The Only Good Terrorist

I have assumed that the situation with Chechen Muslims is probably unique to Russia.  I can't imagine a group in America doing something similar.  But I could not imagine deluded and delusional savages flying planes into the World Trade Center before that horrible morning. 

Read about the Beslan Massacre here.  Yes, speaking of savages, I'm glad to know that such beasts will face an inescapable and inexorable judgment. 

Despite what the press and the administration tries to tell, most of us understand that we are, once again, under attack by Islam.  We need to be truthful about the situation and put politics aside.  The Muslim world is being unified and emboldened to strike at the West, America and Israel in particular. 

These are not amateurs we are up against.  Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, and the police are all trying to prevent the last attack.  The next attack is coming, and it will not be the same.  It may be something like Beslan, or it may be something else altogether, but it is coming.  There's a good chance that our "experts" will be caught flat-footed. 

PFD Television Review: Post-Apocalyptic Revolution Version

I watched the pilot for the series “Revolution”.  I think it is still available to view free on Hulu.  I’m debating as to whether or not I like it. 

There are intriguing elements, at least in the initial effort.  I am reminded a little of S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse series, a faint touch of the classic Lucifer’s Hammer, a bit of The Postman, and, oddly enough, Mel Gibson’s revolutionary war piece, The Patriot, but I’m not particularly impressed with the way the pieces are woven together.  And I could not help wondering, as I watched, What would Joss Whedon do with this? 

The premise is that electricity, including batteries, has ceased to work, at least in the entire Western Hemisphere, possibly and most reasonably (not that “reason” applies in television) world-wide.  Cars won’t run – which makes no sense because a very similar reaction, the explosion of gunpowder in a firearm does work.  I suppose one could argue that if electricity were suppressed, you couldn't have a spark jump the gap.  What about diesels?  What about steam engines?  The people seem to be able to start regular fires easily enough.  Some of the characters have black powder muzzle-loading weapons.  I suppose that is because they are relatively low-tech in terms of the steel quality needed.  My grandfather was a blacksmith and could supposedly build a muzzleloader and rifle the barrel.  Useable black powder is a fairly simple chemical compound of sulfur and nitrates and can be manufactured under primitive conditions.  Primers or caps are not so easy, but there are always flintlocks. Sparks?

(I know, I know, stop picking it apart.  It's television, and it is, after all, just as realistic as that show about the gay guys in drag buying shoes in New York.) 

One of the characters has a modern smokeless, auto-loading handgun – likely an artifact from before the electricity went out.  There is possibly a limited supply of pre-change ammunition to which some have access.  We are told that having a firearm, modern or primitive, is a “hanging offense” for those who are not part of the ruling power’s "militia".  

By the way, "militia" is misused here as it often is.  These units are the standing armies of the warlords.  They are not militias raised from the population of males of military age.  They are supported by taxes -- mostly a percentage of the crops and stock, apparently -- taken from those living in the area under a given warlord's control. 

While teaching children, a character says that physics no longer functions as expected.  I believe his exact quote was that physics went wild.  If that were the case, it went wild in a pretty convenient fashion.  There is a way to get around the failure of electric current using a computer thumb-drive that looks like a locket.  In the opening scene, we see the father of the main protagonist desperately dumping files from a laptop to the thumb-drive.  This quickly becomes the main vector of the plot.  We also learn that this locket is not the only one – that there are other people around who can get electric current to flow again. 

Aside from the ragged logic of the plot, the characters are about what one would expect from a basic action-adventure show.  There’s not a lot of development in the pilot.  Heroes are reluctant.  All the women are strong, and all the men are good-looking – OK, not the amazingly-still-overweight-after-fifteen-years-of-subsistence former Google executive, but most of the rest.  For the women, cosmetics and shampoo seem to still be generally available.  Which is good.  One thing I did like was that they did not have the female protagonist unrealistically kicking male butt in bare-knuckle brawls – not yet, at least.  I like the bows and crossbows and edged weapons, of course.  Archery has picked up in interest in the aftermath of The Hunger Games.  We’re all for that. 

