perfidy

Over at Ace, we discover that there is an effort to provide homes for Chinese blogs. Given the censorship and controls employed by the Communist government (backed of course by the threat of police violence) it behooves us in the free world to help out where we can.

Adoptablog is a project to match Chinese blogs (or, in fact, blogs from anywhere where there is totalitarian speech suppression) with hosts in the US. After consulting the oracles, finger bones, and a few tea leaves, I have determined that we can easily spare room here for a Chinese blog. If you are a blogger in need of hosting, email {encode="adoptablog@perfidy.org" title="Perfidy Adoptablog"} and we'll figure out how to get you set up. (Perfidy is running on expression engine software, but we can be flexible should that be necessary.)

Today, I had lunch at a local chinese restaurant. As is traditional, I received a fortune cookie at the end of my (quite tasty) buffet. Unlike most fortune cookies, this one left me wondering:

Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today

Okay, today I will avoid elephant smooching today. Should I not buss an elephant tomorrow? What if I did so in the past - will I have bad luck? If I do run into a pachyderm after midnight, should I seek out some lip hockey?

And if I do run into an elephant today, am I doomed if I kiss an elephant somewhere other than on the lips? It only mentions lips! What will I do if I run into an amorous elephant? I could just tell the elephant I have a canker sore, but I don't think I'd have much choice if the elephant really wants a kiss. Wouldn't the trunk get in the way of kissing anyway...

Drudge is reporting DNC Chairman Howard Dean has decided to forego the evenhanded rhetoric, amity and collegiality, bend-over for the ruling party methods that he has heretofore exhibited. Now he's going to get mad, and you wouldn't like him when he's mad. This comes as a bit of a shock to those of us who thought that the good doctor was already a little bit around the bend, what with all the "Republicans are evil," "I hate Republicans and all they stand for," "They're the white Christian party," and other assorted bon mots.

While I have not been one to believe that Karl Rove is the all-powerful puppetmaster/machiavel/satanic schemer that some in the dirtier, smellier parts of the left imagine him to be. But I doubt myself... Did Karl Rove somehow replace the real former Governor Dean with an android? Because Dean is a gift beyond price to the Republicans. Fundraising is down, the fringe is pushed to ever greater heights of offputting frenzy, and Republican speechwriters and admakers have a database of money quotes they will be decades in exhausting.

And Dean seems to be dragging the party leadership with him. Every day, some Democrat gets sucked past the event horizon of Deanite mania, to a place where the laws of physics and history are strangely warped and unintelligible. Senator Dick Durbin confusing past totalitarianism with current American Military practice is only the most recent victim. I have heard people of the left say that Dean's behavior is no different than that of Rush Limbaugh. While this is certainly true, there is a significant difference in their positions. Limbaugh is not the RNC Chair.

M. Simon had a post the other day (found via Murdoc) which lays out the problem for the Democrats:

So far the Democratic Party hates white Christian Republicans according to Dean. The Military according to Durbin and Jews according to a forum organized by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan.

So let us do a Venn diagram to see what is left of the Democrat party.

Here is the list:

Whites
Christians
Republicans
The military
Jews

Now of course there is overlap but that list must include 70% to 80% of all Americans. I must say, short of Nixon's resignation, this is one of the most amazing weeks I have ever witnessed in American politics. The Democrat Party is shrinking faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Democrats are building a permanent Republican majority by the simple and expedient method of self-destruction.

How they imagine that they can reclaim the levers of power in 2008 is utterly beyond my comprehension. After alienating everyone who isn't already ideologically committed to the party, they will no doubt nominate the most polarizing figure in American politics in the last quarter century. Hillary is smart, and canny; but she's going to have a smaller base to work from. And there is no guarantee that the Republicans will nominate as weak a candidate as GWB next time around, or that the war on terror will have blown up in our faces. (I mean, really, the last two elections were "Clash of the Midgets.") If a Republican with broad appeal to the middle - someone like McCain, if not actually McCain - goes up for the big game, the Democrats are going to be toast.

Space.com has an interesting article on terraforming called, "Terraforming: Human Destiny or Hubris?" It's a little pessimistic, I think. Not that I'm saying that in the next ten years, we could start making any large-scale alterations to any planetary environment, save the one we're already on. However, the one thing that will make it possible is replicating assemblers. Not necessarily nanotech, though that would make it easier. Once we have devices that can be sent as a seed into space, there to grow into automated factories for producing solar power plants and large engines for moving things, truly anything will be possible. And the way computer technology is going, it won't be long before that could happen. (Moore's law says that computer power will be approaching the lower bounds of human thought in a less than thirty years or so.)

Murdoc tagged me with this meme over the weekend. Why the hell not?

1. Total Number of Books I Own: Somewhere north of 2500. In my life, I have probably owned another 1000 or more books that I either lost, sold, or gave away. I imagine I have read all but a few of those books.

2. The Last Book I Bought: I bought David Reynold’s new biography of John Brown (he of “nits make lice” fame) because neither Borders nor Barnes and Noble had Bennett’s Anglosphere Challenge. Haven’t started it yet, because I’m reading a free online book.

