Ephemeral Isle
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Monday
2 January 2006
One Move and the Jihadi Gets It
Susan Osthoff. You have to take our word for it
Notice anything in common about these recent spate of kidnappings in the Middle East?
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Iraq 26 November 2005: Norman Kember (British), James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden (Canadian), and Tom Fox (American).
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Members of the Christian Peacemakers, a Canadian group opposed to the Coalition and tasked to "expose abusive acts by U.S. Armed Forces," though not those of the terrorists.
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Gaza 28 December (released): Kate Burton (British).
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Works for Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, a group whose activities, according to NGO Monitor, reflect centrality of (a) radical anti-Israel agenda, including promoting claims of "Israeli war crimes".
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Iraq 25 November 2005 (released): Susanne Osthoff (German)
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Archaeologist and photo gal for this column. After being let go at the same time a Hezbollah killer was released from a German prison in a move that Berlin called a pure coincidence (cough, cough), Ms. Osthoff appeared on Al Jazeera in a yashmak to claim she'd been kidnapped by "poor Sunnis" because they couldn't find any Americans. Has since further embarrassed the German government by refusing to return to the Fatherland.
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Iraq 5 December 2005. Bernard Planche (French).
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Winner of the Poor Bastard Award. Planche is an engineer with AACCESS NGO working on water projects in Iraq. He's included here because one of the demands of his captors is that France withdraws from Iraq. Tricky, because France isn't in Iraq.
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Give up? Five out of the seven are members of anti-Coalition, anti-Israel groups, one is a convert to Islam whose story changes by the day, and the seventh has the bad luck of being a citizen of a country that still hasn't learned that appeasement doesn't work worth a damn.
What's
interesting about this weird little clutch is that it shows just how
desperate the terrorists are becoming. Having learned that going up
against Coalition forces is a guarantee of mass job openings in Al Qaeda,
that blowing up weddings in Amman is not exactly the way to conduct a hearts
and minds campaign, and that beheading people on television just pisses off
the infidels, the Islamofascists have sunk to the bottom of the barrel and
have resorted to kidnapping people who support them.
Nothing spells pure gonzo despair like using your own allies as abduction fodder. When this goes bust, as it will, don't be surprised if the next bold Al Qaeda strategy doesn't look more like a Cleavon Little impression.
Tuesday
3 January 2006
Mixed Messages
Palestinian Child Abuse
Tip o' the hat to Little Green Footballs.
I have no doubt that most Muslims want nothing but a quiet life, but there are those who make no bones about wanting to subject the West to sharia law, as this list of quotes from Dhimmiwatch shows.
Sometimes I feel like this isn't so much a war we're in as a revival of the 1930s when the Fascists and Communists were transparent about their plans and no one except a few perceptive souls like Churchill took them seriously. Frankly, when someone like Omar Ahmad of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) says things like,
Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran…should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.
I do not think he is kidding.
Boar Wars
The
village of
West Anstey, Dorset is being besieged by one hundred wild boars that
were released from the Woodland Wild Boar farm by animal rights "activists",
who once again have caused incredible harm to the local wildlife and
livestock by their fat-headed actions. The
boars, which weigh in at up to 440 lbs, have been destroying fields and
terrorising residents. So far, some forty of
the brutes have been rounded up, but as it takes twenty men a go to catch
each one, most are still at large and unlikely to be caught any time soon.
What I find particularly vexing about this story is accounts of residents seeing the boars rooting about in the fields and being powerless to do a thing about it. In a more enlightened age, the people of West Anstey would have simply hired a local to go out with a rifle and keep the village stocked with bacon for a year. However, this being Blair's kinder, more compassionate Britain that frowns on people protecting their property all the villagers can do is sit by and watch as their livelihoods are destroyed before their eyes.
21st Century Sergeant York
Perhaps
what the people of West Anstey need is someone like
Staff Sgt Jim Gilliland, leader of the American Army's Shadow sniper team in
Iraq, who is profiled in the sort of story that editors of the New York
Times would chew their own legs off rather than run.
21st Century Mess
The
Times
Online, however, has a less optimistic account by former Royal Navy
officer Michael Smith, who has a new book
Q: Do the UK’s special forces (SF) use the SA80 weapon system?
A: I am sure you will understand that the MoD cannot divulge details of the weapons used by the SF as this would assist potential adversaries in countering or neutralising UKSF capacities.
A more forthright version, in a dream MoD briefing, might have gone like this:
Q: Do the UK’s special forces use the SA80 weapon system?
A: Of course they don’t (mordant, incredulous laugh). They’re the premier experts on small arms in the world, for goodness sake, and have their choice of equipment. The only people anywhere who carry the SA80 are those who don’t have any alternative — regular British troops. Oh, and the Mozambique army use it, apparently, but they didn’t have a choice either. They got the SA80 as part of a British aid package.
Q: What do the special forces use, then?
A: When they want a 5.56mm rifle they normally use the American M16; when they want a 5.56mm light machinegun they use the Belgian-designed Minimi, again like the Americans. All the Americans, that is, not just special ops people. Both of those guns were available cheaply when we bought the SA80. Proven designs. We could have thrown the unions a bone by making them under licence here.
Q: Well, why didn’t you?
A: God knows. No, seriously, the fact is we were in the process of privatising Royal Ordnance just then — that is, selling off the government rifle plant, among other things. They were the ones who came up with the SA80. The Royal Small Arms Factory wouldn’t have been worth tuppence if it hadn’t had the order for the new rifle. And a foreign make under licence wouldn’t have been any good; there were all the design bods to think of. Why would the private sector buy a design bureau that couldn’t sell its designs? . . . Come to think of it, that plant hadn’t actually brought out a new rifle of its own since the Lee-Enfield, and that was in the 1890s. No wonder the SA80 turned out to be a mess. The buyers shut the Enfield plant straight away and shifted production elsewhere.
Q: Who bought Royal Ordnance?
A: British Aerospace. We had to guarantee it the second tranche of SA80 production, naturally. Even then BAE gave us only £190m for the whole shooting match . . . and it stiffed us on the pension fund. You’ll be hearing its name again.
Q: When?
A: Well, later on after we had a whole bunch of duff SA80s, some made by us and some by BAE, we decided to get the guns fixed once and for all. We paid £92m for that, to Heckler & Koch, which is a good reputable firm that seems to have done a decent job.
Q: Phew. At least we had the sense to go to someone else, eh?
A: Not really. Can you guess who owned Heckler & Koch just then?
Q: Not British Aerospace?
A: Now you’re getting the idea. We order dud guns from ourselves, in order to sell our gun factories to BAE for a knock-down price. We then order even more dud guns from BAE . . . so years later we have to give BAE a lot of the money back to fix the bloody things once and for all. And another thing . . .
(Suddenly a group of ministry PR staff burst in. After a struggle, A is subdued and stuffed into a sack. The ministry guys wrestle him from the room.)
As they say on the blogosphere, read the whole thing.
Cultural Suicide
The ever-perceptive Mark Steyn takes on the idea that "our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people’s intolerance, which is intolerable," and how multiculturalism combined with low birth rates is the slow poison of the West.
Can these trends continue for another thirty years without having consequences? Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: the grand buildings will still be standing but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world.
Wednesday
4 January 2006
Klaatu Barada Nikto
Take me to Kofi!
It seems that I've been wrong about the United Nations. Apparently it is not a talking shop of tin-pot dictators, international poseurs, grafting bureaucrats, and self-righteous busybodies, but more like an exceptionally brilliant child that underachieves in school because it isn't challenged. Since Earth seems too small a stage for Kofi Annan et al to strut upon, the General Assembly, if this story is to be believed, has decided to spread its benevolent, competent rule out to the furthest reaches of the Cosmos with a resolution intended to pave the way toward opening diplomatic relations with any extraterrestrial civilisation that wishes to present its credentials at Turtle Bay.
In order to show that Earth means the rest of the Galaxy no harm, the resolution calls for the complete disarmament of space by all nations. (*cough* USA *cough*). This should please the former Canadian defence minister, Paul Hellyer, who recently went clear off the deep end and declared,
The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today.
Nice pacifist sentiments, albeit those of a raving paranoid who's seen too much Star Trek, but what if instead of ET we end up meeting the Mekon?
Remember to Dress Up Warm
In related intergalactic news,
it turns out that
Pluto is
colder than expected with daytime temperatures at -382°
Fahrenheit.
Environmentalists blame global warming.
Audvid Moment
While we're out in space, take a look at this link sent in by a reader to a neat little 1961 educational film about the future of space travel. Stick in a couple of apes and a monolith and you pretty much have the plot of 2001: a Space Odyssey.
Boar Update
A modest proposal
The
good people of West Anstey, Devon, are having a go at solving their
wild boar problem by enlisting the help of the
local hunt.
Mr. Allan Dedames, the farmer who engaged them, says that the hunt will not
kill the boars, but rather help to round them up.
"Animal loving" activists let loose a load of wild boars that end up ravaging the countryside (note the BBC doesn't mention that little aspect of the story), and the hateful, animal-loathing hunt herds the porcine fugitives home without turning them into several thousand rounds of mixed grill. Irony doesn't begin to describe it.
Speaking of Cooling Off
The new leader of the
Conservative party,
David Cameron, says that in order to be returned to power at the next
general election the Conservatives must modernise, scrap Thatcherism, embrace the welfare state, and be more "flexible" rather
than be bound by an ideology
Mr. Cameron has been rising in the polls of late and may even be our next prime minister, but as a hoary old Tory who thinks that the country has been going downhill ever since Charles II started giving titles to that Nouveau Riche lot, I can't really see the point. If the choice is between Tony Blair and Tony Blair with a less toothy smile, then I'd prefer to keep the original and save on new stationary.
George Orwell, Call Your Service
In
a reassuring development that shows what the government really thinks of us,
the Works and Pensions Secretary John Hutton has proposed that "non-paying
parents", i.e. fathers who don't pay child support, should be fitted with
electronic tags.
Given that Britain now leads the world with the most security cameras per capita, that the government plans to introduce ID cards, and that it wants to track every single car in the country, it seems to me that Blair should just order everyone to wear ankle tags and be done with it.
And Finally,
If you're like me and think that Political Correctness is not a joke, but Newspeak with a smiley face tacked on, this pdf pamphlet by Anthony Browne of the Institute for the Study of Civil Liberties is a must read. The only place I seriously disagree with Mr. Browne is that I don't think that the intent of PC, like all totalitarian ideologies, was ever benign.
Thursday
5 January 2005
Badgers? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badgers!*
The
National Farmers Union has stated that in order to control bovine
tuberculosis a cull of the badger population, which acts as a host for
the disease, is inevitable.
I know, I know this is a dull story, but I couldn't resist the headline, okay?
*If you don't get the reference, click here.
Standing Up For Our Rights, If It's Okay With You Guys
The Danes have once again
shown that the old Viking blood is running pretty thin these days as Prime
Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in his New Year's address "defended" free
speech in the row over Danish newspaper cartoons that mocked the prophet
Mohammed by saying that free speech should be exercised.
in such a manner that we do not incite hatred and cause fragmentation of the community that is one of Denmark's strengths.
