Pius Politics

I mentioned politics in the last post, and I meant to really get on that a little more, but I sort of drifted away from politics and into my general temperament, which impacts my politics, but doesn't spell out what the bleep they are, or how they show up in my novel, A Pius Man. 

As I said before, I lean libertarian-right. More laws just means that the government can screw you over in more and more various and sundry ways, so I'm wary on laws for the "common good." I won't say kill all the lawyers, but I think tort reform can do that easily enough. Unfortunately, like most people, I'm a bit schizophrenic. I dislike the premise of feeding Moloch, but there are certain people I really want to remove themselves from the gene pool. I'm a New Yorker who thinks everyone should own a handgun, a rifle and a shotgun. I think drugs a really, really bad idea, but hey, legalize them -- the more people who get high, the more Darwin awards we can hand out.... except for PCP, not even drug dealers will sell that crap anymore, as a general rule. 

Like libertarians, there are a lot of things I don't personally believe in, and wouldn't recommend, but I'm leaving the fate of your own soul between you and God. Enjoy.

I generally despise politics with the burning passion of a thousand suns. The government should leave me alone unless I need actual aid -- like someone has broken into my house and I've run out of bullets.

So, of course, since I truly loathe politics, A Pius Man happens to be the most politically charged book I've ever written. With the overall topic of Pius XII, I do take a side. I believe my conclusions are obvious based on my research. 

However, the political portions of the book are discussions, not rants. And the politics are driven more by the characters than by me.

For example...

Sean A.P. Ryan. Mercenary. Believes in the free market system, heavy weaponry, and grew up in Hollywood: therefore he has lived his entire life swimming out of a Leftist cesspool, and dove into the chlorinated waters of libertarianism. When queried on his political affiliations, he would say, “I believe people should be able to own marijuana and machine guns. I will laugh at the marijuana crowd, but if I have my guns, I'm happy.”

Scott Murphy. He's a spy who huts down terrorists for a living. His politics: “I believe in the power of waterboarding. But I'd sooner talk terrorists to death. It's more painful in the long run. When you can talk them into revealing everything they know, kill them, move up the chain of command. Repeat until they're willing to be peaceful, or they are peacefully dead.” He's an accountant by training, so his first thought is how to steal terrorist money.

Giovanni Figlia. Cop. His father was blown up by a Red Army faction in the 1980s, so he has a grudge against extreme, gun-toting Leftists. Aside from that, his politics are: “I have to protect the most powerful religious leader on the planet, and he insists on pissing off nearly one-third of the world's population. Leave me alone and let me do my job.”

Pope Pius XIII (Born: Joshua Kutjok): Hard right-wing. Has all but declared war on the Sudan. Thoroughly dislikes tyrannies, which means North Korea and China dislike him right back. “I am against abortion, gays being married in my church, and contraceptives are against the religion. Then again, you should only have sex with the person you marry, so abortion and contraceptives shouldn't be needed. However, my homeland of Sudan is going through thirty years of religious and ethnic warfare, I have better things to do than deal with whining hedonists!”

Father Francis Williams, S.J.: “I'm a Jesuit transfering into the Opus Dei. I speak six languages and I can kill people with my rosary beads … what was your question?”

Maureen McGrail. Interpol. “I'm too busy being shot at to have a political opinion. Leave me alone.”

Secret Service Agent Wilhelmina Goldberg: As a special adviser to anyone who wants the Secret Service to audit their security, she has been all over, and her political opinion is simple. “At the end of the day, America looks good by comparison.”

Hashim Abasi: Oxford Educated in global politics. Egyptian police officer. His name translates into “Stern Crusher of Evil.” He survived the "Arab Spring," and the military coup that follows. His general politics are "Can I do my job now? Please? Thank you."

The above characters have more influence over how the political discussions go than I do. So, the topics will be... interesting.

So, have enough fun yet? Just click here, and you can preorder it.

And, if you've done that....

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them. The instructions are right there.

Or: sign up for my mailing list in order to get free stuff.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

Alt-Pius Politics

I actually did this post, once upon a time, when dinosaurs walked the Earth and I thought there was some semblance of sanity kicking around, and would be back in popular fashion after Obama left office. 

Nope. Sorry. Obviously, that didn't happen. Last week, we had the meltdown of "China Mike" Glyer and File 770 after Larry Correia took him to the woodshed. We had a Bernie Sanders psycho shoot up some Republican politicians at a ball game, and democrats trying to simultaneously 1) Disavow all responsibility for it 2) Blame Trump, 3)Try to blame guns for the shooting and 4) Laugh at shooting Republicans. All in the same week.

So, no, to quote Chico Marx, "everybody knows that there is a no sanity clause" ... especially in politics.

Myself? Most days, I'm somewhere between small-l libertarian or conservative. Most of the time, my politics boil down to "leave me alone, and no one gets hurts."

But I'm not really Alt-right. I'm certainly not control Left. There are days I'm almost Ctrl+A, Del. Because, good God, "kill 'em all and let God sort them out" really does sound like an action plan.

But no, I'm not a nihilist. I'm at once too Catholic and not energetic enough. Though the world continues to show me just how justified I am in my borderline misanthropic tendencies. I mean, let's face it, the standard response to a terrorist response should be a calm, reasoned investigation, finding the people behind it -- the planners, the money men, etc -- and kill every last one of them in horrific ways that will make anyone who has similar ideas think three or four times about doing the same thing ever again. Heck, if I were in charge after 9-11 ... well, I'm relatively certain that I wouldn't be as calm and as collected as Tom Kratman's response in A Desert Called Peace. And that series includes torturing journalists to death for supporting terrorists, and mining the perimeter of a city, starving them out, including the women and children.

As I've said elsewhere, my overwhelming sin is wrath.

But this is why I don't write anything like that. I'm depressed enough by this insanity we call reality on a daily basis, I don't necessarily need it in my day to day life. I'm already depressive. I don't write nihilistic crap, I don't read it, and I'm easily annoyed with people who see nihilism as some sort of superior art form. I'm also Catholic, nihilism isn't our beat.

