Hideous Skull-Faced Monster Arises to Insult Troops on Halloween

Yes, it's true folks, just in time for All-Hallow's Eve, the Creature from the Swiftboat Lagoon rose up and delivered a flesh-tingling (and, I hope, career ending) insult to those who serve in Iraq. This creature is known to be mad and often ignore the entreaties of the party that spawned him. Here's what he said:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Here's the YouTube video of him saying it
Apparently no intelligent person would deign to join the miltary. I've been regarded as reasonably intelligent and made a conscious choice to serve my country, which I did on active duty for twenty-one years.

Skeletor has apparently refused to apologize:

Kerry, who is considering another run for the White House in 2008, angrily fired back.

His statement called Republicans "assorted right-wing nut jobs."

And at a hastily arranged news conference in Seattle, Kerry said: "I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy."

Kerry said the comment in question was "a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops ... and they know that's what I was talking about."

Yes, Skeletor, we know exactly to whom you were talking. And we will not forget it.

Monk

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It's the Great Jihad, Charlie Brown!

One of the funniest, most tasteless things I've seen in recent years. I expect it will only be a short time before the mullahs insist it be shown around Christmas.

Monk

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A Short Life Well Lived -- Update on A Hero

The funeral for PFC Stephen Bicknell, 2 Btn, 505 Regt, 82 AB Div., was held today. It was a fine ceremony. I wish I had pictures of the numbers of people lining the funeral procession's route to the cemetary. Most of the town turned out to bid him farewell, waving flags and doffing their caps. The odious insects from Westboro Baptist Church failed to show, which was a wise move on their part.

Monk

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Git Mo' Food ... Korans ... Soccer ...

From limited news reports and from the blogosphere, I knew the Gitmo detainees had life easy. Until I read this first-hand report from National Review Online, did not know the disgustingly PC details:

many of the detainees try to maintain their fight against America, in any way possible, no matter how small. One camp had to be retrofitted because detainees were taking apart the push-button faucets in their cells to get at a metal spring inside that they would stretch out to be used as a weapon. The Asian-style toilets on the floors of the cells used to have foot-rests, until the detainees started wrenching them from the floor to use them as bludgeoning weapons. The guards are routinely splashed with urine and feces, and wear chest protectors and sometimes neck protectors to protect against stabbing.
...
While always mindful that they are dealing with dangerous men (who are always shackled when in the presence of the guards), the Americans do their utmost to treat them humanely, even sensitively. Seemingly every surface has a small painted arrow pointing toward Mecca. Every detainee gets a Koran, and should it be necessary to search one it is done by one of the Muslim translators, not the guards. After the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions became almost wallpaper, posted all over the place in every language spoken by the detainees.
...
The detainees are amply fed. They are offered 4,200 calories a day. They don’t have to eat it all, but the idea is to offer them choices. U.S. combat troops get 3,800 calories. The average detainee has gained 18 pounds, and one detainee went from 215 to 410 pounds. Visiting reporters are fed the same lunch as the detainees: a hot Middle Eastern meat dish (unidentifiable to this Western palate), along with vegetables, egg shavings, and tuna fish; plus yogurt, a couple of bananas, several granola bars, and a piece of homemade baklava to mark Ramadan, when the detainees always get sweets. They get fresh-baked bread three times a day.
...
Detainees sit in a La-Z-Boy chair during interrogations... [not the "comfy chair!"]

They are much better treated than the poor, or even many pets in our own country. This is a crime against mankind. These men are murderous thugs who should never live in comfortable circumstances and should never see the light of day again.

The Democrats will undoubtedly set them free and allow them to sue the US for violations of their civil rights. Heck, they might even let them appeal to the World Court to charge their captors with war crimes.

I recommend to President Bush that the day he leaves office, he has every one of these animals shot in the back of the head and has their bodies dumped over the fence into Cuba.

Monk

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Suffer Not a Traitor to Live

since Congress has established a policy of allowing members of the Department of Defense to express their personal opinoins without fear of retribution (even if they are on active military duty), let express one of mine in response to this:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 200 active duty U.S. armed service members, fed up with the war in Iraq, have joined an unusual protest calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, organizers said on Wednesday.

The campaign, called the Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, is the first of its kind in the Iraq war and takes advantage of Defense Department rules allowing active duty troops to express personal opinions to members of Congress without fear of retaliation, organizers said.

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq," states the appeal posted on the campaign's Web site at www.appealforredress.org.

"Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home," it adds.

My opinion: each member of the miltary that signed this petition and those who wrote and distributed it are traitors for actively aiding and abbetting the enemies of this country.

And traitors should be incarcerated for life or shot outright.