3. The Last Book I Read: Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban. I’m rereading the series, backwards, in preparation for the release of book six sometime next month. I liked it better than the first time. (I liked book five a lot better the second time. First time I read it, I was rather disappointed.)

4. Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me: These aren’t in any particular order. While any number of non-fiction books have greatly increased my knowledge, or even changed my opinions dramatically; none have had the effect that fiction has had. Fiction, at its best, really gets me where I live.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read this when I was young, maybe eleven years old. Tolkien created such an extraordinarily dense mythology, it was easy to get lost (in a good way) in the story. Heroism, good v. evil, magical landscapes and creatures, and the feel of ancient wonder. The books felt old in a way that no other thing I have read ever have, even stories written hundreds of years earlier.
2. The Illuminatus Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson. This book meant a quite a lot to me fifteen years ago. Blew my mind when I read it. I tried to reread it a few months ago and couldn’t get more than thirty pages in. This book, and the Shroedinger’s Cat trilogy, made a huge impact on my habits of thinking. Wilson would no doubt be disappointed that his books did not arrest my slide into conservatism, but they certainly affected the kind of conservative I became. The thing that stuck with me most from this book was not that reality is relative, but that everyone does have their own perception of it. And everyone is the hero in their own personal narrative.
3. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein. I think this is Heinlein’s greatest novel. Where the politics of Illuminatus didn’t quite take hold, it was probably because this book had already made firm claim to essential mindshare. (And to a lesser extent, Starship Troopers and most of the juveniles.) Rationalism, liberty, guns. It’s all there, plus a computer throwing rocks.
4. Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner. The first book I ever read that made future shock real, and then went on to show how it could be a good thing. Science fiction is in large an antidote to future shock – my typical response to innovation is, “About frickin’ time!” The horizon for “worrying” technological development is, for me, very far in the future.
5. The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester; and The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert. Okay, so I’m cheating a little. These two books, read just after I gradumatated from high school, reaffirmed my sense of wonder. In completely different ways, they had a similar effect on my consciousness. The idea that you can improve your consciousness, your self in ways vastly different and better than the pabulum offered by mindless self-help books lingered a long time… Science fiction here less concerened with spaceships and rayguns, but with the mind.

Maybe it’s the way my mind is wired, but non-sf fiction doesn’t grab me the way sf does. It doesn’t effect me in any deep sense. I have read a fair amount of the canonical literature, and enjoyed it. Been amazed, in fact, at its quality, its insight into the human condition. None of it hit me like these books, though. Maybe if the list was ten or fifteen, we’d start seeing Shakespeare and other writers that a literature professor would recognize. In a world so profoundly altered by technology, a literature that explores more than mere alienation is the only thing that can explain our world to ourselves.

At this point, I’m supposed to invite others to join in the madness. In the interest of being incestuous, I tag all my cobloggers. But in keeping with the precedents set before me, I nominate: The Maximum Leader, if he reads; Ken The Oldsmoblogger, ‘cause he’s from Cleveland; Phil Dennison, ‘cause he’s from Cleveland; John Hudock of Commonsense and Wonder ‘cause he should be from Cleveland and I feel real bad about not linking him in ages; and finally Dave at Garfield Ridge, ‘cause he’s new to the blogroll. Like Murdoc said, “If you don't want to, let me know so that I can badger you about it. If you've already played this game, let me know so I can badger someone else.”

For the first time ever, the Ministry has broken into the ranks of mammals on TTLB's blog ecosystem. We are now adorable little rodents. Thirty or so more links, and we'll be marauding marsupials. So link us.

MommaBear, of On The Third Hand, is mourning the loss of her beloved PoppaBear. My condolences for your loss, and you will be in my thoughts and prayers. On behalf of the Ministry, we wish you strength and hope in your time of need.

No, that's not the second in command of the Decepticons. It's the little icon that appears in the top left corner of the browser, and in the address bar, and on bookmark links. Loyal reader #0018, Paul from the Empire State displayed admirable gumption, initiative and pluck yesterday when he determined that there was something lacking in the Ministry's website and didn't, like thousands of others, merely bitch and moan about it.

Rather then subject the Ministry's html code-chiseling Kobolds to further abuse he took it upon himself to create a perfidious favicon all by himself and email said icon to the Ministry's Bureau for Unsolicited Technical Thingys. After the web server gnomes scratched their heads, looked up to the sky in plaintive confusion, wrung their beards and tapped the sides of their computer monitors in a vaguely fetishistic manner, they went about installing the favicon in accordance with industry-standard best practices, as determined by a two minute google search.

They reported success, but initial reports from Ministry field officers are showing only mixed results. If you see a little perfidy icon, please inform the Ministry and let us know the make, model, color and trim package of your browser. Likewise if you do not see the delightful flames of perfidy, email and let us know what sort of pathetic browser you are using in a lame attempt to surf the interweb. All hail loyal reader Paul from the Empire State, who has earned the Ministry commendation of and for extraordinary usefullness.

[wik] Can anyone see the favicon in IE of any flavor?

