The War on Bed Bugs in NYC

[Editor’s Note: Every so often somebody writes something so interesting on our super-secret internal email list that we feel obliged to share it. This time it was a rant on the return of bed bugs of all things. Since Angry Military Man is too busy to post this himself, the duty has fallen to your hombre-in-chief Angry New Mexican. I’ve also included a few select comments by other Angry Men which tickled my funny bone. Enjoy, muchachos!]

Angry Military Man
Bedbugs are real, they are very thin (thinner than a sheet of paper) tiny as bags (width of a full grown adult is about the size of pen dot) that hide away in tiny crevices (like between pages in books), cracks (in the floor/ceiling/wall/electrical wiring) and especially fabric (bedding, box springs, rigs, chairs, etc).

They go several days to weeks between feedings, and each feeding launches them to the next stage of growth (about 7 levels) at which they then begin to breed profusely. The eggs they lay take between 3 days to 3 weeks to hatch. They can go without feeding for over a full year before starving to death, and 4-6 months without oxygen.

They are immune to most all commercial pesticides in use (even Borax). Effectively, only direct contact enzyme killers that eat away the protein exoskeleton, and silica based powders that slice and dice em work. The trouble with all other poisons etc that are residual contact killers is that bedbugs can sense and avoid them… very very well. Roach bombs and fumigation don’t have particles small enough to reach into the cracks where they hide, so only very special nerve gas agents actually work to kill them if you tent a building. The military learned to deal with them in the third world countries by temperature control. Cover a building and raise the internal temperature to above 130 degrees for 12 hours will kill them, as does below freezing (the ENTIRE building) for 6-9 days.

Their one Achilles heel so to speak was DDT. They couldn’t sense it, and even the remotest traces of it killed the fuckers dead in minutes. This is why people think that bedbugs are a myth. For nearly 4 decades America sprayed every damn thing with DDT, which soaks into wood and has the ability to residual kill bedbugs for 30-40 years. So with every building essentially a chemical death trap for the critters, they essentially disappeared. However they existed elsewhere in the third world etc. Once the US banned the use of DDT back in the 70’s the defense against them declined.

Fast forward to modern day, and you get travelers from overseas, who get hitchhikers in their luggage and either bring them home, or bring them to a USA hotel. Being that cleanliness has nothing to do with the bedbugs (it neither draws nor kills nor deters them and in fact apparently encourages the spread of them as they scatter and spread when smelling cleaning agents) almost every single major 4 and 5 star hotel checked by the health departments in NYC, LA, Boston, and SF has tested positive for bedbug infestation in at least some portions of the hotel.

Cities are getting them faster as the article mentions due to used furniture and clothing, but they spread in other ways (physical contact on the streets from person to person in the dense subways). Building to building, and through electrical wiring and plumbing. as well as through used books (they LOVE hiding in between pages). They have also been cropping up in new books (that go through warehouses housing old books) and mattresses (through the delivery vehicles carting off used mattresses next to new ones).

Thankfully they are nothing more than a nuisance unless one is highly allergic. But they are near impossible to get rid off, and truly do take over one’s life.

For those not in the ‘know’ my Brooklyn apartment building got them and though we never got rid of them, I managed to control them in my place so that I went months without a sighting or bite, and when I finally moved I managed to rid myself of them so that they did not follow me. This is very rare and in bedbug support groups I am known as one of the ‘survivor’ stories.

Angry Immigrant
I like nature and all, but I like DDT, too. We need some non-“Silent Spring” hippies to study its actual effects. This is something all non-hippies can get together on. The rich stop being infested with bed-bugs (though the irony of that kind of egalitarian problem amuses me) and the poor stop dying of malaria by the hundreds of millions. DDT – it’s what kept America great for a thousand generations, until the stupid Empire killed it off…

Angry Midwesterner
Well there was one real complaint about DDT, it was killing bald eagles. Bald eagles may be pathetic as hunters, but they sure do look awesome next to the flag. America. Fuck Yeah!

Angry Military Man
I imagine if bedbugs keep spreading as fast as they are, in no time at all we will be repealing DDT laws.

Believe me living in NYC I ran into plenty of hippies/liberals who got the nasty things. A few months of living that life is enough to make even the most hardened leftist shout, “Fuck the bald eagle eggs and spray the strongest shit you got”.

I know — I tried to coax my chemist buddy into making me DDT in her lab, and at one point actually started work on making homemade chlorine gas to ‘fumigate’ my apartment. Luckily common sense over-rode my desire to kill all the biting fuckers and I realized how bad an idea it was. I mean I actually liked most of my neighbors and all.