Monk

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Another Update on a Hero Passing

Members of the Westboro Baptist "Chruch" have announced that they intend to show up at Stephen Bicknell's visitation tonight, in roder to protest the memory of anyone who has died for the America they hate (because it gives civil rights to "fags"). They claim to have attended hundreds of military funerals. I have written about this odious group before.

My reaction to their announcement is the same that Russian Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich gave to Rasputin when the latter asked to come to the Russian army's Stavka: "Do come; we'll hang you."

Monk

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The Fruits of Appeasement

For the last thirty years, France has supported muslim causes around the world, even to the extent of directly supporting Palestinian groups like Hamas and helping Saddam Hussein build atomic reactors (before the Israelis blew them up). France has gladly accepted milions of North African muslims, to do jobs the thirty-hour-workweek French populace will not do.

What has this garnered them? Pajamas Media has the answer:

As America prepares for Halloween, France is girding for a wave of attacks from Muslim youths—a reprise of the deadly French riots of last year.

A leaked French intelligence report warns that during the first week of November, a school holiday (Nov. 1 or All Saint’s Day), Muslim riots could convulse the country.
...
Last year’s intifada lasted three weeks. It petered out when the authorities asked the media to stop devoting attention to the riots.

The situation, however, never returned to normal. Unless one considers (as some French officials seem to do) the current situation as “normal.” In the first six months of this year there were 50,000 acts of urban violence by Muslims. On average 15 police officers, fire fighters or other public officials are attacked per day and 100 cars are set alight per night.

Gangs of immigrant vandals operate in a paramilitary fashion. A spokesman for the French police officers union, himself a policeman, has that France is in the midst of a “civil war.”

Interestingly, no public official said the union was exaggerating.

No Pasarain! has more:

4 buses torched in one night (one was first hijacked and driven around by an armed gang). French youths have decided to up the violence a notch. Cars are for small time hoods and anyway, torching cars is like soooooooo 2005. So, French youths are movin' on up.

In the midst of a "civil war" is what you get by appeasing muslims and trying to honor their appeals. How long before it begins to happen in Canada (aka Cancukistan) and here, in places like Michigan and upstate New York that have large muslim minorities?

Monk

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Update on A Hero Passing

Stephen Bicknell was not a Ranger, as I reported earlier, but was assigned to 2d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82 Airborne Division. Sgt Lester Baroncini was also killed when the HumVee they were in hit two landmines planted by Mohammed's followers, members of the Religion of Peace.

The 505th, ironically enough, was the unit "Private Ryan" belonged to in the movie.

Visitation for Stephen is at the Prattville High School Gym on Thursday. The funeral is at First United Methodist Church Prattville (my home church) on Friday.

Salud, mon ami. You placed all upon the altar of liberty.

Monk

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A Hero Passes

War isn't personal until it comes home.

Several days ago in Iraq, a hometown hero was killed. Pvt. Stephen Bicknell was a Ranger, had been in Iraq for only two months and had just gotten certified to drive the HumVee he was killed in when it ran close to an IED.

He leaves an 18-year-old wife, his high school sweetheart, who is five months pregnant. He was the star quarterback for the Prattville Lions football team -- the team I support -- leading the Lions through four state playoff, including the championship game in 2004. He graduated from Prattville High in 2005.

I knew him vaugely from his field exploits and our church's youth group, knowing his parents somewhat better. This has been devastating to them, of course.
I honor his service and the accomplishments he achieved in his short years, as should we all. Inevitably, there is now some local discussion of why he needed to die -- is the conflict we are in really worth it if it snuffs out such young lives? We must remember that if we fail to win, we will dishonor this superb young man's sacrifice; he will have died in vain. The victory that he and his comrades in arms believe in will be the true way of honoring his memory.

Monk

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Earthquakes! Nukes!

I knew somehow that the quakes in Hawaii were Dubya Chimpler's fault! Now Daily Kos has the proof:

Whenever you blow up stuff deep underground, you run the risk of forcing the tectonic plates to shift.
http://geology.er.usgs.gov/...

Recall how there were no nukes in North Korea under Clinton, when the adults were in charge of foreign policy. I hope that Hawaii residents can put two and two together and vote Democratic because the GOP's idiotic mishandling of North Korea is a clear and pleasant danger. Heh, the smoking gun just fired, Dee-dee-dees!
http://www.cnn.com/...

GWB's hard-on for more war and instability in the Middle East (the successful results of his conscious actions and inaction) have led to a world that is less safe in myriad ways.

Dat ol' debbil Dubya, he be up to his ol' tricks again.