Oddly enough, I'm probably more of a romantic than anything else. Pick ... almost any of my books, sooner or later, you'll probably trip over a Thermopolae situation of 100-1 odds, love conquering all, and righteous fury is a positive tool for going just that little bit farther as you're being beaten to death by a 2x4.

...Hell, forget book series, you could say that summarizes several plot points in A Pius Man alone.

I guess I'm just an idealist who hates that the world wouldn't live up to the standard of. ... anything.

But, yeah. My politics don't lend itself to nihilism, though there are days that I think "genocide" is a viable military option. Thankfully, no one ever listens to me.

So, have enough fun yet? Just click here, and you can preorder it.

And, if you've done that....

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them. The instructions are right there.

Or: sign up for my mailing list in order to get free stuff.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

#TuesdayThoughts on the #ManchesterBombing

In less than 100 years,  we've gone from "we will fight them on the beaches.  We will never give up. We will never surrender," to "we need to just be more kind, compassionate and UNDERSTANDING."

We can, of course, ask what led to these changes, but you can probably come up with your own answer. Mine is the convergence of liberal / Marxist ideology with the mainstream culture. It's why you have idiots saying that violence isn't the answer when violence is actually the opening question, and any answer is simply return fire.

Part of the problem is, I understand ISIS. They're evil. They are literally trying to bring about the apocalypse. Yes. Really. It was a solid article in the Atlantic, one of their few good research and reporting segments. They're basically al-Qaeda on an accelerated schedule, and without the finesse. And when you consider that AQ's idea of finesse was 9-11, that should tell you something.

But Islamofascism at large is all the same, really. Nihilistic, and more interested in the end goal of murdering infidels than living. It is an ideology where there is no hope. There is nothing good to be gotten from living another day. Cut off their nose to spite their face? They would cut off their child's head if they thought that it would hurt somebody else.

An exaggeration? Don't believe me? Let me bring your attention to the Gaza strip a few years ago, after Israel pulled out. There were thriving businesses in Gaza. A seriously large synagogue. Solid residential neighborhoods. Now, normal people, when suffering, poor and hungry, might do something strange when an entire area is just handed to them: take over the businesses, move into the homes, perhaps convert the temple into a mosque. No. They burned everything. Took everything that was literally handed them, and reduced it to ashes, overnight.

This is ISIS. This is AQ. This is Hamas. They're all interchangeable really.

And we've seen what they'd do when they get their way. They attacked a concert for Ariana Grande, whose primary audience is made of of teenagers.  Kids, basically. That's who they targeted. That's the sort of people we're talking about.

Gold Meir once said, "We can forgive them for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."  But now, we don't have to worry about killing their children, they'll do it themselves. They'll strap bombs to them and blow their own kids to Hell. Because why give them a better future.

And the first dumb son of a bitch who says that they just need to be educated: have you LOOKED at the advanced degrees some of these people have? Doctors and architects. Osama was part of the largest, wealthiest family in the Middle East. Didn't stop him.

Guess what, people, this isn't poverty we have to stop. This is fascism. This is an ideology that actually stretched back to Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He was also a friend to Eichmann, and Hitler, broadcast on German radio, and assembled Nazi Muslim brigades-- Hanjar units. And his disciples created the Baathist party, who ran Syria and Iraq. His disciples raised two interesting folk: Yassir Arafat and Saddam Hussein.

Frankly, it's same crap, different day.

I could go on. I could go on forever, really. But the short version is this: every terrorist is not someone we should understand. Every terrorist is just one more person we should kill. Rules of warfare state that if you're in civilian garb while executing an attack, you are an illegal combatant, and under the rules of the Geneva convention, you are owed nothing. Any such combatant isn't owed a cell, or good care. They are owed a bullet to the back of the head, and that's it. Any additional minutes given to them are purely given by the grace of the person who has gotten their hands on said SOB. We could have taken every last Illegal Combatant we put up at GITMO, then take them out back into the bay, shook them in the back of the head, and feed them to the sharks.

Okay, I would slit a minor artery, THEN throw them in, so they could be eaten alive.

Short version: find everyone involved in Manchester. Find everybody who executed the plan, and kill them. Find everyone who financed it, and kill them. Find everyone in the room when they brainstormed the attack, and kill them, too. And just to be certain, we find everybody who was happy about the attack, and kill them too. Then we smother their bodies in whatever part of the pig that isn't eaten and set their remains on fire.

Everyone who then complains that we're treating the enemy poorly? They can go live with the enemy for a month, and we'll see if they're complaining at the end of the day. Because I've had it. You don't like western culture? Here's your ticket to Iraq, or Afghanistan -- not Dubai, they have too much Western architecture.

And no, it's not "because of Trump," you mealy mouth liberal asshats. The west have had terror attacks under Clinton, W, Obama and Trump. They don't care for your BS. I don't care for your BS. You want to make it because of Trump, again, here's your ticket to anywhere else on the planet. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Pardon me. I think I've had too much crap today online. I think I'm going to write a short story where I feed terrorists to vampires.  They just need a little salt. And bacon bits. Lots and lots of bacon bits.

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them. The instructions are right there.

Or: sign up for my mailing list in order to get free stuff.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

For All Their Wars are Merry -- What's it really about?

I already mentioned what For All Their Wars Are Merry is about.

It's about...

"For all Their Wars Are Merry" is an examination of the uses and implications of songs in Irish terrorist organizations such as the IRA and all of their various and sundry splinter factions.  Basically, it will examine why the Irish have these songs as such a widespread phenomenon, and what the songs tell us about these Irish terrorists.

From songs like “My Little Armalite” to “Come out Ye Black and Tans,” one gets the feeling that the IRA doesn't quite take their British opponents as seriously as one would think, given the amount of bombs and firepower the IRA and all of its mutations has thrown at them in their fight to have Northern Ireland united with the Republic of Ireland, or at least independent of the United Kingdom.  
Along the way, it will cover why the Irish terrorists have such songs, why they apologize for their atrocities, how Catholic they thing they are.  It will trace these traditions going back back to the days of the Druidic Bards-Irish poets-of the early Celts some three thousand years ago, up to and including the poet Patrick Pearse in the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin.

