Blundering Into Trouble

As is well known by now, Iranian President Mahmoud "Mad Jad" Ahmadinejad has declared that Iran has, for the first time, successfully enriched uranium. Enrichment is one of the more difficult steps in the cycle for preparing fissile material for either a bomb, or to use as fuel for a nuclear reactor.

The UN Security Council has demanded that Iran stop. Today, the Deputy Chief of the Iranian Nuclear Program, Mr. Mohammad Saeedi, showed that he evaluates UN pronouncements at their true worth: he declared that Iran is not stopping, but about to start nuclear enrichment on an industrial scale.

US Secretary of State Rice has pronounced in favor of "strong steps" against Iran. The Russian Foreign Ministry has denounced the Iranian enrichment plans as "wrong" but at the same time indicated Russia's opposition to any military steps against Iran.

All of this follows on military maneuvers the Iranians have bent over backwards to boast about, and show to the public. The New York Post military analyst and commentator, retired US Army Colonel Ralph Peters, asked Sunday whether the Iranians actually want a war.

This is not a rhetorical question, but my judgment, for the moment, is that the answer is no: the Iranians do not want a war; they have simply calculated that they can have their yellowcake and eat it too -- that they can build a nuke, and that nobody can stop them.

The Americans appear to be tied down in Iraq. Militarily, that war is won, and has gone relatively well, but politically it is unpopular, and Bush is sinking domestically. Israel, the joker in the deck, appears paralyzed, trying to grope with Hamas and the demise of Ariel Sharon. The Europeans have their own domestic problems, and besides, the European political class despises Bush, so their foreign ministries are going to do nothing to lessen his difficulties. America's Italian friend, Signor Berlusconi, is being driven from office. President Bush's one heavyweight international ally: Tony Blair of Britain, is in serious trouble.

There is trouble closer to home for America, too. Besides sinking poll numbers, President Bush has to think about the approaching Mexican elections, which may put a very anti-US government in power there -- this is a 40 ton gorilla that nobody is talking about yet. (Recent US concern about immigration issues should be viewed in this light). Also, hurricane season is almost here, it's probably going to be a biggie, and the Americans are about broke.

And the Mullahs have allies. . .the Chinese are bankrolling Iran, and the Russians serving as the Mullahs' general store and armory. On the periphery, Hugo Chavez, who controls an important source of American gasoline, is signaling his willingness to cooperate with anybody in harassing the US -- American trouble with Iran is a win-win for him, trouble in the Persian Gulf means higher oil prices and more money. In North Korea, Dear Leader Kim is watching, and has shown he can be counted on to stir the pot when the US has enough on its plate elsewhere. Syria and the Sadr faction in Iraq are in there kicking, too. Washington would be foolish not to consider the extent to which all the players are collaborating. . .

The omens are auspicious. Why shouldn't Iran build nuclear weapons ? Once the Mullah regime has nukes, overnight it can ramp-up support for Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Assad's regime in Syria, guerrillas in Iraq, you name it. Nobody will be able to do a thing about it either. Shia populations all around the Persian Gulf will become instantly more restive, and all the local governments much more interested in what Tehran has to say, and that much less interested in Washington's blandishments. Prestige considerations from the point of view of enhancing Shia Islam's position in the Muslim world are important, also. Finally, an Iranian nuke will end even talk in America and elsewhere about regime change in Iran. Money for dissidents and other anti-regime elements will dry up: you simply do not threaten dictators who own nukes, no matter how odious they are.

Washington looks boxed in. . . at least from Tehran's perspective.

Except. . .

Saddam read the tea-leaves the same way in 2002. He is now awaiting execution. Saddam thought he could bluff George Bush, that President Bush would be stopped by world opinion; by political calculations, and the unwillingness of the chattering classes to upset applecarts. For better or worse, he learned differently.

The political graveyard, from Ann Richards to Al Gore, to John Kerry, et al, is full of bright, intelligent, interesting politicans -- real movers and shakers -- who all thought George W. Bush was a lightweight not to be taken seriously. If the 43rd President has proved anything, it is that he can do his political sums as well as anybody who ever played the game.

President Bush must know, by now, that the odds are very, very good that his likely successor will have very different opinions from his own. All presidents, to a degree, seek to bind their successors. Given the political landscape, President Bush has a certain incentive to use his power to create political facts: facts which his successors cannot change. President Bush has shown that he has strong convictions, and there is ample evidence that he is serious when he says Iran cannot be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. I do not believe that President Bush will leave Iran for his successor to deal with.

Look at that political landscape again. As things stand, the Republicans are looking at a real débacle in the November congressional elections. Perhaps this will change, it's a long way to November, but maybe not. If the Democrats capture even one house of Congress this November, the rest of the President's term will consist of nothing more than fighting off moves for his impeachment. The Daily Kos set, which is contributing millions to Democratic coffers, will demand it. If he wants to do something, President Bush has ample incentive to shake-up the table, and sooner, rather than later.

The Iranians do not want a war. They think they've won already. But more than one war has started because the players didn't recognize the edge of the abyss when they stepped across it. The Iranians, at least to me, are staggering right up to it wearing blindfolds.

Apollo 17

The internet encyclopedia Wikipedia has, on its home page today, a splendid photograph of Apollo 17, the last of the Apollo moonships, part of which is reproduced above. Go to Wikipedia and get the whole thing, it's a beautiful photograph and makes an excellent computer wallpaper.

Apollo 17, commanded by Eugene Cernan (Capt., USN), left Cape Kennedy spaceport on 7 December 1972. Harrison Schmitt was the lunar module pilot, and Ron Evans was the command module pilot. The ascent stage of Lunar Module Challenger left the Moon the night of 14/15 December 1972, taking with it the last humans, so far, to visit that place.

Like Apollo 11's Lunar Module, Eagle, before it, Challenger's descent stage has a plaque, with a message from Earth for later visitors. The plaque, bearing the signatures of Cernan, Evans and Schmitt, and that of President Richard Nixon, reads: "Here Man completed his first explorations of the moon. December 1972 AD. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind." Someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, it will return to Earth, no doubt to an honored place in the Smithsonian Institution.

Meanwhile, we are left with pictures, and memories of a time when Americans took the flag to the stars.

Iran and Other Things.

Doctor Zin, over at Regime Change Iran, has an interesting set of links to stories in the press on recent Iranian military maneuvers and developments, including a story from India Defense on a sort of stealth flying boat.

Most military commentators do not seem to rate Iranian aero-naval capabilities too highly, and I would agree, at least as far as the naval dimension goes. The Iranian Army, and the land component of their Revolutionary Guard; together with its rocket artillery and air support/air defense component, though, bears watching. This is not the inept force that fought Saddam's Iraq in the 1980's.

More to say on this and other subjects, but it has been a long day. This evening I had the great pleasure to attend a buffet dinner and appearance by some National Review Online personalities; including Kate O'Beirne, John Derbyshire, Jonah Goldberg, Jay Nordlinger and others. More on this later.

Tom DeLay has resigned from the House of Representatives. What a shame, and dismal news for the Republican Party. There is no leader as capable in the House.

Apocalyptic Futures...

(Selections from the Libraries, Newsblogs and some government documents)

Almanac of World Politics (London, 2037)

US Prospects for the Mid-Thirties:
As the decade reached mid-point, the US was still coping with the consequences of the 2020’s Depression. The 2010's move - (inevitable in the opinions of most economists) - in all western countries to default on the social insurance and entitlement programs created in the 20th Century had less dramatic effects in America that most places, but the side effects were still quite severe. Shantytowns inhabited by a volatile mix of destitute pensioners and unskilled immigrants rose up around the major cities. . .

. . .the huge foreign debt sapped the viability of the economy, contibuting to continued high unemployment, and American military decline. . .

. . . both major parties split over the Depression. The moderate left Labor Democrats narrowly won the election of 2036, Iowa governor William “Billy Bob” Jones prevailing on a platform of debt renegotiation with the Quartet, and more effective but humane prosecution of the war against the Aztlan insurgents. . .

New York Post-Times (Wednesday, 14 January 2037)

Alexandria, Virginia resident Jack Spratt already knew he was having a bad day, when his old 2030 Toyota Ecotemp skidded on the ice and side-swiped the spanking new Chinamot Tradewinds near the I-95 monoway yesterday. The high-end luxury synthefuel Tradewinds SUV is all the rage among the super-rich, retailing for a wallet-busting New$30,000. But local biofood processor Spratt realized a Really Bad Day was beginning for him when five non-descript GenFord sedans following the Tradewinds began disgorging heavily armed Secret Service personnel, complete with body armor and assault needlers.

“Man, I thought the war had come to town.” Spratt said.

Turns out the Tradewinds was being driven by none other than Serge Murphy, US Vice President Fred Brown’s Domestic Partner. Murphy was en route to a photo-op with the Vice President at the local Red Cross shelter near the Arlington shantytown…

Houston CyberChronicle (Tuesday, 13 January 2037)

…General Westland told the Legislature that he was unsure when convoys between Austin and San Antonio would no longer be needed but that the security posts on this route were being handed over to units of the paramilitary Texas State Guard which, the general said, “thanks to cooperation between your state government and the Army advisors, are now at the highest level of efficiency ever.” UED attacks on this route, the general also reported, had “dramatically” fallen off, with only 95 dead in all of 2036. Finally, the general said, airmobile units operating in the security zones near the Mexican border “neutralized” over 500 insurgents over the last month.

