:: Gandalf23's Blog ::

:: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 ::

---

Queering the Schools


:: gandalf23 9:42:00 AM [+] ::
...

"One never knows if one will need a fire extinguisher. Many people go their whole lives without needing to use a fire extinguisher, and most people never need firearms to resist genocide. But if you don't prepare to have a life- saving tool on hand during an unexpected emergency, then you and your family may not survive."

"In the book Children of the Flames, Auschwitz survivor Menashe Lorinczi recounts what happened when the Soviet army liberated the camp: the Russians disarmed the SS guards. Then, two emaciated Jewish inmates, now armed with guns taken from the SS, systematically exacted their revenge on a large formation of SS men. The disarmed SS passively accepted their fate. After Lorinczi moved to Israel, he was often asked by other Israelis why the Jews had not fought back against the Germans. He replied that many Jews did fight. He then recalled the sudden change in the behavior of the Jews and the Germans at Auschwitz, once the Russian army's new "gun control" policy changed who had the guns there: "And today, when I am asked that question, I tell people it doesn't matter whether you're Hungarian, Polish, Jewish, or German: If you don't have a gun, you have nothing."


:: gandalf23 9:24:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

3 Japanese Deaths Linked to Web Suicides.

"The three were from different prefectures, or states, and investigators believe they may have met over an Internet site that brings together people who want to end their lives, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Dozens of such sites have sprung up online in Japan, where a decade-long economic slump has been blamed for an increasing number of suicides."

!!!!!!!


:: gandalf23 9:44:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

At Heathrow Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public
school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of
a compass, a protractor, and a graphical calculator.

Authorities believe she is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement.

She is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.

:)


:: gandalf23 9:35:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Pictures of the Three Gun Match are up at Tac Pro's website. The page is huge, so it'll take a while to display all 125 pictures. I didn't look at all of them, but I'm pretty sure I'm not in any :( And people say there's no sporting uses for Evil Black Rifles!




:: gandalf23 8:57:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Ummmm....why is it that Ayman al- Zawahri said all good Muslims should attack the US, Britian, Austrailia, and Norway? I can see the US (we _are_ the Great Satan after all), and England and Austraila as they are our "minions," but why in the world would they want to single out Norway? Is it because of the flap about muslims commiting 65% of the rapes in Norway? Or did they just want to piss off a bunch of Vikings? (never a good idea) And why did al-Queda or whoever blow up the Belgian consulate in Morroco? Who gets mad at the Belgians? What did they ever do?


:: gandalf23 11:24:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

This guy has done some veryvery cool case mods and built some nice computer cases from scratch.


:: gandalf23 9:13:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

This is exctly why cops need more training. Sheesh! First rule of handling guns is KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER TILL YOU"RE READY TO SHOOT! That cop is very lucky that she didn't hit the suspect or her partner.




:: gandalf23 8:53:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Sometimes you have to love the Wizard of Id




:: gandalf23 12:36:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

WOW!


Just got back from the three gun match at TacPro in Mingus, Tx. What a hoot! It was sooooo much fun. I highly recommend if you are at all interested in doing something like that to try it out. Even if you don't have three guns, borrow two or three from someone and go. I shot my dad's Mossberg 590, my Charles Daly 1911 .45, and my AR-15.


Started off doing a pistol stage. The scenario is that you've returned home to discover that the place is being robbed. You start with one hand on the outside door handle and one on the lock. At the buzzer you open the door and go in, drawing your gun and shooting the "bad guys" which were represented by either steel targets that fell when shot properly, or by cardboard targets that you had to shoot at least twice. I think there were 18 targets total on this stage. I had one cardboard target that I only hit once, everything else I did right and it took me right at 90 secoonds to complete. Guys that had done this sort of thing before had times of less than a minute. I did fumble the first two magazine changes, and even had an odd feeding problem that I had to clear, so considering all that a minute and a half is great.


Second stage was with a shotgun and we walked along about 200 feet of dry creek shooting at steel targets in the bushes. 18 targets total, I think I fired off about 26 rounds. My shotgun holds 9, but we were only allowed to load 8 at a time, and I had to reload it a lot. About 5 times I pulled the trigger and just got a click. Also I kept trying to reload after I'd racked the slide back and you just can't do that. Oh well. Took me two minutes to do. Discovered that despite movies and such to the contrary you really _do_ have to carefully aim a shotgun. Also discovered that that Mossberg 590 of my dad's is a sweeeet little gun! I am normally quite the wimp when it comes to recoil, but I had no problems at all shooting 00 buck out of this gun. My shoulder is not sore in the least.


Next up was a suprise shotgun round. They did not let us see the stage prior to shooting it, so you went in blind not knowing what to do. This scenario was that you heard people in your barn as you returned from dove hunting (hence the shotgun) and you went in to investigate. There was a hallway that was open at each end, you had to peek around the corner and shoot from within the hallway. There were 19 targets and one hostage (you were not supposed to shoot it, but some folks did. you lose points if you shoot a hostage). There were also three holes in the wall at dirt level that you could shoot through, and you had to in order to hit some of the targets. It was very fun. I was much better at reloading and only missed twice, but I did still go "click" about three times. Took me about two minutes to do, mostly since it was awkward as hell to get down on the ground and shoot, then get back up and move and shoot and drop down and shoot.


Then we had a suprise pistol stage. The scenario was that you were asleep in your bed and a noise woke you up. Then you heard your child cream out that someone was in his room. You roll off the bed (a sheet of plywood on some sawhorses) and went to the nighstand (a wooden box) and got your pistol and magazines. Then you went into the rest of the house and shot the bad guys and not your wife or three kids. Well, the good news is that I got all the bad guys (not everyone did as there were a few that were hidden), but in the process I winged one of the kids. Just a flesh wound, really, but it'll count against me.