Monk

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Politically Correct Racial Segregation

Lileks was a parent helper at his daughter's school on Friday. This is life in cold, blue (state) Minnesota:

At one point the Hispanic students came by. The Hispanic students are not mainstreamed, but held in special separate classes until third grade, at which point I gather they are magically integrated into all the social relationships that have built up over the three previous years. It really was quite remarkable. The teacher led a line of brown-skinned students through the atrium, and of course they all looked at what we were doing. (“We” at this point included two white kids, an Asian kid, and an African-American kid.) I noted to the other parent: I never thought I’d see the days when schools were racially segregated again.

But that’s progress.

Meanwhile, over in the source-fount of liberty under law, the NYT notes that much the same thing is happening with muslim children:

But the visible differences — the way female teenagers wear the full-length dress and head-covering and the boys wear black robes and skullcaps — play into a ferocious debate about the sense of separateness or readiness to integrate Britain’s estimated 1.8 million Muslims, about 3 percent of the population...

...“Muslim children in this country tend to live separate lives anyhow,” said Mark Halstead, a professor of education at the University of Huddersfield in northern England. “Whether they go to Muslim school does not make much difference to their segregation. They are concentrated in the inner cities. They could be attending a state school that is 90 percent Muslim anyway.”

...but that's progress, no?

Monk

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War Eagle!

I know I'm a day late in offering congrats to the boys at Auburn for their outstanding win over No. 2-ranked Florida Saturday night. It was one of the more exciting games I've seen in recent years (and certainly puts my Deadskins' dreadful performance against 0-5 Tennesee on Sunday to shame).

Congrats also to Alabama, who bested Ole Miss in overtime, despite the problems on defense that have been plaguing them all year.

Looks like Auburn came out #4 nation-wide in the BCS poll (the most scientific of the rating systems -- i.e., probably about as good as a five-day weather forecast, vice, say, Harris or AP, which are accurate only for the next day's "weather.").

Thanks for a memorable weekend of football!

Monk

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Four Options

Reflecting on the war since 9-11, I came to the conclusion some time ago that there are really only four potential outcomes and/or grand strategy options in the West's war against islam. I don't usually post in my blog about subjects I write on professionally, but herewith are my thoughts on the four outcomes:

1. Take the Fall. This option is what our enemy seeks: nothing short of destruction of the modern secular West, replaced by an Umma that probably includes all of Europe, a fatally injured and greatly reduced America, and the rest of the world at war as India and China resist islam with, shall we say, less compunction about civilian casualties than we have. The ideal for the islamofascists, of course, is a worldwide salafist, sharia-ruled Umma, or a world entirely shi'a, ruled by the Mahdi. Maybe the sunni and shi'a would make a deal to divide up the world...who knows.

2. Build a Wall. Just as the Israelis are doing around the West Bank and Gaza, this is the most literal form of containment. It would eventually involve deporting (or interning) most muslims in Western nations, building massive physical barriers in some places (like Israel), and establishing real and virtual blockades of the muslim world in order to seal it off as a danger to the West and Far East. This would entail acts of war against every muslim-ruled nation on Earth and would likely exacerbate islamic extremism, as the world became physically divided into dar al-islam and dar al-harb. It would last for decades, if not centuries, greatly increase the suffering of captive muslim populations, and quite possibly delay their "growing up" -- getting to the place we got to about 400 years ago, when we in the West decided to stop killing people for religious differences, and the Far East got to about a hundred years ago. This option also requires a very signifcant outlay of capital and constant maintenance costs for decades at least. It's unlikely that the West has the stomach for this.

3. Make Them Small. This, in one form, is the strategy we are persuing and the one that ultimately defeated communism. We used soft power to isolate, co-opt, and subvert segments of the enemy's population, while using hard power to isolate (e.g., the East-West German divide) and/or resist enemy expansion and aggression (e.g., Korea and Vietnam). This strategy has its dangers and limitations: a) islamofacism is in its early, earnestly religious phase of expansion. Its true adherents cannot be negotiated with; they must be destroyed and/or isloated until their power has waned and their system has settled into stasus and either collapses of its own internal contradictions (e.g., the Soviet Union) or evolves to more closely resemble the West (e.g., China). b) Hard power must be used successfully, or we will become disheartened and lose will. With traitors on out TV screens proclaiming our soldiers to be baby-killers for the first time since Vietnam, we have little enough of that already. c) Again, it requires will to carry out and probably will extend for decades or longer. A great advantage of this approach is that it allows for flexibility: uses of soft power (economic, social, poltical, informational...) can involve engagement (a la Syria), or can involve bribery and co-option for those willing to "play ball" (e.g., Pakistan). This can entail miltiary action of more limited scope: brushfire wars to take out the worst or most strategically placed enemy enclaves and regimes. Iraq was such a campaign. Bombing Iran's nascent nuclear facilities would be another (and there would be almost no negative consequences to doing so).

