Will getting busted while driving a white Ford Taurus hurt Eminem's street creds?

When knocking over mailboxes while driving drunk and naked in a white Ford Taurus is outlawed, only outlaws will knock over mailboxes while driving drunk and naked in a white Ford Taurus.

Most Unflattering WSJ Pencil Drawing Award

I don't think I'd want to get held in contempt by Judge Higbee. (That's the Sarlacc Pit, for all you non-lawyers out there.)

Boston needs to watch more Aqua Teen...bigtime

Looks like all of Boston shut down because of the Mooninites. As Carl might say, that's just so sweet!

Jeebuz, anyone who watches the Cartoon Network could tell you that no terrorist would make a bomb that looked like a Mooninite. For one thing, you pretty much have to be stoned geek to even know who Ignignokt and Err are. And I just don't think stoned terrorists are all that motivated to make improvised explosive devices. Elaborate bongs, maybe. But not IEDs.

So maybe Boston's finest needs one or two stoner Adult Swim fans to help them identify the pranks from the terrorists. There's bound to be one or two on the other side of the river. Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Showing the world you can have someone say "shithead" in a cartoon, provided you say it in German.

When gender equity smacks into socialized medicine

Oh, what will the Swedes think of next? Choosing sex of gynecologist to be banned.

How to inflate your silver currency

I thought this article was cool. (Historic Discovery: Spanish Funny Money) So colonial-era Spanish inflation wasn't just due to an influx of gold and silver from the New World. They were also punching their own slugs.

Recent CNET review of the "Boomberry" feature

A recent news "exclusive" from CBS says that cops are worried about a gun that looks like a knife. Personally, I don't see the point. (See CBS 2 Exclusive: A Weapon That Even Scares Cops)

But what I actually found interesting was the "gun that's disguised as a Blackberry". I want that feature. Because every day I get an email that causes me to think, "Gee, I wish my Blackberry had a gun attachment, so I could just shoot myself!" Many days I get several of those emails.

I'm willing to bet it would be a very popular feature. Probably the best thing since cyanide-flavored memo paper.

The UN's role in setting international law/poppadum standards

I've been wondering exactly what the United Nations' proper role in the world should be. Deterring war? Yeah, it and what army! Promoting democracy and human rights across the world? You guys crack me up!

But I finally found it! Poppadum standards! See, some are like crackers, some are like bread...there's just no consistency! Somebody has to step in to make sure our poppadums are up to par, and I can think of no better somebody than the United Nations.

See article here.

Chait on overlearning the lessons of the last war

Jonathan Chait has an interesting article in the LA Times, repeated in the New Republic, on why it doesn't matter if you were right about the Iraq war. (An interesting side point: only Al Gore is batting 100.)

See We can't surrender to the doves

The Great Molasses Flood

Over dinner conversation with friends tonight I learned of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. The horror...the sweet, sticky horror. Seriously, 21 dead.

(See here, if you don't believe the first link.)

Since it's called the "Great" Molasses Flood, does this imply there have been lesser molasses floods?

(Image from the Boston Public Library.)

Today's assignment, children...

...is to write a headline for this photo.

I'm not suggesting anything here

...but Donald Trump wasn't by chance born in Brazil or Argentina, was he?

I'm just saying his signature on the recent Rosie-Donald tiff missive (see here) looks a little like someone else's... who was also a megalomaniac.

(Oh, yeah, and props to Mary-n-Texas...even if she can't figure out how to get herself a legitimate blog display name.)

Today's Princeton Review analogy test

Fill in the blank:

Tokyo is to Godzilla as Japanese ship is to [ click here ].

A prime example of [fill in the blank] run amok

I'm really not sure what to make of this UK story about some poor gambling shmuck who died from a heart attack because the ambulance drivers were in the middle of their European Union-mandated lunch break and it was illegal for them to put down their sandwiches and drive to the emergency. Is this an example of regulation run amok? Labor unions run amok? Socialized medicine run amok? Euroclerosis run amok? Lack of common sense run amok?

So many choices.

Oh, my gawd...did you see the rock BPM 37093 gave her??

Yeah, and you thought she was going to be impressed with that little chip you bought her down at the mall. (Think 10 billion trillion trillion carats.)

Happy Gangsta Feet

Crap, when Smooth B took the niece to see Happy Feet, I really should have gone along. He didn't tell me it was a gangsta flick!

No wonder Little E has started calling me "Uncle Dawg" (Click the picture)

Jesus and Imam Mahdi to appear soon and kick everyone's asses

This would be so cool! It would be like Spiderman joining up with Batman. Except that Spiderman opposes violence and preaches forgiving your enemies, and Batman...apparently doesn't.

Of course, the news is coming from Iran's official state media website, so we know how ironclad solid the news is. (Besides, I think I saw this on an episode of South Park.)