Next up was a rifle stage. You had to engage 5 steel targets at an unknown range while hidding behind a dike, then run and engage 7 cardboard targets while moving, then jump behind the dike again and engage 5 more steel targets at an unknown distance. I think the range was about 150 meters, maybe 200. I'm not too good at estimating. I was real worried about this stage and was sooo glad that my first shot hit metal (you hear a loud thun-CLINK) However, my shot was too low and I'd hit the stand and not the target. Still, I knew I was close and that really improved my confindence. 8 shots later the first 6 targets were down. I ran to the next area, shooting the cardboard targets. We were supposed to shot them twice, but I put at least three rounds in each just to be sure: one that was behind a bush I put six into, just to be damn sure I got it. Then I jumped down behind the dike and got four of the remaining 5 in 8 shots (two were behind bushes and quite difficult to hit) but could not find the last target to save my life. After about 30 seconds (which seems like a loooong time) I finally found it waaaaay on the left and got it with one shot. My time on that stage was 199 seconds. When were checked the cardboard targets afterwards they all had at least two holes in the A scoring area except for one that had one A and 5 Cs (the one behind the bush). Oh well. Over all on all the cardboard targets I had all As but the one C and one B and the one miss. A is center of the chest and is the best, B is neck, C is outside the center of the chest.

The prizes are handed out by drawing, rather than according to score, and I was the first name drawn. Woo-Hoo! I thought, I want the match grade AR-15 upper or the scope. But nope, I was not allowed to pick my prize, I was given the first prize on the list which was a $100 gift certificate to Boot Town. Pretty cool, I paid $65 for the match and get out of it $100 in boots, so that's cool. I am sooo loooking forward to October when they do this again.

Exhausted now, going to eat dinner, shower, and go to sleep. Night all.
:: gandalf23 8:15:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

I think that when someone is elected to office they owe their constituants a certain level of responsibility, and I think that this stunt steps far outside the boundries of what I consider acceptable. I don't think this is "politically creative," I think it is petty obstructionist crap!


:: gandalf23 8:29:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Need a Dr. Who fix?


:: gandalf23 5:54:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

It's time once again for Project A-Kon! Three days of Anime, Manga, and all things like that. May 30th through June 1st at the Hyatt at DFW.

Woo-Hoo!

Related news: Dallas Asian Film Festival is the last week in May


:: gandalf23 12:38:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

"Meantime, DPS troopers have been ordered to arrest the wayward politicians the second they step foot in Texas."

Seems to me that crossing state lines to avoid arrest is a felony, isn't it?


:: gandalf23 9:36:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

AKkkk!

Is it just me, or is Ol' Hickory's head just a tad bit freakishly huge? And what's up with the messed up shoulders? Was Jackson a hunch back?



(in a scottish accent)Heed! Pants! Nooooow! (/scottish accent){c'mon, didn't _anyone_ see "So I Married an Axe Murderer"?}





:: gandalf23 9:20:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

It should go without saying, but if thou hearest the Voice of The Lord commanding thee to slayeth thine kinder, seeketh thou an opinion two. I'd suggest the local mental health worker of your choice, but it could be your pastor, priest, rabbi, iman, whatever, just get a second or third opinion as God usually does not ask people to kill their kids. 'Least not since Abraham.




:: gandalf23 8:21:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

My dad arrived in Kuwait today. He heads "up north" on friday.

In unrelated news, looks like there will be about 100 poeple competing in the three gun match. It was supposed to be limited to 70, so now I'm not sure if I'll finish in the high 60s or not :)


:: gandalf23 4:53:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Seen in a desert:



(in case you're wondering, Exodus 20:18 goes something like this: "And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.")


:: gandalf23 7:44:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Wow, this is about the best quote ever:

"It's two separate things -- selling cocaine from an inventory in your rear and smoking dope with your buddies," Dix says.

How do you top that? Intrigued? It's a law article about the constitutionality of visual butt-crack searches.


:: gandalf23 7:00:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Cool! Looks like Radio Shack (Tandy) is selling the subway cars from downtown Fort Worth on Ebay! Although I still think a better idea would've been to donate/sell them to the city, and have the city expand the tracks so that when they left the tunnel it took a hardish turn right (eastish) along the Trinity and then over the Trinity and meet up with the Tarantula tracks and then go on to La Grave(sp?) field. Folks could park out there during the day (huge parking lot out there) and ride the subway into work just like before, but now the city would be able to get some money out of it. Say $4 a day, and it's still a good deal for anyone who works downtown. Plus it would reduce pollution as the current plan calls for parking at La Grave and riding busses vs the subway's electric train. Oh well.
:: gandalf23 12:47:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Pop star Madonna put on a private performance for 200 guests of a radio station in Paris and thanked France for its opposition to the Iraq war.

Dressed in a low cut black top, black glittery trousers, and with dyed black hair, she performed the title track to her new album, American life.

The exclusive event, held at the city’s Nobel restaurant, lasted 40 minutes.

But for those not invited to the venue the concert was broadcast by the radio station live over the internet and to nine European countries.

“Here in France I feel at home,” Madonna told her enthusiastic fans as she thanked the French for opposing the Iraqi war."




:: gandalf23 9:06:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

ok, so I lied, one more.



ok, maybe two




:: gandalf23 8:55:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

ummm...why was it that Cuba got re-elected to head the UN Human Rights thingy?


hehehehe, another good one:



and another. I like this strip.



one more, for the rest, go visit the website, lots of good strips there.




