Unlike Chad I’m not very familiar with Wesley Clark and most of what I have been learning about him has been acquired since the Summer when the “Draft Clark” movement popped up on my political radar screen.

In general I think that most military men make crappy presidents. Why? Because the greatest part of being a president is leading through consensus - and that involves a lot of compromise at times and stubborness at others. Military men may have the latter in spades, it’s the former that worries me. Generals are used to “chain of command”. From a General’s point of view in the Oval Office, a Senator is akin to a Colonel. The President therefore outranks him.

But try convincing that to the Senator during budget negotiations. The Senate is filled with 100 prima donnas who need to be stroked about as often as they need to be smacked. Then there’s 435 congress members, and more importantly, 50 governors. Governors are seriously outranked by the President you would think - until you read the Constitution. There’s this little clause that says that power not vested in the federal government is vested in the states. Doh! Sometimes the only leverage that the Federal Government has over a state is holding back federal highway funds. Not much of a threat, really, considering that Grey Davis is blowing a huge hole in homeland security by giving illegal aliens drivers licenses.

The job of being president cannot be pigeon-holed easily. Do CEOs make good presidents? Nope. Generals? Nope. Teachers? Nope. Truth be told there have been good former CEOs and Generals who have held the job, Eisenhower springs to mind, and there have been god-awful ones like Grant. It’s impossible to say who Clark would be most like. Grant whumped the South, but then blew Reconstruction and the Economy.

So don’t be lulled into the siren song of “He’s a General - he’ll make a great president.” There is no formula that guarantees success in the highest job in the land.

That said, read this Newsweek article on Clark. I think it says a lot about the man.

Haven’t they ever heard of the first amendment on campus? Why, the ACLU should be banging down the doors. There should be hunger strikes by students because of this. Where is Jesse Jackson? I want to see celebrities. Southern Methodist University has shut down a bake sale that was a protest about an unpopular policy. A bake sale, you heard it right. A bake sale so threatening that it threatents the very foundations of the school.
But there will be no celebrities on that campus, no outraged members of the media banging down the doors. Oh no, not in this case.

The group protesting are Conservatives, and the policy is affirmative action.

There is no such thing as free speech on campus unless you’re a trans-gendered, minority flag-burner from another country who must not be offended, but is free to offend as much as they can.

The sale was organized by the Young Conservatives of Texas, who said it was intended as a protest of affirmative action (search).
A sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.
Members of the conservative group said they meant no offense and were only trying to protest the use of race or gender as a factor in college admissions.A black student filed a complaint with SMU, saying the sale was offensive. SMU officials said they halted the event after 45 minutes because it created a potentially unsafe situation.
“This was not an issue about free speech,” Tim Moore, director of the SMU student center, said in a story for Thursday’s edition of The Dallas Morning News. “It was really an issue where we had a hostile environment being created.”

A hostile environment? WTF? Its a BAKE SALE. By Conservatives, not WTO protestors who like to burn Starbucks.

Matt Houston, a 19-year-old sophomore, called the group’s price list offensive.
“My reaction was disgust because of the ignorance of some SMU students,” said Houston, who is black. “They were arguing that affirmative action was solely based on race. It’s not based on race. It’s based on bringing a diverse community to a certain organization.”

What’s the matter, Matt Houston, are you too much of a liberal wussy to be confronted with someone’s opinion? You can’t handle the fact that people would disagree with you? Because they do. You throwing out the mantra that its a “diverse community” is, in my opinion, complete bullshit. It is about race. That is the mathematical formula used in affirmative action. There is no magical tricorder that can measure someone’s hardships in life and award points in a neutral manner. IT IS ABOUT RACE. Rich minorities are still treated preferentially against all but the most overwhelmingly hardshipped caucasians. Now go take a course in Critical Thinking Skills, unless it conflicts with your How to be a Victim major.

Sheesh, sometimes this pirate gets pissed off…

Transterrestrial Musings finally found what quotes Wesley Clark was talking about when he said this country was founded on (communist) progressive tax ideals. ‘Nuff said.

Those that follow this website know that I have no love for Wesley Clark, (Episodes 36, 105, 111, and 125) the current left wing darling for president. For those that haven’t seen it, here is the picture of Comrade Clark with General Ratko Mladic of the Serbian Army in April 1994. They even traded caps for this picture, isn’t that cute?
I’m not going to get into the history of this, but General Mladic is a wanted War Criminal. He has been indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal on charges of genocide and other crimes against humanity - including the massacre of thousands of Muslim men from the town of Srebrenica in 1995.
I wonder if he has made his campaign contribution to Wesley Clark yet?

