Brian Micklethwait explains his understanding:
So, when all else fails, go with babe appeal. I give you Hilary Hahn. Now I don’t yet get all the subtleties of Samizdata’s editorial policy, but when it comes to babe photography it’s my clear understanding that we’re for it. So here are some Hahn likenesses, taken from her website.
I’m not sure what Natalie‘s take on this is; she hasn’t posted any firemen photos to make the Third Hand people happy yet.
I’m not a big fan of poetry — any possible love that I may have had for it was cured way back in the eighties by my high school English teachers. However, every once in a while certain passages having a certain haunting quality that speak to the universality of human experience. Ribbstone-Pippin is planning to post a poem a week. The non-metric conforming lines of the last stanza of this week’s lengthy piece are beautiful:
For more about Philip Larkin, click here.
To visit the Philip Larkin Society, click here.
Amazing. Doesn’t that just say it all?
Your objective is simple: Widespread Misery.
Your motive is a little bit more complex: Revenge
Stage One
To begin your plan, you must first traumatize a senator. This will cause the world to sit up and take notice, stunned by your arrival. Who is this sadistic fiend? Where did they come from? And why do they look so good in classic black?
Stage Two
Next, you will sabotoge that Opera House in Sydney. This will cause countless hordes of classic thugs to flock to you, begging to do your every bidding. Your name will become synonymous with dear god no, as lesser men whisper your name in terror.
Stage Three
Finally, you will covertly move your doomsday device, bringing about pain, suffering, the usual. This will all be done from a Underground Secret Headquarters of Doom, an excellent choice if we might say.
These three deeds will herald the end, and the citizens of this planet will have no choice but to elect you their new god.
Trust us, it’ll all come together in the end.
Sigh, I really have to give this up. Here‘s where you get yours. Via Ye Olde Blogge.
Rabble.ca has an astonishingly stupid article on friendly fire casualties today. Brushing aside the easily refuted claim that “thousands” of civilians died (“Some European aid workers in the region cite figures closer to 8,000″), let’s look at their main claim:
However, while the hardware has improved, the prowess of soldiers has not. Troops have been accidentally killing their own throughout the history of armed conflict. But the proportion of soldiers killed by friendly fire rises as the number killed by the enemy falls.
Well, like duh. If you kill 10 of your own and the enemy kills 990, 1% of your deaths have been caused by friendly fire. However, if the enemy can only manage to kill 10 of you, 50% of your deaths have been by friendly fire. Oh my god! I will agree it’s 10 too many. However, the point is that it’s still the same number killed by friendly fire — the only thing that has been changed is the efficacy of your enemy.
From there, there’s only a small leap for the innumerates at Rabble to come to this next conclusion:
As the United States, driven by a new war fervour, evolves from a military super-power into a military colossus, it will kill a growing number of soldiers and civilians who are considered enemies. At the same time, despite the swelling lethal accuracy of its hardware, it will also kill more and more of its own (and allied) soldiers.
Nope, sorry Charlie: proportion and absolute numbers are totally different things. Civilian and friendly fire deaths caused by western nations have massively decreased since WWII. I guess this kind of “thinking” must play well in the intellectual sticks of feminist studies majors, but I suggest you review your Grade VIII (that’s an 8, not “iksee”) math book — if you haven’t burned it already as European patriarchal propaganda.
I’m both saddened and sickened Desmond Tutu‘s accusation that “Israel of practising apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians“. What’s there to say anymore? The last bit from the BBC reads like a UN press release: “strive for peace based on justice, based on withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on those territories side by side with Israel, both with secure borders“. Sure, and Israel has offered it, and the Palestinians have explicitly rejected over and over: they don’t want a state “side by side” with Israel, they want (nice interpretation) a Palestinian state overlaid on top of Israel, or (reality) Israel to be totally and permanently destroyed.
Would the morality of apartheid been so clear to Tutu if a precondition for ending it was “extermination and/or expulsion” of all white-skinned people in South Africa. Would it have been moral then?
Thanks Damien.
I just watched Michael Schumacher drive his car around a race course in Spain. There may have been some other cars on the course also, so I hear. Unless some errant National Guard F-16 fighter jockey drops a 500 lb. bomb on this guy, the only competition for the rest of the year is going to be for second place.
There were other cars on the course. Ralphie’s blew up on the final lap; big brother took a spin by to see if he was OK, or maybe just to razz him. The other Ferrari car stalled on the start line. Villeneuve came 7th — the difference that an average speed of 3 km/h makes.
And he mentions one of our own!
On Sunday, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the alleged extreme right-wing madman, managed to place second in the first round of the French Presidential election. Since then, many Europhile commentators in the English-speaking world have been attempting to reassure us that the significance of this event has been much overplayed — Le Pen only got a little more than he usually gets, pure fluke he came second, nothing to see here, move along. The best response to this line of thinking was by the shrewd Internet commentatrix Megan McArdle: “They’re completely missing the point, which is that it’s hilarious.”
