Donald Rumsfeld: the last guy you'd want to meet in a dark alley

Via Bovious via Dean Esmay, the Rumsfeld Fighting Technique:



Many more to be found at POE News.

 
He's 8!

Happy birthday to Nicholas, my youngest, the Nr. 5 Child, who turns 8 today.

 
Setting up Trackbacks is a pain

My buddy, James, is trying to figure out trackbacks and pingbacks with pMachine, his blogging software. Don't hate him just because he'd be glad to acquire a room temperature IQ.

 
Fun with security interviews

James Joyner's post on the huge backlog of security clearance investigations reminded me of an episode in my own life regarding security clearances.

It was 1982, and I was reporting for duty at a certain three letter agency. In addition to the standard security clearance requirements for that "industry," the agency required personal interviews for all incoming personnel. These interviews were indistinguishable from those conducted for the SBI. You know, they ask you questions to allow you to incriminate yourself: "Do you use drugs?" "When did you stop selling secrets to the Soviets?" and so forth.

My interviewer happened to be an attractive young woman in her mid 20s. When she got to the standard question, "Have you ever participated in an extra-marital affair," I couldn't help myself, and responded with, "Are you making a proposition?"

After a few seconds of her burbling and stuttering, I let her off the hook. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. No, I've never participated in an extra-marital affair. Yet."

I think it was the wink I gave her to punctuate the "Yet" that caused her to view me through a jaundiced eye for the rest of the interview.

 
Political compass

I've noticed for some time that Robert Prather has his political compass posted on his Insults Unpunished blog. I finally took the plunge to see where I stood.

It turns out that I'm mildly conservative economically, supremely centrist politically, with scores of Economic Left/Right: 3.38, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.05. Yes, that's five hundredths. You can't get much more centrist than that!

Of course, Rush Limbaugh would say I'm just refusing to make up my mind.

 
Blogging tutorial: Lesson 12

Bill at INDC Journal is giving tips on how to comment spam. While I would never participate in such a sordid practice, others may be interested in Bill's tutorial.

A related note that Bill didn't mention is using Trackbacks to good advantage. These are sometimes even better than comment spam in generating traffic. And then, you could always go for the twofer: comment spam and trackbacks.

Not that I would do such a thing. I mean, even though I've got plenty of bandwidth available, I'm not interested in trying to use it all. I'm happy to toil away in obscurity.

Honest.

Update: Dean Esmay has more advice on building your blog, with links to a couple of earlier posts he wrote on the subject. Some of Dean's key points, with which I strongly agree:

• "Introduce" yourself to potential readers by making meaningful comments on other, bigger, blogs


• Snarks and insults are usually counter-productive in blogging, just as in life


• Link people freely (Dean says it's good karma)


• Trackback responsibly


• Give it some time

Of course, I'm just a duffer at blogging, so what do I know? It's a different story with Dean, so you'd be well-served to follow his advice.

Update II: James Joyner agrees.

 
The Republic of Texas

A friend sent me this. While I don't often post things like this, this one was too good to pass up.

Texas has given all those complainers plenty of time to get used to the Presidential election results from 2000. After hearing all those whiners over the past three years, the folks from Texas have decided that we might just as well take matters into our own hands.

Here is our solution:

#1: Let John Kerry become President of the United States (all 49 states).

#2: George W. Bush becomes the President of the Republic of Texas.

So what does Texas have to do to survive as a Republic?

NASA in Houston (we will control the space industry).

We refine over 85% of the gasoline in the United States.

Defense Industry (we have over 65% of it). The term "Don't mess with Texas," will take on a whole new meaning

Oil - we can supply all the oil that the Republic of Texas will need for the next 300 years. Yankee states? Sorry about that.

Natural Gas - Again we have all we need and it's too bad about those northern states. John Kerry will figure a way to keep them warm....

Computer Industry - we currently lead the nation in producing computer chips and communications: Small places like Texas Instruments, Dell Computer, EDS, Raytheon, National Semiconductor, Motorola, Intel, AMD, Atmel, Applied Materials, Ball Semiconductor, Dallas Semiconductor, Delphi, Nortel, Alcatel, Etc,Etc. The list goes on and on.

Health Centers - We have the largest research centers for Cancer research,the best burn centers and the top trauma units in the world and other large health planning centers.

We have enough top universities to keep us going: U.T., Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Rice, SMU, University of Houston, Baylor, UNT, Texas Women's University, etc. Ivy grows better in the south anyway.

We have a ready supply of workers (just open the borders when we need some more)

We have control of the paper industry, plastics, insurance, etc.

In case of a foreign invasion, we have the Texas National Guard and the Texas Air National Guard. We don't have an army but since everybody down here has at least six rifles and a pile of ammo, we can raise an army in 24 hours if we need it. If the situation really gets bad, we can always call Department of Public Safety and ask them to send over a couple Texas Rangers.

We are totally self sufficient in beef, poultry, hogs and vegetable produce and everybody down here knows how to cook them so that they taste good.

Don't need no food.

This just names a few of the items that will keep the Republic of Texas in good shape. There isn't a thing out there that we need and don't have.

Now to the rest of the United States under President Kerry: Since you won't have the refineries to get gas for your cars, only President Kerry will be able to drive around in his 9 mile per gallon SUV. The rest of the United States will have to walk or ride bikes.

You won't have any TV as the space center in Houston will cut off your communications. You won't have any natural gas to heat your homes, but since Mr. Kerry has predicted global warming, you will not need the gas.

Signed,

The People of Texas

 
Running mate-of-the-week

Marc Cooper laments the consideration of either Dick Gephardt or Wesley Clarke as Kerry's running mate in November. I have to agree with Marc that, from my viewpoint, John Edwards would appear to be the only useful veep candidate. On the other hand, I've never seen a veep selection that made sense to me, at least at the time that it's announced.

And the prurient adolescent in me had to giggle over this line at the end of Marc's post:

If the Kerry team re-erects Dick...

Sorry, but I have the absolute worst sense of humor in the world. Deal with it.

 
If it didn't work then, why would it work now?

I really would like to hear a reasonable answer to Rosemary's question: Why would Clinton-era tax rates on people with annual incomes in excess of $200,000 solve all the problems of the day, when that money apparently wasn't sufficient back in the 90s? In fact, tax rates are lower on everyone else, so wouldn't that mean we'd still be short some money?

And we all know that all it takes for government to solve any problem is money. Lots of it.

Right?

 
The New Soldier

I've read several posts and articles regarding John Kerry's 1971 anti-war book, "The New Soldier," but no one had the cover art, which is reported to provide a good insight into Kerry's position and opinions at the time. I ran it down, and provide the cover art for your perusal.

 
Keep hammering away on it

Glenn Reynolds links to a Boston.com article which discusses Senator John Kerry's approach to selecting a running mate. But what caught Glenn's (and my) attention was this line:

"Outside Iowa and New Hampshire, some people don't even know he was a veteran," the Democrat [familiar with the Kerry campaign's work with focus groups] said of Kerry, a decorated combat veteran in the Vietnam War.

As much as we may snark about Kerry constantly talking about his Naval service in Vietnam, I suppose it's necessary to repeat it constantly, because there are grunches of folks that just aren't paying attention to the presidential race very often.