Isn't there enough crime

without having to manufacture it? The Columbus (Ohio) Police Department would seem to think not:

Robin Garrison, an off-duty 42-year-old firefighter, was walking in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, in May when he saw a woman sunbathing topless under a tree.

He approached her and they started talking and getting comfortable, the woman smiling and resting her foot on his shoulder at one point.

Eventually, she asked to see Garrison's penis; he unzipped his pants and complied.

Seconds later, undercover police officers pulled up in a van and arrested Garrison; he was later charged with public indecency, a misdemeanor, based on video footage taken by cops who were targeting men having sex or masturbating in the park. While topless sunbathing is legal in the city's parks, exposing more than that is against the law.

The case is just one of the more extreme examples of police stings aimed at luring people into committing crimes, a tactic that has resulted in hundreds of arrests, many convictions and plenty of controversy.

Law enforcement officials say that such sting operations are an extremely effective means of lowering crime rates and stopping the criminally minded before they commit worse offenses. From early 2006 to the spring of 2007, there were 160 citations for public indecency in the city, according to an investigation by 10TV News. Among those who were caught in the stings: an Ohio State University doctor, government employees and a retired highway trooper.

But such operations veer dangerously close to entrapment, say lawyers, civil libertarians and defendants who've been caught in sting operations.

"Dangerously close?" Try the spittin' image definition of it.

Not that one wouldn't expect this from the Columbus Police Department. Over the decades CPD has firmly established for itself a reputation for busybodiness in the face of rising actual crime. Their reputation for hawkish descent on the Ohio State campus for infractions such as jaywalking dating back to at least the 1960's has given them a level of infamy among us Ohio State graduates.

Yes, jaywalking. Generally across High Street. All while the area around South Campus rotted into a hive of scum and villainy into which people feared to tread until Ohio State finally took matters into its own hands and rebuilt the area on its own.

(h/t: Captain's Quarters)

Very, very bad

That is the only way to describe the assassination today of Benazir Bhutto, though, to be honest, my first thoughts after I heard the news consisted of three words: "Ahmed Shah Massoud."

Massoud had been one of the key leaders of the Afghan mujahideen in their war against the Soviets in the 1980's. After the Taliban took power, he was a key figure in the Northern Alliance that fought against the Taliban. He was smart, charismatic, popular and pro-US. He would have been a great leader for Afghanistan, far better and more effective than Hamid Karzai

But he was assassinated by the Taliban. On September 10, 2001. No one noticed his assassination in the news that day, but I did, and I had a very bad feeling about what was to come. Kinda like what I'm feeling now.

These assassinations were distinguishable. The time and place of Massoud's hit were clearly chosen by the attackers, using the cover of a news interview. Bhutto's assassination was by opportunity, at her own campaign event. But that does not make me feel any better.

First, the suspects (via Michelle Malkin):

The list of suspects could be long. "She has a lot of enemies, no doubt about it," Sehgal says. "Some of them would not leave any stone unturned to leave her dead and buried." Among them:

• Taliban fighters and other Islamic extremists who resent a woman who wants to keep religion out of government and who supports the U.S. war on terror. Bhutto inflamed the militants recently when she said she might allow U.S. forces onto Pakistani soil to hunt Taliban and al-Qaeda forces hiding along the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border. The Taliban threatened to greet her with suicide bombers — but denied responsibility for the bloodshed in Karachi.

• Militant supporters of her estranged brother Murtaza, who was gunned down by police in 1996 during Benazir's second term as prime minister. Murtaza had emerged as a key critic of her regime and head of an armed left-wing Peoples Party splinter group. "He had die-hard supporters who blame her for his death," Sehgal says.

• Members of the military establishment who undermined her two governments and who three decades ago overthrew and executed her father, the charismatic Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

I'm sure our ever prescient intelligence establishment has come up with its own list of suspects, which probably include the IRA and Sendero Luminoso, but I'm guessing it was al Qaida and the Taliban, possibly in conjunction with rogue elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence establishments, including the ever-helpful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, who helped create the Taliban in the first place.

Gosh, now why would they do a thing like this? Mark Steyn:

Since her last spell in power, Pakistan has changed, profoundly. Its sovereignty is meaningless in increasingly significant chunks of its territory, and, within the portions Musharraf is just about holding together, to an ever more radicalized generation of young Muslim men Miss Bhutto was entirely unacceptable as the leader of their nation.

It gets worse. Andrew McCarthy:

There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the “rule of law” as a cudgel to bring down a military junta. In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison.

Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West.

The real Pakistan is a breeding ground of Islamic holy war where, for about half the population, the only thing more intolerable than Western democracy is the prospect of a faux democracy led by a woman — indeed, a product of feudal Pakistani privilege and secular Western breeding whose father, President Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, had been branded as an enemy of Islam by influential Muslim clerics in the early 1970s.

The real Pakistan is a place where the intelligence services are salted with Islamic fundamentalists: jihadist sympathizers who, during the 1980s, steered hundreds of millions in U.S. aid for the anti-Soviet mujahideen to the most anti-Western Afghan fighters — warlords like Gilbuddin Hekmatyar whose Arab allies included bin Laden and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the stalwarts of today’s global jihad against America.

The real Pakistan is a place where the military, ineffective and half-hearted though it is in combating Islamic terror, is the thin line between today’s boiling pot and what tomorrow is more likely to be a jihadist nuclear power than a Western-style democracy.

In that real Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto’s murder is not shocking. There, it was a matter of when, not if.

It is the new way of warfare to proclaim that our quarrel is never with the heroic, struggling people of fill-in-the-blank country. No, we, of course, fight only the regime that oppresses them and frustrates their unquestionable desire for freedom and equality.

Pakistan just won’t cooperate with this noble narrative.

Whether we get round to admitting it or not, in Pakistan, our quarrel is with the people. Their struggle, literally, is jihad. For them, freedom would mean institutionalizing the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the same people who, only a few weeks ago, tried to kill Benazir Bhutto on what was to be her triumphant return to prominence — the symbol, however dubious, of democracy’s promise. They are the same people who managed to kill her today. Today, no surfeit of Western media depicting angry lawyers railing about Musharraf — as if he were the problem — can camouflage that fact.

In Pakistan, it is the regime that propounds Western values, such as last year’s reform of oppressive, Sharia-based Hudood laws, which made rape virtually impossible to prosecute — a reform enacted despite furious fundamentalist rioting that was, shall we say, less well covered in the Western press. The regime, unreliable and at times infuriating, is our only friend. It is the only segment of Pakistani society capable of confronting militant Islam — though its vigor for doing so is too often sapped by its own share of jihadist sympathizers.

You wonder why I have a bad feeling about this?