In other words, you can go on offending Christians and Jews as you've always done, but remember to act the dhimmi around Muslims.
Unremarkably, the Egyptian ambassador welcomed Mr. Rasmussen's remarks. Voltaire may be spinning in his grave, but at least Denmark has the approval of an Arab dictatorship, and that's all that counts.
Kitsch Cowardice
I
love Archie
McPhee's, the Seattle based novelty shop that celebrates the bizarre and
transgressive at competitive prices. In fact, it's where I went for my
Christmas stocking stuffers last year. Admit it, nothing says "I care"
like an Internet urinal.
McPhee's poke-in-the-eye, mildly disgusting humour is like a trip to a strange little kitsch world where nothing is sacred.
Or is it?
Take a look at this page from their online catalogue. Notice anything missing? Items offensive to Christians? Check. Items offensive to Jews? Check. Hindus? Check. Buddhists? Check. Hmmm... Ah, yes! No Muslims! Nothing whatsoever to raise their hackles. I guess being transgressive has its limits after all.
Maybe they're taking their cue from the Dutch director Ter Heerdt, who cancelled making a sequel to his acclaimed multicultural comedy Shouf Shouf Habibi! after the brutal Islamofascist murder of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam. Giving his reasons, Mr. Heerdt said,
I don't want a knife in my chest.
Understandable, but it just goes to show that shocking the straights is fine, so long as you carefully avoid those who'll cut your head off in retaliation.
Theear shi blows!
Scientists
at Oregon State University have discovered that whales
speak in dialects.
In compliance with its policy of forsaking clarity in preference of presenters with incomprehensible accents, The BBC reacted to the news by issuing a statement that in future all nature documentaries dealing with whales will favour those cetaceans with regional accents over those speaking RP. " We dooant want enny toff whale voices ont' air even if fowk can understan' wha' thee seh," added the Director General.
There'll Always Be a Banger
Tony
Blair might be willing to sell the country down the river in exchange for
being called a "good European," but at least the
New Market sausage still stands tall against the EU Juggernaut.
Pass the mustard, please.
Fish Eggs Are Off
The
current ban on the trade of caviar from the Caspian Sea has sent
shock waves from the Harrods's food court to Fortnum and Mason's as
retailers scramble to secure supplies of the delicacy that retails for as
much as £112 an ounce.
Here at Chez Szondy we are restricted to lumpfish caviar ($2.73 (£1.55) an ounce), but still our hearts go out to our suffering plutocratic brethren in these hard times when they face the prospect of being reduced to falling back on North American or French farmed stocks. So, we raise a glass of cheap, domestic, American Champagne ($3.99 (£2.77) a bottle) and say, "Hold hard, lads. It's always darkest before the dawn."
Make Up Your Mind
It must be terribly
confusing being an Islamofascist these days. According to
this piece via Little Green Footballs, the parents of the late "peace
activist" Rachel Corrie were almost kidnapped in Gaza by five gunmen who let
them go when they found out who the couple were.
I guess the terrorists didn't get the memo.
Just Do It
There is a fascinating
little brouhaha down under concerning the local council of Waverly, New
South Wales, Australia, which in a bald-faced act of Political Correctness
refused to fly the national flag from the historic Bondi pavilion on the
grounds that it would incite "racist" sentiments. When pressed to
reverse their decision, mayor Mora Main cited "heritage and financial"
reasons for not raising the flag. This prompted the Premier of New
South Wales,
Morris Iemma to declare,
There's no need for a meeting and there's no need for consultation.
If they are short a flag we'll give them a flag, if they're short a flag pole I'll have the Department of Commerce send them a flag pole with the bolts so that the flag and the flag pole can go up at the pavilion immediately.
If you're short the work people to do it we'll send you the people from commerce to do it and just get the flag up.
They don't need to have a heritage study, or consultation, or any meetings.
Now that is cutting the Gordian knot!
Tip o' the hat to Tim Blair.
Couldn't They Have Had a Civil Partnership?
In
a
story that confirms that the world has gone stark, raving mad, a British
woman has "married" a dolphin at the Israeli resort of Eilat. After
the ceremony the former Sharon Tendler (husband's name unknown) said,
"I made a dream come true. And I am not a pervert."
That will depend on what happened on the wedding night, darling.
Lost in Space
It
appears that yesterday's item about the UN putting forward
a resolution regarding diplomatic relations with extraterrestrial
civilisations was based on a hoax press release put out by a group of
saucer-minded NGOs who are running a
petition drive to have to UN implement their "contact resolution," which
is really a thinly disguised demand that the Americans be forbidden from
defending their satellite systems on the grounds that it might upset the
Klingons.
A case of the insane pursuing the incompetent, I suppose.
Boars 1, Dulverton Farmers' Hunt nil
The
boars are ahead as the people of West Anstey, Devon continue to try to find
some way of getting rid of the porkers. The local hunt was called in
yesterday and after three and a half hours only one of the sixty fugitive
animals was captured.
Now can we fire up the barbeque?
Friday
6 January 2005
Boar Update
The situation in
Devon is deteriorating as the porcine insurgency has
begun to
spread. Reports are coming in that wild boars have been sighted as
far south as the Burrator Reservoir. That's 40 miles as the crow flies
and 92 miles as the cranky old Morris Minor leaks oil on the road as you
wonder whether or not you should have taken that last right, but oh, well,
it's a nice day.
You'll notice that the porkers (who are from the Continent, I might add!) are making straight for the Royal Navy submarine base at Plymouth. Coincidence? You decide.
