More required reading

Laurie Mylroie on Saddam's WMD programs.

The hat tip is to Bryan at Hot Air (but it's a dry heat), who comments:

Interesting report from Laurie Mylroie. She is responding to the recent 60 Minutes report that Saddam claimed to have tricked the world into thinking that he still had WMDs in order to keep the Iranians from invading. The side angle of that, if it’s true, is that 8 years of Clinton had convinced Saddam Hussein that he had more to fear from Iran than from the US. That would be in spite of the Clinton administration bombing Iraq in 1998 and 2000, and having struck al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and that alleged al Qaeda-Iraq WMD factory in Sudan. The fact that in all of those cases and the effort in the former Yugoslavia were limited to air power might have informed Hussein’s thinking. The fact that the US outsourced much of its foreign policy to the UN, which was in turn corrupted by Saddam’s petrodollar kickbacks, might have led him to think that an invasion remained off the table even after Bush took office in 2001.

Treason at the State Department?

No, I'm not talking about our UN ambassador making unauthorized appearances and statements, which is bad enough. This is far worse:

Two weeks ago, the London Sunday Times broke an exclusive story about FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. For five years, the U.S. government has prevented Edmonds from speaking publicly on what she knows, claiming State Secrets Privilege. The Times got the exclusive on the story, eerily titled “For Sale: West’s Deadly Nuclear Secrets,” by talking to a number of Edmonds’ close associates who were not under a gag order, and by filling in pieces of the puzzle from Sibel Edmonds herself.

According the Times article, the U.S. government sought to gag Edmonds from revealing that corrupt government officials — specifically, State Department official Marc Grossman — were directly involved in the stealing and selling of nuclear secrets to foreign agents. In her role as translator, Edmonds listened in on, or translated, hundreds of secretly intercepted conversations between State Department officials and foreign nationals from 1996 to 2002.

Exclusively, Edmonds told the Times about an FBI case file marked 203A-WF-210023. One arm of the FBI denied the file’s existence to the Times; another arm of the FBI provided the Times with a signed document confirming its existence. All of the info in the file predates A.Q. Kahn — the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb — admitting he had been secretly selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

Edmonds told the Times, “I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002. The file refers to the counterintelligence programme [sic] that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations.”

And what precisely was going on with this ring? According to the Times article:

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

This is apparently a reference to Grossman. The Times goes into further detail in a January 20, 2008 article:

Edmonds had told this newspaper that members of the Turkish political and diplomatic community in the US had been actively acquiring nuclear secrets. They often acted as a conduit, she said, for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they attracted less suspicion.

She claimed corrupt government officials helped the network, and venues such as the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington were used as drop-off points.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The letter also makes reference to wiretaps of Turkish “targets” talking to ISI intelligence agents at the Pakistani embassy in Washington and recordings of “operatives” at the ATC.

Hmmmm. The Valerie Plame? Most definitely. A week later, the Times reported:

Among the buyers were Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Paki-stan’s intelligence agency, which was working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of the Islamic bomb”, who in turn was selling nuclear technology to rogue states such as Libya.

Plame, then 38, was the glamorous wife of a former US ambassador, Joe Wilson. Despite recently giving birth to twins, she travelled widely for her work, often claiming to be an oil consultant. In fact she was a career CIA agent who was part of a small team investigating the same procurement network that the State Department official is alleged to have aided.

Brewster Jennings was one of a number of covert enterprises set up to infiltrate the nuclear ring. It is is believed to have been based in Boston and consisted of little more than a name, a telephone number and a post office box address.

Plame listed the company as her employer on her 1999 tax forms and used its name when she made a $1,000 contribution to Al Gore’s presidential primary campaign.

The FBI was also running an inquiry into the nuclear network. When Edmonds joined the agency after the 9/11 attacks she was given the job of reviewing the evidence.

The FBI was monitoring Turkish diplomatic and political figures based in Washington who were allegedly working with the Israelis and using “moles” in military and academic institutions to acquire nuclear secrets.

The creation of this nuclear ring had been assisted, Edmonds says, by the senior official in the State Department who she heard in one conversation arranging to pick up a $15,000 bribe.

One group of Turkish agents who had come to America on the pretext of researching alternative energy sources was introduced to Brewster Jennings through the Washington-based American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group that aids commercial ties between the countries. Edmonds says the Turks believed Brewster Jennings to be energy consultants and were planning to hire them.

But she said: “He [the State Department official] found out about the arrangement . . . and he contacted one of the foreign targets and said . . . you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government.

“The target . . . immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings.

“At least one of them was at the ATC. This person also called an ISI person to warn them.” If the ISI was made aware of the CIA front company, then this would almost certainly have damaged the investigation into the activities of Khan. Plame’s cover would also have been compromised, although Edmonds never heard her name mentioned on the intercepts. Shortly afterwards, Plame was moved to a different operation.

[...]

In the meantime, the role of Plame and Brewster Jennings became public knowledge in 2003. Plame’s husband, Wilson, wrote a report that undermined claims by President George W Bush that Saddam Hussein’s regime had attempted to buy uranium in Niger – a key justification for the invasion of Iraq.

The following week Robert Novak, a journalist, revealed that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent. In the scandal that followed, Novak’s sources were revealed to be two senior members of the Bush administration. A third, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstructing the criminal investigation into the affair.

Phillip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, said: “It’s pretty clear Plame was targeting the Turks. If indeed that [State Department] official was working with the Turks to violate US law on nuclear exports, it would have been in his interest to alert them to the fact that this woman’s company was affiliated to the CIA. I don’t know if that’s treason legally but many people would consider it to be.”

The FBI denied the existence of a specific case file about any outing of Brewster Jennings by the State Department official, in a response to a freedom of information request. However, last week The Sunday Times obtained a document, signed by an FBI official, showing that the file did exist in 2002.

So, if this is true, the exposure of Valerie Plame was treason after all, just not the exposure everyone thought it was. It makes me wonder if the initial release of Plame's name to Novak is in any way related to this operation.

What do we know about Grossman? According to Philip Giraldi at the American Conservative:

Edmonds claims that Marc Grossman—ambassador to Turkey from 1994-97 and undersecretary of state for political affairs from 2001-05—was a person of interest to the FBI and had his phone tapped by the Bureau in 2001 and 2002. In the third-highest position at State, Grossman wielded considerable power personally and within the Washington bureaucracy. He had access to classified information of the highest sensitivity from the CIA, NSA, and Pentagon, in addition to his own State Department. On one occasion, Grossman was reportedly recorded making arrangements to pick up a cash bribe of $15,000 from an ATC contact. The FBI also intercepted related phone conversations between the Turkish Embassy and the Pakistani Embassy that revealed sensitive U.S. government information was being sold to the highest bidder. Grossman, who emphatically denies Edmonds’s charges, is currently vice chairman of the Cohen Group, founded by Clinton defense secretary William Cohen, where he reportedly earns a seven-figure salary, much of it coming from representing Turkey.

Giraldi goes into more detail as to the allegations against Grossman:

After 9/11, Grossman reportedly intervened with the FBI to halt the interrogation of four Turkish and Pakistani operatives. According to Edmonds, Grossman was called by a Turkish contact who told him that the men had to be released before they told what they knew. Grossman said that he would take care of it and, per Edmonds, the men were released and allowed to leave the country.

Edmonds states that FBI phone taps from late 2001 reveal that Grossman tipped off his Turkish contact regarding the CIA weapons proliferation cover unit Brewster Jennings, which was being used by Valerie Plame, and that the Turk then informed the Pakistani intelligence service representative in Washington. It is to be assumed that the information was then passed on to the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network.

Edmonds also claims that Grossman was instrumental in seeding Turkish and Israeli Ph.D. students into major American research labs by godfathering visas and enabling security clearances. She says that she reviewed transcripts in which the moles in the U.S. military and academic community involved in nuclear technology reportedly carried out several “transactions” involving the sale of nuclear material or information relating to nuclear programs every month, with Pakistan being a primary buyer. In the summer of 2000, the FBI recorded a meeting between a Turkish official and two Saudi businessmen in Detroit in which nuclear information stolen from an Air Force base in Alabama was offered: “We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000,” the wiretap allegedly recorded. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” Edmonds told the Times.

This alleged ring could go further than Grossman, and its enablers could go futher still:

She further reports that beginning in 1999, the FBI was investigating senior Pentagon officials who were assisting agents of foreign governments, including Turkey and Israel. Edmonds has not publicly named names at the Pentagon, but a website linked to her appears to be a non-incriminating instrument for identifying suspects without doing so directly. Its “rogues gallery” includes photos of Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. Perle was chief of the Pentagon’s prestigious Defense Policy Board when Edmonds was working at the FBI, and Feith was undersecretary of defense for policy. If either were being investigated, it would be a matter of record, as would any reasons for dropping the investigation. “If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” Edmonds told the Times.

She claims to have also learned that corrupt officials in the Turkish and Israeli Ministries of Defense falsified end-user certificates on weapons purchased in the United States to enable sales to third countries not allowed access to the technology. Principal recipients include the five “Stans” in central Asia—Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.

Furthermore, Edmonds says that former House speaker Dennis Hastert and at least two other congressmen were investigated as suspected recipients of illegal political contributions or even bribes from Turkish sources. Her website gallery includes photos of Congressmen Roy Blount, Dan Burton, and Tom Lantos, though she has not otherwise implicated any of the three directly.

I'm not sure I would trust a "Web site linked to Edmonds" for evidence here, but there has already been at least one instance of a former congressional representative allegedly working for terrorists. Several others are believed to be possibilities.

The narrative here, though, is more treason by the bureaucrats in our own government. We've seen it before, with numerous anonymous parties and at least two know parties, Plame and Joe Wilson, practicing it. Now the Wilsons could have been on the receiving end of it, as well. If the story is true.

But how much, if any, of these allegations are true? One witness is not enough. Not by a longshot. But the Justice Department's gag order and the FBI lying about a file are very troubling signs.

Required reading

Samantha Bennett of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

I do like Emily Deschanel, but there's a reason her description of herself as a vegan is frightening.

The Apocalypse -- UPDATED

As you may have heard, a major snowstorm is approaching Indianapolis, which, if the media coverage is any indication, can mean only one thing:

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Even so, I feel compelled to go out and make the obligatory panic purchases of bread, milk, eggs, pantyhose, toilet paper and potable water.

I'm not sure what potable water is or why it's better for these situations than normal tap water, but I'll trust the experts.

UPDATE -- You call this a storm? My lawn isn't even covered. Every meterologist in town should be required to publicly commit seppuku over this.

Dammit!

It looks like Rudy is buttered and jellied. Not even the good jelly, either, but some Wal-Mart off-brand.

I would discuss how bad a campaign he ran, but I think It came down to more of a "family values" test centered on abortion and to a lesser extent, marriage, none of which Rudy does well on. Iowa and South Carolina are packed with evangelicals. He was not going to do well in either place. Why he saw fit to bail in New Hampshire and Michigan is beyond me.

So it looks like I will have to hold my nose -- no, not hold my nose, but put on a full haz-mat suit -- and vote for McCain. I used to like McCain, and he has been tough on the long war we face. But immigration? ANWR? Flat-out, damagingly wrong on both. But for al his faults, McCain is still better than anyone on the Dem side.

With no Rudy, the best candiate for POTUS is gone.

Rethinking the Crusades

One of the facets of the War on Islamism (to which I renamed "Islamofascism," since I discovered I was a "Socially Progressive Fascist Imperialist" and did not want to give the "fascist" aspect of that a worse name than it already has) that has struck me has been what might be called "historical inertia" -- the need to rethink our belief in the meaning of certain periods and events in history, or more accurately, the lack of belief in such a need. Perhaps such surprise is the product of naivete, given the state of today's academy, but there it is.

One area that I believe desperately needs such a reassessment is the Crusades. The "traditional" belief, one that I was taught in elementary school, middle and high school and my Western Civilization and Middle Eastern Studies classes at Ohio State, is that the Crusades represented unprovoked aggression by Christian Europe against the Muslims. The Muslims were preserving the accomplishments and history of ancient Greece and Rome, and thus were their heirs, having been civilized for centuries. The West consisted of barbarians. This was the thinking even though the time leading up to the Crusades was marked by the spread of Islam by the sword was acknowledged, but never seen as a legitimate casus belli, nor was the contradiction seen in Islam somehow preserving Rome while seeking to destroy it -- the Muslims came close to sacking Rome and were continuing aggression against the Eastern Roman Empire, eventually causing its downfall.

I have seen very little questioning of this narrative, at least not outside the likes of Robert Spencer. Likely, we will not get it, either, as both the academy and our religious leaders have descended into a type of self-loathing, deeming both our civilization and our religions to be basically indefensible on moral grounds.

Why this is, I don't know. I, for one, am proud to be a Roman Catholic. I like going back all the way to the ROMAN EMPIRE, baby!!! Plus, unlike some people, I'm proud that we actually had the Inquisition. (And we still have it! We just renamed it.) I just want to tell Usama bin laden and his hilljacks, "Go on! Do your worst! You ain't got nuthin' on Torquemada. Or even Ximinez!" He'd never expect it.

This self-loathing was most recently expressed in "Christian Response to A Common Word Between Us and You," signed by more than 300 Christian theologians and church leaders. The letter, which ran in the November 18, 2007 New York Times, was in response to A Common Word was an October letter from 138 Muslim scholars and clerics “to leaders of Christian churches, everywhere.”

Clearly, these "Christian theologians and church leaders" were not up to the task. Fortunately, Bruce Thornton is:

The response opens on a familiar self-loathing note, in the therapeutic style that has convinced jihadists that Christianity in the West is an empty shell, a mere lifestyle choice. Noting that Muslim and Christian “relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility,” the letter professes “that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the ‘war on terror’) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors,” and so “we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”

The groveling self-abasement of this language, particularly its begging forgiveness of Allah, is matched only by its remarkable historical ignorance. “Outright hostility” has indeed existed between Muslims and Christians, for the simple reason that for 13 centuries Islam grew and spread by war, plunder, rapine, and enslavement throughout the Christian Middle East. Allah’s armies destroyed regions that were culturally Christian for centuries, variously slaughtering, enslaving, and converting their inhabitants, or allowing them to live as oppressed dhimmi, their lives and property dependent on a temporary “truce” that Muslim overlords could abrogate at any time.

And let’s not forget the seven-century-long Islamic occupation of Spain, the centuries of raids into southern Italy and southern France, the near-sack of Rome in 846, the occupation of Sicily and Greece, the four-century-long occupation of the Balkans, the destruction of Constantinople, the two sieges of Vienna, the kidnapping of Christian youths to serve as janissaries from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the continual raiding of the northern Mediterranean littoral for slaves from 1500 to 1800, and the current jihadist terrorist attacks against the West.

These historical crimes dwarf those committed during the few centuries of the Crusades, which, for all of their excesses and mixed motives, were fought to liberate from Muslim hegemony the lands that had been Christian for six and a half centuries before Islam burst forth from the Arabian Peninsula. Many contemporary Christians betray their moral and spiritual incoherence when they demonize the Crusades but excuse, as justified “liberation,” the numerous Arab assaults on Israel’s “occupation” of lands to which the Jews have a 3,000-year-old connection.

For its part, A Common Word makes no apologies for the violence that Islam has perpetrated against Christian people up to the present day.

I know this ran last November, but I didn't see it in Instapundit until today. It's still relevant, and not so stale that a good microwaving would fix. Come to think ot it, maybe we should try microwaving on UBL and his Talibanites ...

Just because

miniskirts

Playing with fire

I've always been something of a pyrophobic. I hate fire. I once nearly burned myself in chemistry class when I was, like, 9 or so and I've hated fire ever since. I hate candles. I hate campfires. I hate bonfires. I hate fireplaces. I can barely tolerate even the pilot light in my furnace.

Like I said, I hate fire.

Except, oddly, when I'm gaming.

Growing up, I played a lot of Avalon Hill's Squad Leader series, which involved small unit tactics (individual squads and tanks, etc.) in World War II. I always relished having assault engineer units so I could use flamethrowers and demolition charges, blowing up and burning enemy buildings. There was even a scenario (from Crescendo of Doom) set in the Winter War of 1940 between Finland and Russia where the Finns had to burn down a town for victory. That was one of my favorites.

When Avalon Hill overhauled the series in 1985 with Advanced Squad Leader, they opined that it would benefit anyone who treated the game as his historical counterpart would have, and added "Sadly, it means an end to our torching most of the mapboard." Obviously, I was not alone.

Back in 2002, LucasArts came out with one of their best games, up there with X-Wing, TIE Fighter and the Dark Forces series, in Bounty Hunter, where you played Jango Fett. As seen in Attack of the Clones, Jango had a flamethrower on his wrist. He had it in the game, too, so you could be surrounded by a dozen enemies and you just spin around while using the flamehrower. Problem solved. I do wish LucasArts would make a sequel to Bounty Hunter, maybe one with Boba Fett. It would seem ripe for it, but I've never heard any indication that they ever intend to do so.

Now, my latest addiction is Bioshock. An odd game, set in an underwater city (not any city like you've ever thought of; more like they submerged 1940's midtown Manhattan) that has turned into a chaotic dystopia through the overuse by the population of "plasmids" that give your body extra powers, like the power to shot lightning bolts from your fingers like Emperor Palpatine. Or to freeze someone and then shatter them.

Or to shoot fire. That has rapidly become my favorite. It is very useful it driving off the insane residents of the city, especially around the pools of flammable liquid lying around.

But I still absolutely hate fire.

Why do I mention this? No particular reason, except to recommend Bioshock, which has pleasantly surprised me with stunning visuals and a great story. And to tell LucasArts to work on a sequel to Bounty Hunter.

And to point out that even the most violent video games do not reflect the real-life personality of the gamer. Or vice versa.

Just because

pantyhose

Cooling at home

I've been working a lot from home and I have been listening to a lot of jazz while I work. Please forgive the lack of decorum of the following statement, but I must say that jazz guitarist Joyce Cooling kicks ass!!!

The legacy of enviro-nazis

How certain politicans removed from development the largest field of clean coal in the world -- in Utah -- to help a campaign contributor.

Any wonder why energy prices are so high?

(h/t: Instapundit)

Robots R Us

Instapundit points to this promo advertising how you can get your own full-sized Lost in Space Robot. Prof. Reynolds writes, "Embarrassingly, I kind of want one. . ."

He has no reason to be embarrassed, except for the fact that the Lost in Space Robot is kind of wimpy. If I'm getting a robot, it's gonna be this one:

Scorpion primer

I still have not yet finished Scorpion Down by Ed Offley -- it's still in my book rotation, but I have not yet rotated back to it -- about the US nuclear submarine Scorpion, which sank under mysterious circumstances on May 22, 1968. Offley, as a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, did a series back in 1998 about the mystery surrounding the sinking. As I briefly explained what happened to the Scorpion earlier:

[I]n May 1968, the Scorpion disappeared in the Atlantic. On May 22, 1968, US underwater listening devices in the Canary Islands and Newfoundland recorded what are believed to have been the sounds of an underwater explosion and collapsing bulkheads. [...] The wreck of the Scorpion was later found that October on the floor of the Atlantic at a depth of about 10,000 feet about 400 miles southwest of the Azores. You can see pics of the wreck here and here.

In 1998, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did a series on the disaster which claimed the lives of 99 men. Two different US Navy panels could not come to a conclusion as to what caused the sinking, but their speculation centered either on mechanical failure or an explosion somehow caused by one of the Scorpion's torpedoes that had either run hot in the tube and exploded or was launched and made a circular run, striking the submarine and sending it to the bottom. [...] The Post-Intelligencer, however, found indications of a far darker story.

On its return trip to the US, the Scorpion was apparently ordered to investigate a suspicious gathering of Soviet naval vessels in the Atlantic. This may have sealed the Scorpion's fate. Because of the North Korean capture of the spy ship USS Pueblo and code keys provided by spy John Walker, and unbeknownst to the US Navy, the Soviets were able to read messages sent to US submarines, including the Scorpion. The gathering of Soviet vessels may have been a trap to ensnare and sink the Scorpion.

But why would they do this? Because of the (loss of the Soviet submarine) K-129. What had happened to the K-129 was not clear to the Soviet navy. Their belief was that it was lost due to some engagement with a US sub, possibly a collision. The attack on the Scorpion was retaliation. It was only later, when the US quietly provided to the Soviets evidence of the K-129's activities, including pieces recovered from its wreck, that the Soviets realized what had been going on. Both powers agreed to keep the incidents quiet.

And what had happened to the K-129? According to the book Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond:

[I]n March 1968, the Soviet submarine K-129, a Golf-II class submarine, sank under mysterious circumstances in the Pacific near Hawaii. Red Star Rogue attempts to explain these mysterious circumstances.

According to Sewell and Richmond, the K-129 was basically hijacked by Russian special forces loyal to a hard-line faction within the Kremlin centered around Mikhail Suslov and Yuri Andropov. While the Soviet military loyal to the Kremlin leadership searched for the sub, the K-129 was in the Pacific off of Hawaii, preparing to launch a nuclear missile at the US Pacific Fleet's base at Pearl Harbor. This is bad enough, but it comes with a catch: the K-129 was to launch the missile in such a way as to make the US think the Red Chinese had done it, basically by surfacing and firing the missile at a short range. The goal was to precipitate a nuclear exchange between the US and China, which would weaken the US, eliminate China and set up a Soviet hegemony in Asia.

[...]

As you might have guessed, the hard-liners' plan went awry. K-129 appears to have suffered an explosion, possibly due to a nuclear fail-safe mechanism causing a catastrophic failure as the missile launch was attempted. K-129 sank with all hands. While the still-not-entirely-blue-water-capable Soviet navy could not locate the submarine (though in fairness this was due in part to the fact that the special ops hijackers had taken the submarine far from its assigned patrol zone) the US Navy could -- and did.

This entire story was kept secret from the public, and only whispered in military circles, until Red Star Rogue.

Like I said, I haven't gotten through Offley's book yet, but he does offer a sort of primer for Scorpion Down in the latest MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. His gives four main pieces of evidence that I find deserve some serious consideration:

1. Crewmen from the advanced Sonar ship Compass Island claim to have found the wreck of the Scorpion in early June, months before its official discovery by another sonar ship, the Mizar, in October.

2. According to the "official" history of the incident and its aftermath, Vice Admiral Arnold F. Schade, the commander of the Atlantic Fleet's submarine forces, put to see to search for the Scorpion on May 27 in the submarine Pargo, which he joined in Connecticut after flying up from Norfolk that day. However, Admiral Schade told Offley in an interview in 1983 that the search had actually begun -- secretly -- sometime shortly after May 22. The reason as he recalled it was that the Scorpion had not acknowledged a message. There may have been more to it than that, however, as ...

3. According to numerous witnesses (as Offley explains it), the Scorpion had radioed that she was being trailed by a Soviet submarine and could not shake her. Crewmen from the ballistic missile submarine Nathanael Greene state they were aware of an ongoing confrontation between the Scorpion and an unidentified Soviet submarine in the Atlantic, and everyone was monitoring the situation. The initial order to search for the Scorpion on May 27 apparently contained a reference to the fact that the Soviets were trailing the Scorpion. Offley believe that the Pueblo affair and the Walker spy ring enabled the Soviets to track the Scorpion.

4. US SOSUS installations may have recorded the final moments of the duel. Two former SOSUS technicians reveal they heard a "bootlegged" tape of the death of the Scorpion. Other former SOSUS officials told how the US Navy seized all SOSUS recordings of the Scorpion sinking from bases worldwide.

This evidence is not dispositive in showing the Soviets sank the Scorpion or that the US Navy covered it up, in my opinion. I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the Compass Island's claims, since the submarine appears to have been exactly where John Craven said it would be, based on a theory of a hot torpedo run in the tube. Furthermore, it would only be natural for the Navy to seize the SOSUS recordings for investigative purposes after an incident like this. The Pueblo incident and the Walker spy ring would have only enabled the Soviets to read our messages, not track a submarine underwater.

But those claims do merit further examination, at least. And I am far more convinced by the statements of Admiral Schade and the references to messages from the Scorpion indicating she was being followed by a Soviet submarine.

I definitely need to finish Scorpion Down. In the meantime, though, I think we need to figure out how that Chinese submarine managed to trail the Kitty Hawk. If the Soviets were able to track the Scorpion because of espionage activity we had not detected at that time, could we be seeing a repeat?

How hard can it be

to find a friggin' Joyce Cooling CD in this town?

Did anyone ever figure out

what happened at Jena?

(h/t: Conservative Grapevine)

Implication or inference?

Israel announced that its Jericho 3 ballistic missile is now in service. They have also let it be known that they are developing specialized external fuel tanks for the F-35 fighter, which Israel is not going to receive from the US until 2014.

Think Israel is trying to send a message? Say, to Iran?

Who is Rich Rodriguez?

"Quite a character," according to the Cleveland Fan.

Hat Tip

to avowed anti-war Democrat Scarlett Johansonn, for visiting our troops in the Middle East to cheer them up.

I bash the far-left on this blog a lot, and the far left deserves it. But the vast majority of Democrats today are just as patriotic and security conscious as I am, whether they are loudly singing "God Bless America" at a Yankee game in the Bronx or colorfully taking down every word in Indianapolis.

We need to remember that whatever our differences in opinion are on how the war should be fought, we are (usually) all on the same side when it comes to this war (with noted exceptions like John Murtha and Michael Moore), and that politics is merely a game, where we should all be able to go out for a drink afterwards.

Jesus' parabolas -- UPDATED

You have to read it to believe it.

Best comment: "Let me get out my graphing Biblical calculator."

UPDATE -- I wonder if this entire story is just pure hyperbola.

But it would be so unlike Hugo. -- UPDATED

From Venezuela:

Judge Monica Fernandez, a Venezuelan human rights advocate, was shot on January 4 in what police ruled a botched car robbery. The night before the attack, she was branded an enemy of the state, a coup-plotter, and a fascist on a state television show which condemns those who dare to oppose the government’s actions. Coincidence?

(h/t: Instapundit)

UPDATE: And Hugo has decided to go Mugabe on his farmers, too. Like I've said before, Hugo Chavez should have been aborted. You want to argue in support of abortion rights, point to Chavez. No good whatsoever has come from this thug's life. The world would be so much a better place if Hugo Chavez' mother had just exercised her right to choose.

Save Windows XP

Apparently, Microsoft has announced they will completely ditch Windows XP this June and require every new computer to be sold with the horrible Windows Vista. In response, there is a campaign and petition to save Windows XP.

If Windows XP is ditched forever, say goodbye to PC gaming, since most older games will not run on Vista (I just managed to get XP to run TIE Fighter and X-Wing, the two most important older games out there) and most newer games need the resources that Vista hogs.

I've ripped Sony for the PlayStation 3 and its lack of backwards compatibility. My fear is that it will dump the PlayStation 2 for the PS 3 and my older games will be gone forever once my PS 2 dies. Apparently, though Sony has said it will maintain the PS 2 for a long time to come, and see it as competition for the Wii. This is to Sony's credit. Makes me wonder if Microsoft's actions concerning XP and Vista have some anti-trust potential, given Microsoft's virtual monopoly on the consumer market.

(h/t: Instapundit)

Just in case -- UPDATED

you need cheering up -- I know I certainly do -- here are some more Star Wars scenes from Robot Chicken. They really did a brilliant job with these.



UPDATE -- The original video seems to have disappeared, but I found another one and linked and embedded it.

On a happier note, the DVD of Robot Chicken's Star Wars will be released May 20.

Speaking of Star Trek

How 'bout some real life Star Trek inventions?

Technically, though, "hyperdrive" is Star Wars. "Warp drive" is Star Trek.

(h/t: The Corner)

I like the New York Giants

but it is really hard to root for a team with both Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin.

Manning's whining and sense of entitlement is well-documented, particularly of late, but ever since he came into the league with Jacksonville (sickening by itself), Coughlin has been nothing short of the consummate jerk, generally hated by his players in both Jacksonville and New York.

Another example was tonight. Kicker Lawrence Tynes missed a 43-yard field goal, on a night so cold (-1 at the time of Tynes' kick) that the ball had to feel like a brick.

As Tynes returned to the sidelines, replays showed Coughlin chewing him out. For missing a field goal.

Why on earth would anyone want to play for this guy?

Missing a longish field goal is not a stupid mistake like throwing into triple coverage (Derek Anderson), fumbling in a situation where you should have just gone down (Marlon McCree) or committing a stupid 15-yard penalty (Austin Spitler).

What a jerk.

Like I said, I like the Giants. I like the Green Bay Packers, too (in contrast to my contempt for their college brethren in Madison), but I like the Giants a li'l bit more, except it's really hard to like them with the despicable Manning and Coughlin.

A message -- UPDATED

for the New England Patriots:


We are the Bolt. You will be assimilated. Your archaic culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.


UPDATE -- OK, maybe not.

Nice coaching, Norv. Calling time out on 3rd and 1 near the goal line and then running a stupid sweep. Brilliant move there. But not nearly as brilliant as, down by 9 with 10:00 left in the game, punting from the New England 35. We never got the ball back. Who did not see that one coming? Genius, Norv.

And a dishonorable mention to you, Chris Chambers. Gave up an interception that led to a New England touchdown because you dropped the ball and couldn't even bother to defend the pass against Asante Samuel. Or even tackle him.

Shoe, meet other foot.

Mexico is not happy:

A delegation of nine state legislators from Sonora was in Tucson on Tuesday to say Arizona's new employer sanctions law will have a devastating effect on the Mexican state.
At a news conference, the legislators said Sonora - Arizona's southern neighbor, made up of mostly small towns - cannot handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face as illegal Mexican workers here return to their hometowns without jobs or money.
The law, which took effect Jan.1, punishes employers who knowingly hire individuals who don't have valid legal documents to work in the United States. Penalties include suspension or loss of a business license.
Its intent is to eliminate or curtail the top draw for immigrants to this country - jobs.

Cry me a river, freeloader.

"How can they pass a law like this?" asked Mexican Rep. Leticia Amparano Gamez, who represents Nogales.
"There is not one person living in Sonora who does not have a friend or relative working in Arizona," she said in Spanish.
"Mexico is not prepared for this, for the tremendous problems" it will face as more and more Mexicans working in Arizona and sending money to their families return to hometowns in Sonora without jobs, she said.
"We are one family, socially and economically," she said of the people of Sonora and Arizona.

Still don't think they're trying to colonize us for their "Aztlan" crap?

Meanwhile, another Border Patrol agent was killed, this time pursing what may have been Mexican smugglers in Imperial County, California on Interstate 8 near Yuma. I've been on the 8 several times. It is so close to the Mexican border you can literally smell Mexico. Trust me, it ain't pretty.

I'll save my sympathies for the Border Patrol agent (whose name has not yet been released) and his family.

And while I'm at it

From Robot Chicken, here's Emperor Palpatine getting the call from Darth Vader reporting that the Death Star was destroyed.

Sensible Advice

from Chris Rock:



Yes, I know that I had a post on this earlier, but since I seem to have figured out how to embed videos ...

And like I said earlier, absolutely hilarious and completely true as well.

(h/t for this video: Jawa Report)

Homeland Insecurity

We saw it coming, but did anyone do anything about it? Of course not:

Hackers literally turned out the lights in multiple cities after breaking into electrical utilities and demanding extortion payments before disrupting the power, a senior CIA analyst told utility engineers at a trade conference.

All the break-ins occurred outside the United States, said senior CIA analyst Tom Donahue. The U.S. government believes some of the hackers had inside knowledge to cause the outages. Donahue did not specify what countries were affected, when the outages occurred or how long the outages lasted. He said they happened in "several regions outside the United States."

"In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities," Donahue said in a statement. "We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."

A CIA spokesman Friday declined to provide additional details.

"The information that could be shared in a public setting was shared," said spokesman George Little. "These comments were simply designed to highlight to the audience the challenges posed by potential cyber intrusions."

Donahue spoke earlier this week at the Process Control Security Summit in New Orleans, a gathering of engineers and security managers for energy and water utilities.

The Bush administration is increasingly worried about the little-understood risks from hackers to the specialized electronic equipment that operates power, water and chemical plants.

This makes me wonder what particular outages they are talking about. The first place that comes to mind is New York City, which had a series of outages a while back, outages that kept repeating themselves and moving to different areas. The cause was never adequately determined to the best of my knowledge, despite the best efforts of Consolidated Edison, who generally knows what they're doing.

Wizbang comments:

The damage a lengthy outage can do can't be understated. The 2003 Northeast blackout, probably caused by some untrimmed trees in Ohio, is supposed to caused 6 to 10 billion dollars in damage. Not to mention the 8 lives that were lost. Just imagine what happens if the power grid goes down for a week or more for an area of the US as large or larger than the 2003 blackout, or the 1965 blackout. I have no solutions to propose, just pray that there are people working to prevent this from happening.

Part of the problem is obviously not enough of an electrical grid, since stupid enviro-nazs who won't let us build anything anywhere ever are obviously not going to be down with building more power plants or electrical transmission towers that would create redundancy in the system.

Another part of the problem is that the electrical grid is dependent on the Internet, the same one that enables you to read my rantings. We have yet to develop a parallel, secure connection system.

Or, really, anything to secure our power grid.

If anything, Wizbang understates the danger. This weekend, maybe a quarter of the continental United States will be covered with an Arctic cold that will have temperatures in the single digits and wind chills below zero.

What would happen if we had another "Northeast Blackout" -- another extended blackout covering a good chunk of the country -- this weekend? No power with temps in the single digits -- no power for electric furnaces, or electric thermostats or igniters for gas furnaces. Not nearly enough shelter for everybody.

The death toll could be catastrophic. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands -- dead due to cold.

This is a terrorist attack waiting to happen.

We need to fix this. Fast.

Addition by Subtraction

Georgia Rosenbloom Frontiere, owner of the St. Louis, formerly Los Angeles, formerly Cleveland, Rams, has died.

And, somehow, ESPN's Len Pasquarelli thinks we should honor her. Maybe he thinks we should honor Saddam, too.

Do we even need to go over this woman's history? Inherited the Rams from her husband, Carroll Rosenbloom, who died under mysterious circumstances while swimming. Shortly thereafter ("shortly" as in "a matter of days"), she asked Dominic Frontiere, a man with reputed Mafia connections, to move in with her.

She drives the Rams into the ground and alienates the otherwise good Los Angeles market with her arrogance and lack of concern for the fans or their team. Then she reaps a big payday when she moves the team to her hometown, St. Louis, one of the worst football towns in America.

Frontiere was Modell without the fan loyalty, since she destroyed what there had been. Frontiere was Irsay with a possible murder thrown in.

Her passing is not to be mourned, but to be celebrated. She deserves scorn and ridicule, not praise.

CAIR under RICO assault

I had no idea that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was the target of not one but two civil RICO lawsuits, one by right-wing talk show host Michael Savage, for attempting to silence him for criticizing the tenets of Islamism. Fox News discusses the legal ramifications of the suits.



I'm no fan of Savage -- based on his statements, people like me are an anathema to him -- but I hope he wins this suit.

(h/t: Jawa Report)

PS -- This is my first attempt at embedding video. Let's see how it works.

National security bits

I still maintain we should bomb Iran, on general principles if nothing else.

And Norman Podheretz agrees with me. Well, maybe not on the general principles part.

Meanwhile, it's not just the Iranian Pasdaran harassing our navy, it's the Chinese as well. Not the fist time, either, or has everyone forgotten from the pre-9/11 days the Chinese fighter harassing our P-3 Orion reconnaissance aircraft off Hainan, during which the fighter collided with the P-3, forcing the P-3 to land on Hainan -- and surrendering valuable intelligence to the Chinese. Advantage: Chinese.

If we'd just shoot the bastards when they try this crap, maybe they'd stop. But nooooooooooooooooooooo ...

Bush truly sucks. We need Rudy. Or Fred.

Maybe I should call them the "Enviro-Taliban"

And John McCain is one of them, if his views on drilling in ANWR are any indication.

There is no excuse -- none whatsoever -- for not drilling in ANWR. The American people are suffering and American security is theatened, allegedly all for rats with antlers. Methinks a more sinister motive is actually at play.

