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The depths of truth can be illustrated at times by the most unlikely sources. Consider the case of the recently divorced and currently affianced Miss Spears. Here is a young woman more attractive than the norm – not significantly so, but that is part of her appeal to the masses – who has amassed a remarkable amount of fame and fortune in her short time on the planet. Even what would, to the casual observer such as myself, appear to be a complete lack of talent beyond the choreographed rump-shaking that your average pole dancer could approximate with ease, has not prevented her from becoming a top-tier star.

A few weeks ago, Matt Drudge brought our attention to the sad story of Miss Spears’ first husband, a childhood friend, who, despite being handicapped by an apparent intelligence barely on the north side of a rock, appears to be a genuinely decent human being. According to his telling – and we have no reason to disbelieve him – it was not his wife who wished to end the marriage but her parents, advisors, employees and assorted hangers-on, all of whom are financially dependent upon the Britney Spears industry. Obviously, they felt that at 22, the industry would be more profitable were it not distracted by the blessed state of matrimony.

There is a saying: be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. The Spears’ profiteers succeeded in breaking up the marriage, as the humble Mr. Alexander was not about to stand in the way of his old friend’s business. But Miss Spears has that sort of youthfully lush figure which not only indicates today a woman who will likely endure a long battle against caloric intake, but in days of yore was seen as a woman ready to breed.

As Miss Spears was no sooner wrested from the large, but harmless clutches of her ex-husband than she managed to fall “in love” with a useless male specimen of the sort known as a “dancer”, it would seem that the industry was indeed more interested in her natural instinct to find a mate and propagate the species than maximizing her future profit potential. The biological imperative trumps the financial mandate, it seems. One imagines that Britney Spears Incorporated is not only ruefully wishing that it had been wise enough to leave the industry to its own devices in matters romantic, but is collectively wincing as it calculates what it will eventually cost to remove this parasitical gigolo. If the parasite is as ruthlessly self-seeking as it appears to be – it takes a stone cold squid to abandon not one, but two children, and their mother – it will require some expensive financial surgery indeed.

I found it amusing that on the very same day that Britney Spears Inc. was threatening to sue the New York Post for claiming that she had been drinking whiskey in a picture it published a few weeks ago, (for the same reason that CourtneyLove is not often used to endorse teen products), the U.K. Sun published several photos of her publicly groping the aforementioned useless specimen in an R-rated manner. One wonders if B.S.I. will soon release a press release explaining that Miss Spears was only attempting to determine what brand of underwear her fiance was wearing, and that in her innocence of male intimates, she did not realize that the tag generally goes in the back.

Let me assure the gentle reader, there is indeed a point to this vaguely salacious pop cultural gossip. For if a young woman cannot be controlled by her parents and those closest to her, even when her financial best interest manifestly depends on her accession to such control, no human can be reliably controlled by anyone, much less the decrees of a distant government. Humans cannot be controlled! Not in their best interest, not in their long-term interests, and certainly not in the interests of their self-anointed masters. Not for long, anyhow.

This is the great tragedy of the Platonists. Regardless of what current ideological excuse is currently justifying their mastery, the Platonist will always end up betraying it, as, in frustration, he turns lethal force on those he once thought only to guide and help. For all the empty-eyed, gum-chewing, udder-engorged resemblance that the average teen mall rat bears to domesticated ungulates, she cannot be herded! What God has given to even the least of those created in His image – free will – no mere mortal may hope to take away.

Here’s another one for the precognitive-minded. Next week’s column conflates the work of a Russian novelist and a contrarian form of technical analysis. No one managed to score last week – a few hapless post-column assertions notwithstanding – so I’m curious to see if anyone can do better this week.

Kyle Williams writes on WND:

Yet, for some conservatives, choosing a candidate isn’t limited to George W. Bush and John Kerry. Because President Bush has betrayed conservatives on various social and fiscal issues, the conservative base is divided and hasn’t rallied around Bush like it did four years ago. This leaves some conservatives wondering whether or not they should jump ship for a third-party candidate like Constitution Party nominee Michael Peroutka or even the Libertarian, Michael Badnarik. Meanwhile, the rest of the conservative/Republican camp is griping that a vote for a third-party candidate will do nothing but help John Kerry.

