Far South of I-10

Jim Lileks, in this morning's bleat: "But what do I know. I’m so out of touch I saw that picture of the Marlboro Man soldier and did not instantly fire off a letter to the editor protesting this flagrant and unhelpful depiction of – what’s the word? - reality. Some did, of course. (One of many examples I've seen about.) For God’s sake, if Patton were alive today he’d be slapping civilians . Granted, we’re talking about a select stratum of the population whose undies come pre-bunched, but even by their standards this is ridiculous. You get the sense that this was the last straw for some – it’s bad enough that we have soldiers in Iraq (if we have to have soldiers AT ALL) but to have conspicuously smoking soldiers just rubs their nose in it all. It’s stuff like this that makes the standard imagery of WW2 look like dispatches from an alternate dimension, and makes you wonder how the modern media might have covered WW2. You can well imagine the reports from Norma...

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11412539^401,00.html It is prohibited to kill or wound an enemy who is surrendering or who is hors de combat . ...is the rule from the geneva convention. I think this Marine was justified in doing whatever he did. If he had not shot this insurgent, and the insurgent activated his suicide belt or a hand grenade killing everyone including the reporter, there would be stories complaining about how the marines don't protect imbeds. If the guy hasn't actively surrendered, he's a combatant until he's dead or obviously hors de combat. ( 'out of the fight'; disabled ) In the age of chivalry, hors de combat meant that you couldn't handle a sword or mount your horse. In an age where all you need to do is press a button to set off an explosive charge, when are you out of the fight? If I were president Bush I'd give him a presidential pardon. Of course, if I were president, Fallujah would be a molten glass f...

This entry at Harry's Place really hits the nail on the head. A busy spell on the blog (scroll down if you've not been here for a while), so lets just take stock. After the reaction of 'Index on Censorship' to the murder of Theo Van Gogh (below) where does that leave us in the bizarre world of the post-9-11 left? We have 'peace' campaigners who are in favour of terrorism. We have 'anti-fascists' who support fascists. We have 'feminists' supporting the oppressors of women. We have 'socialists' against trade unions. We have 'revolutionaries' in favour of the status quo and stability. We have 'anti-racists' who support racists. We have 'secularists' against secularism. And now we have anti-censorship campaigners who respond to a political murder by saying the victim had 'abused his right to free speech'. And they say we are the ones who have sold out? The same people who were against su...

Instapundit linked to the Chicago Boys blog where they had a fairly interesting discussion of this whole idea of the blue states secceceding to form their own all liberal, all the time nation : So seeing maps with "Jesusland" and "United States of Canada" should not surprise us. It is the traditional Anglospheric way of thinking out loud about how to resolve seemingly irreconcilable differences. One way is to leave, physically, for some new place -- "light out for the territories", or "go West", or as Davey Crocket put it "you people can go to Hell; I'm going to Texas". And if there are too many dissatisfied people for this method to work, there is pressure to re-deal the cards on who runs which pieces of real estate. Thankfully, for now, any proposed division of territory is merely political satire. But secession thinking is often the first straw in the wind of a storm of deeper conflict coming up. I have sev...

http://www.flowgo.com/funpages/view.cfm/6019

It's kind of interesting yet stressful watching the election returns as the polls close in the east. In reality the decision has already been made who is going to win the election, an observer just has to open the box and see the result. There's no dead cat in this case though, hopefully not a dead country either. Whatever the outcome, this experiment's true outcome won't really be known for years or even decades. That's a more hopeful thought. The sweep of history will decide whether tonight's outcome is good or bad. This experiment is neither cat nor country in a box, it's a box within a box (ad infinitum). Even if the particle decays or the vote is cast wrong, it's neither the end of the world nor the end of the theoretical cat. Life goes on.