The web site “Evil Scale.com” allows you to rate individuals on the good/evil scale. Of course, George Bush wins the evil prize going away, scoring a substantially more evil score than his closest competition, Saddam Hussein. Number 3 on the list is Ronald Reagan, so that should tell you all you need to know about who visits this site.
Honorable mentions go to Stalin, Hitler, Cheney, and Colin Powell. Powell beats out Jeffrey Dahmer, Josef Mengele, Idi Amin, and Vlad the Impaler. Charles Manson is sandwiched between Donald Rumsfeld and Mike Huckabee. Scooter Libby edges out Lee Harvey Oswald.
Obama tops out the most good list, just nudging out George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ghandi, and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Smokey the Bear beats Harriet Tubman, and Jack Kervorkian beats Santa Claus. Jesus Christ ranks a paltry 37th, scoring lower the Dwight Eisenhower and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Beatles beat God, Ron Paul tops JFK, and Gordon Lightfoot wins over the unfairly maligned Abominable Snowman.
Those who think our society has a problem distinguishing good and evil can find good anecdotal evidence here. Or maybe the problem is that kids need to turn off the computers and spend more time learning to play softball and musical instruments.
August 20th, 2008
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Knife Crime. PowerLine notes the consequences of Great Britain’s 1997 ban on private ownership of handguns. If has apparently succeeded in its stated goal of taking guns off the street.
But the result has not been what was intended. Crime rates in the U.K. have risen steadily, and violent crime has increased alarmingly in recent years. London is currently in the grip of a crime wave, as one brutal, sensational murder follows another. The perpetrators are nearly always young, and the crimes, often unspeakably vicious, are generally of the type conventionally labeled “senseless.” The weapon of choice these days is the knife, and British papers are full of discussion of what to do about “knife crime.”
Speaking of Crime. The U.S. government discovered an interesting fact after it began fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa. Hundreds have criminal arrest records in the U.S. Thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision, I guess the rest of them are about to have criminal arrest records in the U.S. We can expect a new court-inspired revolving door as terrorists are repeatedly arrested, tried, and released. Then we will have “serial terrorists,” allowing talking heads and academics to wring their hands over recidivism rates.
Pathetic. PZ Myers, an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, is asking people to attend Mass for the purpose of obtaining consecrated communion wafers, which Myers promises to desecrate on YouTube. He also asks his readers to send letters to the university president supporting him because some religious nuts object to his stunt. But he asks that you please, “take the time to proofread and send him something that at least looks like a high school graduate wrote it.” So PZ views his detractors as ignorant and superstitious and his supporters as sloppy and illiterate. It must be lonely being PZ.
Safety First. Suppose you put your 3-year-old son in the back seat of the pickup, don’t restrain him in a car set, and give him access to a loaded .45 handgun. Then, while driving down the road, the kid shoots you in the back. What do you do? Naturally you sue Glock, the gun manufacturer, for being negligent. It can’t be your fault, especially if you’re a cop and you are well trained in automobile and firearm safety.
Is Buying a Gun a Suicidal Act? Steve Chapman answers: “Presumptuous paternalists argue that Americans should be deprived of guns because gun owners are their own worst enemies. A lot of Americans would reply: We can’t trust ourselves, but we can trust you?”
July 13th, 2008
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Brett Stephens writes, “A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.”
It’s Not Just the Episcopalians, notes GetReligion. “The [Presbyterian General Assembly] voted on a number of controversial statements about Israel and the Palestinians; approved a $2 million war chest to sue congregations seeking to leave; approved a change to one of the PCUSA’s confessions that would remove mention of homosexuality from the church’s confessional documents; voted to rescind thirty years’ worth of church policy on the incompatibility of homosexual behavior and Christian life; and voted to remove language from the church’s constitution requiring ordained ministers, elders and deacons to live in faithfulness in marriage or chastity in singleness.”
Newsflash: Democrats in Uniform. AP writer Nancy Benac bases an entire article on having found one soldier who supports McCain and another who supports Obama. This apparently portends a trend in Benac’s mind away from a military comprised entirely of Republicans. To back up this anecdotal foray, she reports the statistical bombshell that Obama has received $367,000 from people who gave at least $200 and claim to be in the military. Note to Benac: this is not a mutiny. It means Obama has at most 1,635 high-rolling contributors in the military, which comprises a whopping one-tenth of one percent of the 1,368,226 people now serving as active-duty military personnel. Last time I checked, the army doesn’t screen its recruits for party affiliation, and it’s not news that Democrats routinely engage in honorable military service.
My Bad. Ron Rosenbaum writes on “catchphrases,” those annoying sayings that are “past their sell-by date” and “need to be thrown under the bus along with ‘thrown under the bus.’” It’s a target-rich environment.