 

Bad to Worse: America’s Options on Iran, Part II: Invading Iran

After the big kerfuffle at Columbia over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit, the issue of Iran’s nuclear program has once again come to the fore of media attention (though it hasn’t seemed to make in onto Mr. Ahmadinejad’s blog recently). Besides the utterly bankrupt position of hiding your head in the sand and pretending it isn’t so (much like Mr. Cline on Obama’s run for the presidency), the number of options remaining on Iran have dwindled tremendously. Here they are, as I see them and why they’re all bad. In our long standing tradition of multi-part series on complicated issues, I’ll be looking at America’s options in four parts. Unfortunately for us in America, they range from bad to worse…

Option #2: Invade Iran.

The neo-conservative blowhards like Norman Podhoretz have their own solution for Iran: invasion. We can repeat invasion of Iraq, only this time Iran really has WMDs! Wait a minute, the National Intelligence Estimate says they probably don’t. Nevermind. As the Angry Political Optimist pointed out, the NIE can be conveniently ignored because we know Iran’s history as a bunch of very bad people.

The irony is that the neo-conservatives aren’t the only one to be rattling their sabers. Even Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister and avoid socialist (and founder of Doctors Without Borders) has come out in favor of preparing for war with Iran. Mr. Kouchner said, “We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war.” His boss French president Nicholas “Look-at-my-supermodel-mistress” Sarkozy, noted that the world faces a choice between “an Iranian bomb or the bombardment of Iran.” You know, when Mr. Sarkozy isn’t hitting the bottle at the G8 summit. Over in London, the ex-prime minister Tony Blair has refused to take the option of invasion off the table.

The problem is that this option is a non-starter. Since it’s suspected that Iran has a secret nuclear program and we have no idea where those facilities are (assuming they exist at all), there’s no way a Israeli-style air campaign could eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Likewise, no matter how bad-ass the British SAS is compared to those pussies in the US Army Rangers (so the Brits’ claim), without accurate intelligence on the location of Iranian SNM (that’s special nuclear material), all of the Richard Marcinko’s in the world aren’t worth a hill of beans.

This means that any invasion of Iran would need to involve lots and lots of ground troops. According to our friends over at globalsecurity.org Iran has about 350k troops in their army. Now granted, 200k of those are conscripts who probably can’t fight for shit, but that leaves them with about 150k serious professional soldiers. This is no third world bunch of thugs with guns like in Somalia, the Iranians are well-trained and outfit with *lots* of kit — medium tanks, main battle tanks, sophisticated anti-tank weapons, missiles combat helicopters and aircraft. Most frightening is that the upper ranks of the Iranian officer corps knows how to conduct a serious fight — after all, they were all junior officers in the war against Iraq. Any ground invasion of Iran will be very, very messy, and lots of young men will be coming home in flag-draped coffins.

So, despite the saber rattling that’s been coming out of London and Paris, the UK and France cannot credibly threaten Iran by themselves (especially with the British forces tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan). US involvement is required to invade Iran. And with the US Army and Marine Corps also tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the only way the US can invade Iran is to abandon Iraq to the militias, insurgents and al-Qaeda. While the irony of the neo-conservative Iraq hawks endorsing “cut and run” for the purpose of throwing down with Iran is amusing, the utter chaos that would be unleashed on Iraq as a result of such a policy would not be.

 

On big capitals, big government, and whose fault it is

A very creative depiction of the United States prompted an interesting discussion among the Angry Men this past week. One of the most striking features of the map is the complete absence of our nation’s capital, which prompted our Angry Overeducated Catholic to rejoice that our nation is blessed by having an insignificant capital city. After all, a large capital suggests a large government, and a larger capital would have made it onto the map. As AOC put it, “All true sons of the Founding Fathers should rejoice that, despite the best efforts of socialist weenies like the Democrats, foreigners still don’t give a fig about our capital.”

As a long-time DC area resident (like the Angry Midwesterner, actually, no matter what he might tell you), I too noticed the conspicuous absence of our capital city. I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions about this particular map: Just like the word “anecdote”, the plural of the term “funny picture on the Internet” is not “data”. In reality, the large number of international tourists in DC suggests that foreigners actually care more about Washington than most Americans do. Every American I meet from outside of DC says something like, “Oh, yeah, I was there once in fifth grade,” and all they seem to remember is the oppressive summer weather and a lot of buildings with columns on the front of them.

