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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Karl Gallagher's LiveJournal:
| Friday, June 24th, 2016 | |
| 11:46 am | For Those New Here A brief index to my major posts: War I'm an advocate of taking the offensive in the Global War On Terror, the official name for our war against the Islamofascists. I've done a Venn Diagram showing how different current conflicts relate to the war as a whole, and a state diagram showing the different strategies available to us and their possible outcomes. I think there's a limited amount of time to win before a catastrophe is inevitable. Other war posts: Abu Ghraib, Torture, Iran, putting the Army on a war footing, mistakes made in Iraq, Wars of Choice, Law, Interrogation, and Torture, Reforming the Defense Acquisition System, Politics I've looked at better ways to categorize views than the "left-right" axis, why our political system forces everyone into two parties, and how we could modify the system to better express everyone's views. I also discuss how our political divide comes from different visions of how families should be organized and why the "War on Drugs" is the real threat to our freedoms. Other politics posts: Gay Marriage/Polygamy, Global Warming and who to believe about it, War on Drugs (more here), Trinity River Vision, civil war, political quizzes, Iron Man vs. ITAR, Health Care Deformed, Nullification and a follow-up, the Tree Ring Circus, The Bill of Federalism, Gaiacrats versus Theocrats, and How I pick presidential candidates. My Beliefs Things I believe in, and the books which most influenced me. I want to lay out the assumptions behind my beliefs clearly. If one of those principles is disproved I'll have to rethink my stands. Sometimes I'll toss out a wild idea to provoke debate: Anglosphere Civilization (and merging states), Auctionocracy, and An Exercise in Alternate History Current Mood:  calm |
| Thursday, May 24th, 2012 | |
| 1:58 pm | Texas Primary Election It's voting time here in Texas. I just cast an early vote for the primary. The Republican primary, as there's not much point in choosing among competing Democrats hoping to be the sacrificial lamb in a state-wide race. Or local race. I'd have to move to another city if I wanted to see a Dem with a chance of winning. On to the choices: President: Newt Gingrich. A prize for a lunar base is exactly the space program I'd like to see. It's the first time I've ever been pandered to and I want to reward that behavior. Fortunately I don't need to factor the actual possibility of Newt being president into this decision. Senator: Cruz. Dewhurst wimped out rather than confront the TSA, blowing the best chance for real push-back on an out of control federal agency. Leppert has no history to convince me he means what he's saying now. Cruz looks like the best shot at getting a senator who'll try to get the Federal government under some sort of control. Representative: Granger. I'd love to have a candidate less free-spending than Granger. Lawrence says the right words about that--but he's also calling Granger "pro-abortion" which convinces me that he's lost touch with reality. So a vote for the incumbent this time. Railroad Commissioner 1: Becky Berger. Adding a scientist to the panel could be a good thing. Railroad Commissioner 2: Greg Parker. I haven't read his book but if he's written one he's thought more about the issues than the others. Supreme Court Judges: Don Willett and David Medina. Voting for the incumbents because the challengers aren't impressing me. The lack of information on judicial races always frustrates me. District Judge 153: Susan McCoy. As above. County Chair: Jennifer Hall. Internal Republican party politics don't interest me much but I'll vote for the outsider. We also had a general election for Saginaw. The mayor was uncontested . . . and in fairness things are in good shape here so there's not much demand for a replacement. The challenger for city council had a nice resume but was going on about the changes he wanted to make. I voted for the incumbent because he had the shorter to-do list. Saginaw also had a couple of referendums on changing the city alcohol laws. I voted yes to loosen up the restrictions on restaurants. This is most notable for the postcard mailed out ahead of the election by the sponsor of the referendums. This is the first time I've ever been asked for my vote in a municipal race. Current Mood: calm |
| Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 | |
| 2:15 pm | GIP Not being happy with either party I'm proud to use this shiny image I found floating about the 'net. |
| Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 | |
| 10:14 pm | The Greeks Always Have a Word for It Hoploballocracy: government chosen by strange women lying in ponds throwing swords. Current Mood:  silly |
| Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 | |
