume worst case against a military that had already overran most Asian colonies, pounded the Royal & US Fleets, & threatened Australia.

Now I'm getting sick of this. Ran, with all due respect, please shut your mouth, turn on your brain, and go read the actual war plans that the planners and leaders you mention had worked out in response to the Japanese military threat. Then get back to me via email. Don't even think of posting more wildly stupid statements like this until you do so.

Read AWPD-1, AWPD-4, AWPD-42, Rainbow-5, War Plan Orange, and War Plan Red. Then read what Admirals Stark, Nimitz and King had to say AT THE FREAKING TIME!!!!! I'll be very interested to hear how you argue that they were operating with the benefit of hindsight ahead of time. Were they armchair admirals?

Just to give one of many, many examples:
On 4 February [1942] General Clark of GHQ and Admiral Harold R. Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, offered testimony on the west coast military outlook at a meeting of the first of these subcommittees. Before they spoke, Senator Holman summed up the situation by saying that the people there were alarmed and horrified as to their persons, their employment, and their homes. General Clark said that he thought the Pacific states were unduly alarmed. While both he and Admiral Stark agreed the west coast defenses were not adequate to prevent the enemy from attacking, they also agreed that the chance of any sustained attack or of an invasion was as General Clark put it-nil. They recognized that sporadic air raids on key installations were a distinct possibility, but they also held that the west coast military defenses were considerable and in fairly good shape; and, as Admiral Stark said, from the military point of view the Pacific coast necessarily had a low priority as compared with Hawaii and the far Pacific. These authoritative Army and Navy views were passed on to the Wallgren subcommittee, but they do not seem to have made much impression.

I'm getting very, very tired of this theoretical idiocy that clearly doesn't know the first thing about the historical specifics. No admiral or general at all concerned about damaging attacks on the West Coast would have sent all four of their carriers, 160 heavy bombers and 272 fighters to the Dutch East Indies on January 6 and January 11, 1942, and there are a plethora of statements from various generals and admirals that demonstrate this total lack of concern.

If anyone has a specific argument, backed up by historical fact, I'll be delighted to entertain it and discuss it. Further theoretical objections unsupported by direct citation will be deleted. I don't want to have to ban anyone, but I won't hesitate to do so if anyone repeatedly refuses to abide by this very reasonable condition.

Discuss amongst yourselves

Peter Jackson rules

From Slashdot:

"DISCS 1-2: The Feature FEATURE (approx. 250 minutes) - A new version of the final installment in the epic trilogy! The Academy-Award winning film now has 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage incorporated into the film for this highly-anticipated video release."

Yep, sometime this winter I'm going to sit down and fire up a 14-hour Tolkein marathon. I still am deliriously happy when I stop and think that against all odds, my favorite childhood books didn't get completely trashed in translation to film. Unbelievable, but in a good way.

Now if someone will only do The Dark Is Rising and The Chronicles of Prydain. (Some will say that Disney did a movie called The Black Cauldron; don't believe them. It never happened.) I think a CGI version of Watership Down is definitely worth doing as well.

Strangely enough, it's theoretically possible that my first foray into comic book writing might make it to the screen before any of them. We'll see. It's amazing to discover that there is an industry even more full of BS than the music industry, but it's true.

Speaking of football

Week 2: 9-7. Overall: 20-12.

W - Atlanta Falcons over Arizona Cardinals
W - Seattle Seahawks over San Francisco 49ers
L - Tennessee Titans over Jacksonville Jaguars
W - Minnesota Vikings over Chicago Bears
W - Philadelphia Eagles over Detroit Lions
Oakland Raiders over Tampa Bay Buccaneers
W - Denver Broncos over San Diego Chargers
Indianapolis Colts over Green Bay Packers
L - St. Louis Rams over New Orleans Saints
W - New York Giants over Cleveland Browns
L - Kansas City Chiefs over Houston Texans
Miami Dolphins over Pittsburgh Steelers
Washington Redskins over Dallas Cowboys
L - Cincinnati Bengals over Baltimore Ravens

Last week was tough for Chokechain and I, as we lost our 16-point game with the upset of Green Bay. To give you an idea of what a massive upset that was, only two of 99 people in the pool had Chicago winning, with very low confidence ratings of two and three points, respectively. But we're still towards the top of the second quartile, while Annabella, (the artist formerly known as the White Buffalo), languishes in the bottom half. That being said, the real Annabella beat us by 30 points last week, so we may need to find a new and more insulting appellation.

Fantasy looks pretty good this weekend, as the Robin's Egg Blue and Gentle Yellow of Big Chilly's Hummingbirds are forced to start Joey Harrington at quarterback. The Piranha also feature the Oakland D going up against Tampa's putrescent offense and Ahman Green looking to make up for last week's disaster against a questionable Indy run defense that gives up five yards per carry, third worst in the NFL.

FDR on American principles

Mark Alexander writes on useful idiots:

FDR, perhaps unwittingly, used the Great Depression to establish a solid foundation for socialism in America, as best evidenced in this dubious proclamation: "Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle."

....Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev said of Roosevelt's "New Deal" paradigm shift, "We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism."

Not just AN American principle, the ONLY one. Interesting. I would submit to every conservative defender of WWII-internment that any time you discover that your opinion is running in parallel with FDR's, you should probably consider taking a good hard look at your reasoning to figure out where you went off the rails of fact, logic and true American principle.

Mailvox: better to do it Raidess style

Sarah writes:

Vox, when I say that she is ignoring you, it is mostly true. Where she is directly and publicly confronted with you, she will make an attempt at evading your points by brushing it off. As far as I'm concerned, that is functionally equivalent to ignoring you. After all, what does anyone care whether she acknowledges your existence? It is your points that matter in this particular context, not the source (unless it is to ensure that that source is trustworthy).

Of course, you can get all literal about 'ignoring' if you want to...

You know, you'd think it would be so easy for Malkin. If she doesn't want to be exposed as a liar and incompetent, then all that she would have to do is ensure that she knows what she is talking about and that she is careful to tell the truth. I really hope this bites her in the ass in the end.

Actually, I pretty much agree with you. Nor do I care that she is ignoring me on a personal level, as I firmly believe that she will treat anyone who brings up the question of military necessity in precisely the same way, even if their name were Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. She has to, because even opening her mouth on the question will reveal her ignorance. I mean, look what level of total cluelessness she managed to reveal in only two blog posts on the subject!

I find it rather strange that she chose to lie in public rather than completely ignore me. That was just weird. Perhaps she needs to take lessons from Al Davis. Oakland is playing Tampa Bay tomorrow, and when a sportswriter asked a Raiders official why it was Derrick Thomas doing the weekly press conference for Tampa and not Tim Brown, the former Raider who was their number one draft pick and All-Pro wide receiver who caught 99 touchdowns for them before his acrimonious departure from Oakland this summer, the Raiders executive replied: "Tim who?"