I wonder if a tipping point has been reached. Bob Krumm is calling this "Pakistan’s Archduke Ferdinand." That analysis may be correct. I don't know where Pakistan goes from here. McCarthy's right about Pakistan being full of Islamists -- largely because of Saudi-funded madrassahs (and, hey, didn't they put the "mad" in "madrassah?") -- but as John Derbyshire points out, Pakistan has a "huge" westernized middle class who wants nothing to do with Islamism and who don't deserve what may come next.

But that was not what I was talking about though. I wonder about a tipping point for the American people.

For some time there has been an undercurrent among the American people of frustration with the Islamic world -- the barbarity, the lack of respect for women; the violence at any slight, real or imagined; the intolerance for anyone who disagrees with them and the desire to impose that vision on us, by force if necessary. Our leadership, most notably President Bush and almost the entirety of the foreign policy and Democrat establishments in DC, have not reflected that frustration, but it is definitely there.

Perhaps frustration is the wrong word. Patience, and the rapidly dwindling supply of it, might be better.

The targets of much of that frustration are the Saudis and the Pakistanis, two of our supposed friends who seem to be causing much of the problem. But in the case of Pakistan, Musharraf has an excuse -- his control over the Pakistani armed forces and intelligence services is shaky at best -- and calls for the US to demand his removal from power are stupid for that reason. The Saudis have no excuse.

But I wonder if that frustration will translate into action -- military action. The Bush administration has not exactly been creative in coming up with new tools for advancing US interests, and has been singularly inept in using the tools it already has. But already a significant portion of the US population thinks the Muslim world should just be nuked. We may have a serious possibility of that with a nuclear-armed Pakistan.

But what military options would we have? My own dream of sending in clone troopers to kill every living thing present in the northwest provinces (Taliban/Al Qaida strongholds) or in the madrassahs would no doubt be effective, and in my opinion, should be seriously considered. But, as McCarthy says:

We don’t have the political will to fight the war on terror every place where jihadists work feverishly to kill Americans. And, given the refusal of the richest, most spendthrift government in American history to grow our military to an appropriate war footing, we may not have the resources to do it.

This is a common complaint:

I have a very bad feeling about all of this. The potential for critically destabilizing a flank that was difficult enough as it was, is huge. I’d feel slightly better if Rumsfeld had doubled the size of the Army, and wish Bush and Congress would crank that up. This war is far from over. This war is no artificial Bush creation or figment of anyone’s imagination, and should still be very much part of our own election, wishful thinking notwithstanding.

Oops! And this was a Republican administration, supposed experts in national security, who left us unprepared for this.

How much worse would the Democrats have been? Think Jimmy Carter.

Like I said, I have a bad feeling about this.

Another proud moment -- UPDATED

for your intelligence services:

The U.S. recently revealed that China had done some major damage to the NSA (National Security Agency) via penetration of the NSA facility in Hawaii (which concentrates on monitoring China.) The Chinese effort was two-fold. First, the Chinese set up a Chinese translation service in Hawaii, and managed to make it appear as American owned (and able to pass a security check). Eventually, this translation company got NSA contracts to translate material obtained from China. The operators of the translation of the company were able to pass the NSA material back to China, letting the Chinese know what information the NSA was picking up, which helped the Chinese figure out how the NSA was getting certain information, and with what. This made it easier to prevent the NSA from getting certain information, or setting up a trap, to feed the NSA false information.

But there was more. Many of the NSA employees were Chinese-American. The Chinese set up a recruiting operation, that was so carefully established and run, that it was several years before U.S. counter-intelligence caught on, and shut it down.

My gawd, it's like our entire foreign policy establishment is on crack. Clearly, we need to put Bill Belichick in charge. I mean, he certainly could not do any worse, and he has more of a defense background than, say, Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson.

UPDATE -- link fixed.

A prediction

In the next gen DVD wars between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, HD-DVD will win.

Frankly, I have no idea which is the better format, and I don't particularly care. Nor does the public. For video tapes, Sony-developed Beta was the actually far superior format to VHS, but VHS won out over Beta because Sony badly botched the marketing of Beta. For instance, years after VHS VCR's were capable of weeks of programmability, the Sony Betamax was still limited to 24 hours. Even after Beta was wiped out in the consumer sphere, Beta was still used by TV stations becaue of its superior quality. In fact, it was used until the advent of digital technology.

Why will HD-DVD win? The forementioned history of Sony marketing talent is one reason. Another is that the public seems to be prudently waiting for the victor in the next gen DVD wars, but they also don't care. There is no clamor for next gen DVD's right now, no desire among people to replace their DVD collections.

Yet another reason, I believe, is that Sony has created a backlash against Blu-ray. A significant number of gamers are angry that Sony has destroyed the PlayStation in an effort to get next gen DVD dominance, turning a gaming platform that could also play DVD's into a Blu-ray player that also plays a few games. This anger should not be underestimated. The PlayStation 3 is now an object of ridicule among gamers. (Though, to be sure, I am not an impartial observer in this, as I am angry at Sony for effectively trashing half of my gaming library by removing backwards compatibility from the PlayStation 3. Even so, I am quite happy with the PlayStation Portable I got for Christmas.)

But the biggest reason, I believe, is that people understand what HD-DVD means -- High definition DVD. They don't know what Blu-ray means. I get questions about it all the time, including questions about how it's related to Bluetooth. (Um, it isn't.) If that is what people are thinking, they will be very reticent to invest large sums of money into it.

There are indications that is already happening. Sony has hit the airwavees this Christmas season with a barage of advertising about Blu-ray, even making it the dominant feature -- and, lately, the only feature -- of their PlayStation 3 commercials. That they are advertising for either is a bad sign, particularly for the PlayStation 3, a year after it hit the market. Ins till using he pLayStation name to leverage Blu-ray, Sony appears oblivious to the decline of the PlayStation name, though its continued sluggish sales figures should have given them the hint by now.

Then again, one would have thought that Madison Square Garden would have seen the fan anger at Isiah Thomas, too.

Eight words

Derek Anderson is not the answer at quarterback.

Merry Christmas

Light posting for a bit, as I take something of a break until the middle of next week. So I wish Merry Christmas and the peace, joy and warmth of the holiday season to everyone. Except for criminals, for whom the only warmth should be the fires of hell. And enviro-nazis, who probably hate everything warm anyway. And idiots, who are detrimental to society, particularly in large groups.

That's me. Mr. Sensitivity. Always bringing people together.

Tim Donaghy redux?

I did not see the Illinois-Ohio State game, being on a beach in San Diego at the time, which was fortunate as I would have probably thrown a fit. I am aware of a very controversial call that led to the first Illinois touchdown; the call involved an Illinois fumble that was recovered by Ohio State, but the refs thought otherwise and the call was never reviewed, for reasons that were never explained. That touchdown turned out to be the margin of defeat for Ohio State. Jim Tressel never made an issue of it, but Ohio State fans were furious.

