How our Afghan allies trash-talk Taliban

Our Afghan allies risk everything, their lives and hopes, on the belief that America - personified by American soldiers - will stand with them to defeat the enemy and create a better Afghanistan. Read the ABC news story: Trash Talking the Taliban During Firefights. EXCERPT:

I asked Maj. Said Rahim Hakmal what they talk about. Politics, he said. "The Taliban will say things like why do you side with the Americans? Why do you sell out your country? You love Obama more than Afghanistan." Hakmal said the standard response goes something like, "The Americans are here to help our country function again. They don't want to stay. They want to help, then leave. You should help, too." Then the shooting starts.

Listen, all believers of liberalism, to the Afghan man: "You should help, too." Help them and help our soldiers help them. Our COIN strategy in the War on Terror is a definitively progressive liberal strategy.

Eric

Amy Bishop, PhD

Huntsville-Alabama Professor Amy Bishop is the latest high-achieving woman to grab the headlines with a surprising crime. She killed 3 and wounded 3 colleagues at a faculty meeting on Feb 12. Bishop apparently has a history of extreme, even violent, reactions and possibly murdered her little brother in their family home when he was 18 and she was 21.

Crazy.

Eric

Epic Beard Man

Google "epic beard man" and watch the cell phone vid of a UFC beatdown on an Oakland bus. Hilarious. Reviewing the incident account and not knowing what came before the video, the loser's reaction to EBM seems normal for someone confronting a perceived racist insult; but Dave Chappelle's bit "When keeping it real goes wrong" does come to mind. See interview of EBM below: turns out, not surprisingly, dude's not all there. The loser's mistakes were not realizing EBM was crazy and not dialing back the street machismo when he saw EBM's size. If EBM really is a Vietnam War veteran, one-time pimp and drug dealer, and convicted felon, then the loser sure tried to swell up with the wrong stranger. I hope if I reach 67, I have half the vigor and spirit of Thomas Bruso (aka Tommy Slick, aka Epic Beard Man). The funny lesson is avoid trash-talking with solid-looking big guys with big beards who wear t-shirts that say "I AM A MOTHERFUCKER" on the back and their street name on the front. The sober lesson is the necessity of being able to fight and physically defend yourself at all times; never lose sight of the enduring human truths older than human civilization.

Big, solid, crazy, unafraid, with the fighting skill of a trained boxer - that's a dangerous combination that's wiser to avoid on a city bus, no matter what kind of weird racist shit the guy's babbling.



Eric

Producerism

Producerism - interesting, compelling even. Half Sigma (blogger who's a Stuy grad and lawyer who advocates for HBD, as Leaf did at our reunion) has several posts discussing the same ideology, except he calls it post-Marxism. The focus of the theory is on value creation and value transference.

Eric

Matrix and Rumsfeld quotes

The Architect, The Matrix Reloaded: There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept.

Donald Rumsfeld: There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

Bonus: Andrew Ryan, Bioshock: I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.'

Eric

Ilario Pantano running for Congress in NC

I read his book in 2007 and e-mailed his advocacy group. I got this e-mail last week:

Dear Eric,

Wethought you might be interested in knowing about Ilario’s latest endeavor.
Heis running for Congress in North Carolina!!!!
Pleasevisit his website and military.com for the great discussion which is on fire
regardingthe article below.

Ilario can really use your help. Please let everyone know.

Onceagain, thank you,
MerryPantano


www.PantanoForCongress.com


http://www.military.com/news/article/former-marine-pantano-eyes-house-seat.html

'WallStreet Marine' Eyes House Seat

February 11, 2010
Military.comby Bryant Jordan

Eric

Decisions in the instant

A moment of weakness can have lasting effect. Part of growing up is learning decisions made in the instant can deeply affect the rest of your life and the lives of others. I've made a few, some of which turned out okay, others which have been destructive. I've been deeply affected by others' decisions. I was reminded of this by a recent episode of Hoarders. June, the hoarder, had her daughter Tori at age 14. June's mom refused to deal with them and made them live with her ex-husband and mother-in-law. Immature with a baby, June badly needed her mom to guide her to womanhood while also teaching her how to be a mom and being a grandma to Tori. June's mom's selfish refusal in the instant to support her daughter when her daughter needed her the most caused long-term and secondary damage.

Eric

The New Dating Game by Charlotte Allen

Recommended: read the thorough Weekly Standard article The New Dating Game by Charlotte Allen, along with this illustrative article in the New York Times. The Allen article draws heavily on blog Roissy in DC.

The main theme of the Allen article is that the feminist revolution broke down sexual restrictions and granted women guilt-free freedom to change the rules of the "dating game" in Western society. With their feminist freedom, women are choosing caddish "alpha males" over loyal good-provider "beta males". The result is the rise of a Darwinian "New Paleolithic" dating scene and the rejection by young women of the marriage, courtship, and gender norms that have provided for the structural stability of thousands of years of civilization. The changes have fundamentally shaken our society and caused individual and wider social harms. Men disadvantaged by the imposition of evolutionary competition are angry and traumatized, but it seems doubtful that young women will choose to undo their perceived gains from the feminist revolution. "Game", as a survival response or a kind of masculinist insurgency against feminism, is being adopted by a growing number of men trying to adapt to the paradigm shift. The author makes clear that the choice of "dating game" ultimately lies with women, not men.

Considering the choices made by people who have the power and freedom to choose from self-interest, I spent hours trying to locate a famous quote that says it's immoral, but rarely wrong, to expect the worst of people. Hours I should have been studying, on a task I thought would take a minute at most. Ugh. I couldn't find the quote, but I found these neat unrelated quotes:

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

I hear and I forget.
I see and I believe.
I do and I understand.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Other stuff for later: an article about conservative advocacy in the Academy, which may provide insight for ROTC advocacy, and a U.Florida law school talk with Justice Thomas.

Eric

Mark Kerrigan's PTSD?

1994 Olympic silver medalist Nancy Kerrigan's brother Mark may have caused the fatal heart attack of their father Daniel Kerrigan. Mark has been described by his lawyer as an Army veteran with PTSD, possibly to explain his violent criminal history. But the only references to Mark's deployments have been he served in Egypt (possibly in the annual Operation Bright Star exercise) and didn't experience combat.

I don't understand: if Mark Kerrigan wasn't in combat, then how did he develop PTSD? Serving overseas as a soldier in a non-combat deployment doesn't cause PTSD. Maybe he developed PTSD in prison, instead?

Update 20FEB10: I heard that Kerrigan's PTSD may be related to the famous 1985 tragedy where 248 members of the 101st Airborne died in a plane crash returning from duty in Egypt. Supposedly, Kerrigan was meant to be on the flight, but didn't take it for some reason, and the near-brush with death and the deaths of his comrades traumatized him. Certainly, surviving such an event can be traumatic, but does it qualify as PTSD?

Eric