So far I would say I’m neutral on "Revolution".  It’s not a horrifically bad show.  It is not a stunning achievement, either.  Apparently an overall arc of the story is going to be about people who want to restore the good old U.S. of A via a revolution against the warlord-controlled regional "republics".  That might help, but I am skeptical.  The odds are that it will be ham-fistedly mishandled and make a mediocre show much worse.  I ask again, Where is Joss Whedon when you really need him?  Off making an Avengers movie that I am never, most likely, going to see.  It's sad. 

You are not going to learn much in the way of survival skills, real-world preparations, or tactics while watching.  I have my doubts about it lasting very long, but while it does, if it happens to be on, you might find it entertaining.   

The Fixers

One of the most offensive things about the society in which I later found myself was its monstrous itch for changing people. It seemed to me a society made up of congenital missionaries, natural-born evangelists and propagandists, bent on re-shaping, re-forming and standardising people according to a pattern of their own devising—and what a pattern it was, good heavens! when one came to examine it. It seemed to me, in short, a society fundamentally and profoundly ill-bred. A very small experience of it was enough to convince me that Cain’s heresy was not altogether without reason or without merit; and that conviction quickly ripened into a great horror of every attempt to change anybody; or I should rather say, every wish to change anybody, for that is the important thing. The attempt is relatively immaterial, perhaps, for it is usually its own undoing, but the moment one wishes to change anybody, one becomes like the socialists, vegetarians, prohibitionists; and this, as Rabelais says, “is a terrible thing to think upon.” – Albert Jay Nock from Memoirs of a Superfluous Man

Should it come about that we are ever freed from the horrors of standardized and multicultural uniformity, I would like to see added to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Amendments a codicil that states something to the effect of:  The first and most fundamental right of any man is the right to be left the hell alone, to remain unfixed, unformed, and even uninformed, if he so chooses, so long as he physically harms no one else nor attempts to impose his will upon another who has exactly the same right to be untroubled by neighbors and governments. 

 It is in this idea that freedom lies and hardly anywhere else.  A government that attempts to change its citizens for their own good -- whether by brute force, bureaucratic intimidation, harassment, or taxation, is a tyrannical government.  If a man cannot decide for himself what it is that suits him, even if that is harmful to his health or well-being, he is a slave. 

Of course, with this liberty comes a natural and inevitable responsibility.  A man who chooses his own poison should bear his own burdens.  To use again one of my favorite examples, if I crack my skull because I chose not to wear a motorcycle helmet or smash my bones because I did not armor-up then I should be the one to pay for that indiscretion and not be allowed to foist it off on the public treasury.  I can pay either out of my own pocket, by my insurance premiums or with my life and/or health according to my resources and my prior provision. 

If it suits someone, out of Christian principles, a kind heart or some other motivation, to offer charity to another, to give his or her money to benefit this cause or that one, they should be able to do so of their own free will.  As we often say, there is no virtue in paying one’s taxes at gunpoint.  And there is no difference between a government-sponsored thief and a free-lancer who takes your wallet, except that the free-lancer probably disperses his loot with more wisdom and to better benefit.

I think drugs are harmful to people – including most prescription drugs, but the abuse of various substances is not nearly as harmful as the consequences of prohibition.  Not only is there an increase in smuggling, black-marketing, murder and violence by the drug traffickers, there is the corrosive violence done to human freedom and our God-given rights.  We undergo all kinds of intrusive searches.  SWAT teams knock down doors.  Property is routinely confiscated.

Yes, drugs like meth and heroin are extremely destructive.  Cocaine will kill you.  Reefer will make you fat and lazy, as will beer.  But trying – futilely – to keep people from using and abusing these substances further enables tyranny and wastes billions of dollars for enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration.  Of course, the police unions, the legal system, and the prison industry would suffer a great loss of personnel and revenue, so we continue to “war” against some drugs while the streets of Mexico and Colombia and the inner cities of the U.S. run red with blood. 