4. Kill Them All. aka, "more rubble, less trouble." This is the outcome I most fear, because, being a Christian, I don't cotton to seeing half a billion people flashed into smoking meat hunks. That, however, is what I think will happen when the West (and, perhaps even more likely, the East, as represented by China and India, both of whom reortedly have thermonuclear weapons) finally gets fed up or some catastrophe happens that truly threatens its existance. B-52s delivering big, Cobalt-salted, city-busting B-53s to every muslim capital in the world is not something it is pleasant to contemplate, but that very may be what happens if the West finally decides to invoke its millenia-old tradition of quick, decisive victory. Millions may die in the West and East; many more will die in the dar al-islam and the survivors will envy the dead. I fear such a war will make all the losses in all the wars and totalitarian-utopian slaughters of the 20th century pale by comparison.

I hope we never have to invoke No 4. I think only competant conduct of option 3 is the only way to prevent it, however, and the anti-war crowd -- truly treasonous in much of its conduct -- is making this more difficult. Why not? The international Left has the blood of tens of millions on its hands from all the utopian schemes it endorsed in the 20th Century. Why should we think it would shy away from the death of a few hundred million in its eternal quest to destroy its own civilization and bring us back to Year Zero?

Monk

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VDH and Amadenijad on Friday the Thirteenth

Two good reads for this supposedly unlucky day.

The first is Victor Davis Hanson's column in National Review Online yesterday. He asks and answers the musical question, "do we have a strategy in the war?"

Against the terrorists, our strategy is a six-pronged approach:

1. Beef up security to such a degree at home that it would require far more training and expertise to penetrate our defenses than what was necessary for the September 11 attacks;

2. Arrest, imprison, and kill enough Islamic terrorists in the United States and abroad to make it nearly impossible for them to carry off another September 11-like attack;

3. Take out the worst authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that sponsored terrorism and attacked their neighbors, while pressuring others like a Saudi Arabia and Egypt to cease funding terrorists;

4. Support the creation of democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon to offer Muslims choices other than autocracy or Islamic radicalism, while trying to encourage reform in the Middle East at large;

5. Wage a worldwide war of ideas that frames the struggle as the freedom of the individual, liberal values, and Western economic prosperity against the Dark-Age nihilism of the world of the caliphate and Sharia law;

6. Hope that while our enemies’ world is static, ours is not. In other words, while they endlessly redefine the 7th century, we use reason and science to wean us off dependency on their oil, seek sophisticated missile-defense systems, and hope instant global communications (which also facilitate their televised beheadings) can undermine their entire hierarchical society of imams and patriarchs.

I agree and although I am not sold on its efficacy, I believe this is the only humane set of strategy options open to us. The alternatives are surrender (which many in the West have already done) and "more rubble, less trouble." Neither are things I wish to see happen. VDH continues his observations:

As the United States and the Islamic fascists each respectively pursue their own strategies, the constituencies that matter — the Western and Middle Eastern publics — watch the battlefield, adjusting their outlooks to the perceived victory or defeat of either side. When we are doing well, a Bob Woodward writes Bush at War rather than State of Denial, a Chris Matthews sputters that “We are all neoconservatives now,” and enemies in Syria and Iran show real apprehension. But when we seem stalled, suddenly Democratic senators compare our soldiers to Nazis and worse, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan start appearing with mainstream Democrats, and Hezbollah’s Nasrallah comes out of hiding to brag of his hatred of the U.S.

So the uncertainty is not whether the United States has a sound strategy in this long struggle against savage enemies of the Dark Ages — we have many wise ones — but rather whether we still have the will or the desire to see the war through to the bitter end.

I don't believe that we do, and won't until something much worse than 9-11 happens. After that, the deluge; if not the Apocalypse.

There is also a very good article on the nexus between Iran's medieval shi'a thocratic utopianism and moden leftist nihilism as found in President Amadenijad (which means "monkey-ass mullah-lover" in Farsi):

We would do well to take the Iranian president seriously, for he is proving himself a charismatic and clever leader. As he demonstrated recently at the United Nations, Ahmadinejad is adroit at putting aside Islamist themes when convenient and joining secular dictators like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe in their Marxist cant protesting American imperialism and economic hege mony. Like many totalitarian rulers, including Hitler and Stalin, he professes a love for mankind and world peace. In these ways, Ahmadinejad reflects the Iranian revolution's assimilation of traditional Islamic categories of faith to a Marxist lexicon of violent revolution. It is therefore more important than ever to realize that the Iranian revolution's brand of jihadism has close structural similarities to--and is historically descended from--strains of European revolutionary nihilism, including that of the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, and the Nazis, and extending to later third world offshoots like the Khmer Rouge.