More on Iraq War casualties

Jeff Donn of the Associated Press has a surprisingly interesting analytical piece on why we feel the 3000 casualties suffered in Iraq is a large number, despite it being miniscule in historical terms. See U.S. Toll in Iraq Lower Than Past Wars. This part, in particular, caught my eye:

Polling analysts believe Americans are more sensitive to casualties than in the past because they neither see vital interests at stake nor feel the "halo effect" from a clear prospect of success.

"When is it going to stop? We're losing a lot of youngsters," says former tanker Ed Collins, 82, of Hicksville, N.Y., who survived the assault on Normandy's beaches in World War II. "I went in when I was 18; that was young, too. But we fought for something. Now we have no idea who we're fighting for and what we're fighting for."
That's partly because the mission's focus has shifted repeatedly, the experts argue: from finding weapons of mass destruction, to deposing Saddam Hussein, to fighting terrorists.

When the number of Americans lost in Iraq recently passed the 2,973 killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the parallel was noted by some. Some have also noted that Iraqi deaths far surpass those of the American military, with tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in the violence.

Building a stable democracy in Iraq has been given as a justification for the war's sacrifices, and yet close to two-thirds of Americans think a stable, democratic government is unlikely to take hold in Iraq, according to a Dec. 8 poll by AP-Ipsos. Many believe Iraq has fallen into the chaos of civil war.

Americans instead tend to back wars to stop aggression, like the invasion of Kuwait before the first war with Iraq in 1991, polling indicates. "If the public really believed that our war in Iraq now was about stopping aggression, stopping terrorism, then we would see a greater degree of tolerance for casualties," says Bruce Jentleson, a former policy planner in President Clinton's State Department who now teaches at Duke University.

That makes sense. But this part doesn't:

America's young no longer feel personally threatened, either. The military draft is history. These days, mostly working-class teenagers volunteer to do the fighting.

Charles Moskos, a sociologist at Northwestern University, believes America has lost zeal for warfare because the children of its elite rarely serve. The all-volunteer military is one of many legacies of Vietnam today.

Bobby Blair, a Vietnam veteran from Holliston, Mass., recently spoke about Iraq to a church youth group. "None of them personally know of anyone who's in Iraq," he said. "They didn't realize how serious it was. I said, 'Do you think we're watching a video game?' And some of them said it was almost that."

Greater wealth and smaller families make Americans even more protective of their children and more loath to send them into battle than they once were, some argue. They are "sort of hothouse kids," says Harvey Sapolsky, the retired head of security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who notes, "My grandparents had seven kids, my parents had two."

If America's young and elite no longer feel threatened by war, then you have to ask why they care at all about so few casualties. You'd think it would go the other way -- because they aren't threatened and don't know anybody in the military, the cost of the war would be far more acceptable.

I think the answer lies with the foggy and changing explanation for the war, rather than some kind of "hothouse kids" phenomenon. After all, there were expectations of much higher casualties in Afghanistan, and most of America was not willing to shy away from that fight.

Bombs can't kill Bangkok's charms, visitors say...

...but they can sure kill you, beeyotch. (See The International Herald Tribune)

And one other thing...

The most disturbing thing about the Saddam hanging is the "Muqtada" chants you hear from the guards. (See here, provided you aren't queasy.) Sayyed Mugtada al-Sadr is, of course, the young Shi'ite leader of the Mahdi Army, which, from what I'm told, now causes our troops more grief than the Sunnis (mostly because it is directly supplied by the Iranians). The chants mean the Iraqi military and police are thoroughly compromised by the militias. Nothing new, for sure, but just graphic proof.

There's no hope for a continued unified Iraq under such a situation.

The meager death toll in Iraq

With the combat death toll in Iraq reaching 3000, Time Magazine has an article noting that the death toll in Iraq is "a pittance" compared with previous wars. (See America's Lost 3,000.)

As disclosure, and so I don't hear any crap from someone saying "you'd think differently if those were your kids over there," I actually have friends and an in-law in Iraq at the moment. For me, the strange thing about the casualties in Iraq is the prominence it plays in the media, and the relative lack of prominence it plays in the lives of most Americans, despite the media attention. I think there are several reasons for this:

1. The media likes bad news and conflict (because, let's be honest, it sells), so a heavy emphasis is placed on casualty numbers;



2. Despite this emphasis, as wars go and for a country of 300 million people, 3000 is a very small number, particularly over three years;



3. Because the U.S. military is all-volunteer and relatively small (about a million less than, say, 15 years ago), most Americans don't know anyone serving in Iraq, and certainly don't know someone who's been killed or wounded.