Making the case

Professor Bainbridge makes the case that Mike Huckabee is a member of what I call the "Christian Taliban." My term, not his. But decide for yourself if it's an exaggeration. Hugh Hewitt believes that Professor Bainbridge is unfair, to put it mildly.

Sorry, but anyone who campaigns on a platform of being a Christian who wants to amend the Constitution to bring it in line with (their version of) “God’s standards” has no business running for office. Period. That's what the Taliban does. That's the culture we are supposed to be fighting against.

The Snowflakes of Adrianople

I'm still reviewing Great Battles when I have the chance, though my free time is rapidly shrinking. But I can always stop to read an account of the Battle of Adrianople, this one by Joe Zentner.

I have read numerous accounts of Adrianople (or Hadrianopolis), both published and on the Web, though very few deal with the battle in depth. No two accounts are the same, either in interpretation or sometimes even in fact. It is inevitable that as time goes by, the accounts of battles start to lose their focus. Heck, we can't even figure out quite what happened in the Battle of Surigao Strait, or why the Battle of the Java Sea developed as it did. At that was just World War II. For ancient battles like Adrianople, which came on the eve of a dark age where recording of history became a rare and precious event, the raw number of accounts are much more limited than the are for, say, a Zama or a Thermopylae. It was only in the last few years that I was even able to get a map of the battle of Adrianople.

For the amateur historian like myself, with limited time and resources, this state of affairs can be very frustrating. In my earlier post on The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire, by Alessandro Barbero, I gave a short version of Adrianople:

Several large Gothic tribes, fleeing from the Huns, petition to be allowed to cross the Danube and enter the Empire. The Emperor Valens allows it, but seriously underestimates the number of refugees, which Barbero estimates at 100,000-200,000 people. The Romans are not prepared to house, clothe and feed the new arrivals, and what preparations they have made are nullified by corrupt local bureaucrats. The security arrangements are also inadequate, and far more Goths are able to cross than were intended, a good percentage of them without the knowledge of the Romans. The Goths are naturally not happy at the treatment they have received at Roman hands, and a failed attempt to assassinate their leaders at Marcianople – apparently without the knowledge of Valens – sparks a massive revolt. The Goths coalesce under the leadership of the chieftain Fritigern and ravage Thrace. Valens is forced to return from a campaign against Persia to deal with the crisis.

He leads an army of 15,000-20,00 legionaries (by modern estimates) out of Hadrianopolis to deal with Fritigern, who, again by modern estimates, may actually have been slightly outnumbered in terms of fighting men. Late in the afternoon of August 9, they arrive at Fritigern’s wagon laager, a large defensive formation where the Goths’ wagons are arranged in a circle, much like the Old West. Both Valens and Fritigern agree to negotiations; the historians do not agree whether this was legitimate or simply to buy time to rest their troops.

In any event, the cavalry and light troops on the Roman right begin skirmishing – basically harassing – the Gothic troops. But they get too close to the Goths, who chose to resist their tormentors, and battle starts almost accidentally. Some of the accounts claim that the Roman army was still attempting to deploy for battle, but Barbero does not share this view. In any event, the Gothic cavalry, which had been out foraging, returns – and sweep around the laager. The Roman cavalry on the right collapses. The Roman left flank cavalry holds out heroically, but eventually is defeated and flees. The Gothic infantry then sortie from the laager. The Roman infantry, with its flanks exposed and facing enemy infantry in the front, is surrounded and destroyed, both by rampaging Gothic cavalry and cavalry archers, and accompanying infantry. Valens is killed; legend has it he and his staff hid in a house which was then set afire by the Goths, who didn’t know he was inside. His body was never recovered.

I also tried to detail some of the major issues of the battle:

1. Valens, unpopular at home as an Arian Christian, needed a military victory to shore up his popular support, and so chose not to wait for reinforcements from the Western Roman Emperor Gratian, yet Valens’ army on hand should have been enough to do the job;

2. The Romans had marched all day from Hadrianopolis, and by the start of the battle late in the afternoon they were tired, hungry and thirsty, yet their morale remained very high;

3. The Romans had underestimated the size and nature of the Gothic army, because the cavalry was away foraging, but they should have had an idea of the size of Fritigern’s army and the types of units they would be facing because of information gathered form their previous engagements with his forces;

4. The Roman troops were angry about the devastation the Goths had wrought across Thrace, which caused them to be overly aggressive in their skirmishing, yet skirmishing had always been a part of ancient warfare; and

5. The Gothic cavalry counterattacked before Valens’ army was fully deployed, yet Barbero refutes this argument.

To that we might add that the battle site has yet to be identified, though it should be a bit easier than, say, Zama, being some 12 miles outside the modern town of Edirne, to which the Turks renamed Adrianople, in an apparent attempt to preserve the name of Hadrian.

Zentner doesn't quite address all these issues, and given his space, he probably could not. But he does do an admirable job of shedding light on the battle.

First, unlike most accounts, Zentner gives a primer on the city of Adrianople itself. It is a Thracian Pittsburgh, founded as Hadrianopolis by the Emperor Hadrian in 125 AD on the site of an ancient city at the confluence of 3 rivers. The site had considerable strategic importance, as evidenced by the no less than 15 major battles or sieges at this site. I can't say for sure how "Hadrianopolis" became "Adrianople," since such a change appears beyond my etymological skill, but it seems apparent they are related; my guess is Adrianople is the anglicized version of Hadrianopolis.

Zentner also seems to take the prevailing view, refuted by Barbero, that the Roman comitatenses were not fully deployed for battle. In my earlier piece, I addressed Barbero's argument:

Barbero’s apparent belief that the Romans were fully deployed at Adrianople is curious. Infantry armed with spears, even when surrounded by cavalry, can beat them off if properly deployed. Barbero states that the Romans were ineffective in resisting the Gothic cavalry because most of their spears were broken by that point in the battle, which suggests to me that the army was not yet fully deployed when they were engaged with the cavalry. But given the amount of time it took for negotiations to almost get under way, it’s also hard to believe that they were not yet fully deployed.

The big issue would seem to revolve around the circumstances of the initial engagement of the cavalry on the Roman right. No ne seems to agree on what happened here. Zentner says that they marched into view of Fritigern's laager too soon:

Either because of unfamiliarity with the terrain or by mistake, the right wing of the Roman cavalry came within sight of the Goths while the left was still a considerable distance away, with many of the horsemen on the left wing scattered along roads leading up to the Goth camp.

Barbero says they were skirmishing, as they were supposed to do, and got too close to the laager. Other accounts have them getting into a taunting match with their Gothic adversaries, losing their temper and engaging too early.

Zentner goes one step further, though, with his map, which is actually available in the online version. Fritigern's laager appears to be situated on a hill of some sort, somewhat of a new detail that might explain why the Romans didn't just torch the wagons with archers. Zentner's map shows the Roman infantry to still be in something of a column formation at the time of battle. This directly contradicts Barbero, and goes further than other accounts I have read that have the Roman comitatenses at least partially deployed.

Contrary to most accounts of the battle, Zentner discusses the Gothic cavalry very little, only mentioning that they charged, destroyed the Roman right, and encircled the Roman infantry for Fritigern to attack with his infantry out of the laager. He does not mention that the cavalry was out foraging. In Zentner's view, Adrianople was primarily and infantry versus infantry battle. While I agree that the dominance of cavalry at and after Adrianople is overstated at best, I'm not sure I totally agree with Zentner's take here. Adrianople was in many respects another Cannae, in which the decisive role was played by cavalry. If anything, cavalry was more decisive at Adrianople in that but for the presence of Gothic cavalry, the Romans would not have had their flanks destroyed before they could even deploy for battle. At Cannae, Hannibal used infantry to lure the Romans into the center while maintaining his flanks, then his flanks turned inward and his cavalry came from the rear.

Zentner does go into a short analysis of the causes of the Roman defeat:

Various explanations have been offered for this improbable victory by an ad hoc force of refugees and deserters over the best-organized, best-equipped and best-disciplined army in the world. Some observers claimed that, contrary to Valens’ faulty appraisal, the Goths enjoyed a numerical superiority of as many as 200,000 warriors. In fact, given the logistical difficulties of feeding and sustaining so many men, Fritigern would have been lucky to muster one-tenth that number. Other historians claimed that the battle proved the superiority of cavalry over infantry. The truth is that while a timely cavalry charge sealed the battle’s ultimate outcome, it was primarily a clash of infantry with infantry.

[...]

When it came to using the force at their disposal, the Roman commanders at Adrianople acted with an arrogance typical of leaders of a well-equipped “civilized” army faced with what they perceived as rabble. Those commanders allowed themselves to be drawn into battle without proper reconnaissance and without ensuring that the odds were stacked in their favor before committing their forces to a fight.

It is also probable that the quality and morale of eastern Roman soldiers were low before the campaign began. Only 13 years earlier, Valens had led them on a rigorous but reasonably successful campaign against the Sassanian Persians, only to abandon the effort and leave Armenia in Persian hands. In any case, it was an overwhelmingly hot August day when Valens’ soldiers marched hurriedly from Adrianople to the plain near where the Goths had been reported. Consequently, they were exhausted and thirsty before the fighting began. It would be unjust, however, to cite the Roman failings without crediting the strategic skill shown by Fritigern; in spite of his logistic problems, the Goth commander managed to dictate the terms and tempo throughout the campaign.

Aside from his claim that Adrianople was primarily an infantry versus infantry battle, Zentner is correct in his analysis.

And Zentner is further correct when he states:

It may be stretching the point for military historians to pronounce Adrianople a victory of cavalry over infantry that ushered in the era of the medieval knight. After that battle, however, Roman armies lost their classical character. Cavalry came to predominate, and because horsemen, especially those from the East, were also archers, their ability to attack at long range severely limited the power of infantry formations. Not until the 15th century did weapons such as the longbow and crossbow begin to overturn the effectiveness of cavalry on the battlefield.

As I stated in my earlier post:

[T]he traditional interpretation of Adrianople as the emergence of cavalry as the dominant weapon is at best a stretch and, I would argue, inaccurate. A plethora of factors made this particular event unique to the Romans, not the least of which was their historic inability to really get a grip on this cavalry thing. The rampages of the cavalry-based Huns and, later, the Mongols certainly adds credibility to the cavalry dominance argument. But their success was based mostly on sheer numbers of cavalry, not the nature of cavalry. Remember, it is much easier and cheaper to develop and maintain cavalry when you’re using someone else’s resources, as nomadic peoples tend to do.

Cavalry did not magically become more effective with Adrianople. They had always had their effectiveness, most exemplified by the Achaemenid Persians, the Macedonians of Philip and Alexander the Great and Hannibal’s (and Masinissa’s Numidian) cavalry. And after Adrianople, cavalry would suffer major defeats and serious bouts of ineffectiveness as they always had – Charles Martel’s troops, though surrounded by Muslim cavalry, were able to defeat them at Tours (Poitiers) in 732; the Norman cavalry of William the conqueror was actually ineffective against Saxon infantry at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; and heavily-armored French cavalry were completely unable to deal with a few English long bowmen at Agincourt in 1415 (then again, the French always had cavalry issues, if the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 is any indication). They would continue to have their good points and bad points, but the cost of cavalry meant that infantry would remain the dominant land force.

So don’t make more of Adrianople than it was – a catastrophe that destroyed the mystique of the Roman army and sent the Roman Empire on its death spiral that resulted in the end of the western empire. It represented the end of antiquity.

But it was nothing more than that.

Some legal backbone by the Bush administration

For once:

President Bush on Wednesday exempted the Navy from an environmental law so it can continue using powerful sonar technologies in its anti-submarine warfare training off the California coast, notwithstanding a lawsuit brought by left-wing environmentalists and a prior court order enjoining the use of sonar by a Clinton-nominated federal trial judge.

Great battles, but not necesssarily great accuracy or editing

The issue of Great Battles I received is just chock full o' goodies. I'm just not sure how much I can trust it.

Case in point is the Battle of Pharsalus, by Jonathan W. Jordan, an attorney like myself. Good for him. Being published is a good thing, as I myself (very fortunately) can attest. But I've found several factual errors and omissions in his account -- though perhaps they could be editing errors -- that make me question the rest of it.

Pharsalus, as you might know, was the battle in Thessaly on August 9, 48 BC between Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (known as "Pompey the Great") and Gaius Julius Caesar for control of Roman Republic, now an empire in all but name.