All of these revolutionary movements have a common set of genocidal aims, now reemerging in Ahmadinejad's lethal rhetoric. They all envision a return to what the Jacobins called the Year One, a grimly repressive collectivist utopia in which individual freedom is obliterated in the name of the common good, and people are purged of their vices, including property, freedom of thought, and the satisfactions of family and private life. Returning to a past so pure and distant requires the destruction of all received tradition, including religious traditions, extending back centuries, and so is, paradoxically, at the same time a radical leap into the future. That is why neither the purportedly Sunni vision of the Taliban nor the purportedly Shiite vision of the Iranian revolution bears any close resemblance to the traditions and restraints imposed by those faiths, especially restraints on this-worldly political extremism, terrorism, and the slaughter of noncombatants.

There is no negotiating with such an enemy. His vision is a matter of faith and apocalyptic in nature -- he is seeking to "emanentize the eschaton," as William F. Buckley might have had it; to bring about the end of the world by creating conditions favorable for reappearance of the Hidden Imam (the Mahdi), just as Hitler tried to bring about Gotterdamerung and Stalin sought to create conditions for the triumph of international communism and the end of history. Such a faith must be destroyed; it cannot be reckoned with.

Monk

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The Post About the Blog About Books

Guy of Houston -- Methodist Pastor, friend of Official VaA Spiritual Advisor Nolan Dynamite, and founder of Book Mining -- has asked several questions about books. Interesting questions. Nolan's answers are here. [Sorry 'bout Auburn there, Nolan.]

My own reflections:

1. One book that changed your life: (We'll assume the Bible is asssumed) The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis. Not a book, really; it's a collection of essays, but it had a lot to do with my becoming a Christian.

2. One book that you have read more than once: The Lord of the Rings. I've read it once every decade of my life and intend to continue doing so. I find something new every time I read it. I'm a geek about it -- I used to write notes to friends in Sindarin script. I read Dune several times as a kid, but became uncomfortable with its parallels with the story of islam and its "prophet." Today, I keep re-reading Patrick O'Brien's novels. They might be something to take on a desert island, too.

3. One book you would want on a desert island: (Again assuming the Gideons have left a bible in the drawer of my desert island hut; preferably the NIV) Either Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon or Delbruck's History of Warfare (first of four volumes). They'd keep me occupied for awhile.
4. One book that made you laugh: I loved P.G. Wodehouse as a kid, although it's aged poorly for me. Any H.P. Lovecraft; he tried so hard to be "eldritch," but wrote so badly... Okay that's more than one. I'll stop now.

5. One book that made you cry: The Kite Runner. 'Nuf said.

6. One book you wish had been written: The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene. Heck, I just wish I understood it. The nexus of science and God holds great fascniation for me (as it did for many great scientists; not that I'm one...) and Greene has explained the current status of physics and cosmology about as well as it could be, although Lisa Randall comes close in Warped Passages.

7. One book you wish had never been written: I certaily share Guy's dislike of Descarte and the whole "Enlightenment" dichotomy of mind and spirit. The current Pope has had a few good words on this subject. For instance, here. Another I wish hadn't been written: Rousseau's The Social Contract -- or really anything by him. Most modern bad ideas about government derive from Rousseau somehow. It would have been better for millions slaughtered in utpian schemes born of his ideas if he had been drowned at birth.

8. One book you’re currently reading: The Confusion. It's part two of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. I love the way he weaves historical figures, scientific theory, the history of economics, word origins, etc., through the imrpbable adventures.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: I have a pile near the entrance to my attic that I've been meaning to get to. A dozen or so books I've left unboxed so I can get to them in the absence of the bookcases I really need.

10. Tag 5 others:
The Grand and Glorious KANH
Chefjef Ware
Audra Mickle
Emily H.
Raymond Thebo

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The Real Monk

Just a quick post to note the birthday of the man who partially inspired by my nom de blog, Thelonius Monk, who would have been 89. I have been listening to little but Monk today, thanks to XM radio's tribute to the great man's gift for unusually intricate melody and imrpovisation. He closely follows Miles Davis as my favorite musician.

Monk

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The Suicide of the West

I just caught this. although it came out two weeks ago. Theodore Dalrymple has an outstanding review of three books in the Claremont Institute's online magazine. The books document the decadence, dhimmitude, and coming destruction of Europe at the hands of the muslim barbarians, whom the 20-hour-work-week Euro weenies import to perform their manual labor for them:

That Western Europe suffers from a state of general paralysis is a truth too universally acknowledged to require much reiteration. Slow growth and high unemployment; an aging and shrinking population; scientific and cultural irrelevance to the rest of the world; a large, unassimilated alien population much of which is hostile to the very countries into which it has immigrated—these are just a few of the problems that Western Europe not only fails to solve, but even properly to recognize.