Really, if you “drill down,” to use another corporatism, there’s something kind of industrially extractive about “takeaway,” isn’t there? The impulse to reduce everything to a PowerPoint action item? All the most interesting things in life are the things you can’t extract and “take away.”
So, Dude, going forward when you want to explain where’s the beef, better think outside the box to hone your elevator pitch because anything more mission critical is going to receive a thumbs down. Your street cred depends on buzzwords for a takeaway. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
A Carrier for the Times. Check out the U.S.S. William Clinton,
The ship is constructed entirely of recycled aluminum and is completely solar powered with a top speed of 5 knots. It boasts an arsenal of one (unarmed) F14 Tomcat or one (unarmed) F18 Hornet aircraft which, although they cannot be launched or captured on the 100 foot flight deck, form a very menacing presence.
PJ Country has pictures and everything.
July 6th, 2008
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Oh, the Sophistication. Roger Kimball sums up the philosophy of our times: “It is an axiom of criticism that the extent of our disillusionment is a reliable index of our wisdom: the idea that somehow the less we believe the more enlightened we are.” That’s what makes Truthers impervious to contrary data.
In that context, one thinks of Chesterton’s famous observation: “When a Man stops believing in God he doesn¹t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.” But do you believe Chesterton really said that?
Passing the Buck through History. “Yesterday Britain’s woes were blamed on the ‘credit crunch’. Then they were blamed on global oil price. And today it is all the fault of Margaret Thatcher. Tomorrow, it shall all be the fault of Benjamin Disraeli, and the day after it will be Julius Caesar. After more than a decade in power, nothing, it seems, is the fault of New Labour or Gordon Brown.” Archbishop Cranmer.
Passing the Buck through Sophistry. “Today, this day, 34 Americans will be murdered by guns. And again tomorrow, and the day after. America experiences a Virginia Tech massacre every day . . . but try finding a majority in Congress who’s willing to stand up and be counted, who’s willing to take on the National Rifle Association. Democrats, Republicans, independents, they’re all terrified. And people die as a result. Children, parents, police officers.” Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York.
It seems that every time one element of society goes bad, some other group engages in copycat crimes. Guns have gotten so much press that knives are now jealously trying to get into the act. We may soon see reports that cooks (who tend to own a lot of knives) are experiencing a higher rate of insubordination from their tools.
Yellow Science. “In the late nineteenth century, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer developed what would come to be known as yellow journalism. By disregarding what had been standard journalistic methods, particularly in regards to the verifying of sources, these two publishers were able both to push their country toward war with Spain and dramatically increase the circulation of their respective newspapers.” So begins the article “Yellow Science” in First Things by James Kerian. If you can’t guess the subject of the article, you haven’t been paying attention.
June 29th, 2008
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Consider the Source. CBS News and the AP jumped on the story about how global warming is causing a massive increase in the severity of earthquakes. The story – oops, it’s not there anymore because, as these sterling news organizations discovered too late, the scientist pushing this theory is one sandwich short of a picnic. He says that global warming is also heating the earth’s core and the whole world is about to explode.
Chalko also runs a website for followers of the Thiaoouba Prophecy, which preaches that advanced beings from the planet Thiaoouba abduct one Earthling every century and impart unto the chosen-one the true meaning of life.
There’s more here.
Advice for the Canadian HRC busily deliberating over what to do about Mark Steyn. P.J. O’Rourke writes in a somewhat different context: “There are no thought crimes, no philosophical felonies, among a free people.”
Defeminizing the Schools. A feminist says women teachers (and about 90% of primary school teachers are women) need to let boys be boys.
‘I’ve been in classes with young female teachers and by the end of the session my ears hurt,’ she added. ‘Women need to step back and shut up.’
Pinochet lives on. Richard Armitage must have been “disappeared” – the tactic ascribed to former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet. How else to explain the pervasive absence of Armitage’s name in the media? The man who admitted outing Valerie Plame has been erased from history as the media spin a narrative more suited to their fantasies. Beldar has more.
June 22nd, 2008
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Is this the kind of critical analysis they teach in acting school?
Rupert Everett, who is portraying actor Richard Burton, called military personnel “wimps,” saying:
In [Richard] Burton’s day they were itching to get into the fray. Now it is the opposite. They are always whining about the dangers of being killed. Oh my God, they are such wimps now! The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000ft above the war zone to avoid getting hit. I don’t think there is any point in having wars if that’s how you’re going to behave. It’s pathetic. All this whining!
The whole point of being in the Army is going to war and getting yourself blown up. That and p—ing on prisoners. Yet we all get shocked by Abu Ghraib.
Realizing some time later that these remarks might be seen as somewhat . . . uh, intemperate, Everett apologized and attempted to explain:
He explained he made his remarks to compare war now to war in Victorian times, saying: “I compared his longing to get into battle to the way we engage in war today. Then death was glorious. Today it is what it really is. Each and every death is a terrible tragic loss.”
He said: “To be a soldier one needs that special gene, that extra something, that enables a person to jump into one on one combat, something, after all, that is unimaginable to most of us, as we are simply not brave enough.”
The fact that Everett gave no apparent thought to voicing this foolishness in the press strongly suggests that those views pass for conventional wisdom in the crowd Everett hangs out with. It’s good that he apologized, but perhaps he should give his apology where it counts – at any NCO club, where I’m sure he will find a most receptive audience.
In many times and places, able-bodied men (presumably Everett is one) did not have the luxury of avoiding military service. In such times, those who served were not blessed with a special gene for bravery or motivated by a desire to be blown up. The most cursory reading of military history should convince anyone that wars are fought by ordinary men called on to do extraordinary things. Those who, for whatever reason, saw no combat generally had the good sense and humility not to impugn those who did.
Today, however, we are plagued with a smarmy class of poseurs who assume that wars can be avoided by getting the right kind of therapy for the brutal and insecure men who populate the ranks. This seems particularly ironic in the case of actors who perfect the art of looking tough in the face of imaginary dangers, who stand up to and defeat scores of enemy firing blanks, while simultaneously calling those who face real bullets “wimps.” As Everett himself said, “I have nothing to complain about . . . except maybe people wondering if a queen like me can butch-it-up enough to play a convincing straight man.”
Don’t strain yourself, Ev, but consider a few facts:
- The Eighth Air Force suffered the highest casualty rate of all Allied forces in WWII while routinely flying missions at 20,000 ft. (without pressurized cabins).
- The death of military personnel in past wars left widows and orphans who no doubt considered the event no less tragic than it is today.
- Richard Burton did not live in Victorian times.
June 10th, 2008
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When anti-war utopians and feminists gain control of the executive branch, gut the defense budget, and rein in those testosterone-crazed military types, we can expect more of this:
The Panties for Peace campaign plays on the regime leaders’ superstitious fear that contact with a woman’s underpants will rob them of their power. Women around the world are asked to post their panties to local Burmese embassies in a bid to strip the regime of its power and bring an end to its gross violations of human rights, especially those committed against Burma’s women.
Perhaps we should avoid criticizing for now and wait to see what happens. Maybe this will work to loosen the grip of the Burmese junta that is preventing disaster relief from reaching millions of its citizens. And besides, there seems to be no risk of anybody doing anything more aggressive.
Panties for Peace describes the situation in Burma as a “humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions.” It is telling that in casting about for a solution to the Burmese people’s compelling need, the feminists can offer only their undies. Hopefully, the Burmese are impressed with the sacrifice.
Instead of using the military, we’ll talk. And when talking doesn’t work, we will resort to our unmentionables.
There are times when your arsenal needs to contain something a little heavier than panties, and somebody needs to know how to use it.
As the West “plays” (good word) with the superstitions of the Burmese military, their association of women’s underwear with a loss of power seems less superstitious and more rational all the time.
June 4th, 2008
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I enjoy reading thoughtful blogs written by retired Command Sergeant Majors. J.D. Pendry writes from the perspective of a veteran and as someone coping with ordinary life in rural West Virginia. I am currently learning (happily) to cope with rural life, and sometime back I had to learn (less happily) to cope with Command Sergeant Majors. Both efforts have been rewarding in their own way.
Pendry talks about faith in ordinary people and self-reliance, and he usually contrasts that with various government schemes to circumvent common sense. Yesterday, he took on the issue of rising oil prices.
I do not get the impression that anyone in Congress, or anyone who wants to be our President, is interested in what their inaction or the restrictions they impose inflict on the Average-American that has to go to a job every day. Or to the grocery store, or doctor’s office, or mow the lawn, or get on an airplane to visit an ailing parent or sibling or pay the higher prices for virtually every product under the sun that is delivered to us in a carbon fuel burning vehicle.
In the country, there is no public transportation. People drive greater distances out of necessity. They drive larger vehicles because you can’t load much hay into a Toyota Prius, and a Prius is completely useless in getting your livestock to market. In fact, many city-dwellers have similar issues, especially those with more than two children.
I’m all for developing alternative and renewable sources of energy, but those are not current solutions. Meanwhile, we leave the fuel supply that works now in the ground while we buy it from others at exorbitant prices. When we finally develop the next generation of energy technology, our vast supply of minerals may be worthless and the new technology may be mortgaged to the oil-producing states.
