On The Third Hand

Warblog Archives

Saturday, 02 Mar

War rambles [permalink]

• One American and two Afghan allies are dead in fighting in Afghanistan. R.I.P. There have also been injuries, no exact information yet on those.
• 75 of the detainees in Gitmo are still on a hunger strike. That's ok... they can send the food up here. I know a few charities that could use it. After I get the bagels and cream cheese.
• Al-Qaida and Taliban regroup for second "holy war". We should let them regroup; we should encourage them to regroup. Then we should drop a daisy-cutter or two.
• Why do peace rallies nowadays always have such boring signs?
  "Stop the war". So Very Creative...
  "Fight US/UK Imperialism". Yawn.
  "Stop Bush and Blair's War". I honestly didn't know the two of them were at war. Have I been missing something?
  "Hands off Iraq" Sounds good to me. I'd rather use weapons than bare hands.
  Honestly -- these kids today are just plain dull.
• I am getting a bit tired of blogging by hand. I will be trying a couple of different blog programs over the next few days... so if the home page here goes odd for a few minutes, don't worry -- I'll get it fixed shortly. Posts may be a bit sparse... but I'll try to give you a piece of my mind every day (as long as I've got any mind left...).
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Friday, 01 Mar

More Assorted rambles [permalink]

• Fred Pruitt insists that Rantburg is a warblog. I completely agree. I've considered setting up a section of 'specialists' for those who specialize in certain areas. He'd be there.
• There are blogs I read that are not strictly -- and sometimes not at all -- political/war blogs. I've also considered setting up a section for those. Rat's Nest, for instance, is almost invariably entertaining. The only reason he's not on my links is that he is more a true weblog than a political weblog. (He'd also get a lot more mentions if he'd learn to make permalinks -- yeah, that's a hint).
• The Vodka Pundit has now been officially promoted to the Special Forces.
• I've taken the philosophy test too. Problem is there were questions where there were two good answers, or two answers where I partly agreed with both, or one answer where I agreed -- with a few caveats. Changing those answers (or their weight) did odd things. So: My top five are Mill, Rand, Hume, Epicureans, and Hobbes -- in order of how often they showed up on top (I changed things about 15 times). I will note one thing; though, the one at dead last was always Augustine. He did beat out Simone de Beauvoir; who never showed on my list at all.
• Disinformation is a valid -- and often successful tactic. The Captain of the USS Clueless explains.
• John Pilger (my spellchecker still wants Piglet...) is at it again. This one is so completely off the wall that it doesn't even deserve response. If you suffer from low blood pressure; though, do go read it.
  Oh... yeah... and the Mirror is now describing the fool as: "Legendary foreign correspondent John Pilger". Makes sense to me. He belongs in the class of things like hydras, sea serpents and other mythical monsters.
• Seems the detainees at Guantanamo are on a hunger strike. It's so kind of them to save us all that money we've been spending on "culturally appropriate" foods. (I'm still trying to find a way to get the military there to donate leftover bagels to poor starving bloggers in Florida...)
• If people want to kill, they will find a way. The same applies if they want to defend themselves.
• I'm considering going back to a blogging program. If each of my short bits were seperate posts, I'd rival the Instapundit.
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Assorted rambles [permalink]

• Congratulations to Megan McArdle, of Live from the WTC, for her promotion from Blogosphere Regular Army to Special Forces.
• The inimitable Vodka Pundit is also due for a step up (assuming he doesn't stumble on the step). He has got himself his own brand shiny new site, and will receive his promotion as soon as he gets his blog moved to his new place.
• Megan McArdle has an excellent idea about the Daniel Pearl videotape. Considering the way Google works in selecting links, plus the fact that Google likes blogs, I suspect that if enough of us link her lovely graphic, it will come up first. Anyone looking on the web for a snuff film of Daniel Pearl probably deserves what he or she gets. Admittedly we will probably catch a few bloggers or journalists too, but I bet a lot of them will link it! (I'd link her article, but she hasn't got her archives working yet --so just click and page down)
• I didn't blog yesterday. I got busy with offline things, and just didn't feel like writing. That's one of the advantages of blogs!
• Just in case the blogosphere hasn't all noticed, MommaBear is now blog-sharing at Dodgeblog. I think we've succeeded in corrupting her!
• More later....
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Wednesday, 27 Feb

Assorted rambles [permalink]

