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A Terrible Resolve.

And I find that, I too, am a Jacksonian.

I would also add, should we cry havoc and set loose the dogs of war, we will save a pup or two for any who stand in our way at home.

Are you listening Mr Keller?

Excerpt From "The Jacksonian Tradition" By Walter Russell Mead

Jacksonian America has clear ideas about how wars should be fought, how enemies should be treated, and what should happen when the wars are over. It recognizes two kinds of enemies and two kinds of fighting: honorable enemies fight a clean fight and are entitled to be opposed in the same way; dishonorable enemies fight dirty wars and in that case all rules are off.

An honorable enemy is one who declares war before beginning combat; fights according to recognized rules of war, honoring such traditions as the flag of truce; treats civilians in occupied territory with due consideration; and -- a crucial point-- refrains from the mistreatment of prisoners of war. Those who surrender should be treated with generosity. Adversaries who honor the code will benefit from its protections, while those who want a dirty fight will get one.

Read the rest here: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_1999_Winter/ai_58381618/print

"I'll tell you what war is about; You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting." Curtis LeMay.

Now I Are Smart

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Music To Take The Edge Off

Thag's Anger Songs >:[
"Judgement Day", Son House.
"The Game", Disturbed.
"Die Muthafucker Die", Dope.
"Du Hast", Rammstein (auf Deutsche!)
"Give It Revolution" Suicidal Tendencies.
"How Will I Laugh Tomorrow", Suicidal Tendencies.
"Painkiller", Judas Priest.
"Sing Sing Sing", Benny Goodman and his orchestra.
"Seasons In The Abyss", Slayer.
"Just One Fix", Ministry.
"I Don't Wanna Be Me", Type O Negative.
"Head Like A Hole", Nine Inch Nails.
"Teen Angst", Cracker.
"Dr Mabuse, 13th Life Mix", Propaganda.
"Last Cup of Sorrow", Faith No More.
"Sure Got Cold After The Rain Fell", ZZ Top.

Can We Take Off The Gloves Now

I just found out the condition the bodies of PFC Tucker and PFC Menchaca were found in.

I reiterate my position that treating partisans like troops is a mistake and summary execution after brutal interrogation is the proper and legal method.

When they want to be treated like troops again they can start acting like troops.

I also think that we start using the Curtis LeMay definition of precision bombing again. Besides, fire missions on a four digit coordinate set is much easier.

This war lasts as long as we want it to. That is a defining point of asymetrical warfare. The big guy defines the fight and stays only as long as he wants. The other side counts on the big guy getting fed up and leaving. It also counts on us never using the full power at our disposal.

The LeMay method worked in Germany. The LeMay method work in the island hopping campaign. It will work again.

All we have to do is say, "We tried to minimize civilian casualties, but the targets are simply too integrated with the civilians to discriminate clearly between them." The obvious part of that statement is we will no longer attempt to minimize damage when prosecuting targets. Noncombatants figure it out very quickly.

And I don't give a shit about "them". I care about "us". And if killing all of "them" saves even one "us" so be it. I am brutal and unforgiving.

And I still think we have a job to finish.

For SGT Adam Plumondore.

And Just In Case You Forgot (And Lots Of You Seem To Have)

Nazi is a derogatory shortening of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or National Socialist German Worker's Party.

Note the SOCIALIST part of that before you go bragging about your political beliefs.

Communism is also a form of Socialism.

Socialism as a whole has had governments MURDER HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE try to remember that when you tell me about how great the program you are selling is.

And if you had asked where a mass muder of Jews was most likely to occur, the poll would have answered, "The most anti-semetic nation on the earth, the USA," not Germany, so don't tell me "It can't happen here."

Enviro Law Rant

Why do I think that global warming is either not real, or not caused by Man?

Al Gore believes that both are true. http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

Actually I lean toward the not caused by Man, especially since Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all show signs of warming. Our sun is a variable star, and it is making more output than ever recorded lately.

I am not saying we should return to the days of 8 mpg land yachts, that gives too much power to OPEC. And the pollution caused by that is real.

I am saying that last time(s) we tried to legislate the fixes without understanding the causes we spent a lot of money for no measurable effect.

The AIR pump, mandated on all cars sold in the USA after 1976, injects air into the exhaust stream to make the catalytic converter work better; better catalytic converter design and fuel injected engines made this a teat on a boar.

Catalytic converters themselves! Platinum is used for making jewelry, plating to stop corrosion and as a catalyst in the production of acids. Oh, and in catalytic converters. What they really do is cause a reaction in the exhaust gasses that changes those gasses into something that the EPA doesn't care about. And many of those compounds react with air, water and sunlight to make acids. Acid rain anyone?