Now, THAT'S ignoring!

Winner by default

While it would have been far more satisfying to debate Mrs. Malkin directly, I think I answered the questions to the satisfaction of Captain Ed, King, St. Paul and the Elder. If I sounded a little more awkward than normal, it felt rather like trying to pour water from a keg into a tiny little funnel. There were so many things I would have liked to get into, but couldn't in the interest of keeping things moving along. I did hit the primary points I wanted to address, though, so I'll have to be satisfied with that.

Putting things into perspective

MikeF wrote:

Honestly Vox, except for a minority of people, I'm not sure who you plan on converting anymore. The ardent defenders of Malkin are often those who think that Bush is the spittin image of Reagan. IMO you're in the end what you're doing amounts to trying to appeal to the dumb and willfully ignorant.

You can't win this because her supporters desparately want to support anything they feel will get back a quieter, simpler, more traditional America. Malkin offers some of that, you offer a deep challenge.

Space Bunny and I were talking about this a few days ago. She pointed out that regardless of what the facts are, most people will assume that Malkin knows what she's talking about because they have not heard of me nor do they know the historical facts. I laughed and pointed out that the vast majority of Americans have never heard of Malkin, indeed, most people have not heard of Bill O'Reilly and could not place Dick Cheney if you paid them.

It amuses me when people talk about cable news figures as if they are well-known. If we are going to abandon the truth and concern ourselves with popularity, then the only people whose opinion truly matters are the Britney Spears, Brad Pitts and Jenna Jamesons of the world. I daresay ten times more people would recognize Jenna Jameson's not-exactly-private parts than Michelle Malkin's face. The top cable news show is watched by barely one percent of the population, after all.

My primary motivation in all of this was to simply stand up for the truth here because apparently almost no one in the supposedly intellectual commentariat has any idea what it is. Ignorance is rampant; the History Channel - which is the only exposure that many people who consider themselves to be thinking men will have to the matter - recently did a Decisive Battles series on Pharsalus. At one point, the narrator mentioned that Julius Caesar had been married to Pompey's daughter, Julia. The program got it entirely backwards, however, as it was actually Pompey married to Caesar's daughter Julia, the episode serves to demonstrate how utterly hopeless the media can be when it comes to matters of iron-clad historical fact. In addition to the easily verified lineage, you'd think the name alone might have given the idiot a hint.

I suspect that not only will the reason for my contempt for Malkin's grasp on history be very clear to you all within a few hours, I expect most of you will likely share it.

Getting closer

To total Windows-free operation, not counting games. It's been a hassle to transfer my writing from the laptop to my Dana; while it's doable, it's enough of a pain that for the most part, I only use my Dana for reading. However, after I started using Blue Nomad's Wordsmith on the Dana, which serves as both an ebook reader and a word processor, I decided to check out the Linux utility they had available for download.

What's nice is that the combination of Blue Nomad's wsconv utility with a pair of scripts allows me to save a file as an RTF, right-click on it to convert it to a Palm-readable PDB format, then fire it over to the Dana. That last step still requires hopping into Windows for now since the Dana , but someone's already figured out how to get the Dana hotsyncing in Linux using infrared, so it's only a matter of time before there's a decent USB option as well.

Mailvox: fostering evolutionary dead ends

MS writes:

I've been meaning to ask this question for awhile, but have been hesitant to given the rather un-pc nature of the question. I'd also be interested in comments from your vox folk. This has been touched upon just a bit in the comments from your "Homologic" blog, but -

I assume that you believe that most if not all of the factors that cause a teen to think they are gay are a result of things that happen to them in their childhood as opposed being born with it. If this is the case, what suggestions do you have for parents raising kids to prevent this from
happening (them thinking they are gay) I have my own thoughts about this (Basically - Dads: Stay in the picture and don't be a jerk with your kids) but I wonder what your thoughts are.

This is really out of my league, and there are certainly those who will have more personal experience on which to base their opinions, but from a strictly material point of view, I tend to follow Paglia in her quasi-Freudian take on it. There seem to be numerous potential factors involved, but what appears to be a dependable nurturing environment to ensure that your line is not passed on is a dominant mother and an absent or rejecting father.

As for women, Paglia - more than a bit of a lesbian herself - quotes a friend in saying "too much tit or not enough."

Strangely, it would seem to come down to the wisdom of .38 Special, who recommended holding on loosely, but not letting go. To be honest, I don't think there is an answer, except that love, prayer, attention and affection are never wasted.

And if you happen to lose the genetic lottery or manage to screw it up and turn your boy into a flaming fairy whose heartfelt dream is to choreograph a drag show in Vegas, then continue to love them, pray for them and give them attention and affection anyhow.

Radio tomorrow

If you're interested in listening to the Northern Alliance Radio Show tomorrow, the live web stream is here. I'll be on with the Fraters Libertas and SCSU Scholars at 2 PM Central time, discussing WWII military history, internment and the implications for future actions by the federal government, among other things.

Saint Paul said we will take 2 or 3 callers, so if you'd like to call in you can do so at 651-289-4488. I think Rush has a good point with his time-saving "dittos", so, in honor of the infamous battle cry, you can simply say "azaleas" to indicate a strong level of agreement, sympathy or simply an appreciation for the general bonhomie on this blog.

Homologic

As El Zinko Pinko, (President, VPQF), Snowdog and Bane can all attest*, I am one of the more gay-friendly Bible-thumping intolerant Christian bigots of the right.

But here's one thing that puzzles me about what appears to be the Official Party Line of the Lavender Brigades. Feel free to correct me if I'm mischaracterizing something here, but it seems to me that the assertions are:

1. An individual is gay because he knows he is. The assertion is the proof.
2. There are no external causes, a gay individual simply knows he has always been that way.
3. If someone decides he is not, in fact, gay, he is incorrect and is only deceiving himself.

Now, if it is possible for someone to be mistaken about their sexual orientation, how is it possible that only those who are insisting that they are not gay that can be mistaken? If it is not possible for someone to be mistaken about their sexual orientation, how is it possible to deny the testimony of someone who was gay, but now is not, that it is possible for sexual orientation to change?

I don't have an actual point here, I was just wondering. Not that this will likely do any good, but in the comments, please do try to stick to the logical aspects and not digress into verses about sin, smiting and Sodom. We pretty much covered that yesterday following the Swaggart post.

Craig, that gushing over Sean Hannity's hair only earned you probationary VPQF status. Until we get a ruling from Zinky, you don't get a vote.

Or not

Iraq Guy doesn't buy the Novak float suggesting the likelihood of withdrawal.

“One reason we might not be taking it seriously is that we're planning to do the wise thing and withdraw.”

Not very likely. A Democrat might “un-ass the AO” if elected, but right now having a US footprint in the Middle East is priceless as far as senior DOD planners are concerned. Centrally located and able to project power to all the other trouble spots in the region – in fact, this is the hot zone now, not Europe. Word is that this is going to be the new Korea as far as 1 year short tours go.

Yes, the obvious usefulness of the new bases they've constructed in Iraq are too great to be ignored, but I thought perhaps they'd make do with those they've built in Afghanistan and Qatar. We did abandon the big one in Saudi Arabia after all. But it was just a suggestion, I have no hard or even mildly rigid information.

Bill O'Reilly comes out of the closet

On the environment, anyhow. I caught a few moments of him with Naomi Wolf, and while he did a masterful job of taking her apart with regards to her accusations of "Bush lied" on WMD, he also stated that he was very liberal on the environment, and in favor of big government solutions.

This, I think, goes well beyond what Ann Coulter has accused Brave Sir William in the past, of splitting the difference to land precisely in the middle. I recommend that Mr. O'Reilly visit eastern Europe, where he can see for himself what sort of solution really big government has in store for the environment.

Denouncing Christians

Eugene Volokh calls on Christians to denounce Jimmy Swaggart:

I'm not asking for anything much — I'm simply saying that Christians should be outraged at Swaggart's essentially slandering their religion, and should denounce his views, to make clear that his views (though purportedly Christian) are not mainstream Christian views. Swaggart calls himself a Christian; was once a very prominent minister; continues apparently to have some influence; and purports to interpret the Bible. His statements are representations of what Christianity is supposed to be about. I would think that Christians would want to denounce those representations, and the closer they are in denomination to him (e.g., Protestants, evangelical Protestants, etc.), the more they would want to do that.

I agree in concept. And what did Swaggart actually say?

I'm trying to find the correct name for it . . . this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. . . . I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died.

Yes, I have no problem whatsoever denouncing Swaggart's statements. They are stupid, they are contrary to both Biblical principle and evangelical Christian teaching, and are particularly outrageous being voiced by someone who is apparently still in a position of church leadership, however minor. It is good that he has apologized for his comments; it would have been much better had he never made them in the first place.

I daresay that I am looked at that way far more often than the delectable Mr. Swaggart, and I have never killed anyone nor felt any need to. I am as vocal in my criticism of the gay agenda as anyone, I am opposed to homogamy,* I believe homosexuality to be a serious spiritual disease and a serious sign of societal decline, and I reserve my right to mock them as viciously as I mock everyone else just because I feel like it. (A community can't expect to inflict Erasure on the world, among other things, and expect to get away scot-free.) But a homosexual man has the very same rights to life, liberty and property that I do, and is possessed of the same worth in the eyes of God that I am.

God forgives all who repent, no matter what their sin. Repentance comes easily to no one, but it comes to all who ask for it. You cannot be a little bit sinful any more than you can be a little bit dead, and those who take joy in the knowledge that the world regards their sins as more acceptable than those of others would do well to keep that in mind.

*I'm opposed to state-granted heterosexual marriage too, come to think of it.

Socialism and bad little girls

This is why I'm convinced that socialism is hopeless. I mean, yes, there's all the historical evidence against it, and, of course, the economic theories that shred its logic all to pieces. But at the end of the day, the primary problem is that it assumes humans are somehow malleable.

The nature versus nurture debate will probably never end, but there are certain things that even the most casual observer can't help but notice. Four years ago, I first encountered a pretty little girl who lives near us. She was the sort of little girl you'd consider to have the promise of adult prettiness, though she wasn't a winner of the genetic lottery to the extent of the three blondies of The Couple You Want To Hate But Can't Because They're So Doggone Nice or the two china-perfect daughters of our friends Yes, I Used To Model and her husband I'm Very Handsome, If A Bit Cheesy, But You Have To Admit That It Works For Me.

I don't know how old this girl was, as I don't pay enough attention to children to be able to distinguish ages very well, but she was probably eight or nine. It was impossible to ignore her, though, as she prevented you from doing so by methodically staring at every male in the vicinity, of all ages, until they looked back at her. She also had an expression while doing this that I can only describe as feline. Now, it's possible that she was somehow taught this behavior, but I don't think so as it wasn't exhibited by any of the other young girls around, most of whom were a year or two older than her and were just going about their young girl business. I distinctly remember thinking: that one's going to be trouble.

Fast forward to last week. I was walking down the street when I noticed a girl literally sprawled forward on the hood of a motorcycle next to the sidewalk. I didn't recognize her at first, but it turned out to be the same young girl, apparently talking to the boy on the motorcycle. However, she was looking around almost everywhere except at him; when she glanced at me as I walked by, I had to look away before I burst out laughing. The look on her face was precisely the same semi-cunning, self-satisfied expression that it had been four years before.

We are what we are. It takes a divine force, a higher power, to even allow us to change that somewhat. Socialism, in setting itself against human nature, is a hopeless impossibility. No wonder the attempts to realize it fully inevitably lead to bloodshed.

I'm not obsessed, honestly

Among other things, I've just wrapped up work on the first comic book - er, that is to say, graphic novel - in the trilogy I mentioned some time ago. I have next to no experience with the genre, except for some creepy Weird Tales that Big Chilly used to have in his bedroom that scared me half to death when I was about eight, but it's been a lot of fun. I particularly enjoy working with the creator, who has been kind enough to give me co-author credit. We're going to be writing a novel based on the same series; even though we're not done with the second and third parts of the trilogy, a ridiculous number have already been pre-sold, which had the effect of creating interest in a related novel.

In other news, it looks as if the three books of the EW series will be soon published by a Christian publishing house, separately from the same three books published by Pocket Books and intended for mainstream bookstores. This will be nice, as my association with a secular publisher has had the unfortunate effect of causing the books to go almost completely unnoticed by its core market. I don't have a release date for "Wrath" yet, but if you want to check out the first issue of "Archangel: The Fall" you should be able to do so in about six weeks.

Evangelical Outpost on information flow

Joe Carter has an interesting and characteristically thoughtful post on why the coverage on Rathergate has been non-stop, while few have seen fit to pay attention to Michelle Malkin's similar attempts to pass off fraudulent history as the truth.

A comparison of these two cases provides an excellent example of how information is disseminated through the various information channels now that the concept of “media” has become more fluid. The rise of blogs has helped open access to media outlets that were previously unavailable and has enabled the coordination between various specialists. It has, as Patrick O’Hannigan writes in The American Spectator, “leveraged the increasing popularity of all things Web to make "asymmetrical warfare" by non-journalists against inaccuracies in Big Media easier than it had been before.”

