Incompetence and the art of war

The Obama administration offers a lesson in how not to do it. First, we have the strategic incompetence with the new invasion of Uganda, which marks the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s sixth war in three years. At this rate, if he somehow manages to win reelection, the USA will be fighting 16 wars by the end of his second term.

Offhand, what do you think the dumbest damn place in the world to deploy US troops would be? Why guess? Just watch Obama. Our modern Clausewitz has picked the absolute craziest, most futile, most counterproductive place in the world, central Africa…. Whenever we invade some godforsaken place, we always end up with thousands of new immigrants from that place. Check out Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, for example. So I suppose this idiotic invasion will, sort of, benefit these new refugee-immigrants which the welfare establishment is already smacking its lips over. So if you think that what this country needs is some more immigrants from central Africa, cheer Obama on!

But it’s not enough that the Commander-in-Chief is strategically challenged, the forces he has at his disposal are tactically given to literally shooting themselves in the foot.

A Marine and a Navy medic killed by a U.S. drone airstrike were targeted when Marine commanders in Afghanistan mistook them for Taliban fighters, even though analysts watching the Predator’s video feed were uncertain whether the men were part of an enemy force.

Now, if one considers how much collateral damage has taken place thanks to no-knock raids in the War on Drugs, imagine how badly awry things are likely to go once Hellfire-equipped Predators are ordered to patrol American skies. I wonder how long it will be before these trends come together and the first Ugandan “refugee” is accidentally killed by a Predator intending to attack domestic terrorists in the United States.

Surviving la dolce vita

Speaking of culture, I had a rather exquisite lunch today. Pata Negra squared. Which is to say, Barcelona’s finest jambon and slices of bufalo parmigiano, (technically impossible and yet it exists all the same), washed down with an excellent Spanish red named after the delectable king of all pork. Spacebunny made pizza for dinner and I resorted to a jar of homemade hot oil made by the Dutch Girl which is just ever so slightly cooler than napalm. This, naturally, required the accompaniment of a nicely drinkable red, the aforementioned Spanish bottle being lamentably empty.

Ender had to be picked up from his martial arts training, but I was early, so the head of the dojo, being a hospitable sort, poured us both a glass of local white. And then another.

At this point, I am entirely certain that my arteries are as clean as a newly scoured aqueduct. I can’t say I’m quite as confident about the old liver, however. The great thing about the Southern European approach to wine is that you’re never the least bit drunk. You’re just sort of sporting a vaguely happy buzz from noon until midnight.

When sheep stampede

The retarded groupthink of the female left never ceases to provide amusement at their expense:

You may have heard about Andrew Meyer earlier this week from The Stranger, Jezebel, or Facebook. Meyer’s name was tweeted thousands of times on Monday and Tuesday, often with links leading to articles about him. Jezebel’s story on Meyer got almost 100,000 views, while one of the hundreds of people who weighed in on him on Twitter dubbed him the grand “tool of the week.” For those who haven’t heard about Meyer, his instant fame can be explained thusly: On Friday night, Meyer and a female friend went into Seattle’s Bimbo’s Cantina for food and drinks. Their server that evening was Victoria Liss. According to Liss, after the couple had behaved like jerks—mocking the food, dipping their hands into the tip jar—Meyer paid without leaving Liss any gratuity. He then took his rudeness a step further, by writing at the bottom of his bill, “P.S. You could stand to loose [sic] a few pounds.”

Understandably hurt, Liss did what anyone would do in this day and age: She took her anger to her computer. She posted a photo of Meyer’s receipt onto her Facebook page and wrote underneath it, “[T]he best part is he was dressed like that gay kid on Glee. Yuppie scum!” From there, it was off to the blog races.

Jezebel filed its post on Meyer under “Assholes.” Dan Savage, one of the most widely read alt-weekly columnists in America, also jumped on him, writing, “[Y]ou probably weren’t the only person to stiff a bartender in Seattle this weekend. But you were the only person dumb/hateful/angry enough to write this on your credit card slip.” Crushable picked up the Meyer story and published his full name, where he works, the name of his college, what fraternity he was in, and his full signature, all under the title, “Seattle Area Douchebag Gains Internet Notoriety For Stiffing And Insulting His Server.” The article even included a passage of search terms at the end to up the likelihood it would come up if someone—employers, dates, friends—Googles Meyer’s name.

Like with the lynch mobs of old, things move fast in the age of internet justice. Within about 72 hours from the moment Liss got stiffed, hundreds of people, united and galvanized by blogs, jumped into action and attempted to ruin a stranger’s reputation because he said something mean to another stranger. There was just one problem: They got the wrong guy.

So, in the barely self-aware minds of these ungulates, failing to tip a fat waitress justifies a mass attempt to ruin an individual’s reputation. But it is obvious in light of her subsequent behavior that the waitress probably provided unsatisfactory service and thus merited her lack of compensation, though perhaps not the editorial on her lack of personal fitness.