And maybe they have a right to be. Turns out the Big Ten referee who worked that game, Stephen Pamon, has definite issues, including major gambling debts. Pamon and his crew were allegedly suspended by the Big Ten for very, very questionable calls during the Purdue-Penn State game a week before, but the suspension was to take effect the last week of the season, so they were allowed to work the Ohio State-Illinois game in the interim.

Did Pamon try to fix those games for gambling purposes? We don't know, and the Big Ten ain't sayin' nuthin'. But it is extremely suspicious. And it makes me wonder about Big Ten officiating's quality, or more specifically lack of same, for he past two decades.

Required reading

Victor Davis Hanson. As usual.

I did not know the deal about the death of James Forrestal under mysterious circumstances. I may need to research that some more.

My latest addiction

Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. By the same people who brought you Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which says something by itself.

The review of an "upgrade"

from Windows Vista to Windows XP. Heh.

Microsoft has little to be proud of with Windows Vista, but I must give credit where it is due -- Microsoft's performance when my Xbox 360 went down with the Red Ring of Death was outstanding.

This is football!

The view from our seats for the Browns game at Cleveland Stadium yesterday:


This is why football -- American football -- is the best sport on earth.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But to us it's so delighful
And since we don't play in a DOME
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

A call to arms

against Mike Huckabee.

Where can I sign up?

We shall not gaze upon her likeness again.

I just got back from the Cincinnati Ballet's performance of the Nutcracker at the Murat. Indianapolis lost its ballet company, Ballet Internationale, known in the dance world as IBT after its original name, Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, a few years ago, and has been struggling to replace it ever since. So we've had to borrow Cincinnati's ballet company, which strikes me as kinda pathetic. And judging by the two cancellations earlier this week and the lackluster attendance tonight, I don't think we're going to be getting a new one in the near future.

But for tonight, we did have a first-rate ballet company from Cincinnati performing Nutcracker. And by first-rate, I mean, sharp, mechanically very, very good and far superior than anything I ever saw out of Ballet Internationale. The execution on the part of the dancers was very, very sharp. I've been dancing and watching ballet ever since college, so I have some idea as to how to spot flaws. I didn't spot very many tonight.

This was somewhat of a different version of Nutcracker than the many previous ones I have seen, and I was surprised by some of what I saw in there. The battle with the mice was a little more confusing than it needed to be. The choreography was good, but not great. I was struck by the pas de deux, where there were two instances during the pas de deux where Marie (Adiarys Almeida) jumped into the arms of the Nutcracker (Cervilio Miguel Amador). The execution was mechanically perfect, but it just looked wrong -- so wrong that there was an audible murmur in the crowd both times. To me, whatever was wrong with that move was not on the dancers, but on the choreography.

Speaking of dancer Adiarys Almeida, like I said, I have been dancing since college, and not since i saw Allyson Paino dance in Coppelia at Butler 11 years ago have I seen someone with the execution, grace and stage presence of Almeida. The best dancers make it look easy, and she not only made it look effortless, she looked like she was having fun out there. I swear during the final dance I saw her make a face at partner Amador. She seemed to light up the stage herself whenever she appeared. She is very, very good. I don't know that we'll see a dancer like her again anytime in the near or even foreseeable future.

One other dancer stood out to me tonight: Dawn Kelly, who danced as the Rose in the Waltz of the Flowers. She seemed to have a stage presence of her own, and was mechanically very, very good. What struck me was one instant during her solo in Waltz of the Flowers, when she held an arabesque on pointe for just an additional half-second to glance at the crowd and smile, before resuming her routine. Nice.

This is a very, very good ballet company. Cincinnati should be proud.

By the way, I enjoyed tonight for another reason. No one threw more curveballs tonight than I did. I was in business casual from work, but with my San Diego Chargers winter jacket and I had no time to change, so I went into the theater among these (relatively few) people in suits and evening gowns wearing the lightning bolts. The people around me were shocked to find out I was a lawyer. They were even more shocked to find out I dance in my spare time and knew more about ballet and the Indy dance scene than they did.

Heh.

By the way again, Indianapolis School of Ballet's Nutcracker will be December 21 and 22 at the Scottish Rite Cathedral.

Read it and weep

The Mitchell Report. I especially loved this part in the summary:

The Players Association was largely uncooperative. (1) It rejected totally my requests for relevant documents. (2) It permitted one interview with its executive director, Donald Fehr; my request for an interview with its chief operating officer, Gene Orza, was refused. (3) It refused my request to interview the director of the Montreal laboratory that analyzes drug tests under baseball’s drug program but permitted her to provide me with a letter addressing a limited number of issues. (4) I sent a memorandum to every active player in Major League Baseball encouraging each player to contact me or my staff if he had any relevant information. The Players Association sent out a companion memorandum that effectively discouraged players from cooperating. Not one player contacted me in response to my memorandum. (5) I received allegations of the illegal possession or use of performance enhancing substances by a number of current players. Through their representative, the Players Association, I asked each of them to meet with me so that I could provide them with information about the allegations and give them a chance to respond. Almost without exception they declined to meet or talk with me.

The report later elaborates on this level of "cooperation."

Mitchell, in his press conference, called this conduct "understandable." It is not. The report detailed that just about every effort to examine the steroids issue was blocked by the union. If they had their way, there would be no report and no investigation.

Don Fehr, Gene Orza, Marvin Miller and the Major League Baseball Players Association (more of a guild, actually, and probably an illegal one at that) are nothing short of thugs and gangsters. They have destroyed baseball. I have always said that Hugo Chavez was the Number One argument in favor of abortion because nothing good has come of his life and the world would have been so much better off if his mother had just exercised her "right to choose." I think we can say the same thing about the leadership of the Players Association.

An abdication of government responsibility to protect you

The horror story of the pardons of Mike Huckabee.

It's sickening that this guy is in contention for the presidency -- almost as sickening as Dennis Kucinich.

(h/t: Instapundit.)

In the "civil rights" world

you might be called a "racist" if ...

you order white rice instead of brown rice.

"Mutiny and Treason"

This is how Christopher Hitchens describes the CIA's destruction of the tapes of interrogation of two key al-Qaida suspects, in a takedown of their handling of the National Intelligence Estimate in the mullahcracy's nuclear ambitions.

