Memorial Day

I didn't know him, and I only know of him because he's the brother of a friend of a friend. But he died for me and my freedom, and you and your freedom. There aren't many men left that would make that sacrifice, and we're lucky that he lived and died for us.

To Staff Sargent Michel R. Hullender and all the men like him that made the greatest sacrifice on this Memorial Day: thank you.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived. - General George Patton

Success and Failure

The Daughter graduated 8th grade today. It's amazing how she's grown. And terrifying. Her progress is a great success.

She goes to a government school, and as far as government schools go I think it's pretty good. There was one obvious failure that even the people in charge don't seem to think is a problem - of all the awards for academic achievement, the winners were at least 2/3 girls. Of all the kids that got honors (90% or better average throughout the whole year, I think) out of the 25 or 30 winners I only counted 5 boys.

The two boys that stood out most each got a special honor: the first won an award for the "most improved" in the school's remedial education track; the second won an award for being the most withdrawn and distant student who also improved.

There were a few notable exceptions, two kids won an award for having an A average from first grade all the way through the end of eighth - one a boy and one a girl. And when it came to the best attendance record, boys and girls were split roughly equally.

There is likely a relationship between academic success at the middle school level and college admissions being heavily skewed towards females. Things are so bad in some colleges that some schools are now discriminating against women to favor men in admissions.

Perhaps this one-size-fits-all government educational system we've built doesn't really fit enough sizes. And perhaps one of the sizes the government is not worried about fitting is anything male.

Relationship Advice

Monger of War: Had breakfast with Betty. Why do I like her so much?

Meanie: ::shrug:: Pheremones, maybe.

Monger of War: Could be. I just *like* her. I can't stop it. I'm not complaining here. I'm observing.

Meanie: Yeah. My advice is to make her a mixed tape. And make sure everyone in 8th grade knows that you like her. Trust me - I've got a lot of experience with this.

(Please note that Betty's name isn't really Betty. But mine really is Monger of War. My parents had high hopes for me!)

Proof of God's Existence

Including proof that God is an artist:

Torture?

There is much debate about the U.S. government torturing detainees, particularly as President Obama fights the release of photographs taken while detainees were questioned - sometimes quite aggressively. But really, is this torture?

Shocking images of inmates in Iraq are the kind of images whose release the president has now vowed to fight in court....

Others yet to be released reportedly show military guards threatening to sexually assault a detainee with a broomstick and hooded prisoners on transport planes with Playboy magazines opened to pictures of nude women on their laps.

Seems pretty clear that water boarding is torture. It is not at all nice. But prisoners being forced to wear a hood for transportation with "Playboy magazines opened to pictures of nude women on their laps"? They can't even see the magazines? Where's the torture?

And how does a photograph "show military guards threatening to sexually assault a detainee with a broomstick"? Maybe the guards are saying "if you don't sweep the floor of your room you're not getting any punch and pie!" It's not possible to tell what a photograph shows except for a moment frozen in time.

To be fair, the article does mention some pictures which show what might be, at their most extreme, torture:

One picture showed a prisoner hung up upside down while another showed a naked man smeared in excrement standing in a corridor with a guard standing menacingly in front of him. Another prisoner is handcuffed to the window frame of his cell with underpants pulled over his head.

Certainly not nice. But is it torture? Depends on a lot of things the photographs do not show us, namely context. All photographs lack context. Take this most famous example:

This is a photograph that "changed the course of the war in Vietnam." But what does it not tell you? It doesn't tell you that the man being shot was a Viet Cong operative: "most reports give him the role of a Captain in a Viet Cong assassination and revenge platoon responsible for the killing of South Vietnamese policemen and their families."

So what are the soon to be released "torture" pictures also not going to tell us?

In the words of Eddie Adams: "I won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for a photograph of one man shooting another... The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation."

Signs of Things to Come

If you want government in charge of health care, consider this:

In Lincoln Park, Michigan, a 17-year-old called 911 when her father (recovering at home from brain surgery) had a seizure. Her first call didn't go through, so the panicked girl hung up and tried again. While the phone was still ringing, the girl said "what the fuck." Apparently 911 calls are recorded even while the phone is ringing, so the police officer heard her say it. When the officer answered the call, he was only interested in the fact that the girl said "fuck" and wouldn't help the girl. Instead, he swears at her and hangs up...

Eventually, the girl gets arrested and jailed by the police for a crime that isn't on the books.

[Hat tip: Instapundit]

Pandemics

One of these things is not like the other:

SARS: 775 deaths
West Nile Virus: 124 deaths (2007 U.S. figure)
Avian Flu: 257 deaths (since 2003)
Swine Flu: 25 deaths in Mexico, 1 death in the United States
Influenza (the "regular" flu): 250,000-500,000 deaths worldwide, 36,000 deaths in the United States annually

What do SARS, the West Nile Virus, the Avian Flu and the Swine Flu have in common? They get way more attention from the media; and they kill a vastly smaller number of people than Plain Jane Flu.

So why the breathless coverage by the 24x7 news media for diseases with scary names that don't do much harm compared to the regular, everyday flu that kills hundreds of thousands every year? And if every sniffle is a pandemic, how are we going to tell when we really have a serious and dangerous problem like the Spanish Flu which killed between 50,000,000 and 100,000,000 people?

Budgetary Hockey Stick

Global Warming Fanatics like to talk about the hockey stick - the alarming increase in temperatures in the last few years. An alarming increase, it should be noted, which isn't really there.

Well now we have a new hockey stick - the United States government budgetary hockey stick! Behold: