perfidy

Matthew's got it right. United States of Canada! Jesusland!

I think it can work.

Recently Lady Lethal and I went to a "full auto shoot", an event where bona-fide machine guns were made available to the public.

The atmosphere was perfect: light fog, misty with occasional drizzle, low cloud cover, no sun, and about 50F. Good training weather! As we approached the site I heard the first burst- something lighter, maybe Chinese or East Bloc. I started grinning and looked over at the fairer Lethal, one eyebrow raised and the sounds of full auto mayhem growing as the range heated up. Oh yes. Within minutes we signed a release, paid our dough, put on our hearing protection, and went into the site.

There were actually three ranges going. The heaviest stuff was at the range closest to the entrance: several 30 cals were about, one 50 cal ("ma deuce"), at least 2 of these miniguns, and literally dozens of lighter weapons, in US, German, and Commie flavors.

The targets were primarily pumpkins, empty propane tanks, pumpkins, a couple of cars (some sort of Chrysler product by the look of them) and someone's old boat thrown in- well, thrown OUT, I guess- and pumpkins for good measure. Within about, oh 30 seconds there was pumpkin mush spattered and smeared downrange. If the idea were to send an unsubtle warning to the pumpkin-American community, I think it worked.

As for the crowd, most were men. All of the owners of the weapons were men, but many had their wives there and helping. All told, there were more women and fewer creepy militia types around than I expected to see. Two good points there.

Anyway, it was kinda cool- some pics beneath the fold.

[wik] Forgot to mention that while it sounded like sick, sustained end of the world firefights far and wide as these ranges were rocking, every minute or so was this huge BOOM that drowned out everything else and I could feel in my nuts. Took me a minute to figger it out, but soon found there was a lane for Buckethead's varmint rifle of choice.

Firepower demo: local police chief empties a reproduction commie PPsH into level II vest. I recommend the level III vest.

Firearms instructor and "Tales of the Gun" commentator demonstrates a suppressed Sten with subsonic, anti-pumpkin munition:

Lady Lethal holds fast in a hasty fighting position, throwing lead into a charging line of gourdish infantry:

Random shot of a dude with a Thompson and something Germanic on the tripod. Maybe an MG42 or MG3 on the blue tarp:

One lone Pinzgauer in the rain:

I have several hours worth of negative commentary on yesterday's test for gravity, but I'll condense it. There doesn't seem to be much point in exploring facts or numbers or doing realistic extrapolations. I guess I held a foolish hope that, to some extent, the American political system was self-correcting. I was wrong.

At least the popular vote broke for Bush, this time. He has legitimacy he did not, after 2000. It also appears that the election was clean, this time. I don't know how many black "felons" were denied an opportunity to vote in Florida; let's hope it isn't the 45,000 that we saw last time. Bush's margin in Florida is several hundred thousand, which puts him safely (and legitimately) in the lead.

It's not that John Kerry was a great candidate; he wasn't. But Bush represents the certainty of an economic death spiral, the affirmation of xenophobia (and just about every other phobia, including homo-), and the sunsetting of liberty. He's got a four year track record to prove it. At least with Kerry there was a chance for fiscal discipline and for cooperation on the international level; no such chance exists now.

So I sit here, perplexed. All the graphs and charts and analysis I've done, countless discussions conveying the facts, everything written and done and said...it all means pretty much nothing. I think that it means that my focus has to change; I think it means that there simply isn't any point in trying to work and hope for change that is good for everyone. It turns out they're not interested.

The ironic thing is that Bush's policies are fine, or even good, for me personally. His tax cuts go to people like me. The crash and burn of the medical system doesn't affect me; I can afford it, whatever happens. Expensive oil? Doesn't bother me. The forthcoming rise in social security taxation rates (to "fix" social security) won't be much of a factor for me; my income extends past the social security range. All these things are going to screw over the average 30k/year guy in America; that guy just voted for Bush, so my sympathies are limited.