The creation of new media forms, however, has also produced a new hierarchy that, while allowing a free-flowing mobility, remains sharply distinct. I believe it can be broadly outlined as follows:

Tier 1 – Network and cable news (i.e., CBS, CNN, FOX); newsweeklies (Time, Newsweek); major daily newspapers (The New York Times, Washington Post); prominent columnists (David Brooks, Maureen Dowd)

Tier 2 – Talk radio; Political journals (National Review, The New Republic); Web magazines (Salon, Slate, NRO);

Tier 3 – Cross-over bloggers (Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Kos Zuniga);

Tier 4 – High traffic/high linkage bloggers (Captain Ed, Roger Simon); Internet columnist (World Net Daily, Tech Central Station)

Tier 5 -- Bloggers

Tier 6 – Blog commenters, lurkers, posters to forums (Free Republic, Democratic Underground)

Most stories in the media start from T1 and move downward through the various tiers What was unique about the CBS memo story was that the discrepancy was picked up by a T6 source (Free Republic poster “Buckethead”), emailed to a T4 blog (Powerline), jumped to a T2 (Drudge), and was then picked up by the Tier 1 media. The dissemination of information downward from T1 is extremely flat, news can reach all the other tiers simultaneously. In contrast, information that moves upward from the lower tiers must be moved up by a higher tier.

Obviously, I'm a combination of T5 (here) and T4 (WND columnist). And while I think this is a solid partial explanation for the failure of the story to achieve any traction - it's manifestly true that I don't have the ability to see this, or any other, myth publicly exploded by myself - there's also other factors at work too. Prof. Ann Althouse sees it this way:

I don't think the two cases are comparable, because it isn't possible to engage with a history book without reading it and knowing the actual material well enough to pick it apart.... I have no idea whose facts are true there though. I'm happy to assume you're right about the scope of military operations in WWII and what is in Malkin's book, but I'm just not going to feel ashamed of not knowing such things. It's broadly assumed that the Japanese internment was wrong, and most people don't feel they need to reconsider it, so we're just not bothering to get up to speed on the info.

It's even harder in the case of alternate history novels, I'm learning. Not to go all O'Reilly on you, but I think both Joe's and Prof. Althouse's points are relevant here. The inadvertant novelist would never have gotten away with it to the extent that she has if anyone in the media knew anything about military history; as I've said before, journalists know nothing by virtue of their fact-free training, where reading Dan Rather's book passes for an education. The potential problem with the latter perspective, however, is that it's not necessarily true that most people still assume the internment was wrong. I'd like to think so too, but an awful lot of people seem to be delighted to be provided with the opportunity to reconsider it. No doubt they'll be the ones cheering on a sequel.

Notes from Iraq

Iraq Guy writes from the desert:

More important (and current) is the thing with Sadr/Syria and Iran. Literally, we've pounded Sadr down to the point of submission several times now. You can tell when he's out of bullets or people when he throws up the "negotiation" flag. So we pull back, the politicians pull up and he escapes and evades. Without getting up to look at something sensitive, I believe he's in Samara right now, that's where they secreted him off to. So of course, our reporting shows that Iran is
re-arming him and sending him non Arabic speaking troops.

We know Iran is doing this!

Even beyond that, the high Ayatola in Iran ordered Sadr to resume insurgent operations against the coalition. Sadr has also ordered a hit on Sistani....

So, yeah, I guess your assertion that we aren't taking it seriously is somewhat correct... mainly because I think Syria and Iran have demonstrably committed acts of war against us already, but nobody seems to want to do anything about it, and nobody has the stomach to take out Sadr, crush Falujah/Najaf, etc.

What really baffles me is Rumsfeld and the rest of them saying we don't need more troops. Obviously we do - if we want to close off the borders and cut off some of the arms and external terrorists ....and.... do a smack down on Syria and Iran...

One reason we might not be taking it seriously is that we're planning to do the wise thing and withdraw. Though neocons like Michael Ledeen are frothing at the mouth for expanding the war into Syria and Iran, that's pointless unless we're also going to occupy Saudi Arabia and stay there for the next 100 years. At which point, the curtain has come down and we might as well get it out in the open and elevate George Bush to the purple.

I don't see that being the plan, though. This information from the field makes more sense in light of a forthcoming withdrawal.

Floating proposals

Here's an interesting dichotomy on how the right's own biases can come into play. Because, let's face it, we have our own biases, just as the left does and it's foolish to make the same mistake they do by trying to deny it. When Robert Novak wrote about how the Bush administration is planning to withdraw from Iraq immediately after winning re-election earlier this week, it was dismissed by many right-wing commentators who are fans of the war as the mere floating of a proposal. In light of that, consider Eric Muller's recent point about John Leo's support of "In Defense of Internment":

John Leo read Michelle Malkin's book "In Defense of Internment" and concluded that it's time to open debate on internment "past and present."

Malkin has expressed frustration when I (and others) have read her book as endorsing the internment of Arabs and Muslims. How could we make such a mistake, she has wondered, when she says in her book (in one sentence) that she's "not advocating rounding up all Arabs of Muslims and tossing them into camps?"

So you'd think that when Leo uses her book to call for a debate on "present" internments, Malkin would say it's a misunderstanding of her views.

Nope. She calls it a favorable review.

Regardless of whether you agree with the notion of interning Muslims without regard for civil liberties or not, the conclusion you cannot escape is that Malkin's logic in defense of the historical internments REQUIRES support for modern internments, because America is at more verifiable danger from Koreans, Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis, Yemenis, Syrians, Afghanis and Chechens than we ever were from ethnic Japanese.

If it is deemed not only possible, but even likely, for Robert Novak to float policy proposals, is it so improbable that Michelle Malkin is being used to do the same? Perhaps Prof. Muller, the anti-internment left-winger liberal japonicus and I are the only ones who hear this ominous drumbeat beginning, but the extent to which Malkin, Leo and others are willing to lie and warp history in defense of this newly declared debate on "present" internments should seriously trouble any of you who claim to believe in the supremacy of the individual over the collective.

So not surprised

Zekedood sends an email informing us that, as expected, Michelle Malkin can't defend herself. Furthermore, I recommend having a look at her direct quote shown in bold below. Tell me if you think she's telling the truth.

Yesterday Michelle Malkin was a guest on the Ron Smith show on WBAL in Baltimore. Ron Smith is something of a small-l libertarian. He came out very early (in 2002) on the anti-Iraq war side, citing the non-threat Saddam Hussein posed to the US, WMD or not. So when he teased Mrs. Malkin's appearance by saying that he was going to ask about your challenge to debate her, I was certain that it was going to lead to something good.

However, he pretty much gave "me-so-Michelle" a free pass. He started the interview by referring to the opposition her book had received from various parties, particularly "Vox Day, the WorldNetDaily columnist", and asked if she was going to take you up on your challenge to debate the issue on radio. Her answer: "I won't be doing that. I have already addressed those
questions on my blog." "Me-so" was then given a free pass to restate the case laid out in her book (without challenge) before the interview changed direction to discuss the Rathergate fiasco.