However, I would agree with a complementary point to AOC’s, which is that sons of the Founding Fathers should rejoice when Americans don’t give a fig about our capital. Having pretty monuments that attract Japanese people with cameras does not suggest that our government is too powerful. However, having too many people and jobs in our capital city suggests that our government is too powerful, and in fact that’s exactly the situation that we are in. Relative to its humble beginnings (to paraphrase Monty Python, “When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a White House on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ’em. It was burned down by the British, then sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one, and that one stayed up!”) or even its recent past, the Washington area is growing like a Republican president’s budget deficit.

Of course, I now have to take that point about “small capital = good” and turn the political implication (“socialist weenie Democrats”) on its head. The Washington area (particularly Northern Virginia) has exploded over the past few decades, with millions of people and numerous businesses moving to the area. Besides triggering an automotive transit clusterf**k of Los Angeles proportions, this migration suggests that our government is growing too quickly. However, these people and businesses are not here because they want to work for the Department of Agriculture or the Department of Commerce or all of the Departments of Things That Even Well Educated Americans Can’t Be Bothered To Remember. Rather, they’re all here directly or indirectly because of the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.

As someone who has looked for a job in the DC area, I can tell you that you can’t do anything more than flip burgers without a security clearance in this town (and that’s not because you’re going to work for some Super Secret Welfare Program, either). I’m currently in the process of finishing a graduate engineering degree, and I’m planning to move away following graduation because I don’t want to work for the military and I don’t want to work for some three-letter agency that is in the business of spying on Americans. If I stay in Virginia, I simply won’t have any other choices.

So, I would agree that a big and thriving capital is a bad thing, though I would argue that it’s a bad thing because it represents the excesses of the American War Machine and not the excesses of an alleged welfare state.

 

Everybody’s Wrong: How Nobody Gets it Right on Radical Islam (Part II)

The greatest ideological struggle in the post-communist era is, so the media tells us, the struggle against radical Islam. Unfortunately, the media oracle feeds us conflicting messages on what the real issue is and how it can be solved. Like any issue that involves political zombies, America has two irreconcilable visions of the problem, and two radically different solutions. But, as is true with many issues in American politics: both sides are wrong. This is part two of a two-part series dealing with the problems Americans have with understanding and responding to radical Islam. You can find part one here.

I meant to post this earlier, but I was hitting the mojitos pretty hard at lunch today, and well, that has consequences.

Now for the left, which is as one might imagine, not right. Their basic response to radical Islam is that we need to recreate Islam in our own image — creating a warm, fuzzy pro-abortion, pro-gay, non-violent form of Islam that looks more or less like American Episcopalianism with the addition of The Prophet. They argue that we need to encourage Muslims to follow touchy-feely liberal types, instead of the hard-line ascetic Salafists. Ultimately, Islam cannot be saved unless it is sufficiently “Westernized” and any sort of meaningful moral authority is eviscerated.

What’s the problem with that? Well, not much, if I’m a spineless moral relativist, who believes that the role of religion is to confirm the prejudices of the current age. But if I were a devout (but not radical) Muslim, I’d be furious at the elitist snobs, who can’t be bothered to worship their own God, but condescend to tell me how to worship mine. Imagine how the secular elite would react if King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia were to say, “We need to encourage moderate atheists to abandon their old-fashioned ideologies of abortion and homosexuality and embrace ideas more compatible with Islam?” I’d wager good money they’d be furious and fill the blogosphere and new media with their ranting… and I’d have no sympathy whatsoever (what goes around comes around).

To expect that Islam will be reinvented because Uncle Sam (aka The Great Satan) says so is either unbelievable arrogant or monumentally naive. Personally, I have a fundamental problem with any government (including my own) trying to get all Caeseropapist. I don’t care whether it’s my religion or someone else’s, but I don’t want any state telling someone what the “right” version of their religion should be. To expect that the Muslim world will welcome the American vision for Islam and not brand those who share it infidel dogs who are traitors to the true faith is sheer delusion… which appears to be where the left is living these days.

 

I don’t know Mahmoud, Maybe It’s All the Bombs?

“Sir, what were you thinking? The World Trade Center site is the most sensitive place in the American heart, and you must have known that visiting there would be insulting to many, many Americans,” Pelley [asked].

 

“Why should it be insulting?” Ahmadinejad [replied].

Interview with 60 Minutes

Many innocent people were killed there. Some of those people were American citizens obviously. We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing. And also we are very much against any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations.

Ahmadinejad later in the Interview

Pity poor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, puzzled President of Iran. He’s awfully confused about what all the fuss is about. All he wanted to do is visit Ground Zero in New York City, pay his respects to the victims of the 9/11 attack, and, just possibly, make some sort of statement about how bad terrorism is and how tragic 9/11 was. Of course, just whom he believes is responsible for 9/11 might be a question, given his penchant for odd revisionist theories about other historical events. But charity compels us to accept that he really isn’t sure why his presence there should be so disturbing. In fact, he’s sure it’s all just a misunderstanding.

And, doubtless, there could be some misunderstandings, so let’s take a moment and clear them up. Here’s a list of things Iran isn’t responsible for:

• 9/11 – that was al Qaeda, a fanatic Sunni Muslim group not Iran, a fanatic Shia Muslim country
• al Qaeda – that was Pakistan’s creation, in part with American funds sent to help fight the Soviets not Iran’s, which supported different vicious fanatics with other funds
• Saddam Hussein – really, Iran did its best to get rid of this jerk in the 1980s, and sadly their best just wasn’t good enough
• the Gulf War – Iran sat this one out, happy to see the Sunni nations beat themselves up, and even got a few fine Iraqi planes out of it

So, if anybody is mad at Mahmoud for this stuff, you should drop it, because it’s not really his fault.

On the other hand, there are a few small things that Iran is responsible for, and I’m thinking these might just have some bearing on why we just don’t like poor Mahmoud. These minor things include:

• sacking the US Embassy and kidnapping a bunch of Americans in 1979 (not only is Iran guilty of this, but in fact Mahmoud may be personally involved, as a leader of the student group responsible)
• blowing up the US Embassy and the US Marine barracks in Beruit, and the US Embassy in Kuwait in 1983 (via its wholly-owed subsidiary Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Al Dawa, an Iranian funded group opposing Saddam in Iraq, in Kuwait)
• hijacking airliners in 1984-1985 (via Hezbollah again)
• bombing a pro-Israel group in Buenos Aires
• providing safe haven/transit for al Qaeda members all the way up to the 9/11 attacks
• allowing senior al Qaeda and Taliban types free passage out of Afghanistan in 2002
• possibly allowing al Qaeda leaders to operate from “arrest” within Iran in 2002-2007
• giving support for the vicious (and now defunct) Islamist regime in Somalia
• giving support to Muqtada al Sadr and other anti-US factions in Iraq (and receiving support in turn)

So, quite a legacy of support for terror and violence, frequently against American interests or allies. (I guess that’s why they’ve been on the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism every year since 1984.) But all of this is dwarfed, of course, by the piece de resistance:

• providing training, arms, more arms, and advisers to the insurgents in Iraq

Since these insurgents are, after all, killing and maiming American soldiers (not to mention droves of Iraqi civilians), well, Mahmoud, you can pardon our suspicion that your tears for the victims of 9/11 are not exactly heartfelt. Especially when we recall your governments various working agreements with al Qaeda in years past. Call us sensitive, but we feel that if you’re actively trying to kill our soldiers, maybe you don’t have our best interests at heart. Let’s face it, there’s a term for countries like yours, and that term is: enemy nation.

And let us not forget Iran’s ongoing quest to develop the biggest bomb of all. That also makes us just a tad bit nervous, and makes us worry a bit that perhaps your stop by New York is for more than just sightseeing. A little pre-target recon, perhaps? Surely not, but you can see why we might be a little nervous, Mahmoud. Perhaps you and the nation you lead might consider actually acting like you want peace and stability instead of sowing chaos and terror in your neighbors and region.

And maybe, one day, you might consider apologizing for sacking our embassy, kidnapping its staff, blowing up a bunch of our other embassies, sponsoring hijacking and murder around the world, and taking an active interest in killing our soldiers in Iraq. In other words, before you start tooling around our cities, you might want to take some action to move your country out of its well-deserved doghouse.

 

Everybody’s Wrong: How Nobody Gets it Right on Radical Islam (Part I)

The greatest ideological struggle in the post-communist era is, so the media tells us, the struggle against radical Islam. Unfortunately, the media oracle feeds us conflicting messages on what the real issue is and how it can be solved. Like any issue that involves political zombies, America has two irreconcilable visions of the problem, and two radically different solutions. But, as is true with many issues in American politics: both sides are wrong. This is part one of a two-part series dealing with the problems Americans have with understanding and responding to radical Islam.

Let us begin with the right, which frankly speaking, isn’t. From the view of extreme partisans on the right, the problem is Islam itself. The Islamaniacs , and all those who follow the False Prophet, follow a fundamentally violent religion. From this perspective, Islam is locked in an eternal jihad against the heathen world, and it is a conflict that can only be continued by force of arms: Non-Muslims must either recite the shahadah or perish: There is no room for the separation of Mosque and State in Islam. Supporters of this view of Islam feel that the solution to the conflict is to take up arms to oppose the jihad. Though most won’t say it, there are always the more candid (and extreme) voices that feel that Islam must be destroyed. Supporters of this position point to the (admittedly) violent rise of Islam in the 7th and 8th century and content that the us-versus-them mindset of the early days of Islam translate perfectly into the 21st century.

