Author: VD

The newspapers are crying crocodile tears about the young woman soldier who died in Iraq and her two sisters who are still on duty. Keep in mind that these are, for the most part, the very individuals who have been arguing that women have an absolute right to serve in the military, not only in a support role but in the elite special forces as well. They cheered the ludicrous notion of GI Jane, the Navy SEAL, (GI?) and then are horrified when these American Amazons experience what happens to a dependable percentage of soldiers in combat.

As I have written before, most women and the sort of men who don’t engage in any physical activity – such as the average left-oriented journalist – have simply no idea how great a divide separates the sexes. I’m not a particularly big guy, but when I was in the weight room doing arms today, I curled Space Bunny’s weight five times. Now, consider that she’s taller than average and extremely fit – scored 100 on the USMC’s fitness test when we took it for fun one day – but can’t even come close to benching her own bodyweight once.

There are those who think that modern combat doesn’t require physical strength, and it’s true, you’re not often carrying a sword and shield around these days. But an M-16 and several hundred rounds of ammo aren’t exactly weightless, and in the field, it’s not always possible to have the cooking staff setting up a kitchen and serving you hot meals. So, you’ll probably want to carry around a few MREs. And then, you’re in the desert so water is a necessity, and water is surprisingly heavy. Not to mention the GPS, grenades and ten other things that I’m forgetting.

I’m sorry for that girl, her sisters and her parents too. But she should never have been there, in a combat zone, in the first place.

The Evangelical Outpost travels to the strange, strange world of Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder: …the last straw came when he “dropped the N-word,” as one amused observer recalled. He said—bragged, even—that he’d voted for Nader in 2000. At that point, according to Hamilton Fish, the host of the party, “it got interactive.” Eric Alterman, a columnist for The Nation, was sitting in the back of the room, next to Joe Wilson, the Ambassador. He shouted out, “Thanks for Bush!” Exactly what happened next is unclear. Alterman recalls that McGruder responded by grabbing his crotch and saying, “Try these nuts.” Jack Newfield, the longtime Village Voice writer, says that McGruder simply dared Alterman to remove him from the podium. When asked about this incident later, McGruder said, “I ain’t no punk. I ain’t gonna let someone shout and not go back at him.” Alterman walked out. “I turned to Joe and said, ‘I can’t listen to this crap anymore,’” he remembers. “I went out into the Metropolitan Club lobby—it’s a nice lobby—and I worked on my manuscript.”

Sometimes I really feel as if I’m missing out by not living my life in the incestuous little media fish bowl. All of these little dust-ups that never amount to anything, posturing between gamma males who only talk smack because they know no one is ever going to actually do anything about it. So, what do we learn from this?

1. McGruder not only isn’t funny, he’s pathetic. Like most lefties, he can’t take any heat.

2. Alterman is not only an intellectual coward, it sounds as if he might be a physical one as well. I note in passing that he subscribes to the same pragmatic voting philosophy as our friendly lesser-of-two-evils gang here.

3. Left-liberal gatherings have the same high-strung bitchy vibe as sorority meetings at elite colleges.

Reading this, it makes me feel a little bit like one of my friends in the dojo, one of our most lethal fighters. He was looking rather wistful as we watched a fight getting broken up one evening out at the clubs. “Thirteen years I’ve trained, and no one ever even takes a swing at me,” he said, more than a little sadly. I pointed out that it would probably help if he would stop wearing Dragon accoutrements and generally looking as if he was just itching for the opportunity to go Bruce Lee on someone. When even the gangstas are looking at you, raising their eyebrows and looking quickly away, you might want to consider bringing it down a few notches if you want to get your bang on.

This reminds me – it isn’t related – but if you’re interested in martial arts, one of the instructors I trained under for a few months apparently has a video series out. Karl’s a nice guy and great fighter, but he could be a little touchy at times. After Big Chilly trophied at Diamond Nationals and Karl failed to defend his title there, he was still pissed-off to such an extent that he ended up cracking Big Chilly’s ribs with a sidekick the next time they sparred. I drove by the building where Karate Junction was the other day; it’s been demolished and a new building is going up. No great architectural loss to the world, but it made me feel sentimental, for a moment, anyhow.