In reality, they’re right. A vote for a third-party candidate may be a stand for ideals, and it may send a message to the GOP, but it won’t do much good. There aren’t enough conservatives who will vote third party to scare GOP officials, but there are just enough third-party voters that it may help John Kerry. Yes, a vote for Michael Peroutka is a wasted vote. It’s hard to say whether a third-party candidate will ever be viable, but it’s obvious that no third-party nominee has a shot at the presidency in this election cycle.

Therefore, conservatives need to look at the priorities. What’s important? If we truly care about appointing conservative judges, then we can’t have John Kerry in office. If we truly care about the economy, then we can’t have Kerry in office. If we care about the War on Terrorism, then we can’t have Kerry in office. If we truly care about cutting taxes, then we can’t have Kerry in office.

The only viable alternative is President Bush. He’s not a conservative, true. He has betrayed conservative principles and has taken actions that would make a liberal proud, but he’s the man when it comes to the economy, taxes, war on terrorism and, most importantly, the judicial branch.

This column could be cited as a persuasive argument against homeschool, if only the public schools still taught logic. But in an case, let’s follow young Mr. William’s advice to look at the priorities:

1) “If we truly care about appointing conservative judges….” George Bush hasn’t managed to get any conservative judges through a Republican House and Senate. Perhaps if conservatives are satisfied with mere appointments, one could construct a case on this basis for Bush. But, as conservatives are more likely concerned with seating conservative judges, not merely seeing them appointed and rejected, Bush’s first term should suffice to demonstrate that this is not an adequate reason to vote for him. Whether he truly wishes to seat such judges or not is unimportant, the fact of the matter is that he hasn’t and he won’t. Still, the president’s work to retain Arlen Spectre as the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee suggests that he does not truly wish to see conservative judges on the bench.

2) “If we truly care about the economy….” George Bush has engaged in unrestrained Keynesian expansion, using tax cuts and increased government spending in combination with massively easy monetary policy in order to postpone the inevitable post-boom bust. This never works long and only exacerbates the eventual bust, the next (third) wave of which has already begun. It’s no secret that George Bush is an economic illiterate, but so are his economic advisors, who are using outdated economic models repeatedly proven to be disastrous failures.

3) “If we care about the War on Terrorism….” Right, undeclared and extra-Constitutional war on method and a Commander-in-chief who’s afraid to name the enemy or attack his strongholds. No thanks.

4) “If we truly care about cutting taxes….” This is the one viable point. If you’re a one-issue voter, by all means, vote for George Bush on this basis. But it may be wise to keep in mind, he’s not doing it on principle, he’s doing it because he’s desperately trying to increase liquidity and get you spending in order to bring up the C component of GDP… and his concomitant inflationary fiscal policy in collaboration with Greenspan’s inflationary monetary policy has the net result of lowering your discretionary buying power even as more money goes into your pocket. 2 percent more money doesn’t buy 18 percent more gold, or 40 percent more gasoline.

And then, there’s the open admission that George Bush is no conservative. So, why should conservatives support a non-conservative? Right, because he’s the lesser of two evils. I should point out that as a Christian libertarian, I believe in free will, so I fully expect people to decide to support evil on a regular basis, using a wide variety of rationalizations. All I ask is that conservatives remember that this is indeed a choice they are making, that no one is forcing them to knowingly support that which they believe to be wrong.

Bill defends the President:

Vox, the military tribunal thing was and is tricky. The people we’re holding are not prisoners of war (no uniform, no command structure, and they target civilians) so according to the Geneva convention (which they didn’t sign) we could just shoot them after a proper military trial. However, Bush and co. realized that this would be a PR nightmare.

And after the Lynn Stewart incident (the mother of the Patriot Act), we realize we couldn’t give them a regular trial either. So they came up with the military tribunal thing. What other option did Bush have, turn them over to the Syrians for a trial? This is pretty far outside regular jurisprudence. Clintoons infamous Executive Orders were obviously self-serving, it wasn’t like he was simply trying to solve a problem and protect America’s interests.

This defense is illustrative. Bill suggests that the administration had two legal choices. Shoot them or turn them over to someone else. First, handing them over to a third party can’t be equated to releasing them, as implied here. Neither the Northern Alliance nor the Iraqi allies are reported to be squeamish about rough justice for their enemies.

Second, even this defense demonsrates that the president is more concerned about PR than he is about the law. So, his advisors cook up a stupid and legally questionable scheme, then try to defend it as if their motives are not tawdry politics, but a matter of national defense. Of course, if it was that serious, they’d have been executed in accordance with the Geneva Convention already; the real problem is that it’s difficult to take prisoners once no quarter has been declared. And, it threatens to turn into a PR disaster anyhow. You would think that some day, the Republicans will learn that since the press is not on their side anyhow, they might as well do the right thing and get roasted for it instead of doing the wrong and more dangeous thing and getting roasted for that.