In a refreshing (albeit disturbing) alternative to the zombification of politics, fellows from the “Atheist by Faith Alone” camp of lunatic leftists (like the recent douchebag-cum-author Christopher Hitchens) agree with this view. But this odd confluence of fundamentalist Christians and irrational atheists is united in something else: being flat out wrong.

For starters, Islam is not the only religion to have a troubling relationship with the state. Christianity, for instance has had problems in all its major branches (see late medieval Western Europe for Catholicism, the late Byzantine Orthodoxy or later writings of Luther that smack of complete Caesero-Papism). Second, the violence in Arabia was par for the course at the time and that Islamic nations were significantly less violent than some of their pagan contemporaries (the Golden Horde comes to mind). Third, radical Islam is a product of the modern era: beginning in the late 19th century with Jamal al-Din al-Afghani as a response to the British occupation. Until that point, the Islamic world (at least in its Turkoman/Islamic flavor) wallowed in the peaceful, slothful decadence it had descended into since the Battle of Lepanto. Fourth, barring isolated separatist insurgencies (which are not, in general religiously motivated), Muslims in Southeast Asia, the major nexus of Islam outside of the Middle East have lived quite peacefully for a long time.

A detailed look at history and a smattering of common sense (often lacking in the American right) tell a clear story: this view of Islam is wrong, and the conclusion that it must be destroyed by force cannot be supported from that evidence. If only the other side offered a better view. As we’ll see in the next issue, things aren’t any better on the left.

 

Poor New Mexico: So far from Heaven, so close to Texas!

Hola amigos! Angry New Mexican here to talk a bit about the Land of Enchantment, and our neighbors. You see, New Mexico, the land of chile (red or green) and piñon, is a unique place. Granted, we have our problems, like crappy schools, the proliferation of pueblo casinos, and the influx of hippies in Taos and Santa Fe who drive up prices for the honest Joses like me, but overall New Mexico is a great place… except for the neighbors. Que? Let me explain.

First we have Arizona, which is like the dirty old man next door who spends his time staring sketchily out the window and muttering to himself. Like any good little kids, we just avoid him. Arizona is populated almost exclusively by retired Anglos who somehow thought that Phoenix would be paradise. And they’ve diverted enough water from the Colorado River to make their very own garden of Eden in the desert. What about Nuevo Mexico, you might say? Isn’t it a desert too? Si, compadres, but the high desert of New Mexico can actually grow things, like green chile (the non-Anglos in the audience are nodding their heads in agreement, I can tell), while plants would naturally waste away in the fiery hell-hole which is Phoenix. Besides having poor taste in places to settle, the geriatric Arizonans have a tendency to elect politicians who compulsively avoid Latinos who aren’t busy landscaping their freakishly lush yards. Barring the honorable Senior McCain, who (oddly among Arizona politicians) sees Latinos as human beings, many politicians in Arizona are fighting Don Quixote-esque battles against the illegal immigrant boogyman (he’ll deal drugs to your children and seduce your wife; the horror!). Folks like Russell Pearce and JD Hayworth seem to think that nothing screams “America” like oppressing Latinos (evidently it now surpasses both mom and apple pie). With my muchachos y muchachas in mind, I won’t say exactly what I think of these individuals, but rest assured, when they’re hitting up the geritol we’ll still be alive and voting, thank you very much.

Now we have Colorado, who I’d liken to the nice family next door who has a penchant for lavish ski vacations. Lucky for us we’re almost always invited along. Skiing in New Mexico is alright, but it’s worth the drive to Copper, Vail or Snowbird to get the real deal. I only wish that the Coloradans would stop diverting so much water from the Rio Grande (you see, the neighbor is a heavy drinker), which is decidedly not grande, if you know what I mean. Gazing at that sickly little stream which runs through the Land of Enchantment, I wonder, what did it once look like which earned it the name Rio Grande? Perhaps one day we might again know, but Colorado needs to lay off the water for us to find out.

And now we have Texas. Texas is like the neighbor who’s always sitting on his porch, cleaning his gun, minding everyone else’s business. By virtue of having the biggest house on the block, he’s cocky, obnoxious and self-righteous. If there’s a neighbor we’d want our neighborhood association to kick out, it’d be Texas. But thankfully, no matter how much he’s always talking about his gun, he’s not really good at using it. Perhaps he needs more gun control…

Exhibit #1 is the Battle of the Alamo, where the bravest Texans (and their heroic allies) needlessly wasted their lives to accomplish absolutely nothing. I’m sure that Santa Anna was laughing his head off when he found out just who his troops killed there. Heck, the swollen rivers slowed Santa Anna down more than the fools at the Alamo.