:: gandalf23 8:38:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Jacques Chirac visits President George Bush.

"Tell me George how do you put together such a efficient team while I'm assisted by a bunch of morons."

"Simple Jack, I constantly test my cabinet Secretaries. If they respond correctly, they stay on. Otherwise I fire them. It's a 'best of breed' process, I'm sure of keeping only the smartest ones."

Bush then calls Powell.

"Colin, I'm going to ask you a question. You know the rules. If you're wrong, you're fired. OK? Here we go:
It is your mother's child, but it's neither your brother or your sister. Who is it?"

Colin Powell thinks for a few seconds and then answers:

"That's easy. It's me!"

"Perfect," Bush says, "you stay on."

Chirac is very impressed. As soon as he gets back to Paris he calls on Raffarin (Prime Minister).

"Raffarin, I'm going to ask you a question. If you answer correctly, you stay on as Prime Minister. If not, you're fired. Here it is: it is your mother's child, but it's neither your brother or your sister. Who is it?"

Raffarin, aware of his own shortcomings, requests a brief delay to think it over. Chirac gives him 24 hours. Raffarin rushes back to his palace, calls his cabinet ministers, and soon a group of senior civil service mandarins are studying the question. All of the possible outcomes are covered. After several hours of study, a guy more clever than the rest says:

"We must ask Juppé! He's always right and he knows what the President has on his mind."

"Great idea!", says Raffarin, who immediately places a call to Juppé.

"Hello Alain? It's Raffarin. Chirac wants an answer to this question and since you know him so well you can find the answer.
The question is: It is your mother's child, but it's neither your brother or your sister. Who is it?"

Right away, Juppé snickers slightly and with his well known superior attitude responds:

"That's easy, it's me."

The next day Raffarin rushes to the Presidential Palace.

"President Sir, President Sir, I know who it is!"

"OK, OK, Raffarin. So, your mother's child who is neither your brother or your sister, who is it?"

"It's Juppé, President Sir."

Chirac's eyes bulge wide open.

"Pack your bags Raffarin. The correct answer is Colin Powell!!!!!"

hehehehhe

I hear that this joke is floating around via e-mail in France.

:: gandalf23 8:30:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Some good ideas. "If we’re going to punish the French, why not help ourselves in the process?"

Boycotts of French products are not the appropriate response to French treachery. This adds up to small change and is not in accord with free market solutions. I say we call for the withdrawal of all unproductive US investments from France so they can be put it to work in Eastern Europe where the long term growth potential is much more attractive. New direct investment should be stopped. Fallout from such mesures would transform the present trickle of layoffs (which already has 'em screaming) to a flood. I'm sure there are plenty of young French who are looking to emigrate. Bush's most punishing ideological and economic weapon in dealing with "Old Europe" is the streamlining of the immigration process so the best and brightest of Old Europe can work in the US. So that's the one-two punch. Knock the wind out of 'em by moving direct investment elsewhere and then prevent them from catching their breath by taking all their most valuable information economy assets (brains). It's just business. Let's do it.




:: gandalf23 8:24:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

hmmm...wonder if my dad can score me a pair of x-ray glasses? I could see, kinda, the Iraqis thinking we were technologically advanced enough to have X-ray glasses, but what's this about "half naked" US troops? All the US Troops I've seen on the news have been loaded down with gear and clothing.


:: gandalf23 8:18:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Interesting, seems the Iraqi's aren't too fond of Al-Jazeerah. While I'm certain that they did heavily slant their news in a pro-Saddam maner, they are still the most un-biased and professional of _all_ the Arabic news channels.


:: gandalf23 8:10:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

On a much lighter note, did you know you can search the web in Swedish Chef (from the muppets) speak? Or in hacker?


:: gandalf23 7:33:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Well this just sucks arse!

My car was just hit! While it was standing still! Parked in front of our house! (granted, I see the irony here as when I was 16 I hit a parked car on a street)

!!!!!!!!

30 years we've been living in the house and the only time our cars have been hit (other than once I think dad's side mirror was smashed) have been in the last month or less. We've now had two cars hit by our neighbors or their friends! At least this guy had the courtesy to stop and knock on the door and let me know he'd hit my car. Seemed like a nice enough guy, about my dad's age, and like I said, at least he stopped and said something. And the damage is rather minimal, the lights are fine, the door opens, the wheel well is fine, just have a big ol' dent in the driver's side fender. You'll see it next time you see my car, most likely. But the last person to hit one of our cars did not stop. He (or she, but most likely it was our neighbor in his suburban) smashed the heck out of Glenda's car, she could not even open the door. The impact had to make a loud noise, but the lowlife did not even stop. What a horse's arse!

Gah!

I can not wait till these neighbors move into their new house! (it's being built for them)


:: gandalf23 7:13:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

wow! this is sooo cool. you can build a robot out of a floppy drive!

simillar project is here, and a lego car robot is here


:: gandalf23 7:46:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Geez....maybe this has something to do with the problems in the middle east?

"in some regions more than half of the marriages are between close relatives. Across the Arab world today an average of 45 percent of married couples are related.."

wow. That can't be good for the ol' gene pool.

"Health officials and genetic researchers here say there is no way to stop inbreeding in this deeply conservative Muslim society, where marrying within the family is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years."

yuck.




:: gandalf23 10:31:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Saw X-men 2 last night. Man, is it ever a good movie. Go see it. now! :)

I read the comics as a kid, and (ahem) still do on occasion, but I found that the writing was suffering after Chris Claremont left, and really, the way the women were drawn, they'd all have chronic back pain from their enormo-gigantic bussoms (bussom? is it singular or plural?). I was excited (perhaps a bad chooice of words after the bussom comment, but wait till the end of the sentence for judgement please) when Claremont came back and started another X-Men offshoot, but almost immediatley he killed off Pyslocke, and that was rather annoying, so I didn't buy any more. Plus the bad guys were more of the annoying mysterious people who have unlimited funds and scientific knowledge far surpassing anyone else and are nigh-invulnerable, so I stopped reading it.

