Even RINOs, now.

That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; 3-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives - when everyone, everyone, knows that none of these people is a threat to anyone.

The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesn't need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water, like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning "I rely on God," killing all on board.

But we must not bring that up. We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to ensure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety - 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling - when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.

The junk man's revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? Okay. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.

If you were in yesterday's comment thread, you may have noticed me coming closer and closer to the "Don't Touch My Junk" position. At some point I said so.

I was moved to that position by a few arguments:

1. First, I really thought this was a lot of internet-noise claptrap, since most of the links I'd seen had gone to Prison Planet, and the pat-downs being discussed were like the ones I'd had previously. I now have read enough to know that's not true.

2. It's different for girls-- there is a level of modesty there that really can't be breached absent seriously strong reason. It's like Elaine Benes said-- a woman's body is a work of art, while a man's is like a Jeep. It's just for gettin' around. But whether it's different for girls or not, there are sensitivities that must be respected, no matter what the situation. People are people -- either they will accept a security regime, or they won't. There is no point positing that they are other than they are and will suddenly just decide to accept naked body scans and the touching of genitals. There is a certain governmental arrogance in just assuming people will bend to the new rules. Apparently when drafting these new protocols they didn't actually bother to focus-group people to see if people were actually willing to accept them. They just figured they'd announce "This is the new policy" and that would be that.

People don't work that way in democracies, and especially in America.

3. As one commenter said (sorry, forget who) -- this is the wrong time to take the position that they won't change anything, because this is precisely the sort of, ahem, Teachable Moment when large numbers of the public are exposed to the direct consequences of PC silliness, that actual change can be had. No one thinks too had about being blown up in the sky -- it's too big a thing to contemplate; that risk is so abstract and unimaginable it doesn't register. But being invasively felt up does.

Perhaps we'll never have real, Israeli-style security -- but now is the best time to push for it, instead of meekly conceding the field, as I was doing.

4. It seems to me that this option was chosen because it was cheapest (and also the most politically correct; but cheapest too) and more expensive regimes, like having lots of chem-sniffing dogs at checkpoints and hiring lots of retired cops to do profiling/interviewing of travelers, were rejected (or actually not even considered) due to questions of cost. This being just a matter of money, then, it sure seems like people are telling them they won't accept nominally-cheap airfare at these very high costs. If it costs an extra $60-$100 per ticket to have real security, so be it.

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (412)
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Man's Penis Freed From Metal Pipe With Industrial Grinder

The hospital staff couldn't get the job done so they had to call in the fire department. Seven firefighters attended the call.

So, basically, imagine yourself lying in the hands of discreet medical professionals, being helped out of a tender and embarrassing situation. That's not so bad.

But then the most macho men on the planet pile into your hospital room to free your sad little joint with a large industrial grinder.

This scenario is just exactly like firefighters rescuing a kitten from a tree, but instead of a trembling helpless kitten, it's your dick, and instead of a tree, it's a fitting you bought at Home Depot that 'looked about right', and instead of a cheering crowd of onlookers, there's a tittering nurse and your red tear-streaked face staring at the wall in suicidal silence.

Happy ending:

The penis was left bruised and swollen, but otherwise unharmed by its traumatic day.

The man, thought to be aged around 40, did not explain to hospital staff how exactly the pipe got stuck around his penis,

Yeah, no shit.

Posted by: LauraW at 08:36 AM | Comments (366)
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One of the critiques from a lot on the right of General Stanley McChrystal's time as commander in Afghanistan was he was too focused on the soft side of COIN and not enough on more kinetic actions like bombing and shooting.

Well, Mr. COIN himself David Petraeus doesn't mind blowing shit up and killing the bad guys by the bushel.

The deployment of a company of M1 Abrams tanks, which will be fielded by the Marines in the country's southwest, will allow ground forces to target insurgents from a greater distance - and with more of a lethal punch - than is possible from any other U.S. military vehicle. The 68-ton tanks are propelled by a jet engine and equipped with a 120mm main gun that can destroy a house more than a mile away.

Despite an overall counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes the use of troops to protect Afghan civilians from insurgents, statistics released by the NATO military command in Kabul and interviews with several senior commanders indicate that U.S. troop operations over the past two months have been more intense and have had a harder edge than at any point since the initial 2001 drive to oust the Taliban government.

...

The pace of Special Operations missions to kill or capture Taliban leaders has more than tripled over the past three months. U.S. and NATO aircraft unleashed more bombs and missiles in October - 1,000 total - than in any single month since 2001. In the districts around the southern city of Kandahar, soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne Division have demolished dozens of homes that were thought to be booby-trapped, and they have used scores of high-explosive line charges - a weapon that had been used only sparingly in the past - to blast through minefields.