Financial Times (Monday, 12 January 2037)

The “Quartet” – the leaders and finance ministers of Australia, China, Japan and India, agreed to some of President Jones’s proposals for re-structuring of America’s staggering foreign debt. The Prime Rate charged to banks fell today to 15.5 percent, a sixteen year low, on the news. However, the Chinese government, backed by India, is believed to have insisted, as a quid pro quo, that US forces halt “hot pursuit” operations into the Mexican People’s Republic after Aztlan Liberation Front forces…President Jones’s reply is unknown, and his press secretary declined to comment. China is apparently willing to “discuss” reduction of its commitment of advisors to the Mexican Popular Army…

Central Intelligence Agency “Estimate of World Financial Trends, First Quarter 2037”

(Secretary of State’s Copy, marginal note, in the Secretary’s handwriting):

“Looks like the Quartet will let us grow a little bit, but then they will put the brakes on.”

International Herald Compu-Tribune (Friday, 16 January 2037)

The Shah opened the session of the Majlis in Tehran yesterday with the usual Speech from the Throne. The Iranian economy is booming, with exports of autos to India and China, but most of the Shah’s speech was consumed by discussions of the poor relations between Iran and the Caliphate; the still-radical Muslim/pan-Arab revolutionary regime in Bin Laden City viewing the Iranians as “apostates”…

Calgary Tribune (Friday, 16 January 2037)

The movers and shakers of the entertainment world gather in Shanghai, tomorrow, for the fifteenth annual Chinese Academy Awards…

The bash was being underwritten by ChinaCyber mogul Hu Yaobong, who just purchased most of the (New York) Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection...

American Bar Times (Friday, 16 January 2037)

The US Supreme Court today upheld a Massachusetts law banning public criticism of homosexual conduct. Writing for a 8-1 majority, Chief Justice Douglas wrote: “It is well settled that the state’s interest in public order and combating hate speech trumps the rights of radical minorities to engage in public incitement.”

Entertainment Cyber Journal (Friday, 16 January 2037)

The Internet Union reached agreement with the FCC on CompuTelVision broadcasts before 8 p.m. Consumer and religious advocates had protested live sex during sitcoms. The IU and FCC agreed that below-the-waist live sex programming would be restricted between 6 and 8 p.m…

US Naval Institute, Proceedings (January 2037)

…This year’s Estimates call for construction of six additional Kirishima class battlecruisers, which are the Imperial Japanese Navy’s reply to the Chinese LuShun class battlecruisers, presently building. Meanwhile, American naval spending continues its decline…

Daily Telegraph (London, Friday 16 January 2037).

The German Bundeschancellor denounced as a “shameful lie” the reports that Federal police used live ammunition to disperse a crowd of Muslim job-seekers in Munich last week. Given the usual tight censorship of press and internet, and the police regimes existing on the continent, independent reporting is difficult, but travelers and unnamed sources report that there was indeed some shooting…The Bundeschancellor spoke from the German Embassy in Warsaw, where he is staying during his meetings with the Russian President over the two countries' new common eastern border, and their alliance against the Caliphate…

Obituary: Countess von Stauffenberg

Nina Gräfn (Countess) Schenk von Stauffenberg died on Sunday near Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany. Countess von Stauffenberg, aged 92, was the widow of Claus Graf (Count) Schenk von Stauffenberg, who attempted, unsuccessfully, to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.

Nina Stauffenberg’s life is of interest, not only because of her marriage, but for the different worlds her life intersected with. Her life spanned the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Hitler era, the war years, the Cold War and the arrival of the Internet Age. Elisabeth Magdalena “Nina” Freiin von Lerchenfeld was born, almost literally in another world, on 27 August 1913 in Kovno, then part of a Russia ruled by a Tsar; now called Kaunas, in Lithuania. In the vanished world of kings, princes and aristocrats that was pre-1914 Europe, Nina and her future husband were both top-drawer.

Nina was the daughter of a German general (and the German consul-general), and a Baltic German noblewoman. She met Count von Stauffenberg when she was 16, in boarding school. Like Nina, Claus was an aristocrat – counting the Prussian military hero August Graf von Gneisenau among his ancestors. The couple married in 1933, and by 1940, the marriage had produced 4 children.

Oberst (Colonel) Count von Stauffenberg compiled a distinguished war record, but was severely wounded in 1943, when his staff car was strafed by a low-flying British fighter-bomber. He spent three months in the hospital, losing his left eye, his right hand, and the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand. While recovering, he became involved with the plot to overthrow the Nazi regime – information he did not share with his wife.

The plot, as is well known, failed. Count von Stauffenberg was shot by firing squad on the evening of 20 July in the courtyard of the German Army headquarters in the Bendlerstrasse, Berlin (today Stauffenbergstrasse). Despite the Count’s attempt to shield his wife by not involving her, Countess von Stauffenberg was arrested and imprisoned, bearing the Count’s last child in a Nazi prison hospital. She wound up in Ravensbruck concentration camp, her children taken away from her by the Nazis. Nina was rescued by allied troops at war’s end.

The family was reunited after the war, and her eldest son, Berthold, is a retired German Army Generalmajor.

Seminar

Have been away at a Continuing Legal Education seminar the past several days, and am behind on work, which explains the lack of posts and attention to comments. Have plenty of posts in mind and targets to service, as soon as I find a spare moment to do so...

Beauty

My mother generously lent me her copy of The Habsburg Twlight: Tales from Vienna (Sara Gainham), since so much of my reading of late is on the Habsburgs. Among other things, this book contains a picture of the Empress Elisabeth, (wife of Emperor Francis Joseph). Elisabeth was the next to last Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, who lived from 1837 until her murder by an Italian anarchist in 1898. Her life, and that of her husband, was marked with tragedy and difficulty, (their son was a suicide), but the books all say the Empress was widely reckoned to be, among other things, a great beauty.

Boy, for once the books wern't lying. I don't usually notice such things in photographs of 19th Century women: photography and fashion of that era conceal more than they reveal. I also have a great deal of respect for this woman's husband, the Atlas holding up his ramshackle Empire; and compasion for his tragic Empress, (who hated life at the Habsburg court), but the beauty of this woman just jumps off the page. I can see why Francis Joseph was, until the end of his days, besotted with Elisabeth. Wow, what a babe.

Promises, Promises

People rejoice ! The Socialist Party (er, sorry, the Democratic Party), is issuing a position paper tomorrow in which they promise to "eliminate Osama," the AP reports today.

Yeah, right.

The Democratic Party, which since 1968 has never, ever met a military appropriations bill it likes, is going to eliminate Osama ? Exercise care, Democrats. "Eliminate" is such a pejoritive word. I mean, "eliminate" implies that Osama might get less than the full ACLU panoply of civil rights as provided by the US Constitution. After all, you Democrats, and your political appointees, want to give the protections of the Constitution to every He, She and It on the planet. Hell, if Osama was imprisoned at Abu Gharib or Guantanamo, you'd probably want to put him on the ticket for President. "Eliminate" Osama and your own contributors will want your heads on platters along with those of Republicans.

Oh, but it gets better. The same position paper apparently promises to double the size of the Special Forces and add more spies. Heaven (or Gaia) forbid ! How are Nancy Pelosi and Patty Murray going to explain that to the good Democratic voters of San Francisco and Seattle ? Imperialist Special Forces and their lackey spies ! The very idea. I can soooo see the Democratic caucus going for this, can't you ?

Finally, this position paper promises a "responsible redeployment of U.S. forces" from Iraq. This is position-paper-speak for "cut and run." Perhaps you remember another "responsible redeployment" of US forces advocated by Democrats ? In that one, Vietnam, we pulled out not only the American troops, but the Democratic majority in the United States Congress saw to it that our allies were deprived of fuel, bullets and equipment to defend themselves against their fully supplied Communist enemies; causing the collapse of our just cause, for which so many Americans had given everything. May there never be another such shameful "responsible redeployment" ever, ever again. No more April 1975's !

But the "San Francisco" Democrats, as Jeanne Kirkpatrick so aptly called them, were not done. They "responsibly redeployed" American help, and abandoned American allies in Cambodia in 1975, and in Angola in 1976-1977. Millions paid with their lives. They tried to force us to run again in El Salvador in the 1980's, and allow the Sandinistas to impose a communist regime in Nicaragua. Fortunately for America, for the world, Ronald Reagan (and a great man, who died today, Caspar Weinberger) stopped them, and the communists.

You just have to be able to decode the Democrats' language: "Responsible Redeployment" means cutting and running; "Elimination" means bombing raids at 3 a.m. on empty buildings, and military policy conducted by lawyers, hacks and Hollywood fops.

No thank you. Go away Lefties. Go have a "Free Mumia" rally; buy some Che tee-shirts; sing the Internationale; protest voting machines in Ohio; bloviate about 9/11 being a US conspiracy; chant "the People United Will Never Be Defeated !" till you're blue in the face. "Responsibly redeploy" right on out of here.