| 10:58 pm | Keep Up the Fire I wrote my Congresswoman, Kay Granger, expressing my very clear opposition to SOPA. She replied: Dear Karl:I read that as someone uncertain about the issue and very willing to ditch her colleague's bill if there's too much pressure. So everyone else please contact your representatives, they're ready to give in if we keep it up. Current Mood: hopeful |
| Monday, September 12th, 2011 | |
| 11:37 pm | Reflecting on Reflections I commemorated 9/11 in person this year, not on the net. My battalion was invited to hear our sergeant major give a speech at a ceremony in Weatherford. He praised the young troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as a new "Greatest Generation." My favorite part was a reenactor performing Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech. Specifically the line "The gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace." The commentary I've read on 9/11 this weekend split into two categories. One viewed the terror attacks as a one-off event, never to be seen again, and unrelated to the other wars being fought by the USA (other than being used as a pretext). The healthier versions of this focused on "getting on with our lives" rather than obsessing over a disaster. A reasonable approach to a random disaster, I'll grant. I'm with the people who see 9/11 as one part of a war, a big war. We want to keep our own way of life. That's an offense to the Islamofascists who think that everyone should live by sharia law and under a muslim dictator ("caliph"). As long as there's an "Islam will dominate the world" crowd and thousands of people chanting "Death to America" we're going to stay at war. Because they're going to keep trying, and as incompetent as most Islamfascists are, sometimes they will get lucky. So we have to keep the pressure on and keep them fighting as far away from our homes as we can. If we can enable some Arab democracies that could start the culture changing into one that can coexist with us. Alternatively we could take the Ghengis Khan approach to the war and keep slaughtering until there's no one left with the nerve to suggest attacking us. I don't want that many deaths on my conscience unless every other approach has failed. Unfortunately if we pull back and let the enemy regroup and try a new attack on their own schedule we may find ourselves reduced to that approach. Current Mood:  thoughtful |
| Thursday, July 28th, 2011 | |
| 9:19 pm | The Chair Moves a Temporary Suspension of Godwin's Law For a Very Deserving Terrorist Some people are evil enough that I'm tempted to invoke Herodotus's punishment "I know his name, but I will not record it." Alas, Breivik's terrorist acts have already recorded his name too thoroughly to be erased. Bombing. Mass shooting. Plagiarizing from the Unabomber. The distinction between terrorism and crime is that terrorists seek a political end. Breivik wants to establish a new political regime and his atrocity is furthering that goal. I suspect he's modeling his plan on the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler's coup failed with deaths on both sides but he gained a powerful platform for his propaganda from it. For high treason and 22 deaths he was sentenced to five years in a comfortable prison and only served eight months of that. The newspapers printed his speeches during the trial. He wrote his manifesto in prison. He kept leadership of his movement by mail. Once he was released he re-entered politics with an even more powerful base. Breivik's already written his manifesto. He's laid out a structure for his hoped-for political organization. He only faces a maximum of 21 years in a comfy prison for his acts. Even if he doesn't get a pardon he'll emerge at 53 years old ready to continue his struggle. I saw a photo of him in the police car. That was the smug expression of a man whose plan is going just as he wants it to. He may have the more modest goal of just trying to get people to read the manifesto. In that case he's succeeded completely. The professional photos (for which he'd prepared with tanning and manicures) indicate he was preparing for world-wide publicity to descend on him. I'm assuming he's more interested in seizing domestic power than waging the war he talks about by his choice of targets. There's plenty of Muslims in Norway to provide targets for a massacre. Attacking the Labour Party was an attempt to weaken the current political establishment. Then again, he may have just been looking for the softest target. Liberal political activists are the least likely group to effectively resist an attack. A Muslim group would likely have started shooting back. Even a soccer camp might have taken him down with a mass tackle while reloading. I'd like to think some of the teens on Utoya had the courage to rush him--but with no experience in physical teamwork they would have died alone along with any witnesses to their heroism. Massacring Muslims would also have inspired a Muslim inmate to shank him in prison. Picking victims without an ethic of revenge lets him wait safely to re-emerge. Writing the manifesto in English indicates he may intend his new movement to be pan-European rather than just Norwegian. The meeting founding his "organization" was with citizens of other countries. I