I decided to double check "Me-so"'s contention that she had addressed your questions on her blog. Shock and awe! No mention of you or your questions. Not a peep. There was, in the August archive of the blog, a small section where she "took on" other bloggers who had questioned her premise. But there was no mention of you, your questions, or your contention that she whiffed badly on her research. More shock and awe!

I'm not sure with whom I'm more disgusted -- "Me-so" for dissembling, or Ron Smith for being such a patsy.

I'm not surprised in the least. She can't afford to have it known how little she knows about the military situation, so she's hoping everyone will quietly ignore this until it passes over. The blogosphere can give her a free pass if it wants, but they had better realize that in doing so, they are imitating the mainstream media over which they are currently affecting such superiority. But why they'd want to sacrifice their own integrity to cover for someone who's now proven herself to be a charlatan, a coward and a liar is beyond me.

In any event, I'll be precisely delineating the many differences between her alternate history fantasy and the history of our space-time continuum on the Northern Alliance show this Saturday.

More tales of the White Buffalo

In college, WB had some friends from home who went to other colleges and were in a band. They were musically talented, although unfortunately none of them could sing worth a darn. He would come back from break with tapes of their recordings, one of which, the immortal "Who's Gonna Buy the Beer" actually made it to vinyl on an independent label somehow.

The best thing about the Groundhogs, as they were called, was their magnificently offensive lyrics, which snuck up on you, disguised as they were by nice melodic guitar lines and sung in what would have been a pleasant manner if the singer's voice hadn't been complete crap. My personal favorite was the beginning to "Web of Love".

Oh, I was searching
For a certain
Kind of girl to f---"

Or the wandering, almost Sultans of Swing-like "Bass Ale" which chronicled a weary working man's night out at his local bar.

The other day, me and a couple buddies decided,
We'd go have a couple brews at the local bar.
We didn't realize,
That it was going to be homos, all around us.
Yeah, the homos were coming in, they were getting ready,
For a big dance party, on Saturday night.
Oh, Saturday night....

It always amused me to put the tape in the car when I'd be out on a date or something, and it would take a couple songs before whoever was with me would realize what they were singing. Nine times out of ten, male or female, they'd burst out laughing. It got to the point that we couldn't have a party without a mass demand for the Groundhogs tape, usually, of course, after everyone was adequately refreshed and in the mood for a riotous sing-along culminating in "Snorklehead", which was either a Blyesque assertion of masculine independence from female oppression or an ode to lethal interspecies affection. I know all the words and I'm still not sure.

Groundhogs....

Observations

Since there's no chance Malkin will show on Saturday, I've been passing some of the information I'd been retaining onto other blogs who are interested in continuing to strip the charlatan, along with the credulous sorts who are still taking her seriously. Was "most of the U.S. fleet destroyed at Pearl Harbor," John Leo?* I've saved some of the best bits for the Northern Alliance, of course, and I'll arrange to post a transcript here in the week following the show.

1. I find it strange that many people have been urging me, one not very widely read columnist, to "move on" while simultaneously reveling in the all-Rather, all the time coverage of the conservative columnists and the right-leaning blogosphere.

2. I also find it ironic that the Guard memos are portrayed as a bigger deal than the beginning drumbeat to build support for internment. Considering the many empty, but staffed FEMA "detention centers", I think it is improbable that this will remain an entirely academic debate for long. I don't claim to know for whom those centers are intended, but one has to presume that they exist for a reason.

3. The total lack of interest in conservative fraud expressed by people at places like NRO, compared to their rabid Pavlovian reaction to the smallest sign of inaccuracy in all things Democratic, is disheartening, though not all that surprising. I see little reason to believe that professional Republicans are any better or more intellectually honest than professional Democrats, the illusions of their honest, church-going fans notwithstanding. It's not so much that neither side has a monopoly on the truth as neither side has any interest in it, if it does not serve their immediate purposes.

4. I am very, very glad that I decided against pursuing a media career after I was signed by Universal Press Syndicate. I'd rather work for the Porn King. He has more integrity and the money is significantly better. And Heather Naeurt notwithstanding, the women are much hotter too. Not that Space Bunny is likely to go for either option, you understand.

5. It is intriguing to discover what some self-identified Christian conservatives believe will see you damned to eternal Hellfire. I was aware that some people believe it is necessary to vote for George Bush in order to pass into the Kingdom of Heaven, I did not know that accepting Michelle Malkin's revisionist fantasy of WWII military history was also a requirement. Presumably that's from the Book of Vulpes.

*And before someone starts arguing that it was the big important ships that were destroyed, please note that even if we count the beached Nevada as destroyed, that is still only 5 out of the 17 battleships that the US Navy possessed at the time. And, of course, 0 of 9 carriers, 0 of 18 heavy cruisers, 0 of 20 light cruisers, etc.

You mother get up...

come on get down with the sickness
Madness is the gift that has been given to me.

That's Disturbed, Bane, the best and most evil band of the last four years. I had a tough time choosing between songs for the chapter headings in The Wrath of Angels, since I always limit myself to a maximum of two chapters per band. Uh-wha-ah-ah-ah. Voices is the song I used in those little MP3 experiments from a few months ago.

I can hear the voice but I don't want to listen
Strap me down and tell me I'll be all right.
I can feel the subliminal need to be down with the voice
And make everything all right.

It's actually one of the better descriptions of demonic possession I've ever read. I think the lyricist is a preacher's son gone bad or something like that. Great music, though, it was the sort of thing I wanted to do with Psykosonik, but Paul and Dan fell in love with The Orb and we ended up going with stronger trance and rave influences instead.

Those Powerline bullies at it again

Hindrocket kicks sand in Jon Klein's face on CNBC:

Mr. JOHN HINDERAKER (Powerline.com Co-founder): Well, here's how it happened. I would say this is not really a big exception to the way that we and other blogs operate all the time. I think that this story illustrates the medium, the Internet, at its best, but the same kind of thing has happened many times.

It started on the morning of September 9th. We're a group blog; there are three of us who do Powerline. My partner, Scott Johnson, got up early in the morning, and one of the first things he did was to check all the e-mails that readers had sent to us overnight looking for something interesting to follow up on. And one of those e-mails quoted from and linked to a post which somebody called BuckHead had done on a message thread at the Free Republic site, which is basically a message board.

BORGER: It's a very conservative site, we should say.

Mr. HINDERAKER: It's a conservative site, yeah...

BORGER: Yes.

Mr. HINDERAKER: ...basically a message board. And Scott thought it was interesting because this guy had looked at these documents which had just become available online, and he made some very good points about the font and the appearance and so on of the documents, said, 'I think they're forgeries.' Scott was intrigued by that, so he put up a quote and a link to the original post on Free Republic, and he said, 'Hey, anybody else out there among our readers have any information about this?' Well, that opened the floodgates. Over the ensuing hours, we received hundreds...

BORGER: Right.