The ultimate late night computer has been found.
Lost power for about 8 hours due to the hurricane. I’m not going to bitch about it like many other bloggers, but it was kind of fun in the morning making bacon, eggs, and coffee on the grill out back. Even though a few neighbors lost some shingles on their houses, its been a completely over-hyped event by the 24-hours not much to say news media.
Pirates vs. Stagehands.
Michael Totten completely deconstructs Ted Rall, Asshat. Ted is so hardcore left wing its amazing even the typical left-wing editors of newspapers can stand to print him.
What do people expect when they get pot from the government? They think that a government that can’t even figure out how to run a DMV, lower taxes, and make the trains run on time can produce quality dope? That this is news at all is the real news.
Some new crap on the internet is screwing with your hosts file so please click on these removal instructions if, like me, you suddenly lose access to google, yahoo, or many other sites. It uses an old java exploit, however my box is patched as high as it gets, and runs latest greatest Symantec AntiVirus, and I still was infected just a few days ago.
Woo hoo! Martian Successor Nadesico the Movie is going to be out on DVD shortly. Its preorder for November 11th, but can’t wait. The Anime Music Video of the Futurama theme is from this, with about 25% clips from the series.

Letter to the Editor:

Democrats have complained about how long the Iraq war took, but it took less time than former Attorney General Janet Reno took to take the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. That was a 51-day operation.

It took less time to find evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq than it took Hillary Clinton to find Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sunk at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida in 2000.

Our military is great.

AAargh! Time to batten down the hatches - literally! It appears that Talk Like a Pirate Day will take on new meaning with the approach of Isabel. Be prepared to fly the Jolly Rodger from your roof - as your home sails the nearest river towards the ocean. Aaargh! Time to get your sea-legs you scurvy dogs!

In the meantime, hurricane preparedness is a must. For the latest advice, check out Dave Barry’s advice on the topic. Myself I have 5 cats, several fish tanks with tilapia-relatives (African cichlids) and Korean and Japanese cookbooks. Nothing like having an in-house Asian restaurant in case of emergencies.

Been a busy few days. Last night at 1am while waiting for the vendor to finish installing the new SAN switch for my primary file server, I happened to catch the last episodes of both Trigun and Cowboy Bebop on adult swim. That was pretty decent. Its a shame that I had recently watched both episodes and missed some of the prior ones.

California is left in limbo again with the vote being delayed. Ehh, sucks to be them. They’re a laughingstock.

Comrade Wesley Clark is apparently “just decided” to run for President. I’d almost rather have Sharpton than this guy.

Well, I’m battening down for Isabel. Going to hit North Carolina first it looks like, and then track right up where I’m sitting. At least the server is on UPS…

Looking at Google news for the day. There are three stories shown about the Democrats in the Texas legislature losing their lawsuit. Lets visit these three headlines:
Federal Judges Reject Texas Dems’ Lawsuit is the first one. This is fine.
Lawsuit to block Texas redistricting thrown out is second, and its also fine.
Ruling partly goes against Democrats seems to tell you something else however. That the story is different, that there was some merit in the case. Clicking on the link however, it reads the exact same words as the other two stories. A complete loss. Their suit has no merit, blah blah blah. All three articles are Associated Press, but what different headlines. Doesn’t even make any sense at all. Maybe the AP should require headlines actually match what the story is.

The Joulin Rouge (Jolly Roger) flies low today.

Everything is here.

I’m sure every blog site known to man has a post today, about today. I’m just going to list a few observations.

I drove by a restaurant today that normally flies flags of several countries out front. They were all at half mast. After a few seconds of puzzlement, it told me one of two things. Maybe the proprietors were aware enough of flag protocol to know that no flag should fly higher than the country’s flag that you are in.
But more than likely they were acknowledging the fact that so many countries had people who died that day.
Jonah over at NRO had this to say:

But the most obvious evidence that the Arab world is a mess is that they are the ones who have been blowing it since 9/11.

If I try my best to convince a homeless drug addict to get help, I may fail in my efforts to help the guy. But, if I do fail, who really blew it? If I come to him with a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee, in the hopes of persuading him to get cleaned up so I can give him a job and a fresh start and he freaks out that I’m a Cannibalistic Human Corpse Disemboweler (a relative of CHUDs no doubt) and runs away, sure you could say that I blew it. But surely he blew it worse. I can go home to my nice house. He goes home to squalor. And, should the man ever come to his senses, he’d agree that his mistake was far greater than mine.

