Altogether now, kids, "The Itsy-Bitsy Hoplophobe..."

As my friend John of the GMA mocks the anti-gun statists: "Well, whaddya know. They do have a playbook."  He found it at the blog of our dependable Robb Allen.

Even the "executive summary"  is gagworthy. For instance: "Advocates for gun violence prevention win the logical debate, but lose on more emotional 
terms". 

Right. After every headline shooting, the antigun forces take to their research cubicles, calmly compile facts and responsible opinions and historical references, then soberly present them to a waiting world in carefully worded white papers. It would be unheard of for them to bawl and snivel all over the teevee audience, beshitting better minds with temper tantrums and crying jags that would get a pre-schooler sent off to the special needs room.

I recommend a read on this. Not that we didn't already know it, but it confirms that   the marching orders to the Pelosi crowd order them to go for the gut, and anything like honest understanding be damned.

I got the power, Baby

So you wanna go for a ride in my shiny wheels?

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It's about a magic power washer, a cheapish one from a big box, about seven years old.  I used it for a few years.  In 2010 or '11 It developed a bad leak somewhere in the important machinery, shrouded in a plastic that would have frustrated Houdini.  No pressure. Trashed. I gave it up for lost and stashed it away. I kept meaning to haul it to the landfill.

This afternoon I got to feeling shame over the appearance of two of the Camp Jiggleview VEE-hicles, the command mini-van and the mobile assault wagon  carrying my Texsun field headquarters.

Generally, since the death of the washer, I've been counting on precipitation to keep them titivated. It hasn't rained in a month, and some wags have been writing undignified notes on the windshields.

For no logical reason I decided, what the Hell, to hook up the old washer and see what happened. I suppose I figured I'd make a quick guess about the problem and devote 30  minutes, no more, to an attempted fix. My confidence level was zero, and the plan was mostly an excuse to put off a tedious hand-wash.

There is something going on around here, and maybe it's true that all is better when you ignore reality and count on Barry's unicorns to breathe well-being into a man and all he owns.  Hook up the hose, plug it in. Instant power washing, as though it was new, and still going strong when I shut down after an hour.

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I have a Remington 12-gauge 1900 double that has been driving me nuts for two years. Can't make it go bang -- or even click -- despite by-the-book assembly of good parts. I am going to set it exactly where the power washer was and wait two years. I'll let you know

Bradley Manning (2)

Manning took an oath and violated it. Pledging to defend the Constitution and obey lawful orders from military superiors is not the equivalent of "I'll get back to you."

Setting aside the wisdom of any given foreign policy or military adventure, state secrets are necessary to implementing  those policies. There are sound practical and moral reasons for secrecy. There are none for revealing information about our military plans, abilities, or intent. Nor is there justification for publicizing our own assessment of enemy capabilities.

Manning is probably guilty of doing just that, though he may be sincere in denying intent to release operational information. That he couldn't possibly have read more than a fraction of his huge data dump is proof enough of a cavalier attitude -- at best -- toward the lives of his fellow soldiers, vulnerable in the sand and in the city rubble of the Afghanistan civil war.

Distilled to its essence, the Manning excuse constitutes a true and partially relevant statement: "Our government keeps us in the dark to avoid embarrassing itself by stamping "secret" on every report  revealing its blunders. Because citizens have no facts, they are unable to form reasonable judgements."

He violated his oath, he argues, in order to create a debate about over-classifcation for the sole purpose of making politicians and bureaucrats look good. The view that his real motivation was something else -- to be a somebody at long last  -- has merit, but the fact is that the debate occurs, a good and useful thing.

The most obvious point concerns the helicopter attack on Afghan civilians. Charitably phrased, it was an error. It may have been something more malign. In any case, who can doubt that the over-riding reason the video became top secret was someone's desire to hide the blunder, in part to protect the military from awkward questions about its tactical competence, in part to keep Afghanis from questioning our devotion to winning their hearts and minds, in sum a cover-our-ass maneuver made possible by governments' self-proclaimed right to declare anything, simply anything, a high state secret for purposes of national security.

Had Manning stopped there, his claim to moral heroism would  have been stronger.

(TBC)

Bradley Manning, Jailbird

My moral compass won't settle down to a cardinal point on the Manning case.

Begin with the boy-man himself, a classic reject by three cultures, America, Wales, and the United States Army. Even his chosen cults, the society of hackers and the community of gay men did not embrace this physical runt with anything approaching  his massive emotional needs.

Bradley Manning: The mythical Army misfit called Sad Sack, come to life and  writ large, an inept soldier made even more miserable by a an unbelievably bleak personal life,  a young man lacking even the wit to mask the manifestations of his  dispirited soul from family, chance acquaintances, and Army colleagues.

Unstressed by more responsibility than his personality could bear, Manning might have ambled through a harmless and reasonably contented life. He might have been a salesman of the year, a wheel in a local Kiwanis, president of his neighborhood home owners association -- anything that might have given him an identity short of accountability for arcane secrets to embarrass nations.

Manning did not authorize himself to sit at a computer a few key strokes away from military plans and sensitive letters between diplomats. Some one in authority gave that order, and others refused to countermand it even after he slugged a superior, locked himself in fetal positions, and posted details of his top-secret office on Facebook.  So dare we suggest courts-martial of the senior officers responsible for Manning's monstrous misassignment?

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Nevertheless, he is guilty. He promised the nation he would not broadcast our leaders' nasty secrets, and he broke that promise. We are left to ponder, "How guilty?" And to consider the collateral good from his legally treasonous acts.

(TBC)