expect he's hoping for some of the people downloading his document to start founding their own chapters. Hence the need to award himself rank and decorations in advance. As an aside--fundamentalist Christians, and other devout but less dogmatic Christians, punctuate their writings with Bible verses and regularly connect their assertions to biblical authority, preferably direct quotes from Jesus Christ. The manifesto is notably lacking in that. If Breivik is a Christian he's likely just a squirrel. I suspect he just likes the Templars and Crusaders because they fought Muslims, not because they had any connection to Jesus. Breivik's ideology clearly wants to establish an all-controlling state. His main objection to Islam seems to be that it may get there first. His focus is on defeating "traitors" so he can establish his state and wage war against Muslims. Now that's Breivik's in his nice safe jail cell what's his next step? I think he's counting on his manifesto and courtroom speeches to create a fascist equivalent of Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Individuals would pick up his cause and either launch terrorist attacks or start organizing cells of his "Templars." If someone strong personal charisma joins the cause it could start growing at a dangerous rate (as Godwin's is still suspended I'll point out that Hitler's personal magnetism was a powerful element in the Nazi rise to power). Fortunately Breivik is utterly lacking in that as proven by his inability to recruit even one trustworthy accomplice. Stopping Sudden Fascist Syndrome attacks will be extremely difficult. Like Breivik, someone exercising perfect operational security is hard to detect. This has to be fought at the memetic level, declaring members of "Knights Templar PCCTS" out of the bounds of civilized discourse. This has to be done on the "anti-jihad" side of the debate since the left side is already trying to proclaim all their ideas out of bounds anyway. People with credibility in arguing for the defense of Western culture will have to confront PCCTSers. Stopping Muslim efforts to carve out Sharia enclaves in European cities will also be needed. If the real governments can't win that fight the losers will look for another route--and Breivik will be there waiting for them. The more marginalized the ideology is the less likely someone seeking a cause will adopt it. Stopping groups from organizing will also reduce the number of individuals launching solo attacks. If we can step on his memes hard enough Breivik will emerge from prison in 2033 or so as alone as when he started his attack. Current Mood:  angry |
| Monday, July 18th, 2011 | |
| 5:06 pm | A Ray of Hope Conor Friedersdorf writes in the Atlantic: Passengers, not screening personnel, stopped the shoe bomber and that guy who lit his underwear on fire. But air travelers are never explicitly told to fight if necessary. Nor are volunteers trained to function as something between a neighborhood watch program and a mile high national guard. We rely on surprisingly costly air marshals when with a little effort, a percentage of the traveling public might be persuaded to undergo training. Certainly they would've done so if asked by the president shortly after the September 11 attacks.A liberal columnist in a liberal magazine denouncing the TSA (not shocking) and advocating a decentralized alternative giving power to individuals (wow). I've always favored the militia as the best defense against terrorists, in airplanes and elsewhere. Seeing the idea pop up elsewhere gives me hope we may actually manage to get the TSA back under control. Meanwhile, my kids return from their summer visit to New York this week . . . by train. Current Mood: hopeful |
| Monday, July 11th, 2011 | |
| 2:28 pm | Great Idea, Mr. Buffett Warren Buffett has a suggestion for fixing the nation's budget woes: I'd want 0 percent and the president to be included, but Buffett's version would be a big improvement over what we have now. Current Mood: cheerful |
| Saturday, May 14th, 2011 | |
| 9:17 pm | Victory Through The Eyes of the NYT Our goal for the new Iraqi government was to give the people freedom--not that a Jeffersonian utopia was achievable, but giving more than than they'd had, enough that they'd have better things to do with their lives than strap on suicide belts. Well, they've got more freedom. Freedom to make their own choices. And one of the things people do with freedom is make choices other people don't like. Such as painting their buildings funny colors. Yes, that's what the article is about. The reporter has lots of quotes from former Baath party clients lamenting the bad fashion sense of the newly elected officials. Pardon me while I cackle with glee. Iraq's not at the end of the journey yet. But they've gotten to where corruption is a much bigger problem than terrorism. The example they're setting of voting for their leaders is a good example for the other countries launching Arab Spring rebellions. That's how a culture changes. Oh, meanwhile bin Laden got killed, and good riddance. Probably the toughest call Obama had to make in his presidency so far. I figure at some point he asked "What's the worst case scenario?" and a CIA analyst replied "It could be disinformation from a pro-AQ faction of the ISI. They'd want to ambush an American attack to spark an Islamist uprising against the current government. So we'd have several dozen dead SEALs and a civil war raging in Pakistan, possibly with nuclear weapons on both sides. But we evaluate that as less than a 15% probability." That'll give a man a tight belly until the helicopters are back at base. Current Mood: pleased |