The big problem I have is the account of the decisive moment in the battle and, not apparent from the on-line version, its reflection in the accompanying map. Every account I have read of Pharsalus goes something like this:

Caesar's troops were battle-hardened veterans who were loyal to them, but they had suffered some supply issues and they were short of cavalry. Pompey outnumbered Caesar in infantry and, especially, cavalry, but his army was something of a polyglot force with troops from client kings across the east. Worse, his infantry was green, compared to Caesar's veterans.

Given the circumstances of Pompey's army, Monday morning quarterbacks like me would suggest that Pompey, with his superior navy and Caesar short of supplies, should have simply refused battle and waited until Caesar's army withered on the vine. But egged on by impatient senators and commanders, he went against his better judgment.

The battle took place on the west bank of the Enipeus River. Caesar established his line with his left flank anchored on the west bank and his right flank protected by his few cavalry (if you count 1,000 cavalry as few). The right was somewhat in the air, but the slopes of the southern extension of Mount Dogantzes to the east provided some limited protection. Pompey's line mirrored Caesar's. The main difference was Pompey's 3,000 cavalry, commanded by one of Caesar's former officers Titus Labienus.

Pompey's plan was pretty clear: his cavalry would overwhelm Caesar's cavalry on the right, outflank Caesar's infantry and encircle Caesar's army.

But Caesar saw this and adjusted his deployment accordingly. He took 6 cohorts and lined them up refusing the main battle line, facing northeast. Precisely where they lined up vis-a-vis Caesar's main line is open to debate -- some sources hold that these 6 cohorts lined up behind the infantry, others (including Jordan in his rather confusing account) state that they lined up behind the cavalry. Wherever they lined up, Pompey and his troops could not see them.

Caesar had his infantry charge at Pompey's troops, but seeing that Pompey was not returning the favor -- he had ordered his legionaries to hold in the hope that Caesar's troops would in themselves in the charge -- Caesar halted his troops halfway, allowing them to reform and catch their breath. Caesar then resumed the charge.

At this point, Labienus massed Pompeian cavalry charged. Caesar's cavalry retreated, whether by design (as Jordan contends) or not is disputed. Labienus' cavalry then wheeled around Caesar's unprotected right flank and behind his infantry -- and smacked into the 6 cohorts Caesar had hidden there.

This is where Jordan's account gets confusing and the map starts to look inaccurate. Jordan says that Labienus' cavalry was "flanked," and the map indicates that the 6 cohorts were actually lined up outside Caesar's cavalry in the right. I have seen no account of Pharsalus that supports this deployment and state of affairs.

What does appear to have happened was Labienus was surprised by the presence of the cohorts. Normally, one would think a horse could run over infantry, but they did not this time. Most accounts I have read indicate that Caesar's legionaries "thrust their pila at the faces of the Pompeian cavalry" or something like that, and that the psychological effect was so unnerving that the Pompeian cavalry broke and fled.

Gosh. Imagine that. Charging cavalry having pointy things thrust in their faces. It sounds like something you wouldn't normally see in, you know, a battle. I can understand why a veteran, professional soldier would be completely unhinged by having a pointy thing thrust in his face. It would be so unexpected.

Sarcasm aside, it does not sound credible to me that simply looking at the receiving end of a pilum would cause veteran German and Gallic cavalry to break ... but it might cause the horses to break, if Caesar was using the heavy version of the pilum as a thrusting spear. You defeat cavalry with spears -- horses don't like large pointy things -- and Jordan indicates that the pila here were being used a stabbing weapons -- spears.

Labienus' cavalry charge was broken, the left flank of Pompey's infantry was exposed. While Caesar's main line kept Pompey's legionaries occupied, the cohorts and possibly the cavalry counterattacked and rolled up Pompey's line from the left. Game, set, match.

But Pompey escaped, from Caesar at any rate. Pompey made his way to Egypt, at which point another gross inaccuracy or massive editing error in the piece comes to light.

Pompey fled to Egypt because he had helped the Ptolemies secure their throne in a struggle for succession. More specifically, he had intervened in the Roman Senate to help Ptolemy XII Neos Doinysos, normally called Auletes ("the flute player") beat back a Roman claim for the throne of Egypt. Ptolemy XII had died, and Ptolemaic Egypt was under the combined rule of his eldest son Ptolemy XIII and eldest daughter Cleopatra VII Philpator, the famous Cleopatra. But I use the term "rule" loosely.

For Cleopatra and Ptolemy, married in the Egyptian and Ptolemaic tradition (though there is no evidence the marriage was ever consummated) were at war with each other. Cleopatra was eighteen and Ptolemy was twelve or something. Since Ptolemy was underage, a regency council ruled in his stead, as it had so often in Ptolemaic Egypt. The regency council was dominated by a eunuch named Pothinus, who appears to have turned Ptolemy against his sister. Cleopatra had to flee for her life.

She ended up in Jordan, where she raised an army. Ptolemy and Pothinus, meanwhile, had their own army, composed of native Egyptians and former Roman legionaries, and marched to Pelusium on the eastern edge of the Nile delta (not Alexandria, as Jordan claims), to block Cleopatra's return.

Pompey was made aware of these events, and so he diverted his trireme to Pelusium to meet with Ptolemy in the hopes of forcing round two with Caesar. It would turn out to be a fatal error.

Pompey and his staff apparently became suspicious with the lack of pomp and circumstance upon Pompey's visit to Pelusium. Then a boat came out to meet them, bringing the general Achillas, who was another member of the regency council, and several former Roman officers. But Pompey's wife and staff also noticed activity in the Egyptian warships, and troops manning the shore. With resignation, Pompey went into the boat.

He would never reach the shore. He was murdered in the boat by Achillas, Lucius Septimius (who had served under Pompey) and several others stabbed Pompey to death in the boat. Pompey's trireme succeeded in escaping.

The murder had been ordered by Pothinus, to curry favor with Caesar. Pothinus, acting for Ptolemy XIII (not Ptolemy XII, as Jordan claims, though this looks like a mere editing error). Pothinus even had Pompey's signet ring and pickled head sent to Caesar when the latter landed in Egypt in his pursuit of Pompey.

Caesar was not impressed. But that's another story.

Another week

another article on the Battle of Zama, this one, "Clash of the Titans at Zama," by Daniel A. Fournie in Great Battles, which is from the same people who produce Military History. Apparently, though, this particular article dates from the February 2000 edition of Military History.

A few things I found interesting about this article. First, Fournie has a very detailed map of the battle, including geographic features. This is rather interesting since we don't know quite where the battle took place, though Fournie says Zama is "probably" modern Seba Biar." Fournie identifies the two hills on which Scipio and Hannibal made their camps, and the valley between them where they engaged, with the Roman hill containing a creek. He has the Carthaginian hill directly behind Hannibal's third line, which does not quite fit the narrative where the Roman and Numidian cavalry catch the Carthaginians in the rear, providing the decisive edge in battle. Fournie also identifies a track between Naraggara (modern Sidi Yousef) and Sicca skirting the northern edge of the battlefield, as well as the Wadi et Tine, north of Hannibal's camp and northwest of the engagement.

Like Gabriel, though, Fournie does not mention water as a factor, though both Livy and Polybius certainly do. What he does do is put some context into the Numidian politival situation that led Masinissa to switch sides to the Roman cause -- and could have very easily led him to switch back. Scipio had been courting the western Numidian King Syphax, but as Scipio's invasion of Carthaginian North Africa got underway, Syphax threw in his lot with Carthage, because he had fallen in love with Sophonisba, daughter of Carthaginian General Hasdrubal Gisgo. Syphax ended up intervening in the struggle for succession to the throne of the eastern Numidians, driving out Masinissa into the arms of Rome. Later, when Syphax was defeated in battle, though, Sophonisba tried her charms on Masinissa -- with very similar effects. However, Scipio got wind of it and put a stop to it right then and there. Sophonisba was forced to commit suicide.

Fournie does state that Scipio did order his trumpeters to blast to panic Hannibal's 80 elephants. I still wonder if Gabriel's figure of 20 elephants might be more accurate. I mean, it's not like the Carthaginians were made of elephants. Even in Africa, you can't just stop at Elephants-R-Us and pick up a pachyderm in the drive thru. They're not easy to find, let alone capture and tame to the point where you can "harness" them and ride them. 80 sounds like an exaggeration to make Scipio's accomplishment seem larger and more dramatic.

But it does make for a great story, one that aside from a few vague details is absolutely true.

Muslims in Britain, but not of Britain

The Telegraph quotes a Yorkshire native:

"This isn't, as the Government would like us to believe, a multicultural society," [Tim Carbin] says.

"This is pure racial segregation. And it's like this because the Muslim community simply refuses to integrate. So people like me feel like outcasts in our own country."

On a related note, a majority of Britons say Muslims must do more to integrate.

An old warning

from 2005:

Yes, I was at that game. By myself. I felt like that Dolphins fan at that Jets bar in the NFL Shop commercials. Everyone sulking and crying and me jumping out and going "Woo hoo!"

Patriots fans, take note of the "NP" rating at the bottom. (If you can read it; I couldn't make the image any bigger.)

We've done it before. We can do it again.

A statistical note

Before today, the Chargers were undefeated at the RCA Dome when I attended the game by myself.


And that would be me leaving the RCA Dome today after helping to fight evil and injustice, making the world safe for democracy and civilization -- and keeping that winning streak intact.

On an additional statistical note, the Chargers are undefeated at the Murph when I am in attendance, as I was on November 11, 2007.


America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers.

Order of the Day

to America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers:


This is where we stand. This is where we fight. For freedom. For liberty. For civilization.

This is where we hold the line.

No retreat. No surrender.

A shooting narco-war

in northern Mexico.

They mess with my beloved San Diego, I will personally go down there and go Roman on them.

Order of the Day

To America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers:


Execute Order 66.

While I'm on a Star Wars kick

here are the Top Ten Star Wars superweapons. Yes, it includes the expanded universe, so you get things like the World Devastators and the Sun Crusher. Oddly, not the Eclipse, though. They sent out an e-mail update that gives an honorable mention of sorts to Baron Orman Tagge's Omega Frost.

Islamist family values

Michelle Malkin continues to follow the story of Sarah and Amina Said, allegedly murdered by their father, Yaser Abdel Said, an Egyptian emigre, in an apparent honor killing:

Sarah Said's final phone call rang into the Irving police dispatcher about 7:30 p.m. on New Year's Day: "I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying ..."

About an hour later, a man walked up to an orange cab parked at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Irving. He discovered carnage – the bullet-shredded bodies of 17-year-old Sarah and 18-year-old Amina Said, honor students and athletes at Lewisville High School.

Almost immediately, police issued an arrest warrant for the girls' father, 50-year-old Yaser Said, an Egyptian-born cab driver who family members said was given to fits of violence, threats and gun-waving rants about how Western culture was corrupting the chastity of his daughters.

The entire story reads like Sleeping with the Enemy. There is evidence of a pattern of physical and mental abuse of the girls by Yaser:

In the week since their murders, friends and relatives on Patricia Said’s side of the family say they have been haunted by that final phone call, a cry for help that went unanswered for years. They say Mr. Said physically and emotionally abused his children.

In October 1998, when Amina and Sarah were 9 and 8 years old, they accused their father of sexual abuse.

The allegations were reported to the Hill County sheriff’s office, where the girls told a detective their father had been touching them inappropriately. Amina told authorities she had been penetrated at least once.

Their mother swore in an affidavit that the allegations were true.

In early January 1999, the two girls told authorities that they had lied about the allegations because they didn’t want to attend rural Covington schools and wanted to go live with their grandmother. A district judge later dropped the charges of aggravated sexual assault against Mr. Said.

Apparently the mother tried to run away with the girls, but came back for vague reasons.

There is additional evidence that the victm's brother Islam may have been complicit in that abuse and/or the murders:

The son named Islam is reportedly responsible for persuading the girls to return after attempting to leave their abusive father. One friend received a text message from Sarah Said that read: “Me mina and my mom r running away! ..My dad found out abt mina and is goin to kill us….B4 he tld me that he was goin to put bullet thru her head…today he tld me to get used to my sis bc shes not goin to b w us lng.”