But X2 was like an old school Claremont romp. Good characterization. Nightcrawler was just as he should be. The tattoos were new to me, maybe they've been introduced in the comics lately, dunno, but it was a nice touch. I loved that they did't make him a weenie Christian whinny guys, or just ignore that aspect of him, but rather portrayed him a good guy with a strong faith, just as it should be for his character. They also caught his sense of humor rather nicely I thought. The only thing I didn't like was the cheesy BAMF! noise.

Of course, Wolverine was dead on. This is the Wolverine that the fans love. The berserker with a good heart. The scruffy nerf herder. :) The guy you Don't.Want.To.Mess.With.Ever. During that fight, he tries to be the good guy and not kill the bad guy, but once that line has been crossed (by the bad guy firing off his gun with no regard for who he'd hit), BAM! he does not even try to go back over it. And before you say "How horrible, that's not right!" Hey, just like Han Solo can shoot first if the other guy (Gredo) has a gun on him (and that _still_ upsets me that Lucas changed that!) if you've got 100 or so professional warriors attacking a school, running around kidnapping students and shooting guns, you are allowed to kill them. Unless you are in California, then you have to retreat through the entire house/school, call the police and tell the killer(s) that the police are on the way and then you can use deadly force, but only if they do it first and even then you'll most likely spend the rest of your days in jail or financially destitute when the family sues you for an unlawfull death because viloence never solves anything. :)

I was reminded of that great story arc by Claremont in the comics where the entire X-men were captured by the Hellfire Club and Wolverine went in to rescue them. It was, if I remember correctly, the first time we _knew_ he killed someone. Similar situation, one man against a hundred or more trained soldiers. The results were simillar, as well. That was somewhere in the 150-180s of the comics, right? Man that was a good run. No more cutting the bad guys gun in half then hitting him in the head to knock him out, if you ty to kill Wolverine, he tries to kill you. I was expecting Cyclops in the movie to complain/whine about the deaths Wolverine caused, just like in the comics.

I can't wait for the next movie. Clearly Phoenix will be in it, as well as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Might we also not see the introduction of the Sentinels? They also need to do some Danger Room work. That was sorely missing this time. And maybe the Hellfire Club, and the Morlocks, and Juggernaut, and...well, there are a lot of bad guys they could introduce, enough to fill up a gajillion movies.

And if you didn't understand a thing I said up above, go to your local bookstore or comic shop and get a copy of The Essential X-Men Volumes 1 through 4. It's black and white, not color like the originals, but for <$60 you get about $1000 worth of comics (if you tried to find and buy the individual issues, cover price wise, you're probably looking at $100 worth, so it's still a bargain) and you get the entire story arcs. None of this "I'm missing issue 113!" bussiness.


:: gandalf23 9:36:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

hmmm....according to this guy, Saddam killed 600,000 civilians while he was in power, plus about 500,000 soldiers killed during the Iran/Iraq war. For a total of 1.1 million people killed while he was in power. The Brittish lost during World War Two a total of 512,000 soldiers and civillians. The US lost a total of 400,000 people. So Saddam killed as many of his own people in as the US and the Brits lost during the entire Second World War!

!!!!!!!!!

That's a lot of people. It's an average of between 70 and 125 people killed each day for the entire 24 year reign of Saddam. According the the Iraqi Minister of Information the CotW (Coalition of the Willing) killed 38 civillians a day when we liberated Iraq. So we actually killed less folks than Saddam would've during the same time period! But we are evil?!?


:: gandalf23 8:50:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

hmmm....I've been toying with the idea of building a case that looks like this one.


:: gandalf23 1:27:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Tolerating Intolerance: The Challenge of Fundamentalist Islam in Western Europe

The Racist Cacophony




:: gandalf23 12:44:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

"You can't legalize morality" - Nancy Herring, May 7th, 2003


Gamblers Try to Hold Casinos Responsible for Feeding Their Addiction



:: gandalf23 7:34:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Those wacky folks out in San Fransico are at it again.



:: gandalf23 2:35:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

"Life is a gift from God," said Novi resident Kathleen Jakes. "It's incumbent on me to protect mine and others."


:: gandalf23 11:41:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Does abolishing the Death Penalty cause more deaths? Maybe in Brit prisons it has. Seems more Brit prisoners are killing themselves than ever.

"Be that as it may, the suicide of prisoners has called forth a bureaucratic apparatus to deal with it that -- surprise, surprise -- has so far failed in its ostensible aim. A document of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, entitled 'Suicide in Prisons', almost gives the game away. Having stated that one of the reasons for the increased suicide rate in British prisons is overcrowding, it also states that one of the reasons that the suicide rate in Irish prisons has not risen is overcrowding. Thus it seems that overcrowding prevents Irish prisoners from killing themselves, but provokes British ones into doing so. And while it calls for more therapeutic effort in British prisons to stem the tide of suicide, it notes that therapeutic endeavours in Irish prisons are almost entirely lacking.

Could it be, then, that therapeutic endeavour has played a part in creating the very problem it claims to solve? Perish the thought! What are the lives of a few prisoners to set against the salaries and careers of the people who work in the Home Office's Suicide Awareness Unit? "


:: gandalf23 11:25:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

According to the Washington Times (owned by the Moonies, so you need a grain or two of salt there maybe) French officials gave high-level Iraqis EU Passports so that they could flee to Europe. If this is true, then I'm not sure what we should do, but we should do something.

