Author: VD

I’ve seen these cartoons around before, but I didn’t realize that they had a blog. Many of them are quite good; I particularly liked the two that were done after the elimination of the Hamas leader. Check out Cox and Fortnum’s editorial cartoons, if you haven’t already.

As everyone who visits here regularly is aware, I am highly critical of the Bush administration’s prosecution of this undeclared – on our part – war. That being said, I’m pleased to give credit where credit is due, most especially when it is due the United States Marine Corps. This is one of the first signs of good sense I’ve seen since the brilliant execution of the capture of Baghdad in less than a month.



The head of the Marines First Division, General James Mattis, defended the attack, warning if rebels used places of worship in their war against US forces, his troops would not hesitate to strike them at sacred sites. “If they barricade themselves inside a mosque, we are not going to care about the mosque anymore than they do,” Mattis said.

It’s still far too soon to see if the War on Global Jihad will end in victory, but at least there are early indications that this will not be another Vietnam, where the politicians tell the soldiers how to fight.

The Evangelical Outpost slams Harvard’s school of divinity by using the cruel technique of quoting its professors: When the faculty gathered recently to discuss Mel Gibson’s “The Passion”, the reaction was unanimous — they hated it. That in itself is probably to be expected since claiming an appreciation of the movie would have required taking a courageously contrarian stance. But the attitude toward the reference material is rather peculiar and disturbing: “Although Gibson claimed “The Passion of the Christ” remains true to the history of the Gospels, [François] Bovon pointed out that this might be a hollow claim. “The Gospels are history and interpretation,” he said. “The Gospels are not our best sources to the history of the passion of Jesus.”

Someone should point out to Dr. Bovon that the Gospels are the only sources to the history of the passion event. You would expect that the former dean of the University of Geneva to have access to that type of knowledge. (John Calvin, who founded the school, must be spinning in his grave.) Harvey Cox, who proudly wears the label of “heretic”, also weighs in: “The problem is that much of this stuff in the movie is in the Gospels,” countered Cox. “It’s read every Good Friday in churches.”

This reminds me of my favorite, and only, experience at Harvard when I was up there for the weekend visiting a friend. At a party that night, we were listening to a pretentious hockey player pontificate about how fabulous the school’s hockey team was, leaving everyone present with the distinct impression that he was a member of the team. He was more than a little put out when I asked him why he was not in Minnesota, as the team was away playing the Gophers that weekend. He finally admitted that he was just an intramural player, trying to impress the chickadees, of course. From such nebulous stuff are our political leaders made.

Steven Vincent writes on NRO of Shiite martyrdrama: Unless you have the instincts of a pre-Reformation Catholic peasant-or Mel Gibson — it is nearly impossible to grasp this appreciation of suffering and death. But here it is not death as a redemptive power, death as spectacle — a public expression that seeks the admiration of man as much as God. This is what, in my mind, separates Shia radicalism from its Sunni counterpart. Wahabbi and Palestinian suicide bombers seek honor and glorification by killing their enemies; the Shiites’ spiritual apotheosis, on the contrary, comes from having their enemies kill them — a kind of suicidal exhibitionism that fetishizes Hussein’s fate at Karbala. Early Christians felt that the blood of martyrs nourished the Church; Shiites believe that martyr blood will embellish their own holiness and that of their families for untold generations.

Seen in this light, it’s not surprising that the first eleven of Shia’s twelve sinless imams died by unnatural causes, their infallibility apparently unable to detect the poisons that dispatched each to Allah. (The 12th imam, Mohammad al-Mahdi, disappeared down a hole in Samarra and won’t be seen again until Judgment Day.) Contemporary imams have likewise met grisly fates. Last August, a car bomb killed Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim in Najaf. An interesting Shia poster depicts the slain cleric along with over 60 extended family members — all of whom were executed by Saddam Hussein — superimposed over a bleeding map of Iraq. More prevalent is a poster that shows a stunned Moqtada al-Sadr cradling his father, whom Saddam’s thugs murdered — along with Sadr’s two eldest brothers — in 1999. In 1980, Sadr’s uncle, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Sadr, and his aunt, Bint Hoda, also met death at Baathist hands — a legacy of martyrdom that gives the 31-year-old cleric a spiritual authority his youth would not otherwise warrant among the age-revering Shiites.

