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Not a great week, not a bad week, but the White Buffalo gained on us, Zerb passed us, and we’re in 39th place, 44 points behind the leader. We can’t even use Annabella as an insult for WB anymore, as a crushing 109-point week put her 14 points in front of us. But it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re still in it. Our Week 3 record wasn’t great, but we gave up only one high-point game so the points were all right. 8-6 last week, 28-18 overall.

Fantasy, on the other hand, was grim. This appears to be one of those years where everyone goes off against me; Space Bunny’s team scored only 10 points after laying 40 on me last week in handing Chokechain an easy win, while Big Chilly racked up almost 40 himself. Daunte and the Oakland D were good, but Peerless Price is looking utterly worthless and Ahman Green scored one pathetic point. Things had better turn around fast.

One of my favorite quotes is posted on the wall of my old gym. It says “This room is for the weak, that they might grow strong. This room is for the strong, that they might learn humility.” The best thing about weights is that there is no pretense with the iron. You either beat them or they beat you. No middle ground.

When I started lifting, I was the same height that I am now, but I was precisely 40 pounds lighter and I couldn’t even bench 135 one time. Today, I knocked out three reps at 300, (with plenty of help on the last one) and stupidly decided to go for 315. I was feeling good, nice and fired up, and it didn’t do me a bit of good. It might as well have been a mountain on top of my chest, because it wasn’t going anywhere. The trainer helped me put it back, we looked at each other and he laughed. “No way,” he said, and I had choice but to agree.

That’s genuine humility. Knowing your limits and accepting them. I’ve never seen any purpose in the false sort, though. We are what we are. Some are highly intelligent and foolish. Some are stupid and wise with experience. It’s not directly related, but one reason I like Peter King, the sportswriter, is that while he writes about whatever he pleases – I was so happy his daughter went to college so we could stop hearing about her stupid high school softball team – he’s never afraid to admit he’s wrong. Today, he wrote:

“Speaking of mea culpas, I have one. In the Sports Illustrated NFL Preview issue, I was running down the Lions’ recent drafting woes, and I referred to the lack of production Detroit was getting from its top picks like Andre Ware, and I threw Reggie Brown in there as an example of a bust. Brown, of course, was paralyzed in his second NFL season. Why did I do it? Brainlock. Not thinking. Idiocy. All of the above. So I’d like to apologize to the readers who were offended by this. Shoot, I’m offended by it, and I wrote it. My fault.”

“I’m offended by it, and I wrote it.” I think I’ll steal that one and save it against future needs. While I’m quite content with how things turned out with regards to the discussion of the last few weeks, I have a feeling that sooner or later, it will come in handy.

YR writes:

The sneak attack at Pearl Harbor was an act of war you fucking twit. I am proud to have nuked their gook asses. They were cruel evil motherfuckers. Man you are an idiot. Ever served in the military, you fucking dweeb? Get a LIFE man. People like you should be deported and shot. You talk all this crap, but have ZERO military experience. The Japanese attack on 7 December 1941 was act of war fuckwit!!!!!!! We should have tortured their citizens exactly like they did with ours. So we put some Japanese Americans assholes in camps, so what? Many of them colaborated with the mother nation, Japan!!!! Midget subs were the first to attack on that infamous day. LEAVE the USA if you hate it so much!!

I’m sure it does Michelle Malkin’s heart good to know that in her place, she’s got eloquent folks like these defending her position. Did they have midget subs? Sweet Cthulhu, I must completely revise my analysis!

A few people have emailed to express this sentiment today, which is funny considering that I considered today’s column my final public word on the matter unless a) they start interning people or b) someone challenges me to a public debate on the subject.

The irony is that even though it has already been admitted that the forgeries aren’t genuine and the story that Dan Rather was biased and willing to lie in order to elect Democrats was hardly surprising, I count two front page stories and three columns on Dan Rather and CBS on WND alone today. Townhall features 15 columns on Rather on its Columnists page, running as many as three per day. Conservatives just can’t get enough of it, apparently. But they deem my three columns in four weeks on internment over the top and bordering on obsessive. Right….

Anyhow, it’s of no concern to me. It never has been and it never will be. There’s a reason why I call my column Defending the Mike. Those down with PE will understand.