We're really entering a new era, now. If you're a smart, wealth-producing, socially liberal, fiscally conservative person, you need to start thinking about protecting yourself and your family from this lunacy, and you need to start doing it right now. The bible-wielding welfare-staters are coming for us. They want to spend our tax dollars on things we don't agree about, like stupid wars. They want to force everyone to hate gays. They want to take away a woman's right to choose. They do not believe the environment should be protected. They want to swagger around the playground, declaring that the opinions of those who live elsewhere in the world don't matter. They talk financial discipline, but implement the largest discretionary spending increases in modern times. They hand huge breaks to the buddies of the people in charge of their "party", and they hand the bill to us, and to the next generation.

So how do you protected yourself and your family against this lunacy? I don't know yet. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm not sure it's possible; at least, not in America.

The baby boomers start retiring in five years. Demand for treasury bonds is dropping dramatically. America's position in the world is the weakest it has been in modern times. The federal government is running 6% of GDP deficits and is two years away from the highest percentage-of-GDP deficits ever recorded (exceeding the record set after World War II). Dislike and distaste for America is causing increases to trade deficits. Oil prices are likely to double (from their current record-high levels) over the next two years, which will have a massive ripple effect on America's remaining, highly dispersed manufacturing infrastructure.

The very idea of trying to deal with a longer-term problem, like global warming, is foolish.

Is this who you are?

Rationality has prevailed, and GOP Party Officials in Ohio have told challengers to observe, rather than actively challenge voters on the spot. Since I criticized the decision to challenge, it's only fair that I mention their decision to observe. Nobody has a problem with observation. It was the active process of challenging voters in the act of voting that was highly problematic.

Long ago my feelings on folk music hardened from simple animadversion into open contempt. Consequently, I am inclined to not give a chance to even the best of the classic folkies. Tim Buckley: pussy! Phil Ochs: pinko! If I had a hammer, I'd hammer Peter Paul and Mary all day long! Nick Drake gets a pass because he's English and a genius, but it's a close call since his legions of pathetic hack followers haunt my every step. Because I have such a hard time with folk music and folk musicians in general, it is a real pleasure when I find one who can actually deliver the goods. Richard Buckner, come on down!

Austin native (and Brooklyn resident) Richard Buckner is the owner of a ridiculously burnished voice, the kind of weathered rasp that invites overbaked comparisons to old leather, mellow whiskey and open prairie afternoons. At a whisper, darker tones invite hushed intimacy; when he cuts loose, the weariness in his voice turns to an ache that Springsteen would kill to have the use of for a single day. In the past, he has sometimes had trouble finding songs good enough to go with his voice. Buckner's instincts are not rock instincts, nor are they quite country; he doesn't go in for drama or the big finish. Indeed, even dressed up with steel guitars and uptempo kit drumming, Richard Buckner pretty much writes folk songs in the metaphorical-confessional mode, and I just can't find it in myself to hold it against him. He’s too cool, too rumpled. Too real.

One problem with modern folk music is that it requires a measured subtlety that too often presents as sleepiness, and Buckner isn't completely innocent in this regard. On 2002's Impasse, all the album's songs melted together into a lukewarm puddle of mildly depressing soul-searching. That album was a big letdown in comparison to his debut, Bloomed (that album's "Rainsquall" is one of my favorite happy-sad songs), and his mid-90s offerings Since and Devotion+Doubt which (I confess) reliable sources close to me say are great. On Impasse, the claustrophobic atmosphere may have been in part thanks to Richard's own increasing reliance on playing all his own instruments. With nobody to act as a foil, he seems to withdraw into a hermetic space that might be pleasing to him but doesn't invite listeners in.

On the new Dents and Shells (Merge) Buckner seems to have unclenched quite a bit. Leaving the bulk of the playing to a crack team of hired sidemen, Buckner offers a solid set of ten songs that make the most of his way with a yearning melody and a laid-back vibe. Operating in the same general territory as Townes van Zandt, the Jayhawks (but softer and more messy) and early Steve Earle (without the snarl and the drugs), he seems to have figured out how to write songs that let the listener in. In particular, the shimmery guitar and piano of the opening “A Chance Counsel” and “Her” sit beautifully among the naked melancholy of “Firsts” and “And The Waves Will Always Roll,” making Dents and Shells the first Richard Buckner album to do everything right with his considerable talents. Highly recommended, even (especially?) for non-fans of folk music.