Malkin links to an e-mail to Debbie Schlussel from a relative of the victims, agreeing it was indeed an honor killing.

The mother and son, named Islam, disupute that the Muslim religion had anything to do with the murders. Rod Dreher responds:

My contention, though, is that it's vital to understand the cultural context in which a murder took place. Obviously men who are not Muslim or Arab kill their daughters. But however much it embarrasses contemporary Muslims, traditional Arab Muslim culture (and not only Arab Muslim culture) has certain views of women, of honor, of sexuality and of violence that, taken together, weakens or removes the taboo we in the West observe against violence against women. Understand what I'm saying: violence, even deadly violence, against women is (sadly, outrageously) a universal phenomenon. But it's far more acceptable in traditional Arab Muslim culture.

Comforting thought: this happened not in Pakistan, but in Dallas.

Another comforting thought: Yaser Abdel Said is still at large.

But this isn't about Islamic culture. Nothing to see here. Move along. That's right. Just go back to your simple little lives. Forget this ever happened. Forget. Forget.

One step forward, then shoot yourself in the foot

Via Conservative Grapevine, those wacky Wolverines at the University of Michigan are clearly giving you more for your tuition and/or tax dollar, with quality courses like this one:

ENGLISH 317. Literature and Culture.
Section 002 — How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.

Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term).

Instructor(s): David M Halperin (halperin@umich.edu)

Course Description:

Just because you happen to be a gay man doesn't mean that you don't have to learn how to become one. Gay men do some of that learning on their own, but often we learn how to be gay from others, either because we look to them for instruction or because they simply tell us what they think we need to know, whether we ask for their advice or not.

...

In particular, we will examine a number of cultural artifacts and activities that seem to play a prominent role in learning how to be gay: Hollywood movies, grand opera, Broadway musicals, and other works of classical and popular music, as well as camp, diva-worship, drag, muscle culture, taste, style, and political activism. Are there a number of classically 'gay' works such that, despite changing tastes and generations, all gay men, of whatever class, race, or ethnicity, need to know them, in order to be gay? What is there about gay identity that explains the gay appropriation of these works? What do we learn about gay male identity by asking not who gay men are but what it is that gay men do or like? One aim of exploring these questions is to approach gay identity from the perspective of social practices and cultural identifications rather than from the perspective of gay sexuality itself. What can such an approach tell us about the sentimental, affective, or subjective dimensions of gay identity, including gay sexuality, that an exclusive focus on gay sexuality cannot?

I'm trying to figure out how "learning to be gay" qualifies as an English course, but no matter.

The sad thing is that there is potential for needed study in an area like this. Now in "how to be gay," but in what causes the perception that someone might be gay (absent catching them in the act, of course). Usually, a guy having even a few of what are considered to be effeminate tendencies is faced with questions about their sexual orientation. But is that accurate? When women are encouraged and even celebrated when they adopt male things, is it even fair to persecute men who adopt female things? My answer has always been that the answer to both questions is in the negative.

I've been working on a blog post (long, but not Fuso long) about the issue, which has always been of great interest to me.

Michigan could have had a course that addresses these issues, but instead it made a mockery of them. It would more accurately have been titled "How to be Stereotypically Gay"

And they probably have no idea what they've done.

They've begun landing their troops

Sounds like someone is listening to Darth Sidious. Unfortunately for us, it's the Mexican army:

Bottom line: For fiscal year 2006 alone, there were 29 confirmed incidents along the U.S.- Mexican border involving Mexican military and/or law enforcement personnel, 17 of which involved armed Mexican government agents. Moreover, between 1996 and September 30, 2006, there were 253 confirmed incursions into the United States by Mexican government personnel.

This really represents a failure of W and the GOP, allegedly the "security party." The only consolation is that the Dems under Al Gore and John Kerry would have been exponentially worse.

But my Gawd, they refuse to build any border fence at all, let alone one made of human bones like I would prefer. They refuse to put enough troops on the border and they refuse to properly equip what troops they do put on the border.

And does anyone really think they talk to the Mexican government about this?

Talk about an abdication of responsibility.

If I was running things, we not only would have our border fence made of the bones, but anyone on the Mexican side who even made a funny look at the border would be crucified as a warning to others. Going Roman works.

Clearly our leaders are wimps. I should be in charge.

Order of the Day

To America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers:




Every single Colt is now an enemy of the Republic.

Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy.

In case you were wondering

Why I'm using a lot of references to Emperor Palpatine for my Chargers, perhaps I can explain it best with this picture:

Order of the Day

To America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers:



Wipe them out. All of them.

What is it with trucks?

I don't like trucks and SUV's. They are so big they block my view of the road, and are generally slower, less maneuverable and uglier than my own starfighter. And I don't like the gas they use, if only because it drives my own gasoline prices up. I support people's right to buy them, though, because that is their choice and they have plenty of rational reasons for doing so. But sometimes I wonder if the enviro-nazis have a point about them.

For example, has anyone else noticed that stupid ad for Ford trucks, where in an apparent attempt to showcase the truck's engine and braking power and structural strength, a Ford truck uses a chain to drag what looks like a C-130 to a stop on a runway. The announcer then says something like, "You might never need to haul a 30,000-pound aircraft, but isn't it nice to know you can always stop one?"

Now, I can't remember the last time I needed to haul a 30,000-pound aircraft, but I'm sure I needed to at some point. It sounds so common. So it is nice to know that the engine and the gasoline the truck uses is being used for something that is an unmet social necessity.

Not to be outdone, though, I saw an ad for Toyota, in which they called Ford "for sissies" and proceeded to use the Toyota Tundra in a demonstration of their own: towing the 95,000-ton aircraft carrier USS Nimitz under the Coronado Bridge. And to think, just the other day I was mentioning to someone that I was meaning to have that done, though I think I was looking at towing the Enterprise.

But that wasn't enough. Next I saw a Chevrolet commercial. For the Silverado, I think. "Ford and Toyota aren't fit to carry Chevy's drink holders," "It said. And they proceeded to use the towing capacity on the Silverado to pull the moon out of orbit.

That is pretty impressive, I thought. The ad concluded, "We have dealer incentives for the Silverado, but only for a limited time, until we clear out our inventory of Silverados or the moon's orbit deteriorates to the point where it crashes into the earth and ends all life, whichever comes first.

"But when that happens, won't you be happy to know that your truck is tough enough to survive?

"Chevy Trucks. Like a rock."

Order of the Day

To America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers:





You will travel to the RCA Dome, home to a wretched hive of scum and villainy known as the Colts, and disintegrate them.

Who is playing the chess here?

Ralph Peters takes a dim view of the US response, or to be more accurate, lack of same, to the Iranian provocation in the Strait of Hormuz:

As three of our warships passed through the Straits of Hormuz, five small Iranian patrol craft rushed them. As the Revolutionary Guard boats neared our vessels, an Iranian officer broadcast a threat to our ships, claiming they'd soon explode.

The Iranians tossed boxes into the water. Mines? Just in case, our ships took evasive action.

The Iranians kept on coming, closing to a distance of 200 meters - about two football fields. Supposedly, our Navy was ready to open fire but didn't shoot because the Iranians turned away at the moment the order was given.

We should've sunk every one of them.

Not because we're warmongers. But because the Iranians had made threats, verbal and physical, that amounted to acts of war. When will we learn that resolute action taken early saves vast amounts of blood and treasure later?

Oh, from Washington's perspective we did the right thing by "exercising restraint." But Washington's perspective doesn't amount to a gum wrapper in a gutter. What matters is what the Iranians think.

They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.

It goes back to the politicized and irresponsible recent National Intelligence Estimate that insisted the Iranians had abandoned their nuclear-weapons program years ago.

They didn't. They're pursuing enriched uranium as fast as they can. That's what you need for bombs. At most, Tehran ordered its weaponeering efforts to parade rest - until it has the ingredients it needs, after which building bombs won't take long at all.

Forget Washington's trust-fund-twit view of all this: Here's how the train of thought rolled down the tracks in Tehran:

"The Americans have told the world we don't want nuclear weapons, even though they know we do want them. That can only mean that America is afraid to confront us, that their weak, defeated president needs an excuse to back down.

"We can push these cowardly Americans now. They've had enough in Iraq. Their spirits are broken. Their next president will run away like a gazelle pursued by a lion.

"Even their military is frightened of us. On Sunday, America's might bowed down to us. They are frightened and godless, and the time has come to push them."

Sunday's incident wasn't a one-off event improvised by the local yokels after a long Saturday night at the hookah bar. It was blessed and carefully planned in Tehran and had practical as well as political goals.

At the tactical level, the Revolutionary Guards' naval arm was testing our responses: How soon do the American weapons radars activate? At what range do the lasers begin to track targets? How close can a small vessel get to a major American warship? How do the Americans respond to possible mines? Can we use phony mines to steer them into real ones? How long does it take an American commander to make a decision?

Above all: Does an American commander have the courage to make a decision on his own? When he doesn't have time to deflect responsibility onto his superiors?

And it wasn't just some madrassa dropout with salt spray on his glasses scribbling notes on the lead Iranian boat. On shore, the Iranians would've had all their intelligence facilities tuned in to map our electronic profile as our ships prepared to defend themselves. Rent-a-Russian military experts would've been onhand to assist with the newest gear purchased from Moscow.

The Iranians may even have had an escalation plan, in case we opened fire. President Ahmedinejad and his posse may seem contemptible to Washington, but the Iranians think several moves ahead of us: We play checkers, they play chess.

On Sunday, the Iranians tested us. We failed. They'll probe us again. And every time we fail to react decisively, we raise the number of future US casualties.

Remember the USS Cole? You bet the Iranians do. They plan to better that attack by an order of magnitude.

Maybe he's right. Maybe he's not.

This isn't the first such provocation; in fact, it's at least the third in the past year. Why is this one getting such attention? Because it was more brazen? because they actually threatened us by radio? Possibly. I don't know.

Work with me here. Look at this in the context of the forementioned laughably titled National Intelligence Estimate.

The NIE made Iran seem like basically a jolly-good neighbor who only wanted nuclear power (in a land full of oil) for peaceful purposes. Any political support for military action against Iran became more problematic.

Now, Iran provokes our ships in the strait. Opening fire on the Iranians is kind of a big thing. We're sure to be lambasted diplomatically if we do so. Frankly, I don't care if we are, but if you can get that support why not do so?

Threatening our ships by radio is big, too, and by publicizing it we may have just allowed Iran to blow to bits the pretty picture created by the NIE. Even Russia and China may have trouble arguing against the legitimacy of a response. Next time this happens, our guns will be firing, maybe we'll have air raids and missile strikes that just happen to take out some of their nuclear facilities -- and Iran may have no one on its side.

Or not. This scenario may give the US State Department and foreign policy establishment a little too much credit. Or a lot.

(h/t: The Corner)

Duh!

It seems obvious, but leaders in both parties, with a select few exceptions, just don't get it:

Investor's Business Daily:

OPEC assured the West over the weekend that $100-a-barrel oil isn't too high, given global demand. But what it really sees is that with no U.S. drilling ahead, Americans must be perfectly happy with such prices.

[...]

OPEC, and Saudi Arabia, which can produce oil very cheaply no matter what the world price, will lower prices if they can raise the comparative costs of offshore drilling to preserve its monopoly. But right now they have no reason to do it.

More drilling, and even the threat of more oil drilling, will lower the cost of oil faster than any "alternative" energy solution. But in the high U.S. presidential campaign season, it's much easier for politicians to instead blame private oil companies.

None of the Democratic presidential candidates has mentioned stepping up oil drilling in the outer continental shelf or Alaska National Wildlife Refuge as a means of addressing the high prices Americans pay for gasoline. In fact, most explicitly oppose it.

As for the Republican presidential candidates, most tread gingerly, although Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani on Saturday did slip in references to developing "domestic oil" and "using oil reverses" amid other suggestions to how they would deal with the energy crisis. But we have yet to hear the word "drill" out of any of them.

Meanwhile, candidates such as John McCain and Hillary Clinton, along with powerful politicians such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, say the solution to high energy prices is wind power, subsidized ethanol and conservation.

But getting these experimental solutions online is too far off in the future to avoid what would provide a real brake on energy prices — a full-blown recession.