There is some high stakes gambling going on in Washington right now. It is the gamble that one political party or the other will be the one to convince Americans that it can save them from “big oil”. Unfortunately, for us, all of the hands being played now are losers. We need the hand that will save us from big politics. . . .
I have been out in the bunker working on a new drilling technique. On Tuesday, November 4, 2008, it should be operational. When activated, if it works properly, it will suck all of the gas out of Congress.
June 2nd, 2008
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Real archaeologists don’t actually live the life of Indiana Jones. Neil Asher Silberman finds the fictional portrayal of archaeologists somewhat distressing.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of pop culture. But I have a problem with the entertainment tail wagging the archaeological dog. As someone who’s been involved in archaeology for the past 35 years, I can tell you that Indiana Jones is not the world’s most famous fictional archaeologist; he’s the world’s most famous archaeologist, period.
I’ve got news for Silberman. Real lawyers don’t exactly live like Perry Mason or the lawyers that Grisham writes about either. I’ve often envied Perry Mason for having only one case at a time, getting it resolved in a few days, and then having a new client immediately appear with a new problem and a new fee.
I know that the Indiana Jones series is just a campy tribute to the Saturday afternoon serials of the 1930s and the B-movies of the 1950s, but believe me, it totally misrepresents who archaeologists are and what goals we pursue.
And I would guess that the writers took some liberties portraying the professional life of Clark Kent, Dr. Kildare, and Rin Tin Tin. If I were an archaeology professor, I would be grateful that someone had the creativity to make my profession look glamorous. The alternative would be to pass two hours watching Indiana Jones grade papers at his kitchen table.
Silberman’s real point, however, is buried toward the end of his column – a political argument straight from the formulaic script of academia:
At a time when our national political debates are centered on our relationships with other cultures, when the question of talking to rather than attacking perceived enemies has become a contentious presidential campaign issue, . . . the thrill-a-minute adventures of Indiana Jones are potentially dangerous and dysfunctional models for both modern archaeology and American behavior in the world.
Who’s mired in fiction now? I didn’t know Indiana Jones was a model, dysfunctional or otherwise, for American behavior in the world. Do we expect archaeologists to lead us out of the political wilderness and into a new age of enlightened diplomacy? If only we had better, more genteel, models of archaeology, we would elect more Democrats and our enemies would love us.
No thanks. Give us more action. Maybe a movie about a blogger who jets around the world in his pajamas rescuing damsels and writing posts on his PDA while drinking martinis – stirred, not shaken.
Fantasy can be a guilty pleasure. But don’t confuse it with archaeology. And please don’t ever ask me about my fedora and bullwhip again.
A professor with a bullwhip and fedora? We could wish, but . . . too heteronormative, too patriarchal.
May 28th, 2008
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Memorial Day is not among the special occasions that Google commemorates. There are special pages with special Google logos for Mother’s Day, Earth Day, the Persian New Year, Walter Gropius’s 125th birthday (one of my favorites as a part-time Weimar resident), and many others.
Google has stated reasons for leaving Memorial Day off the list:
We have to balance this rotating calendar with the need to maintain the consistency of the Google homepage.
Furthermore, Google’s special logos tend to be lighthearted in nature. If we were to commemorate Memorial Day, we would want to express reverence, rather than mirth. This would be a particularly challenging design. We would not want to, in any way, create a graphic that could be interpreted as disrespectful. In light of the mail we have received about this, we are actively considering designs we could display on this day next year. We welcome any suggestions you may have.
Little Green Footballs took up the challenge. Many good designs (scroll down) were submitted by readers for a Memorial Day Google logo.
As much as I like Little Green Footballs, however, I decline to join the criticism of Google on this issue for two reasons. First, I don’t know of any reason that Google should feel compelled to decorate its page for particular occasions or justify its decision to ignore the event. If consumers are unhappy with its decision, they can vote with their feet. Google may have raised expectations by observing some patently frivolous occasions or by observing more serious occasions frivolously, but that does not seem a sufficient basis to start demanding something more. Free-market conservatives in particular should concede Google’s right to make whatever choice it wants.
Second, we have a distressing tendency to trivialize our observances. It is possible (though doubtful) that the majority of Google’s staff attended special Memorial Day services. That kind of observance would be preferable, I think, to festooning the logo or putting a mini flag next to the hotdogs at the company picnic. Cheap and effortless displays too often substitute for something more meaningful.
No doubt many people, individually and in groups, observed Memorial Day by attending a Requiem, saluting a flag, tending a grave, or offering thanks in myriad other ways. The Google page can neither add to nor subtract from these more weighty and heartfelt observances.
May 27th, 2008
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