My suggestion is that people like me who do not care for nicotine, alcohol, drugs, or loose women abstain from those things and otherwise mind our own business.  We might not be able to clear the deficit solely by stopping pointless prohibitions, but it would be a good start. 

Speaking of organized and regimented stupidity, as I have noted, I had to take a plane up to the Northeast last week.  I put my knives in my checked bag and was herded through the checkpoint, beltless and bootless.  My wife bought a new piece of luggage for the trip.  As we were packing to come home, I put one of those small luggage locks on the main compartment of the check-bag.  She stuffed some of her extra make-up and a high-end eyeglass case (fortunately, not her glasses) into an exterior compartment on the bag and asked me put a lock on it as well.  I did.  When we got home, the TSA had left us a nice form letter explaining why they had destroyed the zipper on that pocket and stolen my wife’s cosmetics and case.  – OK, they didn’t admit to stealing her stuff, but they did.  However, because they are the government and not a private airline, there’s not a lot I can do to punish them.   Even if I refuse to ever fly again – a distinct possibility – I will hurt only the airline, the private sector.  The government bureaucracy with its sanctioned and enabled theft, waste, and destruction will, like the cloying and annoying theme from the Titantic, go on. 

And, by the way, how much money do we waste on the TSA every year? 

Fixing people sure gets expensive, doesn’t it?

Obama Addresses the Root of Muslim Rage

 Via Yahoo: 

President Barack Obama on Tuesday will challenge the world to confront the root causes of rage exploding across the Muslim world ...

The root of Muslim rage is Islam itself.  It is not poverty.  It is not illiteracy.  It is not oppression by Israel or the West.  I am not to blame.  America is not to blame.  Christianity is not to blame. 

This is not caused by our freedom, by our First Amendment, by our religious tolerance.

There are positive elements to Islam -- Sufism being the most prominent example. When, however, Islam becomes a political ideology, a means of ruling, manipulating, intimidating, and oppressing people for the sake of power and control, it is demonic.  It is witchcraft.  It is a blood-brother to fascism and socialism, a dark tyranny of the few and the despotic.  It is an enemy to freedom in all forms -- economic, religious, and intellectual.  It drives nations into savagery, perversion, and poverty. 

Obama is an incompetent idiot and the UN is a bureaucratic enabler of totalitarianism, global theft and oppression.  
 

Marine Base Attacked; Harriers Destroyed

I haven't been able to watch the news the last few days so I don't know if the major outlets have reported on this.  I have a feeling, though, if Bush were still president, it would have been a major issue on the Sunday shows. 

From the Defense Media Network via American Thinker.

This happened on 9/14 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.  Twenty Muslim attackers dressed in stolen U.S. BDUs were able penetrate the perimeter, kill the squadron's commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and another Marine, Sgt. Bradley Atwell, wound a number of others, completely destroy six irreplaceable Harriers and damage two others significantly such that they will never fly again.  That is 80% of the squadron's strength and 7% of the total Marine Corps Harrier fleet.

God, rest the souls of these good men.

It is time to reassess our situation in the world.  I blame George Bush as well as Obama for the current state of degradation our military is experiencing.  Before we enter into a military conflict, we need to clearly define our objectives.  "Holding ground" is not an effective strategy in modern, asymmetrical warfare. You have to bomb these savages back to the Stone Age because they already live in the 13th Century.
 
If we are not going to destroy their cities, mosques, villages, farms, bridges, military infrastructure, and communications then it is way past time to get the hell out of that region altogether.  Stop wasting lives and borrowed money trying to civilize hairless apes and "nation-build" a bunch of goat-poking rejects.  This makes me sick. 


  

Miss Leads

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, is responsible for U.S. embassies in foreign nations.  Clinton would necessarily have approved the first apology that was issued by our embassy in Egypt after the protests and flag-burning.  Mrs. Clinton reports directly to the President of the United States who is sworn to uphold the Constitution. 