First, Hitchens broadsides what one might call the obvious and sheer lack of common sense in the NIE:

It is completely false for anybody to claim, on the basis of this admitted "estimate," that Iran has ceased to be a candidate member of the fatuously named nuclear "club." It has the desire to acquire the weaponry, it retains the means to do so, and it has been caught lying and cheating about the process. If it suspended some overtly military elements of the project out of a justifiable apprehension in 2003, it has energetically persisted in the implicit aspects—most notably the installation of gas centrifuges at the plant in Natanz and the building of a heavy water reactor at Arak. All that the estimate has done is to define weaponry down and to suggest a distinction without much difference between a "civilian" and a "military" dimension of the same program. The acquisition of enriched uranium and of plutonium, for any purpose, is identical with the acquisition of a thermonuclear weapons capacity. Iran continues to strive to produce both, neither of which, as it happens, are required for its ostensible civilian energy needs.

The briefing that I was given by the British Embassy in Tehran in 2005, showing the howlingly glaring discrepancy between what Iran claims and what Iran does, is not in the least challenged by the most recent conclusions. To say that Iran has "stopped" rather than paused its program is to offer an opinion, not to present a finding. (For more on this, see the excellent article by Valerie Lincy and Gary Milhollin in the Dec. 6 New York Times, and also Jonathan Schell's Dec. 9 piece on the Guardian's Web site.) The mullahs are steadily amassing the uranium and plutonium ingredients of a weapon and will indeed soon be able to pause, along with other countries, like Japan, at the point where only a brief interlude and a swift spurt of effort would put them in full possession of the bomb.

The effect of the CIA's, uh, "performance" here could be damaging:

Why, then, have our intelligence agencies helped to give the lying Iranian theocracy the appearance of a clean bill, while simultaneously and publicly (and with barely concealed relish) embarrassing the president and crippling his policy? It is not just a hypothetical strike on Iran that is rendered near-impossible by this estimate, but also the likelihood of any concerted diplomatic or economic pressure, as well. The policy of getting the United Nations to adopt sanctions on the regime, which was about to garner the crucial votes, can now be regarded as clinically dead. A fine day's work by those who claim to guard us while we sleep.

One explanation is that, like Mark Twain's cat, which having sat on a hot stove would never afterward sit on a cold one, the CIA has adopted a policy of caution to make up for its "slam-dunk" embarrassment over Iraq. This is a superficially plausible hypothesis, which ignores the fact that for most of the duration of the Iraq debate, the CIA was all but openly hostile to any argument for regime-change in Baghdad. This hostility extended all the way from a frenzied attempt to discredit Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, to the Plame/Wilson imbroglio, and the agency's "referral" of Robert Novak's disclosure to the Department of Justice. Interagency hostility in Washington, D.C., between the CIA and the Department of Defense has never been so damaging to any administration, let alone to any administration in time of war, as it has been to this one.

Hitchens concludes:

And now we have further confirmation of the astonishing culture of lawlessness and insubordination that continues to prevail at the highest levels in Langley. At a time when Congress and the courts are conducting important hearings on the critical question of extreme interrogation, and at a time when accusations of outright torture are helping to besmirch and discredit the United States all around the world, a senior official of the CIA takes the unilateral decision to destroy the crucial evidence. This deserves to be described as what it is: mutiny and treason. Despite a string of exposures going back all the way to the Church Commission, the CIA cannot rid itself of the impression that it has the right to subvert the democratic process both abroad and at home. Its criminality and arrogance could perhaps have been partially excused if it had ever got anything right, but, from predicting the indefinite survival of the Soviet Union to denying that Saddam Hussein was going to invade Kuwait, our spymasters have a Clouseau-like record, one that they have earned yet again with their exculpation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was after the grotesque estimate of continued Soviet health and prosperity that the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that the CIA should be abolished. It is high time for his proposal to be revived. The system is worse than useless—it's a positive menace. We need to shut the whole thing down and start again.

In other words, we might be able to tolerate this level of corruption if the CIA was actually good at protecting the US. But obviously it is not.

Victor Davis Hanson, commenting on Hitchens' piece, is in agreement:

We see a disturbing cynicism and disrespect for protocol almost everywhere. The freelancing and soon to be leaking Joe Wilson off to Niger on the recommendation of his 'nonpartisan' and 'undercover' wife, then the various memoirs of a Scheuer (with the charade of "anonymous") or a get-even 'slam-dunk' Tenet (add in the novelist Richard Clark)—and then the latest Time essay by Joe Klein, sort of trumpeting the new transparency of an agency at odds with the administration, spiced up with very non-transparent anonymous quotes from the usual "senior intelligence official" who offers behind-the-scenes, real-deal take to get the always brilliant point across.

[...]

The irony is that they could endure the old stereotyped slur that they went to excess in the Cold War to ensure the supremacy of the US, but they won't long live down the public's current impressions that our intelligence agencies are whiny, incompetent, subversive, and partisan.

The emperor has no clothes, and the public doesn't want to pay billions to the CIA and others only to be told that in 2005 we had an existential threat of a nuclear Iran, then two years later we did not, and all due to mysterious unnamed "diplomatic" pressures at work in 2003 (oddly not long after the unmentioned removal of Saddam)—this from ying-yang agencies that now miss the real threat (cf. the Pakistani bomb) and then in a panic hype the nonexistent one (arsenals of Iraqi WMD).

Sadly, these distinguished writers are both quite correct.

In the "civil rights" world

you might be a "racist" (that's "racist" with scare quotes, as opposed to an actual racist) if ...

you order vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate.

The justification for the death penalty

Michelle Malkin has the details on a stupid move by New Jersey to end the death penalty there. As you know, I support expansion of the death penalty to include all crimes with actual victims. I submitted a comment countering the anti-death penalty propaganda, which I am editing for publication here:

The arguments against the death penalty fail on legal, logical and moral grounds.

1. Legal — The availability of the death penalty as an essential tool of governance was assumed by the framers of the US Constitution. It is well within the state’s legal police power to take the lives of those deemed too dangerous to the lives and property of innocents to live in a free society. The arguments that an innocent individual might be wrongfully convicted actually deal more with the implementation of any punishment, not just the death penalty. But there is simply no end to that legal argument short of ending punishment all together. If you do not trust your legal system to administer the death penalty, then why should you trust it to put someone in prison? Someone wrongfully in prison for 20 years has lost 20 years off their lives just as definitively as someone wrongfully executed. If the argument is taken to its logical conclusion, you wouldn’t punish anybody for crimes, which defeat the entire raison d’etre of government under the social contract — to protect its citizens from the predations of others, foreign and domestic. The focus of people arguing that an innocent individual could be executed should be making the implementation of the punishment more reliable, not taking away the punishment.

2. Logical — Two issues here. First, the safest and cheapest way to remove a criminal from society is not to incarcerate them, but to execute them. This was you do not have to pay for their housing, and there is no chance that some liberal judge concerned with jail overcrowding, a naive parole board (such as Arkansas) or a bleeding-heart governor (like Michael Dukakis) would release these thugs on an unsuspecting public.