Curfew Lifted
The
French government have
lifted the curfew a month early after a "quiet"
New Years, thus demonstrating the superiority of the French strategy of abject appeasement regarding Islamist
rioters. At a news conference President
Chirac said,
Given the situation of the past few weeks, I have decided to end it.
No further violence is expected.
Train of Terror
A
gang of twenty Muslim "youths'
terrorised the passengers for five hours
aboard the Nice to Lyon train on New Years Day. The "youths" tore up
seats, robbed passengers of wallets and cell phones, and sexually assaulted
women.
President Chirac as unavailable for comment.
Tip o' the hat to Little Green Footballs.
Now Pay Attention, 007
Image from mi6.co.uk
I
mentioned in passing the other day the British government's plan to
track every single car in the country in a move that
would have warmed the cockles of Stalin's black little heart. It seems
now that some of the criminal classes and the sheer bloody-minded have
already found a way around the nasty little snoopers:
stealing number plates.
If this works out, can the revolving number plate on Bond's Aston Martin be far from becoming an optional extra?
Tip o' the hat to Samizdata.
Wrong Footing
An
interesting take by
Stephen Pollard in the Times that David Cameron's attempt to make
himself into a Blair clone may not only be a betrayal of the principles of
conservatism, but may be political suicide.
Mr. Pollard was talking about the NHS, but perhaps a better example is that of Mr. Cameron embracing the nanny state with this cogent observation;
Try to buy a newspaper at the train station and, as you queue to pay, you’re surrounded by cut-price offers for giant chocolate bars... As Britain faces an obesity crisis, why does WH Smith promote half-price chocolate oranges at its checkouts instead of real oranges?
With Conservatives like Mr. Cameron, who needs Blairites?
Tip o' the hat to Best of the Web.
Monday
9 January 2005
Barren Arguments
According
to the BBC, society
seems to have something against those who choose not to procreate. In fact, it goes out of its way to shower those who breed
and their spawn with all sorts of benefits. Newborns
are given a £250 savings bonus by the generous Mr. Brown,
couples with children get all sorts of tax breaks,
paternity leave is written into the law, and politicians are forever
waffling on about the importance of the "family."
Worse, if you're childless you still have to pay for all the things that benefit parents and children, but not the non-breeders. If you're childless you still have to pay for some brat's education, for their vaccinations, child-welfare agencies, day-care centres, nursery schools, free milk, scholarships, leisure centres geared more toward families than singletons, all those children's books that libraries stock, and the salaries of Blue Peter presenters.
Even the private
sector is no refuge from this wholesale discrimination. Companies are
always giving slack to parents to have to rush off to tend a sick child, but
not someone taking a study course, so the childless must take up the slack
for the breeders. Advertising is slanted in such a way as to appeal to
families rather than those who refuse to multiply. Indeed, there seems
to be an implicit bias where, in the words of Nicki Defago, author of Childfree and Loving it!
(T)he message is that having a family is the most valid way of life.
This sort of blatant childism has prompted some concerned childless to take action. Jerry Steinberg founded Kidding Aside, a social club of the childless. According to Mr. Steinberg, government policy must face up to the fact that as many as 25 percent of adults refuse to bear children. In his view,
It would be less upsetting if the childfree were subsidized as much as those who chose to have children,
People shouldn't be bribed to create more consuming polluters, and compensation should be based on qualifications and job performance, not on the number of children one has produced.
All of the above turn parents into a privileged class of employee and citizen.
Mr. Steinberg's group has an interesting take on people who have children. According to his organisation's British branch's web site they acknowledge that parents may have a hard time of it, but,
We all have demands upon our time which interfere with our careers, be it raising a family, dealing with a plumbing problem, pursuing academic qualifications, or looking after an ageing family member. If helping Britons to balance home life and work is a boon to British productivity then the government must help us all be maximally productive and not just those of us with children.
It isn't often that one comes up against a group that is able to so completely ignore the elephant in the living room. Indeed, the BBC itself is pretty good at it. In fairness, the do give proper space to Mr. Norman Wells of the Family Education Trust, but even there the most blindingly obvious point for the opposition is left until the very last paragraph.
What's the elephant? Very simple. Society at every level tends to favour those who have children. They are preferred to get tax breaks, subsidies, leniencies, and general slack. And yes, those who do not have children are expected to help pay for the children of others being raised properly. But why? Why should the childless be required to defer to families and why should they pay for the decision of others to breed?
Why? Because, as should be blindingly obvious, in order to have a society you need people. If people stop having babies, then you will very quickly run out of adults and your society becomes an historical footnote. Indeed, Mark Steyn made this point very forcefully and I shan't try to build on the arguments that he made much better than I except to repeat his point that if a society ceases to breed it faces one of two very unpleasant futures. In the first one ends up like Japan with an increasingly elderly population being supported by a dwindling workforce in a stagnant economy, or in the second like Europe where the fading native population is being replaced by Muslim immigrants who are rapidly tipping over into becoming hostile invaders who have no desire to pay the pensions of a load of retired infidels. Either way, both choices eventually end up like Carthage.
It's interesting that Kidding Aside equates the support of families with the government's desire to promote productivity, which is rather a red herring, as such support has a more basic purpose: human survival. It's also interesting that Kidding Aside tries to couch its arguments in altruistic terms by claiming that its members are doing their bit to combat overpopulation. This is straight out of the '70s of Paul Ehrlich (indeed Kidding Aside cites the long-discredited Club of Rome) that even the self-loathing left gave up years ago when it became evident that Europe was facing demographic suicide and that the 21st century may be remembered as the time when Italians, Dutchmen, and Russians became extinct.