While Europe Slept, Menace in Europe, and Londonistan all deal with the European disease (if such a metaphor may be allowed for shorthand purposes), from slightly different perspectives. Bruce Bawer, an American writer resident in Norway, deals mainly with the threat of Islamism in northwestern Europe; Melanie Phillips, a distinguished British journalist, treats the specific case of Islamism in what might be called its international nerve center, London; and Claire Berlinski, an American writer living in Paris and Istanbul, analyzes the general state of the European psyche. Read in conjunction, they are far from reassuring.

...Modern Europeans believe in very little, except in as comfortable and safe a life as possible. Indeed, health and safety have altogether replaced faith, hope, and charity as the cardinal desiderata. It is scarcely any wonder that, when faced by people who, quite mistakenly and with a combination of staggering ignorance and arrogance, believe themselves to be in possession of a truth that justifies almost any atrocity committed, if not by them, exactly, then by those whom they have indoctrinated, modern Western Europeans do not know how to react. They have either forgotten what it is to believe in anything, to such an extent that they cannot really believe that anyone else believes in anything, either; or their memories of belief are of belief in something so horrible—Communism, for example, or Nazism—that they no longer believe that they have the right to pass judgment on anything. This is not a strong position from which to fight people who, by their own admission, hate you and are bent upon your destruction, brought about preferably at your own expense. First, you can't take them seriously; second, you suspect they might in any case be right. European multiculturalism is self-hatred writ large—and in the meantime is an employment opportunity for cultural bureaucrats.

In short -- at least until some unprecendented catastrophe occurs in Europe that wakes up the population, we cannot rely on the Europeans to provide any relevant help in World War IV, the West's global war on jihad.

Meanwhile, this is the fate that awaits all of us who refuse to surrender to the islamonazis:

'Boy snatched off street, set alight and murdered for being white'

MURDERED schoolboy Kriss Donald pleaded: "I'm only 15. What did I do?" as he was beaten up and dragged into the back of a car by his abductors, a court heard yesterday.

He was forced face down into the back of a silver Mercedes, threatened with a knife and told there was a gun in the car as he was driven off after being snatched from the street "because he was white".

All three are on trial in Edinburgh, accused of abducting and killing Kriss by striking him with a knife or knives, then setting him on fire on 15 March, 2004.

Monk

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Our Schools: The Nail, Hit on the Head

David Kpopel, writing for the Volokh Conspiracy, hits the nail on the head on the issue of preventing further school shootings:

the only realistic gun control policy which would stop school shootings would be to completely prohibit firearms, and confiscate the entire existing supply of more than 200 million firearms. Lesser policies (e.g., one-gun-a-month, gun registration) would, whatever their other merits, be unlikely to have a significant effect on school shootings. There are no substitutes for firearms (in both offensive and defensive situations), because firearms are fairly easy to use, and can project force at a distance.

Constitutional problems aside, it seems completely implausible to believe the gun prohibition could be successful, given the ability of the black market to supply drugs (which have been illegal for almost a century) to a wide variety of consumers, including high-school students.

Never mind the "conservative penumbra of the Constitution" issue that makes any form of widespread gun control an absolute no-go for me: high-quality weapons in the hands of ordinary, law abiding citizens renders the government more trustworthy.

Kopel goes on to his central point:

The second-best--and much more realistic approach--would be to allow licensed, trained teachers and administrators to possess concealed handguns on school property. I agree that having police officers on school grounds would be very helpful, but it seems that there are not sufficient police resources to cover all schools all the time.

In 2004, I detailed how Israel (which has a well-established Swiss-style [civic duty] gun culture) and Thailand (which has a very strong anti-gun culture) have armed teachers in order to protect schools against terrorists.

This is exactly what is needed. Thugs in schools will contonue to bring guns in through extra-legal means; our teachers need to be at least as well armed as a deterrent. When Klebold and his accomplice entered Columbine armed to the teeth, they could simply have been sliced down by a hail of uzi fire from half a dozen guards and teachers. Good riddance. This will also help break the back of gang influence in inner city schools.

Perhaps America (a country at World War, by the way) needs a bit more, not less, of the old West. For all popular propaganda to he contrary, it was the law that won and the OK Corral and a bunch of stolid citizen "squareheads" who shot up the thug/rebel James-Younger gang in Northfield Minn. Where the law has broken down, it can only be restored with the barrel of a gun, to paraphrase Mao...

Monk

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A Quiet Day

Well, the rally to RID THE WORLD OF BUSH THE NAZI CHIMPLER- GIBBON AND HIS CABAL OF EVIL OIL MAGNATES AND WALL-MART MANAGERS!!!! fizzled. Organizers probably got buzzed the night before and decided to stay in bed until noonish. By then, they just didn't have the energy to really get worked up.