Second, while the death penalty would be more of a deterrent if it was implemented in a more timely manner, it is indeed a deterrent and it indeed saves lives, as many as 18 for each execution, as a study done by Brookings in conjunction with AEI showed.

3. Moral — The Catholic Church, in particular, was OK with the death penalty for 2000 years or so until the Vatican Curiae turned far leftist. There is simply no valid biblical argument against the death penalty. Jesus may have said that we should turn the other cheek, blah, blah, blah. But he also acknowledged the separation of church and state with his statement of “Render unto Caesar.” It is in this contest that turning the other cheek must be interpreted, more as a guide to individual conduct than to state conduct. The state has a legal and moral obligation to protect its people, and such forgiveness would run counter to that goal.

Leaving aside the Old Testament for the sake of argument, Jesus himself was given many, many opportunities to speak specifically against capital punishment. For instance, I would think that, if He intended to speak against people being executed by the state, He would have done so when He was being executed by the state. He did not. Far from it. When one of the criminals condemned with Jesus demanded that Jesus save them all, the other criminal rebuked him saying that their punishment was “justified,” but Jesus’ was not. Jesus did not disagree with him. He never spoke against the death penalty during his time on earth, though such penalties were commonplace in ancient Rome.

Only God can judge a man’s soul, but the state is well within its legal and moral power — indeed it has a legal and moral duty — to judge who is a danger to the public and to remove them from this world for the protection of its citizens.

Sensible advice

from Chris Rock.

Absolutely hilarious and completely true as well.

When government fails in its primary responsibility

I couldn't help but notice the case of Joe Horn. No, not the NFL wide receiver, but the resident of Pasadena. No, not California, but Texas. Wizbang has the details:

Around 2 in the afternoon of November 14, 2007, Pasadena resident Joe Horn, age 61, called 911 to report the break-in at his neighbor's house. So far, so good, and no one has a complaint. But as he waited, Mr. Horn became concerned on two points: He mentioned fear for his own safety, and a growing annoyance that the burglars would escape before the police got there. It was at this point where, according to the 911 tape, Mr. Horn threatened to shoot the burglars:

"911 OPERATOR: Mr. Horn, do not go outside the house.

JOE HORN, TEXAS RESIDENT: I'm sorry. This ain't right, buddy.

911 OPERATOR: You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don't care what you think.

HORN: You want to make a bet? I'm going to kill them.

911 OPERATOR: OK? Stay in the house.

HORN: They're getting away."

Joe Horn took his shotgun, went out to confront the burglars as they were leaving his neighbor's house, and shot both to death. That much is agreed by all parties. Immediately, questions came up:

1. Horn said ahead of time that he would kill the men. Did this make it premeditated murder?
2. Horn also said in that 911 tape that he feared for his life. Did this help his case?
3. The police are not known for fast responses, except when imminent danger is known. Did Horn's warning that he would shoot cause the police to make an effort to arrive sooner?
4. The law allows citizens to use deadly force under certain situations. The law states that deadly force can be used against burglars to prevent them fleeing the scene, even of a neighbor's house, but specifies that this applies at night, but makes no statement about a mid-afternoon burglary. Was that law intended to grant a basic or restricted right to use deadly force?

Those questions alone could make an interesting debate. But the scale quickly grew. Two days after the incident, the story broke on national news, largely as a question of gun rights.

Wizbang continues, hitting the nail on the head:

Regardless of whether Joe Horn was right or wrong, there is a strong discontent in the way police respond to calls. [Full disclosure; I have been robbed or burglarized several times in my life - in none of those cases did the police respond within two hours of the crime, in none of those cases was evidence collected in a professional or serious manner, and (no surprise) in none of those cases were the criminals apprehended or punished] People realize that because of the sheer number of crimes committed and the limited resources of the police, the probability is that most non-violent crimes against ordinary people will not be solved, and some of the violent crimes as well. The need for self-defense is frankly beyond dispute. Yet some towns have gone to the point of punishing citizens for protecting themselves, their families, and their neighbors. This has finally reached a point where public outrage against a bias in favor of the crooks is demanding government recognition.

Indeed. Naturally, in this case, we also have a racial hate monger who is trying to stir up hatred of Joe Horn for defending his neighbor's property.

In my own burglary, the Marion County Sheriff's Department came out quickly and sent a detective the next day, but none of the property was recovered and no one was ever caught. In my car theft, the Pittsburgh Police Department did an incredible job, finding my stolen Firebird 5 hours later -- stripped. No one was ever caught that we know of, but the car, amazingly enough, was put back together and we still have it today.

As I have said before, law enforcement does not take property crimes seriously. The platitude that "things can be replaced, but people can't," has become institutionalized in our "justice" system. It is unfortunate, not just because it ultimately means no justice for the victim of such crimes, but because it's a logical fallacy on so many counts.

For instance, who makes the call that "thingts can be replaced, but people can't"? Not the burglar, for they are at least risking their liberty and possibly their life for the burglary. The victim may or may not, but it should be the victim's call. If society makes that call, then there is no incentive for the burglar to stop burglarizing. The police cannot catch them, and the victim is denied any defense of their proeprty, particularly if they are small of stature.

Furthermore, it simply is not true. If my Firebird is stolen today, I'll never be able to replace it. Stupid GM doesn't make them anymore. And no car available today is anywhere near as good-looking.

Finally, the emphasis in our crime prevention and resolution is on murder. The problem is that people don't move out of a neighborhood because of a murder. The chances that you will be murdered at random are exponentially smaller than your chances of being burglarized or having your car stolen by someone you don't know. That is what destroys neighborhoods. That is what destroys spirit. Seeing your hard work improving your life and your lot destroyed and the law unable and, worse, unwilling to do anything about it.

And people are tired of it. This is where the increased use of weapons t protect homes comes from. Ultimately, this is where the Minutemen come from. When government refuses to protect its people, the people will protect themselves.

unfortunately, those exponentially smaller chances of being a victim of murder by a random assailant were not good enough for a woman in Baltimore, however. Michelle Malkin has the details:

As Sarah Kreager, 26, tried to sit down on a Baltimore City bus Tuesday, police say, a middle-schooler told her she couldn’t. When she attempted to take another seat, a middle-schooler wouldn’t let her. Finally, according to police, Kreager just sat down.

She was “immediately attacked” by nine students — three females and six males — from Robert Poole Middle School. They punched and kicked her at 2:59 p.m. at the intersection of 33rd Street and Chestnut Avenue, according to Maryland Transit Administration police.

Kreager was dragged off the bus and her boyfriend, Troy Ennis, attempted to get her back on, police said.