Wildflowers of Central Texas

Spent the better part of Saturday afternoon with SWMBO driving through south-Central Texas (roughtly a triangle between Smithville, Schulenburg and Houston), this last Saturday. The wildflowers are really out in force. If you like Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrushes, Phlox, all sorts of other flowers (yellows, pinks, white) are all over the roads, and really gorgeous. I am ashamed to say that I do not know all the names. In any case, they are really beautiful, and worth a look if you happen to be in the area and don't mind driving.

Shoe Bomber to the White House ?

Mr. Zacarias Moussaoui, in the penalty phase of his terrorism trial in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, says the he and the famous "shoe bomber." Mr. Richard Reid, were supposed to hijack a fifth aircraft on 9/11 and crash into the White House. The other crew members, Mr. Moussaoui tells us, "were not definite." If that's the case, the other putative suiciders certainly had more brains than the rather wacky Mr. Moussaoui.

This is certainly intriguing, and, as Captain Ed over at Captain's Quarters says, indicates that the target of Flight 93, forced down by the passengers in a field in Pennsylvania -- was probably the US Capitol. However, I agree with Captain Ed that Mr. Moussaoui's tale is a very unlikely story, and that Mr. Moussaoui is trying to, in effect, save the Government's death penalty case by spinning a big hijacking fable, the better to keep his date with the 72 virgins, and die a great Islamic martyr. We will probably never know. Quite aside from the fact that Mr Moussaoui seems to have been a washout from the original operation; he and Shoebomber Reid simply do not seem organized enough to be successful mass murderers.

Mr. Moussaoui seems, however, to want to die. It seems only just and right to accomodate this hero in his own mind, and as many of his friends and fellow fanatics as possible. Whether they will have their meeting in the hereafter with the 72 virgins, I beg leave to doubt, because there are no virgins, or facilities for congress with same, where Mr. Moussaoui and his fellow scumbags are going.

Basque Cease-Fire

Yesterday, the Basque terrorist organization ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or "Basque Homeland and Liberty") announced a “permanent cease-fire” so that it might better participate in the political process. A very good move by ETA, and a sign that they have won, for the moment, their war with Spain. Whatever the political upshot of this, peace is good for its own sake: according to the Wikipedia article on ETA, this organization killed "817 people in the name of their political struggle, 339 of which were not members of any armed or police service."

Truth in blogging: I don't like ETA, or other such terrorist groups, nor do I have much respect for the Basque cause, although its partisans, like cheated minorities without states everywhere, no doubt have their story to tell.

Probably the Basque gang bosses, and other somewhat more respectable Basque nationalist leaders have been inspired by the path of Catalonia. Their confreres in Barcelona are getting virtually everything they might want without shooting: the Spanish government is in the process of recognizing Catalonia as a "nation," to keep it from leaving Spain, whatever that might finally mean. Certainly, the Basque national leadership now believes it can jawbone Madrid into giving them the same. A victory for Basque nationalism, at least in the short run.

Spanish nationalism, for its part, seems pretty dead; and this is not yet 100 years after the great nationalist upwelling of 1936. Catalonia's a nation ? Fine, The Basques ? OK too -- Downtown Madrid as a nation would no doubt be hunky-dory as well. Anybody and anything can be a "nation," whatever that means, as long as the checks keep coming in, the booze, pot and birth-control supplies remain good, and TV stays readily available. Come to think of it, American nationalism is not that much more healthy. The culprit here, is of course the welfare state. Under socialism, nobody cares about anything except when the next welfare check is coming in. I'm reactionary enough to think all this is a very bad thing.

The ETA clearly thinks it can obtain its dreams through the ballot box. I wonder who the joke is really on ? No doubt there shall be a few salad years: a new flowering of Basque nationhood and pride while Basques “re-discover” their “historic” culture, or however this is dressed up for the politically correct PBS programs and BBC specials that are surely coming.

Soon enough, though, the McWorld of socialism will anesthetize the Basques same as it has everybody else in the West, and the Basques will be ingested into the EU blob, and then into the great transnational project. We can all be happily tranquilized by Survivor, American Idol and the future moral equivalents thereof, so we don't notice the worldwide overclass of lawyers, journalists and NGO bosses who herd us, rule us and tax us like so many sheep. Joke's on you, ETA, this is what you fought for, right ?

No flags, no history, no glory, no culture, no language, no art; just sex, drugs, rock and roll and welfare checks and everwhere the saccharine sameness of the welfare state.

Lunchtime and Books

Lunchtime around El Jefe's establishment, and it's too rainy and yucky looking to go out, and in any case Jefe is not in the mood. Today's lunchtime is reading: current book is Edward Crankshaw's The Fall of the House of Habsburg (Penguin, 1983), about somewhat sleepier and simpler times, before that evil, verminous, Al-Qaeda-like no-goodnik Gavrilo Princip managed to upset lots of applecarts, back before all the horrible "isms" -- communism, socialism, etc., of modern times.

Fiction reading of late has consisted of Jonathan Kellerman's latest paperback, Rage, (Ballantine, 2006), another of Dr. Kellerman's shrink/detective books; and Gerry Carroll's Ghostrider One, (Pocket1995), an excellent novel about a squadron of US Navy A-4 Skyhawk pilots operating off an aircraft carrier in the Vietnam Conflict (an older book I've had sitting around for a few years that I'm glad I found time for).

On deck is Michael R. Gordon's and Lieut.-Gen. Bernard Trainor's Cobra II : The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Pantheon, March 2006) -- a recent purchase; and another Iraq war book, this one a gift from T, from the perspective of the business-end: Michael M. Phillips's, The Gift of Valor, (Broadway, 2005), about the life and death of USMC Corporal Jason Dunham, killed in action in Iraq at age 22.

Finally, Mark Winegardner's The Godfather Returns (Ballantine, 2005) is also waiting. El Jefe of course, has a great interest in chronicles of his fellow bosses of bosses, especially fictional ones, so The Godfather is somewhat of a cult for El Jefe. SWMBO no doubt dreads my periodic Godfather phases: when I start going out at all hours to buy Peroni, and Moretti; swilling the Pinot Grigios; snarfing Parmigiano-Reggiano like potato chips; eating too much pasta; telling SWMBO to leave the shoes and take the cannoli; striking Mussolini-like poses; and, finally calling the Heir, "Sonny."

Numbers Game Part 2

Cost O' Livin, and other things, in El Jefe’s World. An occasional summary in random statistics of interest to El Jefe. (No. 2) All prices, unless noted, are as of 21 March 2006.

Part 1: Gas and Oil
Price, gallon of Super Unleaded, Valero, Bellaire Boulevard, Houston: $2.49 per gallon.
(up .6 cents a gallon from 10 January 2006).

Price, gallon of Regular Unleaded, Valero, Bellaire Boulevard, Houston: $2.65 per gallon.

(up .16 cents a gallon from 10 January 2006).

Part 2: Booze.
Price of a 6-pack, St Arnold’s Beer, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $6.79 per six pack. (down .20 cents a six pack from 10 January 2006).

Price of a 12 pack Bud Light (calls itself beer), Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: .59 cents an ounce, $16.99 per twelve pack).

(unchanged since 10 January 2006).
Price of Fish Eye Pinot Grigo, 2004 (white wine), Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $7.99 per 750 ML bottle.

(unchanged since 10 January 2006).

Yellow Tail Shiraz 2004 (red wine), Spec’s Houston : $6.09 per 750 ML bottle.

(down .90 cents a bottle from 10 January 2006).

Santa Rita Merlot 2004 (red wine), Spec’s Houston: $5.59 per 750 ML bottle.

(up .37 cents a bottle from 10 January 2006).

St Clement Chardonnay 2004 (white wine), Spec’s Houston: $15.78 per 750 ML bottle. (unchanged from 10 January 2006).

Veuve Cliquot, Champagne, Spec’s Houston: $38.20, per 750 ML bottle.

(up $2.42 per bottle since 10 January 2006).

Part 3: El Jefe Staple Items.
Price of Gruyere Cheese, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $14.99 per pound.

(unchanged since 10 January 2006).

Price of Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $19.99 per pound. (unchanged since 10 January 2006).

Sirloin Steak, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston, $6.99 per pound.

(unchanged since 10 January 2006).

Rib-Eye Steak, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston, $10.99 per pound.

(up $1.00 per pound since 10 January 2006).

Mrs. Baird’s Large White Sandwich (thing called bread): $1.89 per loaf.

(up .20 cents per loaf since 10 January 2006).

Red Leaf Lettuce, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $1.49 per head.

(down .50 cents a head since 10 January 2006).

Red Tomatoes: Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $2.49 per pound.

(up .70 cents per pound since 10 January 2006).

Special K cereal, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $4.39 per 18 oz box.

(unchanged since 10 January 2006).

Tidy Cats Cat Litter, Kroger, Vanderbilt Square, Houston: $2.39, per 10 pound bag.

(unchanged since 10 January 2006).

Part 4: The Big Mac Index.
Price of a Big Mac (no cheese), McDonalds, Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, Texas: $2.26. (down .3 cents since 10 January 2006).

Part 5: Phone Books.
Pages in the March 2006 Houston AT&T Business White Pages: (Listings for Houston only), 625 pp.