Surely all of these third-wits merit the very same behavior they dished out to the wrong individual. If I owned Bimbo’s Cantina, I would immediately fire Victoria Liss. And if I owned Jezebel, I would fire the responsible editors. The customer may not always be right, but in no case does he merit a public sheep stampede, especially over what amounts to absolutely nothing.

The transformative magic of the passport

This purported criticism of passport snobbery is still indicative of an amount of silly passport snobbery:

It’s not because there’s something magical about exposure to the quirks and customs of other cultures that transforms you into a better, wiser person. It’s just that there’s a certain provincialism that surrounds populist politicians and those who are attracted to them. And traveling widely — whether on the great continental landmass that Americans live on or across national borders and oceans — tends to not only break down said provincialism but demonstrates a curiosity about the world around you that is a vital characteristic for national leaders.

This was clearly written by the sort of individual, usually left-leaning, who genuinely believes that there is some sort of magic inherent to travel and some sort of evil inherent to what they invariably label “provincialism”. Interestingly enough, in my experience it is Americans living in the East Coast Axis of Boston to Washington DC and Canadians who are most susceptible to the disease of passport snobbery; the only Europeans who are impressed by the low percentage of American passport ownership are those who haven’t been to the USA and don’t realize how big it is.

The irony is that the passport snob primarily subscribes to the myth of the mind-expanding magic of travel due to his own provincialism. You may recall the attempt of The Prince of Wängst to label me, a multi-passport multi-lingual, expatriate who studied in Japan, as “provincial”. This was more than a little amusing given Mr. Bakker’s literally provincial existence, having been born in Ontario, educated in Ontario, and presently residing in, you guessed it, Ontario. Even more amusing was the example I have previously related of the self-appointed Canadian Euro-sophisticate from Quebec. He was happily occupied with lecturing Spacebunny and I on the near-European nature of Montreal and how it compared so very favorably to the Minnesota peasantry at the party we were attending when his fiance joined the conversation. And he was visibly put out to discover we had flown in that very morning from either Zurich or Milano, I don’t recall which.

“Well, what were you doing there?” he demanded.

Strangely, he didn’t seem to want to talk to us anymore after he found out we lived in Italy, although we were quite willing to hear more about what a European city Montreal is. Fascinating stuff.

The truth, as those who have not only traveled around the world, but who actually speak different languages and have lived in different cultures for extended periods of time, is that there are far more similarities than differences among the civilized peoples of the world. The mountain peasants of Italy, the agricultural peasants of France, and the rice paddy peasants of Japan have far more in common with each other and with the rural working class in the Midwest than they do with the Milanese industrial magnates, the banking gnomes of Zurich, the powerful, but self-effacing executives of the great keiretsu, or the Wall Street elite.

And neither transnational group has much in common with the angst-laden middle-class would-be intellectuals, whose desperate pretentiousness and feverish pursuit of credentials sets them in a particularly annoying transnational class of their own. The European ones confide to you how American they feel themselves to be while the American version forever bears the imprint of the semester it spent in [insert European capital]. The Canadian version is either the saddest or the funniest, depending upon your perspective, because it genuinely believes that a semester in Nashville or Iowa City counts as magic travel.

But there are interesting things to be learned from every group, in every country. My soccer teammates are mostly peasants, with one notable exception. My social acquaintances are mostly petty international class, and my interests tend to most closely resemble the aspirational middle-class intellectuals. But it is as shallow and ultimately pointless to look down on the rural peasantry for their lack of passports as it is to criticize the rich and powerful for their accounting strategies or the aspirational academics for their insecurities. Such things are more definitive attributes than correctable actions.

Travel doesn’t make you a better or more curious person. It simply presents you with more information. What you do with that information, and how it effects your thought processes and future behavior, will have more to do with who you already were than any transformative magic courtesy that comes from the possession of a government document.

For me, the experience gained from living most of my adult life as an expatriate that has given me a greater respect for the unique nature of historical American society as well as a deeper sorrow for that which Americans have lost.

Overruling the family court judge

Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the most effective way for men to overturn the ludicrously evil child custody system is to utilize violence to render moot the unjust dictates of the family courts:

A gunman who shot dead eight people in an upmarket beauty salon in California is said to have gone on the rampage after losing a custody battle over his son. Scott Dekraai, who is the former husband of one of the stylists, is said to have shot a total of nine hairdressers and customers at Salon Meritage, a beauty salon just blocks from the Pacific Ocean in the upscale seaside resort of Seal Beach.

His ex-wife, Michelle, is also reportedly among those who were killed. The 42-year-old, who used to work in the military, had allegedly threatened violence after losing a court case against Michelle – who was using the name Huff – over the custody of their seven-year-old son, Dominic.

The problem is twofold. First, the family court system is totally unjust. Second, there is simply no other recourse for the man who has been forcibly robbed of his children by the unholy alliance of ex-wife and family court. I have zero sympathy for any woman who would utilize the force of the law to deprive a man of his children, no matter how unhappy the marriage. In fact, one can quite reasonably argue that it is in the interest of women to demand a more equitable family court system; this should become more apparent when “winning” a child custody case amounts to a potential death lottery.

