Every day, I read The Officers’ Club from top to bottom, and I learn stuff. And I’m entertained. And there’s usually a cool picture or two to look at.

I know I’ve been linking to these guys a lot lately, but you don’t know the half of it. Or even three-eighths. If I linked to everything on the OC I thought you should read, my blog would look exactly like theirs, only slightly shorter and with a spiffier design.

Here’s the deal. I’ll stop mentioning The Officers’ Club four or five times a week, just as soon as their traffic is equal to or better than mine.

So get reading, kids.

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Paul Geary asks if Saddam deserves a trial.

My short answer is: No.

Here’s my slightly longer answer.

The dictator who got the fate he most deserved was Mussolini, strung up like butchered meat by his own people. Hitler’s end was almost nasty enough, and would have been nastier still if the Soviets had caught him. If we’d captured him, we probably would have put him on trial.

Big mistake.

War crimes tribunals are no damn good for anyone above the rank of major, or its civilian equivalent. If you catch a war criminal, the best thing to do is shoot him. Put him on trial, and you give him a soapbox. You also give him the dignity of a legal status he denied to his own people, and the people of neighboring countries.

Some might argue that by shooting war criminals on sight, we’re setting a bad example. Wrong. We’re setting a proper (if brutal) example: If you think dictatorship if brutal, wait until you see the righteous fury of a free people. In other words: Do not mess with us.

If that’s a lesson the dictators – would-be and actual – of the world can never seem to remember, it’s because we hardly ever remind them.

UPDATE: Speaking of dictators, The New Editor reminds us of another one who ought to take the 9mm retirement plan.

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Hillary Clinton has been angling for something like this for a couple years now:

WASHINGTON – Anti-war activists furious with Sen. Hillary Clinton are vowing to bird-dog her everywhere she goes, starting with a swanky Manhattan fund-raiser tonight.
Clinton’s letter last week clarifying her position on Iraq – which included rejecting a timetable for withdrawal – fanned the anger of some war opponents, who decided to launch a campaign against New York’s junior senator.

“We’re calling it Bird-Dog Hillary,” said Medea Benjamin of the peace group Codepink.

“I’m so mad at her,” said Nancy Kricorian, Codepink’s New York City coordinator. “We will dog her wherever she goes.”

If Hillary “suffers” enough from these people, she’ll finally get her “Sister Souljah moment.” If not, she’ll keep angling until she does.

And when I say that, I mean no disrespect. Honestly.

My anti-Hillary credentials are as solid as anybody’s. But the Democrats need a viable hawk in 2008, a definition which probably excludes Joe Lieberman, I’m sorry to say. If Hillary is faking it, I don’t care – not so long as she’d govern like a hawk.

And come January, 2009, we might just find out.

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At 3pm Eastern, I’ll be blogjamming with Laurence Simon, YAYsports!, and sci-fi novelist Tobias S. Buckell. The topic is internet governance. Expect lots of fireworks, especially since Laurence is off his meds, and I’ve been hammering down Bloody Marys since 9am.

I’m kidding about the Bloodys, of course. But Laurence and his meds? You can never be certain.

UPDATE: An engaging – and sometimes funny – discussion. Read the whole thing here.

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Jeff Harrell doesn’t seem too upset by The End of Wikipedia as We Know It. After reading his post, neither am I.

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If it’s Tuesday, there must be a Carnival of Liberty around here somewhere…

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David J is alive and kicking the crap out of Howard Dean.

I was gonna do it – but David didn’t leave me much to work with.

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Norman Augustine:

In the five decades since I began working in the aerospace industry, I have never seen American business and academic leaders as concerned about this nation’s future prosperity as they are today.

On the surface, these concerns may seem unwarranted. Two million jobs were created in the United States in the past year. Citizens of other nations continue to invest their savings in this country at a remarkable rate. Our nation still has the strongest scientific and technological enterprise — and the best research universities — in the world.

Read the rest here.

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Bob Novak reports:

U.S. Marines, while fighting valiantly in Iraq, are on the verge of serious defeat on Capitol Hill. A Senate-House conference on the Armed Services authorization bill convening this week is considering turning the Navy’s last two battleships, the Iowa and Wisconsin, into museums. Marine officers fear that deprives them of vital fire support in an uncertain future.

Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the current commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on April 1, 2003, that loss of naval surface fire support from battleships would place his troops “at considerable risk.” On July 29 this year, Hagee asserted: “Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered.” Nevertheless, Marine leaders have given up a public fight for fear of alienating Navy colleagues.

Hagee’s complaint reminded me of something I read back when the Navy’s other two remaining Iowa-class battleships were re-retired a decade ago. I Googled until I just couldn’t Google any longer, but never found the exact quote or who said it. I do remember it was a Navy or USMC officer of flag rank.

Under President Reagan, the four WWII-era Iowa ships were retro-fitted with Harpoon missiles, modern radars, etc., and reintegrated into the Navy. The rationale was simple: Those old ships had thick hides (12-inch thick cold-rolled steel!*) and nine 16-inch guns

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Good news/bad news for Tom Delay:

A judge dismissed the conspiracy charges Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out the money-laundering counts, dashing the Texas congressman’s hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader. Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay’s attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed.

Conspiracy charges are usually meaningless; they’re what the DA nails you with when he doesn’t have anything else. But the money-laundering charge stuck, and that’s a “real” charge. So Delay could be in real trouble.

And that troubles me about as much as Trent Lott’s troubles from three years ago.

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Wikipedia – it was nice knowing you.

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Vote for VodkaPundit as the best of the Top 250 Blogs, and the Republican National Committee might just give you a Tootsie Pop.

UPDATE: Hey, would someone please be kind enough to pull a Karl Rove and vote for me twice? Since I refuse to install Macromedia’s omnipresent Flash stuff on my computer, I can’t vote for myself.

UPDATE: Also, consider giving these guys your vote for Best Military Blog. Hell, vote for them three or four times – they’re that good.

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Does Steven Den Beste know about this?

DISCLAIMER: BushCo loves them comic books.

BushCo, formerly known as BushRoveCo, subverts American values through Japanese comic books.

BushCo: Dolling out the dollars since 2001.

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Last week, Robert Bidinotto wrote such effusive praise for Rose Robbins, that I purchased her CD, “Close Your Eyes,” without even bothering to listen to any sample tracks.

It arrived a little while ago, and Robert was right. Robbins is a chanteuse from the old school – except that she writes, composes, arranges, and plays her own stuff.

Second only to her talent is the fact that Robbins is a true independent artist: She has no major label to support her, and no DRM nastiness to infect your computer.

If you want a little extra beauty in your life, you could do a lot worse than Rose Robbins.

ANNOUNCEMENT: This unpaid advertisement has been bought and paid for by BushRoveCo.

BushRoveCo – bringing evil and ugliness to the world since 2001.

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As I confessed a while back, I was infected with Flat Panel Flu from the first moment I laid eyes on a large HDTV screen, about five years ago. Back then, a big plasma cost as much as a quality used car, and a “large” LCD was about 21 inches across. Ever since, I’ve been lusting after those brilliant, enormous, oh-so-thin screens, and watching the prices creep down into something like a normal human’s range.

About a month ago, I finally took the plunge, and got a Panasonic TH-50PHD8UK plasma screen. And it rocks. I mean, you ought to see last month’s Auburn-Alabama game in HD (recorded on a DirecTV HD Tivo). You could step into the screen and sack Brodie Croyle from your living room.

I picked this one out after (literally) a couple of years of shopping around and comparing pictures. The final contenders came down to Panasonic and Pioneer plasma screens. The Pioneers have a slight edge in colors (just amazingly brilliant), but Panasonic took the trophy for the sharpest picture–and besides which, Pioneer screens are still premium-priced, and I’m cheap, even when I’m buying something really expensive.

For all you LCD and DLP folks, as Steve Den Beste would say, please, don’t send emails. This is very subjective stuff, and if you’re buying a TV, you should buy what your eyes like the best. For myself, I just don’t like projection screens (of any technology), and flat LCDs are too small and/or too expensive.

