The courage of idiots

Fucking fuck John Derbyshire.

Fucking fuck Nathaniel Blake.

And fucking fuck all of the mindless gun loving zombies that delude themselves into thinking that more guns would solve the problems of gun violence.

How dare these cretins impugn the courage of the students, faculty and staff at Virginia Tech, as they face the trauma, shock and loss brought about by this violent tragedy. Indeed Mr. Derbyshire, it is easy to say things. It is entirely another matter to do things while under fire.

Neither of these crawling idiots seems to have given the least thought to the circumstances involved in these shootings. Derbyshire has this to say, "Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can't hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad."

First off, a handgun doesn't need to be very accurate at close range. It just needs to hit the victim. Second, the fact that Derbyshire can't hit shit on a range, under controlled circumstances tells us nothing but that Derbyshire sucks. There are 32 bodies on slabs that would argue that the killer was indeed much better with his weapons than Derbyshire is with his. Third, I invite Mr. Derbyshire to face a .22 wielding shooter to prove out his theory that it isn't that bad. Hell, for safety's sake, instruct the shooter to aim for the legs. Then Derbyshire can tell us all about how it isn't so bad having a shattered knee, how the gouts of blood from a severed artery are just kid stuff, after all it was only a .22.

Here's a hypothetical or two:

- Shooter opens the door steps inside and opens fire. People scream and seek cover. It's a classroom, there are desks and backpacks and a clutter of chairs to contend with. As friends and peers fall wounded and bleeding a hero emerges from the crowd and charges toward the shooter, tackles him, disarms him and subdues him. There is much cheering and rejoicing.

- Shooter enters the room and opens fire. The unbelievable shock of just the deafening report of a firearm in an enclosed space disorients the students as they seek cover. Should a person rise to charge the shooter they have to cover perhaps only six or ten feet. The floor is covered with a chaotic mix of bodies either hit or hiding, overturned chairs, jackets, books and bags, to say nothing of the slick blood spilled by those closest to the shooter and most likely to have been struck by the first rounds. Upon rising, the would be hero presents the largest target in the room, the closer the hero gets, the larger that target becomes. Noble dead hero get an extra moment of prayer at the memorial.

- Shooter moves from room to room wreaking havoc. Pistol packing hero no. 2 steps out of another class, down the hall, to end the spree, fires on the shooter and takes him down. At the same time, a gun toting professor springs into action, steps into the hall, sees a body (the shooter) on the ground and another young person with a gun in their hand. No time for questions, hero down. Police arrive, see two young people bleeding out on the floor, the professor turns toward the police, gun in hand. Bye-bye tenure.

- All kinds of people on campus are packing. Shooter arrives and opens fire, all the guns come into play and we have crossfire. Forensic investigators spend days checking ballistics to figure out just who managed to shoot who. Stray bullets rip through doors, windows and people moving erratically in the confusion and panic. Yeah, that's the fucking answer then, more guns.

Given the bizarre passion that America has for firearms, it is unlikely that even the strictest of gun control legislation will have much effect. There are hundreds of thousands of guns of every description on the streets and in homes across that great nation. With the enormous political and economic clout of the gun lobby, there is virtually no likelihood of strict gun control measures being passed. Perhaps if America spent a fraction of it's personal weaponry budget on mental health care and education, a few of these incidents might be avoided. While stricter laws might prevent new weapons from hitting the market, there is little to prevent the guns already on the streets from falling into wrong hands. Prohibition just drives the price up and creates a lethal black market.

None of these speculations will do anything to assuage the grief of the families, friends and peers of the victims of this latest rampage. And the vulgar ravings of creatures like John Derbyshire and Nathaniel Blake are a slap in the face to those grieving and a vile fucking insult to the memories of young people, whose lives were snuffed out by a psychotic young man.

No reason ... I'm just sayin', ya know ...

Over at Canadian Blue Lemons, Brian lets us in on the warning signs to watch out for:

The recent events in Blacksburg reveal a murderer who was clearly anti-social and obviously seriously troubled. The killer's room mate this morning revealed a person who would not respond in any way to human interaction.

In other news, Kate McMillan is still blocking me from even reading her blog.

Draw whatever conclusions you like.

Maybe they were all young Republicans.

From the safety of his comfy chair, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders' Nathaniel Blake lets us know how he might have, possibly, dealt with the situation:

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.

Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that. …

Like Derb, I don’t know if I would live up to this myself, but I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t. Am I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing? I don’t know; but I should hope to be so when necessary.

Well, OK, if it weren't for Nathaniel's trick knee. An old football injury or something. But if it weren't for that ...