…
Still, despite the racism and bigotry, I resent the characterization of M. Le Pen as “extreme right.” I’m an extreme right-wing madman myself, and it takes one to know one. M. Le Pen is an economic protectionist in favour of the minimum wage, lavish subsidies for France’s incompetent industries and inefficient agriculture; he’s anti-American and fiercely opposed to globalization. In other words, he’s got far more in common with Naomi Klein than with me. He would fit right in as a guest host on the CBC’s CounterSpin. Even the antipathy toward Jews is more of a left-wing thing these days — see the EU, UN, Svend and Mary Robinson, etc.
“The Eurosnots learn nothing“, Mark Steyn, National Post, 2002.04.26
What’s remarkable about Canada’s freakazoid-left is their remarkable lack of introspection or meaningful self-examination. I cannot think of one single current issue where I agree with Judy Rebick, Sven Robinson, Naomi Klien, et. al.. Their position is almost universally formulated as whatever “the mainstream” — the filthy bourgeoisie — think is right, we’ll say it’s wrong. Here’s a number of quotes from Judy Rebick’s latest idiocy in Rabble.ca.
While there has been no rush to support Canadas far right in the wake of September 11, we are witnessing a fracturing of the left. There are deep divisions between the social left and the political left. Low voter turnouts do not help.
Pardon? It’s Canada’s right that has been fractured for the last decade and suffering electorally for it — a situation not unsimilar to France’s left. And what is unstated is that it’s the writer of this piece, plus her pal Robinson, that have been leading the charge to fracture the Canadian left with their “New Policy Initiative”. Of course, what Rebick wants is “left-wing” group consensus along the lowest common denominator — and Judy has shown she’s more than willing to go lower than anyone else. This is what Lileks is writing about in his eulogy to the anti-globalization crowd: once you’re willing to accept the “Death to Jews” crowd into your camp, you’re inherently marginal. You can make any excuse you want for them being there, but that’s what you are. Thus, the increasingly pathetic showings for the “anti-” rally of the week: the party’s over and all that are left are the drunken idiots who didn’t know when to say enough and call a cab home.
We need to develop an analysis of the links among the neo-liberal agenda, the war on terrorism and Israeli aggression in the Middle East. I believe we are witnessing a new, highly militarized stage of corporate capitalism, a new form of imperialism. Accounts of pre-war Nazi Germany sound eerily familiar.
The pot calls the kettle black. It’s quite simple Judy: the Jews, in conjunction with the neo-liberals, the reverse vampires and the UFO people are secretly controlling the giant corporations in the hopes of creating huge war bucks needing to ensure American hegemony and carry out the secret earth-colonization plans. Haven’t you noticed the way the stock market has soared since 9/11? Enron was a pawn sacrifice to ensure no one paid close attention to what the other corporations were doing.
No matter how strong our social movements become, if they have no reflection on the electoral level, we can expect to see growing support for the extreme right whether in the form of social conservatives in North America; neo-Nazis in Europe; or Moslem and Hindu fundamentalists in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
This is a such a blindingly stupid statement, it’s hard to know where to start. The Neo-Nazi nutbars are popping up in countries where there are strong left parties that have been choking the local economies to death, branding any “dissent” (that’s people disagreeing with you, Judy) as racism or sexism or anti-state crimes, and generally making a shithole out of the place. Democracies without domineering left-wing politics aren’t seeing any sort of rise in the radical right. That is, unless you label everyone who disagrees with you a neo-Nazi. Ooops, I just noticed you do. Never mind Judy, go back to your party.
What do you do after your school has been blown up? Why, you sit down and enjoy a cool sip of bottled water and munch on a nice blood burger.
yes, I know it’s a wrapper. It took a second look though.
Some law professor wants “non-human animals” to be recognized as persons under the US Constitution. And why not? Does not the Declaration of Indepence start with “We the people and our barnyard animals?”
The Americans want to give our soldiers the bronze star. Our government wants to spit on them. Bizarrely, this story is not being reported by the CBC on their web site.
“If we’re going to have the Shield of David, why would we not have to accept the swastika?” Cornelio Sommaruga, past president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Read more here
Just kidding. Well, sort of: here’s an investment strategy for you: every time the DJIA reaches 10,000, buy in big time. Everytime it reaches 11,000, sell everything. Please forward me 3% of the earnings.
CNN on TV has already changed the story, saying it’s the building _next_ to the technical school.
Canada is theoretically facing a population problem, though that problem only exists if you believe that Canada’s population should be constantly and fairly rapidly expanding. The government wants to solve this problem by increasing immigration. Since Canada is having trouble meeting its immigration quotas right now, the government has come up with the predictable (but sad) plan of lowering the requirements for immigrants. Many right minded (so to speak) people, including myself, think this is a bad idea since all it’s likely to do is import large numbers of goofballs whose only apparent talent is drawing money from the system while simultaneously showing barely hidden disdain if not outright hatred for their new fellow citizens.