(down from 700 pp. in SBC Business White Pages, March 2003).

Part 6: The Bourse (all currencies 10:00 Central Time 22 March 2006).
New York Stock Exchange, close, 21 March 2006: 11,235.47 (-39.06)

(up 223.57 since 10 January 2006).
US Dollar to Japanese Yen: $1.00 = Y1.17.

(dollar up .03 yen since 10 January 2006).

US Dollar to European Union Euro: $1.00 = E0.83.

(dollar up .01 Euros since 10 January 2006).

US Dollar to Canadian Dollar (9 January): $1.00 = Can $1.1659.

(US dollar up .19 CanD since 10 January 2006).

US Dollar to UK Pound (9 January): $1.00 = L .5723.

(dollar up .0059 Pounds since 10 January 2006).

US Dollar to Swiss Franc (9 January): $1.00 = F 1.3026 1.2768.

(dollar up .0258 Swiss Francs).

Part 7: El Jefe Weight:

Removed from Public Version of report, and sent for file maintenance by Directorate-General of El Jefe Imperial Security. Classified.

Springtime for Hit...er, Moonbats

Make some popcorn, sit for a spell and have a look at Zombietime's picture gallery of Moonbats at Play in the San Francisco Bay area. On the other hand, hold the popcorn, because you'll be too busy laughing yourself sick or wanting to throw up. If there was ever a crowd simply begging for firehoses, truncheons and police dogs, this would be it.

Zombietime has quite a picture collection of various Moonbat demonstrations, and all his galleries are worth a look.

Stay Tuned

Sorry for the light blogging of late, but a combination of pressure at work, busy weekends and a case of writer's block have kept my posting down. However, I do have a couple of items which I'm going to blog on in the near future.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out Belmont Club today. Wretchard has a good post on the media's latest buzz-phrase -- civil war in Iraq. This theme is the latest disaster du jour in the media's and the chattering classes continuing chorus of doom, disaster and defeatism. "Civil war” in Iraq is imminent, or underway, or whatever.

Notice how nobody is talking about the imminent success of the Sunni rebellion in driving out the Americans ? That was last year’s disaster. The Sunni rebellion was a flop, and appears to be dying, but our media, apparently eager to rescue the rebels, or, more accurately, to bash Bush, has discovered the possibility of a civil war.

Along the same lines, we have Russ Feingold bleating about "censure" in the Senate, because of the President's tapping of overseas phone calls. I hope Senator Feingold and all his friends try it: so Joe Six-Pack can see what really moves leftie swells to outrage. The Democrats truly live in cloud-cuckoo land: God forbid we should try to spy on bad guys, or even harm a hair on their America-hating heads. If we would be good lefties, we must respect multi-culturalism, admit former Taliban members to Yale, and prosecute US soldiers who muss the hair of rebels who shoot at American soldiers in Iraq. Who cares how many of us, or our soldiers, the enemy kills, as long as every Tom, Dick and Abdul that hates us gets his civil rights ?

The lefties and their allies will really try anything at all to get us back to the glory days of Watergate and Vietnam. They seem to have a ways to go -- the big anti-war demonstrations this weekend were largely ignored and unattended, except by the usual suspects, most of whom probably need baths.

Burfday Celebrations

Doubtless, the world has been waiting to hear about El Jefe’s birthday celebrations, so I shall condescend to provide a few details. El Jefe scored a few nice birthday cards, including one from El Jefe’s friend L with a picture of umbrellas which, the caption informed us, needed drinks. One of my running gag lines is how an afternoon at the swim-up bar drinking umbrella drinks certainly beats working for a living, so this was the prize birthday card. Of course, all the slaving away makes umbrella drinks possible and this blog possible, a fact sometimes forgotten by the somewhat prone-to-laziness El Jefe.

On Saturday, She Who Must Be Obeyed surprised me with a trip to Ibiza.

No, not this Ibiza….but this Ibiza, a yummy, Mediterranean/French restaurant in downtown Houston.

This was really pretty cool of SWMBO, because several other couples, friends of ours, were included: my friend T and her husband E, my pal John C and his wife R, and our friends the W's. SWMBO assembled the guest list, made the calls and set the whole thing up without me knowing. Apparently the Heir knew, and managed to keep his mouth shut, which is really pretty good for a Fourth Grader. (My Spy Lessons must be paying off). Heir spent the night at a friend's house.

In any case, I was totally surprised, SWMBO was very mysterious about it, hinting that we were just gonna have a quiet dinner at some steak restaurant. This was much better.

Ibiza is worth the trip if you’re in Houston. The Cosmos were very good – such an easy drink to mess up: too much vodka and you’ve got medicine. I had the trout with Salsa Verde, with the Basque Green Pepper and Crab Bisque -- along with a good and red wine (everybody seemed to want to drink red, so despite several of us having fish dinners, we all shared a decent Merlot).

El Jefe definitely scored some cool swag (including some great books from T and E and a commemorative University of Texas Championship Season football from John). T also gave me my very own copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition issue (so I didn’t salivate all over the Heir’s, she said); as well as dropping off the next day a plate of Peanut Butter Cookies which are safely stashed in a High Security Undisclosed Location that Heir might learn about if he behaves.

SWMBO gave me a couple of bookcases, items which are always in high demand round our house.

In any case, we all had an excellent time, and I was so glad that everyone attended, and SWMBO was really cool to set the evening up.

Not Productive Today

Not much for blogging this weekend. Manana is, of course, El Jefe's birthday, celebrated worldwide, and in the Kingdom of Chaos, the loyal peasants are given the weekend off, (except for the devoted organs of State Security, a/k/a the secret police, of course). Extra work for all lefties, rabble-rousers and other mauvais sujets.

I see that old Slobodan Milosevic has died, apparently of natural causes, in the Hague. Good riddance to bad rubbish, and to a tyrant and criminal. His death, although unmourned by me or many others, is certainly very convenient for many people, not least his countrymen.

UPDATE (13 March). Mr. Milosevic was more than a vaguely unsavory Serbian politican. Read this splendid discussion by Wretchard over at Belmont Club describing the unlamented Slobodan's carefully planned "ethnic cleansing" program to create a "Greater Serbia" out of Yugoslavia in the early 1990's.

As an aside, perhaps a little truth-in-blogging is in order. In my years of historical reading, I have never managed to be overly sympathetic to Serbia or to Serbian politicans. Greater Serbian nationalism, exemplified by its most recently notorious mouthpiece, Mr. Milosevic -- was one of the greatest war and misery-breeders of the twentieth century. A pan-Serbian gunman began the most violent century so far in Sarajevo, in 1914, and thugs working for Mr. Slobodan ended it at about the same place in the early 90's.

Sharon Stone's Peace Plan

Sharon Stone, the babeamundo star of, inter alia, Basic Instinct said Wednesday she "would kiss just about anybody" to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In recognition of Ms. Stone's diplomatic demarche, the Foreign Ministry of the Kingdom of Chaos, located in beautiful downtown Ciudad El Jefe, announces El Jefe's readiness to proceed to the Middle East, like manana, and spread beaucoup peace and enlightenment, in order to be worthy of some kissy-face from the comely Ms. Stone. Hell, throw in a couch, some okay music, a quiet afternoon, and a decent bottle of wine, and we'll be working on world peace, like, forever.

Alas, El Jefe suspects he has some competition: probably the Foreign Offices of the world are going overtime tonite; the striped-pants boys churning out peace plans like hot-dog buns, hoping for a buss from la Sharon (and I don't mean the one whose first name is Ariel).

Maybe we could send Ms. Stone to Iran, on a peace mission ? Wonder what ol' Mad Jad would make of her ? No, cancel that idea, Sharon's too gorgeous to be Stoned, or whatever evil 7th Century thing the Mullahs would come up with.

The Farce Continues

I started writing this as the response to a comment by one “Dagger” in my last post, but decided about two-thirds of the way through that it should stand alone as a post. For the original post and the comments occasioning it, go here.

Mr. Dagger:
You talk glibly about the “hypocrisy” of the US position that “we can have nukes and bio weapon programs but the 'bad guys' can't.” Liberals really have a fixation about hypocrisy, as such matters were some kind of college debate problem, or a morality contest. I have no objection whatever to hypocrisy when it is useful.

That aside, do you really think that the so-called Islamic Republic, which supports groups like Hezbollah and the leaders of which talk casually about wiping states off the map, is to be trusted with “nukes and bio weapons programs ?” My problem with the Islamic Republic is that it is not a status quo power, but a state that supports underground terrorist organizations in other states; a state opposed to the present capitalist international system; a state which is an avowed enemy of the United States and of bourgeois republics generally.

If this were a different Iranian government, say a plain republic or a restored monarchy, that accepted the present international system, I would not have concerns with Iranian weapons programs. Even an Islamic Republic that remained quiet and kept its poisons within its frontiers would not be a legitimate cause for concern. As it stands, the Iranians can have their fascist Islamic Republic or their WMD programs, but not both.

As for preemptive war: if the choice is war now, or war later under less favorable terms, I am unquestionably for war now. I think that an Islamic Republic with WMD’s is simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist. I’d rather be wrong my way than yours.