Kidding Aside might be of passing interest if they were just a more mild version of the Voluntary Extinction crowd, but they don't even have that level of fanaticism going for them. The forum on Kidding Aside site that discusses reasons for being childless tend to revolve around this typical example:
I don't want the responsibility
I don't want the massive financial burden
I don't want my entire life to be dictated by children
I travel abroad 12+ times a year and want to be able to disappear on holiday at a day or two's notice without having to worry about schools, nurseries, carry-cots, bottles, nappies, kids clubs, colouring books, toys & having to put up with Bob the Bl**dy Builder all the way to Stansted
I can't see myself on the floor playing with Lego
I like having walls that don't have Marmite and crayon all over them
I don't want the smell of sick or wee in my car
Not much in the way of world-saving altruism here, I'm afraid. There is, however, a notable tendency to use the word "I" in every sentence. Not even "we" as in a childless couple, but "I" as in me, myself. It's also very negative. There aren't any positives listed, just a string of drawbacks to be avoided. It's less a list of reasons for an alternative life style than a justification of what Steyn calls "slyer death culture of post-Christian radical narcissism."
I'm not one of those who believe that the only path to true happiness is having children. There are a great many saints, monks, and nuns who would give the lie to that argument. Nor would I say that children are an unalloyed joy. I certainly wouldn't say that today when my three-year old daughter had a distinctly unpleasant and unsuccessful potty-training lesson. I would, however, say that those of us who do have children are not only carrying out the most basic function for a society's continuance, but that the next generation belongs to us and not the likes of Kidding Aside, because we have literally created it.
Ms. Defago may despair that society's message is that "having a family is the most valid way of life," but at the end of the day having children is a necessity of survival. Not having children is a tragedy, the price of a higher calling, or a dead-end luxury.
Tuesday
10 January 2005
No Plot, No Power Suits
The other night my three-year
old daughter refused to sleep until 11:30, so I found myself around midnight
totally exhausted from trying to outwait my offspring and I decided to catch
a few minutes of mindless television before hitting the proverbial sack.
So, I pulled up On Demand from the cable menu and more or less grabbed
something at random from the sci-fi category. Unfortunately, what I ended
up with was Starship Troopers
I remember disliking this
film when it came out in 1997. What I didn’t realise was just how much I
disliked it and how since 9/11, when real soldiers are fighting real
battles, it leaves an even worse taste after revisiting it. I don’t have a
very high standard for films based on Robert Heinlein’s works. For all
their straightforward narrative form, his stories are extremely difficult to
adapt to the screen and the only really successful Heinlein film was Destination Moon
One girl told him bluntly: “My mother says that violence never solves anything.”
“So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that. Why doesn’t your mother tell them so? Or why don’t you?”
They had tangled before—since you couldn’t flunk the course, it wasn’t necessary to keep Mr. Dubois buttered up. She said shrilly, “You’re making fun of me! Everybody knows that Carthage was destroyed!”
“You seem unaware of it,” he said grimly. "Since you do know it, wouldn’t you say that violence settled their destinies rather thoroughly? However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea—a practice I always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.”
When Heinlein gets into cracker-barrel philosopher mode it’s hard to stop him. Never mind that a student who had “tangled before” with such a sophist would never throw him such a soft ball. Heinlein has an opinion to pontificate on and story logic be damned. It’s this sort of writing that prompted Alexi Panshin to refer to Heinlein as,
(A) man standing in a pulpit delivering sermons against an enemy that no one but he can see clearly.
Now don’t get the idea that I object to Heinlein’s vision of a militaristic society because I’m some sort of a crypto-pacifist. I’m quite the opposite. Being a Royal Navy brat, I am very pro-military (Want to see me turn purple? Mention John Reid’s budget cuts within my hearing.). Nonetheless, I have no truck with the militarism of the sort I see many conservatives, particularly in America, indulge in and which Heinlein championed in Troopers. I believe that the profession of arms is an honourable one and that those who serve in Her Majesty’s or the United States armed forces do so with dignity, valour, and, often, heroism. I also believe that soldiers strive toward a peculiar set of moral standards, just as doctors, lawyers, and clergymen do in their professions. I do not, however, believe that soldiers are morally superior to civilians. They are many things, but they are not plaster saints. Over the years I’ve known many an officer and enlisted man and I can state categorically that you find as many fat-heads, cowards, drunkards, lechers, time-servers, bigots, toadies, and creeps in uniform as out-- especially in the rear echelons. The only difference is that soldiers take this unavoidable fact with an ordinate sense of humility and aggressively prosecute those who transgress the code of military justice. I also don’t hold with exalting the military as opposed to giving them due appreciation and thanks. War is never glorious. It is a dangerous, dirty business that has to be done, but never to be exulted in. Nor is the power that we entrust in soldiers to be taken lightly. That is one of the reasons why we have a Royal Navy but a British Army. We recall too vividly what happens when those who bear arms get out of control. It’s been my experience that societies that become too mesmerised by gold braid, parades, and bellicose speeches are neither well ruled, nor do they fight well. Juntas tend to make lousy warriors when the time comes. They also lead to another quote from Troopers, this time from Rico the narrator,
Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics -- you name it -- is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is --not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be.
The universe will let us know -- later -- whether or not Man has any "right" to expand through it.
And if you don’t agree, Heinlein will remind you that the world of Troopers is run by a "a scientifically verifiable theory of morals.” Unfortunately, Heinlein never grasped that “Might makes Right” is every bit as silly as “Violence never settled anything.”