...

"We've taken the gloves off, and it has had huge impact," one of the senior officials said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently complained that the US was too aggressive and there is a need to dial things back. I'm guessing the company of Abrams is his answer.

When Petraeus took over from McChrystal some said it was a bad move because it showed a lack of faith in other flag officers. It made Petraeus the indispensable man. Well you know what? He kind of is.

Only Nixon could go to China and only General COIN himself could bring battle tanks to Afghanistan.

Right now there are two living American soldiers who are generally credited with winning a war....Norman Schwarzkopf and David Petraeus. Nothing gives a general credibility like victory. No matter what Petraeus does it's impossible to say "that's not how COIN works!" because Petraeus is the modern inventor of it in the US Army. If it's not in the book, he can simply pencil it in since he wrote the thing originally.

Wars are won by tough men doing impossible things with and for the guy next to them on the line but they need the right leadership and strategy from the guy making the calls. It's possible, just possible, that Petraeus can pull off something resembling a victory there. If so, David Petraeus will enter some very select company in the annals of American history.

Oh remember the upcoming strategy review and July 2011 deadline/withdrawal/transition date? That's apparently no longer operative.

Just be patient, Joe Biden says. America's longest war will totally be over ... in four years.

The vice president declared 2014 as the "drop-dead date" for the Afghanistan pullout on Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," echoing similar sentiments from the night before on CNN.

While it was never clear exactly when the U.S. would completely withdraw, President Obama had no sooner set July 2011 as the target withdrawal date than some of his key advisers publicly questioned how firm a deadline that really was.

..."What we said back last Thanksgiving and repeated again and got the living Devil beat out of us by good friends like John McCain and others, we said, ‘Look, beginning in the summer of 2011, we're going to begin to transition," Biden said on MSNBC.

"That commitment will be kept," he added. "We said then the slope and the pace of which we get out depended upon the circumstances, but we will begin to transition. And 2014 is now a date that everyone has agreed upon — NATO as well as the Afghanis — that's kind of the drop-dead date."

Looks like the dreaded neo-cons got to Obama!

The 2011 talk was always political and now the 2014 date will set liberal heads exploding.

Notice how it was left to Joe Biden to drop this little nugget while Obama is in Portugal?

But credit where it's due...I really thought Obama was going to cut and run come Hell or high water next year. He does seem committed to the fight if not in word, certainly in deed.

I remain skeptical about what can be accomplished in A-Stan long term, given it's location, lack of infrastructure, culture and a whole host of other problems that really aren't solvable by military force. That's especially true while Pakistan is still Pakistan. But if you're going to send men and women over there to fight...by God, let them fight.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:06 AM | Comments (97)
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To properly place Charlies transgressions in context, a bit reflection might be in order.

Charlie seems like he's been there forever, but another came before him, one he knocked off in a primary in June of 1970. The first two female Army generals got their stars in June of 1970. "The Long and Winding Road" was the Beatles' last #1 song in June 1970 - that's how long ago June of 1970 was.

Everyone thinks Charlie is a real "piece of work", but in reality, he's rather tepid as corrupt Harlem politicians go. Adam Clayton Powell, held the seat prior to Charlie and he was truly a "piece of work". Powell had the world class jumbo cajones to blackmail Martin Luther King into canceling civil rights marches targeted at the Democrat convention in 1960. He threatened to claim King had a homosexual relationship. King relented and canceled the marches. When it came to wielding influence and twisting(breaking) arms, Powell was real Jedi Knight, while our era's hapless Charlie is more like an 6 year old kid waving around a fake plastic made in China WalMart light saber powered by two "D" cells.

You can read all about Adam Clayton Powell here.

Curiously, Powell was also one of the few reps ever expelled from congress, but that didn't harm his popularity(at the time) at all. He had the moxie to enter and WIN the special election held to replace him! You'd never see Adam Clayton Powell sniveling and groveling before the ethics committee the way Charlie did.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:39 AM | Comments (77)
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NOTE: This will be the last Briefing of 2010. The Financial Briefing will be going on hiatus until next year. My various murder-for-hire, pimping, gun-running, and Amway businesses all require some added attention at this time of year, and I think everyone could use a mood-lightener around the holiday season, so I'll put the DOOM on the back-burner until after the holidays. There'll be enough DOOM to go around in 2011, I'm sure.

It's kind of like loaning money to a buddy who's also a recovering drug-addict: he says he needs it for new shoes, but you suspect that he's going to spend it on meth or crackrock instead. It's less a loan or investment than a comradely form of blackmail. You know you're probably never going to see your money again; but on the other hand...he's your buddy. (Hat tip to Slublog for the link.)