Blame the UN ? I don’t blame the UN for anything. I blame Franklin Roosevelt and the other idiots who created it, a good deal. The UN is a club that allows dictators to give one another mutual aid and support, and to posture in front of the world media, and influence opinion in the United States and Europe. The UN is an exclusive club for allowing savages to punch out of their weight, and a prostitute used to being used by everyone. It is quite enough that we pay for the UN. God forbid that we should ever listen to it.

Hey Maru, I think that I generally agree with you. I’m sure, as in Iraq, we will have all kinds of covert coat-holders who don’t want to be on the record. Certainly we will have more help than we can use once it is clear we are bearing all the risk, and that we will be successful.

Maybe we will all be lucky. Maybe the Mullahs will give up their dream of a bomb. Maybe Mahmoud “Mad Jad” Ahmadinejad will slip on a banana peel. Maybe the Iranian generals will decide the Islamic Republic is too dangerous, and do away with it. Maybe the students can start a real revolution. Hope so. But things look pretty bleak from the point of view of peace.

The Farce Begins

The AP tells us today that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General, Mr. Mohamed ElBaradei is expressing “cautious optimism” today on the chances of reaching agreement with Iran to “defuse concerns” about Iranian nuclear plans, and make United Dictators (UN) Security Council action “unnecessary.”

Yeah, I’ll bet.

The Heir, all of ten years old, could tell you how this is going to play out. Lots of late night meetings and paper shuffling by Mr. ElBaradei and his friends, resulting in huffing and puffing at the Circus on Turtle Bay (a.k.a. UN Headquarters) and the miraculous discovery by Mr. ElBaradei and the IAEA that Iran is “moving towards substantial compliance” with UN requirements and further action will probably be unnecessary.

Then we’ll read the fine print, and discover that, in exchange for trillions upon billions of dollars of every kind of aid you can imagine, Iran has given us (if you want to be polite), a very definite “maybe” on halting progress towards a nuclear weapon. If you want to be honest, the Iranians will be found to have said: “drop dead infidels,” in diplomatese of course.

The world’s great and good will be “horrified” and “shocked” when the US expresses its dissatisfaction with the concept of paying for its own humiliation, and Mr. ElBaradei, Oil for Food Kofi, the French, the Germans, the Democratic Party and all the talking heads will say that the US is making impossible demands and that it should respect the “will to peace” of the international community.

The US, joined possibly by the usual suspects, Britain, Israel and Australia, will persist, and say the Iranian maybe is not enough. Things will start blowing up all over the world, as the Iranian secret police turns loose the terrorists; the Americans will begin an achingly slow military build-up, while the Iranians talk about 20 new ways to wipe out Israel; finish their bomb, lock up or kill their dissidents; and, get their military ready. (Just how many dead Americans is the diplo-game worth ?)

Then…at the eleventh hour, Mr. Putin will weigh-in with yet another deal, which the talking heads will sagely tell us, is designed to avert a terrible war. The smarter ones will tell us that the last-minute deal is to ensure that nothing whatever happens to the Iranians and their bomb - only the really smart ones will figure out that the whole thing is just a charade to put the onus for war on the Americans. The “deal” will be nothing but a re-hashed version of the “drop dead infidels” arrangement.

So, the Americans will be left to carry on alone, or virtually so, but only after giving the Great and the Good time to mobilize world public opinion in favor of letting the Mullahs have their bomb; or rather, in favor of taking the Americans down a peg. The overclass driving this process, in Europe, and in the United States, is much more concerned with bringing the United States to heel, and ensuring its compliance with the transnational project, than it is about some smelly mullahs in a far away country getting a bomb.

All of the diplomatic games are nonsense, of course. The question before the House is: will we fight to stop the Iranians having their bomb, or not ? If we do so, it will be alone.

2 March 1836

Today is the 170th anniversary of the declaration of the independence of Texas from Mexico. The odds against the Texians (as they called themselves) were considerably longer than those against the Americans in 1776, or even the Confederates in 1861. Nevertheless, thanks to the military incompetence of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna; the resolution and cleverness of Sam Houston; the grit of the Texians; and no small amount of luck, Texas was able to make good the proclamations of the politicians, and secure itself the right to an independent national existence.

Here’s to all who made it possible: at Goliad, the Alamo, Agua Dulce, Coleto, Gonzales, Refugio, San Jacinto and other places. Our thoughts stretch to touch you across the years. You are not forgotten.

Iranian Military Plans

I am very busy this week, but here are some first impressions of something very, very interesting.

Kenneth Timmerman has published, at News Max.com, details about plans of the Iranian Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) to close the Straits of Hormuz, in the event of US/Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. (Hat tip, Doctor Zin at Regime Change Iran). According to the article, News Max has received portions of a thirty page plan (sounds like an executive summary), drawn up by the Strategic Studies Center of the Iranian Navy, (in Farsi, the acronym is NDAJA), apparently drafted in September or October of last year. Apparently, the source is an Iranian intelligence officer, one Hamid Reza Zakeri, who came west in 2001.

The effort would be run by one consolidated operational headquarters, integrating Pasdaran missile units (equipped with C-801 and C-802 Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles), as well as Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 IRBM’s, mines (including tethered bottom-mines that could sink an aircraft carrier), fast-attack boats equipped with rockets, machine guns and Sagger anti-tank missiles (fine for use on merchantmen and destroyer-sized warships), as well as chemical, biological and nuclear (CBN) weapons. Apparently target lists include Saudi oil production and export centres.

The coordinating headquarters will rely on, among other things, intelligence from surveillance satellites. Whose ? We do have some anti-satellite capability...

An accompanying map apparently identifies “mass kill zones” “where Iranian strategists believe [that] they can decimate a U.S. led invasion force before it actually enters the Persian Gulf.” These run from just east of Bandar Abbas, an Iranian port in the narrows of the Straits of Hormuz, to Shah Bahar, on the Indian Ocean fairly near Pakistan.

The Iranian military seems plenty big and tough -- much better and more effective than it was in the long ago Iran-Iraq War. Institutionally, it seems to have absorbed the lessons of that conflict, as well as the two Gulf Wars, and the US intervention in Kosovo. Orbat.com's publication Concise World Armies, 2006 rates the Iranian military pretty highly, and says that it has plenty of maneuver and exercise time. The military and Revolutionary Guard are backed up by a very sophisticated intelligence and secret police organization (the Persians have always had good spies) -- descended from the American-trained services of the Shah's days. Iran must not be underestimated.

I will look into this more closely as I have time, but the Iranian military capability shouldn't be over estimated, either. Surely this cannot be all of the plan. The Iranian military has capable staff and intelligence officers. I wonder what threshold the planners are working with: i.e., how far they think they can go ? Sinking aircraft carriers ? Attacking Saudi oil fields ? Leaving their nutty president aside, do the Iranians want to get nuked ? Just how much mayhem can the Iranians get away with in their "mass kill zones" before Uncle Sam starts raining nuclear weapons on them? Yeah, the Iranians can stop the oil, for awhile, but if they really think they can win an air/naval/missile contest, the Iranian staffers are smoking crack... unless that is, Iran has a big power backer.

Do they ?

We are at a very, very dangerous place, just now. If the Iranians are foolish, they will take our President's sinking poll numbers, and our happy UN talk, much too much to heart. They may be fooled into thinking they have a free hand, and assume the edge of acceptable behavior is further away than it is. We are already teetering on the abyss. It is easy to forget how much power a President has over the decision to resort to arms. If the Iranians underestimate this President, there is a strong probability that a lot of people are going to wind up very dead.

Similarly, the Iranians may assume too much tolerance by Israel and its caretaker Prime Minister. The Israelis have been stirring, saying just this week that they will not wait forever for a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Fundamentally, I am worried by this, apparently, yokel of an Iranian president, who really seems to believe in the imminent appearance of the Twelfth Imam, and talks glibly about wiping countries off the map. Does he know where the red line is; how far the bluster can safely go ? Do those around him ? No question, the present script looks like a war-breeder.

Hmmm

Between work and real life, have been neglecting the blog. Definitely have a few things to comment on this week, which will appear in due course.

El Jefe and family attended a block party in his neighborhood last night: sort of a farewell for one of his neighbors. Always depressing to lose neighbors, particularly nice ones like the G's. We are losing the G's to a job transfer to the east coast. I do not think that there could be enough money in the world to pay me to live in the northeast, (Been There and Done That); but everyone is different. Hope the G's like it.

It's definitely a Monday. . . not even a vente (extra large) black coffee from Starbucks has managed to make me feel awake yet. The long boring deposition that I have to start reading as soon as I finish this little note definitely will not help matters. Yawn !

Washington's Birthday

Happy Birthday to America's first and greatest President, George Washington.

The fact that there is a United States at all is due largely to George Washington, and in particular to his military leadership in the terrible fall and winter of 1776-77, when he kept the War for American Independence alive on sheer determination. Of course, while fighting the finest army on the planet with raw troops and militiamen who did not even have shoes, Washington had to keep one hand free to keep the politicians in Philadelphia off his back – these worthies all being convinced that they were better qualified to do his job. Had good sense not finally prevailed with the politicos, the British, in spite of everything, no doubt would have prevailed.

