The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Kinetic Military Action’: Remember When It Was Simply ‘War’?

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Fausta was one of the bazillion bloggers mocking the verbal ‘wardrobe malfunction’ of the year week day. It was a sideshow on Twitter, where I got faved by a couple of people for this effort:

More at The Sundries Shack.
Oh, wait, a breaking terminology update:

a time-limited, scope-limited military action

is the new Kinetic Military Action. TLSLMA. That’s Like Saying Lying Makes Amends.
In this particular kerfuffle, as with the Obama Administration as a whole, the lesson is “Never send an academic to do a job requiring leadership.”

Category: Barack Obama

The New Tone Deafness: Public Unions ‘McVeigh In’ With OKC Imagery

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

Gateway Pundit links a NewsOK story:

A state senator today blasted a firefighter union television advertisement as “horrific and tasteless” for using images of the Oklahoma City bombing to make a case against his bill.

The advertisement by the International Association of Firefighters began airing today.


The first line of the ad:

“Firefighters and paramedics are sworn to saving lives and protecting property.”

Now, ‘protecting property’ could be construed to mean ‘protecting the value of the property’ without a lot of mental gymnastics. So how does that work, if the funding model for the union benefits bankrupts the community?
A public sector union is a mutiny, and merits all the affection afforded such.

Category: Unions

Military Gay Training

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 11 Comments

This is going to work out real smooth:

Four branches of the military have begun sending training material to 2.2 million active and reserve troops as a prelude to opening the ranks to gays, with instructions on, for example, what to do if an officer sees two male Marines kissing in a shopping mall.
Key themes are that sexual orientation will no longer be a bar to service, that all service members must respect each other, and that the partners of gay troops will not receive the benefits of heterosexual spouses.
“We are going to make [gay ban] repeal training expeditiously,” said Maj. Joel Harper, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon. “It’s great training.” . . .
The Marine Corps, which a Pentagon survey found holds deep opposition to lifting the ban, plans to publicly release its training material April 1. A Marine source provided copies to The Washington Times.
The vignette about seeing two male Marines kissing is part of a list of scenarios to help instructors prepare commanders for incidents likely to arise.
“Situation,” it begins. “You are the Executive Officer of your unit. While shopping at the local mall over the weekend, you observe two junior male Marines in appropriate civilian attire assigned to your unit kissing and hugging in the food court.
“Issue: Standards of Conduct. Is this within standards of personal and professional conduct?”

I predict Smitty’s head will explode.

Smitty
Oh no, things are going swimmingly here in ScentCOM, as the Brits are far ahead of us on the downward spiral. We are, however, chasing their tail for some of that hot, kinetic military action, IYKWIMAITYD, NTTAWWT, PDTMY*:

*Please Don’t Tell My My Wife

Category: Gays, Military

Alan Colmes Is A Dumb [Maher], But You Already Knew That

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

Why is it that Republicans tend to favor policies that reduce voter registration, while Democrats do the opposite? The Texas House passed a bill, supported by Governor Rick Perry…requiring photo ID, and it is likely to hurt minority voter turnout.

Once upon a time, I used to think there was some sincere argument here. Now I recognize this as your typical Lefty intellectual judo. Who is buried in Grant’s tomb? All you have to do is introduce uncertainty, and you now have a ‘problem’ to set about solving.
Lets rework Alan’s question: Why is it that Republicans favor policies that improve the legitimacy of elections?
Answer: because legitimate elections are foundational to legitimate government, you knob!

Category: Election

Fred Phelps And Westboro Baptist Predictably Tasteless In Remembering Liz Taylor

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 20 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Tatler)

CBS News:

Yes, the Westboro Baptist Church – the Kansas-based organization with a history of holding controversial and politically inflammatory protests – has announced that its members plan to picket the star’s funeral, according to reports.

TMZ reports that Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro leader Fred Phelps, sounded off on Twitter Wednesday about the planned protest:

“RIP Elizabeth Taylor is in hell as sure as you’re reading this & getting mad as a wet hen. She should’ve obeyed God. Too late!”

Hey, Fred: if you want to follow Christ, I recommend you start by picketing precisely as many funerals as the Carpenter did.
Should those knuckleheads ever protest in Arlington, and I am home to do anything about it, I should like to muster a bunch of Christians for a flash choir to maybe breath a little love at these folks.
As for Liz: God rest the lady. I wasn’t a tremendous fan, but there’s no denying she was lovely.

Category: Celebrities

Your Bagram Accommodations

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

5 seconds of video takes half an hour to push to YouTube through YouStraw, but this is what it looks like back in the hooch:

More pictures and notes below the fold: Read more

Category: Aghanistan

I Hate It When They Lay The Truth Out Like That

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

Eric Posner at Volokh presents the challenge, emphasis mine:

Today, originalists—or at least those who enjoy influence such as judges—occupy themselves with the Bill of Rights, and, with the exception of the second amendment, the whole tenor of the movement has been oriented toward eliminating the various civil-liberty related rights manufactured during the last half century. Another group of people—not all of them originalists—want to dismantle New Deal regulatory institutions but this effort has utterly failed. 

There is no constituency for reforming the executive. That is a simple political fact about the United States, and therefore no one with real influence is willing to follow the necessary implications of originalism for executive power. Why not? Because Americans want a strong president. They want a strong president to defend the United States from terrorists, to deliver humanitarian interventions, to respond to natural disasters like Katrina, to resolve financial crises, to combat climate change, to fix the deficit. The call for leadership by a strong executive in response to the crisis du jour is reflexive. When a crisis strikes, and the government does not respond adequately, everyone complains that the president has failed to display leadership. This type of response is so reflexive that it is applied even to events that occur outside the United States. Thus, a few days ago the New York Times attributed Japan’s travails to “the absence of a strong leader capable of rallying the nation.” Everyone understands the theoretical risks of a powerful executive—that was the now completely forgotten theme of the Bush administration—but, as a matter of mainstream thinking at least, those risks are worth taking.

This is precisely why no one should be surprised that Obama==Bush. Obama may want to be something different, but the Oval Office succubus could suck a bus.
And this is why I’m no raging Sarah Palin fanboi: there isn’t much indication she’d be any different than the previous two. And the more her fanbase moves in the fanatic Paulestinian direction, the more the Left will laugh, knowing that their Alinsky effort to over-personalize the Presidency is winning.
Keep increasing the involvement, Americans. We can realize the Founder’s dream of an informed electorate if we continue to expound on the ideas that
(1) the State is not God, and
(2) rock star politicians are not the answer.
Keeping those two ideas in mind, executive reform may be possible in an election cycle or two.

Category: Uncategorized

Should Any ‘Spooky Dude’ Be Allowed To Recast The Global Economy?

Posted on | March 24, 2011 | 13 Comments

by Smitty (via Drudge)

Liberty? Sovereignty? Are they quaint notions? The Business & Media Institute reports:

Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start – and no one seems to have noticed.

On April 8, a group he’s funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros’s goal for such an event is to “establish new international rules” and “reform the currency system.” It’s all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.”

The event is bringing together “more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders’ to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Soros wants a new ‘multilateral system,” or an economic system where America isn’t so dominant.

RTWT.
While stridently resisting the whole tinfoil hat scene, let me put it this way to any conservative political hopefuls who want traction for 2012. Frame your economic positions in terms of:

  • Protecting US sovereignty from international economic undermining.
  • Restoring sanity to fiscal policy.
  • Actually balancing the budget and eliminating deficit spending.

Anyone who can speak coherently about these issues has the election half won.

Category: Chris Cassone, George Soros
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