| Friday, March 18th, 2011 | |
| 3:11 pm | Libya and Other News So, it looks like we're actually going to intervene in Libya. Under some circumstances I'd be all for that. If we'd actually committed as a nation to the grand strategy of spreading freedom to fight islamofascism . . . If we were committed to follow-through in Iraq and Afghanistan to make sure they didn't backslide into the kind of misery we went in to overthrow . . . If we'd added a couple of divisions of dedicated occupation troops to the Army as I've advocated since before we went into Iraq . . . then Libya would be a great strategic target of opportunity. Unquestionably evil dictator, consensus against him from his neighbors, populace in revolt--great target for an overthrow and some nation-building. But we haven't done that ground work and I don't want us losing the progress we've made so far by being distracted somewhere else. Iraq is about as successful as counter-insurgency can be (NEWSFLASH: victory is boring). Afghanistan has a lot of hope. If we suck troops out of there to go fight in Libya it'll encourage the Taliban to hang on longer. Yeah, right now we're saying "no fly zone". That's a terrible way to intervene. It's like reaching out of your tent, getting a good grip on a nostril, and pulling the camel's nose inside. It just postpones decisive action and insures Gaddafi's anti-aircraft troops will be at peak training when we have to clear the way for the infantry to come in. Though if the goal is postponing hard decisions until after the next election it's a great strategy. EDIT: BTW, what the heck happened to getting Congress to vote before starting a new war? I'm fine with calling a declaration of war an "authorization for use of military force" but you really need to get those clowns on record or the "I told you so"s will start in a week. In other headlines, Japan's having some trouble with a nuclear reactor. Most of the analysis on this has been completely math-free. One bit of math I am sure of: the injuries and deaths from the radiation leaks will be smaller than the margin of error in the casualties from the earthquake and tsunami. And possibly smaller than the number of people who are getting sick because they're not getting enough heat in the winter weather. Wisconsin volunteered to be lightning rod for one of the key issues facing the country. We're racking up government debt faster than we ever have before. Sure, some people think "we're not broke" because the credit card balance is still below the limit. But a college student can't suck up all of the money the bank can lend out. The federal government can. When we hit the credit limit it's going to be a painful shock for everyone. We can reduce that pain by dealing with the problem now--but that means having some pain now, and lots of people object to that. Especially the ones whose good deals have to end to make the budgets balance. Yes, that includes teachers. "But they're not overpaid!" Salary isn't the problem. It's pensions and featherbedding. There's more and more "teachers" who don't spend time in the classroom. The contracts are especially nice when the union is on both sides of the bargaining table. The last school board election in my district was won by a guy who touted having a wife, sister, and brother-in-law in the union. That was his qualifications. Outside government that's considered a firing-level conflict of interest. Politicians find it easier to promise bigger pensions, earlier retirement dates, and better health benefits. They can hide that from the taxpayers and let the bill come due later. Well, it's later. Now we've got 9% unemployment and the government employee unions are growing in numbers. Oh, it's unfair for you to be subject to the winds of capitalist change because you wanted to avoid that system? Too bad. It's unfair for the rest of us to carry you while our burdens our increasing. Oh, you want the "rich" to pick up the tab so no one but them suffers? Well, the math doesn't work out like that. You could take everything from the top earners and still not close the deficit*. We have to cut somewhere, and the union workers having comfortable lives will have to suffer along with the rest of us. The blogger I linked also wishes Democrats would be more aggressive. I guess death threats are too tame for him. *And that's without considering how that kind of incentive system would put a huge damper on economic growth. Current Mood: aggravated |
| Friday, January 28th, 2011 | |
| 12:17 pm | |
| Wednesday, November 24th, 2010 | |