I have no doubt that the Marines will give al-Sadr what he appears to be seeking, but this underlines the point that I was making about how “lowering the boom” is unlikely to have the effect that it would have in a less death-worshipping culture. I don’t know precisely what the effect will be, nor do I fear the effects of “Shiite anger” – what does it matter if they’re angry when they hate you already – but I find it difficult to imagine that a people steeped in a mindset so alien and warped by decades of suffering are going to respond as we think they should.

I suspect it may be as Dobson writes of an abused child. Whereas discipline corrects the behavior of a normal, loved child, it does not have the same salutary effect on an abused child that has been given reason to fear and hate the abuser. And yet, it’s hard to even conceive the possibility of showing metaphorical love in this situation, particularly through the unlikely device of the USMC. Well, it’s unwise to attempt to build a military strategy around a metaphor anyhow.

Actually, it’s just an amusing little poli-spectrum test. It’s not serious and mistakenly describes libertarians as libertines, but some of the characterizations are quite good. Here’s my favorite two:

17: For what offenses should unlimited asset forfeiture become standard operating procedure?

CONS: Drug dealing.

LIBL: Insider securities trading.

LBRT: Nothing.

COMM: Being too successful in the marketplace.

56: What are the responsibilities of all good citizens?

CONS: Pay some taxes, begrudgingly.

LIBL: Pay lots of taxes for the betterment of all mankind- without whining.

LBRT: Fight foreign invaders on American soil.

COMM: Unquestioned obedience.

For some reason, that last one cracks me up, as it beautifully lampoons the way in which libertarians strike both Republicans and Democrats as being completely over-the-top out there. And then, the Communist answer is the perfect follow-through.

Alex asks: What would you say Vox about attractive women who find average-looking brainiac types hard to resist? Do you believe that a beautiful woman can be attracted primarily to a man’s intellect, higher the better?

Absolutely. This isn’t always the case – it doesn’t happen anywhere nearly as often as your average computer geek wishes – but I’ve certainly known it to happen to more than a few individuals. Space Bunny, who is by all accounts a very attractive woman, has usually tended to gravitate towards more intelligent men. The Chilliette pursued Big Chilly remorselessly in preference to men like the UCLA quarterback she’d previously dated. And years ago, I happened to date an Elite girl who was only interested in either brains or fame. As long as the guy wasn’t a complete toad, looks were irrelevant. So, it happens.

That being said, it’s more the exception than the rule. You don’t see women flocking around game developer conventions the way they do around even college athletes, never mind that the game developers are smarter and far wealthier. I don’t recall hearing about Gatesian groupies either, for that matter. The problem, I suspect, is that women require a minimum level of social adeptness that many intelligent men cannot muster. Come to think of it, intelligent men whose intelligence tends towards the verbal instead of the math tend to do better, to put it in SAT terms.

The challenge for bright women is that intelligent men are even less likely to value intelligence in women. Too many intelligent women are brainwashed into being constantly and needlessly antagonistic through their educational experience, so the notion of a happy cheerleader is very attractive to a conflict-avoidant man. Intelligent women like to interpret this as being “too strong” for their opposite counterparts, but in reality it’s much more a case of being “too unpleasant”. But an attractive, intelligent woman who is able to portray herself as being easy to get along with will seldom fail to clean up with intelligent men. Men primarily want their women to be happy; a cheerful attitude goes a surprisingly long way with men, who contrast it with the many women of their acquaintance who are always bitching, moaning and complaining at the slightest excuse.

You may remember a post a little while ago about the romantic travails of a Pioneer Press reporter who was attending a speed-dating event. Here’s the summary: …let’s start with the results of my recent speed-dating experience. As I mentioned in my last column, the event itself was a lot of fun, and I especially was looking forward to learning if any of the three guys I was interested in felt any sparks for me. About 72 hours later, I received my answer in a short and formatted email from the dating service. Not one. Not a single one. Not the first, second or third guy. A complete strikeout. I felt like a pedestrian who had gotten splashed by a passing car hitting a puddle — embarrassed, clammy and cold. Also like Martha Stewart after a group shower. The e-mail also informed me that I had 13 “missed opportunities” — men who had circled “yes” for me, but not I for them.