When Providence offers you a great opportunity to improve your life and the lives of your children and you fail to grasp it, you’ve blown it, big time. We’ve all made decisions in our own lives which — given the clarity of hindsight — we now understand to be colossal blunders. Usually, youth and ignorance are the culprits. But sometimes the elixir of crazy ideas goes to our head. The college Communist who turns down a great job because he doesn’t want to sell out, the guy who won’t follow the girl of his dreams out of pride, the girl who won’t settle down with the right guy because it seems too “traditional,” the shmuck who won’t get off his couch because it’s just so much easier not to: We all know these stories all too well. And, usually, the people at the heart of such tales eventually realize how much they blew it. Few truths are more enduring in the mind than the realization of blown opportunities.

Seeing the word Blown that many times, well, hmmm… gives me thoughts I must say, but not about politikin’. But the point is right. No matter if you are for or against the war, etc., all but the most deluded admit that the Iraqis are much better off now in the grander scheme of things. So they don’t have reliable electric and water at this moment. Neither does millions of people elsewhere in the world. But they survive. So what you hear is just bitching. Within a year the infrastructure should be in place and reliable if they don’t blow things up themselves.

Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died today from wounds suffered when she was stabbed in a department store. Police didn’t believe the attack was politically motivated.

Of course not. Everyone knows how bad crime is today in Sweden. Hell, one can’t even shop in high-class retail establishments without getting a knife in the ol’ liver. Happens all the time. Yep.

This just proves that crime is much more egalitarian in Sweden. 17 years ago the Prime Minister was assassinated on a street in broad daylight - and his killing remains unsolved. This also proves that the police in Sweden avoid favoritism unlike in the USA. The murder of Chandra Levy, an intern for a Californian congressman, remains unsolved there but look at how fast the assassins of major political figures are caught. Lee Harvey Oswald. Sirhan Sirhan. John Hinckley. All these guys were caught quickly, while the murder of some young intern remains unsolved. The widening gap between rich and poor is shown even in the pace of the solving of crimes.

However in Sweden, police incompetance shows no such favoritism. Though the death of the Swedish equivalent of Colin Powell might lead one to believe that politics might have SOMETHING to do with the murder, you can rest assured that the Swedish authorities will bungle the investigation just as well as say, the LAPD in the OJ Simpson case.

Long live Swedish egalitarianism!!!

Just a note that I’ve run into the coolest thing for any serious train fanatic: a train you can ride.

Check out www.ridingrailkits.com for some beautifully detailed diesel engines and cars in 1/12th or 1″ scale. Not only are the trains nice-looking, but they are strong enough to sit on as they run. For $15 you can purchase a video that shows the trains in action - and it is sure to inspire all train-junky/tech heads to do some serious scheming how they are going to convince the Wife and squeeze a starter set for $8k on the VISA to run around the house. That’s literally AROUND the house. Or hey, you can spring $2k for a switcher then buy the thing piecemeal. Either way you will end up with a seriously cool toy. For those of you with kids, you will become the Ultimate Dad - and children will sing your praises and shame their parents into years of guilt-ridden therapy.

In the meantime, visit the site to see what I’m talking about. I spoke at length to Rod Johnston, the owner of the company, and it’s clear he’s that he’s on to something. His company and 1″ trains have been featured recently in Garden Railway and Model Railroader magazines. I thought my new GP25 G scale was cool unti I saw his F-7. See for yourself.

So I got a new electric toothbrush from Costco the other day. One of those nice expensive Oral-B ones. Its nice, does a good job. It even changes its vibrations every thirty seconds to let you know that its time to move to another section of your mouth. That way you spend the appropriate amount of time brushing each section for maximum benefit.

That also means that in general human beings are now rated as so stupid they have to take orders from a toothbrush. A frigging toothbrush tells you how to brush your teeth at 6:30 in the morning. Well, why not? There are now blenders that will tell you on the screen how much ice, mix, and rum to add to your daquiri.

Yes, it does seem that all those sci-fi plot lines about people becoming way to stupid to think for themselves are going to come true.

Unfortunately for Delawareans we are stuck with a lousy paper, the Delaware NewsJournal. The DNJ is filled with lazy post-modern liberalism. This translates to: Conservatives are nuts, the administration is always wrong, and everyone’s opinion is just as valuable as everyone else’s - unless you happen to be conservative or disagree with the paper’s party line. I wouldn’t care if the writing happened to be good - but it’s not. It’s lazy reporting with little research.

Nothing annoys me more than when someone tries to correct a popular misconception in a patronizing manner using bad information. Norman Lockman, a local columnist who always seems to be on the wrong side of issues, took on American enmity towards France in his posting “The French Deserve Better Than They Get. Lockman asks Americans to revere your own national history” and recognize there would be no United States without France”. Unfortunately in his support of the French, Mr. Lockman falls prey to the myth of ever-lasting Franco-American friendship.

