Vox Popoli

From CNN/SI:

Terming his staff “lame-duck” as it prepares for a meaningless season finale against Chicago, Mike Tice expressed hope Monday that Vikings owner Zygi Wilf will announce Tice’s fate “sooner rather than later.”

Oh, I do hope so. How I do hope so! The Vikings should have made me their general manager long ago; I would have fired Denny Green and hired Tony Dungy rather than letting him go to Tampa, refused to sign Randall Cunningham to the long-term contract after 1998 that sent Brad Johnson to Washington and avoided the caticestrophe of recent years.

How did they not fire him last year, especially when he handed them an excuse on a silver platter with the ticket-scalping scandal? I’m still annoyed about that. Actually, I would have fired him after last year’s Miami game, then been in a position to pursue Charlie Weis or Lovie Smith, both of whom are looking pretty good right now.

Speaking of coaches, does anyone else think that Pete Carroll would do well to stay in college? Perhaps he can pull a Belicheck, but I don’t think so. They’re two very different men with very different styles. I think Carroll has found his niche; no one has a better deal than a legendary college football coach.

HP rather likes Imperial America:

Did the Athenians have a U.N. resolution 1441 before launching their attempt to build an empire? Were they already engaged in containment of an avowed enemy for which they had a written truce which was being violated on an almost daily basis? I wonder how you would have felt if FDR had decided to preemptively attack Germany once it was clear that Hitler and his minions were A) systematically committing genocide against certain groups. B)Rebuilding his war machine in violation of the Versailles accords. C) Preparing to attack his neighbors. If I was Vox Day I guess that would just have to wait till all came to pass before I would or should act. For me it is more prudent to act preemptively. Bush was right in attacking Iraq. The ultimate outcome is still not certain but at least there is a chance that a Democracy will take hold. At the very least we now have outposts in one of the most unsettled regions of the world so that we could act quickly. It would also be a constant reminder to our enemies that WE WILL ACT if necessary in our national interests. That to me is a good thing.

What does a UN resolution have to do with anything? Are you seriously going to try arguing that the Athenian attack on Syracuse been more just with the permission of the Persian empire and Republican Rome? Apparently you don’t know much Greek history, as the Athenians had been attempting to contain the Spartans longer than the USA was containing Iraq; Thucydides and Xenophon chronicle the Second Pelopponesian War. And the analogy holds with regards to treaties, too, as it was Sparta that first violated the 30-year truce by invading Attica.

Your knowledge of WWII history is scanty as well. A) Hitler and company did not begin systematic genocide until after Germany was at war with the USA; the decision to begin the Endlosung was not made until after Pearl Harbor. B) The guarantees of the treaty did not give FDR or anyone else free reign to attack Germany, only to reoccupy the areas specified in Article 429. C) This logic justifies the 9/11 attacks on the USA, as the establishment of bases around the world are obvious preparations to attack countries that are not even neighbors of the USA.

Furthermore, Iraq is not a member state of the USA and it is not in the USA’s national interest to occupy it or even prevent its government from slaughtering its people. Nor is democracy in the American national interst, here in America or anywhere else in the world. Finally, I note that Athens, too, established many bases around the Pelopponese in support of its empire – Pylos, Cythera, Aegina, Cephallenia, Methana, Nisea, Naupaktos and Zkynthos – and this was done in the period immediately prior to its decline and fall.

Thomas Sowell writes on Townhall:

I don’t make a million dollars a year but I think every member of Congress should be paid at least that much. It’s not because those turkeys in Washington deserve it. It’s because we deserve a lot better people than we have in Congress.

The cost of paying every member of Congress a million dollars a year is absolutely trivial compared to the vast amounts of the taxpayers’ money wasted by cheap politicians doing things to get themselves re-elected. You could pay every member of Congress a million dollars a year for a century for less money than it costs to run the Department of Agriculture for one year.

There is no point complaining about the ineptness, deception or corruption of government while refusing to do anything to change the incentives and constraints which lead to ineptness, deception and corruption.

You are not going to get the most highly skilled or intelligent people in the country, people with real-world experience, while offering them one-tenth or less of what such people can earn in the private sector.

You’d think an economist would understand better than most that upping the compensation is only going to increase the demand for the job on the part of those driven by pecuniary interests, not reduce it. His point on the benefits of term limits is a solid, if unorginal one, but I am sure increased compensation is not the solution.

In fact, if one looks at the historical example he cites, one would correctly conclude the precise opposite. Institute strict term limits and pay Congress less, if anything. That’s the way to appeal to those driven by duty and honor instead of financial ambitions.