Exhibit #2: In addition to being a state full of traitors, they had the cajones to attempt to invade New Mexico. After marching through Los Cruces and bypassing Fort Craig (leaving an American army blocking the traitors’ supply lines), confederate forces took the (almost abandoned) Duke City and pushed up the Santa Fe Trail towards Fort Union. Confronted by American forces under the command of Col. Slough (1st Colorado Volunteers) the confederates fought a pitched battle in Glorietta Pass. Meanwhile, Maj. Chivington (1st Colorado) and New Mexico’s own Lt. Chaves ambushed and captured the entire confederate supply train. Without supplies and cut off from Texas by Maj. Canby (Commander, Dept. of New Mexico) at Fort Craig, the Texans beat a hasty retreat back to their home stomping grounds. The Texans would never again threaten New Mexico.

Well, that’s the neighborhood here in the Southwest… a dirty old man, the nice family next door with a bit of a drinking problem and the gun nut who can’t shoot straight. It’s a wacky place to live, but where else can I get Sopaipillas like this, hombre? It’s home and nobody’s going to take the Land of Enchantment from me. Except maybe the aliens if they show up at Roswell again…

 

The War on Inconvenience

As I was walking my dog this morning, I walked past a day care center. Every morning I have to dodge cars making rapid blind turns into this establishment. It is located across a field from a local fire station. This morning, as I walked past, the fire alarm went off. Now this is a loud abrasive buzzing accompanied by several bright xenon strobes flashing. Day care operators dutifully herded their charges out the west doors onto the playground and across the field you could watch the firemen don their heavy rubberized coats and climb into their trucks. Let’s stipulate that there was a large amount of ‘optical and aural input’ available.

Yet as I watched (after dodging their turns), several moms exited the cars and led their children INTO the building. Into the loud buzzing, strobe flashing, entrance, which was in plain view of the playground where most of the children were gathered. Into a probable burning building. And not just one parent, either, but several—one after another, as I watched.

I was contemplating the stupidity and total recklessness of this behavior as the fire trucks arrived. One mom even walked her child around the fire truck and into the building. Now it was true that there were no visible flames, and no smoke that I could see, however, a prudent person usually allows the fire inspector/fire chief to make the determination that the building is, in fact, not on fire. Fires are tricky things.

Bursting through my consideration of the intellectual capacity of people who apparently try to set the record for the minimum time to detatch a young child from their busy and highly scheduled life, came the glint of an understanding. Americans are addicted to convenience , and investigating the possibility that your child might not be safe in a potentially burning building would be —well, inconvenient. Moms, after all, have to get to work on time, and bosses are so inconsiderate about leeway for tardiness for such things as making sure your children are safe. Best get the child to the caregiver where she can handle the situation.

Americans tolerate high gas prices. We are a mobile society. Good public transportation is available at a fractional ( and subsidized) cost of owning a car. But, you know, it’s so … inconvenient. The bus only comes around every 20 minutes, and the trips are at least 40 minutes long with those inconvenient stops to pick up other people.

Most supermarkets have a fresh food section. Raw broccoli stacked on iced shelves has given way to microwavable bags of cut broccoli. Fresh fruit and vegetables, and raw ingredients such as flour, and fresh meat comprise perhaps 15% of the store’s floor area. The rest is given over to bagged food, frozen prepared meals, sliced and prepared meats (even the fresh meat section has pre-marinated chickens, stuffed fish, peppered filets), and cans and cans of highly processed food. All very convenient.

Internet sex sites? Very convenient — avoids the problems of building a relationship. Everything you dated to find out is strewn out in explicit detail.

Americans are the most productive people in the world. The gross state product of even a medium state exceeds that of say Russia. Americans can do this because they are absolved of the inconveniences of preparing foods, riding transportation to work, having romantic relationships with people in the real world, or even exhibiting concern about the safety of their children.

The 9/11 attack in New York irritated people because it was highly inconvenient —for Mayor Guillani, — disrupting the nicely flowing pattern of lives with inconvenient items such as falling concrete, flames, choking dust and mounds of debris, not to mention having to consider that “someone doesn’t like America’ which doesn’t fit in to the convenient conceptual framework established by the media, Madison Avenue and the barrage of stimuli that directs your drinking, buying, selling, eating and sleeping habits.