Mr. Lockman ignores the fact that the French government waged war against the early American colonists in the French and Indian Wars that lasted from 1689–1763. As for support of the American Revolution 13 years later, historian Barbara Tuchman noted “It was a power struggle of the Old World [against the British], not a concern with America, that brought about the French intervention.” At the Treaty of Paris of 1783, the French secretly urged Britain to deny American claims west of the Alleghenies. Years later the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand demanded a large bribe from the US before he would meet American diplomats in the scandal known as the XYZ Affair. This led to the first American military action after independence – against the French. In 1801 Napoleon sent 50,000 troops to Haiti in order to quell a rebellion on that island and further his aim to eventually rollback the expansion of the United States. Yellow Fever decimated this force and ended his North American ambitions – leading to the sale of the Louisiana Territory in 1804.

President Andrew Jackson declared war on France in the 1830s after the French failed to pay reparations for its assaults against American shipping. During the Civil War, Napoleon III supported the Confederacy and installed a puppet emperor in Mexico to keep the US from extending its influence over Central America and the Caribbean.

French enmity towards the USA continued into the 20th century. At the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, the trouble was not between the victorious allied powers and the defeated axis, but between the USA and France: the former supported token reparations from the Germans, the latter onerous ones. Unfortunately France prevailed. Modern historians view these reparations as necessary for Hitler’s success in the 1920s and 1930s. Even during World War 2, the French seemed more concerned with the threat posed by distant America than occupying Germany. The founder of Le Monde wrote, “The Americans constitute a real danger for France,” days before thousands of Americans died to liberate his nation on D-Day.

During the Cold War, France continued it’s anti-American policies. It pulled out of NATO in 1966. It prevented our use of French airspace on an attack on Libya in 1986 in retaliation for a Libyan-sponsored terrorist attack in Germany. Two years later, Libya downed Pan Am Flt 103 killing 270 people.

Instead of writing about why the French do not deserve our enmity, Mr. Lockman might consider what our nation has done to deserve theirs.

The Colorado Conservative has many fine points to make about liberal vs. conservative philosophy and how they apply to reality. My favorite line is:

Why do liberals always protest to make a difference, then complain when a convervative shows them a solution?

Not much content on the site yet, but what posts there are have some excellent points. Give ‘em a look. Wish I could find an email address, I have some questions for the blogger!

Ohh the irony…
Via today’s .FoxNews Headline:
“The brother of the top Shiite cleric killed in a bombing last week, himself a member of the U.S.-selected Iraqi Governing Council, blasted coalition forces for lax security Tuesday and asked them to leave the country.”

Via Saturday’s New York Times:
“There were no American forces in the vicinity, as senior Najaf clergymen had made it clear they did not want troops patrolling anywhere near the holy site.”

Out & About Magazine, the local Delaware “scene” magazine, has an article on Pirates in Delaware. Most of the article deals with artist depictions of pirates, such as Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth.

Another local artist who anchored his career with illustrations of pirates was N.C. Wyeth. A student of Pyle’s, Wyeth in 1911 illustrated the most famous pirate tale of them all, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The pirate pictures were extremely successful and guaranteed Wyeth (1882-1945) a lifetime of work illustrating other classics such as Kidnapped and Last of the Mohicans.

These paintings are on display down the street from where I work. I think I may have to take a camera and head there over the next week during lunch.
On Blackbeard,

Blackbeard, born around 1680, may have been from London, or possibly Bristol, England, or maybe Philadelphia. In fact, historians aren’t even sure his name really was Edward Teach. If his origins are unknown, there’s no doubt about his pirating activities. In the early 1700s, Blackbeard prowled the coast from the Carolinas to Connecticut, looking for merchant vessels to prey upon. He commanded a 40-gun ship named Queen Anne’s Revenge,” which he had captured in a sea battle. With his formidable floating fortress, Blackbeard even took on the Royal Navy, defeating a 30-gun man-of-war near Barbados. If the Royal Navy couldn’t beat him, it seemed nobody could.

The reason he liked the Delaware Bay so much was because his first mate, Israel Hands, was from Cape May and he knew there were easy pickings here,” Clifton says. Israel Hands would go on to command one of Blackbeard’s ships and catch the attention of Robert Louis Stevenson, who named a character after him in Treasure Island.

According to Clifton, Blackbeard’s method in the Delaware Bay was to run out from shore in shallow-draft boats and capture passing merchant vessels. His men then disappeared with their booty back into the shallow, marshy creeks where the authorities could not or would not follow.

All in all a well balanced article that covers the best and worst of piracy, why its so popular today, and even talks about modern day pirates being nothing more than wet car-jackers.