Well, what does that look like?

Introduction
The Limits of Terror: How to Define a Terrorist and a Rebel.
This is a little dry, but the short version is that this isn't just "IRA songs" because, well, while not all Rebels are terrorists, all terrorists are rebels.

Chapter 1: 
A Brief History of the Irish Rebel: A Sketch of Rebellion
A do a brief overview of the Irish versus the British, and noting that, gee, the Irish do have several distinct qualities to them, with some odd songs. To match. So we're going to use the songs to examine what makes the Irish unique in their blowing stuff up.

Chapter 2: 
Heroes and Hatreds: Examining Songs of Irish Rebel Heroes
From The Tain to today, the Irish do seem to like a good front man. It's the bard in them, I think.

Songs covered include
"Bold Robert Emmet”
“James Connolly”
“Kelly, the Boy From Killane”
“Henry Joy”
“Kevin Barry”

And more. Those are just the ones I mention in the first paragraph of the chapter. Literally.

Chapter 3: 
The Rebels Whom Bards Forgot: Rebels Who Were Not Honored
I highlight several people who had been either instrumental in the modern era of Irish rebels, and why they never got songs, even though they possibly should have.

Chapter 4:
Dances With Armalites: The Rebel Songs of Humor.
Obviously, I look at the Irish rebel songs that are almost jokes in execution. And they're a little insane.

The following are only SOME of what I use
"Rockall"
“My Little Armalite”
“The Supergrasse”
“Auf Wiedershein Crossmaglen”
"The Black Watch"
“Come Out Ye Black and Tans"

Chapter 5:
Wrap the Flag Around Me, Boys: Examining Irish Memorial Songs
Again, the title, is kind of self explanatory.

SOME of the songs used?
“Boys of the Old Brigade”
“Tipperary So Far Away”
“Wrap The Green Flag Round Me, Boys”
“Lonely Woods of Upton,”
“Gallipoli”

Chapter 6: 
Soldiers and Bombers: The Self-Image of the Rebel
Why don't the IRA have suicide bombers? How Catholic do they think they are? Are they religious, political, or communist?  Yes, communist. It was a thing for a bit. Yeah. It gets strange.

“Down by the Liffey Side”

“Provo’s Lullaby,”

"A Nation once again!” 

“A Soldiers’ Song”
Chapter 7:
Apologies and Other Oddities: The Irish Rebel as Catholic
Considering that "Catholic" is the most common impression of Irish Rebel groups, it deserved d a section to itself.

Songs? "A Sniper’s Promise” is the major new one. I also used songs from before.

Chapter 8: 

A Bard One Cannot Refuse: Comparing Songs of the Irish Rebel to Songs of the Italian Mafia.
Yes. I do a compare and contrast. 

Short version? The Mafia is not at all apologetic. Ever.

Chapter 9: Conclusion.
As noted.

And this book is dedicated to William D. Griffin ... my professor who died in 2011.

#MakeItStop -- please, make the stupid stop

The other day, I hammered out a blog on all the reasons why the stupidity around the Orlando shooting was stupid. It was an ISIS moron, he was NOT using an AR-15, an AR-15 is basically the same as your standard hunting rifle only it looks cooler.  You can't even believe the ways in which an AR-15 is really used.

Really, a word to the stupid: an AR-15 that look like an M4 is still an AR-15.

Everyone decided that a total gun ban would work, even though that the Paris attack happened in a country where guns ARE COMPLETELY ILLEGAL, EVEN FOR THE COPS.

But now? Thursday was the day where sanity completely went out the window. Talk of secret abolition of gun rights? Talk of getting rid of due process because it's a threat to security? Yes, really, I heard a Senator talk about that (Sen Joe Manchin, D-WV). Right after the other idiot talked about the AR-47.

Seriously, we went from a shadow ban on the second amendment to talk of suspending due process in the course of a week? This has reached the level of parody--if we were parodying the worst fear of every tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. Congrats, politicians, I'll be looking up the nearest gun store.

The stupid, precious, it burns us. We hates it. We hates it forever.

Also, yes, the second Amendment means individual people.  Even Penn and Teller can tell you that.

And apparently, shooter Omar Mateen was reported to the FBI by a gun shop because he was being shifted and asked about body armor. Last time I checked, coworkers even told the FBI that Mateen was a freaking psycho. A background check that goes back to grammar school insists that Mateen has always been nuts, and cheered the 9/11 attackers.

But let's talk about guns, not about terrorism.

Some idiots like to talk about Australia's gun grab. Here you go. This is how safe Australia is now. On the left is the usual spin. On the right is the truth.

No pun intended.

Oh, and did we mention that France's terrorist attack happened where guns were completely illegal? It's almost as though murderous terrorist bastards will break the law to get the required weapons. What a thought!

But hey, I'm certain there's some idiot out there saying "well, that's just Paris."

How about this?

Then of course, you have the morons boasting that "a gun wouldn't have stopped this!!!!!"

Except here's Michael Z. Williamson dissecting the entire argument. He goes on for a while, but I think this boils down to the following section.

The defensive shooter engages the hostile. The hostile must choose to ignore, take cover, or return fire.

If he chooses to ignore it, he remains a target and the odds of him being shot increase, and if he is shot, the engagement ends, and no further lives are lost. If this happens before he quits or runs out of ammo, it is a NET POSITIVE for the group..

If he takes cover, he is not shooting for a few moments, and in that few moments, more people can escape or formulate an attack. (Barstools can be as deadly as bullets, when thrown or swung.)  NET POSITIVE.

If he returns fire, anyone not in the cone near the defensive shooter is not being shot at. This is a NET POSITIVE for all those people, and a slight negative for those in the defender's immediate position.

It is possible the defender will hit a bystander in the process.  However, as he is deliberately choosing a single hostile target, the odds still improve for the remainder, and if the hostile is hit, the engagement stops. This is probably still a net positive.