Ah ... I'm glad we cleared THAT up.

Just in case there was any doubt:

As far as policy, the President believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. And certainly bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting -- I don't want to say numbers because I know that they're still trying to figure out many people were wounded and possibly killed, but obviously that would be against the law and something that someone should be held accountable for.

The Bush administration -- sternly disapproving of gun violence, one campus massacre at a time.

Geeking out open thread.

Blogging will be light for the next couple of days as we'll be geeking out in a big way, but feel free to explain how the 30+ people killed at Virginia Tech is the fault of liberals/gays/foreigners/secular humanists/gun control advocates.

Especially that last group.

Heads, I win; tails, you're fucked.

Shorter Neo Conservative: "Hey, I know -- let's make fun of environmentalists even when they're right."

In other news, a loyal supporter of "Canada's New Government" lectures us on why words are silly things.

A little perspective would be nice.

OHMIGOD OHMIGOD OHMIGOD!!!:

Report: At least 32 dead, 28 wounded in shooting at Virginia Tech ...
According to WaPo, this is now the deadliest shooting spree of any kind, on campus or off, in American history. And if Wikipedia is right, it’s already the third worst in modern world history.

In unrelated news, it's just another day in Baghdad.

Right-wing logic, as it were.

And after a suitable period of mourning lasting several minutes at least, some Blogging Tories already know whose fault it is:

Concealed weapons in school are the solution to school gun violence. That's what solved the issue in Israel and that's what's necessary in Canada and the United States. In fact, the Virginia shooting might havew [sic] been stopped, except that a bill that would have allowed concealed weapons failed to pass.

Why, sure -- take an entire population of young people who are, in large part, adjusting to being away from home while coping with stressful academics and inevitable romantic heartbreak, and make sure they're all packing heat. What could possibly go wrong?

WHEN I SAID I WAS FOR GUN RIGHTS, I DIDN'T MEAN FOR YOU. Not surprisingly, the gun-worshipping Right is all for packing heat, unless it's in their general vicinity:

[Dick] Cheney's appearance was nearly cancelled because some delegates balked at having to check their firearms at the door.

Apparently, your constitutional, inalienable right to bear arms ends right about where Shotgun Dick's personal space begins. Talk about irony. I mean, if there was one person where you'd really like to be in a position to return fire ...

And tomorrow, he'll tell us all how biological evolution works.

The Blogging Tories' Phantom Observer gives us all a tutorial in the basics of the democratic system of government.

Join us tomorrow when PO explains how CPoC candidates who get less than 50% of the vote absolutely deserve to be Members of Parliament.

The upcoming water wars.

Man, that is one smart group of U.S. generals:

In a report, 11 former military leaders “say global warming poses a serious threat to national security, as the US could be drawn into wars over water and other conflicts.

And when the U.S. starts running seriously low on fresh water, where do you think they're going to go looking for it? Think hard -- it'll come to you.

But don't worry, I'm sure that, when it comes to protecting Canada's water, Canadian PM Captain Charisma will be standing up for Canada. Or lying down for America. These days, I have more and more trouble telling those two apart.

ASK ... and ye shall receive.

Tanks for the enemies.

Photo: CP/Bill Graveland

New Canada's Minister of the Defence Lobby is such a fucking optimist! On CTV's Question Period, O'Connor justified spending almost two thirds of a billion on tanks. He's gone shopping and bought a hundred mothballed Leopard tanks from the Netherlands and leased another twenty from Germany. Let's hope that we have better luck with our used vehicles this time. At least a tank won't catch fire under water on the way home.

For me, the money quote, "We see Afghanistan is the future. Afghanistan and these type of engagements are the future for 10, 15 years," said O'Connor."

Well pardon me but fuck that shit. Just where does that time frame come from? Who knew you could pull random numbers out of a half ass? I know that I am not the only Canadian that is uncomfortable with the shift in our military from peace keeping to combat force. And forgive me if I have no faith in the vision and wisdom of Gordon O'Connor but this bumbling fuckwit doesn't even know the role of the Red Cross in regard to the transfer and treatment of detainees. Alison at Creekside has been doing a stellar job cataloguing O'Connor's serial ineptitude. Go on, go read.

The Conservative vision casts Canada into a more aggressive stance, none of that wimpy diplomacy, enough of that wussy peace keeping. Harper and his band of gym class drop-outs want to be tough guys. They believe that Canada should be a force to be reckoned with. Well Mr. O'Connor, your vision of the future is pretty myopic. If the grinding, ill-led clusterfuck of Afghanistan is a model for the future, well sir, you can take your vision of the next ten or fifteen years and stuff it. You have ignored history, hell, you've ignored the present and your future is that of dismal failure.

