More DPRK sickness

Apparently, part of the inflated death toll after the Youngchon explosion was due to North Koreans running into burning buildings to rescue portraits of Kim Il-Sung and/or Kim Jong-Il. This is what happens when secularism takes over: the leaders of the country become the religious figureheads. It was, of course, by design. The North Korean sickness is a cancer in the hearts and minds of all citizens of the despicable country. I am unsure whether there is anything worth saving in the entire nation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Perhaps the RoKs should just pave it over and start anew. If the RoKs prefer to keep the people after decapitating the head of the nation, they need to turn the whole nation into a reeducation camp.

North Korean Disaster

By now, everyone is familiar with the Youngchon disaster. True, this blogger would love for the explosion to have been a mistimed assassination plot to finally take out one of the world's greatest evils. But reality was probably far less interesting.

Chances are, the city of Youngchon normally runs as smoothly as it can with a starving and enslaved populace. But the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il, needed to come through on his whirlwind trip to Beijing and back. Such an honor means the entire city was thrown into disarray. All people were likely pulled off of their state-mandated daily tasks to stand along the train tracks for hours before and after Kim came through. To be sure, they were all yelling and screaming madly in honor of his arrival, knowing that anything less than their best efforts meansw that each individual, all descendants and any living ancestors would find themselves in jail.

In North Korea, anyone can find themselves in prison or just dead for the slightest perceived offense. So when Youngchon had to prepare for Kim's pass-through, the normal procedures for operating the Youngchon were doubtless disrupted. The whole city was likely told to dedicate three rails just for Kim to use (one for him to ride on and one empty rail on either side). And no matter how illogical it may seem to us, the railroad operators may very well have been told to put two directions' rail travel on one remaining rail. After all, the other three rails have now been sanctified by the Dear Leader's visit and no longer are fit for normal rail use. Even if not that extreme, the DPRK railyard workers would have done exactly as they were told, regardless of the potential consequences.

Remember: it is not important that 3000 people possibly lost their lives. What is important in the DPRK, in order of significance: 1) The Dear Leader traveled through the city in both directions without any inconvenience; 2) The Dear Leader had all of his needs satisfied to and from his destination; 3) The Dear Leader saw only cheering crowds while traveling to and from Beijing; 4) The DPRK not lose face when 3000 self-sufficient North Korean zombies died, doubtless from a South Korean (translation: U.S. puppet) plot to bring shame to the DPRK (which will be met with 300,000 U.S. and ROK deaths in the coming battle of U.S. aggression).

The above contains sadly few exaggerations. One way or another, the Dear Leader's visit likely caused the explosion. Unfortunately, no one in North Korea is capable of anything so sinister as a desire to change the leadership by force.

First time

Hello everybody! Puntilious has been gracious enough to invite me to be a fellow blogger and it is much apprectiated. I am a blogging virgin so I hope everybody bears with me while I figure this out and can hopefully enlighten everyone with a different (and often contentious) viewpoint. Talk to you soon.

Old-School Sexuality

Joseph Farah talks about sexuality from the meat-and-potatoes man perspective. In his article about the "Retrosexual", he reveals how simple life is when you're not a metrosexual, transsexual, homosexual, bisexual, or any other variant of humanity. There are fewer choices to make and more time in the day, to be sure. A must-read for the average intelligent person.

Bombs and Legacies

Now, this blogger is no conspiracy theorist. But let us assume one thing: the Clinton Administration was desperate for a legacy -- a legacy that did not include national disasters. Keeping that fact in mind: were I running the show and buildings and airplanes were blowing up around me, I would want it to appear an accident or a lone gunman.

Whisperings of TWA Flight 800 have been circulating almost since the explosion itself. Now, there appear to be problems with the wandering crazy (i.e., Mr. McVeigh) theory that he (and perhaps Mr. Nichols) effected the disaster themselves. This blogger vividly remembers seeing the sketches of the "third man" all over the news when the Feds were looking for the perpetrators. He was a sort of thick gentleman with a distinctly different look that lily-white Murder McVeigh. He had introduced himself as "Jacks" (newscaster pronunciation) and no one could find him. Then, the powers that be suddenly decided he didn't exist. Well, the video in question shows "suspects" leaving the Ryder truck that started it all.

It would behoove my President to order the FBI to be open with all documents from TWA 800 and Oklahoma City. We don't want lousy conspiracy theories marring the believability of our newly restructured intelligence system. We can chalk up those past disasters to an underfunded, long-hated by the Left, poorly managed FBI and CIA. To move on, we need to recognize the past ineptitude and contrast it with today's masterful management. And one past President may simply have to accept his long-destroyed legacy.

Wolf in Wolves' Clothing

The same fantastic human being who thinks that parents should be able to euthanize disabled children thinks Bush is morally stunted. This claim comes from the same man who also believes that animals should have the same rights as humans (because us evil, narrow-minded humans engage in discriminatory "speciesism". Some idiots have given him awards for ethics. Perhaps the utter absence of ethics earned him the award(s). Such a man believes Bush to be morally inept.

Go figure: Extreme judgments cast by an extremist.

Sittin' on a Land Mine

It appears my home is about to start shaking. It's amazing that geologists can dig one hole and determine that all hell is about to break loose. And I'm concerned with the term "frequent" -- in my lifetime there have been like 4 or 5 earthquakes that have made big news (San Francisco, Northridge were the worst). So are we talking yearly? These geologists really need to be more specific. I'm concerned that perhaps geologic forecasts are like scriptural forecasts -- no one knows when it's coming!

When Talking Isn't Talking

(Hattip to Slashdot.) In some states, it appears a person can violate "illegal wiretap" laws if he or she saves the text of an online chat conversation (or Instant Messenger). It's silly, really. Totally understandable are those laws that prevent one party from recording the spoken conversations on telephone lines. Spoken words are inherently temporary. But when a person writes or types something there is automatically a record.