The defender may be hit. Negative for him, but he accepted that risk. And in those few seconds, the fact is that more victims can escape or respond. This is still a NET POSITIVE for the GROUP.

Yes, the defender may decide his best course of action is to flee. If so...there is no negative nor positive for the group. They remain as they were.

But, this assumes an engagement takes place. Knowing certain areas contain a lot of defensive shooters, attackers tend to avoid them. NET POSITIVE for the group.

Gee, it's almost like shooters go where the guns aren't. Funny that.

And wasn't there an Uber driver who stopped a mass shooting back in April?

And aren't guns soooo much of a problem?

As I said yesterday: No. But let's have more of a breakdown.

Meanwhile, in another part of the universe -- also Florida -- the same place that hosted the Blind Sheikh, terrorist mastermind behind the first World Trade Center attack, decided that a homosexual British conservative was far too divisive and terrifying, and possibly hostile. Does anyone else see a problem here?

We won't even go into the little weakling reporter who went to a gun store, fired an AR-15, and claimed PTSD afterwards. He's a man with the appropriate name of Kuntzman. Can't even make this one up.

Even Larry had fun with him.

Who am I kidding, everyone did.

Seriously, all of the anti-gun people need to step back, take a deep breath, and try not to cry into your non-alcoholic, vegan approved fake milk. Try going out to a gun range, and firing off a few rounds. And if you don't listen to the range master, at least try not to deafen yourself or shoot yourself in the foot. And eat some bacon while you're at it.


Other links:
A former Navy SEAL defends the AR-15.

On Brussels, or Kill Them All

My apologies for not commenting on this sooner, but I wanted more data to work with.

Terrorists should die.

All of them.

The Geneva Convention says so.

Didn't know that, did you?

In the great old tradition of the, well, Traditional Rules of Warfare, anyone who wasn't in a uniform, but acting on behalf of an opposing enemy, caught in your territory? Those were spies. You shot them. No trial, no rules, you just shot them in the head, or the chest, or in the gut if you're feeling vindictive.

The role of spies and keeping them alive is a relatively new concept, brought to you by the Cold War. Everyone wanted to get their spies back. Spies became political chess pieces. They became useful beyond spying.

Before that? Spies could have had anything done to them, and no one would have blinked.

A lot of the Geneva Convention seems to be, at least superficially, a codification of the traditional rules of warfare.  Only the language that they use is "illegal combatants" -- does that term sound familiar? It should. That's what almost every terrorist is. If one is not clearly labeled as one side or another -- or if clearly and deliberately mislabeled for purposes of shenanigans -- then that person is toast. Because Illegal combatants HAVE NO RIGHTS under the Geneva convention. Sadly, Saddam's army would have had better luck if they kept their uniforms on ... well, those who weren't in hiding because a war crimes tribunal would have strung them up.

Let's be clear here, shall we? The Islamofascists want us to die. They won't be happy until either we die, or they do. I'd rather it be them.

That's pretty much it. Now I don't generally advocate the standard "kill them all" approach, but I do prefer that we climb the tree. It worked for Osama bin Laden. We got a high ranking commander, we got a courier, poured water down their nose while hanging them upside down, terrified the crap out of them, and climbed the ranks.

My only suggestion would be find a terrorist, find the next step up the chain of command, confiscate as much of their cash as possible (because money buys all sorts of explosives), kill that level of the chain, move up to the next round. Or kill them later, either way.

If you want the really short version, read Tom Kratman's Desert Called Peace and Carnifex, which are two solid books on the nature of this enemy and how they should be fought. And killed.

As for other countries, well, I won't say "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists," but if you're gonna be neutral, be ACTIVELY neutral. Swiss-level neutral. And the Swiss do NOT like people screwing with their neutrality. Act on behalf of some other country while in Switzerland, they will throw you in jail as fast as they can get their hands on you.

So too should "neutral" countries if they want to be truly neutral. "Hey, France, you've got jihadis in your suburbs? Throw them out. You don't even need to arrest them, just don't harbor the little bastards. Okay? Thanks."

But there are no de facto neutral countries, not realistically, and definitely not in the long run. Think about it, the standard Islamofascist has two categories: themselves, and everyone else. You're either with the terrorists, or on their target list. Hell, even ISIS and al-Qaeda hate each other. If they can't coexist to kill non-Islamofascists, what makes anyone else think that they won't be next?

Realistically, no one can be neutral in a war against Islamofascism. Either these guys die, or they kill you. Normally, there would be a third option for forced conversion or being taxed into poverty UNTIL you convert, but ISIS doesn't seem to have that on the agenda. They just seem to be in raping and beheading. (Most Islamofascists don't seem to be interested in anything that might benefit them. When Israel left the West Bank and Gaza, the locals trashed everything of value left behind. Because "It's Israeli." No one thought to use anything for their own benefit, because they'd rather die than use Israeli technology or shops. Because they hate Israel and the West more than they like themselves. They would sooner buy weapons than food.)

And for the record, I know that Islam considers an infidel becoming a Muslim a "reversion," as they believe everyone is really a Muslim to start with, but no. I'm Catholic. Always been Catholic. Will probably always be Catholic. If you have a problem with this, feel free to come visit me at 938 West 35th street, Manhattan, New York. Otherwise, take it up with someone who cares.

No one who takes the enemy at its word can be logically neutral. But the amount of people who had dismissed Islamofascism for most of the 20th century are legion.

Or, to paraphrase the immortal words of John Adams: "Islamofascists have declared us in a state of open and total war. Why the bloody hell can't we?"  This is not The Mouse that Roared, where a country the size of the Vatican declares war on us and then fights with bows and arrows. These people strap bombs to their women, their children, their brothers and their sisters, and gleefully send them to their deaths.The Islamofascist is one who believes in dying more than they believe in living, and all I suggest is that we accommodate them. Is that so much to ask?

With Brussels, Europe is once more reminded that they're not neutral. And no, don't blame the refugee crisis, this goes back so much further than Syria and ISIS. Two of the bombers were born in Brussels. This was a seed planted long ago.