Would you like an indication that the anti-Islam film that appeared on Youtube is not what this is about?  The Sudanese are attacking the German embassy as well as the British embassy.  

The film protest is an excuse and cover for a direct Al-Qaeda attack on the United States on the eleventh anniversary of the initial September Eleventh attack.  Apparently Al-Qaeda is as numerology-conscious as Jeremiah Wright’s good buddy, Louie-Louie Farrakan.

Further, and even more infuriating, a story in the Independent claims the U.S. was warned that embassies might be at risk on the 9/11 anniversary.  Anonymous U.S. officials denied that there was a specific warning of an attack against the embassy in Benghazi, but the statement offered no denial of a more general threat warning.  Rumors are circulating to the effect that Stevens was specifically targeted for assassination.  

Whether we ever know the full truth or not, I am convinced that there is more American blood on the hands of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  I would say the same thing about Bush, Romney, Rice, or anyone else in power.  The ONE thing for which the federal government is fully and constitutionally responsible is dealing with other nations and protecting American interests and Americans abroad.  Back a few months ago I compared our current situation in the Mideast -- the so-called Arab Spring, to what happened when Jimmy Carter was complicit in removing our ally, the Shah, from power in Iran and turning a friendly nation into an implacable enemy.  In the aftermath of the embassy attack, Barack Obama publicly and officially stated that our former ally, Egypt, is now neither an ally nor an enemy.  George Bush was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but Barack Obama is either a freaking clown of very limited intelligence or anti-American.  Hillary Clinton is no better. 

First, let’s get rid of the red herring.  The first thing our ambassador to Egypt should have done was say in no uncertain terms that there is no excuse for the attack.  The United States has and always will stand for freedom of expression as well as freedom of religion.  Other countries and religions need to follow our lead -- not try to bully us into following their 11th Century mindset.  We do not apologize for the First Amendment.  Anybody who does not like free speech can go to hell.  This is America.   Inoffensive speech does not need protecting.  We believe wholeheartedly and unequivocally in the right of every individual to say whatever he or she might think about politicians, public figures, political parties, organizations, and, yes, religions.  None of the people involved in making this film are government officials.  They are private American citizens, born with the rights of every free man – those rights being partially defined by the restrictions placed on the federal government as enumerated in the Bill of Rights.  

Next, understand that, as I said, I do not think these protests are about an amateur film trailer on the internet that no one in America had heard of prior to this outbreak of violence.   The film story is classic misdirection to take the focus off the atrocities and off the real motivations of these murderous thugs.   It is also being used to conveniently deflect criticism of the administration's failure to provide adequate security, as well as to avoid questions about the ties of both Clinton and Obama to the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Brotherhood was invited to Obama's famed Cairo speech given immediately after he assumed office.  Clinton's former aide, Huma Abedin, now Mrs. Anthony Weiner has ties to the Brotherhood.  And more via Breitbart.  Mohamed Morsi, the current president of Egypt, is the man the Brotherhood backed in elections this summer.  Morsi said he would protect our embassy in Egypt but went to effectively side with the protesters and place the blame for all the violence on our freedom of speech.  The Brotherhood has risen to become the power behind the throne in Egypt thanks to backing from the United States.  We have given a radical group, tied to Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, legitimacy in one of the most crucial locations in the Mideast. 

This is a widespread and rapidly spreading, well-orchestrated move to unify Muslims against America and Israel.  What we are witnessing is a coordinated attack by Al-Qaeda elements in Libya, in Sudan, in Yemen, in Tunisia, and in Egypt in collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood.  That this happened on a 9/11 anniversary sends a message across the Muslim world, and it should send a message to us.  It is an act of defiance and intimidation against the United States intended to humiliate us and galvanize a jihad in that region. 

We must not be misled by the media or the government.  

Update:  Reading through the comments on this story indicates that a lot of people are not falling for the bogus headlines.  Most people seem to be able to add 9 and 11 and come up with the right answer.