Also posted to blogcritics.org, which you will now go and read.

For the week ending 31Oct04

Special Iraq-free edition! (the gnomes in our Baghdad bureau are spending a week decompressing on the Ministry's dime in a hotel in Beirut.)

Spotlight Missourah: High school student Brad Mathewson was recently sent home on two separate occasions for wearing a "gay pride" t-shirt to school. In the ACLU press release, Mathewson notes that the school administration asked him "to go home and change shirts because someone might be offended." Entertainingly, Mathewson's observation that what he found offensive were the anti-gay stickers plastered on cars in the school parking lot, on notebooks, and often on other students at the school, fell on deaf ears.

Remember kids: it's only hate if you don't yourself believe it. Hate the sin, not the sinner. They chose that life of high-school ostracism and misery. Perverts cause herpes. And more stuff like that if you need to feel better about your deep distaste for gays. It's not your hang-up, it's theirs.

Spotlight Missourah (again): Hey! Want a mentally challenged slave to do your laundry? Call these guys.

Two people have been charged with holding six mentally ill patients at group homes and making them work against their will, authorities said.

A man and a woman were arrested Tuesday under a federal law banning involuntary servitude after 20 FBI agents searched two group homes in Newton, Kansas.

The agents rescued four adults from one home and two from the other, FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said. The identities of the two people who were arrested were not immediately released.

The six mentally ill individuals had lived in the homes for "a long period of time," Lanza said. It was not immediately clear what type of work they had been forced to perform.

The accused, I'm sure, would cite purely humanitarian reasons, arguing that washing windows for free builds character. Too bad there's no "'tard exception clause" in the Thirteenth Amendment.

Spotlight Florida: Vote early, vote often, vote with your car! Barry Seltzer of Sarasota, Florida, has some rage issues. While motoring along a busy street in Sarasota on October 27th, Mr. Seltzer happened to catch sight of shrill election-rigging harpy Katherine Harris and a knot of her supporters. What happened next is unclear. Witnesses say that Seltzer drove his Cadillac up onto the sidewalk and directly at Harris, possibly swerving to avoid her at the last moment. Seltzer, apparently trying for a first-ever gestalt of the Twinkie Defense and the First Amendment, argues "I intimidated them with my car... They were standing in the street... I was exercising my political expression!" The police naturally take a dim view of attempted vehicular homicide, and Mr. Seltzer is currently under arrest for same, a political prisoner and regrettable casualty of a system designed to disenfranchise the little guy and his Cadillac.

If the car don't hit, you must acquit.

Spotlight the Interweb: We're all pundits here, or at least fans of pundits. Why else would you be reading this here website? We are used to crafting biting commentary, sometimes rather heated, about whatever subject suits our fancy. Some of us (like us Perfidians) prefer a thin scrim of anonymity. The blog-o-sphere has seen its share of death threats (Emperor Misha), enraged denunciations (Eric Muller and the increasingly despicable Michelle Malkin), and just plain idiocy (everyone). But what happens when some specially-bred packet sniffing canine channeling data in some sub-sub-sub basement out in Reston happens to notice... you?

Livejournaler "anniej" was lucky enough to find out. In a post following one of the Parsdential Debates, "anniej" put up a post (since deleted) that in her own words "was a mock-prayer to God in response to Bush's comment that he could feel it every time Americans prayed for him. I jokingly prayed for an aneurysm, and invited the "prayers" of others." Little did anniej know that she was about to get a lesson in the pointy end of American Civics 101.

Stories have abounded this election season about the bubble of privacy around the President: protestors or gadflies channelled into "free speech" zones a quarter mile from rallies; Kerry t-shirt wearers being forcibly removed; people in queue to ask questions at Q&As being removed if their question is not a softball. Evidently the bubble is very large now, and transmissible over telephone lines. As anniej describes it,

At 9:45 last night, the Secret Service showed up on my mother's front door to talk to me about what I said about the President, as what I said could apparently be misconstrued as a threat to his life. After about ten minutes of talking to me and my family, they quickly came to the conclusion that I was not a threat to national security (mostly because we are the least threatening people in the entire world) and told me that they would not recommend that any further action be taken with my case. However, I do now have a file with the FBI that includes my photograph, my e-mail address, and the location of my LJ. This will follow me around for the rest of my life, regardless of the fact that the Secret Service knows that I am not a threat.