She sustained “serious injuries” and had to be transported to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, according to a police report.
Examiner.com Related Articles:

Kreager suffered two broken bones in her left eye socket, police said.

“She had eye muscles that were damaged,” a police report states. “She had deep lacerations on the top of her head and another above her neck.”

Two seats and the bus’ rear glass were destroyed during the attack, police said.

The bus driver on the No. 27 line quickly called police, who responded and arrested the nine juveniles, said Jawauna Greene, an MTA police spokeswoman.

All nine suspects, ages 14 and 15, were arrested and charged with aggravated assault…

…The suspects in the incident are black. The victim is white, according to the police report.

Ugh! There is more:

Maryland Transit Administration Police said last night that they have found no evidence that the severe beating of a 26-year-old woman on a city bus this week was provoked and that they are investigating the attack as a possible racially motivated hate crime.

Nine middle school students have been charged as juveniles with aggravated assault and destruction of property in the Tuesday afternoon attack on a woman and her male companion on the No. 27 bus.

Police said yesterday that they have determined that there were two additional victims in the case - a third passenger and the bus operator who came to his assistance.

Investigators were examining video from a surveillance camera on the bus but had not completed their analysis…

…Jawauna Greene, an MTA spokeswoman, confirmed that investigators were considering racial hostility as a potential motivation for the assault, which left the female victim, Sarah Kreager, 26, with broken facial bones and other injuries after she was punched, kicked and dragged off the bus. Her male companion, Troy Ellis, was also beaten, but not as severely.

“We are at this point investigating it as a hate crime,” Greene said.

Greene said the suspects, who have been released to their parents, are African-American while the two originally identified victims are white. Marzola said the suspects are also believed to have menaced an elderly passenger, who is white, and to have assaulted the bus operator, an African-American male who defended his passenger.

“He probably saved this gentleman’s life,” Marzola said of the operator. The MTA declined to identify the driver, saying they consider him a witness to a crime.

Police said no evidence had been found to back up the claims of suspects’ parents that Kreager or Ellis had provoked the incident by spitting or displaying a knife.

Greene said that at the time the incident reports were taken, no child reported any spitting or knife being pulled. Gavrilis said the operator hadn’t mentioned any provocation.

The media coverage here is not exactly reaching Duke Lacrosse proportions, is it? I thought not.

Even so, now, the victim has been put in the witness protection program. I wonder why. Could it be because her name is now public while those of the "children" who allegedly attacked her are not?

Could it be because she has been the target of one of those "anti-snitching" campaigns that have the effect of protecting criminals?

Could it be because the thugs who allegedly attacked her are still walking the streets, where they and their friends can practice witness intimidation?

Let's be clear here: I don't know what happened on that bus. But given the attitude toward crime expressed above, the government doesn't exactly give me confidence that it has the intention or ability to protect this victim, punish the perpetrators and prevent this from happening again. Heck, it won't even identify the alleged perpetrators. It is already sending a message that they are more important than the victim. I bet the Duke lacrosse players wish such anonymity had been granted to them, and they weren't even guilty.

For all I know, these nine alleged assailants may not be guilty. I strongly suspect they are, but it is only a suspicion.

I'll leave my spiel about the increasing thuggishness of teenagers and the dangers of riding buses (you never know who's on there with you) for another day.

A tip for anyone interested in the Graeco-Persian wars

If you get the chance to buy Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World by Paul Cartledge, don't. You might actually be better off if you washed your eyes out with hydrochloric acid.

As an aid, here is a short checklist of things I found in Cartledge's missive that are indications that you have bought a very bad book on ancient history:

1. Use of the terms "BCE" ("Before Common Era") and "CE" ("Common Era") in place of "BC" and "AD," respectively. I find the use of BCE and CE downright offensive. I mean, didn't the Greeks fight so that we would have to give in to easterners? But that was nothing compared to ...

2. Comparison of ancient heroes, such as Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, to the 9/11 hijackers. Anyone who does that can bite me.

3. A book ostensibly about a battle that only gives passing mention of the actual battle. In thsi case, Cartledge spent more time discussing Achaemenid Persia -- without actually defining Achaemenid Persia -- than discussing what happened at Thermopylae. His maps of the battlefield were poorly drawn and unclear, and didn't even show where each side was positioned or where the infamous goat track was. If we don't know, fine. Say so, but Cartledge never did.

I wonder

Has anyone else tnoticed the resemblance between:


Iranian "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and



The Geico Caveman.

I mean, has anyone ever seen the two of them together?

Could the face of the most evil power in the world today be trying to sell us auto insurance on the side?

Dancing with the Star Wars

This is hilarious.

She's baaa-aaack, but why?

Debra Lafave, one of a string of female teachers who were stung for having sex with underage male students, is in trouble again:

Debra Lafave, the Florida teacher who pleaded guilty to lewd behavior with a teenage boy, has been arrested for allegedly violating her probation on charges she spoke to an underage female co-worker.

Lafave, 27, allegedly had contact with the minor — a 16-year-old co-worker — at Danny Boys' restaurant in Ruskin, Fla., in violation of her probation, FOX News has learned.

Lafave pleaded guilty in 2005 to lewd and lascivious behavior as part of a plea deal after Florida authorities charged her with having sex with a 14-year-old student.

According to a police report, Lafave spoke with her teenage co-worker numerous times about family problems, friends, high school, boyfriends and sex.

As part of her probation, Lafave is to abstain from contact with minors under 18 years of age.

Many bloggers are using this story as an excuse to post pictures of the physically attractive Lafave. I'd like you to think that I'm above such cheap tactics:


It would be wrong, of course, but I'd like you to think that way. By the way, is that a great outfit or what?

In any event, I have something of a problem with this story. No one hates criminals more than I do. In my view, anyone guilty of a crime with an actual victim, such as murder, rape, child molestation, robbery, residential burglary and car theft, should be executed, preferably in some heinous manner such as crucifixion that will discourage any future crimes and make the criminals the subject of derision.

Lafave's case is something of a dilemma because it seems male teenagers react differently than female teenagers to having sex with their adult teachers. There is every indication that Lafave's victim did not consider himself as such. Nevertheless, it was against the law, and the male student is considered to be a victim.

So, she is a notorious individual with a history of criminal sexual acts with a minor. She did not get prison time. She obviously cannot get a job as a teacher, and rightfully so. My question is, what do they expect her to do?

Lafave's degree is now useless. She has to earn a living somehow. Most office-type businesses are not going to want to hire someone with Lafave's notorious past. And most of the remaining jobs have at least some contact with minors. Waitressing sounds like one of the relatively few things left that she could do. But unless she waitresses at an adults-only establishment -- which could very easily cause her yet more sexual issues, if not trauma -- she will come into contact with minors.