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling/From glen to glen, and down the mountain-side.

While we're kicking poor Ireland while it's down, it's worth remembering why it got into this mess in the first place. (Though, as in the case of Greece, you can't blame it all on the Euro; the Irish spent themsleves into insolvency. It's just that the Euro is making it very difficult -- and maybe impossible -- for them to climb out of the hole they've dug for themselves.) more...

Posted by: Monty at 03:37 AM | Comments (172)
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FRIDAY!!! more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:59 AM | Comments (121)
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60 Years of TV Catch Phrases in 134 Seconds

That's right - entire sections of your brain are devoted to remembering this stuff.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:42 PM | Comments (725)
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This again? To recap: last year, Liberty University boycotted the conservative conference over inclusion of GOProud and several other groups and individuals threatened to boycott (before they backed down). At the conference itself, an anti-gay and anti-GOProud speaker was booed from the stage.

Same ol', same ol'. A group called the American Principles Project is preemptively withdrawing from CPAC because of the inclusion of GOProud.

This decision is not taken lightly. We believe that, in general, the conservative movement is strengthened by the presence within it of organizations that give priority to particular, even single, issues. It is not necessary for each group within a political movement to embrace the fullness of a detailed and defined philosophy. But it is necessary for each group within any coherent movement not to stand in diametrical opposition to one or more of its core principles. It is our conviction that the institution of marriage and the family qualify—historically, philosophically and empirically—as such core principles. An organization committed to the ultimate abandonment of the legal and social meaning of marriage by definition disqualifies itself from recognition as a partner in the conservative cause.

Last year, of course, the American Principles Project participated in CPAC despite the presence of GOProud. That was a mistake, just as it was, in our opinion, a mistake for CPAC to countenance GOProudÂ’s participation. Having now examined closely GOProudÂ’s mission and its behavior since its inception, we can only conclude that the organizationÂ’s purposes are fundamentally incompatible with a movement that has long embraced the ideals of family and faith in a thriving civil society. Needless to say, we are deeply persuaded that a thriving civil society is an indispensable bulwark against the relentless expansion of government, a phenomenon that has gripped much of the Western world and helped to fuel the present fiscal and economic crisis.

You can click over to Red State for CPAC director Lisa De Pasquale's response.

Though I'm certain I disagree with several of APP's positions, I think the tendency of this group and others to withdraw from participation when faced with disagreement isn't ultimately going to be good for conservatism or, for what it's worth, good for those groups. We wrote here at the HQ that primaries are a good place to hash out disagreements within the GOP. Conferences like CPAC are a good place to hash out disagreements within the conservative movement.

Sorta, but not really related: In February after CPAC, there was a great deal of commentary about how the Tea Party was the "new grassroots" and that in the face of Obama's out of control spending it had displaced the more traditional GOP grassroots. I just stumbled across this from Jim Geraghty's Campaign Spot in October 2007:

“Who could possibly replace social conservatives as the GOP’s grassroots?” asked Dan Sullivan, a northern New Jersey veteran of several campaigns. “Country club Republicans? Those people write checks and spend their free time riding horses. They;re not going to take off work and drive two days to volunteer on a Senate candidate’s race like pro-lifers and homeschoolers did for Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania in 2004.”

Hmmm. As always with such things, not a permanent "replacement" -- not really a replacement at all, I think; just a shuffling of priorities -- but the Tea Party sure caught "veteran" campaigners unaware, didn't it?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:58 PM | Comments (645)
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No, but really, they are making great strides in android technology, aren't they?

But seriously, those hands. Talk about meat-paddles. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:57 PM | Comments (144)
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There is an argument offered by those on the right who are skeptical of "global warming" but still favor controlling carbon, because, well, hey, it helps, right?

Well I'm not really at all sold that controlling a perfectly unobjectionable (and vital!) gas "helps" at all.

In addition, this sort of thinking -- well, what's the harm if we just go along with this anyway? -- tends to have bad consequences.

Like, why bother getting the actual science right when you believe that the wrong answer is beneficial anyway?

I can't help but think that 90% of the global warming alarmists think this way. Okay, so maybe we have to fudge some data and some statistical techniques and invent strange new manners of determining statistical relevance because the typical ways say we can find no relevance in our weak data; but we're doing God's Work, right? So it's all good.

So, like, what's this alleged scientist doing spending so much time of his limited brain-bandwidth on issues of redistribution of wealth?

(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.

(EDENHOFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization.

Sign me up.

More at the link, too.

Thanks for DrewM. I've been lost in that TSA thread, by the way.

Posted by: Ace at 12:15 PM | Comments (175)
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