Mr. HINDERAKER: ...and hundreds and hundreds of e-mails from readers...

BORGER: Right.

Mr. HINDERAKER: ...not all of them valuable, but many of them from people who had a remarkable knowledge of military protocol of the early 1970s, type fonts and typewriters and so on...

BORGER: OK.

Mr. HINDERAKER: ...and other subject that were relevant.

BORGER: Well, and the rest is obviously history. Now, Jon Klein, let me ask you--it turns out that this blogger BuckHead is Harry McDougald, who is a very conservative lawyer from Atlanta. Who holds the bloggers responsible here in this battle to control the media?

Mr. JON KLEIN (Former CBS News Executive Vice President): Well, to hear them tell it, they hold themselves responsible. And, you know, that's fine as far as it goes; it's just not any kind of a third-party or any kind of a reliable check or balance against them. They are, you know, journals of opinion. And if they're taken that way, they can be useful. But we can't confuse the opinion of a guy shooting off an e-mail from BuckHead, Georgia, as fact.

Mr. HINDERAKER: I don't understand that, Jonathan. Are you saying that Republicans somehow don't have standing to point out forgeries?

One thing I couldn't help noting is how the host kept saying "very conservative". Have you ever heard any talking head utter the words "very liberal"? I can't think of one example. I wonder if Powerline is going to start painting silhouettes on their fuselage soon.

Feet of clay

I'm feeling a bit shattered here. Not because my case against interment is the least bit weakened, but my faith in one of my favorite conservative writers certainly is. Thomas Sowell, who at least did have the stones to respond, replied in part thusly:

Having read a number of accounts of the relocation over the years, I cannot recall any that was either as well documented or as well reasoned as Michelle Malkin's.

The worst part is that he wrote this despite my sending him an example which proves that Malkin didn't do the slightest bit of research with regards to the military necessity. Can you imagine him accepting a similar defense of FDR's seizure of the nation's gold supply, justified on the basis of a diary entry by William H. Wooden, FDR's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that he believed the seizure to be economically necessary?

Protecting their own

I've received numerous emails from conservatives, in various degrees of emotional upset that range from panties mildly twisted to totally rabid frothing at the mouth, expressing the opinion that I should not attack a 'conservative" commentator because she is "on our side".

Suffice it to say that I strongly disagree.

This is precisely the sort of behavior that the right so often condemns on the part of the left. We rip into leftists who won't criticize John Kerry's flip-flops, liberals who won't admit to media bias, losers who still think Dan Rather just might have, if not a case, at least an innocent explanation. To turn around and say that a disingenuous and ignorant charlatan of the right should get a free pass on an abuse of the truth is outrageously hypocritical and incredibly short-sighted.

It would be one thing if I was nit-picking and poking at minor mistakes. But when the sole basis of an entire thesis is in error; this is not something that any intellectually honest individual can overlook, nor should he. Furthermore, no one who is on the side of the socialist FDR, the elevation of the interests of the central state over the rights of the individual and complete intellectual dishonesty, is on mine.

My only side is the truth and the Truth. I have no lasting allegiance to any other party or creed, and I do my best to follow where they lead. If that means that I travel alone, that I stand alone, then I will do so without hesitation.

Always outnumbered, never outgunned.

Mailvox: The Bush withdrawal

EN writes:

I talked to a DC-based Bushivek campaign worker on Friday morning and she said they are stunned at the number of people who are telling them they will not vote for Bush.

The Bush doctrine, such as it is, has failed. He'll still win re-election because John Kerry combines the worst characteristics of Michael Dukakis and Bob Dole with a smarmy, Clintonian lack of principle, but he's practically a lame duck even prior to his second term. JG, who is in Iraq, states:

There's enough troops over here to take care of the insurgency. The main problem is the politicians. Post Abu Ghraib, the most important intelligence gathering asset has been hamstrung. Also, we've been at the brink of destroying Sadr and his militia at least a half dozen times, but politicians have intervened and Sadr escapes and rearms with Iranian hardware.

I actually have to explain that statement a little more. We’ve got enough troops to destroy any resistance over there. Our going into Najaf, Sadr City, Falujah – we kill these people by the score, literally hundreds and maybe lose one guy. When (if) we get intel ID’ing a bad guy, a squad is sufficient to take down the house and take him into custody.

What we don’t have enough troops for is patrolling the borders (where Syria and Iran are shipping in weapons by the ton, where half of these suicide bombers come from), patrolling ALL the streets, putting check points all over the place and searching suspicious vehicles. We’re trying to get the Iraqis to do that, but insurgents are whacking Iraqi Interim Gov’t ministers regularly and take out Iraqi Police by the dozen at recruiting/training stations. It doesn’t help that the Ministry of Interior doesn’t pay these guys except every now and then, half of them are unarmed, many are not in uniform (I’ve got pictures) – the training is cursory for both the Iraqi Police and Iraqi National guard…so half the time in a firefight they run away.

I don't believe we have the political will to do what needs to be done over here - so we've already lost this war...and I think any other future war with a dedicated resistance.

We'll find out soon enough if there are enough troops or not, if the generals start requesting more troops once the next enemy offensive starts. But it's been clear from the start that there has been no plan to win, no end game, no clear-cut definition of victory against which progress can be measured.

I fully expect that history will regard Bush as a incompetent Commander-in-Chief who was lucky to escape full responsibility for his disastrous decisions. Leading a nation into half-hearted, undeclared war is a guarantee of ultimate failure; Bush would have gotten away with it had he been content with Saddam's scalp. I see many correlations between the administration's decision to expand their goals into full-blown nation-building with the IJN's decision to extend their defensive shield to the Aleutians and Midway. In both cases, easy early success led to hubris and a fatal error.

My primary concern at this point is that only a second 9/11 could possibly give the American people any more tolerance for war. If I can see this, presumably so can those internal enemies from whom our military forces, and the President, have sworn to defend the Constitution....

Mailvox: a fair question

JDR asks:

And what is your view on the "military necessity" question in respect of the few million muslims in this country, many if not most of whom have directed hardly a scintilla of criticism at islamic fanatics that are commiting mindless attrocities 24/7? Did 9/11 give rise to such a military necessity? Will the next islamist attack on our soil do so?

This raises a fair point. On the one hand, technological advances have significantly increased the striking power of a small group of men, or even an individual, while rendering conventional military defenses relatively useless. To a certain extent, the very notion of "military necessity" is not applicable, as massed troops are more appropriately classified as potential targets than preventative measures. And the lack of criticism is indicative of nothing in and of itself; this, too, has no relation to military matters.

Carroll Quigley, in Tragedy And Hope, wrote of the cycle of martial technology. His theory was that as individuals obtain armaments that are basically the equivalent of professional arms, the power of central government declines. Governments, of course, fight this, but fighting against the technological imperative is always doomed, for governments as it is for individuals, businesses and societies.