And in this case, she talked to a co-worker. Horrors. Crucify her. Give us Barabbas.

And it's not like the probation department didn't know about this. She had this job for years. Why now? It sounds more like the problem was on their end. Like they were looking for a reason to bust her (no pun intended).

This is my problem with how we treat sexual criminals. We don't execute them or keep them in jail. We let them out, but put them on a black list of sorts that exposes them to public outcry and vigilantism, tell them not to have any contact with minors, and say they cannot live within 1,000 feet of a school, 1,000 feet of a park, and other criteria. In Indianapolis, that pretty much reduces them to 42nd and Post.

Where are they supposed to live? Where are they supposed to work?

If you want to release them (as most liberals do with criminals), then release them. But you can't have it both ways. This is the result.

My sympathy for them is very, very limited. But come on, let's be reasonable here.

Fair warning

I didn't think it was even humanly possible to cross Jerry Falwell with Jimmy Carter, let alone come out with someone that has the absolute worst features of both, but someone has managed to do so in the person of Mike Huckabee. Soft on security, defense and foreign policy, big spender and a Christian Taliban outlook.

If the socio-cons of the GOP are so stupid and arrogant as to make Huckabee the presidential nominee, I'm done.

Dimly remembering dark ages

After a fashion, I just finished Peter Marren's Battles of the Dark Ages. I feel pretty stupid admitting that, amateur military historian that I am, I did not know that the term "Dark Ages" was something of a term of art, referring only to England between the departure of the Romans (or at least the Roman military) and the Norman Conquest in 1066. Since our history, despite the best efforts of the leftist academy, traces back to England, thismakes sense, but it was still a surprise to me. I gues that's why I'm an amateur military historian.

Anyway, this period from 410 to 1066 AD (I have not and will not use the term "CE") saw the conquest of the Britons (sometimes called the Romano-British, for those of us who play Rome: Total War -- Barbarian Invasion) by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes (now called the Anglo-Saxons) who had come from what is now Germany. The Anglo-Saxons basically destroyed the remnants of Roman Britain. They in turn were eviscerated by a series of Viking invasions that left Britain on the verge of complete collapse and unable to defend itself. This was the scene when William of Normandy entered the picture in 1066.

The term "dark ages" is usually a reference to a lack of historical information. This is certainly true of the dark age of Greece -- that period between the fall of Mycenaean Greece under still mysterious circumstances in about 1200 BC and the re-emergence of Greece in its classical form in about the 500's BC (no, I won't use the term "BCE," either; history has no room for political correctness). The Sparta of the movie 300 is classical Greece, though both Sparta and Athens were around in the Mycenaean age. Homer wrote his poems the Iliad and the Odyssey in this period, though they are about the earlier Mycenaean age -- Helen of Troy had actually been Queen of Sparta (or Lacedaemon or Laconia or whatever they called themselves).

We know very little about the period between the fall of Mycenae and the emergence of classical Greece. Most of the major cities of the Mycenaean age -- Mycenae, Tiryns, etc. -- were destroyed, either never to be rebuilt or to be rebuilt only in a limited capcacity. The destruction largely missed Athens, but it was reduced. Many of the cities show fortification immediately before their destruction.

What or who caused this destruction is not known. The legends of the murder of Agamemnon and Odysseus fighting invaders of his own house upon their return from the Trojan War suggest civil unrest. The Sparans themselves are believed by some to be descended from the Dorians of northern Greece and Macedonia who allegedly heralded this period, though few believe they actually caused it. Hatti, the Anatolian empire of the Hittites, was also destroyed at around this time, by forces unknown, but probably related to the collapse of Mycenaean Greece. The Hittites did leave historical records, though, that do seem to indicate a problem between what has been translated as Troy (or Ilion or Ilios, as it is also called) and a people called the Ahhiyawa, which has been translated as "Achaeans," one of Homer's three names for the Mycenaean Greeks (the others being "Argives" and "Danaans"). The Philistines of biblical fame may have fled the destruction in the Aegean for a new homeland in what is now Israel. Other than these slender sources, we have little in the way of records for this period, and know nothing about the causes of whatever catastrophe ensued in the 1200's BC or its aftermath.

Abut the Dark Ages in Britain, though, we know more. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of Old English writings that documents the experiene of the Angles and Saxons in settling England. Well, somewhat anyway. Many times they will say something like "The army of Ecgbert and the army of Aelfred fought near the willows at Beranburh, and Ecgbert was defeated." At least we can all see where the term "Egg Kings" that has been generally used to describe the Anglo-Saxon rulers of this period came from. But these descriptions are, as one can see, often lacking in detail or context.

We often do not know who fought or where. The battles were probably small by the standards of antiquity, ranging from the hundreds to a few thousand. Helms Deep these were not. But even these numbers are merely guesswork. Generally, these were infantry-only affairs, with cavalry uncommon, archers much more uncommon, and siege engines non-existent.

Still, Peter Marren makes an admirable effort to re constrict these battles and put them in some historical context, though he seems to asume a more through knowledge of the geography of the British Isles than most American readers like myself would possess. Some of the best examples:

Mount Badon (or Mons Badonicus, probably around 496) -- associated with the historical figure Ambrosious Aurelianus, who is believed to have been transformed into the legendary King Arthur. The Romano-British defeated Saxons here and held them at bay for a generation. The location of Mount Badon is disputed, with two sites most likey -- a hill near Bath or Liddington Castle, near Badbury in Wiltshire.

Beranburh (556) -- Barbury Castle. It opened up Bath, Cloucester and Cirencester to the invaders. The Germanic roots of Saxon words is pretty obvious here.

Deorham (577) -- near the village of what is now called Dyrham or Durham. Bath, Cloucester and Cirencester fell to the Saxons as a result.

Degsastan (603) -- on the Scottish border. A coalition of Britons, Picts, Scots and Irish were defetaed. The Romano-British were now confined to Scotland.

Dunnichen (or Nechtansmere, 685) -- Near the modern village of Dunnichen. Ecgfrith and the Saxons apparently entered a marshy area to engage the Picts in an attempt to extend English dominance, but were soundly defeated. The Aberlemno Stone, on the battle site, is believed to be a Dark Age war memorial.

Ellandun (825) -- Mercians fighting the West Saxons under Ecgbert; Wessex basically dominated England at this time. Very little is known about the battle itself, but the West Saxons won handily and Ecgbert was able to turn this victory into a conquest of Mercia. The site of the battlefied is only generally known, on the slopes of the Ray River Valley northwest of Wroughton.