• MommaBear takes on the media on the subject of the Daniel Pearl tape. I agree. This is one tape that should not be shown on the 'film at eleven'. Let's have some common decency here.
• Stephanie seems to have offended one or two blogsters. Meanwhile, I've put the 'Ain't no Bad Dude' blog in the 'don't drink or eat while reading' category -- in defense of my much-abused keyboard. I think Brian may regret convincing this person to blog. Or maybe not. I sincerely hope that when Brian resumes his own blogging, the very amusing Stephanie gets a blog site as well.
• Louder Fenn has a proposal for how to decide whether a religion is a religion. He says: "I think a simple test is in order: the Century Test. If Wicca is still around in 2102 and has insinuated itself into family and intellectual life, then we'll have to concede that we can't just dismiss it."[and that should be "2012"]
  I've done some reading on this (it's all his fault), and I think Wicca is an attempt to reinstate a religion that was violently supressed by a better-armed religion. However, I will ignore that and just ask one question of the Louder Fenn. Do you believe that the Christian religion (in particular the "Church") was not a valid religion for the first century of its life? I'm looking forward to your answer.
• I'd also like to know what LF thinks of Hindus, who do acknowledge goddesses, and other so-called "pagan" religions who have been around far longer than Christianity. If length of time wins, I think the tribal animists have it hands down. I shall go worship the oak tree in my front yard now...
• I love etymology:
  Pagan
  From the Latin paganu(m), for "someone who is not from the city, rather from the country." In late Latin, this turned into pagensis, "one who is from the country," and this utimately became the French pays and the Spanish País, both meaning "nation."
  Are you a pagan?
• The term 'pagan', from my reading, was originally a term of derision used for the determinedly religious country people who held to their 'country' beliefs in the face of the more cosmopolitan religion of the then Christian Roman Empire.
• In addition to etymology, I also enjoy irony.
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Tuesday, 26 Feb

It's a blogosphere day (part II) [permalink]

• Says something about Mr Ashcroft... I just got hit with a google for "John Ashcroft, civilized". I went, being a bit curious, and typed that phrase into Google. I am the only link that comes up.
• Sometimes writing is a craft, and sometimes it is an art.
• What he said! I think David Carr (Samizdata - London) and I agree on gun control. "We already have a right to bear arms, bestowed upon us by our ancient common law heritage and exercisable by the mere act of being born. All the government has done is to deprive us of it."
• Joanne Jacob's idea of "freeblog" sent me searching to see if I could find any (English language) blogs from Thailand. (Thai means free -- so Thailand is the other 'land of the free' ). I only found two. Adieu.nu is a Canadian expat living in Thailand -- he's got a nicely crafted piece on Sept 11 -- he was on a plane travelling to Vancouver when the attacks were made. Khaosan Rd is done by a Thai student of photography (and is well worth a look).
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It's a blogosphere day [permalink]

Joanne Jacobs has suggested 'freeblog' as an alternative to 'warblog'. Rand Simberg (likes it) and Justin Slotman (wrote her to explain why he likes 'warblog)' have weighed in.

Being a dedicated contrarian (hey... this blog is titled "On The Third Hand), I have my own suggestion. Polblog. Pol can be short for political, or politic, or even police (we'll fact-check yer arse, we will). I especially like it because the root word goes back to the word for 'citizen'.

[update] Someone suggested "poliblog" to Joanne. I agree with her; that is just too cute. It's why I dropped the 'i'. I still like "polblog".
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Blogspot irritation [permalink]

I haven't had that much time to get online today, and the few times I did, it seems blogspot was not responding. I have a feeling that all the articles in major publications lately about blogs are giving blogspot a severe case of bandwidth woes.[link via InstaPundit]

It might help if those of you who keep a week's worth of posts on your blog's front page swap it to a couple of days and pass the suggestion along. I've noticed some blogs are loading more than one megabyte -- of text (I turn pictures off sometimes). That's a bit large!

Any readers you have who are on modems will love you for making the page smaller. I don't know about you guys, but I've got several readers coming from places where high bandwidth access is not available. Even if you don't care if blogspot chokes, have pity on those who are waiting... and waiting... and waiting... for your page to load!
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Monday, 25 Feb

Rights and freedoms [permalink]

My problem (and why I'm a bit persnickety about allowing potential terrorists any rights) is that the Federal/State/Local governments are denying me my right to self-defense. Just on a local level, if someone decides to break into my house, I do have the right here to shoot him/her. But I have to wait until the person is inside the house, and to be perfectly safe from being prosecuted for murder, I also have to wait until they are between me and any reasonably quick exit. (Used to be that a woman could fire through a door, but someone decided that was sexual discrimination. It was, but they should have let men fire through the door too.)