Fortunately, we had a convenient resource available—the US Military, which we could send out to tidy up all of this nasty inconvenience in the form of radical Taliban governments and genocidal Baathist dictators. But sadly we had forgotten how inconvenient some of these things—like obtaining democracy—could be. We actually have to make sacrifices.

Fortunately, for most of us, this war on inconvenience, is not itself a source of inconvenience. Aside from the annoying increases in the cost of gasoline, and the continual barrage of combat KIA statistics in the media, our lives haven’t changed much. The sacrifices made are limited — scarcely a fraction of those who are killed by our use of the convenient automobile.

In World War II, we fought another war on inconvenience. In the 1940’s however, we weren’t so productive, and as a result, fighting that war required us to substantially alter our lifestyles. We allowed, even pushed, women into the work force; voluntarily limited our consumption of meat, sugar, rope, and a plethora of other materials, all rationed in the effort to support the military; and accepted a significant curtailment of our rights. And as a result of this, everyone was affected by the war. Everyone had a stake in the outcome.

With our productivity level today, in order to subject the population to the 1940’s level of sacrifice and commitment, we would have to broaden the war on inconvenience to significantly stress our economy. To ensure that every child toting mom at the daycare understood that the United States was making a committment to democracy and freedom, one that would curtail her addiction to convenience, we would have to simultaneously declare war on Iran, Syria, Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela and Somalia while rendering assistance to Darfur, Kosovo, the rest of the Balkans, with the occasional side trip to Sumatra to provide earthquake and tsunami relief.

Hmmmm.

 

How George Bush Made Me More Conservative

The Angry Men are once again pleased to welcome a new voice of anger to the fold. In keeping with our belief in the healing power of anger, we present the Angry Virginian in his own words, writing about his recent epiphany:

Once upon a time, I didn’t understand conservatives at all. I mean, what is it that they have against poor people? Why do they like violence so much? Why don’t they care about the future of our planet? They just seemed like a bunch of greedy and hypocritical old men to me.

Then, a funny thing happened that turned my view of conservatives on its head. It wasn’t George Bush’s election – He seemed like a harmless nitwit, and by himself, he didn’t do much to change my view on anything. It wasn’t even the September 11 attacks, as I’m the sort of person who believes that whatever was a good (or bad) idea on September 10 was still just as good (or bad) an idea on September 12. However, the United States’ response to the September 11 attacks, which has been inefficient at best and utterly terrifying at worst, dramatically changed the way I view politics, government, and international affairs.

First and foremost, I learned why so many conservatives don’t like big government. When you realize for the first time that your tax dollars are being spent on things that are stupid and unethical… well, you get mad. You get frustrated. You realize that when the government does something wrong, it does it on such a vast scale and with so much momentum that there is little (if anything) the private sector could do to counteract it. Previous presidents might have been sleazy or inconsistent, but they didn’t waste too much of my country’s time and money doing it. George W. Bush taught me just how wrong the government could go, and he made me wonder if maybe government is inherently bad after all. It’s a possibility that I hadn’t considered – Thank you, George, for pointing that out.

Speaking of evils that I hadn’t believed in before, how about some more government surveillance? I participated in a protest so that I could speak out against the invasion of Iraq – Does that mean I’m on a government watch list now? I mean, I have nothing to hide, but that shouldn’t mean squat. The idea that expressing one’s political views and participating in public debate could be punished by the United States Government is deeply and truly disturbing. All of those gun-toting libertarians who have been fretting about Big Brother don’t seem so paranoid any more.

There’s another area where Bush has made me more conservative. For many years, liberals (myself included) have favored increased federal power, as the states dragged their feet in providing many Americans with fair treatment and essential liberties. However, as the federal government now seems to be more in the business of discrimination and restricting rights than many of the states are, my attitude is shifting. As long as certain powers are reserved to the states (hey, it’s that Bill of Rights again!), then I will always have the option to leave my embarrassingly-red home state for somewhere more civilized and yet stay in the United States.

To sum it all up:

• If my taxes are funding a pointless war, then I want my taxes to be cut.
• If law enforcement is being directed to go after pacifist old-ladies, then maybe I really do to hide from the government and buy a gun.
• If the federal government is going to be so stupid, then maybe some power needs to be given back to the states.

Living under the Bush administration has taught me that these conservative ideas make a lot more sense than I thought.

