Vox Popoli

The Blogger Blaster sends word of arrested legislators in Tennessee:

**UPDATE*** The FBI has the Tennessee State Capital surrounded. No one is allowed in or out. Tennessee is currecntly under siege folks. My dad just crossed the state line and he reports that there are 20 state troopers at the line… and apparently its happening all over the state. Troopers are stationed at the stateline on both I-24 and I-65. Draw your own conclusions folks. My gut says they are tryin’ to prevent legislators from fleeing the state.

Continuing with McCain and company would be nice. Arrested so far:

Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga
Sen. John Ford, D-Memphis
Sen. Kathryn Bowers, D-Memphis
Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland

Apparently three more were arrested as well.

At a time when the Army and Marine Corps are struggling to fill their ranks, many conservatives are determined to limit the ability of women and gays to contribute to the war effort. Are they more concerned with winning culture wars at home or winning the war on terrorism abroad?

…

Even as women have taken on roles once reserved for men, the disastrous consequences predicted by naysayers have not come to pass. In 2000, the late Col. David Hackworth wrote: “What the British longbow did to the French army at Crecy in 1346, the failed military policy on gender integration has done to the U.S. armed forces at the end of the 20th century: near total destruction.” Yet in the last five years, “near total destruction” has been the fate not of the U.S. armed forces but the Taliban and Baathists they have battled.

Far from being crippled by the presence of women, the military has found that female soldiers can perform some jobs that men can’t, such as searching Iraqi women. As long as standards are not compromised to allow women into jobs beyond their physical capacity, I don’t see why we should reverse the trend toward greater opportunities for women.

The short answer, of course, is that conservatives wish to win the culture war at home while winning the so-called war without hampering the military with divisive, low-quality elements that will destroy unit morale and reduce operational efficiency.

Women in the military are a complete disaster. The finest aviators can’t land on carriers without killing themselves, the mechanics can’t even carry the tools they require for their jobs and they regularly make use of the pregnancy option to render themselves undeployable. The last sentence is particularly ironic, as almost every element of Army training has been severely compromised in order to avoid having to eliminate 90 percent of female recruits.

Hackworth’s point is still spot-on. The USA has defeated a third-rate military without an Air Force. So what? Defeating Israel – which no longer allows women in combat units – or the numerically superior People’s Liberation Army might support this joker’s point, but when you’ve got tactical and numerical superiority, air supremacy and a three-generation technological lead, you should win even if your combat troops are Girl Scouts.

Ramesh Ponnuru freezes Richard Cohen solid, then smacks him with a hammer:

He thinks that the president’s event with families who had adopted “unused” embryos and raised them as children was emotionally manipulative. I suppose we should go back to the sober, rational debate we were having with pictures of disease-stricken celebrities.

His only argument is a version of the naturalistic fallacy: A lot of human embryos die because they fail to implant, therefore they weren’t alive in the first place. In other words: because they die naturally, it’s okay for us to kill them deliberately. Because tsunamis happen, is it okay to slaughter Asians?

An excellent and concise dismissal. Wish I’d managed to put it that precisely myself.

And actually, I think political discourse via celebrity is a perfectly reasonable way to go about it in a culture where Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton are considered major news stories by the media and public alike.

The NYT hits the health clubs:

Devotees stake out favored spots in studio classes to place themselves strategically at the seat of power near the instructor or to lay claim to real estate with the best view. Woe to the newcomer who disrupts the established order, because some members fight for a coveted space.

Lisa Singer, an instructor at several clubs in New York, including at the Sports Club/LA, once saw a woman set up her mat and equipment in another’s usual place during a conditioning class. A confrontation ensued. The usurper wouldn’t move, so the testy regular whacked her with a Body Bar (a pole that can weigh 15 pounds). The assailant was escorted from the club.

Weight lifters flex their muscles in other ways. Slamming a weight on the floor or grunting while lifting is “about needing to preen and exhibit territorial behavior,” said Dr. Jack Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana University in Bloomington. “The gym just seems to bring out the animal in some people.”

Two things. First, I’d like to see Dr. Jack Raglin bench 315 without grunting. A loud exhalation is a method of increasing explosive power that has been recognized for centuries, if not millenia. Second, I found it interesting that while men tend to offend by acts of omission, most of the aggressive boorishness in the article was exhibited by women.

While I can testify to the accuracy of the former, I have no idea about the latter. Men who are serious about working out shouldn’t be in the aerobics rooms or around the machines anyhow, they should be hitting the free weights.

Perhaps this answers The Sports Guy’s question about the possibility of an actor becoming punch drunk as the result of playing a boxer:

HOLLYWOOD star Sylvester Stallone has revealed he almost died during a fight scene in Rocky IV – when he instructed fighting partner Dolph Lundgren to beat him up.

The movie star felt sure he could tame the towering Scandinavian actor’s punches in the ring, but had no idea how fast and powerful his co-star was. Sly told IOL.com: “I go to Dolph Lundgren and I said, ‘Here’s what you do. I know we choreographed this but forget it. I want you to come out for the first 30 seconds, trying to take me out’.

“The next thing I know I was in intensive care with a tube in my nose and nuns walking round the bed, going ‘Can we get you something?'”

Dolph is a big, big guy, and unlike most action film stars – cough, Van Damme – he was the real deal when it comes to the martial arts. I always thought it was a shame that he couldn’t act very well, because he’s a very smart guy with an engineering Master’s who once won a scholarship to MIT. He tends to validate the theory that the dumber the actor, the emptier the vessel, the easier it is for the director to fill it and achieve a credible result.