Fox News is also reporting this.

In other Iraq related news, Palestinians evicted as Iraqis come home.


:: gandalf23 11:09:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi

"Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle." - Gandhi

"Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice."- Ghandi

"Non-violence should never be used as a shield for cowardice. It was a weapon of the brave." - Ghandi

"To change one’s religion under the threat of force was no conversion, but rather cowardice." - Ghandi


:: gandalf23 9:38:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Just in time for summer, fun with a pink Barbie Thunderbird and a water rocket!


:: gandalf23 8:10:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

Tommorrow is Cinco De Mayo, so make sure you go out and have some Mexican food for dinner, or drink a Corona or two to celebrate the defeat of the French (at least at one battle) by the Mexicans.


:: gandalf23 9:27:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

The Collapse of the Dream Palaces
From the April 28, 2003 issue: Mass destruction of mistaken ideas.
by David Brooks
04/28/2003, Volume 008, Issue 32


GEORGE ORWELL was a genuinely modest man. But he knew he had a talent for facing unpleasant facts. That doesn't seem at first glance like much of a gift. But when one looks around the world, one quickly sees how rare it is. Most people nurture the facts that confirm their worldview and ignore or marginalize the ones that don't, unable to achieve enough emotional detachment from their own political passions to see the world as it really is.

Now that the war in Iraq is over, we'll find out how many people around the world are capable of facing unpleasant facts. For the events of recent months confirm that millions of human beings are living in dream palaces, to use Fouad Ajami's phrase. They are living with versions of reality that simply do not comport with the way things are. They circulate and recirculate conspiracy theories, myths, and allegations with little regard for whether or not these fantasies are true. And the events of the past month have exposed them as the falsehoods they are.

There is first the dream palace of the Arabists. In this dream palace, it is always the twelfth century, and every Western incursion into the Middle East is a Crusade. The Americans are always invaders and occupiers. In this dream palace, any Arab who hates America is a defender of Arab honor, so Osama bin Laden becomes an Arab Joe Louis, and Saddam Hussein, who probably killed more Muslims than any other person in the history of the world, becomes the champion of the Muslim cause.

In this dream palace, the problems of the Arab world are never the Arabs' fault. It is always the Jews, the Zionists, the Americans, and the imperialists who are to blame. This palace reeks of conspiracies--of Israelis who blew up the World Trade Center, of Jews who put the blood of Muslim children in their pastries, of Americans who fake images of Iraqis celebrating in Baghdad in order to fool the world. In this palace, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi information minister, was taken seriously because he told the Arabists what they wanted to hear.

In this palace, old men really do shoot down Apache helicopters with AK-47s. Saddam's torture chambers are invisible, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis he murdered go unmentioned, the fedayeen who shot their own refugees are ignored, but every civilian casualty caused by an American bomb is displayed in all its bloody agony. In this dream palace, rage is always the proper emotion, victimhood the pleasure most indulged. Other people-- Iraqis, Palestinians, suicide bombers--are always called upon to fight the infidels to the death so that the satellite TV-watching Arabists, safe in their living rooms, can have something to cheer about.

Then there is the dream palace of the Europeans. In this palace, America is a bigger threat to world peace than Saddam Hussein. America is the land of rotting cities, the electric chair, serial killers, gun-crazed hunters, shallow materialists, religious nuts, savage capitalists, the all-powerful Jewish lobby, the oil lobby, the military-industrial complex, and bloodthirsty cowboy-presidents.

In this dream palace, the Hollywood clichés are taken to be real. George Bush really is Rambo, Clint Eastwood, and John Wayne rolled into one. American life really is "NYPD Blue" and "Baywatch." In this dream palace, Oliver Stone is as trustworthy as the Washington Post, Michael Moore accurately depicts the American soul, "Dr. Strangelove" is a textbook of American government, and Noam Chomsky tells it like it is.

In the European dream palace, Americans are terminally naive, filled with crazy notions like the belief that Arabs are capable of democracy. In this vision of reality, Americans are at once childish, selfish, and trigger-happy, but Arabs live just this side of savagery. Any action that might rile them will cause the Arab street to explode, and will lead to a thousand more bin Ladens. In this dream palace, history is tragic, and teaches us it is always prudent to do nothing--to do nothing about Bosnia, to do nothing about Kosovo, to do nothing about Rwanda, to do nothing about the slow-motion holocaust unleashed in Iraq by Saddam.

Finally, there is the dream palace of the American Bush haters. In this dream palace, there is so much contempt for Bush that none is left over for Saddam or for tyranny. Whatever the question, the answer is that Bush and his cronies are evil. What to do about Iraq? Bush is evil. What to do about the economy? Bush is venal. What to do about North Korea? Bush is a hypocrite.

In this dream palace, Bush, Cheney, and a junta of corporate oligarchs stole the presidential election, then declared war on Iraq to seize its oil and hand out the spoils to Halliburton and Bechtel. In this dream palace, the warmongering Likudniks in the administration sit around dreaming of conquests in Syria, Iran, and beyond. In this dream palace, the boy genius Karl Rove hatches schemes to use the Confederate flag issue to win more elections, John Ashcroft wages holy war on American liberties, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and his cabal of neoconservatives long for global empire. In this dream palace, every story of Republican villainy is believed, and all the windows are shuttered with hate.

THESE DREAM PALACES have taken a beating over the past month. As the scientists would say, they are conceptual models that failed to predict events. But as we try to understand the political and cultural importance of the war in Iraq, the question is this: Will they crumble under the weight of undeniable facts? Will the illusions fall, and the political landscape change?