Besides, Dubya-Macaque's close buddy, Pat Robertson, had probably planned to turn on the wind machines and deploy levy-levelling explosives, and usher in another Katrina. (The KKKristian right controls the weather, you know, through secret CIA programs they stole from the real muslim inventors, leaving no copies behind.) Many causes for the modern left are worthy of costing the lives of others, but few are worth dying for themselves. They stayed home apparently.

Monk

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Let's See Now...

Let's just examine the machinations on the Hill for a moment, shall we? Creepy IMs to a kid of legal age equals resignation if you're a Republican.

Running a homosexual prorstitution ring out of your Capitol Hill apartment and using your office to fix 33 trafic tickets for your gerbil-pimp equals a letter of reprimand if you're a Democrat.

It's a strange political world we live in. That's all I'm going to say on this subject.

Monk

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Curse of the Were Rabbits!

Sometimes science and art merge in ways that are just a bit uncomfortable. Just such a juxtaposition is taking place right now as scientists attempt a genetic vivisection of rabbits and humans:

Scientists are planning to create a "frankenrabbit" by fusing together human cells with a rabbit egg.

It is hoped the "chimeric" embryos, which would be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit, could lead to breakthroughs in stem cell research which could one day cure diseases such as Alzheimer's or spinal cord injury.

The embryos will allow scientists to perfect stem cell creation techniques without using human eggs.

This is a postive development in that human embryos may no longer be needed for stem cell research, but you have to wonder if, in some not so distant future, we won't need the services of AntiPesto. What happens if one of these "99.9% human, 0.1% rabbit" hybrids survives? Brundlebunny?

Monk

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Katrina! Theocracy!

Yes, folks...the KKKristians run this kkkountry and can control the weather!! IT'S TIME FOR THIS TO END!!!

I love the idea that they'll stay home from work. How many of this group's supporters actually have jobs?

Monk

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Torture, then Hell

I hope there is an especially nasty level of hell reserved for school shooters and child molesters. I know this is a visceral reaction and not very Christian of me, but I cannot help but think such indiviuals are beyond the Pale and deserve anything particularly nasty that comes their way. Please forgive me, Lord.

First we had the fifty-something with a criminal record as long as an August day in Anchorage, who molested the six girls he took hostage before killing one when the police stormed him. He took his own life, which is probably good from a theological point of view (better chance of ending up in hell), but I would love to have been the SWAT member that got to put a dum-dum through his head and watch it explode.

You can thank liberal judges -- doubtless Carter or Clinton appoitnees -- for this man, who'd spent six years (?!) behind bars for killing his girlfriend, being set free to sexually assault and kill innocent teens. The criminals' rights trump rights to basic public safety in the minds of BlueStaters.

Sorry again....not at all Christian. Perhaps as the cop, I could have said a silent prayer for his forgiveness as I pulled the trigger. You never know...

Then there was the semi-copy-cat killing of a school principal in Wisconsin by a student who complained that school authorities let other kids tease him for being homosexual (which is NOT a mental or emotional disorder, of course...) He just walked into school with handfulls of guns and started shooting. Sounds like he'd have done well in LA schools, whiere such things are the daily norm.

Finally, we have a fatal shooting today at an Amish (!?) school in Lancaster Co. PA. WTF,O? Again, clearly a copy-cat case. The perp killed at least three before turning the gun on himself. What evil would motivate such an act in a pacifist Mennonite community? Against their children?

Okay...let me make something clear: I will pray for the souls of these perpetrators and hope they can find some true reconciliation with God, but I am not averse to hastening or delaying their ultimate fates, by cruel and unusual means if warranted, despite the fact that a ridiculous clause in the Constitution takes away much of the deterrent power of punishment. Torture and brutal coercion work, on several levels, for several reasons, which is why I favor thier use against enemy combatants in our "war on terror." (The idea that humane treatment of jihadis will get us any fewer torturings and beheadings of US troops is the worst sort of errant squishy-pink, fern-bar nonsense. Thank you, John 'pink-panties' McCain) If you don't believe me, ask people in the mob-controlled neighborhoods of North Boston, downtown Atlantic City, and the Shreveport LA waterfront why violent crime rates have gone down so much. The real "authorities" in those neighborhoods (the mob) aren't as scrupulous as the police are and yet they preside over areas with great crime potential. Jane Jacobs talks about this in re North Boston in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Effective enforcement of public decorum, even if potentially brutal, makes for better neighborhoods.

Okay, so I'll pray for the souls of the perps in these cases, but I have no problems hastening those who commit violent acts against children along the paths to meeting their gods. I think the government should bring back a punishment that was popular in 17th and 18th century England and America: It was usually called "half-hanging:" The criminal was strangled on the gallows (vice having his neck broken) until nearly dead. Then he was pulled down and his limbs lashed to four horses, who were spooked into bolting in different directions, dismembering the victim ("drawing and quartering"). (This could best be done with cars today). The head of the hapless criminal was usually stcuk somewhere prominent, pour le encourage le outres."