I’d say this is Nature’s way of telling you that you have an unrealistic attitude about how attractive you are. The woman doesn’t have to be alone, but she’s choosing that over dating men who are actually in her league. Remember that she thought that the women were higher caliber, despite the fact that many of them booked out of there as quickly as they could afterward. She might have learned her lesson, as she says that she’ll try a different strategy in the future. Then again, she might be considering ways to try to make herself more attractive to the three guys aren’t interested instead of giving the other 13 a chance.

Men as well as women need to get a grip on where they stand. If you’re old and weird-looking like Donald Trump but rich and famous, you can date spectacular women such as Melania Knauss. You can date lesser beauties if you’re poor, but young and handsome. Sadly, these things can change over time, so a man can’t depend on his high-school jock status counting for much post-collega and a woman can’t rely on the fact that all the boys thought she was a babe in eighth grade. Furthermore, and I can’t emphasize this enough, most men don’t care IN THE LEAST that a woman happens to have a college degree or a good job. Not only does it not make a career woman more attractive than the aerobics instructor in the hotpants, but it often raises serious questions in many men’s minds about her commitment to being a mother. That’s the truth. That’s the reality.

Ever wonder why every foundation set up by a wealthy conservative capitalist ends up donating millions of dollars to socialist causes? Here, writ small, is a nice example of the basic process at work. The same concept holds true of investment vultures who feed off the creative genius of entrepeneurs. I think the lesson is that, as with politicians, you should never allow anyone who is eager to seize influence over you to do so. This is something that both bankers and the parasites of the Left have mastered.

O’Sullivan’s First Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.” Leo’s amendment to O’Sullivan’s First Law: any organization with “women” or “girls” in its title will tend to become part of the cultural left in general and the abortion lobby in particular.

From the Washington Times: A paper found in the rented apartment of one Moroccan terrorist said, “We must develop immigration into Western countries as the path to the glory of Islam and the destruction of the Godless pagans.”

I’m actually fine with not letting non-citizens into the country. Among other things, you can’t fit six billion people inside the 48 contiguous states and the wealth and freedom that a libertarian government would produce over time would cause nearly everyone to want to move there. Look how many people want to come to America as it is. But people and capital have to be free to leave it anytime and anyhow they want.

EN writes: You’re a smart lad. You should be advising GW and the neoconidiots who thought they could translate their academic and historical shortsightedness into military victory. Of course they wouldn’t listen but at least they couldn’t act shocked and scream about being undercut by the Democrats when this doesn’t turn out well. BTW, you’ve got to hand it to the Founding Fathers. They made it almost impossible to fight any wars without the gravest threat to the nation uniting us. Unless a war is quick and bloodless then the coming election cycle will make it impossible to continue fighting. Our system is not meant for fighting wars as much as not fighting them. Always a wise choice unless backed into a corner.

You wrote: “The Romans maintained their dominance for so long by constantly sowing discord among their enemies.” Yes, but there’s also that little business of killing all the men, raping all the women and sending the survivors into slavery once you got on the Roman bad side. The Romans make the Russians seem grandfatherly.

It’s hard to argue with that. After his legions killed 4,000 Aduatuci, a Belgic tribe, in a battle following a false surrender, Julius Caesar rounded up 53,000 men, women and children and sold them into slavery. This was after slaughtering the Nervii to such an extent that he claimed the tribe was virtually eradicated and the name Nervii disappeared from the tongues of men. Rome plundered the Celts so thoroughly that after three years of Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul, the price of gold bullion dropped by a third. America, for all its great power, is unlikely to establish a Pax Americana unless it is willing to resort to like measures. One hopes we are not, but nevertheless, considering the conceptual gap between “Islam is a religion of peace” and “carthago delenda est“, one would tend to expect widely divergent results.