No Napoléon or Julius Caesar as a general, George Washington did the United States a significant service following the war by being no Napoléon or Julius Caesar as a politician, by quietly and competently performing his functions as President, and duly making way for his successor when his legal term expired.

Ohio Men

AP reports today that three “Ohio men” have been indicted on terrorism charges alleging that they “planned attacks to kill US and coalition military personnel in Iraq and other countries.”

Yeah, “Ohio men.” I’m sure an underground cell of fanatic Buckeye fans meeting at the pool hall on the outskirts of beautiful Anytown, Ohio are all hatching plots against those dastardly US military personnel over a few beers.

Of course, we’ve all got a pretty good idea what sort of “Ohio men” we’re really talking about here, even if AP wants to write the story without using the terms “Arab” or “Muslim” even once. God forbid the media recognize anything resembling the concept of nationality, or notice that there are real differences, sometimes lethal ones, between people.

The conventional wisdom looks pretty on the bullseye to me – not even the AP avoids giving the names: one Mohammad Zaki Amawi, apparently a citizen of both the US and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; a Marwan Othman El-Hindi, a US citizen born in Jordan; and finally, Wassim I. Mazloum, who came to the US from Lebanon in 2000.

One of these “Ohio men” has also been accused of twice threatening in conversations to kill or injure the President.

No doubt about it, “Ohio men,” probably even on the voter rolls. They were going to practice their demolitions skills setting off bombs on 4 July 2005, so that explosions wouldn’t be noticed while other Ohio men were setting off firecrackers.

Yeah, maybe the “Ohio men” are innocent, but I’m not putting anybody’s Ohio farm on it. Gotta make the ritual salaam to “innocent until proven guilty” though, which is more than the “Ohio men’s” friends in Iraq would be likely to do.

If these guys are guilty, it’s almost too bad they didn’t make it to Iraq, where some real Ohio men could turn them into chopped liver.

But more importantly, this little article, and the built-in, so politically correct, conceit that, despite our different backgrounds; differing religious heritages; different nationalities; different upbringings -- that all people are functionally the same, cookie-cutter interchangeable, captures perfectly for me all that is wrong with our political and media elites. It is delusional to assume mere possession of a passport, or entitlement to same, makes all who live here automatically the same. Most immigrants assimilate, but some do not, and it is patronising in the extreme, and whistling past the graveyard, to discount background: to assume that nationality and religion simply do not exist. Our enemies certainly do not.

Not to be Taken Alive

Mr. Osama Bin Laden says he won't be taken alive.

Well now, there's something we can agree with him on. Here' s hoping he dies a pitiful, squalid, slow and painful death, cornered in some hole, squatting in his own wastes, like the scummy, piratical rat that he is.

An interesting statement though, from him. Is Osama feeling some pressure ? Don't worry about being taken alive, boss. Not a problem. We're coming for you, soon enough. You can run, but you can't hide forever.

Lets Blast Dick, but Give Al a Pass

Tom Bevan over at the Real Clear Politics blog has an interesting question worth pondering: namely, why is the prestige press so much more interested in Vice-President Cheney's accidental blasting of his friend in south Texas, than it is in Vice-President Gore's deliberate blasting of his country in front of foreigners in Saudi Arabia last week ?

My own comments on Mr. Gore's utterances can be found here. We can only thank God daily that Gore lost.

As Mr. Bevan says: the press "... can't be bothered by Gore's remarks which, quite frankly, have more consequence and did more damage to America's reputation than Cheney's birdshot did to poor Harry Whittington." Who cares anyway, if a former US Vice President and once and future candidate for the White House accuses his country of "terrible abuses" while speaking in a place that forbids women to operate automobiles and prescribes beheadings and amputations for penal offenses ? None of that's at all important. The press (always watching out for the public) has to protect Mr. Gore's viability, to lead us peasants, after all. But if we can exploit an accident to make President Bush or his administration look bad... it's fair game huh ? No pun intended.

Makes ya wonder, doesn't it ?

Uh Oh...

The French Foreign Minister, M. Philippe Douste-Blazy, stated today that the Iranian nuclear program is not civilian, but a "clandestine military nuclear program." M. le Ministre also said "The international community has sent a very firm message in telling the Iranians to return to reason and suspend all nuclear activity and the enrichment and conversion of uranium, but they aren't listening to us."

If the French actually notice that there is a problem with Iran, maybe it is really time to pray.

The Loathsome Left Coast

The University of Washington Student Senate has rejected a memorial for UW alumnus Colonel Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, USMC, recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. (Hat tip, El Jefe’s friend Mike D.). Colonel Boyington, a veteran of the American Volunteer Group (“Flying Tigers”), who fought in China before US entry into World War II; then when America got into the war commanding Marine Fighter Squadron 214, shooting down 28 Japanese aircraft before being himself shot down and taken prisoner by the Japanese on 3 January 1944.

Student “senator” Jill Edwards, unfit to shine Colonel Boyington’s shoes, stated she “…didn’t believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce.” Another “senator,” Ashley Miller, who would probably straighten out after a spell in a Japanese POW camp, argued “…many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men.” She utters such obscenities about a war hero who spent summer vacations from the University of Washington working in mining camps and logging camps. What do you do summers, “senator ?”

Don’t believe me ? See the minutes, here, (pages 5, 7-9).

Oh, by the way, our tax dollars are at work for the “senators.” Wretchard at Belmont Club reports (citing another blog) that the Federal government is going to give the University of Washington $17 million for bioengineering research and for some educational instruction boondoggle. Isn’t that special ?

Meanwhile, a little further south in the People’s Republic of San Francisco, the San Francisco Examiner (Hat Tip: Belmont Club) tells us that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has launched an “assault on a plan” to bring World War II Battleship USS Iowa to San Francisco for preservation as a museum for visitors. The plan is apparently “[l]ost in a sea of political correctness” the Board of Supervisors rejecting plans to bring Iowa to the city because the Battleship is a “instrument of war.”

USS Iowa’s too good for the People’s Republic. Bring her to Texas. There’s room at Corpus Christi, next to where USS Lexington now sits, or we can dredge the Ship Channel and find a spot for her at Houston, by USS Texas. Only way she oughta visit San Francisco is with shotted guns.

Book Review: Clancy's "The Teeth of the Tiger"

El Jefe has just blown through Tom Clancy's The Teeth of the Tiger (Putnam, 2003). I usually read a couple of books at once, and Tiger was easy sledding, consuming a couple of evenings after work and getting the Heir in bed.

Tiger is set in Mr. Clancy's Jack Ryan universe, the realm of all save one of his novels. Tiger is a fast read, but not the best of the series, and no doubt one reason for the book's difficulties is Mr. Clancy's decision to persevere with the Ryanverse. The first of the Jack Ryan novels, Hunt For Red October, was published in 1984, and since CIA Agent Jack Ryan put the kibosh on deployment of the Soviet Union's newest submarine, a lot has happened: Russia under new management; end of the Cold War; German reunification; two Gulf Wars; 9/11; the fracturing of NATO...you're getting the picture.

If that wasn't bad enough, the author has to contend with all the upsetment Ryan and his cohorts unleashed in the Clancy parallel universe -- wars with Japan and Iran; the nuking of Denver; the Capital Building getting leveled; China invading Russia; environmental wackos trying to destroy the world; CIA Agent Ryan winding up as President...gives me brain-strain just listing this stuff. Future Ryanverse novels have to balance all these sets of books, and even with a certain amount of license, Mr. Clancy's credulity account is fast approaching overdrawn. The weird part is that this all could have been avoided, and Tiger made freestanding, because few of the old characters even make a cameo appearance. Longtime Clancy fans will miss John Clark and Ding Chavez.

Tiger is Mr. Clancy's answer to 9/11. Some very Al Qaeda-like baddies have concocted a sequel atrocity -- and, as El Jefe's dinner party friends could tell readers, they are copying from the El Jefe playbook. Jack Ryan is in retirement, and a Teddy Kennedy clone is President; and the CIA is (typically) clueless. Into the breach steps Mr. Clancy's brainchild, an off-the-shelf, privatized intelligence agency masquerading as an investment bank, using government intelligence to fund itself via insider-trading like financial maneuvers, to cover its anti-bad guy covert agenda. The organization is run by a retired John McCain-like Senator.

Mr. Clancy's organizational idea is the most intriguing part of the book, and Tiger would have been better with more space devoted to fleshing-out the implications of his institutional premise. The private intelligence organization in Tiger exists because traditional intelligence organizations are too hamstrung by legal requirements; too open to press scrutiny to do what is necessary, which is to conduct the struggle with Al Qaeda like it's a war -- by simply hunting down organization members, sympathisers, financiers and recruiters -- and killing them. No due process, no trial, just bump 'em off and put up the tombstone. Mr. Clancy proposes to beat Al Qaeda with its own rules.

Mr. Clancy may well be right that this is the way to go, (El Jefe tends to agree with him here), but Tiger's organization engages in some truly jaw-dropping activities. The covert intelligence organization is carrying on its struggle without the knowledge of the sitting President, with only the benefit of nods and winks by the military and intelligence bureaucracies who feed the covert gang with information and recruits without the knowledge of their legal Commander in Chief. The private little war is legally covered by Mr. Clancy's truly innovative use of the Presidential pardon power -- turning pardons into a 21st Century version of the French monarchy's lettres de cachet.