You may recall that I estimated that I’d been pounded several hundred times in the past. Karl is responsible for about 10 or 12 of those poundings. He knows what he’s doing.

Puzzled asks: RJK and VD: where did you study medicine?

I can’t speak for RJK, naturally, but I have my MD from the same place many of the public school counselors, psychiatrists, and child psychologists who prescribe Ritalin, often after a five-minute consult, received theirs.

“…one urban school district in Minnesota reported administering 1,294 medications in 1985; by 2000, that number had increased to 35,111, according to a 2002 report to the Minnesota Legislature…. In Maine, for example, the Legislature found in 2000 that 63 percent of school personnel who were distributing drugs had two hours or less of training.”

Shoot, I’ve got more, ahem, training, than that….

Even the DEA is concerned: “The DEA doesn’t have oversight in schools, where large quantities of methylphenidate are often stored in unlocked drawers and dispensed by nonmedical personnel. Many schools have more methylphenidate on hand than some pharmacies.”

House Passes Bill to Bar Schools from Requiring Medication of Students

The United States House of Representatives voted May 21 to prohibit school personnel from requiring a child to obtain a prescription for a controlled substance as a condition of attending school. State education agencies would be required to develop policies and procedures to prevent schools from making such requirements…. The House Committee on Education noted that it was concerned especially about the appropriate role of prescription medication in treating children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD). “The Committee has been made aware of situations where parents have voiced concern that local educational agency officials have required them to place children on psychotropic medication in order to attend school or receive services.”

The Fraters Libertas leading the charge for subscribers to drop the Star and Sickle in my hometown. Good onya, gentlemen. Looking forward to congratulating them on their anti-paper drive – let’s expand the movement to include the ABCNNBCBS cabal. If you don’t read it/watch it, they can’t sell advertising.

In the words of the immortal Chuck D, SHUT ‘EM DOWN!

and I didn’t even hit him! You have to check these posts out, they’re hilarious! It’s amazing how fast they leap to the obvious conclusion: it’s the fascists!

Take the under….

Consumer prices – lifted by more expensive gasoline, airfares and clothing – rose by 0.5 percent in March, raising questions about whether the seeds of unwanted inflation are being sown.

Not that the CPI is the least bit accurate, but it’s interesting that despite every effort to hide inflation, it’s still running at a 6 percent annual rate. What’s also amusing to me is that when the monthly rate is low, the annual rate is reported. When it starts getting higher, the annualization mysteriously vanishes. It doesn’t make those money market rates look so good, now, does it.

John Derbyshire concludes, in his wisdom: Thus we are unwilling to take either the First Way or the Second, to play either the Angel of Vengeance or the Great White Father Over the Sea. There is nothing for it but to seek a Third Way. Will the Third Way work? Personally, I doubt it. Given what we are, though — what we have become — I don’t see that we have any choice.

It is profoundly stupid to knowingly continue down a path that won’t take you where you need to go, but it is intriguing to watch. I was always curious, when reading history, to know why intelligent men would do what, not only in hindsight but even at the time, were obviously stupid things. The answer is that they felt they had to, whether it was to save face, honor or political standing. Greatness requires surmounting at very least the latter, unfortunately neither George Bush nor John Kerry show the least little sign of being either interested or able to do so.

Many of the president’s defenders say: “he can’t do X because he’ll lose support.” Yes, because often doing the right thing means upsetting the idiots who have no idea what is going on. But you must do it, if it is the right thing. George Bush is trying to do the minimal thing, to fight a war on method that will somehow – he has no idea how – keep the enemy at arms length without destabilizing the economy or turning the conflict into full-scale war. I don’t think most people realize what a tightrope he is attempting to walk, nor how small his chances of success are.

Better to grasp the nettle and have done with it.