Although others may have done so, I have never stated that Bush is worse than Clinton in his repeated attempts to abuse the legal system, only that his actions are opening the door for the next Clinton to be worse. Bill sounds like a typical leftist here, arguing that it is the intentions behind the attempted abuse that are relevant, whereas it is truly only the precedents being set that matter. The ignoble nature of the present administration was clear in its use of Guantanamo Bay, which, like Echelon, is a shining example of how the Federal government always attempts to circumvent the laws designed expressly to hobble the exercise of its power.

Republican defenders of the president will no doubt continue to excuse his every action, however indefensible, under the guise of “we are at war”. This is nothing new, it has been done on behalf of every wartime administration of either party. But I will have little sympathy when those same Republicans shriek in outrage when the next Democratic president abuses these new techniques for circumventing the limits on executive branch power, conveniently forgetting their own role in creating the monster.

INDC: The primitive paranormal beliefs of moonbats are quite interesting; most seem to have the unshakeable belief that they can channel the will of genocidal dictators. Very strange.

Jeff Goldstein: Um, Hitler would’ve made you into a lampshade, you Gypsy treehumper.

INDC: Commissar, where are you going? Commissar? Commissar?

The Commissar: Must ask why she neglects Stalin.

INDC: Alright, then. At least he’ll blend in.

Ah, yeah. Nothing like watching the freaks come out in daylight. I think my favorite was the apocryphal message of the quote from a classic science fiction novel. It’s inspired me to attend to the Democratic convention wearing a white robe and holding up a sign that says: “Grok the fullness”. If that don’t larn ’em, nothing will.

LIMBAUGH 4.8 SHARE [WABC] SMASHES ‘AIR AMERICA’ 1.7 SHARE [WLIB] IN ALL LISTENERS [12+]… ‘AIR AMERICA’ FADES MONTH TO MONTH: 2.2 SHARE APRIL DEBUT, 1.7 SHARE IN MAY, 1.2 SHARE IN JUNE…

I’d take more pleasure in watching this ongoing car crash if I hadn’t known it was inevitable from the start. It must kill Al Franken inside to know that he’s getting his head handed to him by someone he regards as his inferior. The iron law of supply and demand dictates that all liberal media will be brutally raped in the media every time there is a head-to-head competition. We’ve seen it on a large scale with Fox vs. CNN, we’ve seen it on a small scale with WND vs. Salon and now we’re seeing it play out on the airwaves.

As the Sports Guy says, it’s too bad you can’t bet on these things.

From Inside the Beltway:

The White House cracked down on a popular pair of Los Angeles radio hosts who grew irritated with Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchison for not cracking down on illegal aliens who’ve flooded southern California.

“John and Ken,” heard over radio station KFI, initially applauded U.S. Border Patrol sweeps in and around Los Angeles that rounded up more than 400 of the estimated 2 million illegal immigrants who cost California taxpayers billions of dollars. But after Mr. Hutchison recently scaled down the sweep — posting the agents closer to the Mexican border — the radio pair broadcasted and posted his telephone number in Washington, causing the White House phone system to be jammed by thousands of calls. The White House has now contacted the duo and demanded they cease and desist such antics.

Antics… such as facilitating the public’s ability to contact the appointed official directly responsible for a policy of which it does not approve. Yes, this is certainly an administration that believes in government by, of, and for the people, isn’t it.

You would think that the fact that thousands of people disapprove of Mr. Hutchison’s change in policy might be taken into account. But the masters always hate it when they can’t rule over their serfs in peace and quiet.

I should also mention that the Zodiac is a Scott Summit design. To see more of his work, visit www.summitid.com. His other PDA credits include the AlphaSmart Dana and 2000, the Stowaway XT keyboard, and the never-released Palm Pilot Razor design that preceded the Palm V.

I’m not in the market for an ebook reader myself, since I need the Dana’s keyboard, but the Zodiac Tapwave would have to be it, if I were. I find it interesting to know that the same guy who designed the excellent Alphasmart Dana also designed the Tapwave. Like the Dana, it has two SD slots, which would allow you to pack in more than 4,000 Palm-format ebooks without touching the device’s system RAM. Now, if they ported the original Wing Commander to it, or MAME, well, I might have to reconsider… it is a gaming platform, after all.

