Diamond Anniversary

Tomorrow, Friday December 5th, is the 75th Anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.

Some of its lingering after effects are screwed up State laws, organized crime, and uber-regressive taxes.

There is a nice article here. It contains a 1924 quote from H.L. Mencken:

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favourite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.

It had more than those 5 years to work its ill effects. About every 75 years the USA has a Temperance movement...today it's smoking that they're after. 75 years before Prohibition, they were painting the cordial glasses out of George Washington's hands as he toasted his troops.

As much as I don't like smoking around me, and I don't, I try to tolerate it much more nowadays. They will come after me-- a shooter, drinker, motorcycle rider-- when they are done with the smokers. I need to hang with them or I'll surely hang alone (c.f. Ben F.).

Great minds think alike

VDH says that Tet wasn't Tet.

Basra, then, was hardly a Tet, but then Tet wasn’t a “Tet” either.

I said:

Now when someone tells you Iraq is another Vietnam you can tell them: Vietnam wasn't Vietnam, 'tard.

OK, well he said it better, and left off the "'tard" tag, and he has the great mind, but we sorta think alike.

Size doesn't matter

Pictures of a 15 year old girl with her 11 month old neighbor and classmates. Course, the really weird part is those school uniforms.Go here for more info, but no explaination for those clothes.

Weekend survived

I was hoping to have video on the blog for the first time, but it's going to take a little more time to hone my video editing skills. Not much hope of artistic video, but eventually video none the less.

Saturday was an awesome megabrew, which included a seafood buffet that was spectacular. We made a strange summer ale from Radical Brewing, so I guess being strange goes with the use of a book that claims being radical from the get go.

This good time brewing probably goes a long way towards explaining the match meltdown on Sunday. It started with me forgetting my holster rig and then going downhill from there.

Careful analysis revealed some good news in the debacle: my times went down and not just because I kept forgetting targets.

Weekend

Brewing Saturday at Ice Harbor Brewing Co for a club megabrew (we take over the big system and distribute it among many carboys), and shooting an 8 stage match at Yakima on Sunday.

Woooooot!

Point Blank?

Sometimes it all goes to hell and you have to resort to this:


U.S. Army photo by Spc. Laura M. Buchta

Tibet

Usually in Seattle, I see "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. They live amongst other stickers that tell me that the car owner will never lift a finger to "Free" Tibet. More to it---they would actively oppose any US policy that would give the people of Tibet the tools to free themselves. Not that we would even try to give them tools.

The odds are that the people of Tibet will never be free, they will continue to be ethnically cleansed by the Han and other Chinese ethnic groups---just like countless other groups who had the misfortune to occupy land destined to be part of China over the past few thousand years---and the world will never complain too much. Someday, the Chinese people living in Tibet will be free; that I will predict.

No decisive battle will make the Tibet people free, only a long, long insurgency has a chance---and most insurgencies fail. Ten to fifteen years of frenetic anti-Chinese fighting would have to pass before success or failure could be determined.

If the people choose to do so, I say good luck to you. Also, I can give them the words of Winston S Churchill, slightly rewritten:

Death and sorrow will be the companions of your journey; hardship your garment; constancy and valor your only shield.

Bjork has done all she can by shouting your name at a concert in Shanghai, now blood will tell.

Terrible Day in History

No, not the attack on Iraq---that was a pretty good day on balance---I'm talking about Halabja.

This is the 20th Anniversary of the chemical attack (NBC) that defined all the attacks on the Kurds. You can read about it here and here.

As the latter article points out, it's also the 5 year anniversary of the effort to free Iraq of that same monster. The protesters will be against his "illegal" removal. She offers an award to anyone brave enough to carry a sign about the other anniversary.

My fav quotes:

On March 16, 1988, Iraqi warplanes bombed the Kurdish town of Halabja with chemical weapons including sarin and mustard gas, targeting civilians as part of the Anfal campaign to rid Iraq of its Kurds. Five thousand — three-quarters of them women and children — died from the chemical cocktail. Children trying to rush home fell in the street, while the insidious gasses claimed those who cowered in basements from what they thought was a traditional bombardment. Thousands were left with chemical burns, blindness, cancers, birth defects, etc.

and...

But as the war protesters take to the streets today, they won’t be terribly concerned with the genocide that should have made the international community bring Saddam to his knees. While busy painting the U.S. as the cruelest of warmongers, they won’t remember Halabja. To do so would give others the impression that taking out Saddam was, indeed, completely justified.

Chemical Ali, who left quite a paper and audio and video trail, will hang soon, but they never even got around to prosecuting him about this one.

Time to get back on the bike

Lately, I've been using a full face helmet. That makes the above mistake uncomfortably unlikely.

I think it's safer to just put ones shirt on backwards if you want people to believe you got your head turned around.

Never have ridden a scooter. When young, they were unbearably sissy things that had to stay in foreign films. Now, I would overwhelm them, looking silly in head to toe leather as garnish. So, I will shuffle off my mortal coil, like as not, without ever having experienced the thrill.

Vrrrooom!

Up for Spring

I've come out of my winter burrow and sniffed the air; I think it's safe to start blogging again.

More to the point, we've replaced the digital camera with a coolpix, which will hopefully be more reliable. The old one was reliable as long as it was taking pictures, but would conk out when it was inconvenient that it did so. Picture blogging should resume shortly.

Some catch-up posts to follow.

It's all relative

Strangely, in the paradise that is Venezuela, 33 people are killed by violence each day. Yet, Chavez rules a Bolivarian society of the greatest interest to Sean Penn, et al.

In the Iraq quagmire, the rate is only half as much. I suppose the right people are being killed down south or they count less than half as much as Iraqis.


You know, if I heard an IED go off, that's who I'd get behind too.