But, unlike the Swiss, Europe generally treats neutrality as something that happens because they say so. Switzerland has only been able to stay neutral because everyone banks there, and the entire country is a natural walled off location (their walls are called "The alps") and everybody in the country has a freaking NATO automatic rifle. Screw with the Swiss, and they just go into the mountains and snipe at you until you run out of either money or blood.

The rest of Europe? They don't have that defense.

The first thing Europe should do is establish border control and create Ellis Island. Yes, I said Ellis Island. Remember, Ellis was created to quarantine folks coming into the country, screen them for diseases, and to find out if the people coming in were the people they wanted to come in. Step 1 would be to do that for the Syrian "refugees." Yes, I put that in quotes. The UN says that they're mostly women and children. The individual countries say that they're mostly fighting-age men.  In the event that the individual countries are right, they should really screen the refugees carefully. Once it has been decided that the individual in question is A) really a refugee and B) not someone who will blow the place up, then and only then should they make the decision to let them back into the country. And all the interrogators should be women. Let's face it, if the men object to the women interrogating them, and get violent over that, send them back to deal with ISIS. If they can't put up with the "discomfort" of a female authority figure to escape the ISIS rampage, they can go back and deal with ISIS on their own.

Step two is to start actual investigations of organizations suspected of supporting terrorism, or tracing funds of same. This isn't rocket science, people. It really isn't.

Hollywood Nazis

When Spotlight won the Academy Award for best picture this week, my first response was "What the hell is Spotlight?"

Once I was told that it was about last century's child abuse scandal, my first thought was "Really? Is there nothing new to make films about? It's almost as bad as the 90-year-old Nazis in films!"

And which point all I could think was: Can we please stop with the Nazis?

Not sure if you've noticed, but there are still films trying to harp on World War II and Nazis.

But keep in mind, I grew up in the 90s, where there was a deluge of 100-year-old Nazis. Bulletproof Monk, for example, literally had a Nazi in a wheelchair, who had to have been at least 100 years old. And, sorry, if I want old, wheelchair-bound Nazis, I'm going to stick with Doctor Strangelove.

If you think that this premise is gone, nope. Hate to break it to you. But you've still got The Lady in Gold, a film with Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds released just last year. Yes, 2015 had a film about hunting down art stolen by Nazis. And that premise has been the plot of at least one episode of every other television show in the last ten years.

But don't worry.  As the film Three Kings turned the hunt for Nazi gold into the hunt for Iraq gold, I'm certain that there will be films in a few years that boil down to hunting down pieces from the Iraqi museum (most of which, by the way, was actually hidden by the caretakers of the museum, but it'll work because few people actually know that).

So, part of the question becomes ... why? No, really. Why? Do we not have enough bad guys in the nearly 80 years since World War II? You know, that whole Cold War thing? War with al-Qaeda?Terrorists?

First of all, we have to recognize that this isn't new. That's been part of my problem for a while with films in general. Hollyweird likes to ignore the elephant in the room -- or the actual threat in the crosshairs. Hollyweird has lousy target recognition.

During the Cold War, how many films had bad guys who were Soviets and good guys who didn't look as douchey as the bad guys?  Hell, the closest you get to even having Soviets as bad guys were in films based off of John le Carre novels, and even then, those plots shoe-horned in enough moral ambiguity that you wondered if le Carre could figure out who the good guys were if there weren't a literal map telling him where the bad guys resided.

Don't even try to talk to me about The Hunt for Red October. It was made in 1990, when the Cold War was like five minutes away from ending, and they could get away with it after 8 years of Reagan kicking ass and taking names (seriously, half the news articles of the time were about how Reagan was going to destroy the world by pissing off the Soviets; "Hmm, the Soviets didn't nuke us. Maybe we can make one film....").

And yes, there was Red Dawn. But at the end of the day, for every Cold War film that was actually ABOUT the Cold War, there were a dozen films about evil militias or evil generals. For every Hunt for Red October, or Red Dawn, there's at least one Seven Days in May, about the United States military taking over the government. Even Missing in Action or Rambo films were less about Vietnam and more about how the United States has mistreated veterans (yes, before the VA scandals of Obama. Surprise), or how all veterans are deranged psychopaths (First Blood was just ... ugh).

No, no.  The "real" enemy wasn't the Soviet Union. It was people who really wanted to defeat the Soviet Union. They were the problem. Communists (who were already working towards their ultimate casualty list of 100 million dead -- yes, Communism killed 100,000,000 people last century, look it up) were not the enemy.  Anti-communists were the enemy! And thus the phrase was born that "I am not pro-communist or Anti-Communist, I am anti-Anti-Communist."

Yes, anti-anti-communist.  It was a thing. Really. Look it up.

As much as I liked the mid-90s films The Rock and The Long Kiss Goodnight, both of them wonderfully mindless action flicks, look at who the enemy was in each film. The Rock had a collection of US marines taking US citizens hostages, and the latter had a black ops US government agency creating a fake terrorist attack to increase their funding.   And yes, if you've heard that second plot before, it's only been duplicated about a dozen times since then, perhaps more.

Keep in mind -- both of these films came out within five years after the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993.

(For those of you who want to feel old? This year's college freshmen weren't even alive when it was bombed the first time).

Luckily for Hollywood, one lone atheist militia member blew up an FBI building in Oklahoma City, and the 90s became the decade of the evil militia. Every. Five. Freaking. Minutes.  A cliche that continues to this day, even though it has been superseded by events. And history was rewritten so that bomber Timothy McVeigh was a "Christian." So, double-bonus point for the PC jackpot.

Then there was The Siege, where a campaign of terror is ongoing in New York City, and martial law is declared, and the Muslim community is thrown into internment camps. Funny enough, even though the man in charge of the military occupation of New York (played by Bruce Willis) started the film by saying "Martial law is a very bad idea, you do not want to do this," at the end of the film, he is the "real" enemy, and is arrested for torturing a terrorist to death. He is yet another crazy general. Because that's never happened in cinema...oh, wait, it's a recurring cliche.