Sounds like common sense, but it also sounds like the enviro-nazis have the debate won. The GOP was so cowed it did not even push the debate when it had control of Congress. It certainly won't do so now.

Our leaders suck. The only clear solution is to put me in charge.

(h/t: Instapundit)

Order of the Day

to America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers:


Begin landing your troops.

I could be classy

about tonight's loss to LSU. I usually am, in fact -- when the team to which we lose is at least somewhat classy itself. Someone I can respect. For example, though I obviously hate Michigan, I respect them. I actually like USC, and I definitely respect them. Likewise for Penn State and Purdue.

There are exceptions, though. Like Wisconsin, Stanford and Cincinnati. And the entire SEC. I respect Wisconsin and Stanford more than the SEC -- they do have academics, to an extent -- but otherwise they have everything the SEC has (even their laughably-termed "marching bands" are full of thugs) and Wisconsin gave the world Donna Shalala to boot.

But I don't respect the SEC. I don't respect LSU. And I will grant them nothing.

LSU is emblematic of the SEC -- a conference full of thugs, who cheat more than Robert Pastrick and have lower academic standards than IPS.

So all y'all can bite me.

BTW -- You still lost the Civil War. Get over it.

Why

did we not blow these bastards from the water?

We should start shooting anytime the Iranians even look at us funny, let alone let them get away with this crap.

Why don't we ever stand up to these bastards?

TO WAR!!!

As my troops go forth:

The Ohio State Buckeyes -- America's Team, Defenders of Western Civilization and All That Is Good About America:


America's Team -- the San Diego Chargers:


Your orders consist of three words:

Leave. None. Alive.

What an idiot

Mike Tomlin should be fired. Down by 5 early in the 4th quarter, he has the Steelers goes for a 2-point conversion from the 12 yard line. They fail, and set the stage for the final Steelers defeat to a team from one of the three cities that have no business having an NFL team at all, let alone a winning one.

Stephen Green says it best

to the idiots who voted for Mike Suckabee last night: "What the f*** is wrong with you people?"

Lotsa debate in the comments, both at VodkaPundit and at Hot Air.

Not exactly the "People's Liberation Army Navy"

I always thought that the Red Chinese navy would be the "People's Liberation Navy." But no. It is technically called the "People's Liberation Army Navy," which sounds stupid. How am I supposed to feel scared or intimidated by a military force with such a stupid name? It's like calling your special ops force the "Fluffies." It also sounds like a contradiction in terms.

Which is how the term "Roman navy" has traditionally been treated. And, to an extent, understandably so. But as the article titled "Masters of the Mediterranean", again by Richard A. Gabriel, in the December issue of Military History made clear, this was not the case.

This is actually the best piece I have seen on the subject, not that there is much to choose from. For such a short piece, Gabriel takes a pretty comprehensive look at the Roman navy and even details three of the four major naval engagements of the Roman era, all during the Republic:

The Battle off Mount Economus (Gabriel's term; Polybius calls it the Battle of Ecnomus Promontory) in 256 BC where a Roman invasion fleet under the consul Gaius Atilius Regulus was able to break through and invade Carthaginian Africa (where they were defeated);

The Battle of the Gulf of Morbihan (technically not in the Mediterranean) in 56 BC, where Julius Caesar, facing a Gallic navy with immensely strong ships (made of oak) that were immune to ramming but had no oars, simply immobilized the fleet by using long, sharp hooks to pull down their halyards and sails;

The Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where Octavius Caesar (Octavian) defeated Roman and Ptolemaic Egyptian naval forces under Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII Philopater (Cleopatra) to gain mastery of the Roman realm.

Oddly, Gabriel only mentions en passant the Battle of the Aegates Islands in 241 BC, which actually ended the First Punic War in a victory for Rome.

A few particular struck me about this article. First was the sheer magnitude of Roman losses in the First Punic War -- 600 warships, 1,000 transports and 400,000 deaths -- due not to battle itself, but simply to rough seas. Sailing in antiquity was a dangerous endeavor, which was more dangerous for the Romans in the first Punic War by the advent of the corvus ("Raven"), the rotating spiked plank which enabled the Romans to defeat the Carthaginians at sea but made their ships very unstable. Normally, ancient navies would stay close to shore, which was safer, but it also necessitated an army to protect them on land. The Athenians ignored this rule in the almost comical "battle" at Aegospotami and lost the Peloponnesian War as a result.

More interesting to me is Gabriel's description of the Battle of Actium. Actium is shrouded in mystery. There is very, very little information in ancient sources about what actually happened during the engagement between Octavius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. The most famous feature was Cleopatra's squadron fleeing the battle in the middle of it. The result was William Shakespeare's romanticized account of it, which appears to have little basis in reality, aside from Cleopatra's flight.

What we do know is that Antony, with his ally Cleopatra, planned to take on Octavius for mastery of Rome. Their objective was an invasion of Italy itself. Their primary asset was a very large navy, a Roman outfit built around the cadre of the Egyptian navy, which was apparently considered very, very good by ancient standards. Antony had his army as well. He was a war hero, a popular figure in Rome.

Octavius, meanwhile was facing riots due to the high taxes he had to impose to built his own military machine to fight Antony and Cleopatra. He was a politician who had no military experience, but he had Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a brilliant Roman commander in the tradition of Julius Caesar, and he delegated military matters to him.

This is where it gets a little mysterious. Antony moved his fleet and troops from his main base in Alexandria to the Ambracian Gulf in northwest Greece. Why? No one knows. As best I can figure, it was isolated, so Octavius would have difficulty monitoring his movements, and close to Italy, so Antony could move his invasion force across the Adriatic quickly.

But it was more than just isolated, it was hot, malarial and pretty desolate. An army and navy of the size Antony had was going to have an extremely difficult time supplying itself with forage from the Ambracian Gulf region. Antony would have to supply the troops from outside the gulf region, except the gulf's isolation meant that he could not use the normal Greek ports such as Corinth and bring the supplies overland. He set up a network of naval bases to shuttle supplies up from Egypt for his forces.

That network would prove to be his undoing. Agrippa seized one of those bases, at the Greek port of Methone, during the summer of 31 BC. Antony and his troops were now cut off. Worse for him, while Antony was distracted by the loss of his supply base at Methone, Agrippa landed Octavian's fleet and troops just outside the Ambracian Gulf, across from the peninsula of Actium (which, in another mystery, has since been renamed La Punta). Agrippa set up camp in a strong defensive position on the heights overlooking the Ambracian Gulf.

By just these two acts, his campaign to rule Rome had become an unmitigated disaster for Antony. His troops and fleet were now cut off from supplies, in a hot, humid and desolate part of Greece prone to malaria and other diseases, and vulnerable to parasites that had the unpleasant side effect of eating the wood his ships. His fleet was blockaded in the Gulf by Agrippa's forces, sustained at his nearby anchorage. Antony could not drive them from the anchorage because the defenses of the heights were too strong, and Agrippa refused to give battle with his land forces. Agrippa was well prepared; all Agrippa had to do was wait for Antony to make the move everyone knew was coming.

Meanwhile, Octavius solidified his political position at the expense of Antony. The Roman declaration of war was against Cleopatra, not Antony, so Antony's alliance with her was thereby branded as treasonous. A good part of Antony's support in the Roman Senate was thus stripped. Much of what remained was driven off by what was perceived to be the arrogance of Cleopatra.

That summer, disease and desertions wracked Antony's forces, his political support eroded to the point where Octavius (one of the master politicians in all of history) now had a commanding advantage, and Agrippa tightened the noose around Anthony's Actium position by seizure of Levkas and other areas.

The Battle of Actium was thus already decided before it was fought on September 2, 31 BC. Antony and Cleopatra had lost. What remained was simply to see how much they could salvage.

Antony's fleet had been reduced from its high of about 500 that summer to now some 200 ships, with 20,000 marines and 2,000 archers. Most of these ships were large quinquerimes and even several deciremes. Included in this force was a 60-ship Egyptian squadron, containing Cleopatra and the pay for Antony's troops, which operated behind the main battle line and apparently took no part in the actual fighting. One facet Gabriel does not mention is that Antony's ships all had their sails stowed onboard; sails were normally left ashore when battle was expected, as they were only useful for long voyages and were a liability in battle. This nugget is suggestive of an attempt to break out and escape from the trap Actium had become.

Agrippa had some 400 ships with 16,000 marines and 3,000 archers. These were mostly smaller liburnae -- biremes. The desertions among Antony's forces may have resulted in Antony's battle plan falling into Agrippa's hands. Antony apparently planned to use the archers and catapults on his towering ships to sweep the man from the decks of Agrippa's ships, then seize the smaller biremes with grappling irons fired from catapults or ballistae and board them with his marines. Agrippa had other ideas.

As I noted earlier, the details of the battle are extremely sketchy from ancient sources. According to Montagu, Plutarch says that Agrippa's right wing "backed water" (backed up) to lure Antony's left wing forward, and then Agrippa executed an outflanking movement. Since I don't yet have a copy of Plutarch's story of Antony, I can't confirm that. But it is not inconsistent with Gabriel's version.

Agrippa appears to have backed water, either to lure Antony from the land protections of the Actium promontory, to keep out of range of Antony's missiles, or both. He then tried to outflank Antony, or at least feigned doing to. Antony was forced to extend his line to prevent being outflanked, possibly reaching back to the coast at Actium. In doing so, he increased the distance between each of his ships.

This was the opening Agrippa had been looking for. With the distance between Antony's ships opening, their ability for mutual support was correspondingly reduced. Agrippa then sent his smaller, more maneuverable biremes in to attack Antony's larger, more ponderous ships. The preferred tactic here was to have several of Agrippa's biremes attack each of Antony's larger ships.

The biremes would come in, evading Antony's grappling attempts, and sheer off the oars of Antony's ships, immobilizing them. In other instances the biremes would ram their larger targets and back away, again evading the grappling irons. Much of Antony's fleet was immobilized this way. Instead of boarding the immobilized ships, Agrippa had them torched with flammables launched from his own catapults and ballistae.

Seeing the battle was not going well, Cleopatra's squadron at the first opportunity hoisted their sails and fled for Egypt. Antony soon followed. The remaining ships, demoralized by both their losses and the flight of their commander, surrendered to Octavius.

Antony's army never made it back to Egypt, but surrendered to Octavius as well.

Like I said, Gabriel's article touches on a rarely discussed subject. I need to explore it further.

Three words

Mike Huckabee sucks.

Honor killings

in Texas?

Sacrificing one's children to an angry and vengeful god is as old as religion, and was a staple of Punic culture, most (in)famously in Carthage, where babies were sacrificed to appease their gods. It's somewhat hazy, but one version has the sacrifice being to the god Baal in a ritual called moloch; other versions have the god named Moloch. In any event, as Will Cuppy noted, they did this to save their own skins, since it obviously did the children no good.

It is inherently selfish on the part of the parents, particularly the fathers. And it is a mark of barbarity that has no place in civilization. Indeed, it is the opposite of civilization.

One might use these descriptions for the version of the Islamic faith that demands such practices. Anyone who insists on doing this stuff, or that it is somehow OK, should be taken out and shot. It is absolutely unacceptable.

Dumb question

Why don't we have all the presidential primaries and caucuses on the same day? Why do we have to give give friggin' Iowa and New Hampshire the biggest say in the presidential race?It's like Indiana giving the biggest say in the gubernatorial race to Benton County, or California giving it to Imperial County. Why?

It's stupid. Put all the primaries on the same day.

Tasteless Joke of the Day

Why did Tatiana the Tiger at the San Francisco Zoo try to eat those three teenagers?

Because they're GRRRRRRREAT!!!

That's me, the Professional Cynic. AKA Mr. Sensitivity.

Some tigers

deserve to be shot.

Others, not so much.

I mean, my guess is that the reports of those teenagers taunting Tatiana the tiger are probably true. Tigers in zoos don't just spontaneously attack people. They usually need to be provoked.

While I understand Tatiana had turned her attention toward police, necessitating her shooting, I do wish there had been some other way of restraining her. I have never understood the need to destroy wild animals, be they tigers, bears, cougars, alligators, sharks or somesuch, when they attack people. They just are doing what such animals are supposed to do, do by instinct. They can't help what they do. People usually can, which is why I supported the death penalty for Michael Vick.