[long list of advice, whys and wherefores redacted]

Now, at this juncture, I am not planning on making any kind of formal complaint with the A.C.L.U., as some on my friendslist have suggested. I did not feel that my civil rights were violated by the visit, and I did not feel intimidated by the Secret Service agents. I have, however, contacted an attorney simply because I want to ensure that my rights are protected in the future, and because the Secret Service were less than clear about what exactly can be construed as a threat and what would be done with my FBI file and any medical records they requested. I am not making any efforts to contact the media, and I doubt that I will in the future.

HOWEVER.

I want people to be aware that what they say on their LJ can cause problems for them in RL, because I love all of you and I don't wish what happened to me on you. You are more than welcome to discuss this post in your journal, and you are more than welcome to link to it from your journal. If you want to post this in a community, go for it. Hell, if you want to put me on fandom_wank, it's probably not a bad idea. The wankers would have a FIELD DAY with this. I know I would. Please, feel free to make an example out of me. So share this with your friends. Tell them what can happen. It's beneficial to all of us to know that this can happen, and hopefully, it'll prevent something like this from happening again.

Now, with all that said, I really, REALLY need some goddamn porn today. GAAAAAH.

Thattagirl. Look at some weeners and forget about the government.

Loyal readers may well now be asking "where's the exemplary human behavior here?" I answer: when the Secret Service, whose solemn and sworn duty is protecting the President's life, make housecalls based on prayers they read on the internet, it's time to dial it back a bit. Don't they know there's a war on?

Spotlight Taiwan A discussion over weapons purchases in the Taiwanese Parliament last week spilled over into cartoonish violence when a food fight broke out among the legislators.

Opposition lawmaker Chu Fong-chi stood up and began shouting at ruling party lawmakers when she appeared to duck to avoid being hit by an object. She picked up a lunch box and flung it across the room at legislator Chen Chong-yi of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Chen grabbed a lunch box and tossed it back at Chu, who had what appeared to be food stains down the back of her blouse. "My whole body smells like a lunch box!" she shrieked to TV cameras covering the melee.

The food fight, which lasted just minutes, left tabletops, chairs and the floor littered with rice and chunks of hard-boiled eggs.

Although every governing body from the town council of Possum Holler, Kentucky up to the secret cabal of plutocrats who comprise the Bavarian Illuminati is at any given moment no more than a thrown sandwich away from a food fight, actually throwing food is, shall we say, a little on the nose.

Spotlight Vietnam: Vietnamese government official Luong Quoc Dung is on trial for raping a thirteen year old girl to rid himself of bad luck.

Ugh. Moving on...

Spotlight Pitcairn Island In what must be some sort of record, half the male population of this tiny Pacific island nation were recently convicted of raping more than half the female population. In total, six men-- including the mayor (who leads the nation in both the political sense and the "sick bastard who raped the most girls" sense)-- were convicted of more than fifty sex abuse charges over the past 40 years, with some victims as young as five years old. In a cruel twist, many of the victims have come forward in defense of the convicted men, arguing that the island's well-being will suffer for half the men being in prison.

Interesting fact: Pitcairn Island is populated entirely by descendents of mutineers from the HMS Bounty.

Spotlight Wisconsin: Woman digs up boyfriend's remains; drinks his beer. Karen Stolzmann was arrested this week for the decade-old crime of graverobbing. When her boyfriend, Michael Hendrickson, killed himself in 1992, his ashes were buried with a beer and a pack of cigarettes. He had been in the ground less than a month when authorities noticed the grave had been disturbed and the urn and beer were missing.

Call me crazy, but that gives me a great idea for an ad campaign: "What would YOU do for a Michelob?"