I can also, with proper permit, carry a concealed gun with me if I go downtown (carrying one openly is iffy). So, if someone tries to mug me, I can wave a gun at them. Only problem is that there is a law against firing a gun within the city limits. No "anti-gun law there, you can carry a gun -- it's only illegal to fire it.

So, as a law-abiding citizen, I am not permitted to defend myself except in limited situations. However, criminals and terrorists are permitted to do almost anything they want -- right up until they attack -- and if I'm lucky, I might be in a place where I can legally defend myself or others when they do. If not, I have the choice between death and jail. It's likely that in a terrorist situation, I'd never be charged (muggers or rapists -- iffy). But I have to depend on the kindness of the state to not put me in jail for self defense. So, I'm just a teensy bit more bellicose than I would be if I were not being denied my rights.
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Fine lines and slippery slopes [permalink]

In reaction to my post yesterday on religious intolerance, Alex Knapp of Heretical Ideas has pointed out (correctly) that: "Freedom of speech includes the freedom to advocate illegal acts, no matter what their nature."

<smartarse mode on> I'd like to point out that what I was doing was exercising my own right to freedom of speech and advocating the illegal act of removing the freedom of speech from those who would like to convince others to kill me or put me in purdah (or the Christian reconstructionist equivalent).<smartarse mode off>

I also said "Depending on which laws they violate...". I'm aware that we really can't violate their freedom of speech without amending or ignoring the constitution (not that a lot of it isn't being ignored already), but I'm sure we can find something they are doing that is illegal.
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Sunday, 24 Feb

Congratulations to Canada [permalink]

I've been mostly ignoring the Olympics, but I did catch the fact that we got beat. Your team did a great job.
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I'm not tolerant of Everything "religious" [permalink]

Yes, those are scare quotes.

I was reminded by a gentleman that there are certain "religious" institutions in the US who advocate the violent overthrow of other religions and of secular organizations in the US (including the US government).

In my opinion, any religion operating in the US who advocates such things has become a subversive political organization, not a religion. Any who advocate (or attempt) terrorist acts, violent insurrection, murder, or any other coercive acts to advance their so-called "religious" agenda should not be tolerated.

Depending on which laws they violate -- they should be shut down, tossed in jail, booted out of the country (if non-citizens), and probably spied on first so they can all be found. Please note I'm not talking of just radical Islamic organizations. Timothy McVeigh, for instance, was not Islamic.

As has been said before, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact".
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Mini - blogwatch [permalink]

• The blogger Poet Laureate has written one for Daniel Pearl.
• TV Punditwatch is up.
• The Kolkata Libertarian is auditioning for cushy editorial job at Al Jazeera.
• Libertarian Samizdata should host more blogger bashes.This one has resulted (so far) in pictures of some very attractive men (albeit with too many clothes on...) and a delightfully hedonistic and whimsical look at the future.
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More links [permalink]

I've added several more blogs. Please note that I'm trying to link a very wide range of opinions here. Even people I usually disagree with sometimes have interesting things to say.
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Religious Bigotry Watch [permalink]

John Ashcroft: "Civilized people --Muslims, Christians and Jews -- all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. Civilized people of all religious faiths are called to the defense of His creation. ... " Today Americans are coming together, united against a common enemy. For people of all faiths -- be they Christians, Jews or Muslims -- it is impossible not to see the stark difference between the way of God and the way of the terrorists. "[link via Amygdala]

Religious portion of First Amendment to the US Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."[emphasis mine]. Our founding fathers were educated men, and I'm sure if they had meant "only free excercise of those religions descended from the religions of a particular desert tribe" they would have said just that.

Bush's quote from yesterday's post here implies that he was trying to keep someone from freely exercising their religion, because he disagreed that it was a "religion". If you listen to his speeches, he generally "forgets" any religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Ashcroft is even more blatant about it. As private people, they are entitled to their own opinions on religion. As public officials of the US, they have taken oaths to "uphold and defendthe Constitution of the United States". That does not [note this Will Vehrs] mean either of them should actively (as government officials) promote any religion -- in fact it means they should not try to establish some religions and deny exercise of others.
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