Like many NFL fans, I will miss Brett Favre when he retires. He’s a great quarterback, I genuinely like him, and because of the Packers-Vikings rivalry, I’ve seen an awful lot of his games, several in person. But what I’ll miss most is the way he makes me look like an NFL expert.

For example, when Spacebunny and I were watching the game yesterday, I noticed something familiar. When Favre gets frustrated and starts forcing the ball, he tends to lean forward a bit as he throws. Since he first became a starter, this has almost invariably been a sign of a multi-interception game, usually three at a minimum. Last night, early in the first quarter, I noticed the telltale sign and predicted many completions to the Bears.

Sure enough, Favre finished up with 4 INTs. But that didn’t come close to the time I came home while a few of the boys were watching the Pro Bowl. Favre had made the NFC team for the first time as an alternate, and he came in when the NFC had the ball on the AFC twenty.

“Here comes the interception in the end zone,” I announced to some derision. The ball was snapped, Farve faded back and drilled a strike right into the chest of an AFC cornerback.

“How did you know that was coming?” someone asked. But it was inevitable. Brett Favre + Excited + Red Zone + All-Pro Secondary = INT. What else could possibly happen?

I announce with some degree of relief that I have survived, barely, the reading of “Thank You, Jeeves”, by PG Wodehouse. It was given to me by Spacebunny, who I can only assume is seeking to rid the world of me by means of a lethal, albeit unprosecutable gift-giving.

Now, Terry Pratchett is a most amusing writer. Grant Naylor seldom fails to prise a smile from the reader. Our own Original Cyberpunk is no slouch in the humor department, and many is the time I have chuckled, or perhaps even snorted, when reading Douglas Adams.

But Wodehouse is the only writer who can reduce an innocent reader to desperate, painful gasps for air, as tears run down one’s face and an ominous pressure constricts one’s chest. The vision narrows, then grows dark, and there is naught to do but hope the fit passes before one’s breath leaves one’s body. It’s all in the convoluted setup, meticulous and precise, meant to finish off the unsuspecting reader as ruthlessly and efficiently as the meat-packing plant slaughters the cows.

I mean, you would not think the following exchange could be capable of rendering a grown man prostrate and helpless, but you would be wrong:

“Sorry. No butter.”
“There must be butter in your cottage.”
“There isn’t. And why? Because there isn’t a cottage.”
“I cannot understand you.”
“It’s burned down.”
“What?”
“Yes. Brinkley did it.”
“Good God!”
“A nuisance in many ways, I must confess.”

I laughed. I cried. Much better than Cats.

China bans sex disclosure:

A new Chinese law calls for prison terms of up to three years and fines for doctors and other health workers who assist in telling the gender of unborn babies, leading to abortions, state media said on Monday. The legal amendment would give new teeth to a government campaign to outlaw the selective abortion of female foetuses and correct an imbalance in the ratio of boys to girls that has grown since China’s one-child policy was introduced more than 20 years ago.

“The revision is aimed to prevent the selection of a child’s gender when not conducted for medical purposes,” An Jian, a member of China’s parliament who discussed the amendment over the weekend, was quoted as saying.

“Artificial gender selection can jeopardise China’s population structure, leading to social instability,” An wrote in a report.

Government figures show 119 boys are born for every 100 girls in the world’s most populous nation. About 40 million men may live as frustrated bachelors by 2020.

I find it rather telling that one can usually predict the Western feminist position by knowing what Communist and other totalitarian states require. Let’s see if I have it right. A woman has an absolute right to an abortion, because it’s her body etc. But because too many women don’t want female children, it is necessary to forcibly prevent doctors from telling pregnant women what they’re having, because if they know they might exercise their absolute right to kill their unborn daughter. In other words, women can only exercise their absolute right as long as they do so for approved reasons, like wanting to finish law school because the country so desperately needs yet another useless lawyer.

The whole responsibility for wholesale slaughter thing aside, if I was a feminist, I’d be embarrassed to open my mouth in public. Of course, they’re women, so logical consistency isn’t necessarily all that high on their priority list.

“They’re killing little girls for their sex! It’s genocide!”

I thought abortion wasn’t murder. I also thought female was a sex, not a race.

“You know what I mean! It’s anti-female discrimination and it has to be stopped!”

Hey, you’re the one who supports abortion. Heck, you support making taxpayers pay for abortion. If you want to stop the abortion of unborn girls, then ban abortion.

“But they’re eliminating millions of women from the population!”