My first guess is that the dream palace of the Arabists will temporarily sag. As happened after the Six Day War back in 1967, the newspapers and TV networks that depicted glorious Arab victories and failed to prepare their audiences for the crushing defeat that came will see their credibility suffer. The radicals who preach eternal war with the infidel will seem stale, architects of a failed vision. As happened after Desert Storm, the Arabs who preach reform and modernization will begin to seem more attractive. There will be some restlessness, some searching for a fresh start and a different way, and thus a window of opportunity will open for democratization and peace, but that opening will have a termination date. The window will close if, a year or two hence, millions of Arabs continue to feel humiliated by their region's backwardness. They will go looking again for conspiracy theories, victimhood, and rage.

My second guess is that Europeans will not shake off their clichéd image of America. The stereotypes are entrenched too deeply. But official Europe will go through one of its periodic phases of gloomy and self-lacerating introspection. There will be laments about European impotence, continental divisions, the need to build a common European alternative. But this self-criticism will not spark any fundamental change, just summits, conferences, and books.

My third guess is that the Bush haters will grow more vociferous as their numbers shrink. Even progress in Iraq will not dampen their anger, because as many people have noted, hatred of Bush and his corporate cronies is all that is left of their leftism. And this hatred is tribal, not ideological. And so they will still have their rallies, their alternative weeklies, and their Gore Vidal polemics. They will still have a huge influence over the Democratic party, perhaps even determining its next presidential nominee. But they will seem increasingly unattractive to most moderate and even many normally Democratic voters who never really adopted outrage as their dominant public emotion.

In other words, there will be no magic "Aha!" moment that brings the dream palaces down. Even if Saddam's remains are found, even if weapons of mass destruction are displayed, even if Iraq starts to move along a winding, muddled path toward normalcy, no day will come when the enemies of this endeavor turn around and say, "We were wrong. Bush was right." They will just extend their forebodings into a more distant future. Nevertheless, the frame of the debate will shift. The war's opponents will lose self-confidence and vitality. And they will backtrack. They will claim that they always accepted certain realities, which, in fact, they rejected only months ago.

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER, larger group of people whose worldviews will be permanently altered by the war in Iraq. Members of this group were not firm opponents of the war. Indeed, they were mild supporters, or they were ambivalent. They were members of the vast, nervous American majority that swung behind the president as the fighting commenced.

These people do not have foreign policy categories deeply entrenched in their brains. They don't see themselves as hawks or doves, realists or Wilsonians. They don't see each looming conflict either through the prism of Vietnam, as many peaceniks do, or through the prism of the 1930s and the Cold War, as many conservatives do. They don't attract any press coverage or much attention, because they seldom take a bold stand either way. Their foreign policy instincts are unformed. But they are the quiet people who swing elections.

What lessons will they draw from the events of the past month? How will the fall of Saddam affect their voting patterns, their approach to the next global crisis? One way to think about this is to conduct a thought experiment. Invent a representative 20-year-old, Joey Tabula-Rasa, and try to imagine how he would have perceived the events of the past month.

Joey doesn't know much about history; he was born in 1983 and was only 6 when the Berlin Wall fell. He really has no firm idea of what labels like liberal and conservative mean. But now he is in college, and he's been glued to the cable coverage of the war and is ready to form some opinions. Over the past months, certain facts and characters have entered his consciousness, like characters in a play he is seeing for the first time.

The first character is America itself. He sees that his country is an incredibly effective colossus that can drop bombs onto pinpoints, destroy enemies that aren't even aware they are under attack. He sees a ruling establishment that can conduct wars with incredible competence and skill. He sees a federal government that can perform its primary task--protecting the American people--magnificently.

These are obviously not the things Joey would have seen if he had come of age in 1972, and his mentality is likely to be radically different from that of many people of the sixties generation. He is likely to feel confident about American power. He is likely to assume that when America projects its might, it is not only great, but good. Its pilots fly low, at some risk to themselves, to reduce civilian casualties. Teams of lawyers vet bombing targets to minimize unnecessary damage. Efforts are made to spare enemy soldiers who don't want to fight. The military, moreover, is fundamentally open to the press, allowing embedded reporters to wander amidst the troops. The ruling class is reasonably candid about the war's progress. The anonymous people in the corridors of power basically seem to know what they are doing.

The American system of government, moreover, is clearly the best system. In Joey's eyes, the United Nations is a fractious debating society. The European Union is split. The French are insufferable, the Germans both hostile and pacifist. The Arab ruling class is treacherous. Billions of people around the world seem to hate us, and while Joey is aware that there are some reasons to be suspicious of the United States, he resents the way so many people are over the top in their resentment, fury, and dislike. In short, Joey does not look around and assume that the world is moving toward some world government or global unity. When the chips are down, there are very few nations you can trust. Joey is both more trusting of America, and more suspicious of the world, than he would have been if he had formed his worldview in the 1990s.

The second great character on Joey's mind is the American soldier. When Joey thinks of youthful idealism, he doesn't think of college students protesting in the streets, he thinks of young soldiers risking their lives to liberate a people. These are the men and women Joey saw interviewed by the dozen on TV. They seemed to enjoy being in the military. They seemed to believe in their mission. They seemed to be involved in something large and noble even at a young age.

In Joey's eyes, the people who get to do the most exciting things are not members of the meritocratic elite-- Harvard and Stanford alums who start software companies. They are the regular men and women of the armed forces, or, as he remembers from the days after 9/11, they are firemen and cops. They are people without prestigious degrees and high income prospects.