By the way, I should probably mention for the sake of those readers who have expressed concern with my audience retention that more people are reading my boring, bludgeoned equine of a column than are reading any other column on WND today, including the big headline pieces. Three times more than some of those ever-fascinating CBS columns. Not that it matters. I mean, you don’t honestly think that I believe a world that is truly concerned with Britney Spears’s marital status is all that interested in anything that happened in the 1940s, do you?

KC sets himself up:

Boy it reeeeeeeeeeally gets to you Ms.Malkin won’t respond to your nonsense. Are all your columns going to be devoted to this? Perhaps she has dismissed you because of your thumbnail bio which includes the words “Christian Libertarian.” Oooh good now we all know you’re not one of those blockheaded Christians, you’re one of the “open-minded” kind,coooool. And we know you’re smart, cause as you constantly remind everyone, your in Mensa which I guess gives you the abilty to time-travel and know the loyalties of all the Japanese that were rounded up and to also read minds. Very impressive indeed!

And if you’re using atheist Al Franken as a reference you’re really lost. The Bible says “A fool says in his heart there is no God.”

But KC, didn’t you read my column today? Don’t you recall that Malkin claimed on WBAL radio that she had already responded to what you call my “nonsense”? So, how could it possibly bother me, unless she lied when she said that? The answer, as you obviously know, is that she lied and she has not responded to the many, many issues I have raised with regards to her factual inaccuracies and erroneous assertions. But her mendacious response doesn’t bother me at all, as in the course of the last month she has been forced to reveal to every impartial observer that she did no research on the very foundation of her thesis, that she does not have even a History Channel-level grasp on the events of WWII and that she prefers to lie rather than admit that she was wrong.

I’d only hoped to destroy some of the false assertions in her book, to see her destroy her own character was far outside the scope of anything I’d expected or desired.

As for Alice, well, the broken clock analogy would not seem out of place here. It’s clear there is at least one lying liar who claims to be on the political right. It is true that I am a Mensan, be further astounded that I even know how to use an apostrophe, a punctuation device with which your obviously unacquainted.

Finally, when did Jesus Christ teach us to lie in order to maintain our TV viability and sell books? Blessed are the media whores, for they shall see their names on the New York Times Bestsellers List…. Another verse from the Book of Vulpes, I suppose.

JN adds:

Michelle is a real class person. Why are you nitpicking? Have you gone mad? Al Franken is less than a shadow of a human being. You must decide where you stand, with righteousness, or with evil. How dare you even suggest Al Franken was right? You are losing your credibility, wake up! Try living in the present, there is nothing to gain by questioning our motives for interning the Japanese in the forties!

What little I know of Michelle Malkin does not suggest that she is a class person, unless class is demonstrated by intellectual charlatanship, cowardice and dishonesty. Al Franken is certainly a clown, but he was correct about both Sean Hannity’s math skills and Bill O’Reilly’s literary ability. If I am losing credibility with some conservatives because I am committed to the truth, however uncomfortable, I think that is more of a statement on the lack of integrity of those particular conservatives than anything else.

I had a feeling that that reference to Franken might sting a bit.

DG has the answer:

I am so sorry to hear this rubbish being bandied about as though all of you knew what you were talking about. (Re: The Japanese internment camps and their need for being.) I have yet to read what we were told at the time of these interments, so I am taking it upon myself to tell you what we, as school children, were told. We at that time were allied with China. We were told that the reason the Japanese families were sent to camp was for their own protection. It was as simple as that, and the reason was accepted as logical and humane, for the people were angry and wished to strike out against an enemy. At least that was the rationale at the time. I was a twelve year old kid and had many Japanese friends, and yes, it angered me that these people were singled out and sent away, but the logic behind this made sense.

Yes, military historians often assert that one of the best ways to understand the rationale behind events of the past is to study what adults were telling children at the time. No doubt we should revisit “Little Red Riding Hood” to learn precisely how Clovis defeated the Visigoths at Vouillé.

Where do you go with this, except to stand mute, in awe?

If the Malkinites will permit us to move on from the historical internment debate and look at what John Leo suggests is the present one, I’d like to encourage people to consider the what is the fundamentally leftist notion of internment. First, does the following statement sound more characteristic of left-wing or right-wing thought:

We have to do something even if it won’t do any good.

You see, the technological imperative suggests that it will soon be impossible to prevent the damage wrought by a single individual, if it is not already. Whether it is a matter of nuclear miniaturization, biological weaponry or nanotechnology, the massive and powerful edifice of the central state is growing increasingly vulnerable to the actions of one man.