Plus, let's face it, Tatiana was significantly higher on the food chain than any fan of the SEC, particularly LSU.

And, on a related note, no, I do not believe my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes will beat LSU on Monday. We will lose to LSU. The Romans lost Teutoberger Wald, too, but that didn't make the Germans more civilized than the Romans. Far from it.

Though they were obviously far more civilized than the SEC.

Let the flaming begin in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...

The holes in the narrative of Zama

Possibly in an attempt to make up for its disturbing leftward tilt as of late, the last two issues of Military History magazine have contained some of the best articles I have ever seen. The January/February issue contains the article "Zama: Turning Point in the Desert," a missive about the Battle of Zama in 202 BC by Richard A. Gabriel in an obvious preview of his upcoming book about Publius Cornelius Scipio, surnamed Africanus for his defeat of Hannibal Barca at Zama.

Gabriel does a very good job giving not just a tactical account of the battle itself (and not jiust a strategic account, which is the easiest of all) but an operational account that is rarely ever discussed. Why did Hannibal give battle when and where he did?

The issue, according to Gabriel, was time. Scipio and Hannibal both had competing branches of Numidian cavalry. The Numidians had been a feared arm of the Carthaginian land forces since the start of the Second Punic War, but Rome convinced the Numidian Prince Masinissa, who had helped in the defeat and death of Scipio's father in battle in the Upper Baetis (Guadalquivir) River region of Spain, to change sides in a power struggle for the Numidian throne. Masinissa took his cavalry with him. His rival for the throne, Vermina, stayed with Hannibal for obvious reasons, but the Carthaginian advantage in cavalry was gone.

In Gabriel's view, Hannibal had to take the battle to Scipio, for Scipio's army was terrorizing the area around Carthage. Both Scipio's and Hannibal's infantry were separated from their cavalry, so each needed to effect a rendezvous to gain the tactical advantage. Scipio won the race. Hannibal, some 80 miles southwest of Carthage, had the advantage in infantry numbers but very little cavalry. He could not retreat, for Scipio's cavalry would catch up with him, (as they had done with Scipio's uncle, at the same time Scipio's fafther was killed, at Ilorci in Spain). So he had to fight on disadvantageous terms. According to Gabriel, Hannibal's tactics in the coming battle were designed to eliminate Scipio's advantage in cavalry and prevent the encirclement of Hannibal's forces by same. Ultimately, Hannibal's forces would in fact be encircled by the Roman/Numidian cavalry and defeated.

But I do wonder if something else was in play here. It's somewhat hard to tell here because, to this day, no one knows where the Zama battlefield is. There are several ancient (non-biblical) battles whose exact locations have yet to be identified, such as Caudine Forks in 321 BC (Roman army surrendered without a fight after being trapped by Samnites), the "Plain of Alsace" in 58 BC (using John Drogo Montagu's term for the battle, which others call the Battle of Vosges; Julius Caesar drives the Gauls across the Rhine) and the Gulf of Morbihan in 56 BC (again using Monatgu's term; Julius Caesar defeats the Gallic navy at sea by literally ripping their sails down). But Zama is by far the most famous such battle in antiquity, and might be as famous as the Battle of Tours, whose location is also unknown.

Knowing the exact location of the battle would help. We know -- mostly, as I will discuss below -- how the battle was handled tactically by Scipio and Hannibal. But there does seem to have been an operational aspect that Gabriel does not mention. Hannibal may indeed have been forced to give battle under disadvantageous circumstances, but not necessarily for the reasons Gabriel suggests.

Both Livy and Polybius make reference to Scipio setting up his camp on a hill with a water supply. Hannibal set up his camp on a hill four miles away, but without water. Montagu describes Hannibal's lack of water as "a factor which played a part in the battle to come." But he never describes how. Neither do Livy or Polybius,on whom Montagu based his work.

My view is that maybe Gabriel was right in that Hannibal needed to give battle where he did, but not necessarily when. He could have sit tight and waited for Vermina to bring his cavalry to even out the cavalry disparity and give Hannibal the overall advantage. But he did not. Why? To me the answer is obvious -- he was with his army in the desert and he was running out of water. Very bad things can happen to you when you are an army in the desert with no water.

Hannibal could not move because Scipio would chase him down with cavalry. He could not wait for Vermina because his army was running out of water. He had to fight then and there. Hannibal had made a career, a legend, out of giving battle only under advantageous circumstances, some of which he had created. Here he was outgeneraled at this very game. And he lost as a result.

I hope Gabriel addresses this in his book, because it was not in the otherwise excellent article.

Another factor of some mystery not addressed at least directly in Gabriel's article is what happened to Hannibal's elephants. Livy says that Hannibal fielded 80 elephants, by far the most he had ever employed. Gabriel says this number was actually closer to twenty. I tend to believe Gabriel on this one.

Scipio had deployed his infantry to minimize the damage caused by an elephant charge, giving them corridors through which to run without hurting his legionaries, as elephants generally did not turn or change course when they charged. It was largely successful, except for some light troops who got caught in the way. But what precisely happened to the elephant is the cause of some dispute.

What appears to be the legend is that Hannibal ordered his elephants to charge the Romans. Scipio countered with his buglers and trumpeters, who would normally deliver orders musically in a way that could be heard over the din of battle (this is where the diddy followed by "Charge!" you hear at ballgames comes from). They were ordered to play all at once as loudly as they could. The cacophony they created caused the elephants to panic, some running through the Roman ranks causing no damage, others turning around and running back into the Carthaginian ranks, causing considerable "friendly-fire" casualties.

It is a nice narrative, and part of the Scipio legend. I want to believe it, because it seems so brilliant, so unorthodox, so ... Scipio. I'm just not sure it is true.

Livy and Polybius disagree on whether Hannibal had ordered his elephants to charge when Scipio ordered his musical countermeasures. Gabriel mentions that the elephants panicked, but attributes this to the javelins of the light troops and makes no mention of Scipio's order. I have seen other accounts that say the noise of the trumpeters did panic the elephants, but make no mention of an order to that effect given by Scipio.

I'd like to believe it, and since I can think of no other instance where elephants were panicked simply by javelins, I tend to think it's true, but I wish there was more evidence.

One final thing: the legend of the Zama has the first Carthaginian line manned by mercenaries, as the Carthaginians traditionally employed mercenaries instead of their own people. When the mercenaries were forced to fall back, the second line, composed of actual Carthaginians (who were raw recruits) and veteran Greek troops refused to support them. The mercenaries then mutinied and turned on the second line in anger. Somehow, though, the second line managed to fight off both its own mercenaries and the Romans.

It sounds true. The Carthaginians were a notoriously brutal people, far moreso than the Romans. Which was why they could not find too many allies in Italy or keep their allies in Spain once Scipio came along.

Alas, Gabriel says this narrative is not credible. The second Carthaginian line with its raw levies around a Greek center could not have fought off both the mercenaries and the Romans. More likely, Gabriel says, the mercenaries falling back reached the second line at the same time as the pursuing Romans and were caught in the crossfire.

An excellent read. There is no online version, unfortunately, so you'll have to search for a copy of it in a bookstore.

I said Military History had two excellent articles. This was the second of them. The first was from the December issue and concerned the Roman navy. I'll hit that in a later post.

No writers strike for me

As a result of all the DVD's I just added to my collection. In addition to two seasons of CSI: NY (featuring the World's Most Perfect Girl, Melina Kanakaredes, though having Marina Black in an episode hardly hurts) and Bones (featuring the Almost the World's Most Perfect Girl Except for Her Obnoxious Libreralism, Emily Deschanel), I just got the Fifth Season of the Warren Township of Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. For like Warren Township, DS9 was never really appreciated and was even looked down upon.

But DS9 had many of the best episodes in Trekdom, with Season 5's "A Call to Arms," with the start of the war against the Dominion, being the absolute best episode in the entire Star Trek genre. And it had some of the best characters in Trekdom, led by the hilarious Vorta ambassador of the Dominion, Weyoun, played by Jeffrey Combs.

Just because

When I hear music
It makes me dance
You've got the music
Here's my chance

-- "When I Hear Music," Trinere, 1993; overheard at a tailgate outside Qualcomm (San Diego Jack Murphy) Stadium 11/11/07

A hockey game in Buffalo

My Pittsburgh Penguins took on the Buffalo Sabres to day in Buffalo, but not at the HSBC Center or whatever they're calling their arena these days. But instead at Ralph Wilson Stadium:

Sidney Crosby's shootout goal will always be frozen in time.

The Penguins captain somehow saw space between Ryan Miller's pads as he shifted through driving snow and gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres at the outdoor Winter Classic in front of an NHL-record 71,217 fans on Tuesday.

In elements way more suited for football than hockey, Crosby won the NHL's second outdoor game -- and first in the United States -- in the most dramatic of fashion at Ralph Wilson Stadium, home to the NFL's Buffalo Bills.

Crosby skated down the middle, eluded a pokecheck by Miller and put a shot between the goalie's pads on the final round of the shootout.

Ty Conklin allowed Ales Kotalik's goal to open the tiebreaker before stopping Tim Connolly and Maxim Afinogenov.

Kris Letang also scored for the Penguins, pushing his shootout record to 4-for-4.

Colby Armstrong gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead just 21 seconds after the opening faceoff, and Brian Campbell tied it 1:25 into the second.

Despite both teams dressed in retro-style jerseys, this games was decided by the most modern of methods -- the shootout. Surprisingly, Zambonis didn't clean the ice as they would for a regular NHL game.

Given the choice of which goal to defend, both Miller and Conklin picked the West end to avoid the heavy snow that swirled and poured in toward the right.

Blowing winds and dropping temperatures worked against everyone inside the vast stadium that easily housed the hockey rink between the 16-yard lines. By the time the shootout became necessary, no one seemed to mind the typical January weather in western New York.

With the success of this event, it seems likely the NHL would seek to host more, perhaps even on an annual basis.

"When you see 70,000 people packed into a stadium to watch hockey, that's usually a good sign," Crosby said.

The record crowd that topped the one in Edmonton four years earlier, cheered and took pictures as the conclusion approached. The camera flashes dotted the entire stadium as each of the six shooters came in on goal through lake-effect snow.

When Crosby saw the puck cross the goal line, he spun toward the jubilant Penguins bench and jumped up and down with his hands raised.

Fans in the lower bowl stood throughout to get a better view of the puck as they looked out over the height of the rink's boards and the NBC and CBC television broadcast platforms behind the penalty boxes.

The biggest cheers came from hits and the few good scoring chances. Boos broke out when Penguins fans were pictured on the big video board behind where Crosby scored the winner.

The snow and cold was embraced. One enthusiastic patron held a poster that read, "Look Mom, no roof."

That was most clear in the final five minutes of regulation when snow fell at its heaviest clip and continued at that pace through the finish.

Miller and Conklin both had one game of experience playing a major game in the great outdoors, but neither owned a victory. Miller earned a 3-3 tie for Michigan State against Michigan in the 2001 "Cold War" game in front of 74,554 fans.

Conklin took the loss in host Edmonton's 4-3 defeat to Montreal on Nov. 22, 2003, during the NHL's first outdoor game that was attended by 57,167.

It was almost like the people there actually enjoyed the weather like we did in Cleveland a few weeks ago.

Yes, they took an indoor sport in Buffalo, put it outdoors for a day in the midst of a snowstorm, and they get a sellout crowd of 71,000+ at Ralph Wilson Stadium -- more than three times what they would get at their normal venue. The camera shots showed almost no empty seats.

Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, they take an outdoor sport (involving a team they stole from loyal fans) and play it indoors out of fear that no one will show up if they have to battle the elements. Like real fans do.

Any wonder why I neither like nor respect the Colts or their fans?

Just when you thought she couldn't get any more vile

Cindy Sheehan defaces the Rose Bowl Parade.

I was out there in 1997 when my Buckeyes played. If she had tried this when I was out there, my friends and I would have gone and punched her in the mouth. Come to think of it, that might happen anyway. USC ain't no bastion of marxism like UCLA is.

Freedom of speech ends at treason, and Sheehan crossed that line long ago. I can't say she should have been aborted, like I have others, because some good actually came of her life -- she produced a soldier who gave his life for our freedom, for which we should be grateful. But she should be tried for treason.

(h/t: Instapundit)