After 9-11, when "the world had changed" ... the Tom Clancy novel The Sum of All Fears, where jihadis nuke the Superbowl and try to kick-start World War III, was turned into a film about Neo-Nazis.

Yes, that's right.  At the height of awareness about Islamofascist psychos, they made a film about Neo-Nazis.

See? Hollywood loves them some Nazis to kill. Even when they're almost entirely irrelevant in the real world.

And since 9-11, what films have actually dealt with Islamic terrorism? Aside from historically-based films? Not a lot. American Sniper was a biography. I'm told The Hurt Locker might as well have been a documentary. Zero Dark Thirty? A history. SOrt of.

And then there is Valley of Elah, or Syriana, which are anti-war agitprop, and one film called The Kingdom, the punchline of which is "this is a never-ending, vicious cycle."

Oh yay.

You know how bad it is when Hollywood has finally decided to make Cold War films. Currently. Heck, I'm certain that Hollywood loves Russia right now, and the new Cold War we have going for us, because Hollywood would rather fight Russia than talk about Jihadis. It's the only way I can explain the last Jack Ryan film even existing. Hollywood would rather perform icky sex acts upon Vladimir Putin than do a film where Jihadis are the bad guys. And EVEN THEN, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit made certain that the antagonist was a little sympathetic, and not part of the Russian government, but a billionaire.

How does one explain all of this?

To some extent, Hollywood was firmly in the pocket of the Soviet Union. If I recall correctly, the Soviet Union had cut them some checks, especially to penetrate the Screen Actors Guild. And you don't offend the guys sending you cash.

But there is of course, always one constant -- Hollywood's initial reflex is always, "America is evil, and we don't want it's enemies to be angry with us and kill us." During the Cold War, it started as "There are no enemies on the left -- Soviets are our friends," and there was an actual public stance where they stated "We don't want the Soviets to be angry with us and nuke us."

Oh look -- Islamofascists go insane over political cartoons and comic strips of "Hagar the Horrible." Mustn't offend them, lest they cut heads off of some Hollywood execs. Or Allahu Akbar a movie studio with a suicide vest.

Hollywood always needs an enemy for the movies. When they can't come up with the standard religious nut / crazy General / White Supremicist Militia / big business (what they see as Conservatives, basically), they seem obligated to utilize some variation of Nazis.

"But Declan," I hear you say, "what about books made into films?"

What about them? They come with their own villains. As most of them are sci-fi / fantasy, there is little connection to the real world.

But if you wantto think about them in a political fashion?

The Hunger Games? Fascist dictatorship.

Harry Potter? Villains stressing racial purity, and idiots looking like Neville Chamberlain.

Lord of the Rings? Evil armies trying to take over the world, based off of Tolkien in World War I, published after WW2.

Marvel films? Hail Hydra.

I'm sure if it ever comes up, there's someone around to say, "Hey! Nazis did this!"

But, on the question of fighting Jihadis? Sure, there are always some ways around this.  300, for example, could be seen as allegorical for going against the villains of the Middle East in the Persian Empire.  Though you're never going to get away with having James Bond go after Osama bin Laden. Or anyone who even looks like Osama.

As John Ringo once wrote in his book Live Free or Die, as someone tries to explain to an alien why reporters hate his guts...

"I'm what her culture, her tribe, has long seen as the bad guy. Wealthy, self-made, conservative. White. Male. I'm a more comprehensible evil—and it is viewed as evil—than the Horvath. ... The difference is, I try to understand them. They don't even try to understand me. They see my motivations as being theirs. I'm rich because I'm greedy. I have power so I must be ambitious for domination.”

Also, he continues, at the end of the day, this conservative (okay, really a libertarian) concludes that the good liberal reporters know that the conservative and the Christians behind him, aren't really going to kill them. The aliens? They will.

Conservatives and Christians are not going to cut off the heads of Hollywood people who hurl names at them, nor will we start shouting Gloria in excelsis Deo before detonating a suicide vest.

So at the end of the day, the endless use of the Nazi is the endless, desperate search for any villain that won't get them killed. It is the search for the "correct" enemy, so the film has the "right" message. It is a search for a cartoon character villain who seems somewhat real. Because Nazis don't need depth. They don't need motivation. They're Nazis, they're evil.  And most importantly, Nazis are completely irrelevant in regards to any major world event, or any real contemporary evil.

After all, not all villains can be evil conservative religious billionaires. Though you'd know they'd try to get away with it if they could.

Tom Kratman, ISIS, The Return of Sean AP Ryan, and the cast of The Pius Trilogy

Yes, I'm still in Indiana. Otherwise, I would have posted something yesterday.

So, I recently got fan mail that asked me when I was getting back to the world of Sean A.P. Ryan (professional nutjob) & Co. And it was more of a when, not if question. There was a mention of Voodoo curses, so I'm not taking any chances.

Recently, I posted about pornstars, and mentioned how I researched "adult entertainment" because I wanted to put Sean in the most uncomfortable position I could find.

That was actually going to be book 3.  Because book 2 was going to be about Sean Ryan running security for a Natalia Boatman, a young scifi actress who was going to Harvard. Because there was no relation, at all, to Natalie Portman. Really.  There would be terrorists who want to kill her ... mostly because she's Israeli, and a high-profile target. Oh, and yeah, her uncle has heard about it, and he wants to sort the situation ... oh yeah, and he happens to be a semi-retired Mossad hitman.

And did I mention that there would be a mercenary involved who appeared in It Was Only on Stun!?

And that's part of the problem.  There are few people who like Stun!  Surprisingly enough, it's one of my least reviewed books, and the one with the most mixed reviews. So there's little incentive to finish that trilogy.

However, I do have another idea for the continued career of not only Sean AP Ryan, but also the entire cast of The Pius Trilogy.  And one that might be more up-to-date given his post-Pius career.