The only genuine defense against an unstoppable danger that is limited as to its area of effect is decentralization. But decentralization is also highly conducive to individual liberty, which is why the central state resists it even when its own survival is supposedly at stake. For example, if Leviathan is beheaded in Washington DC, the plan is not to turn power over to the 50 governors of the sovereign states, but to FEMA, an even stronger central authority than the current Federal government.

Internment will only be one of the many totalitarian solutions proposed, if not imposed, in the wake of a serious attack on the USA. I think it is a short-sighted and foolish betrayal of principle for conservatives to look to the state to protect them from something it manifestly has not been able to protect them and from which it will likely never be able to protect them.

The other possible defense against a threat from resident aliens lies in immigration controls and deportations, but since the global statists have latched onto flooding the population as an excellent method of destroying national sovereignty, this is not even up for mainstream discussion despite its Constitutional viability in comparison with internment. I can’t help but think what a surprise it will be to many conservatives when they finally realize that they are more likely to be candidates for internment than those they were envisioning would be the targets.

Ran tries attaching electro-shock paddles to the dead horse:

Vox – Like many armchair generals, you operate with the benefit of hindsight. Planners and leaders in 1942 had to assume worst case against a military that had already overran most Asian colonies, pounded the Royal & US Fleets, & threatened Australia.

Now I’m getting sick of this. Ran, with all due respect, please shut your mouth, turn on your brain, and go read the actual war plans that the planners and leaders you mention had worked out in response to the Japanese military threat. Then get back to me via email. Don’t even think of posting more wildly stupid statements like this until you do so.

Read AWPD-1, AWPD-4, AWPD-42, Rainbow-5, War Plan Orange, and War Plan Red. Then read what Admirals Stark, Nimitz and King had to say AT THE FREAKING TIME!!!!! I’ll be very interested to hear how you argue that they were operating with the benefit of hindsight ahead of time. Were they armchair admirals?

Just to give one of many, many examples:

On 4 February [1942] General Clark of GHQ and Admiral Harold R. Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, offered testimony on the west coast military outlook at a meeting of the first of these subcommittees. Before they spoke, Senator Holman summed up the situation by saying that the people there were alarmed and horrified as to their persons, their employment, and their homes. General Clark said that he thought the Pacific states were unduly alarmed. While both he and Admiral Stark agreed the west coast defenses were not adequate to prevent the enemy from attacking, they also agreed that the chance of any sustained attack or of an invasion was as General Clark put it-nil. They recognized that sporadic air raids on key installations were a distinct possibility, but they also held that the west coast military defenses were considerable and in fairly good shape; and, as Admiral Stark said, from the military point of view the Pacific coast necessarily had a low priority as compared with Hawaii and the far Pacific. These authoritative Army and Navy views were passed on to the Wallgren subcommittee, but they do not seem to have made much impression.

I’m getting very, very tired of this theoretical idiocy that clearly doesn’t know the first thing about the historical specifics. No admiral or general at all concerned about damaging attacks on the West Coast would have sent all four of their carriers, 160 heavy bombers and 272 fighters to the Dutch East Indies on January 6 and January 11, 1942, and there are a plethora of statements from various generals and admirals that demonstrate this total lack of concern.

If anyone has a specific argument, backed up by historical fact, I’ll be delighted to entertain it and discuss it. Further theoretical objections unsupported by direct citation will be deleted. I don’t want to have to ban anyone, but I won’t hesitate to do so if anyone repeatedly refuses to abide by this very reasonable condition.

From Slashdot:

“DISCS 1-2: The Feature FEATURE (approx. 250 minutes) – A new version of the final installment in the epic trilogy! The Academy-Award winning film now has 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage incorporated into the film for this highly-anticipated video release.”

Yep, sometime this winter I’m going to sit down and fire up a 14-hour Tolkein marathon. I still am deliriously happy when I stop and think that against all odds, my favorite childhood books didn’t get completely trashed in translation to film. Unbelievable, but in a good way.

Now if someone will only do The Dark Is Rising and The Chronicles of Prydain. (Some will say that Disney did a movie called The Black Cauldron; don’t believe them. It never happened.) I think a CGI version of Watership Down is definitely worth doing as well.

Strangely enough, it’s theoretically possible that my first foray into comic book writing might make it to the screen before any of them. We’ll see. It’s amazing to discover that there is an industry even more full of BS than the music industry, but it’s true.