My belief is that the next large terrorist attack, whatever the source, will have the result of inflaming the American populace, but unexpectedly, a part of its anger will be focused against the government and its failure to even consider the immigration issue, in addition to the resident illegal aliens. It will not have the expected effect of creating an increased demand for an expansion of external warfare. The old rules are changing, but as Prechter states, government is reliably the last institution to realize this. Therefore, I suspect that the next major attack will cause the administration to initially advocate more war, but the frightened public, having lost its faith in offensive war as a reliable defense, will instead cause/allow them to focus on further destroying civil liberties.

I have no problem with deporting aliens, legal or illegal, of any race, creed or color, but I am 100 percent opposed to allowing the government to disobey the law and violate the rights of its citizens under the aegis of security. That way lies the unleashing of the red hand.

He's a soldier!

It's official. Kellen Winslow Jr. IS Jeremy Shockey. Loud-mouthed, overrated and injury-prone to boot. I never bought into the Shockey myth from the start, and I didn't buy Winslow either. Give me Bubba Franks or Daniel Graham. All they do is catch touchdowns.

2 catches, four yards, 2 touchdowns. That's a good TE line. And no, I don't want to talk about the Vikings. I still think they're a better team than Philadelphia, and they'll prove it when it counts. I'm not happy about their red zone struggles, but that's a solvable problem.

Fantasy was horrible, as I got trounced by Space Bunny's team. Pick-16 started off brutal, but we finished up a respectable 9-7. 20-12 overall through Week 2.

Mailvox: save a transcript for this guy

George, who no doubt has a poster of Malkin over his bed, froths at the mouth:

Your attempts to paint Ms Malkin into a corner of your own choosing is despicable and indefensible. Your setting of a date for a proposed "debate" is despicable and indefensible. Your presumption in selecting a date for such a confrontation is nothing short of brazen-faced arrogance.

Setting a date! Offering to reschedule! The ignominy!

The columns in which you have attacked Ms Malkin have made it startlingly clear to any "intellectually honest individual", to use your own phrase, that you truly have no desire to debate Ms Malkin but in fact have an hysterical wish to publically humiliate and embarrass one of the finest conservative writers in the United States currently reaching a very wide and varied readership.

No, I'd love to debate her in order to publically expose her astonishingly ignorant case. Unfortunately for her, I can now do it regardless of whether she's there or not. And if the finest conservative writers are defending the elevation of central state authority over the Constitution and standing up for FDR, America is doomed. Perhaps Malkin's next book will be entitled Lenin: The Misunderstood Freedom Fighter, written without so much as a glance at any of Vladimir Ilyich's copious writings or the history of the October Revolution.

You may note that my tone has grown more openly contemptuous in the last day; that's because I've learned how little Malkin actually knows about the military context in which she attempts to place her research on Magic. The term "less than zero" springs to mind. I'd originally thought she'd made a serious, but understandable mistake, however, the extent of her ignorance is so great and so easily demonstrable, the two people I've told about my latest discovery were both wondering what on Earth she was thinking when she decided to write the book. It almost embarrassed ME and I'm certainly no fan of hers.

To quote Hacker, a reader of Malkin's book who has emailed me a few times to poke and probe for weaknesses in my case: "Well, you’ve convinced me about the lack of military necessity to do the evacuation. I also did some additional research on my own and can find nothing to refute what you’ve said."

A case of massive overkill

I'm afraid that after spending five minutes actually looking at the case that Malkin makes for herself, as opposed the case I assumed she'd be making, I have to say that there is about a zero percent chance she'll show up to debate. I spoke too soon when I said there's no shame in making a mistake. Sometimes, it depends on the order of magnitude.

Let me put it this way. If it takes me more than 30 seconds to demonstrate that a) Malkin made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to examine the question of military necessity for herself, and, b) that she is demonstrably less qualified to make any statement with regards to military necessity than she is to be the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, and, c) cause the moderators to burst out laughing in the process, I'll be hugely shocked. I called Big Chilly; there was a moment of silence and the first words out of his mouth were: Are you kidding me?

It's a good thing I enjoyed the research so much, because I didn't even need to do most of it to discredit her. She discredits herself with her own words, not just badly, but to the point that even her biggest fans are going to be cringing with embarrassment. Some of you probably think I'm talking smack, others are already hearing the blades go snicker-snack. Tune in to the Northern Alliance on Saturday and you'll understand very quickly why I am supremely and completely confident of my case.

Exit from Iraq

Robert Novak writes:

Whether Bush or Kerry is elected, the president or president-elect will have to sit down immediately with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military will tell the election winner there are insufficient U.S. forces in Iraq to wage effective war. That leaves three realistic options: Increase overall U.S. military strength to reinforce Iraq, stay with the present strength to continue the war, or get out.

Well-placed sources in the administration are confident Bush's decision will be to get out. They believe that is the recommendation of his national security team and would be the recommendation of second-term officials. An informed guess might have Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, Paul Wolfowitz as defense secretary and Stephen Hadley as national security adviser. According to my sources, all would opt for a withdrawal....

This messy new Iraq is viewed by Bush officials as vastly preferable to Saddam's police state, threatening its neighbors and the West. In private, some officials believe the mistake was not in toppling Saddam but in staying there for nation building after the dictator was deposed.

I'm glad some officials are starting to believe that. I could have told them that from the start. If you don't have a game plan for victory, you will not win. If you can't even bring yourself to identify the enemy, you will not win. If your objective is not possible, you will not win.

The wild card, however, is Iran. Ledeen and other neocons are still pushing for correcting the conflict by expanding it, which would be an amazingly stupid thing to do. If their nuke program is a problem, then take it out or wait and let Israel take it out*, but whatever you do, don't try to expand a doomed nation-building program. Nations cannot be built! The very concept is a contradiction in terms. Germany was a nation prior to WWII. So was Japan. Iraq is something more akin to a peripheral state in the House of Islam and a tripartite one at that, without a dictator to hold it together by horrific force, it is no more a nation than the former Yugoslavia.

Perhaps now we can return to the immigration issue and other matters that might actually help the America meet the challenge of resurgent Islam without committing the usual suicide through security.

*Some very inobservant people say that we cannot permit this, because then the Arabs will hate the Israelis infinity plus one, or perhaps even double-dog infinity. Personally, I suspect the administration's apparent lack of concern about the Iranian program is because they already know that Israel is planning to take it out before it goes online.

The internment debate

In case there are any visitors from WND, LRC or a blog interested in perusing some of my many points related to the lack of military necessity, or if Mrs. Malkin decides she might like to actually have a look at some of the military realities for the first time, here are links to some related posts over the last two weeks:

The 10 questions Michelle Malkin will not answer.

Percent of US air strength devoted to the Pacific.


An email to Malkin from a Marine descendant of internees.