Simple premise: After Pius, there's a new President in charge, and he is nowhere like President Barry. If you're read A Pius Stand, you probably know who the new guy is.  But the short version is that he is not a fan of standard business as usual practices.  After a terrorist attack, said President wants to assemble an armed NGO that will hunt down and kill terrorists, steal their money, and use that money to bankroll doing the same thing over and over again.  And it would be led by "the most relentless, determined, psychotic son of a bitch" that he can find.

No points for guessing who said psycho is.

And you can probably guess who the team he assembles is going to be.

If you're a Baen reader, this might sound a little familiar.  Very slightly familiar. There is a passing similarity in that terrorist-hunting duties are handed off to a private contractor. But since Tom Kratman is a former Lt. Colonel and is essentially a one-man think tank on waging warfare, and I'm a schlub from New York who's only fired two guns in his entire life .... one apiece ... these are going to be two very different outcomes.  Less military / war novel, and more Monster Hunter International  for hunting terrorists.

It's one way to take it. And given ISIS lately? Sounds pretty darned timely to me.

Actually, doing the Impossible Missions Fund effects a space opera I was working on.  Why? Because Sean AP Ryan was not the first Sean Ryan I created.  The first Sean Ryan was of the 2300s (or was it the 3300s?) in said space opera.  Either way, setting up the IMFund creates a family business for later on.

Anyway, welcome to the dark recesses of my brain, and what's coming down the pipe later on.

The Anthologies are here

Item the first, I'm still going to be here as time allows, so I may not be on for a while. Though I'm going to try to upload guest posts should I get any. I've got one or two people who have offered posts. We'll see who follows through.

Item the second, all three books are out on Kindle. Pius Origins  and Pius Holidays, both on Kindle. Pius Tales should be out sometime within an hour or so of this post, on Kindle and paperback.

Pius Origins is out, only $.99

Yaaay.

The short stories here include:

One Way to Get out of Jail
Sometimes, a legal defense can be murder.
We Have a Pope!
Spinning a story can go both ways.
Mile High Murder
A killer is roaming an airplane. And no one can stop him. Should anyone try?
Swiss Family Mafia
Being a bill collector can be trying.
Tinker, Tailor, Goyim, Spy
The Bostonian Catholic walks into Mossad. What is this, a joke?

But wait! There's more! Including character interviews and essays on their creation.

Also, ...

Pius Holidays is here, only $.99

Includes some fun stories as

God Hates ... Superman?
Crowd control made easy.
Erin Go Boom
Priest vs. terrorists. Oops.
Boys of the Old Brigade
Beating IRA terrorists 140 characters at a time.
See Something
Say something ... or beat someone's head in.
Let Freedom Ring
Terrorists come to blow up Boston. Nobody can stop them! Thankfully, there's a nobody on call.
Coyote Christmas 
Come for the party, stay for the wild animals.
O Little Town of BethMayhem
Terrorists are going to blow up Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
Deck the Maul
A mercenary works mall security on Black Friday. Insert your own joke.

And, finally, Pius Tales, for $2.99 in Kindle, and $7.99 in paperback ... link to be posted. Sorry about that, there was a delay. Should be up today. Period.

Includes .... everything from above, plus additional content, essays, commentary, additional stories, story extras -- over ten thousand words of additional content.

Be well, all.

Honor At Stake, 9-11, and New York fiction

As was mentioned, I've got two main characters for Honor At Stake.

As I've also mentioned, they are both New Yorkers ... well, the vampire has lived in my fair city for about 25 years, so that confers some sort of status of citizenship.

Which means that both of them were in town when 9-11 happened.

The human was about five or six, and got to watch it live, and in person, in the borough across the river, Brooklyn.  Yup.  My character watched the whole thing happen live.  Even remembers the snow on the ground that wasn't even snow. It was ash.

The vampire remembers 9-11 just as well, but couldn't go outside until the towers fell. The ash and dust blocked out the sun, and, well, a vampire didn't really need to breathe in all of that mess, so could go outside at that point.

But before that, the vampire could see the towers fall over and over again on tv, because cable made it possible to watch the second plane strike over, and over and over again, because this was before everyone having an iPhone, and we didn't see the first hit until later.

One character could only barely understand that an airplane had hit buildings, and that people were falling out of the windows -- couldn't hear the impact, but a young imagination is more than enough to fill in that particular blank.

The vampire understood what was happening perfectly well, and wondered how many thousands dead wouldn't be reported, because vampires went up in flame and fire and sunlight from broken windows.

One would grow up to become a monster. The other wished that vampires were bigger monsters -- and hungry for Islamofascists.

You see, I won't say that the world changed for me on 9-11. I had always known that Islamic terrorists needed to either stay home and kill each other, let the Israelis kill them, or be killed by us.  I always knew that blowing up some random stuff when they did something stupid was a bad idea -- they knew what we would do, where we would bomb, and suffered not at all for what we did with a few bombs. I had always known that Osama bin Laden would have been better off six feet under.

Before 9-11, I had figured that Islamofascism would die a slow death, along the line of Darwin,  Yes, as I stated before, I would have been happy to have offed Saddam in the 90s, or invade Sudan to stop the ongoing genocide, but I figured no one would do it for purely humanitarian reasons.

After 9-11, kill 'em all.

Will it follow me and all of my characters for all the days of my life? Maybe. I honestly don't know. It's possible. Codename: Winterborn would not have happened without it.  And I can honestly say that Honor at Stake wouldn't have happened without it.  Not only has it affected me, and the characters, but it shaped the story the first time out.

I have a space opera that I wrote back in the 90s that has undergone some serious revision as far as the bad guys are concerned. It's not entirely influenced by the evil of 9-11, but there are echoes and elements here and there.

Victor Davis Hansen, in his book Ripples of Battle, examined how small battles -- some that people never even heard of -- have lasting effects, touching all sorts of things. With 9-11, it might well have created the next generation of politicians out of vets from the sandbox. Maybe you have a few people who lost someone, and they become a President of the United States who nukes Mecca. No idea.

But I know that 9-11 has definitely shaped these books, and my characters, and large parts of the way I think and approach things.