 

The Glorious Wisdom of Bill Richardson

Recently, Governor and Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson could not restrain himself from sharing his plan for resolving the terrible “Crisis in Iraq” (cue CNN theme music). Certain that his brilliance would be displayed for all to see, Gov. Richardson dazzled us with this bold and innovative plan to resolve this ongoing “problem of our time:”

http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/page/petition/iraq

Which boils down to (my gentle musings following in italics):

1. Set a hard timetable to withdraw in 2007, and make sure all factions of Iraq know we’ll be leaving whatever happens.
   (Rise up in civil revolt? We’re leaving. Execute 10,000 Sunnis in a single a day? We’re leaving. Gas 100,000 Shias with Sarin during a festival? We’re leaving… After all, they’re only brown people. They don’t feel pain like we do, so the huge body counts won’t interfere with their rationally seeking a solution to the violence.)
2. Remove all troops.
   (Including all those training the Iraqis. “Bye-bye, guys, and good luck—you’ll need it!”)
3. Since Bush won’t do 1-2 for some reason, use the War Powers Act to force him. Which of course the Administration will take to the Supreme Court.
   (Perhaps that case will be resolved before 2008… In the meantime, since the only power Congress actually has is the purse, you can only “force” Bush by removing all funds for the troops, in the field, during a war. Good one, Bill, that’ll play well for you in 2008.)
4. Have a nice conference to get the Iraqis to iron everything out.
   (I’m sure that will work. Especially because of #1! Tell me, Bill, just what incentives do the extremists and militias have to deal, given that the biggest barrier to more sectarian violence will be leaving by December? Oh, well, it’s only brown people!)
5. Trust Syria and Iran to do the right thing. Really.
   (I’m sure we can trust them, because, well… Okay, I’m not really sure why Bill thinks that they will suddenly be overwhelmed with a desire not to meddle in Iraq. I mean, it’s not like Iran and Syria would be fighting over a hugely important country in a pivotal place in the region or anything. Oh, and perhaps the Turks will be happy to contribute to that peacekeeping force. Say, 500,000 “peacekeepers” for Iraqi Kurdistan. Of course they’ll have to forcibly disarm those pesky Kurds, but I’m sure dead Kurdish kids are a price he’s happy to pay for peace. I mean, heck, they’re only brown people…)
6. Yes, let’s a have a fund raiser for Iraqi reconstruction.
   (Actually, this isn’t a bad idea. I’m sure lots of nations will promise billions, since they know they’ll never have to actually pay—since funds won’t be dispersed until Iraq stabilizes itself. So really, never, except perhaps a few billions to bury the 10 million dead when it’s all over.)
7. Redeploy to, ah, somewhere. Kuwait is mentioned, because, you know, that isn’t right next to Iraq and kinda on the Arabian peninsula (depending upon which wackjob you ask).
   (I’m sure Al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria will be fine with a huge number of US troops permanently camped in Kuwait. You betcha! Also, Bill, what happened to “Bring the troops home. All of them.” Is it really a good idea to start breaking campaign promises at the start of the campaign?)

We risk being dazzled by the brilliance, of course, but Bill’s final summary deserves to be quoted verbatim:

We also must bring our National Guard home where they are needed for homeland security, and we must focus our energy and resources on real threats, such as nuclear proliferation, Al Qaeda, public health, and global warming.

If Bill had been running in 1952, I’m sure his platform would have been to get out of Korea, so that those nice Koreans could settle everything. We could relocate our troops to, oh, Japan, and concentrate on the real problems of the day. I’m sure that would have worked out really well, Bill!

I suppose Bill wanted to stake out the “unambiguous retreat in the face of hard struggle” position early. A good idea, really, given the general temperment of the Democrats these days. But not, I’m thinking, a sure-fire way to win the country in 2008. Somehow, I think this message will come off a bit inadequate in the face of a Giuliani or McCain. (I would have said “even in comparison to Her Dread Majesty”, but it looks like I would have been wrong about that.)

Tell me, Bill, whatever happened to “You broke it, you bought it” as the Dems liked to tell the Republicans after the 2003 invasion? Oh, yes, the Dems managed to get power in 2006 and no longer want a difficult war to worry about. Once again, I was thinking of the brown people as actually human and deserving decent lives. Stupid me.

Of course, persumably, Bill Richardson also believes that Iraqis shouldn’t be gunned down on the streets for taking the wrong position in a 1300 year old theological debate. Just not enough to think that they’re worth American lives. Or American time. Or American attention. Well, I’m sure that relying upon international consensus will work as well in Iraq as it has worked in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan. Bye-bye Iraqi liberals, feminists, and democrats—sorry you actually put faith in your liberal American brothers! Maybe, one day you’ll learn that the American New Left has only one word for their foreign brothers in the struggle when the going gets hard:

Corpses.