A perspective on the potential danger of bombing raids

An interrogation of Admiral Toyoda, Chief of Naval Combined Forces, Imperial Japanese Navy.

There's a lot more, of course, as my weary regulars can attest. Just scroll down or click on the September archives for the full deluge. Nor is this even close to all the information at my disposal on the subject, but you'll have to wait for the debate to hear that. I'll arrange to post a transcript here after the fact; if Mrs. Malkin is afraid to show, I believe the Northern Alliance is planning to arrange for one of her proponents to serve as a stand-in.

Sweet Shub-Niggurath on steroids!

I don't know if is the higher than normal volume of critical mail today or the Vikings game tonight, but the adrenaline is definitely flowing. And I'll never utter a dismissive remark about trainers again - okay, I probably will - but not about The Perfect Aryan Male's guy, Eric.

Regulars may recall that TPAM got me going on a new program a month ago, one that has him up to 240 from 225. So, I wandered off to the gym this morning and found that I was already able to jack the two top sets of three up to 295. I'm not even on protein or creatine, which of course, has me thinking that maybe I should be. Forget Malkin, I want Alice! In a cage!

Anyhow, those of you who were asking about lifting programs should give that one a serious whirl.

Mailvox: I'm right here

A few emails from Mrs. Malkin's fans have begun to flow in:

Vox, you’re too bright and insightful to eschew Michelle’s logic and the clear history that she presents about the Japanese removal. I haven’t read her book but I have seen her defend herself on TV and she’s absolutely right on the mark. If she accepts your challenge for a debate my friend, prepare to lose. - JM

I'm always prepared for that risk. I'm also demonstrably willing to take it. Is she?

Although I usually like your articles, I have to part with you on this one. You sound so frightening when you call Ms. Malkin "Out". Ooooooh, Vox Day is so tough... - TC

I thought I proposed a debate, not a fight. Although I'm always up for that too. I can't say that I like her odds any better that way, but I'm amenable.

I have observed Michelle Malkin discussing the Japanese internment on several occasions. I believe you are not quoting her correctly. In no case has she said that this was a good thing. She was merely making a case that there was some logical reasoning behind this unhappy event. And the lack of a direct threat of attack on the US mainland, there was a direct threat of harm to Americans and their allies elsewhere. And there WERE many "spies" among Japanese Americans. And Malkin's discourse is not about facts - many are recorded in the hsitorical record, and she is merely rendering an opinion - just like you are. - FZ

I'm not quoting her at all, I'm tearing apart the foundation of her case, which is fatally flawed. The reasoning behind internment was neither logical nor defensible. Furthermore, Malkin not only continues to insist that there was a direct threat of an attack on the US mainland, her case rests upon it. Spies do not necessarily entail military necessity, otherwise we'd be rounding up all the Jews now, or at least those we missed after the Pollard affair. It is her opinion, and I'm demonstrating why her opinion is wrong.

Usually I like what you print but I'm with Michelle on this one... - MM

With what, refusing to address specific points and throwing out a few snarky comments while simultaneously complaining that others are ducking her? I can't imagine that you are with Dan Rather too. I have no problem with those who think she's got a convincing case, in fact, what I'd suggest is that if you're confident she's right, write to her at the email address she gives out on her blog: malkin@comcast.net, and encourage her to pick up the gauntlet.

Eminent shadows

George Will warns of more rights being lost:

Soon -- perhaps on the first Monday in October -- the [Supreme] court will announce whether it will hear an appeal against a 4-3 ruling last March by Connecticut's Supreme Court. That ruling effectively repeals a crucial portion of the Bill of Rights. If you think the term ``despotism'' exaggerates what this repeal permits, consider the life-shattering power wielded by the government of New London, Conn.

That city, like many cities, needs more revenues. To enhance the Pfizer pharmaceutical company's $270 million research facility, it empowered a private entity, the New London Development Corporation, to exercise the power of eminent domain to condemn most of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood along the Thames River. The aim is to make space for upscale condominiums, a luxury hotel and private offices that would yield the city more tax revenues than can be extracted from the neighborhood's middle-class homeowners.

If the Supreme Court refuses to hear this case, it will be a truly ominous testimony to the extent to which creeping left-wing fascism is moving from the shadows and out into the open. I wonder which "conservative Republicans" will hail a decision favorable to the New London government as a wise and correct move, despite its total destruction of what remains of our Constitutionally-protected property rights.

I think it's past time to call for a Constitutional amendment banning eminent domain. You'd think there'd be plenty of politicians who would support absolute invidual property rights, and you'd also almost certainly be wrong.

Discuss amongst yourselves

This should be rather fun, I think.

Pick-16 Week 2

Last week: 11-5 Overall: 20-11

L - Washington Redskins over Giants
L - Kansas City Chiefs over Panthers
W - Indianapolis Colts over Titans
L - Green Bay Packers over Bears
L - Pittsburgh Steelers over Ravens
L - St. Louis Rams over Falcons
L - Denver Broncos over Jaguars
W - New Orleans Saints over 49ers
W - Detroit Lions over Texans
W - Seattle Seahawks over Buccaneers
W - New England Patriots over Cardinals
W - Oakland Raiders over Bills
W - Dallas Cowboys over Browns
W - New York Jets over Chargers
W - Cincinnati Bengals over Dolphins
Minnesota Vikings over Eagles

The game that makes me nervous is the Patriots over the Cardinals. This is the sort of game that has potential upset written all over it, even though the Patriots are the superior team in almost every way. But sure things in the NFL have an uncanny way of exploding in your face. The Vikings game could easily go either way, but at the end of the day, I have more confidence in Daunte and his receiving corps than McNabb and his. The Vikes destroyed a decent Cowboy squad coached by Bill Parcells, the Eagles destroyed a lousy Giants team coached by Tom Coughlin.

Detroit vs. Houston makes me nervous too, but Chokechain assures me that Houston looked horrid last week. I just find it as hard to imagine Detroit starting 2-0 as Indy starting 0-2. But, as the Sports Guy said, this is a tough week to call and he'd be happy to go 9-7. I'll settle for 10-6, as long as we drop our low-weight games.

That scratching sound you hear is the White Buffalo desperately taking notes down. He's hoping to stay ahead of Annabella this week. If he slips any lower, we may have to start calling him Annabella.

UPDATE - yeeouch! Dropping six of the 12:00 games is downright painful! I watched the Falcons play last week and NEVER thought they'd stay with the Rams. Chicago was a fluke, as if Ahman goes in from the 2, it's 17-14, and anyhow, no one will have had the Bears so that shouldn't hurt too much. The Carolina win hurts badly, though, although starting DeShaun worked out well. I'm not surprised he picked up a ton of yards and a score, I'm just surprised Priest Holmes didn't pick up more. 10-6 is still possible, just not very likely.

UPDATE 2 - But unlikely is still possible, and one more win will do it. Skol Vikings!