However, for such a big guy, he can’t hold his liquor very well. I had to drag him back to his hotel after he all but passed out at a nightclub in Roppongi one night. I’m not sure how, but I somehow ended up with his leather jacket, which I returned to him a few days later. It was a really nice jacket, so nice that I might have been tempted to keep it if it hadn’t almost reached my knees.

Anyhow, I have no problem believing that he almost killed Mr. Stallone. I was knocked out once by a 6’6″ fighter who wasn’t anywhere nearly as fast or as skilled as Dolph Lundgren. Since F=MA, those giants can pack a monstrous punch.

Of course, the big guys always tend to forget the A portion of the equation. I’ll never forget the shock on the football players’ faces when one of the sprinters on my college team gave a linebacker who outweighed him by about fifty pounds a crude, but effective lesson in basic physics.

From the Financial Times:

France and the Netherlands should re-run their referendums to obtain the “right answer” if their voters reject Europe’s constitutional treaty in imminent national ballots, Jean-Claude Juncker, the holder of the EU presidency, said on Wednesday.

The Luxembourg prime minister said all 25 EU member countries should continue their attempts to ratify the treaty whatever the outcome of the French and Dutch votes.

His comments reflect a mood of deepening pessimism among Europe’s leaders about the outcome of the referendums.

Why not? This vote-until-you-get-it-right strategy worked in forcing Ireland to “accept” the Nice Treaty. As I’ve stated before, the EU is about as democratic as the National Socialists, and about as liberty-loving too.

To loosely quote Tom Wolfe, the spectre of fascism hangs over America, and yet it somehow always manages to land in Europe. Not that our own National and Social Democrats won’t learn from this debacle and imitate Germany’s national suicide by legislative vote when the time comes for us to merge with Mexico and Canada.

38 years and counting down.

Thus spake Zygmunt:

“We will be in the Minneapolis area forever. Look, I’m not changing that at all. We will do our best to make sure that we get the best venue and right location.”

He said he plans to use his real estate business acumen to move forward on a plan for a new stadium, preferably an outdoor venue that will re-establish a home field weather advantage.

I will, of course, oppose any and all plans to make the public buy the guy a stadium. But he doesn’t want to move the team to LA and he wants an outdoor stadium. That’s two big improvements over Red McCombs right there.

I will be live-blogging the Champion’s League final between AC Milan and Liverpool tonight. In case you’re interested, it starts at 1 PM Central time.

Not that I’m biased or anything, but… forza Milan!

UPDATE – Or maybe not. Satellite is down. I suspect the Blogger Blaster.

Desert Cat muses somewhat bitterly:

Is there now any reason to vote Republican?

For Senate candidates anyway? Certainly no reason I can see to vote Republican next time John McCain is up for re-election, and plenty of reason to actively campaign against him. He is sadly mistaken if he thinks he has an ice cube’s chance in hell of becoming the next Republican presidential nominee.

There is one reason why many conservative voters have gone to the polls and voted for Republican candidates over the last ten years, and that has been to stem the tide of liberal judicial activism. By actively subverting the Senate leadership, this group of Senate “moderates” have subverted the will of the majority in this nation.

This is excoriable.

I don’t even need to go over to Vox’s site to hear his “See! I told you so.” I see. I see….

UPDATE: Vox comes through, although I would have expected him to strike a little harder while the iron is hot.

I mean if ever, now is the time when the party faithful may be convinceable that their faith is misplaced. “Hang together or hang separately” is still my motto, but Vox ought to be reeling in new converts by the fistful if he’d just drop his net on the right side of the boat.

Actually, if one-third of the Republicans who are outraged by the National Democrat’s latest faux cave-in to their Social Democratic partners-in-crime refuse to play Three Monkey in 2008, I’ll be pleased. Most people will forget or will fall for the “a vote for X is a vote for Hillary Clinton” argument and will end up voting for Giuliani, Bush or whoever is chosen to play sacrificial lamb against the new, new, new Hillary Clinton, moderate centrist with conservative leanings extraordinaire.

You can’t think for another man, you can merely try to ask him the right questions. As someone has wisely said, Man is a rationalizing creature. Many Republicans are already choosing to see the filibuster deal as a glass half-full; enough repetitions of this message and most of the people who haven’t forgotten it entirely will remember it as a necessary and acceptable evil.

What’s good for the goose is even better for the gander:

Betty (but call her BJ) Ostergren, a feisty 56-year-old from just north of Richmond, is driven to make important people angry. She puts their Social Security numbers on her Web site, or links to where they can be found.

It’s not that she wants CIA Director Porter J. Goss, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, or Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to be victims of identity theft, as were millions of Americans in the past year. Ostergren is on a crusade to scare and shame public officials into doing something about how easy it is to get sensitive personal data.

Data brokers such as ChoicePoint Inc. and LexisNexis Group have been attractive targets for identity thieves because they are giant buyers and sellers of personal data on millions of people. But as federal and state lawmakers try to keep sensitive information from falling into criminal hands, they face a difficult dilemma: The information typically originates from records gathered and stored by public agencies, available for anyone to see in courthouses and government buildings around the country.

What’s more, local governments have in recent years rushed to put these records online.

I’m all for this. If they’re going to cram it down the throats of the American people, the American people should make sure that they get to experience the full consequences of their evil, idiotic actions.