The ironic thing is that society tends to applaud a man who do anything and pay any price to get back his child. There are movies entirely based on this premise. So, why should it surprise anyone that increasing numbers of men are willing to resort to breaking the very law that took their children away from them? Throughout the West, the Muslims have shown the way: threaten sufficient violence in a credible manner and the law will be modified according to your will.

US economy: the policy solution series

For two or three years now, people have been after me to provide a series of recommendations for how the USA can get out of its negative economic trajectory and return to genuine economic growth. I resisted this idea because I see absolutely no chance whatsoever that anyone who matters is going to listen to me or that creating a list of policy measures will serve to do anything except inspire a copious amount of criticism from those who don’t understand the issues at hand.

However, after three years of seeing the financial and political powers-that-be repeatedly make the same mistakes again and again, I figure that it can’t hurt to suggest a series of political policies that would not necessarily fix anything in the short term, but would permit the USA to survive the global economic depression intact as a functioning political and economic entity… not that this is necessarily desirable. Just to be clear, I have zero expectations of anyone of any significance paying attention to these policy prescriptions and I remain entirely confident that the politicians and bankers will continue to make things worse and the USA will cease to exist in its present form by 2033.

So, over the next few days I will begin by posting my diagnosis of the more problematic aspects of the situation, followed by my recommendations for addressing those problems.

What could go wrong?

Some scientists really seem quixotically determined to convince the masses that it is in the best interests of humanity to turn scientist-hunting into a sport:

The bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, is still highly virulent today but has somewhat different symptoms, leading some historians to doubt that it was the agent of the Black Death.

Those doubts were laid to rest last year by detection of the bacterium’s DNA in plague victims. With the full genome now in hand, the researchers hope to recreate the microbe itself so as to understand what made the Black Death outbreak so deadly.

Full credit to science for nearly eliminating smallpox and polio. And I’m sure we all support the efforts to rid the world of cancer. But recreating the Black Death virus seems like an epically stupid idea. Of course, a member of the team says “the ancient plague would presumably be susceptible to antibiotics”. Presumably. That’s confidence-inspiring. The universities of the West should really consider making a semester in basic risk/benefit analysis a mandatory requirement for any science major.

Besides, if scientists are going to recreate something, i think they should bring back the dire wolf and the sabertooth tiger. Those would be cool and neither used to kill millions of people at a time.

The Republican debate

Stephen Green drunkblogs the Republican presidential debate, which is probably the only reason he managed to survive it:

5:24PM Cain can’t wait to “throw out the current tax code.” I’m with him on that, but the idea of giving the Feds a sales tax without taking away the income tax strikes me as dangerously naive thinking.

5:25PM Really, seriously, naive. Like, worse than my very first last call.

5:25PM To Romney: Europe is going to bring us down, huh?

5:26PM Romney: I’m not going to answer this question because it’s TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL that Europe’s economy could effect ours.

Punter.

5:26PM Romney: “I’m not going to call up Tim Geithner and ask him how the economy works.”

5:27PM Romney is defending TARP. Meh, he wasn’t exactly counting on the Tea Party vote.

5:28PM Is Romney’s complaint with the GM bailout that the funds came from TARP instead of from some other place, or do I need to drink less — or more?

5:30PM Friedman totally stole that joke from Dorothy Parker, who said that if all the girls attending the Yale prom were laid end to end, she wouldn’t be at all surprised.

5:30PM To Cain: Is Romney right?

5:30PM Cain: Yes. TARP was a good idea, badly implemented. You listening, Tea Party?

Hey, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. Anyhow, this was my favorite part:

5:32PM To Paul: Would you get the government out of housing, or are you a dirty hypocrite?

5:32PM Paul: I would dig Keynes out of the grave just to hit him with the shovel.

It’s also worth noting that Paul went after Cain on his opposition to auditing the Federal Reserve. That is true greatness. America simply isn’t worthy of the man.

In the national interest

How does this sort of thing benefit the USA in any way? Why is this woman, much less her family, permitted to enter the US at all?

Ms Valles, 21, fled Mexico in fear of her life, hustling her parents, sisters, husband and one-year-old son into a 4 x 4 vehicle and hurtling across the border to seek asylum in the United States. They left just in time. That night a squad of hit men arrived at their small bungalow and ransacked the rooms.

“I would like to go back home,” she said. “But if I hadn’t left my country I wouldn’t be alive now.”

In spite of her diminutive size and sweet, girlish manner, Ms Valles had some powerful and vicious enemies. The criminology graduate was appointed chief of police in the small town of Praxedis G Guerrero, 50 miles east of Ciudad Juarez and a few miles from the US border.

In other words, because one liberal female idiot is incredibly stupid, the USA is expected to financially support an entire family of Mexicans dumb enough to think that the drug cartels were going to be impressed by a young criminology graduate riding herd on them. How does this make any sense at all?

And how long will it be before the cartels simply start striking across the border?