As promised, here is my choice for President. I will cast my vote later today.

It is with heavy heart and great reluctance I choose John Kerry for President. In fact, this vote is not so much a vote for the junior Senator from Massachusetts as it is an unequivocal and vigorous vote against Bush. I think he's done some good things. He's gone in the right direction on taxes and tax reform-- indeed, not far enough. No Child Left Behind has a good idea somewhere deep inside, cloaked in layer upon layer of fat and hot air. His leadership in the first couple months after September 2001 were good stuff. He's been far from a disaster on many fronts. However. I want him gone for the following reasons.

1) The "war on terror," which is the most important struggle facing our nation today-- on a par with the Cold War-- is also not the only struggle, and I deeply resent my patriotism being questioned for asking if the way the President chooses to fight it is the right way, and I deeply resent the implication that talking about anything else implies I am unserious about national defense. I do not believe that we are more safe now than before Saddam Hussein was removed from power. This is not the same thing as disagreeing with the decision to remove him. If terrorists are the problem, I may simplistically ask why Saudi Arabia is not a smoking crater. Again, although some parts of the "war on terror," (which in itself is a ridiculous title like "war on poverty," "war on drugs," or "war on mosquitoes") have gone smashingly well, I think enough major parts have been completely fumbled so's to warrant giving someone else a chance. Is John Kerry my first choice? Hahahahahahahahahaha....no. I vote for him only because he's the evil I don't know.

2) I love France and the French more than I love life itself. French toast, French ticklers, French letters, French fries, French poodles, uppity French wine, and French hygeine are my ne plus ultra. They have been our greatest ally, and it is high time we as a nation were grateful for them and their haughty righteousness.

3) Bush's unquestioning loyalty to himself. "We're on a mission from gad" is great for the Blues Brothers, but terrible for policy. It too easily transmutes from humble supplication and introspective moral guidance into arrogant crusading, and that don't sit too good with me. His inability to admit making any mistakes, his inability to accept or delegate accountability, his loyalty to his inner circle long after that loyalty pays any dividends or indeed makes any sense, and his legendary incuriousness about policy or detail leave me deeply dissatisfied about his fitness to take the nation in a worthwhile direction . Moreover, I find that fratboy schtick fatuous, not funny.

4) I hate our prosperity, I hate free trade, I love the gays, and I hate our freedom. (Which of these things is true, and which is just me shinin' you on?)

5) Four years of John Kerry means, at the very least, four years of divided government. It's an article of faith with me that such times are when the *magic* happens.

6) There's a bunch of other things that belong on this list, from specific gripes about Medicare entitlements and government spending to Bush's overweening moralism, but it's November the Second, the end of the tunnel is in sight, and I am so powerfully sick of our Hallowed Democratic Process so's to willingly consider Constitutional Monarchy if only our first king could be TV's Dave Coulier. I have little to add to what the Kerry supporters at Begging to Differ have to say, so if my choice vexes you, go see where I nod my head, then come back here and unload.

Remember: vote early. In Chicago, vote twice!

GOP functionaries scream on one hand about activist judges. Then they run to federal Circuit Court to get local judges overruled when they want to "challenge" voters in minority and democractic districts. The Times has the story. What, exactly, are these challengers going to do besides look at the same photo ID that the election supervisors are looking at?

Nothing. That's not why they're there. They're there for one purpose: To slow down the process of voting in heavily democratic areas. When the lines grow to a certain point, frustrated people are going to give up.

Let's hope they don't succeed.

This would be a great time for Bush supporters (as opposed to Republicans) to make the case for their guy. I'll make it easy for you. Just discuss one major policy initiative that's been a success. Specifically, somewhere the administration has done the following: Identified a problem, described policies to solve the problem, publicly predicted the effects of those policies, implemented them, measured the results, and found them to be in line with public pronouncements.

Offhand, I can't think of anything. What have I missed?

We desperately need Republicans in this country to be Republicans again.