R-134; actually developed as a prototype technology demonstration to prove that you could make a refrigerant without CFC. It was not intended to be a direct replacement of R-12 (real freon). Once a non-CFC gas was available at all, the government moved up the no-CFC mandate day by fifteen years and required that R-134 be used instead of R-12 in new cars from that day on. R-134 is not compatible with the older R-12, and it doesn't work as well. DuPont maintains that a non-CFC, direct R-12 replacement gas is possible and could be made cheaply, but the law mandates that only R-12 or R-134 be used in older units and only R-134 in newer units. And if a better refrigerant is developed? Why would it be, the company making it is legislated out of marketing it, so why bother developing it?

And the hole in the ozone layer in Antarctica closed on its own too soon to have been helped by reduced CFC emissions from the US and Europe. And total CFC emissions have not dropped yet because places like Mexico, Pakistan, India and China are still making as much or more as we used. And people wonder why the economy took a hit... Gee, Einstein, we just made it illegal to do some things here until we come up with an enviro-happy way to do it. Things that we still need done. We can still get them done in China. Once we export the expertise to do the job and the people who used to do it here find new jobs while we develop the enviro-happy process, we wont have people locally who can do the job once the new process is ready! DUH!

But, by and large, Congress is populated by lawyers. Congress is not populated by engineers, scientists or economists. And some wonder why they get it wrong so consistently.

One More Damn Thing

Lost the primary cooling fan on the Biscayne.

That would explain why it was running a little hot. It's not running at all when I am stopped or going slow and is an obstruction when at speed.

Remember fans that worked as long as the engine ran? Me too.

Good And Bad

Good! Got the mortgage reinstatement check to our lawyer and he got it to their lawyer. He says that it should be automatic as what they sent us constitutes an offer, that we accepted and paid.

Bad! Mom is selling her house in Las Cruces and moving to an ACLF in Denver. This gets her in the same city as my sister, who earns the "good kid" title for all time for being the "go to" girl on helping Mom out. All Mom had talked about for a long time before retiring was a little house in the desert and a cactus garden.

Bad! Every conversation with Mom has been about her estate. First it was what did we plan on doing with it, then it was did I think my marriage was solid enough that it wouldn't just be taken in a divorce. She's all over the map and it's kinda scary.

And my sister really deserves the lion's share of the inheritance. She's really always been the attentive child with the relationship with Mom. If Mom splits it 50-50, it really is screwing Sis.

Another bad thing is she is treating me like I was 16 again, where you could tell I was lieing because my lips were moving. You might turn over a new leaf and go straight, but you are never forgiven by your parents. Yes, Mom, I used to lie a lot. No, Mom, I don't any more. I discovered that it wasn't worth it, but when you treat me like I never changed, it makes me wonder why I bothered changing.

Wrenching For Fun And Profit

The Lovely Harvey's car threw codes last week and started running rough. Corvette John's scan tool told us it was "Random Misfiring". Gee, how uninformative.

We figured the first place to look was the spark plugs and wires.

Wow, what a mess. Today was the very first spark plug change EVER done to the car. It has 123,251 miles on it. Holy stinking spit!

Three of the plug boots popped off the wires when I twisted them off the plug. All of the plugs had badly eroded electrodes and bridges.

The short test drive went well. Hopefully it will run like new tomorrow when Harvey takes it to work.

Update: Once more into the breach!

Plugs and wires weren't it. It is better, but still sputters above 45.

Got a coil. Hope that is it because it's cheap and easy.

If that doesn't cure it, we need an optispark. Which is not cheap or easy.

The Dragon Is Slain

At least the laptop works...

I am in the process of reformatting the new hard drive because, while it worked by itself, it would not boot when the old IDE drives were connected.

I am thinking that it is a configuration binding issue and that reinstalling XP will fix things if I format and install with the old drives present.

If this doesn't fix things, I will be forced to take the old drives to someone with a DVD burner and copy my data over the old fashioned way.

Update:

For the record, XP Home sucks.

When you install the OS, every drive you intend to run had better be hooked up or it brain farts. At least if there are boot sectors on any of those drives. It can account for them if they are present when you partition and install, but not later.

It was trying to assign drive letter G: to my boot hard drive. XP can't do that.

I also messed up repartitioning and reinstalling the OS. I grabbed the XP Pro disks for the laptop. I got all the way to "Enter the CD Key" before I caught my error.

I am a bit surprised by what I am NOT installing. Most of Office is not installed now. Open Office 2.0 is my preferred suite. Only Outlook 2000 is on now.

iTunes had a hiccough when I moved the music files from the old C drive to the current C.

IL-2 4.05m moved painlessly from the old drive to the new without needing a reinstall.

Grappling With The Beast

The long awaited upgrade has begun!

The 250gig SATA drive is formatting with Windows XP SP2 (upgrade) now. And some called me mad for saving the old 98 CD. MAD! Well, who's laughing maniacally now? BWAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Corvette John stopped over during the mechanical process of swapping hardware and getting the BIOS set up. He held the calming 3 Cell Mag Lite, just to calm me down if I messed something up... Luckily, no clue had to be forcibily applied.