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One Kiwi commenter reminded me of my Ozzie friend, Firestarter. I was exploring the Lombard interior with a pair of Australian couples in search of the mythical Zegna outlet, which gave me the opportunity to observe the species up close and personal. Firestarter was trying to figure out if an associate of his brother’s, who worked with the other guy’s wife, was the jerk he suspected him to be. The woman was reluctant to be forthcoming, which finally prompted her husband to burst out: “look, is he a wanker or is he a mate?”

But the women can hold their own. Both the guys were rhapsodizing all morning about a statue they’d seen the day before entitled Primavera, which, naturally, was a scantily-clad, barely pubescent, beautiful young girl. After listening to a long and monotonous duet on the aesthetic charms of youthful pulchritude, one of the women finally gestured to a young boy walking by and snapped: “You know, I’d really like to suck his d—!”

The other woman and I burst out laughing, while the two Ozzies looked suitably chastened for all of about five seconds, then cracked up themselves. Ozzies are great; they’re the only aliens I know who fully grok the fullness of American humor. And speaking of Firestarter, it’s been too long since we’ve talked. Give me a call, mate.

TBOGG comments: Unfortunately you make no case whatsoever, and so…no link for you. I do await your evidence of your “actual knowledge” of American military jargon.

Apparently someone’s not only ignorant of military nuance but also the fact that this blog is not where most people read me. No link to a blog? What, do I look like a blogwhore? As for actual knowledge, well, Joe Carter knows the evidence, but he won’t tell you. And neither will I, although this story might amuse you.

Some people just don’t understand a shot across the bow.

From NRO’s Corner: It strikes me that the Republican party is rapidly becoming the Democratic party of the first half of the 20th Century. Bush can be compared to Theodore Roosevelt – the first big government Republican, to FDR, and you yourself [Jonah Goldberg] compared him to LBJ. The Democratic Party today seems to be imploding while the GOP is rapidly recreating itself. I believe that in twenty years there will be a new conservative party, the Republicans will be the Old Democrats, and there will be no Democrats as we know them today. And I don’t mean a Patrick Buchanon-type conservative party.

Precisely. Now, if we can just get the Constitutionalists and the Libertarians to team up and adopt a Christian Libertarian position on abortion – using the unborn child’s unalienable right to life as a justification for secular libertarians while Christian conservatives will have to abandon their fondness for the War on Drugs – we can actually get things rolling. What the NRO reader describes is exactly what I’ve been envisioning myself.

The Republican Party is dead. Long live republicanism.

“But whether you call it marriage or not is up to the church or the synagogue or the mosque. And it’s up to the state legislatures. I think marriage is a term of art. It’s a term of usage. But the legal side of it is not: It’s not negotiable.”

Or, alternatively, a sacrament. Not to mention a very well-defined traditional institution. Any doubts now about Wesley Clark’s preference for his abstract vision of the future over history or objective reality?

This, conservatives, is why the embrace of the State always leads to disaster. Once you give the State the power to define something, you give the State the power to redefine it. Clark is saying here that there is no such thing as spiritual or sacramental marriage, only a legal, state-recognized contract. Notice the usual pattern:

1) The State recognizes an exogenous institution.

2) The State offers benefits to the exogenous institution.

3) The State, as an interested party, demands some influence over the now-endogenous institution.

4) The State takes a controlling interest in the endogenous institution.

5) The State eradicates the involvement of the party which now has no influence regarding its former institution.

You may wish to rethink that whole voucher business. You can no more have a little State control than you can be just a little pregnant.

Yes, WND got hacked. I imagine a lot of WNDers are a bit hacked off, but I’m merely amused. You see, not only was I a member of the Thieves Guild back in my Apple II days, but Big Chilly and I also insisted on publishing our games without any copy protection. I even offered to have my books released for free in PDB format, but my publisher isn’t quite convinced that solving the lack of exposure problem is far more important than losing a potential sale to someone who might otherwise buy the book.

Besides, I’m a friend of the Original Cyberpunk, so I can hardly get bent out of shape about a little computer mischief. Now, virus writers are another matter. I meet a virus author, I’ll pop him one in the face and cheerfully pay the fine/do the time. It would cost less and waste less time than I wasted on virus-related matters before switching to Linux.

Here’s a question. Why does the media continually get so excited about young female athletes? Michelle Wie is only the latest example. A young girl, 13 or 14, accomplishes a notable athletic feat, and is then predicted to dominate her state/sport for the next 20 years, which is what would happen if a young male were to accomplish the same. Of course, since a mature woman’s body is actually a handicap in most sports, her performance usually worsens as she gets older, until by the time she’s a junior or senior, she’s getting “upset” by yet another 8th or 9th grader.

I’ve seen this happen again and again in high school sports. A friend of mine was the state champion gymnast and a top 100 meter sprinter in 9th grade; by our senior year she was no longer competing in gymnastics and didn’t finish in the medals in the conference championship, let alone the regional meet. Her times actually slowed about half a second, while in that same period, my 100 meter time dropped by almost three seconds. In fact, if you follow high school sports at all, you’ll often see 8th and 9th grade girls winning state championships in track, cross country and tennis.

Golf, of course, is barely a sport, so it’s entirely possible that Miss Wie may dominate women’s golf and win more championships than Tiger Woods. But it’s hard not to forget how Martina Hingis’ career is over and done at an age when many great male champions had yet to win their first major. This doesn’t take anything away from Miss Wie’s accomplishments now, but it seems odd to completely ignore history and physiology in discussing the probable future.