| 1:43 pm | TSA Insanity Well, I've written my Rep and both Senators about TSA's "pornoscanner or grope" policy. Hopefully there'll be some actual action in Congress shutting that down. Otherwise my kids aren't setting foot on a plane any year soon (This makes Grandma unhappy). My comments on TSA from four years ago still hold. Current Mood: annoyed |
| Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 | |
| 11:56 pm | Various Links of Interest "The Danger of Cosmic Genius"--an assault on Freeman Dyson I've made snarky comments about environmentalists operating as a religion, but this is the first time I've seen an environmentalist openly agree. "Environmentalism does indeed make a very satisfactory kind of religion. It is the faith in which I myself was brought up. In my family, we had no other. . . . Freeman Dyson does not have [this] religion. He has another religion."The article is functionally equivalent to a Christian's lament over a Jewish friend's refusal to convert, with anthropogenic global warming replacing the divinity of Jesus as the article of faith in dispute. Israelification of airport security Israelis keep their airliners safe by realizing that dangerous people, not dangerous objects, are what you need to keep out. Tolkein's Anarcho-monarchism Included to make sure I have a complete list of oddball ideologies. This is the conservative version of the "withering away of the state"--a society so stable no new laws are necessary and a monarch holds office solely to keep ambitious men from aspiring to the top job. Okay, the last part has some appeal to me. And some videos: Interesting interview with Peter Thiel, including exit rights as a key to freedom and the higher education bubble. Trailer for the movie "Cool It", a response to global warming hysteria. Bill Whittle is doing videos on his own now, starting with an overview of Tea Party/Conservative philosophy in several parts. He's still too focused on preaching to the choir, but liberals wondering how the other side thinks would get a lot out of the gun rights episode (8 minutes). Current Mood: calm |
| Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 | |
| 12:44 am | |
| Friday, October 22nd, 2010 | |
| 4:09 pm | None of the Above I voted yesterday. Picked the "straight party ticket" option for the first time. Libertarian. There's no close races in my area, and I don't want to help run up the score for the Republicans in the rest. I'd been reassured by the Congressional race polls showing Republican gains. I'm all for having a Congress that can block cap & trade and other expansions of government power. The huge gains for them being talked about now are worrying me. I'm not bothered by the flakier candidates. I'd much rather have raving loons wandering the Senate floor than skilled legislative technicians doing their best to plunder the Treasury on behalf of their party now that the other has been booted out. The Republicans look like they're going to have a big win. Traditionally those are followed up by hubristic overreach on some issue totally irrelevant to the voters who'd elected them (see 1994, 2004, 2008). Hopefully the tea partiers will leaven the caucus enough to keep them focused on getting spending under control. If not, I may wind up campaigning for libertarians or some other third party instead of just casting a protest vote for them. Current Mood: frustrated |
| Saturday, September 11th, 2010 | |
| 12:13 pm | Remember "It takes but one to make a war, not two, and those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Current Mood:  sad |
| Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 | |
| 1:10 pm | First Time For Everything After four and a half years of posting on controversial topics, I've finally banned a commenter for the first time. Life is too short to waste time on some arguments. Current Mood: disappointed |
| Monday, July 26th, 2010 | |
| 12:00 am | A Republican With Ideas Rep. Paul Ryan has come out with a "Roadmap" for fixing the US Government's fiscal problems. It's an interesting plan. I like a lot of it, some pieces I'm not thrilled with, and there's more I'd need to think on and research a bit. I'd love to see the election campaign focus on it the 1994 did on the "Contract with America." The debate would do a lot to bring out what the government is actually doing and how that compares to what we're willing to pay for it to do. But instead the Republican Party is running on a platform of "The other guy is worse than me." Current Mood: cynical |
| Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 | |
| 1:15 am | A Counter-Protest I'm Sorry I Missed Westboro Baptist Church came to town last weekend. They got counter-protested ten-to-one. Not the Patriot Guard Riders, local folks with an irreverent take on doing protests. Wish I'd been there but I didn't hear about it until today. Anybody know those folks? The article said it was organized through Facebook but I struck out searching for the ones mentioned in it. If there's another counter-protest like that coming up in the future I want in on it. Current Mood: cheerful |