In any case, the bad guys carry out their awful plot, and the off-the-shelf spies are put on the case: brothers Aldo and Enzo (Italian-American, of course) respectively a Marine and an FBI agent; and the organization's rookie analyst, who just happens to be President Jack Ryan's son, Jack Jr., cousin of Aldo and Enzo. The brothers have their qualms of conscience, but get over them fast when they have a shoot 'em up with a bad guy death squad. Aldo and Enzo then have a merry time chasing around Europe after Bad Guys -- wacking them between stays in four star hotels; drives down the autobahns in Porsche 911's; putting Vitello Milanese on American Express black cards; with an occasional ruined suit to be cleaned by the understanding hotel valets. Wahoo ! Secret Agent Man saving the universe on good champagne ! Where can I sign up for this job ?

Jack Jr., fresh out of college, proves he's got Dad's brains by ID'ing the big bosses, and shows he's got Dad's stones when he joins the hitters as a substitute wacker. The President's kid on covert ops -- and right out of the box he does a job as a hitter ? Yeah, that's gonna work. A scotch or five on the plane home obviates any qualms of conscience.

No girls in this book, save for expensive hookers who all seem to be on the police payroll; a brief mention of a terrorist's unwitting girlfriend who appears to be totally unaware her sweet little Abdul ain't the Fuller Brush Man; and reference to Jack Jr.'s Mom, who scares off dates. This doesn't work: these are young men, and all espionage and no play makes Jack Jr. a dull superspy. A gun moll or two might have livened things up a bit.

A fun book. Clever bad guy plans. Evil bad guys you can really hate. Gun talk on, say, the merits of the Smith and Wesson 10 mm versus the Beretta 9mm. Bad guys getting theirs, leaving a nice, righteous feeling. An interesting organizational premise that Mr. Clancy should have elaborated on. The sequel's clearly set up, and I'm good for it when it comes out (later this year). Still, the Clancy books are beginning to stretch it.

Shootin and Swimmin...

Okay, the Cheney business isn't really worth commenting about...

Except that...I'd still rather go Huntin with Dick before I'd go drivin with Teddy !

Hat tip: Gates of Vienna.

Helen Thomas Says We're Ready

In her column for the Hearst Newspapers, Helen Thomas, who thinks we should listen because she's a Famous Journalist, says the US is ready for a woman President. We're lagging behind many countries which have "ended the male monopoly on political leadership" Ms. Thomas opines.

I'm sure Ms. Thomas thinks we're lagging behind in general. I'm sure she thinks it's time for us to rejoin humanity and follow in the footsteps of progressive (cough, cough) Europe.

Bet you can't guess which woman President Ms. Thomas thinks we're ready for. God forbid.

Make Mine Extra Crispy

The AP reports today that “thousands” of protesters rioted in Lahore, Pakistan today, so upset at the now notorious Danish cartoons that they destroyed four buildings house a hotel, two banks, a KFC restaurant and the office of a Norwegian cell phone company. A couple of movie theaters went up in flames -- at least the Paks won't have to endure Brokeback Mountain. Of course, the rioters had a grand ol' time screaming "Death to America !" Looking on the bright side, Bridgestone and Goodyear outlets might do well: apparently, you can't have riots in the Middle East without burning some tires.

The scumbags really seem to have a thing about fast food: besides KFC, they also broke the windows of a Pizza Hut and a McDonald’s. Religious health nuts, but not much for law and order. Go figure.

The protest, the article says, was supposed to be non-violent. Yeah, that seems to have worked pretty well. The party was organized by a "little known religious group supported by local trade associations and one of the main Islamic schools." A trade association ? Yeah, sounds like all this burning and trashing will be real good for business. Maybe it's the "Out of Business Trade Association" or at any rate, maybe the "Our Rivals are Out of Business Trade Association ?" And one of the "main Islamic schools ?" Hmmm, how does that work ? "Okay kids, read your lesson for tomorrow, go to Gym, then go burn KFC. Have a nice day !"

Like those zany French "youths" awhile back, the folks in Pakistan apparently got into the car-burning act, damaging some 200 vehicles.

The babies don’t like KFC eh ? They’ll like it much less if we serve them Extra Crispy via wall-to-wall B-52’s.

Giving Comfort to the Enemy

It’s nice to know we can always count on former Vice President Al Gore to stand up for our side.

Our would-be Robot President was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, where he told the Jeddah Economic Forum that the U.S. government had committed “terrible abuses” against Arabs living in America after 9/11 and that “most Americans” did not support such treatment. Mr. Gore stated that Arabs had been “indiscriminately rounded up” and “held in conditions that were just unforgivable.”

Where to begin ? Abuses ? After 9/11 those arrested can count themselves lucky they were not summarily deported, or simply hung from the nearest lampposts. No, we wouldn’t really do that, of course, but it is an atrocity for Mr. Gore to accuse the US government of “terrible abuses.”

Does Mr. Gore really believe what he is pushing ? Evidently, he does, which just shows us how fortunate the US is that he was never President. The man does not understand war; and is apparently incapable of understanding it. But how nice of Mr. Gore to make propaganda for our enemies. Look what happened over the cartoons in the Danish papers ? Now all the idiots running around sacking embassies because of some stupid cartoons can cite the former US Vice President for “abuses” Arabs have suffered at his hands. Does he have any idea of the damage he is doing ? Does he care that innocent people may be injured, even killed because of his remarks ? Clearly not. I truly believe Mr. Gore and his ilk would burn down the whole world just to get George Bush.

The thing I find most repulsive about liberals is their complete lack of national feeling, their utter unwillingness to make distinctions between their own people, and foreigners. I suppose I am a bit 19th Century in that respect. I disagree with certain US policies, but I would never, never advertise my quarrels with US policy, or accuse my government of “terrible abuses” in front of an audience of foreigners, or in any way that would lend itself, as Mr. Gore’s tissue of lies does, to enemy propaganda.

Grab-Bag

El Jefe is feeling much better today, thank you very much. So is She Who Must Be Obeyed, who has also been sick. This is good, because I am not wanting to miss the big Gala for Heir's school tomorrow night.

In lieu of a full post, El Jefe offers the following grab-bag.

The 13 February issue of National Review, one of El Jefe's favorite publications, has arrived. Several interesting items in this issue's "The Week" section. First subject is nudity.

Paying attention yet ? On this subject, National Review says that a Federal Judge in Florida has found that local laws prohibiting public nudity are in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Huh ? I must have missed the public nudity protections in the Bill of Rights when I took constitutional law. Sounds like this judge is just too cheap to buy Penthouse and Playboy (for the articles, of course).

In the same note, it is reported that an Islamic cleric in Egypt has issued a fatwa providing that nudity during sex invalidates a marriage. Oooookkaaaay, that definitely is one for the wacko department. On second thought, if this catches on, it might go a long way towards solving that demographic problem the Europeans have with Islam, bringing reproduction down to European levels.

I'm not sure which of these items is wackier. As National Review says: "So in the one place, citizens may not act together to ban vulgar, information-free displays they find displeasing; in the other, citizens may not act in their most private moments in ways they find pleasing; in both, normal and harmless human preferances exist, or are annihilated, at the whim of robed, arrogant, over-educated functionaries." Damn, that's good. Wish I'd written it.

Another sniglet, also from National Review, is about the creation, at the University of Kentucky, of the inaugural chapter of Gamma Gamma Chi, the first ever Islamic sorority ! "Panty raids at this house may be punishable by beheading."

Since I've had a lot of vege time, I've been catching up on the reading. Yes, yes, I know, I read anyway, but this sounds good, so I'm going with it. El Jefe is presently reading Alan Palmer's Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph, about the next-to-last Austro-Hungarian Emperor.

Francis Joseph was born in 1830, when Andrew Jackson was US President, came to the throne (in the middle of an abortive revolution) at the time of our war with Mexico, and died in the middle of World War I. Francis Joseph was certainly not a rocket scientist, and made his share of questionable decisions; but, on the other hand, probably not even a genius could have saved the Austro-Hungarian Empire: a ramshackle madhouse of mutually detesting national groups that called itself a country. The Empire was a true dinosaur: a multi-national, multi-ethnic bedlam in an age of ferocious ethnic nationalism.

On the plus side, the Emperor had a tremendous work ethic, and kept plugging through disaster after disaster: a succession of lost wars; revolution; assassination attempts on him; the murder of his beloved but unstable and troubled wife; the suicide of his son under scandalous circumstances; the murder in Sarajevo of his heir, (which started World War I). He was fortified by a truly touching religious faith, and complete belief in his duty to pass on the Empire -- his family inheritance -- intact, to his heirs. He had the good fortune to die before the annus horribilis of 1918 brought all crashing down.

Meanwhile, the cats, who are also the High Patronesses of this Blog (FLINKY, MILO and SUNSHINE), have all been giving me strange looks these past couple of days, wondering why we were all at home. They are now meowing for some attention, so I suppose this post must end.

Snowed Under and now Under the Weather

I have been super-busy at work this week, and now El Jefe is somewhat under the weather with a cold. Posting will resume when morale improves.