Evidently O'Connor hasn't bothered to look into the booming success of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. All of the tanks in the world could not defeat a deeply entrenched resistance. More than any speech Ronnie Reagan gave, it was Afghanistan that brought down the iron curtain and broke the USSR. We are five fucking years into Afghanistan and we are failed and failing. Bigger tanks and better bombs will not achieve the victory we seek. The Taliban is resurgent and they won't be defeated by force of arms. The only sane way to defeat the Taliban is make them irrelevant. We have failed at diplomacy, we have failed at development and we are losing the patience of the Afghan people.

Shit that blows other shit up and kills more efficiently will not help the people of Afghanistan. Bigger guns make bigger targets and even a pacifist like me knows that tanks are not defensive weapon systems. O'Connor wants to try and spin the world counter clockwise,

"They will go into positions and defend the infantry where they're holding strong points, or lead convoys because they can withstand a lot of mines and things like that so these tanks are being used in a defensive role only."

So we're going to deploy tanks to roll over 'mines and things like that', are we? They can withstand plenty of that stuff going boom. I'm sure that the tank commanders are very happy to hear it. I mean what could go wrong? The Taliban will be so disappointed as the convoys go streaming past. Unless of course a tank blows a tread on one of those mines, creating a long narrow string of targets. And who am I to question the idea of using tanks as mobile pillboxes to hold positions. It's not like anything bad could happen to a big, static target. It's not as if the Taliban will adapt to new conditions and challenges. It isn't as though an insurgent will watch the tank pass and remotely detonate an IED as the lighter vehicles come into range. Why that's just crazy talk.

There's nothing like five and a half million bucks worth of rolling fire power to win those hearts and minds. Don't worry, we'll come back later and paint a few schools, if there are any.

"If the Taliban concentrate against us and start taking areas which are difficult for the infantry to get at, the tanks will go in and break down the walls and get at them -- certainly they will. But this still is a defensive mode."

Yeah, the locals should love that.

"This term, spring offensive, I don't know that there is ever going to be a spring offensive, certainly in Kandahar province," said O'Connor.
"What we're seeing in Kandahar province is increased activity of these people who have set IEDs. But we haven't noticed at this time, anyway, any large numbers of Taliban returning into our province."

This is the forward thinking visionary at the helm. Seems there's a long list of things that Gordon O'Connor doesn't know.

The joy of semantics.

It seemed like just yesterday when the Bush administration was choosing its words very, very carefully (emphasis added):

President Bush said yesterday that he will fire anyone in the administration found to have committed a crime in the leaking of a CIA operative's name, creating a higher threshold than he did one year ago for holding aides accountable in the unmasking of Valerie Plame.

And some things never change:

I know that I did not -- and would not -- ask for the resignation of any U.S. attorney for an improper reason.

Of course, when you have an imperial presidency, "improper" represents a pretty high bar, doesn't it?

Dick in a can.

I came across this gem via The Poor Man. Ladies and gents, I give you Dick Cheney's ride, the Deathstream:


Photo: Mark Silva/The Chicago Tribune

"Airstream’s appeal seems to have few limits, and indeed a powerful world traveler recently provided proof of its persistent appeal. On a trip to Asia in February, Vice President Dick Cheney traveled in an Airstream — inside an airplane.
Mark Silva, chief of the Washington bureau of The Chicago Tribune, accompanied the vice president as the press corps’ pool print reporter. The group flew on a huge gray C-17 cargo plane that the Air Force calls the Spirit of Strom Thurmond, in honor of the late senator. Mr. Silva said that when he boarded he noted the familiar outline of the Airstream roof inside the vast fuselage."

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, shoot a lawyer in the head. Dick Cheney's, Even My Friends Aren't SafeTour just keeps rolling along.

Todays News...

...brought to you by Wiener Cthulhu.

Where Is They Now?

Former Federal Reserve Chair, Alan Greenspan, seen here cavorting in one of the sensitive and denuded landscapes he helped fund, is enjoying his retirement. He now divides his time between accepting large sums of money as a "consultant" and scaring the shit out of Wall Street.



Ain't he a scamp?

Missing in Action?

Former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, has been awfully quiet of late. Here he relaxes as he rides out his final term and waits for either his investments, ahem, to mature or his name to surface in any of a number of investigations.



It will be interesting to see whether the ousted silverback manages to escape the building tide of the US Attorney scandal. Hmm, maybe not so much, "On March 14, 2007 Sen. Peter Fitzgerald "believes Rove was trying to influence the selection in reaction to pressure from Rep. Dennis Hastert, then speaker of the House, and allies of then-Gov. George Ryan, who knew Fitzgerald was seeking someone from outside Illinois to attack political corruption."