And just who is eliminating women? All those pregnant men getting abortions?

What we’re seeing here is just the first in a great many waves of reality washing away the pillars of the Equalitarian Society. Most societies will only travel so far along a suicidal path before self-preservation kicks in. Monogamous marriage will almost certainly go first, then abortion will be banned soon enough, for reasons utilitarian, not moral. Easy divorce will be next, followed eventually by the women’s vote.

I am reading this Christmas season, as my wont nearly every year, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. It’s a part of my personal Christmas tradition, and while I don’t know why I started doing this, I think I know why I continue. It’s something related to this lovely turn of phrase by NRO’s Amy Wellborn:

Look at it closely, with clear eyes. At every turn in this story of this baby there is threat and fear and powers circling, attempting to strike at the light. We might forget, we might wrap up Christmas in good cheer, but Christian tradition doesn’t.

It makes no intellectual sense, but I suspect CS Lewis’s instincts were neverthless correct when he separated Father Christmas from Aslan in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. One cannot understand the depth and significance of Christianity if one does not stare into the darkness it stands against. Nietzsche was right, the abyss does stare back, but when faced with the Light of the World, it blinks and retreats.

“None shall stop the Dark from rising,” shouts the Black Rider in the book. And in that book, which is as near to perfect as a children’s book can be, the three from the circle and the three from the track suffice to turn it back.

For Christians, however, Christmas is more than a celebration, it is a reminder of a fulfilled vow, that in time, one shall stop the Dark from rising.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Ann Althouse drives a stake – perhaps accidentally – through the heart of Christian public school apologists:

What a powerful district court opinion! It will remain unreviewed, the final word at the end of a cautionary tale for all school boards who contemplate adopting Intelligent Design in the future…..

If there is any controversy at all — and could there not be? — opponents will bring up the Dover case and make much of the fact that a federal judge has equated Intelligent Design with religion. It simply won’t be possible to adopt Intelligent Design without talking a lot about religion now. The next school board may be “smarter” about what it needs to do to achieve its end, but if it’s that smart, it should also perceive the world of trouble that lies ahead. If the judge’s decision doesn’t faze them, the political losses of the school board that voted yes certainly should. Proponents of teaching Intelligent Design in science classes will have a hard time admitting it, but this one district court opinion just killed their movement.

Now, I am no champion of ID, but I am a champion of an absolute parental right to dictate the content of their children’s educations. The Pennsylvania court has made it clear that the public propaganda system will brook no challenge to its Officially Approved Views, even by those who are legally responsible for defining them. What has killed one ill-conceived movement will only strengthen another, much better one, and this is a good thing.

There is no fix for the “problems” of the public schools, but there is an answer. Don’t permit your children to set foot inside them.

Roberto Gotta criticizes Mondiale marketing:

For a number of years, Del Piero has been the public face of a brand of mineral water Uliveto, also the official supplier to the azzurri. The script writers were probably overfatigued when they wrote the storyline. In a variety of situations and locations, Del Piero has been extolling the virtues of said water to a… bird. The little critter flies into the dining room while Del Piero is having lunch and, once safely perched atop a chair’s back, has a short conversation with him in a falsetto voice.

In another sequence, a flight attendant brings Del Piero a glass of water but the Juve player kindly turns it down, saying that he’s already got his own bottle, all the while trying to keep from her the fact he’s also talking to the little bird, concealed under a folded newspaper.

Unfortunately, this series, which in itself helps project as clean an image of Del Piero as of the mineral water, became a nightmare as soon as opposing fans and common people got hold of it. While ‘bird’ may have a regular meaning in the British Isles but also a second, less noble one, its Italian equivalent also takes on the meaning of, er, a lower part of the male body which is usually well hidden in underwear.

No sweeping sociological assertion, I just thought this was funny. I also found the following to be interesting, considering the way that parochial Americans believe fascism to be nothing more than a Bad Word to try and pin on members of the other faction:

Lazio striker Paolo Di Canio is to appeal against a ban and a fine imposed following a recent straight-arm salute, claiming that while the gesture is fascist it not of a racist character.

‘I am a fascist, not a racist,’ Di Canio told the Italian news agency ANSA on Friday. ‘I give the straight arm salute because it is a salute from a ‘camerata’ to ‘camerati’. The salute is aimed at my people. With the straight arm I don’t want to incite violence and certainly not racial hatred,’ he said.

From comrade to comrades… sounds very “right-wing”, doesn’t it. No doubt as a member of the “far-right”, Comrade Paolo is big on decentralization, outlawing public education and no income taxes.