PO Ponder

As some of you know, I have a slightly odd hobby: I collect calculating machines, especially slide rules. The majority of these slide rules are purchased through eBay or some other online source, and then they’re shipped to me. The slide rules come from all over the world, including from places that used to be considered quite exotic: Belarus, Bulgaria, Paraguay, Thailand, and Russia, to name just a few. And of course a lot of them come from the U.S.

Many of the U.S. shippers use a standard box available from the Post Office. This box is roughly 15” x 12” x 3", which is a good fit for a lot of the 12” slide rules (this was a common size). Over time, I’ve received well over a hundred of these boxes.

Which leads to the ponder. These boxes all have, on one end, a little pull tab whose purpose is to give the recipient an easy way to open the box. And such an easy way would be much appreciated. But…on every single one of these boxes I’ve ever received, this pull tab has failed. Usually it’s because the plastic strip you’re pulling is broken or missing somewhere along the line. Sometimes it just breaks. Whatever the reason, the think always fails. It’s become a kind of game with me — each time I get one of these boxes, I try a new way of yanking that strip. I’ve tried slow yanking, fast yanking, and 50 speeds in between. I’ve tried yanking straight up, yanking sideways, wiggling as I yank. All to no avail. Today I tried whistling and standing on one foot while yanking — it broke right in the middle.

What is it with the Post Office (a quasi-government “corporation")? How can they go for years and years buying a faulty product? Well, that’s an easy one — it’s a government agency, and there are no consequences for screwing up. Probably the company who makes these inferior boxes makes the appropriate bribes political contributions, and magically they get the contract each time.

BTW, FedEx and UPS both have a similar box. They work first time, every time. I’ve never had one of theirs fail. I can’t make them fail!

Capitalism works.

Government executes poorly, on a small scale or a large scale.

Where Has This Been?

In yesterday’s New York Post, I found this remarkable bit of commentary, excerpted below. The problem is that it is remarkable, whereas it should be commonplace:

September 12, 2006 — WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn’t help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause. However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing.

The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family. I did at one point write a very vitriolic essay condemning their actions, but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it.

Well, I’m sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large.

Yes, our extremists and our culture.

Every single 9/11 hijacker was Arab and a Muslim. The apologists (including President Bush) tried to reassure us that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, but was a twisting of a great and noble religion. With all due respect, read the Koran, Mr. President. There’s enough there for someone of extreme tendencies to find their way to a global jihad.

We need much more of this from the Islamic world. Faster, please.

I suspect that this sort of awakening in the Islamic community is the only thing that stands a chance of avoiding a horrible, prolonged, and very costly war that will inevitably result in the defeat of the Islamic world. The course the world is on now (think of Iran) will see escalating provocations from the radical Islamic fundamentalists, which eventually will awaken even the French surrender-monkeys from their mindless slumber. That is, if the high birthrate amongst Muslim immigrants doesn’t hand them France earlier in a more, er, entertaining sort of war. Once the Western world is united against radical Islam — and this will happen if enough Europeans are killed — then a much more conventional war will be fought. It will be costly to both sides, but much more so to the Islamic world. I cannot imagine any action of the United Nations (in its current form) preventing this outcome, nor can I imagine any action on America’s part — though I think George W. Bush’s foreign policies are about as good as we’re likely to get in that direction (and I shudder to think what 2008 might bring us in the way of a replacement). But recognition within the broader Islamic community that their brothers are the problem just might provide the path to a less violent solution.

Trouble is, I don’t think there’s much of a chance of that happening. But I can always hope…

SMASH vs. Code Pink

Lt. SMASH (an outstanding milblogger who should be on your daily reading list, and not just because he’s from San Diego) confronted a Code Pink group in front of Walter Reed Hospital recently. He also interviewed a couple of soldiers — wounded Iraq war veterans — who had done a little confronting of their own. “P.D.” and “Mason” are the vets in this excerpt (but don’t neglect to read the whole thing:

P.D.: We tried to explain to them that we were fighting for freedom. They said “no."

Mason: And then they basically told us that if we weren’t there, the terrorists wouldn’t be there. And that the terrorists, you know, even though the terrorists murder civilians, and children, that if we left it would all… stop. And I… I literally saw, with my own eyes, families be executed by ‘em. And I don’t think it would matter if we were there or not. The terrorists are terrorists. That’s what they do.

P.D.: It’d be a lot more people getting executed if we weren’t there.

SMASH: Did you try to express any of that to the folks down there?

Both: Yes, sir.

SMASH: And how was it received?

P.D.: It was received negatively. They were closed-minded. They have their beliefs, and they won’t even open their minds to what we believe.

SMASH: They weren’t interested in dialogue?

P.D.: Exactly.

Mason: The majority of ‘em, ninety-nine percent of ‘em, didn’t even look us in the eye. Wouldn’t even turn and acknowledge our presence.

P.D.: Yeah, they wouldn’t even turn around and look at us.

SMASH: Do you feel that they’re being sincere when they say they support the troops? Or do they think they’re sincere?

P.D.: I don’t feel they are.

Mason: One or two, maybe. But the majority, no. Not at all. I mean, if you really support the troops, as we said before, you’d turn around and talk to us. Acknowledge us. You know, all these people here (indicates the pro-troops rally), we walked out, and they said “thank you,” you know, “how are you feeling?” Those guys (indicates Code Pink) say, “Don’t talk to them.” That guy literally came out and said, “Don’t talk to them."

Lt. SMASH wonders if this is what Code Pink means by “supporting the troops.” Indeed. But then, we all know that the lying bastards are not, and never were, all about “supporting the troops"…

Columbian Justice

Can you even imagine an American politician dealing with this situation? The only pol I can imagine handling it well is, well, Arnold:

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - They are calling it the “crossed legs” strike.

Fretting over crime and violence, girlfriends and wives of gang members in the Colombian city of Pereira have called a ban on sex to persuade their menfolk to give up the gun.

After meeting with the mayor’s office to discuss a disarmament program, a group of women decided to deny their partners their conjugal rights and recorded a song for local radio to urge others to follow their example.

If this actually works, I wonder if it could be used here?