Speaking of which, and apropos of the Blogfaddah’s ongoing HDTV seminar, here’s my advice on buying a big TV. It’s similar to what I tell people who’re buying a new computer: Get the one with the features (and in this case, picture) you like the most, and buy as much power (or screen size) as you can afford. Then quit reading reviews, quit checking prices, and just enjoy the damn thing–because there’s probably going to be a better one, selling for cheaper than you just paid, next month.

Oh, and don’t get ripped off on cables. Buy them here.

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Ed Driscoll isn’t exactly impressed with the Republican Senate – but I’d guess a lot of Republicans feel the same way.

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I suspect Tony Pierce got caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.

Actually, I don’t suspect that at all. To say such a thing would be baseless innuendo of the worst kind. But since Tony has chosen to play that game, I’d sure like to see him deny some stupid charges of his own.

NOTE: In all fairness, Tony has suffered from unsubstantiated charges already. That makes his recent behavior even tougher to fathom.

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Read VodkaPundit and throw up.

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I hate to do this, because I’ve always respected Zbigniew Brzezinski – but I have to call “Bullcrap!” on his Sunday WaPo column. Read:

By asserting that Islamic extremism, “like the ideology of communism . . . is the great challenge of our new century,” Bush is implicitly elevating Osama bin Laden’s stature and historic significance to the level of figures such as Lenin, Stalin or Mao. And that suggests, in turn, that the fugitive Saudi dissident hiding in some cave (or perhaps even deceased) has been articulating a doctrine of universal significance. Underlying the president’s analogy is the proposition that bin Laden’s “jihad” has the potential for dominating the minds and hearts of hundreds of millions of people across national and even religious boundaries. That is quite a compliment to bin Laden, but it isn’t justified. The “Islamic” jihad is, at best, a fragmented and limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.

Back in the Bad Old Days, it took a nation-state to fight a nation-state. Japan built aircraft carriers to attack us at Pearl Harbor. Germany made tanks to slice up France. The Soviet Union produced missiles in about the same quantity (although with probably lower quality) that Charmin makes toilet paper.

But the Bad Old Days were also the Good Old Days. You could depend on the Soviets not to do anything really, really stupid

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I didn’t even know VodkaPundit had been nominated.

The kudos go to Stacy Tabb, the genius who made this site viewable.

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Finally, a pirate movie everyone can, uh, get into.

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This Grady Hendrix review in Slate, of a schlocky Joe Dante flick that hardly anybody will actually watch, contains possibly the most ignorant and offensive collection of sentences that I’ve read in the last decade:

Today, zombies are the perfect metaphor for our soldiers in Iraq: They’re shell-shocked, anonymous, and aren’t asked to make very many decisions. Unless you personally know a soldier, the war in Iraq has been a zombie war, fought by an uncomplaining, faceless mass wrapped in desert camo and called “our boys.” We talk about them all the time

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Interviewed on PBS, retired Army intelligence officer Ralph Peters had this to say about US propaganda in Iraq:

The case is very straightforward. First of all, when a house is burning down, you put out the fire before you worry about the table settings. And although, obviously, in our democracy a free press is very, very important, Iraq is not yet a full-fledged democracy.

Combating the insurgents and terrorists is much more important; in post-modern conflict — and, boy, I’ll tell you, conflict has changed — the media sphere can be as important or even more important a battlefield than the physical battle space [emphasis added].

When I say I told you so, I really freakin’ told you so.

NOTE: If you got anything at all out of last month’s “Arm of Decision” essay (linked above), you’ll enjoy this, too.

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On September 11th, 2001 (at around 0845 or so) I was with my college Air Force ROTC instructor. We were in the middle of a paperwork session that would affirm my intention to pursue an officers’ commission in the Air Force upon graduation.

I finished up with the papers and as my instructor shook my hand to congratulate me, an Air Force major mentioned in passing “so a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”

Read the rest here.

(more…)

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Here’s an interesting little blurb about a talk by Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari and basically intented video games back in the 1970′s. This bit in particular caught my eye:

In 1982, he tells us, there were 44 million gamers. Today, there are 18 million. Where

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It’s a question for the ages.

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Is it time to lift Cold War trade restrictions on Ukraine? You bet it is.

(Hat tip to EB in Kiev.)

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