One of my favorite memories of being in a band, aside from the occasional Bacchanalia you’d imagine, was the evening we were visited by Wax Trax! Records. The VP of A&R, the owner and his boyfriend flew up to Minneapolis to check us out, speak with us and take us to dinner. Our music was a little on the light side for them, as Ministry and Thrill Kill had just left them for greener pastures and KMFDM was the main act they were pushing, along with a NIN wannabee called Sister Machine Gun. The first sign that things weren’t likely to be entirely synchronous between us was when we were sitting down at a nice Italian restaurant – an old favorite of mine called Pronto – and the lead singer started having a knowledgeable discussion about wine with the main keyboard programmer.

The owner looked at the VP and said: “geez, are we signing a band or a bunch of wine critics?” The best part, though, was when we heading back from the clubs later and we drove past the homosexuals gathered en masse outside the Gay 90’s, as was their wont at closing time. Fortunately, we were in two taxis, so only the VP was in the car with the drummer and I when our astoundingly clueless drummer said: “holy cow, look at all those faggots.”

The VP looked a little concerned, cleared his throat and said, “Mike, you should probably know that Jim and Danny are partners.” The drummer, who was quite young, perhaps 18, said “business partners?” The VP put his head in his hands and just about died laughing. Good times, good times.

Daniel Pipes writes: For Muslims, rule by non-Muslims is an abomination, a blasphemous inversion of God’s dispensation. This explains why one finds a consistently strong resistance to rule by non-Muslims through 14 centuries of Muslim history. Europeans recognized this resistance and in their post-crusades global expansion stayed largely away from majority-Muslim territories…. This history suggests that the coalition’s grand aspirations for Iraq will not succeed. However constructive its intentions to build democracy, the coalition cannot win the confidence of Muslim Iraq nor win acceptance as its overlord….. I therefore counsel the occupying forces quickly to leave Iraqi cities and then, when feasible, to leave Iraq as a whole.

In other words, the administration is not only ignoring sound military strategy, but the history of past occupations in the region as well. If the war on global jihad is not on – and from the President’s speech, it’s clear that he has no stomach for either declaring it or waging it – we must bring the troops home now.

From the London Telegraph: The New World has lost its superiority over the Old – at least in terms of physical stature – and John Komlos has the evidence to prove it. His records, including files on “runaway slaves”, “indentured servants” and “West Point graduates”, bear testament to the American decline. Prof Komlos’s research over more than 20 years has documented the heights of almost a quarter of a million people from the 1700s to today. The findings, he says, provide the most accurate gauge to date with which to measure the development of the human physique. “Americans have stopped growing while Europeans are increasing in height at quite a pace,” says Prof Komlos, 50, a leading “anthropometric historian” who studies such development.

Meanwhile, a study appearing in Pediatrics magazine states of children on Ritalin: “I don’t think this is necessarily a cause for great alarm in parents. The effect was rather modest, only about a centimeter less over a year.” Children on medication also grew slightly less than their non-medicated peers. Children on medication alone gained 4.85 centimeters, while those on combination therapy grew 4.25 centimeters. Kids receiving behavioral therapy grew an average of 6.19 centimeters, while a “control” group of children grew 5.68 centimeters.

I’m a pro-legalization libertarian. I have no intellectual problem with people deciding to spend their lives in search of the eternal buzz. That being said, ARE THESE PARENTS COMPLETELY FREAKING INSANE OR WHAT? You don’t inject your child with heroin, you don’t cut them a line or two before sending them off to school and you don’t have them popping speed like vitamins either! And anti-depressants? If your kid is depressed about school, then pull him out of the public schools, don’t turn him into a creepily smiling medi-zombie!

At least this puts the lie to the drug war. There’s absolutely no case for banning social pharmaceuticals when much stronger drugs are being prescribed by non-medical personnel to four year-olds. Maybe the realization they risk turning their children into physical midgets as well as mental ones might wake a few parents up, but I’m not optimistic.