With that sort of a starting
point, small wonder that most cinematic takes on Heinlein are as wincingly
painful as The Puppet Masters
Hollywood was not going to make a straight pro-war film in the 1990s (or today), so Verhoeven tried to lighten things with some fairly heavy-handed satire and by pointlessly conflating Heinlein’s militarism with Fascism. He also followed his first instincts as a director and made it an incredibly violent piece. There are times in watching Troopers that you say to yourself “I’ve seen every way a giant bug can kill a man… Oh, there’s another.”
This is one of those sci-fi films that don’t pass the reverse engineering test. That is, if you take out the sci-fi elements, does it still work as a story? The answer is a resounding “no,” as the mixture of what passes for a plot feels like a very poor quality ‘50s B-grade war movie with every cliché thrown in, the military tactics make Paschendale look like a stroke of genius, and there is a romantic subplot too painful that follows as a cast of too-pretty actors from the depths of the 90210 era go through their paces. You have the feeling that recruits in this army of the future had to submit their headshots along with their medical records and that the first qualification of being a pilot was to look good in riding pants. Worse, for such a stunningly beautiful woman, Denise Richards comes off looking like she’s made out of plasticine every time she smiles. Whenever she flashes that wall of ivory it’s as if her brain has suddenly disengaged.
"I like potatoes!"
I can’t
decide what irritates me most about the film. Sometimes I opted for the
satire in the “propaganda” breaks, which are supposed to be funny, but since
it’s a retread of a gimmick already used by Verhoeven in Robocop
But
I’ve determined that what leaves the worst taste in my mouth is Verhoeven’s
attitude toward women in this film, which I find nothing short of
sickening. Bowing to modern prejudices, Verhoeven takes women in combat for
granted, but given the complications they cause in the story he makes a
good, albeit unintentional, case against the practice. In Verhoeven’s
world, future women will be men with breasts who still take time off to be
hot-sex machines. Yup, that’s a really likely combination. And watch the
eyes roll heavenward as Verhoeven explains with a straight face that the
co-ed shower scene wasn’t exploitative. Worse the violence—the casual
violence, mind— meted out to women in this film is nothing short of
sadistic. When raw recruit Dina Meyers decides that the way to impress her
drill sergeant (a man twice her size!) is to challenge him to single combat,
the scene is both butt-clenchingly embarrassing and more than a little
disgusting. What sort of Neanderthal would even accept such a
challenge; much less jam his knee into the girl’s throat until she passes
out?
Perhaps this is excusable on the grounds that women of the future are made of sterner stuff. Ms. Richards certainly demonstrates this, as in the last ten minutes of the film she has a bug drive a claw the size of a kitchen chair through her shoulder yet she not only can stay conscious, she can also stand, walk, run, fire an assault rifle, and saunter to a waiting transport while having a casual conversation with her friends. Things like shock and blood loss are apparently a male prerogative.
And to think that Verhoeven left out the Power Suits, the only really cool thing in the book, for all that.
Wednesday
11 January 2005
Respect Party
Symbols of Britain today and yesterday
Tony
Blair has now decided that the way to cure Britain's woes is to
legislate "respect" with a new programme aimed at a "radical new
approach to restore the liberty of the law-abiding citizen."
This restoration of liberty will not be obtained by lowering taxes or getting the government out of our lives, but rather will involve mandatory "parenting" courses, curfews, a "national parenting academy" intended to train a new army of social workers, the forced eviction of annoying people from the homes-- even if they own them, and (all together now!) more public spending.
This one of those schemes that is going to end up one of two ways, and neither of them what Mr. Blair intends. Either this will turn out to be just another expensive gimmick that will merely waste taxpayer's money on an empty gesture, or it will destroy more of our ancient liberties in pursuit of a vague and ill-conceived goal.
Perhaps someone should have a word in Tony's shell-like and explain to him that engendering respect is neither in the government's responsibility or power.
Keep Your Hands Off My Spittle
Meanwhile
it has also come to light that the British government has been
saving DNA samples not only from convicted criminals, but from anyone
who was arrested or even cautioned. That means that some 750,000
people are now in the government's DNA database, making it the largest
proportionally in the world. Given that there are now no non-arrestable
offences in Britain (another chilling thought) this will only continue to
grow in the future.
I am all for fighting crime (and would that the police were as well!), but I am vehemently opposed to the government gathering information on citizens as a matter of course. This sort of "just in case" thinking has a foul taint to it because it can just as easily be extended to newborns, schoolchildren, hospital patients, and anyone else for the best of intentions and the most sinister of results.
You Will Volunteer!
And
just to show that those who oppose identity cards for Britain are not
paranoid, it now turns out that the "voluntary" identity cards are about as
voluntary as income tax. According to proposals put forward by Lord
Falconer's jumped-up "Constitutional Affairs Office," the cards will be
"voluntary," but local councils will be empowered to slap a
£2,500 fine on anyone who doesn't have one.
As the Telegraph so aptly puts it, this is a tax on being alive.
No Go Glasgow
We
can, of course, trust the police with all this sort of power because they
are handling what they have now so well. According to
Mohammad Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Central, police in Scotland are
so terrified of being tarred as racists that they are taking a page out of
the French law enforcement book and letting gangs of "Asian youths"
(*cough* Muslim *cough*) run rampant.
Clearly the Auld Alliance is still in force.
Quick, Watson! The Juicer!
At
least Scottish authorities have their priorities right. Muslim gangs
might be doing as they please up North, but at least Scots schoolchildren
are being protected by the grave threat to life and limb posed by...
orange pips.
Maybe they've just been reading too much Sherlock Holmes without understanding it.
Animal Bill "Won't Kill Circuses"
Just
like the identity cards were supposed to be "voluntary."