The end result is something a little strange. As wars go, this one is relatively cheap, both in terms of money and lives. Of course, even one life is too much if it is yours or someone you care about. But that's the case about all wars. And saying this is a "war of choice" isn't really a very good response, either, since most wars that the US has been involved in have been wars of choice. Even WWII. Had the US not embargoed Japan, there would have been no Pearl Harbor. For that matter, it's good to remember that WWII did not technically begin for Britain and France in May 1940 when German troops crossed into the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg on their way to Paris, but with the UK and France declaring war on Germany in September 1939 after Germany invaded Poland -- i.e., the so-called "Phony War". In either case, the path to war was clear and possible deviations from that path existed. It's just that none of the parties believed the benefits of deviating from war worth the price.

Historically, it's also not just the incompetence with which the US has fought the war in Iraq. The first few years of the Civil War (for the Union) and, again, even World War II were fought more incompetently, in some cases. MacArthur lost the Philippines to the Japanese, despite having received warnings of a likely Japanese invasion months beforehand, and after rejecting an offer by George Marshall in August 1941 to supply with Philippines with an additional Army division. (MacArthur even had 8 hours advance notice of an incoming Japanese air attack after Pearl Harbor, but "Dugout Doug," as some of his troops called him, refused to meet with his air force chief or authorize his planes to be dispersed.) Similarly, Vice Admirals Frank Fletcher and Robert Ghormley failed to provide air support for the US amphibious landings in the Solomons, which put the entire invasion in danger and may well have led to the loss of hundreds of American lives. In the Atlantic, US Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, refused to adopt British convoy tactics against German U-boats in 1942, despite clear British experience demonstrating the efficacy of this approach. The result was that throughout most of the year, German submarines sank hundreds of US merchant ships, killing thousands of American civilian sailors. And, while many US troops in Iraq have lacked the latest body armor and up-armored Humvees, these logistical and material complaints pale in comparison to the near-criminal weapons and logistical failures of WWII -- for example, non-detonating torpedoes contracted without adequate testing, and poorly performing dive-bombers purchased by the thousands before the prototypes even flew.

But, of course, one of the differences between previous wars and this one is the media. And, to a degree, that's a good thing. MacArthur, despite his incompetence, wasn't fired until the next war. There was no public outcry about US servicemen being put in danger by malfunctioning weapons because the public never learned of them. On the other hand, there was no public doubt that the US would prevail in that war, even when, factually speaking, the actual outcome really was in doubt.

That said, there is one thing that many previous war presidents have had that President Bush does not. And that is a much freer hand with military resources. Bush did not hedge his bets on Iraq -- he gambled it all on a single number. Unfortunately, it was not a winning number. Or, perhaps to be more sympathetic, the guys he ordered to place the wager put the money down on the wrong place (by attempting to occupy Iraq with woefully few troops). Given that the United States has relatively little recent experience with occupation (as opposed to war-fighting), there has been no clear plan to adapt to the change in circumstance.

This is very different from previous wars. In WWII, while MacArthur dithered around the South Pacific, Nimitz nonetheless brought the war directly home to the Japanese through his island-hopping campaign. Churchill's repeatedly mistaken attempts to find the German "soft underbelly" was a sideshow rendered moot by Soviet victories at Stalingrad, Kuban and Kursk. Even in the failure that was Vietnam, the American presidents had the luxury of being able to massively increase troop numbers in the country, even if that strategy eventually proved futile. However, in Iraq, U.S. forces seem to be playing a reactive game, attempting to keep the snakes from escaping from the snake pit. Worse, the President's hands are more or less tied with regard to troop numbers. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, Bush hasn't shown himself willing to jeopardize his domestic program to fight this war -- something he would need to do if he were to increase the size of the US military to the point where it could successfully restore order in Iraq. (Bush would either need to reinstitute the draft -- which ain't gonna happen -- or seriously increase military pay, which would require a significant tax increase. Alternatively, Bush could cut back on future weapons programs, but that would undermine US security even further.)

And, because of the media, the American people know about it. This isn't a bad thing at all. While a quiet media gave the United States time to work through the many disasters that accompanied World War II, the same type of quiet media allowed Japan and Germany to continue making mistakes until they were defeated. George Bush is, in a sense, much like a modern CEO -- the shareholders are getting quarterly reports and can tell how good a job he's doing. Quarterly reports tend to focus the minds of business executives, but they have also been accused of creating a short-termist mindset.

In short, 3000 is a very small number, as wars go. During the first World War, tens of thousands died within a few hours at the Somme. 3000 is just a fraction of the number of gun-related fatalities that the American people tolerate each year in our own country. Nearly that many Americans died at Pearl Harbor. But the issue for 2007 isn't about the lives or the money, but about the plan. Are we engaged in a stay-the-course war of attrition in Iraq? Given the casualty rates and budgetary costs so far, we can do this. We can incur 1000 deaths per year in Iraq and it will take us 50 years before we reach the number of casualties we suffered in Vietnam.

If so, what do we envision victory looking like from such a conflict? I've got the feeling that, at this point, we don't.