Kill all such criminals, and may God sort them out.

Monk

Update 03 Oct 06: It appears from TV reports that the Amish murderer tied his victims up and killed them execution style (thankfully, not all died). It all appears to revolve around the fact that he was jilted twenty or so years ago and was left embittered. Two observations:

1) This is the obvious and inevitable result of cultural liberalism -- the "Me and My Hemerrhoids Generation" and the idea that subjective feelings trump public behavior; an idea that pervades everything from liberal radio to the liberal courts. Liberals and Democrats killed those children every bit as much as the lone psycho did.

2) Drawing and quartering is too good for this guy. He should have his skin flayed with a length of razor wire, then be sewn inside a fresh cowhide with a colony of fire ants and left in the West Texas sun to dry.

God please forgive my mean-spiritedness, but some are predestinened to follow God, others to follow their own gods. I think we're fairly safe in classifying this guy.

Monk - Honorary Grand Inquisitor

Update 3 Oct 06: The Duchess of Austin replies:

Wow, you're pretty bloodthirsty for a religious guy....

I totally agree with you on the "cruel and unusual punishment" thing....the more the better, and put it on TV. I think capital punishment would be more of a deterrent if it was used more effectively, i.e., the perp doesn't sit on death row for 15 years while endless appeals for his miserable life play through the courts. One appeal, just to make sure they got the right guy, and then Pfffffft, he's gone.

I also think that caning young criminals instead of locking them up, ala Singapore, is a better means of dealing with teens. A little public humiliation goes a long way toward turning a potential criminal back to the light side.

Somebody should find out if the caning experience did anything to cure that American kid who got caned in Singapore a few years ago. My money says he's a solid citizen these days and his life of crime is behind him....

I wouldn't say so much that I'm bloodthirsty by nature, just that this confluence of evil events has put me in a bloodthirsty mood. This does not reflect good Christian practice, however, so I must try to get myself out of it.

I agree with the points you make in your comment, however. We've proven through a century of using prisons as a social petrie dish that reforming prisoners does not work. Centuries of earlier human experience proved that more "cruel and unusual" measures (by our standards today) do deter. Incidentally, torture is a very effective method of extracting information (as long as the info can be verified and the victim threatened with worse consequences if caught lying), think of it what you will. In fact, the best way of using it is to torture mildly and threaten worse, letting the victim's mind do most of the inquisitor's work for him. Imagined pain is usually worse than the real thing, because the latter can be gotten used to. A declassified Army manual on interrogation techniques of World War II vintage -- from back when we were unapologetic about such things -- makes the point in almost these very words. (Sadly, it's in my private library, not on the internet, so no link.)

Capital punishment is really effective only if it's swift and certain, as you say. Corporal punishment has been an accepted part of many Christian nations' practice for centuries. Why? Because it works.

Welcome, by the way; it's always good to hear from new readers.

Monk

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A Good Weekend In Football

Yes, this was a very good, albeit not perfect weekend, in football at all levels

On Thusdays night last, Auburn (barely) beat South Carolina. It was too cluse for comfort and make inclide the poll-makers to reconsider Aubrun's place at no. 2 in the national rankings. I hope not. (Update: AP still ranks them second, but it may be too early for new ranking to have come out.)

On Friday night, the Prattville Lions high school team -- the team I follow and support (know many players, cheerleaders, band memebers, etc; eldest daughter plays the mellowphone in the marching band), fought their way past Opelika, the only team that beat them last year prior to the playoffs. It was a near-run thing, but very exciting. Congrats to the Albert brothers, who accounted for two of our scores. To top the evening off, Hoover (richy-rich suburb of Birmingham and rated no. 1 in class 6A high school ball going into the game) lost, so Prattville may wind up no. 1 in their class.

Saturday sadly saw Alabama lose, but they put in a very creditable performace against no. 5-ranked Florida, Sadly, no repeat of last year's result (31-3 'Bama). Nonetheless, Ohio State won (one of my Almas Mater), as did Texas (I support due to family ties). Missou also one (some affection due to friends still in MO, from when I was assigned to Whiteman).

Sunday saw my no. 2 KC Chiefs slaughtered the 49ers. The day was capped off by my no. 1 team, the Redskins (grew up their; a life-long love) winning in a very even and exciting game against Jacksonville. Mark Brunnell was great; Santana Moss was fantastic, especially in the game's last play; and we finally have a running game with Clint Portis, who looked a lot like olde John Riggins yesterday. Jacksonville's front three/four
couldn't contain him. A great game.

Monk

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