It's interesting how Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary defends the Animal Welfare Bill,
Very few circuses still have animal acts. Our understanding is there are only about seven, and only three of those have what you might consider wild animals.
Translation: Circuses are like fox hunters; a minority unpopular with the chattering classes and if the bill does destroy them, what's the harm?
And That Changes Things How?
For
the
bottom-feeding story of the day, the BBC has announced that Thought for
the Day will henceforth be including secularist commentators.
Given the fact that TFTD has been religion-free for years, how will we tell the difference?
Umm... Hurrah?
In
a recent letter to the Groaniad,
Phillip Gould, AKA Lord Gould of Brookwood, has been crowing about how
New Labour has triumphed utterly now that David Cameron has gone over to the
Dark Side and joined hands with the Nanny State in
condemning chocolate oranges. What Mr. Cameron will do when he
finds out about the pips, I don't know.
Given the above posts here on Ephemeral Isle, I wouldn't crow too loudly, Phil.
Tip o' the hat to Samizdata, who have some fairly caustic remarks about Mr. Gould (I refuse to call a life-peer by title!)
Blind Eye
The
BBC's
Andrew Little has an article about what a jolly place France is, what
with their efforts to promote political harmony and how they enjoy so many
benefits that strikes against the government are paid for by the government.
Indeed, according
to Mr. Little everything is glorious except for the odd right-winger who
won't stop grumbling and smell the croissants.
Of course, things like a month of Muslim riots, a population in demographic freefall, and an economy that's built like a ponzi scheme don't come within range of Mr. Little's eagle eye anymore than they do that of M. Chirac.
Perhaps "harmony" is another word for papering over the cracks.
Well Done, Monsieur
Meanwhile
French engineer Bernard Planche, 52, who was kidnapped by Iraqi
terrorists, showed that some of the spirit of ancient Gaul still
survives when he escaped after his captors fled in the face of a US/Iraqi
search patrol. M. Planche then insisted on staying with the soldiers
and helped them in hunting down the terrorists.
Manifique!
Fly the Dhimmi Skies
British
Midlands struck a new low when the
Sunday Mirror revealed that airline staff on flights to Saudi Arabia are
banned from possessing crucifixes, St. Christopher medals, Bibles, or even
teddy bears. Furthermore, Stewardesses are required to walk two paces
behind male colleagues while wearing an
abaya, Not
surprisingly, homosexual stewards have been calling in sick in record
numbers rather than fly to a country where their proclivities carry a rather
nasty death sentence.
In 1914 Captain William Henry Shakspear of the Bengal Lancers became the first man in history to cross the Arabian peninsula. He did so wearing his Lancers uniform and he carried along a crate of Scotch and a large box of cigars, both of which he consumed openly in front of his Arab guides, who had nothing but respect for the thoroughly UnPC Englishman.
To this day, Captain Shakespear is held in high regard by the Saudis. The dhimmi British Midlands directors are probably held in little more than amused contempt.
Quagmire
I
wasn't aware that the UN was in Haiti (I don't get down that way very often
since the bottom fell out of the voodoo market), but apparently they've been
there since
1994 and last Sunday the head of the UN peacekeeping mission,
General
Urano Teixeira Da Matta Bacellar, was found shot dead.
Quagmire! Kofi lied, peacekeepers died! Mounting casualties! Futile! Illegal! No blood for... um, dirt! Support the troops! Bring them home!
Justice Abuse
Staying
with the UN for a bit, reporter Julian Davis Mortenson at
Slate braved
the UN detention centre for accused war criminals at Scheveningen, the
Netherlands. Inside its grim walls, Mr. Mortenson found these horrors:
If you could tune out the cells' ponderous steel doors, the accommodations looked like nothing so much as a string of dorm rooms in a college residence hall: poster-covered walls, well-stocked bookshelves, big wardrobes, homey quilts spread over the bed, comfortable chairs, and spacious desks usually crowned by a laptop. Actually, with radios, coffee machines, and full private bathrooms, the cells looked at least as comfortable as your average Super 8. Each floor had a rec room with good-size windows, a tatty little cooking area, a pile of board games, a communal television (usually turned to one of the Serbo-Croat channels that gets piped in from back home in the Balkans), and sometimes even a ping-pong table or a dartboard. Detainees roam freely around their assigned floor during most of the daytime hours, so as we walked through the corridors, there they were, folding laundry, playing chess, watching television, reading in the rec room, or chatting in small groups in the hallway, invariably offering us neighborly hellos and greeting the warden by name.
Watching over this hellhole was the warden, Irishman Tim McFadden who snarls things like,
(Y)our biggest enemy is time. So, the function of the occupational therapy program is to fill that time in order to maintain their emotional welfare so that they're not going into crisis.
Of course, the poor dears do need all the consideration they can get. After all, their trials for committing genocide won't even come up for years, so we really must make them as comfy as possible.
Still, they sit and serve as the best argument yet against the International Court.
Another Day in Paradise
Over
at Vodkapundit
Stephen Green is having fun Fisking
this indignant report out of Germany about how old age pensioners are
dining on inexpensive smoked salmon in the discount restaurant at the local
Ikea (try the meatballs!) instead of queuing at the soup kitchen like
they're supposed to.
Some people just don't know their place.
Go Apathy!
Hopping
back to Blighty, we have
this opinion piece in the Telegraph that rises to the defence of
terrorist supporter and part-time hostage Kate Burton. Bryony Gordon
says that it is wrong to call Miss Gordon a "brainless ass" because she
managed to get herself and her parents kidnapped by murderous Islamists, nor
should she be faulted for being part of an organisation that never met a
terrorist it didn't like. Instead, we should be praising Miss Burton
for not only "caring," but "doing something."