This is when the Vikings entered the picture, as the first recorded Viking raid on England was in 793. The battles went from the Romano-British trying to defend themelves against the Anglo-Saxons to the Anglo-Saxons trying to defend themselves against the Vikings. The Vikings were often called "Danes;" they often came from modern Denmark. They had one leader known as Ivar the Boneless, a rather silly nickname if taken literally, who was a particular terror to the British Isles.

The Vikings raided the coasts ruthlessly, destroying everything they touched, with a lust for war that bordered on the psychopathic. Eventually, they moved toward conquest, using a strategy of forward fortified bases on rivers that the Anglo-Saxons, without siege engines, could not reduce. They wiped out East Anglia, conquered London and started moving into Wessex, which became the center of resistance to the Vikings.

Ashdown (871) -- somehwere in the Berkshire Downs, the Vikings suffered their a significant albeit temproary reverse. This was the beginning of the career of the "great" King Alfred of Wessex, of whom I had never heard before this book. Dark ages, indeed. In any event, the Vikings were fought to a standstill, and they turned their attention to unfortunate Mercia.

Chippenham (878) -- not so much a battle as a massacre, as the Vikings swooped down on Alfred's army while they were celebrating the Twelfth Night of Christmas. Alfred escaped, but Wessex was to fall under Viking domination for about six months.

Ethandun (878) -- Alfred rallied the Saxons to defeat the Vikings and forced them to leave Wessex. Site of the battle is only generally known -- Edington, near Westbury.

Brunanburh (937) -- Alfred's grandson Athelstan, in an effort to unify Britain and drive out the Vikings, forges a coalition of maybe 7,000-8,000 men -- immense by Dark Age standards -- from Wessex and Mercia to defeat a coalition of Scots and Vikings coming in from Dublin. The Vikings were massacred as they retreated to their ships. This was seen as one of the defining moments of a young England. But the victory was only temporary. The site is unknown and has vexed historians for centuries, with some 40 sites proposed. Marren seems to support Bromborough on the Wirral River as the location. Athelstan's victory was only temporary, and the Vikings came back with a vengeance.

Maldon (991) -- The Vikings had settled in England and the raids had stopped, but began again in 980. The English king was Aethelred, known by the moniker "The Unready" or "The Unwise," which he definitely earned. He was ineffective, corrupt and lazy. The Vikings wer eled by Olaf Tryggvasson, the future king of Norway. They chose to attack Maldon, site of a royal mint. Aethelred, as was his pattern, did not lead English forces in battle, but left it to one of his earls. The battle took place east of the town in an area with peculiar geography -- the Danes' first position was on an island connected to the mainland by a causeway that was usable only at low tide. The English stupidly allowed them to cross the causeway before battle. It was a fatal error.

Aethelred chose to respond by buyng off the Vikings. Again and again. But they just kept coming back, again and again. Eventually, the Dane Sweyn Forkbeard made a campaign of conquest of England, and implemented a very complete and efficient plan for doing so.

Aethelred was completely outmached. The few times his armies tried to offer battle they were either defeated or completely out of position, the last facet suggesting a Viking mole in the English court. There were certainly charges of treason, one of which resulted in the destruction of an English fleet assembled specifically to fight the Vikings. From bases in Denmark, Sweyn simply ravaged all across England.

Ringmere (1010) -- Marren believes this was fought near Thetford at Rymer Point. One of Sweyn's lieutenants defeated an English army. England was basically beaten.

Sweyn returned in 1013 to topple Aethelred and offically add England to his dominions, but he sudenly died and his famous son Cnut, more often claled "Canute" took over. With his own political issues to deal with in the succession, and facing an English who were not nearly as willing to surrender to him as they were to Sweyn, he returned to Denmark, for a while.

Cnut back in 1016 to complete the conquest of England, but Aethelred's son Edmund wa snow in the picture leading the resistance. England unified behind him and his more effective leadership, and he became known as Edmund Ironside. Cnut's strategy was to take London by siege, but Edmund was able to lift the siege, and ultimately drive Canut back to his ships. But there was one more round.

Assingdun (1016) -- After a fierce battle, Cnut was able to defeat Edmund in battle, largely because Edmund's allies either feld out of fear or had made a secret agreement with Cnut. The site is in Essex, either Ashdon or Ashingdon. The leaders of Saxon England were neturalized, but a peace was brokered (by the same allies that had deserted Edmund) that divided England between Edmund and Cnut. Edmund dies soon thereafter.

And the stage was set for the Norman Conquest.

As you can tell, I loved this book, despite being a little too technical on the English geography side, and I highly recommend it.

You hate to see bad things happen to good people

Former baseball union head Marvin Miller was not elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame.

It is so befitting of the arrogance that has marked the union that this jerk thinks he should be enshrined as a hero by the very sport he served to destroy. What next? Hitler in the French Army Hall of Fame? Bin Laden in New York? Tojo in China?

Marvin Miller and the players union he helped create are vile. Steroids in baseball, drug use, revenue disparity, competitive imbalance, hopelessly large salaries, dwindling fan interest, killing of the 1994 World Series. All should be laid at the feet of Miller, Don Fehr and their band of merry thugs.

Nice ads

I'd like to thank Sony for proving me right -- they don't care about gamers.

I saw their latest ad for the PlayStation 3 during the Browns game today. It was hard to tell it was an ad for a gaming console, though, because they started out by showing off Spiderman 3 and how it's on Blu-ray. Check that: the All-Important Blu-ray. Spent about half the ad on it. Only after that did they start showing any highlights of games, and none of them were identified.

Nice.

Sony, you suck. You absolutely suck. You're ruining the PlayStation that we gamers care about by turning it into an updated Betamax to leverage your All-Important Blu-ray, something we gamers neither need nor want nor even care about. We want games, and you're taking away games from your alleged gaming console to preserve your All-Important Blu-ray.

When it comes to arrogant disregard of its customers, I didn't think anyone could top Microsoft and its horrible Windows Vista operating system, which takes up so much disk space and memory that you can barely run anything on it, and when you do, the program better not be older than the milk in your refrigerator, or else it won't run -- all for features we neither want nor need nor even usually know about.

But you've managed to do it, Sony.

Crash and burn, you jerks.

Someone else you rarely hear on Indianapolis radio

KTU The Beat of New York has video of Shakira performing "Hips Don't Lie" live! Shakira is the best Lebanese-Colombian singer I've ever heard. She can pretty much machine gun anyone with her talent.

KTU has become my favorite radio station on earth since the collapse of Los Angeles' KBIG 104, which switched from its upbeat dance format to adult contemporary this past September. Emmis, though, is trying to fill the void with a change in format that has resulted in KMVN in Los Angeles, Movin' 93.9. Unfortunately, Movin' 93.9 has a poor signal that does not reach into San Diego.

Why do I have this sinking feeling

that we Ohio State fans really did not want Missouri and West Virginia to both go down?