Argentina has a large, well-educated, westernized middle-class population who speak an important language, are very familiar with English, and could easily transition to French also if necessary. And Argentina is screwed.
Let’s open the floodgates.
Purely by accident, I just read three Al-Toronto Star articles in a row. That’s a first for me.
I started writing a long piece on this call for reparations to Canadian aboriginals, found (where else) in Rabble.ca. What’s the point? I thought the “no taxes”, “free education”, and “$14,000 per Indian per year forever” was enough. Apparently not for some people, who want to see some substantial groveling to help them along their “healing journey”.
I guess the last paragraph sums it up nicely: “When asked if she felt the Canadian government would ever return treaty land back to the Aboriginal people, Rileys answer was a resounding no. She felt it was more important to focus on uniting the four different races red, yellow, white and black together against present and future injustices. That way, she said, we could go on the healing journey together“. The red, yellow, white and black races? A 18th century slave owner or a 1970′s South African government paid theorist couldn’t have expressed this horrible ugly thought better.
The new leader of the Canadian Alliance bravely attacks what appears to me to be a nonexistent problem — the age of consent in Canada. Pardon? Aren’t there any pressing problems in Canada that actually need to be attacked? I can’t get out of my mind the image that the Canadian Alliance sit around all day and fantasize about sexual perverts and sexual perversions. They can’t even manage to come up with a plausible reason for introducing these changes: “The current age of consent leaves children and teenagers open to becoming targets of pornographers, Internet sex scams, pedophiles and sexual abuse“. Yeah? How about some examples of where this has become a problem in Canada — that’d be a little more convincing.
I’m not saying whether raising the age of consent to 16 is a good or a bad idea. However, initiatives like this — “a good first step in putting the interests of children back on the public agenda” — a very much phrased in the logic of “are you still beating your wife”: “you’re against our law? — you must be some sick child-molestin’ weirdo”. But by Harper making this the first major initiatives of his tenure, it’s saying to me that the CA wants to be Canada’s morality patrol. Hey, no thanks. See you next election.
The Canadian government is hedging on allowing the US award five Canadian snipers the Bronze Star because either the Canadian government is squeamish about recognizing we’re efficient and ruthless killers of bad guys, or the Canadian military needs time to figure out what to award these guys themselves first. I understand this is called “protocol problems” which is very different than not being able to get your modem to work from your hotel room. Instapundit has the original scoop (as if he needs links) and a good quote from Canadian Michael Homburger: “[Canada is] country of giants being ruled by pygmies”.
However, I just wanted to point out the actions of a particular Newfoundlander, who may have set a long-distance sniper shot record: 2430 metres. Do you know how far that is? 2.430 km. That’s a long ways away.
One member of the team, a corporal from Newfoundland, said on his first night in combat he and his partner got an al-Qaeda machine gun in their sights as it was hailing bullets down on U.S. troops below. Crawling up into a good position, they set up their .50-calibre rifle — the MacMillan Tac-50, a weapon the corporal compares to having superhuman power in your hands. “Firing it feels like someone slashing you on the back of your hockey helmet with a hockey stick.” When he hit his first target, an enemy gunman at a distance of 1,700 metres, he said all that ran through his mind was locating his next target. “All I thought of was Sept. 11th and all those people who didn’t have a chance and the American reporter who was taken hostage, murdered and his wife getting the videotape of the execution; that is my justification.”
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During the next four days of fighting, the Newfoundland corporal set what is believed to be a record for a long-distance shot under combat conditions, hitting an enemy gunman at a distance of 2,430 metres.
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Three of them, along with U.S. special forces soldiers, also rescued a company of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division that was pinned down by enemy fire on the first day of Operation Anaconda.
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Lieutenant Justin Overbaugh, of the American scout platoon to which the Canadian snipers were attached, said it was a pleasure to work with the Canadian troops [in "Operation Harpoon"]. “Their professionalism was amazing,” Lieut. Overbaugh said. “The Canadians were a very large asset to the mission. I would have loved to have 12 Canadian sniper teams out there. I’d have no problems fighting alongside of them again.” He said the Canadian snipers had equipment far superior to theirs. Their rifles had longer range than the U.S. weapons and better high-tech sights. Lieut. Overbaugh said if another mission comes up, he will request the Canadian sniper teams be sent with his unit. Senior military officials in Ottawa made a point of praising their work at the time. “The sniper teams suppressed enemy mortars and heavy machine-gun positions with deadly accuracy,” Vice-Admiral Greg Maddison said after Operation Harpoon ended. “Their skills are credited with likely having saved many allied lives.”
“Wait due to ‘Canadian protocol’“, Michael Smith and Chris Wattie, National Post, 2002.04.23
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