Nice work, Mr. Summit.

On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats….

As we sat waiting for the plane to finish boarding, we noticed another large group of Middle Eastern men boarding. The first man wore a dark suit and sunglasses. He sat in first class in seat 1A, the seat second-closet to the cockpit door. The other seven men walked into the coach cabin. As aware Americans, my husband and I exchanged glances, and then continued to get comfortable. I noticed some of the other passengers paying attention to the situation as well. As boarding continued, we watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other. They continued to look at each other and nod, as if they were all in agreement about something. I could tell that my husband was beginning to feel anxious.

The take-off was uneventful. But once we were in the air and the seatbelt sign was turned off, the unusual activity began. The man in the yellow T-shirt got out of his seat and went to the lavatory at the front of coach — taking his full McDonald’s bag with him. When he came out of the lavatory he still had the McDonald’s bag, but it was now almost empty. He walked down the aisle to the back of the plane, still holding the bag. When he passed two of the men sitting mid-cabin, he gave a thumbs-up sign. When he returned to his seat, he no longer had the McDonald’s bag.

Then another man from the group stood up and took something from his carry-on in the overhead bin. It was about a foot long and was rolled in cloth. He headed toward the back of the cabin with the object. Five minutes later, several more of the Middle Eastern men began using the forward lavatory consecutively. In the back, several of the men stood up and used the back lavatory consecutively as well.

For the next hour, the men congregated in groups of two and three at the back of the plane for varying periods of time. Meanwhile, in the first class cabin, just a foot or so from the cockpit door, the man with the dark suit – still wearing sunglasses – was also standing. Not one of the flight crew members suggested that any of these men take their seats.

The problem isn’t that the government isn’t going to be able to stop this. The government can never be relied upon to stop anything, except perhaps an amphibious invasion by another nation’s military. The problem is that the Federal government is actively working to prevent the airlines from being able to address the situation themselves.

If we still had free association in the United States, an airline could choose to deny flying anyone it believed posed a risk or even made its passengers feel unsafe. This would certainly be discrimination, and, horror of horrors, I say to you now that there is nothing wrong with discrimination. If the business of Syrians, blacks, homosexuals or Christians is of no interest to one in a free society, free association means that one has the right to decline it. (The injustice of segregation was that it was publicly enforced law, which is another matter altogether.)

This discrimination can be financially suicidal, or it can be absolutely necessary if you want to stay in business. The airlines are already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the next series of explosions bringing down several on the same day will finish them off unless they are allowed to do as they see fit in protecting their equipment, their employees, and most importantly, their paying customers.

Ironically, as with 9/11, people will look to the Federal government to solve a problem that its policies will be proven to have created.

UPDATE: An NRO reader writes in:

“Either there is something REALLY bad going on or that article is an urban legend. I just read a very similar story a couple of weeks ago (linked from Instapundit or AndrewSullivan or Boortz, I can’t remember) written by a man travelling with his wife and son. The story wasn’t quite as dramatic as this one but it involved suspicious arab passengers that were “wisked” away by who boarded the plane upon arrival. I can’t remember the exact details of the story but it seems to have all of the ear marks of urban legend-om.”

I don’t know “Annie Jacobsen”, so I can’t testify to the versimilitude of the article, but if it’s a hoax, the details are uncharacteristically accurate. True, she claims that the flight left at 12:28, not 12:22, but I don’t think a six-minute discrepancy casts the entire article in doubt. From NWA.com:

Northwest Airlines 327

Fri, Jul 23

4hr 39min

12:22pm Depart Detroit (DTW)

2:01pm Arrive Los Angeles (LAX)

NRO is madly buzzing about how Kerry’s apparent dismissal of the Lizard Queen is nothing but a stunt designed to create more excitement when she makes a “surprise” speech at the convention. I’m hoping that she’ll tear off her human skin, hiss at the camera and strangle Kerry with her tri-forked tongue before devouring both him and John Edwards live in front of a horrified nation.

The terrified Republicans will have no choice but to send a delegation via submarine to a small island in the Antarctic, where they will perform a shoggoth designed to awake the Deep One who sleeps beneath the ice. When Cthulhu rises, Dick Cheney will be sacrificed to appease the Great Tentacled One and New York City will be demolished by the subsequent epic battle between the demon lizard-bitch and the Elder God.

Why vote for the lesser of two evils? Cthulhu 2004!