Quite frankly, given the sort of things Miss Burton's "doing something" involves, I'm all for a bit of apathy.
Mouse Fire
And finally,
we have this
story out of the States about a mouse who managed to burn down a man's
house in a remarkable episode of poetic justice.
Thursday
12 January 2006
One Day at the Plant
"Okay, guys. It's not funny anymore. Guys? Guys?"
Mouse Hoax
"I am shocked, shocked that the news media got it wrong."
You can't even trust a humourous human interest piece these days. It turns out that the flaming mouse story we reported yesterday was false.
My faith in the reliability of the news media is shattered.
Peta, Pick Up the Phone
The
annual animal sacrifice in Muslim Turkey went less than according to
plan the other day when a number of the animals turned on their sacrificers,
injuring over 1600 people and two dying of heart attacks.
Tip o' the hat to Little Green Footballs.
Friday
13 January 2006
Friday the 13th
Greetings, Tridecaphobes! Here's hoping that all your luck today is good. If not, then keep your head down, for God's sake!
Boar Wars
In a move to combat
the growing menace of the porcine insurgency that erupted recently in West
Anstey and seems poised to engulf the entire West Country, Devon District
Council has convened
a council of war.
No details are forthcoming, but the nuclear option has not been ruled out at this time.
Boar Wars Update
Taiwanese
scientists claim to have used gene splicing to make a cross between a
pig and a jellyfish. The result is a fluorescent pig that glows in the
dark (I'm not making this up.)
Unnamed sources close to Devon District Council hint that the research is part of a secret programme to combat the wild boar problem. "If we can't catch them in the daytime, then we'll be able to go after them at night when they aren't so stroppy."
Boar Wars Update II
Are Britain's
children ready to face the boar menace? Knowledge is the best weapon
and forewarned is forearmed, so in doing its bit for the cause, CBBC has put
forward this
pig quiz to make sure that young people are aware and prepared.
Carnival of Tomorrow
If you've never come across the travelling feast that is the Carnival of Tomorrow, you should check this out. Among the fascinating fare on offer there's a link to this video on yet another proposal for a flying car.
Infighting
Over in Iraq civil war has
finally broken out. No, not between the Sunnis and the Shiites, but
between the
native terrorist groups and Al Qaeda. In fact, it's got so bad
that the New York Times has been forced to notice and Der Spiegel is
carrying the story as well.
Tip o' the hat to the Captain's Quarters.
Hearts and Minds
At the trial of
Muslim rabble-rouser
Abu Hamza we learn that an Al Qaeda manual laying out targets in Britain
including Big Ben, football stadiums, skyscrapers, and airports was found in
his possession.
Meanwhile, outside the court Mr. Hamza's supporters demonstrated that Islamofascism is a myth by carrying signs saying "Democracy go to Hell."
Tip o' the hat to Little Green Footballs.
Police State Britain?
I never thought that
I would come to see Britain as being a police state. I am not
exaggerating either. I said police state. Ten years ago I would
have thought anyone mad if they said that soon the British would have to
look over their shoulders before they spoke for fear of the Thought Police.
That was the sort of view that only existed in the minds of people who lined
their hats with tin foil. Yet is it hard to give the benefit of the
doubt when you see stories like these.
- In 2002, Harry Hammond, an elderly evangelical, displayed a placard saying, "Stop immorality. Stop homosexuality. Stop lesbianism." Mr. Hammond was assaulted by hecklers and knocked to the ground. His assailants went free, but Mr. Hammond was arrested by the police on the grounds of "homophobia."
- Last December, Lynette Burrows, an author and mother of six children, made remarks on a Radio 5 programme in which she disagreed with the policy of allowing homosexual couples to jointly adopt children. She was subsequently contacted by the police who said that a "homophobic incident" had been registered against her.
- Later that month, Joe Roberts 73, and his wife Helen, 68, of Fleetwood, Lancashire were questioned by the police on a charge of "homophobia" when they asked the local council if they could display Christian leaflets alongside gay lifestyle magazines.
- Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, made comments in an interview about his religious beliefs on BBC 4's PM programme in which he said that homosexual practices were "harmful" and that civil partnerships were "unacceptable." He is now being investigated by the police.
This sort of thing is abhorrent no matter where you stand on the political spectrum-- unless you're an out and out Stalinist. It's not about gay rights and quite frankly I am amused when Sir Iqbal gets some of his own back, but that's beside the point. It could just as easily be about any subject that the government decides is beyond debate or even dissent. It could be about race, it could be sex, it could soon be about religion (read Islam), or anything else. In Tony Blair's Britain you can preach hatred and scream for murder on an apocalyptic scale and the law won't dare lay a glove on you, but if you express an opinion that the chattering classes don't want to hear you can expect the police to knock on your door.
That is a police state, and it doesn't matter how much Mr. Blair smiles or how good his intentions are. It's still a police state.
More on this at Samizdata and from Melanie Phillips.
Who Trumps Whom?
Actually,
I'm a little surprised that Sir Iqbal ended up being collared for thought
crime. When
this item came out about a gay magazine being condemned by gay rights
groups for being "Islamophobic" I concluded that the Religion of Peace was
superior on the PC pecking order.
Guess that's what happens when you don't get the updates.
Save the Planet; Kill a Tree
German scientists have discovered that trees are actually one of the largest sources of so-called greenhouse gases in the world and a Stanford University study claims that forested areas trap heat and raise temperatures by as much as three degrees Celsius.
Maybe they're right, maybe more study is needed, but the time to act is now. Destroy the forests before the planet dies!