Back in the dark times of late summer 2004, when it seemed that the Republicans were going to steal yet another election, a group of brave patriots gathered together to protest the Republican National Convention. Nearly a thousand groups (listed at the United for Peace and Justice website) gathered under the wise and benevolent leadership of Michael Moore, Danny Glover and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and sent at least a hundred thousand, but no more than 200,000, and certainly not 400,000 people, to NYC to demonstrate.

While the exact goal of the demonstration remains obscure (were they going to stop the Republicans from selecting a candidate? that'll put a spoke in their wheel!) it is clear that these earnest and concerned people were definitely against everything that was going on inside the convention. All that democracy and stuff. In my role as a serious commentator on politics and current events, I looked at the list of groups, and noted that some of the names were rather silly. And then I posted that thought, with some carefully chosen examples to buttress my argument. Names like these:

1% a peace army (MA)
Addicted to War (CA)
African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change (NY)
Brooklyn Demilitarized Zone project -- BkDMZ (NY)
Chicago Anti-Bashing Network (IL)
Citizens of Planet Earth Academy (NC)
Committee to Free Pedro Pacheco
Disarm Education Fund (NY)
draftresistance.org (AK)
Emergency Committee To Defend Constitutional Welfare Rights, USA (NY)
Food Not Bombs - Muncie (IN)
House of The Goddess Center for Pagan Wombyn
John Denver Peace Cloth (WA)
Labone Branch of Ghana United Nations Association
Marxist Feminist Lesbian Jamican Radical Poets -- MFLJRP (NJ)
Not in Our Brains Campaign (NY)
PLURtopia & Enlightened Libra Creations
Quixote Center (DC)
Raging Grannies - Peninsula Chapter (CA)
Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane (CA)
Ruckus Society
Students Against Testing (NY)
Ukuleles For Sanity (CA)

But one group that I mentioned recently took offense at my light-hearted ribbing. Actually, not a group but a TV show.

Missing Kitten TV

In a post entitled, “Little Green Morons”, MKTV accused me of being [gasp…] a right-wing whackjob! Further, I am accused of shoddy, slipshod research. Agony!

you see, a while back, katharine and i decided to register our show as one of the member groups supporting the united for peace and justice movement. they published the list of all of those groups on their website. and ever since then, all types of right-wing whackjobs (including the new york post!) have taken a stab at at those of us with untraditional names. not a single one has ever taken the time to do any research, contact us, or even visit our website.

…you would *think* that one - just one! - of these little green footballs would be able to figure out that we are a TV show!!!

Well, damn. I didn’t think a whole lot of research into the history, aims, membership and favorite color of any of these groups was necessary for me to judge, all on my own, that some of them had silly names. Judging a book by its cover is perhaps unwise. But what if you are judging the book cover? Do you have to read the book then?

And “untraditional” is a, shall we say, generous description for some of these titles.

Since hypocrisy is the biggest sin for the left, let’s examine some of those statements. I am wrong for not reading Missing Kitten TV’s website, and for not contacting them to get the full picture before recklessly mentioning that they have a silly name. I wonder, did the well-intentioned and kind people from Missing Kitten TV bothered to look at this site before calling me (in a nice way) a right-wing whackjob? Do right-wing whackjobs share their personal space for communication and expression with two people who hold offensive and criminally stupid liberal viewpoints? Do right-wing whackjobs as a rule oppose the war on drugs, support gays in the military, women in combat, gay marriage (conditionally, I admit), oppose censorship of all kinds, and think that the patriot act was almost certainly a bad idea? Apparently I am a sufficiently open-minded enough right-wing whackjob to share my blog with two liberals and to hold any number of beliefs not perfectly congruent with the label, "right-wing whackjob." Or maybe I don’t hang out with the right sort of right-wing whackjobs.

Further, minimal research would have unearthed that I am neither little, nor green. I’ll give MKTV a flier on moron, but your mileage may vary.

In any event, I make a formal apology to MSTV for having the temerity to mention their name without first seeking their permission. I further abase myself and say that from this moment on, the phrase “right-wing whackjob” will appear in the list of cycling capsule biographies under my name as a constant (well, intermittent) badge of my shame. I will also endeavor to be less right, less wing, and less whack. I will retain my job however, because I am still a conservative. And finally, I will never again display the kind of breathtaking arrogance and condescension for which conservatives are so infamous:

again - he never did ANY research, or made ANY effort to contact us. and here in NYC, alls you gotta do is turn on a friggin' television set....

my sentiments exactly....

Clio, the muse of history, has left her scrolls and books at the foot of Mount Olympus. She has gotten her shots, filled out her will, donned her 3-color desert uniform and spiffy brassard, and humped her ruck into harm's way.

Clio is downrange with the 45th Military History Detachment.

Stars and Stripes discusses the efforts of Army historians in recording and cataloguing soldiers' accounts of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is not likely to be more detailed primary source material concerning the units, places, and people in either theater. Much of the collected information undoubtedly has immediate utility, as tactics are modified and doctrine re-written. Other material will be used to fuel papers at the War College and CGSC, likely sooner rather than later. The greatest value of this work though will not be appreciated for, perhaps, decades.

This is the raw stuff that our children will use when they write the history of this war.