Third party politics is alive and well. This third party came into being by gestating inside another, then eating it from the inside out. The GOP of today has only labels in common with traditional Republican principles. The GOP of today is a slouching, awkward beast; dead wires for tendons, the flesh of its policies rotting under bright light, a painful puppet-walk of leprosy. The sponsors of its hate-core are aging, dying -- the young do not share their opinions on color, sexuality, and forced religion. Disastrous fiscal policies have led to questions from even the most faithful, the efficiency-core, who have been asked to turn their backs on the fiscal policies that truly differentiated Republicans. What is left, raging, is the fear-core of the party, whose policies ironically make far more likely the very scenarios they claim to prevent. The last, best hope of the new third party politics is to create a fear-state, a police-state, one in which fear can fill in for the dying strength of the hate-core.

Take back your party. Be for personal liberty, fiscal discipline, and states' rights. Regain the realism that is the GOP's primary contribution to American discourse.

I've got news for you, mis amigos americanos. You are a few days away from testing gravity. It seems that a certain set of alignments has been reached. Various spheres -- planetary, political, ideological, teleological -- have arrayed themselves conveniently before you. You may study, think, and decide.

Do you believe America is evolving towards an endpoint? That might, perhaps, explain the lack of long term focus so exuberantly exhibited by the populace and its current leadership. Why plan for or even acknowledge the presence of gravity, when the rapture is coming? Surely a kind God, or at least one with strong feelings about inconveniencing his chosen followers, intends the enjoyment of a steady-state American universe, right up until the end.

Or perhaps you believe, in the finest traditions of ancient drama, that a forthcoming deus ex machina will pluck the myriad emergent thorns from the furry hide of our franchise-driven society. The crashing disaster of federal finances and the oppressive reality of an aging population are nothing in the face of such powerful means. We have only to turn loose the unlimited power of The Market (tm) and magic will present itself! Ingenuity (one special kind in particular -- born right here) will fix it all.

You Americans seem to be Pretty Darn Scared of terrorists right now, you've made it a central issue in this campaign. Observe this secular heresy: Terrorism is the least of your worries. There are other, far larger and scarier issues that any rational analysis rapidly reveals. You can't fight a war on terrorism if your economy won't support one. You can't fight terrorism if your force capabilities are committed to other purposes, such as Iraq. You can't fight terrorism if you alienate and zero out the resources that are best positioned to deal with threat. We often refer to these resources as "the people who live there".

Threats to your life are all around you. Deal with it. It's the actions we take every day; it's the mutant cell in your bloodstream, or the renegade DNA you inherited, or "safe" chemicals you ingest over decades, chemicals that make it economically possible for you to consume more of products that can damage your health in their impure forms. Tons of steel and composites fly past and beside you in your daily commute; you're a hundred times as likely to die and have your death investigated by NHTSA as investigate by the NSA.

If you're a resident of Baghdad, tons of steel and composites might fly past you for a variety of reasons; most an unwelcome consequence of propulsive, expanding gases and fireballs. The antecedent actors, whether they be purveyors of improvised or non-improvised devices, matter little as life and hope are singed away, singled out and pinned against a black backdrop of crude "democratic" experimentation, like butterflies.

This election should be about the economy, the structure of taxation, halting the death spiral of the medical system, and the best mechanisms to deal with demographic shifts and changing energy costs. Those are the short term issues that will most affect residents and citizens, over the next decade. Longer term, a wise citizen will consider the role of government in the information age and the deeper question of the true meaning of freedom and democracy in an electronic world.

I have three little tests I like to apply to policy: Equality, fairness, and "tellin' other people what to do". Policies should possess the first two, and minimize to the extent that is possible the third. I suggest that you come up with your own tests, if you don't like mine. We can trust the weighted wisdom of democracy, but democracy needs traction into ideas to function, and there's where your responsibility as a citizen comes into play. You can't just choose, friend. You've got to decide, and that's a very different process. Choosing is flippng a coin. Deciding has method.

Do not use 9/11 as a reason to choose, instead of decide. Too much is at stake. It's no secret that I think the current occupant of the Oval is a chooser, not a decider. Aspire to more. Find your own test for gravity. Here's a hint: You don't need a cliff. Ignore the people you see using that mechanism.