Joey naturally feels that while those soldiers are liberating a country and talking about duty and honor, all he is doing is preparing for business school. That doesn't mean he necessarily wants to enlist, but he is aware that there is something lacking in his pampered private life. He also sees, in the example the soldiers set, that discipline, neatness, professionalism, and openly expressed patriotism are kind of cool.

The third character Joey sees is the terrorist. He sees the people who blew up the World Trade Center. In Iraq, people like that piled into pickups and suicidally attacked tanks. They wore those black fedayeen gowns. In Israel, they strap bombs to their waists and blow up buses. Joey is aware that there are a lot of people, especially in the Arab world, who are just batshit crazy. There is no reasoning with these people. They understand only force, and they must be crushed.

Joey sees that some regimes around the world are sadistic and evil. They torture and mutilate their own people. They ignore the basic rules of warfare and civilization. Conflict with these people is inevitable. They lurk in the dark corners of the globe, and for some reason they think they should take out their problems on us. You always have to be on guard, because there really is evil about.

WHEN JOEY LOOKS at the talking heads on TV, he begins to form judgments about this country's political divides. First, he sees the broad majority of people who support the war, who, it seems to him, deserve to be called the progressives. These people talk optimistically of spreading democracy and creating a new Middle East. They have a very confident approach to what America can achieve in the world. People in this political movement include Christopher Hitchens, Dennis Miller, Paul Wolfowitz, Joseph Lieberman, John McCain, Richard Holbrooke, Charles Krauthammer, the staff of Fox News, Bernard Lewis, and George Bush.

These people tend to endorse progressive interventionism, not only in Iraq, but in places like Kosovo. They use the explicitly moral language of good and evil. Joey is a little nervous that they are not realistic about what can actually be achieved in this messy world. He's afraid they might bite off more than they can chew. But he gives them credit for their idealism, their hope, their grand vision.

The second group Joey sees he calls the conservatives. These people are far more skeptical of the war and grand endeavors of that sort. They emphasize all the things that could go wrong. They seem more prudent and less idealistic or visionary. They were not necessarily implacably opposed to the effort in Iraq, but they thought it imprudent. People in the conservative camp include Brent Scowcroft, Joe Klein, the State Department, John Kerry, Chris Matthews, Robert Novak, and most of the press corps.

When Joey listens to these conservatives, he thinks they raise some valid concerns. They serve as a useful brake on the progressives, but they are not exactly inspiring or hopeful, and their prognostications on Iraq proved more wrong than right.

The final group Joey sees on the political landscape are the marchers. These people are always in the streets with their banners and puppets. They march against the IMF and World Bank one day, and against whatever war happens to be going on the next. Joey is not sure what these people are for. They don't seem to have any alternative to globalization. They don't seem to know how to deal with the Taliban or Saddam. They just march against. Joey figures it must be part of their personality.

Joey knows that this is what people did in the 1960s, and he regards the marchers as vaguely archaic. He knows that they tend to come from Hollywood and academia. Joey is not hostile to those worlds. He loves movies and likes many of his professors. He just senses that they are cloistered worlds, removed from day-to-day reality, and he doesn't plan on spending his life there. Marching for peace is something people in those worlds do, just as Mormons devote a few years of their lives to missionary work, or Jews keep kosher. It does not occur to Joey to enter the subculture of the protesters, and what they say is not likely to affect him one way or another.

Joey likes to think of himself as fundamentally independent. He looks at the people living in their dream palaces-- the Arabists, the European elites, the Bush haters--and he knows he doesn't want to be like them. He doesn't want to be so zealous and detached from reality. He's not even into joining political movements at home. But he is less independent than he thinks. He has started to acquire certain assumptions over the past months, which will shape his thinking in years to come. As a rule, these assumptions are the exact opposite of the assumptions he would have formed if he had been watching the Vietnam war unfold. His politics will be radically different from those of the Vietnam generation.

Moreover, new categories are crystallizing in his mind. These categories--who is progressive, who is conservative, who is reactionary--do not comport with the categories in the minds of people who came of age during the civil rights era, or even the Cold War.

Joey isn't one of a kind. There are millions of Joeys, and variations on Joey. Inevitably, then, in ways subtle and profound, the events of the past month will shape our politics for the rest of our lives.

David Brooks is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.
:: gandalf23 3:59:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Looting isn't just going on in Iraq. Apparently the food staff people at the UN building in New York went on strike for a day and the hungry diplomats stormed into the cafeterias and stole everything, including the silverware. Wow. Are there no restraunts in the area around the UN building? No hot dog vendors or pizza joints? Did Dominoes or Pizza Hut stop delivering? What the heck were these people thinking stealing all that stuff? It's not like they've been hungry for days/weeks/years. It's not that they were deprived of the chance to own silverware, of had their silverware stolen by the cafeteria workers. Nope, they were just hungry for lunch on a Friday. Apparently that justifies wanton theft. If I were the food services company, I'd tack on a 20% gratuity to _ALL_ orders from now on until the amount stolen was recovered.




:: gandalf23 3:31:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Yesterday I started lawnmowing again. Well, I've been doing it off and on for a while to help out my dad, but this was the first weekend of doing all the lawns myself. I'd forgotten how tiring it can be, and how drenched in sweat I become! While dad's in Iraq, or therabouts, I'll be taking over the lawnmowing business, I think it averages out to about 8 yards a week. Which does not sound bad, but at least at first it'll be a killer.

In other news, dad left for Iraq today. Actually he just left ot go to a millitary base in the US and get assigned gear and fill out loads and loads of paperwork before going to Kuwait on Friday. Then from Kuwait to Iraq. At least that's the plan.