From the Washington Times: President Bush last night proposed an ambitious package of domestic spending that will drive up discretionary expenditures far more rapidly than his recent predecessors. The State of the Union initiatives that he wants passed this year include more spending for the Department of Education, a new assistance fund to help manufacturers recover from their recession and funding for a major, long-term expansion of NASA’s space budget. Early projections indicate passage of Mr. Bush’s proposals will increase non-defense spending well beyond the 4 percent to 5 percent the administration has budgeted for the current fiscal year, nearly double the average annual increases of about 2.5 percent by President Clinton during his two terms.

Why are Republicans supporting this man? He’s a Clintonite Democrat in conservative clothing, except that even Clinton never dared anything like the Patriot Act. Just wait until the next Democrat gets into office and starts wielding the expanded central power that this Republican Congress and Administration have created. Then, I expect conservatives will start crying foul. The president rightly compared the Patriot Act to the drug war last night… how much more clear does he have to make his intentions to violate civil rights and American liberties before those who profess to care deeply about such things will disavow his actions? Yes, he’s a better Commander-in-Chief – did you really doubt that our military forces could beat Iraq and the Taliban?

Does being a Republican truly mean never have to say you’re sorry for reducing American freedom? Clinton would never have gotten a pass on this from conservatives. Bush shouldn’t either.

Not too impressive for the erstwhile leader of the free world. It’s too bad that both major parties are working hard to push Americans further down the list of countries that are economically free, especially considering that only 16 were considered “free” by the Heritage Foundation. I think one could even make a strong case for the USA being listed as a second-tier “mostly free” economy.

Hong Kong (1st)

Singapore (2nd)

New Zealand (3rd)

Luxembourg (4th)

Ireland (5th)

Estonia (6th)

United Kingdom (7th)

Denmark (8th)

Switzerland (9th)

United States (10th)

TBOGG tries, unsuccessfully, to get on Instapundit for the misuse of military terminology, arguing that Wesley Clark wasn’t “fired by Bill Clinton”, he was only rotated out of his assignment. This is what happens when you try to substitute a dictionary for actual knowledge. High-ranking officers are seldom openly relieved, but a rotation in the middle of an assignment is an unmistakable slap in the face and an obvious declaration of incompetence in this context. That is why the term firing is absolutely appropriate, and it was something for which Bill Clinton, as Commander-in-Chief was ultimately responsible. But the real issue isn’t whether Clinton liked Clark or not, but if Clark is an incompetent and arrogant buffoon masquerading as a victorious general. Anyone who has read what passed for his notion of a ground invasion already knows the truth.

As DG points out: “Clark’s plan to invade Kosovo through Albania, thankfully killed by the Joint Chiefs, was stunning in its lack of basic military judgment. It called for 200,000 troops to invade through Albania over a single road which was only partly paved and had few bridges able to support our tanks and Bradleys. One defense expert said the plan called to mind Gallipoli.” One road through difficult terrain… hmmm, I was thinking more of Teutoburger Wald.

In fact, the very column upon which TBOGG relies second-hand, states: Gen. Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is another matter. Shelton has recently and famously said, in a public forum, that Clark’s firing “had to do with integrity and character issues,” adding that, for that reason, “Wes won’t get my vote.” Shelton has since refused to elaborate. If there’s a story behind his claim, he should tell it, in the interests of the country. If there isn’t, he should apologize.

So, if you refer to something that no one in the know contradicts, it doesn’t exist if you don’t spell it out for the ignorant? How ridiculous! The case against Clark may be unmade for the military know-nothings in the media, but there are many people for whom Clark’s buffoonery has long been an open secret. The dirty laundry of the services is very seldom aired, especially not at the top levels, and it won’t be aired simply because Fred Kaplan is upset that he isn’t in on it. Nor, I strongly suspect, is General Shelton the only member of that elite group of five generals who won’t be supporting Wesley Clark in any way shape or form, because they know him much better than his foolish, clueless supporters.

UPDATE: Here’s the Rev. Paul Mojzes on the Kosovo air war: What the bombing did was exactly the opposite of what its intentions were. It was supposed to stop the expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo but it resulted in a greater expulsion. This turned out to be a miserable failure. The expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo is vastly greater after the attack by NATO than before, some due to bombing and some due to the activities of the Serb military and paramilitary units…. Before the bombing, there was no mass expulsion. It was in trickles. Now, 600,000 people have been expelled.

Furthermore, Milosevic wasn’t captured by US or NATO forces. He was arrested by Yugoslavian police on domestic charges of corruption almost two years after the war had ended. Only after intense lobbying by the UN and others was he turned over to the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. Hardly a military success.

Howard Dean is awesome. I’m totally supporting him for the Democratic nomination now. He’s so insane that I may write him in for president even if he doesn’t get the nomination. And to think they used to worry about Ronald Reagan, the author of hundreds of sober, intelligent essays, having his finger on the button.

The only downside is that the White Buffalo is going to be calling me, yelling: “Take back the White House! Hyeeeaaahh!” and then hanging up the phone for the next month. It’s Wazzup all over again.

I was so sure that it was Clark who was far and away the craziest of the bunch. I’m still leaning towards him, but that was a fine effort by Mr. Dean. A demmed fine effort.