Current Events in Animal

Iraq war architect and current Chairman of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz has been caught with his hand in the nookie jar.



The only question now, is who falls first, Wolfie or Gonzo. There should be a pool.

Images lifted from Dark Roasted Blend, a cornucopia of procrastinator's delight. Who in turn lifted them from either Time is Fun or Diana's.

Casualties, once removed.

One of the most important posts you will ever read is up at the Galloping Beaver. We mock the 101st Chairborne for their blind cheerleading for war, what Dave details and describes of "The Abyss", is why. It isn't political. It isn't partisan. It is the price paid.

The greatest harm is not always visible. Broken buildings can be razed and rebuilt. Factories and economies can be remade. Human beings are not so simple to rebuild. Broken bodies, minds and lives can't be so easily remade.

It has been almost a year since my dad died. For almost a year I've struggled with the need to write about the man. Trouble is, I never really knew him. I spent almost half of my life in his home and he was as sealed off then as he is, most finally, now.

Military conquest and conflict shaped his life, damaging him beyond reach and taking a toll on those around him. He was born in India during the waning days of the Raj. His father was British Army and while the term brigand is more romantic, in reality he was an asshole. My grandmother was born in what is now the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, she was also from a military family. When my grandfather abandoned his family, grannie became an army nurse, was decorated and served for decades running her clinic. A more fearsome and bitter woman you will never meet.

My old man came of age and shipped off to North Africa with the Royal Corps of Engineers under Montgomery. He went on to serve more than sixteen years. He left the military after being repatriated from captivity by the Egyptians during the Suez crisis. I've spoken to a few other army brats whose families, like mine, never stopped moving. I was born in Calgary, more by accident than design. I lived in three countries, one of them twice, before I was school aged. In my mid-twenties I counted up all of the moves that I knew about. It worked out to about once every eight months over the course of my life. I've moved seventeen or eighteen times since then. My family was never going to somewhere, but we were always leaving someplace.

If I lost a finger, I could count the number of times my dad spoke to me about the war on one hand. Only one of those times was there even a glimpse of the real horror that lived behind the fortified walls he maintained. His domineering voice trembled when he talked about entering a concentration camp and having to hold the skeletal prisoners back with fixed bayonette, to prevent a food riot. More than a few spoons of broth were enough to rupture the atrophied stomachs of the starving. They'd been locked in and left to perish.

I never asked if he took a life. I don't think there was much question about it. I did ask why he never had any friends. His friends had all died in front of him in North Africa, in Italy, on the beaches of France. If nothing got close, nothing would hurt when it was gone. That included family. And everything that might have been. Everything that never was.

He was being considered for the 1940 Olympic field hockey team, he was a scholar and spoke five or six languages. He had a talent for visual arts, drawing, photography and film making all of which he pursued in isolation. And he was the only person who made me fear for my life. Behind his grim facade was a blistering cold rage. In our house it was often best to be neither seen nor heard. He'd been trained to kill at close quarters. I've run for my life, hidden from and been beaten to the ground by the man. More than once, the only thing that saved me was my mother placing her body between him and me.

In the simplest terms, I grew up in a dysfunctional and abusive household. But life is never simple. We are the poster children of post traumatic stress. The brilliant, youthful champion who went away to war returned a deeply scarred and broken man. For all of his brilliance and determination, the seething cauldron of fear, rage and grief that he carried within was never emptied. When that cauldron overflowed the suddenness was devastating. The human damage of warfare is not confined to the battlefield or the bracketed dates of a conflict.

I wish I could say that I am the last colonial child. But we are legion. Our numbers grow every day. We are not just the children of soldiers. We are the children of every land that plays host to the machinations of war. And when the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons and the daughters, the cycle continues. Abusers beget abusers. I have struggled throughout my life to not be like him. To not lash out in anger, to not resort to violence, to try and share instead of take. Only time will tell if I succeed. It's been more than sixty years since V-E Day but my family still pays a price, if only the interest on the principal of damage done.

Here's a quarter, buy a clue.

Apparently, there is outrage:

A May/Dion romance:

An interesting way to do politics. Deprive people of the right to vote for all parties.

Ummm ... the last time I looked, there was no obligation for any party to field a candidate in every single riding in Canada. Has something changed while I wasn't looking?

I hear they won't give him any sharp objects to play with, either.

Apparently, the grown-ups have pretty much given up on calling President Chimpy McRetard over from the childrens' table.

Good thinking -- it just takes too long to have to explain this stuff to him.