Syrians In Iraq

An interesting report out of Iraq today. Blackfive reprints what is apparently a US Marine press-release datelined Camp Fallujah, stating that Iraqi soldiers operating in the Ramadi area captured fifteen rebels, eleven of whom were Syrians.

The raid took place at a "factory in the Tameem district of Ramadi." Iraqi soldiers involved are identified as being part of 1st Brigade, 7th Iraqi Army Division. 36 AK-47 rifles were also captured.

Interesting to find so many Syrians in one place. All sorts of questions for them when their Iraqi captors get them into the interrogation cellar. Are the foreign insurgents segregating themselves from the Iraqi rebels, or being segregated by the rebel high command ? What percentage of the rebel manpower consists of gunboys from Assadland ? What are the backgrounds of these Syrians ? What sort of training do they have with arms, and who provided it ? How are they supplied ? Do they have Syrian contacts ? How did they enter Iraq ?

In any case, a good piece of work by the Iraqis.

Palestina Irredenta

As for the German nation, it needs charity from neither Mr. Churchill nor from Mr. Roosevelt, let alone from Mr. Eden. It wants only its rights! It will secure for itself this right to life even if thousands of Churchills and Roosevelts conspire against it.

Adolf Hitler, in the Reichstag, declaring war on the USA, 11 December 1941.

The Palestinians, Jack Kelly states in his excellent Real Clear Politics column today, have taken off the mask by giving Hamas a majority of seats in their recent parliamentary elections. If Mr. Kelly is correct, it just goes to prove that the Palestinians have a positive genius for stupidity. Yesterday, the British newspaper Guardian’s online edition ran a very well-written position statement by a Mr. Khalid Mish'al, described as the chief of the terrorist organization/political party Hamas’s “political bureau.” This document, reprinted online at the Los Angeles Times website (both available via Real Clear Politics), quite candidly sets out Hamas’s position.

Mr. Mish’al assures us that when Palestinians went to the polls last week, they were “well aware of what was being offered…and chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people…” More fools they. Nothing if not confident, Mr. Mish’al says that “Hamas has been elected mainly because of its immovable faith in the inevitability of victory…” and states that “… our cause is no less worthy, our determination is no less profound; our patience is no less abundant” than the “peoples of Vietnam and South Africa.”

Hamas is all about war. According to Mr. Mish’al: “[w]e shall never recognize the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil…” Well, Mr. Mish’al, then you, and all those who are fools enough to follow your party, and possibly millions of other innocent bystanders, mostly Palestinians and Arabs -- are going to wind-up very dead.

Hamas represents the lethal convergence of two Palestinian political trends; the resurgence of Islam as a political force, supplanting the secular Nasserist nationalism of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah; and the continuing Palestinian desire to wipe Israel off the map, rather than make a deal with it. To be sure, Arafat and Fatah, when not playing terrorist, never did more than flirt with a deal, or talk around one. Fatah never sold out completely the wish-dream of driving the Zionists into the sea.

In diplomatic terms, the Palestinians have never been satisified with what Israel and the West have had on offer: some kind of an undoing of the results of the 1967 Six Day War. What the Palestinians want is an undoing of the Nakba (disaster) – the Israeli War of Independence of 1948.

Relations between states, however you pretty them up, are essentially still conducted on jungle rules. The Arabs can have Palestine from the Jordan to the sea, if they can but get it. Similarly, Germany can drink the waters of the Pregel; have Silesia, Posen, Pomerania, and Alsace-Lorraine back; rename Wrocław, Breslau once again; and, make Kaliningrad, Königsberg once more -- if it can only win a world war. France can have Belgium and the Rhineland – if it beats Germany and England; the Cherokee can recover northern Georgia, large parts of the Carolinas and east Tennessee, if they can but throw down the United States. The Austrians can have Pressburg back, should they thrash Slovakia. The processes that changed the ownership and names of all these places were all every bit as tragic and drenched in tears as the Nakba. It can all, every bit, be undone in return for mountains of treasure, oceans of blood, and eons more misery.

Nobody can deny that the Palestinian people are in an unenviable position. But they were offered half a loaf, in 1948. They scorned it, gambled on arms, and lost. The Palestinians learned nothing, and in 1967 they blustered like Mr. Mish'al today and blundered themselves into another war, and lost again. Now, the Palestinians, by choosing Hamas, have again chosen war. If Mr. Mish’al is serious about Hamas’s stand, they will get it in spades.

Mr. Mish'al proclaims that Hamas is "immune to bribery, intimidation and blackmail." Maybe, but how will it do against F-16's, 5.56 mm ball, and 155 mm H.E. ? Do the Palestinians, and the Arab nation, really have a death wish ? Israel has nuclear weapons. It really is double or nothing this time, and I know how I'm betting. If there is going to be no Zionist state in Palestine – there is going to be no Palestine, period.

The Palestinians are cheerfully, heedlessly, gleefully driving Israel to the far right, and ensuring that the US and Europe will regretfully avert their glances while the Israelis turn the West Bank into a giant prison/abattoir. The Palestinians have taken off the mask, and Hamas, like Chancellor Hitler for the Germans in the Reichstag, can bleat about the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" and can proclaim the impending suicide of Palestine to the skies if it wants. A Netanyahu government – certainly a good possibility now, is going to, in Mr. Kelly’s words again, take off the gloves.

Apollo Fire

I remember lots of historical anniversaries, and it dawned on me this morning that I had forgotten to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Apollo 204 fire yesterday. I have posted on this once previously, and will not say more. A long-ago tragedy, forgotten by most, but not by me.

You and What Navy ?

The incoming Conservative Party Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Stephen Harper, no doubt seeking to burnish his nationalist credentials, and prove he’s not a US lapdog, stated today that he would stand by a campaign promise to make more use of the Canadian military to patrol the Northwest Passage, which Canada claims as territorial waters. The US disputes this claim. The US uses the Northwest Passage at times to shift submarines around in the northern wastes, to keep an eye on Russia.

Okay Mr. Harper, you’ve made your ritual demonstration of national independence. Hopefully you have the good sense not to be serious. German Prime Minister Prince Otto von Bismarck was once asked what he would do if the British Army invaded Pomerania. Bismarck responded that he would “send a policeman and have it arrested.”

Given the sorry state of the Canadian military, if the Canadians want to play footsie, possibly we could take a leaf from Bismarck’s book and get away with sending a harbor police launch. On second thought, if all this interest in the frozen tundra resulted in the Canadians getting serious and rebuilding their military, we could sure use some help elsewhere.

Long Island Lolita

Amy Fisher, the “Long Island Lolita” is going to have a made for TV “reunion” with her former lover, Joey Buttafuoco (no, don’t even start with THAT name) and his wife, the former Mrs. Buttafuoco. Yeah, you remember, the same Mrs. Buttafuoco the aforesaid L.L. Lolita (age 17 at the time) shot in the face and left partially paralyzed.

L.L. Lolita, now 31 says that it’s “…time to just put it behind us” and opines that it would be “…interesting to let the public see the healing process.” I guess making a parody of shooting and maiming is no real big deal today, especially if all parties can make a few bucks out of the deal.

Joey B (now age 49), says that there will be a “lot of shocking revelations” and says that he was asked “a million times” by Mrs. B: “[w]hy did Amy shoot me ?” Well, Mrs. B, maybe because L.L. Lolita was bopping your husband and wanted him to herself ? Joey, clearly a rocket scientist, says that he was “never able to get that answer.”

L.L. Lolita got seven years. Joey went on to divorce, and a stint in jail for unrelated insurance fraud. Mrs. B, who would be deserving of sympathy, not to mention every penny produced by this sordid enterprise if she were not making a joke of herself, is now engaged. Hope you have a pre-nup Mrs. B. Now, there’s just nothing for it but to wait for the “shocking revelations.” Soon, no doubt, to be a large-print book, with monosyllabic words, large print and lots of pictures, coming to a drug store newsstand near year. Let the “healing” begin.

Canadian Elections

Canada votes today, and unless the polls are all wrong, the noxious Liberals, who have dominated Canadian politics since the late 1950's, are about to be consigned to a spell out of power.

Since the "repatriation" of Canada's constitution, and the diminution of that country's ties with Great Britain, a certain amount of public animus towards the Colossus of the South is probably a political necessity to a canny Canuck politico. American money, culture and trade completely dominate Canada; and if the Maple Leaf follows the Stars and Stripes in everything, of what use is the existence of Canada ?

To be sure, the disagreements between the two governments are mostly rhetorical and over matters of little consequence, and for that reason, all the more intractable. Geography dictates the relationship: in ways not to Canada's advantage. The relative size of the two countries, (as measured by population and GDP, and the proximity of the parties, and the presence of Quebec, which severely divides Canada internally), ensures that in everything that counts, Canada is going to be very much a junior partner of the US. For all these reasons, it is unwise to hope for much atmospheric improvement of relations between Ottawa and Washington.

It has been said of Canada that the country was blessed with the opportunity to have the best of everything: French culture, British law and American industry; but instead wound up with American culture, French law and British industry. If Canada is even more unlucky, it might wind up with a considerable number of Blue State refugees, if American politics persists in the present happy pattern.