I'm still trying to decide which pistol to use at the three gun match. On the one hand, I'm a bit more accurate with my .45 and if I hit the steel targets at all they should fall down. But on the other hand, my 9mm hold twice as much ammo so I don't need to carry as many magazines on me and switch them around a lot. Plus, I am completely out of .45 ammo, so I'd have to go buy some. Decisions decisions decisions.

The same day that the three gun match is being held is the same day that Adam Flaa starts shooting his movie, " " (don't remember what the title was). So, if you're at all interested in helping out, lemme know and I'll get you in touch with him. This is his first movie, which he has written and will direct, probably will be cameraman, and will have a small part in as well. I know he is looking for someone to run the sound equipment. The story is about a...well it's a ...shoot...it's a been a while since I read the script. I think it's about a criminal who decides to give it up for the woman he loves, but I could be thinking of an earlier version. Anyway, it's good.



:: gandalf23 3:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Sixty years ago, April 19, 1943, was the begining of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Some pictures of the aftermath. Interesting to note that the Warsaw Ghetto held out longer than Bahgdad. If the Warsaw Jews managed to put up a stiffer fight than Iraq did it is because they were fighting for their lives. To lose meant extermination in the gas chambers or by a bullet to the head. This threat of extermination did not exist for the Iraqi millitary and civilian population and so the bulk of them just kept their heads down until the storm blew over.

That the Iraqis failed to equal the resistance in Warsaw is proof that they knew that they had little to fear from the Americans, and those that did fight weren't fighting for their lives, they were fighting for a tyrant. Had they really believed that America was coming to enslave and kill them they would have fought a LOT harder. I think that this alone reveals much about the reputation of the American fighting man and the magnanimity he shows to a vanquished foe (which they learned first hand after the first Gulf War).




:: gandalf23 2:07:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Wish I'd seen this a fe weeks ago, sounds like a good prayer.

"Please pray that our soldiers' sight is acute, their aim is true, and that as many come home as God can spare."


:: gandalf23 1:55:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Good Lord! The humidity just went up to 230%!!!

(at least it feels that way)

Welcome to summer in Texas, y'all!


:: gandalf23 1:20:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

Anyone know of a Java or VB based Solitare program that is open source (or where the source is available?)? I'd like to use the Iraqi Most Wanted Card Deck for solitare. :)


:: gandalf23 12:59:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

I stand corrected, there are Three comic shops in Fort Worth. There is one on Rosesale at Horne (the street that Taco Beuno, Edmon's Chicken, and Como is on), Renegade Anime. Have not been in there, just noticed them today.


:: gandalf23 12:49:00 PM [+] ::
...

---

"It's the End of the World as we Know It, and I feel fiiine"

A cool site about the many ways that the Earth could be destroyed. Lyrics are from REM



:: gandalf23 10:42:00 AM [+] ::
...

---

This Saturday, May the third, 2003, in addition to being my Dad's birthday, is the second annual Free Comic Book Day! There are two (_only_ two) comic stores in Fort Worth that I know of. Y2Komics in Wedgewood, and Lone Star Comics on Hulen.
LONE STAR COMICS
6312 HULEN BEND ROAD (In between the Sears Driving School and an Indian restraunt over by the AMC)
FT.WORTH, TX
(871) 346-7773

Y2KOMICS
5270 TRAIL LAKE DRIVE (Right next to Harbour Freight)
EMAIL: Y2KOMICS@CHARTER.NET
FORT WORTH, TX
(817) 263-5888

And while you're there, check out the non-free comic offerings they'll have for sale. There's some really good stuff out there. Blue Monday, Shades of Blue, Strangers in Paradise, and anything by Brian Michael Bendis or Frank Miller (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns remains one of my favorite comics of all time), or Allen Moore .

The Mike Allred version of X-Force, he started with issue 116, is incredible. Jeff Smith's Bone is great for all ages, as is Mark Crilley's Akiko, and Masashi Tanaka's Gon. A lot of the stuff published by Dark Horse Comics is good, Usagi Yojimbo, Oh! My Goddess (Who would think of combining a college engineering nerd, Norse mythology, and a computer system that runs reality together and getting a romantic comedy out of it?), Concrete. They do a lot of japanese manga and a lot of movie/tv tie ins: they've done all the Aliens, Predator, Terminator, and recent Star Wars and Buffy comics. There's a lot of good stuff out there, it's not all superheroes (not that superheores are crap or anything, but sometimes their comics aren't so good plotwise).

Graphic novels, trade paperbacks, whatever you want to call them, the large collections of several comic issues are a great way to catch up or read a whole story arc at once. You may get sticker shock, but add up the cost of the comics contained within, and it'll almost always be a few dollars less to buy the graphci novel, plus you don't have to worry about missing an issue or two, or waiting f o r e v e r for the next installment.

Also most comic shops also sell games. Not just RPGs (like Dungeons and Dragons), or card games like Pokemon, but board games as well. I like Axis and Allies, a WWII game by Milton Bradley. Very fun game, but it often takes hours to play. There's a free computer version available, but it's not as fun as playing against and crushing your friends in real life :) There is also an official Axis and Allies PC game but it's probably out of print now. Comic shops also usually sell toys as well, but it's generally always cheaper to get them at Walmart or Toys R Us.

Also in comic related news, this looks to be the summer of the comic book-based movie (btw, y'all did know that Road to Perdition was based on a comic book, right?). Daredevil already came out, X-Men 2 opens tommorrow, The League of Extrordinary Gentlemen and The Hulk open later on this summer. Plus the Matrix Reloaded opens May 15th! Should be a great summer for movies! I hear that there is a Fantasic Four movie in the works, as well as Spiderman 2.




:: gandalf23 8:24:00 AM [+] ::
...