On paper, you have to burn it. Online, you have to clear out buffers and sometimes wipe the drive -- just ask that woman facing murder charges after she convinced an Internet boyfriend to kill her husband. The Feds searched through deleted IM buffers to get the dirt on her. But if you Cut-Paste the conversation, you can face the troublesome end of the law. It's silly, really. All you have to do is keep your buffer at 5 million lines and you get to keep that conversation. Or order the IM to deposit every conversation into a file, regardless of the sender.

The courts' real reason for interpreting the law in this manner appears to be an aim at protecting civilians from big, bad law enforcement types. Or to protect stupid people from themselves. Now after some low-life starts soliciting children for a sexual rendezvous, the Feds have to find a judge, get a warrant, and hope that in the 9 hours it took to obtain all of the above, the criminal is still typing. Huge victory for civil rights. It's probably a bigger victory for defense attorneys. It's no wonder California sits within the ranks of these 2-party-consent states. Callifornia legislators are always looking for new rules that can simultaneously help criminals and harm children.

Gradual Withdrawal from Korea

The US has announced the beginning of a withdrawal from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Korea. Every blogger gets to be a little prescient now and then. Maybe not for the specific reasons I had -- Rumsfeld has been pursuing a general military restructuring since Bush took office -- but I'm sure the RoK's recent unfriendliness helped a bit. It's about darn time we let them run their own border anyway. Maybe now we can guard our own borders...

Don't Mess With Texas

'The Alamo' and its measly $9.2 million opening weekend should send a strong message to Disney that Americans are sick of Hollywoods penchant for rewriting history. We simply do not want our heroes trashed. In typical Eisner-Disney fashion, the Americans are scum and the Mexicans are saints. We can handle a few jokes, even in bad taste, but it appears this movie was one bad joke.

Unfortunately, Disney didn't learn its lesson from this beating -- the exec quoted in the article doesn't understand what went wrong. Perhaps the whole Disney board should be replaced, if they can't see the forest for the trees. They're all so wrapped up in themselves, their shareholder fight and the Hollywood subculture that they can't admit defeat when it's handed to them so completely.

Today's little movie lesson provides a strong corollary to the Passion movie. Movies, like "Last Temptation", that trashed Christ (another hero to millions) didn't perform well. Sure, they were noticed, but people don't want to see less-than-truthful accounts that try to harm the public knowledge of their heroes. So went the Alamo. "Passion" is performing well -- and it's almost completely a "historical" account (insofar as one accepts the Gospels as history). The Alamo had to stretch pretty far in any claims of historical accuracy, and Americans remember their history of heroes.

Well, I want my heroes back. Time for a new Alamo movie. Make it with less money, preserve our heroes, and a hefty return will follow. Anything resembling the "Passion" mold -- personal fortunes invested, great efforts to follow historical texts -- and this movie's failure will be an afterthought forever.

A Little Perspective

Perhaps it's time for a little perspective on Iraq. First, a few facts.

1. We have over 100,000 troops (only about 35,000 fighting men) in a country that hasn't had a lot of love for Americans in a long time.

2. Woven in among the native Iraqi populace are several thousand foreigners, on extended vacation to learn how to kill Americans.

3. Here at home, a significant percentage of the population has no stomach for violence whatsoever. Another significant percentage suffer from the mob mentality where you're never safe unless you're surrounded by like-minded fools.

Now remember some facts about our own nation-building. In 1776, only about 1/3 of the colonists supported the Revolution. A full 1/3 felt exactly the opposite and actively worked against it. The remaining 1/3 did not care either way.

Many people in America (and in opinion polls around the world) seem to only want to try to accomplish something in Iraq if all Iraqis are for it. The truth is, we only need 33% to really yearn for freedom and democracy. But just as true is the amount of trouble our troops would be in if 33% of Iraqis were working against them. We know we have a good percentage of Iraqis on our side. The trick is to convince them to shoot/arrest/quell their neighbors if they try to stop the good work being done there.

The Fallujah mob showed us what side of the fence the city sits. Whoever wasn't actively fighting the Americans were fine sitting by while it happened. But how many cities have a more favorable mix? It is possible that Fallujah will never be happy with the upcoming political regime. After all, murderous Saddam lavished gifts (i.e., refrained from torturing their daughters) on the citizens of Fallujah. Now that he is gone, they will have to bribe/lobby politicians like everyone else.

Americans expect too much. We haven't had to fight for our freedom in a long, long time. Now we're fighting for someone else's freedom and we expect everyone to get jiggy with it. It's no wonder the Poles are there helping us. They lost many lives trying to win their freedom -- and all Poles remember the struggle.

It's the Email, Stupid.

A soldier in Kuwait racked up $3,000 in past due cell phone bills. First of all, T-Mobile just earned a little warmth in this blogger's heart. The company will cover the bill because he's a soldier. But seriously, he's an irresponsible soldier who should learn how to type. Email can be just as meaningful (and you can save it for later). And with the break he's getting, I'm worried other young soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will think they're entitled to the same forgiveness.

Ball and Chain, My Foot.

Cal Thomas writes about Dubya's most valuable asset: Laura Bush. Essentially, the First Lady is calm under pressure and generally resides above the fray. When questioned, she takes it all in stride and is her husband's greatest advocate.

In truth though, a wife is always her husband's greatest asset. Wives keep us in line; moderate our excesses, remind us of our humanity, and all before breakfast. Never mind the budget, the kids, the meals (even in our progressive family of sharing all household chores and meal-making), and everything else. Without our wives, we husbands would be forever boys.