Greyhawk of the Mudville Gazette is going to be deployed overseas and needs money for equipment so he can keep his blogging going (money for a laptop, digital camera, etc.). If you have money to spare, give him a donation. If no money to spare, just check him out (more eyeballs means more money from blogads). He has been a great military blogger since his existence and even started the MilBlogs ring. Greyhawk joked that if he is KIA, there will be no refunds. That’s not funny; I want a refund!
John Hawkins, who like to make us other bloggers look like schmucks, has an interview with John O’Neill from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. I probably should do another real interview when I have some time…
Michelle Malkin’s book keeps causing more and more attacks. I really need to buy a copy and start reading it. Any of you guys have an opinion on it?
Finally, I made mention on an article (check the second page) from Pointless Waste of Time which is famous for such hilarious articles as 50 Reasons Why the Lord of the Rings Sucks and The Ultimate War Simulation. For the record, I am a 25 year old engineer who never professed to know anything.
–Well, I guess I pretend to know stuff all the time, but you guys are smart enough to know I’m lying.
First!
Dude, it’s the third year in a row you’ve claimed to be a “25 year old engineer.” People are going to start catching on. Just admit it.
Like me, you’re an 18 year old blonde named Trish whose hobbies include movies, long walks, and cute little toy dogs.
malkin’s book is very interesting. but i’m still only on chapter 3. i’ve been distracted. 🙂
The Volokh Conspiracy was discussing the book a few weeks ago. His guest blogger points to a number of problems with the book.
Pointless Waste of Time is one of my fave sites.
JDATE (John Dies at the End… go to main page, scroll down to the link on the right side of the screen under Favorites) is a fantastic story too… part hilarious, part horrifying, all original.
Highly recommended.
Although that article you linked to is strange. It’s writtes as if serious, but everything else I’ve read on that site is satire. Normally there’s a none-too-subtle give-away that his articles are satire.
I wonder if Oxford has gone and become that which he claims to hate. It’s rife with errors about America as only a European could come up with.
Silly Limey.
You’re not fooling anyone… I always suspected you are an “angry teenager”. Let’s face it, can anyone name a funny electrical engineer (chemical engineers, sure, but not electrical), let alone one who’s an “adult”. The worst part is: now people will associate SarahK with Mary Kay (Latourneau).
Beware, the biker community will not take your deception of SarahK lightly1
I’m most of the way through Malkin’s book.
I think her thesis can be summarized thusly:
1. The internment wasn’t motivated by anti-Japanese racism, but was reasonable in light of the perceived (and in some cases actual known) threat.
2. Conditions weren’t bad in the camps.
3. Ergo, the internment wasn’t that bad of a thing. It was only made a blot on the national conscience by crazed radicals in the 60’s – 80’s.
4. Comparisons of racial profiling to internment are thus cheapshots. It isn’t really relevant, but assuming for the sake of argument it was, it’s a weak argument because the internment wasn’t that bad.
My conclusion thus far: Malkin glosses over uncomfortable facts (racism probably was a substantial causative factor in the internment) in an attempt to prove her overreaching thesis, that any racism was irrelevant to the decision.
My fear is that Malkin, by initially rejecting the leftist & civil libertarian left’s association of internment with any modern & legitimate consideration of race, ethnicity & religion by law enforcement, but then spending a whole book telling us the internment wasn’t bad (so profiling in turn isn’t a bad thing either) essentially buys into the left’s argument – that internment and profiling are equally bad, and the same.
She may have the effect of polarizing the debate by framing the argument this way. Anybody in favor of considering race, or ethnicity, or religion, when screening air passengers during a period of heightened alert, will then get clumped with people who think it was an unmitigated good thing, and an innocent government action, to uproot all ethnic Japanese in order to contain maybe 10% of that population.
The Bush Administration pretty obviously can’t speak up about this; it’s an election year, for one thing, and the press wouldn’t let them get out a coherent message. So the real important voice here – the law enforcement folks who would like to be able to discuss their options in times of heightened alert – don’t have a voice in the debate.
The debate, in turn, will likely be framed by the pack of critics being led by Eric Muller (who scores valid points but also overstates his case) and Ms. Malkin.
If she succeeds in polarizing the debate in this fashion, raising the issue of heightened scrutiny based on race or religion (no matter how warranted) will be met with the same accusations of bigotry that principled supporters of federalism get, thanks to the segregationists’ misappropriation of states rights for their dirty cause.
And just to make it clear, my own position isn’t that we need to round up a bunch of Muslims, or profile all Arabs – but if we find a sect (for example communicants of the Finsbury Park Mosque) where it is considered a doctrinal requirement to murder Americans, that we should consider this set of religious belief (narrowly tailored here – not slamming all Muslims) when imposing heightened scrutiny at the airport.
The other problem is that Malkin is just as incendiary at points as Al Sharpton or other race baiters, and as an attorney who has worked on a few large civil rights cases, I assure you that if your civil rights argument is scored on a 1 – 10 scale, getting shitty with the other side loses you about 3 points for simple lack of seriousness. It doesn’t mean you won’t win in the media or before a jury, but it does mean that your argument will be disregarded more easily as the rantings of a partisan or race baiter. Malkin gets perilously close to this, with an over-exuberant use of adjectives at various places.
Overall, it’s a good book, and worth reading, but make sure you look at Muller’s criticism, and have your bullshit detector turned on when reading it (or the criticism of it).
Hmmm. I guess I should have just written a blog post, but I’m less of a link whore than I used to be, so you are just stuck with this epic-length comment. Cripes, I think Caesar’s commentaries may have been a bit shorter…
Just finished Malkin’s book. Agree with little of your analysis Al.
Malkin does not gloss over the race factor. She does not claim it was irrelevant. Instead, she explains that wasn’t her mission, that it’s been covered ad nauseam, and subsequently discusses at length the other significant, determinant factors that led to relocation.
The facts she presents are not easily dismissed.
Nor the current parallels.
Hi, Dave.
Link over to Michelle Malkin’s Blog http://www.michellemalkin.com for an noteworthy critique of her latest book.
Jack.
I think FrankJ should thank DaveJ for letting him know he’s INTERNET FAMOUS now.
Interesting article on Pointless Waste of Time. Either a satire or an epic screed in support of ‘certification’ and ‘authority’ through traditional means (degrees, etc). Nobody really knows jack about how to solve all the world’s problems, and lots of degrees don’t help you come up with the answer. Funny, it is written as a commentary on American democracy – but it’s essential thesis is elitist and anti-democratic at the core. ‘The Annointed’ indeed.
I’ve suspected all along that you were just an angry teenager, and now that I’ve read it on the Internet…it must be true.