And, right now, I also know that I will never forget. I don't think my brain will let me.

Review: I Left My Brains In San Francisco

Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator, is back in Neeta Lyffe 2:  I Left My Brains In San Francisco.  After hosting the show Zombie Death Extreme (which has spun off more copies of the franchise than anyone in the book can count), Neeta is back to her job Re-killing the undead.  However, for this book, she's off to a Zombie conference in San Francisco. There will be scientists, government researchers, fellow re-killing experts, as well as enough vendors to outfit a small armory.

Also tagging along is her business partner and sort-of/maybe boyfriend Ted, who had been a cameraman on Zombie Death Extreme, and has joined her as an exterminator with a penchant for setting things on fire. Usually zombies.

But there's something out in the dark waters of the bay that is restless, cold, and dark, and hungry.  And Neeta is about to have a busman's holiday from hell....

No, that's not the summary from the back of the book, that's the short version of my own summary.

Now, let's start with all of the good things about this book.

The details put into this world is impressive, and even reminds of me of early Laurell K. Hamilton (when the books were dedicated to building up her character's world, not her list of sex partners).  The global politics are well put together, the various legal systems regarding zombies, etc (and, sadly, I can see some idiot passing a "no eco-profiling" act). I liked the shots she took at the Occupy movement, and creating degrees in professional protesting (since anyone who read my self defense columns knows my opinion there), and, once the book gets started, they have a solid, amusing running gag involving a group of eco-terrorists.

There is also a ton of details and thought put into the development of anti-zombie weapons systems, from monofilament swords (model such as "the Buffy," or "The Highlander", and, of course, the "Inigo Montoya"), to specialized squirtguns, and flamethrowers.  There is a talking GPS named Majel (Star Trek joke), and a whole bunch of little moments that make this book quite enjoyable. And, of course, having recently been to DragonCon, I could easily believe some of the panels at this particular convention.

And, frankly, Madam Fabian may have already spoiled the best scene in the book for you the other day in her own guest post. [more below the break]

Week in Review: 8-4-2011: Oslo, Abdo, Ringo. Can I buy a different vowel?

This week was just strange.

Over at Examiner.com, I have three articles that apparently went over very well with the editors. One is on DSK and Rape, another on an upsurge of "stranger danger"  and finally, Oslo, Abdo, a tale of two terrorists, and why looks can be deceiving. 

In yet another moment of being pissed off, I discussed how the Oslo bomber has more in common with Richard Dawkins than Pat Robertson .... this will be the only time I may make a complimentary statement about Pat Robertson.

And then I turned around and decided to beat Pfc Nasser Abdo soundly around the head and shoulders.  If you don't know him, he tried to blow up Ft. Hood .... again.

And, due to all of the political crap going on this week, I posted a blog I wrote in January, but never got around to publishing, mainly because I wanted to avoid the garbage at the time.  But I held onto it, because I don't throw anything out.  The Topic?  The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, and "political civility."  How's that working out for everyone?

My music blog on Tuesday was the return of Tom Smith, with a smidgen of Tom Lehrer. If you don't know who Lehrer is, you should.

I had an entire post dedicated to the books of John Ringo .... untrue, actually. I have a review of one of his novels.  However, that post does have a link to a whole bunch of free e-books, so knock yourself out.

Current events and Writing. The Problems of Hashim Abasi

Part of the problems with writing a political thriller is that geopolitical situations change all the times. Sometimes daily.  Some writers find their ways around it easily.

Vince Flynn, for example is the creator of Mitch Rapp, CIAssassin. He apparently decided to skip over the Obama administration by writing American Assassin-- I guess he didn't think that having a hit man on the payroll would be compatible with the 2008 election results.

American Assassin was essentially an origin story set soon after the Lockerbie bombing, and showing how his main character got into the business of killing America's enemies.

With the author Brad Thor, he found away around policy changes by taking his main character, Scot Harvath, out of the government altogether. Harvath, a Secret Service agent with a license to kill, had actually been alienated by the federal government well before 2008. Harvath went out to become a private security agent, occasionally pulling jobs for the Department of Defense.

However, the author has been interviewed by Glenn Beck repeatedly, so you can guess where his politics lie.  But, for his novels, the only politics that matter are "People who try to kill Americans wholesale need to be killed."

And then there's my case.  In A Pius Man, you might notice from time to time that there is the name of Hashim Abasi.  Hashim is in the story to bring in various international elements. He is a brilliant street cop, he has a political science degree from Oxford, and he specialized in international politics before being sucked back into his home life. He has a dark secret in his past, but aside from that, he serves as a neutral party in the world of Vatican politics and religious griping -- it's not his religion.

What could be the problem? What could possibly go wrong?

Hashim Abasi is an Egyptian cop.

Want to guess what happened to mess that up?

Europe Has Some Problems.

Europe Has Some Problems.

[Before reading this blog, I would to ask readers to go through it with a critical eyes. I would prefer it if someone could supply me with numbers for or against anything I am saying here. I am relying heavily on anecdotal evidence and half remembered details. I retain a lot, but that doesn't help much. In short, I'm flying blind. Any numbers for or against what I'm saying would be appreciated.]

In the Brooklyn museum, during the reign of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, there was an issue involving two piece of “art.”

One, was an image of Jesus Christ, symbol of the entire Christian faith, in a jar of urine.

The other was a statue of the Virgin Mary, symbol of at least the Catholic church, smothered in elephant dung with photos of female genitalia plastered all over.

While Giuliani went postal, and complained about the museum, nothing really happened. No one was assaulted. There were no riots. Nothing was burned down. The “artists” were not hunted down and burned at the stake by a horde of angry Christians. Though I think the “artists” should be forced to stare at their own creations for a week.

Let's go to Europe.

There was a Danish political cartoonist who wanted to note how much Muslims self-censor any condemnation of Islamic terrorists, and that you can't even do a critical analysis of Islam like you can of, say, the old testament.

And, to show that Islam could tolerate criticism and would not censor anyone ... they had weeks of riots in reaction to the criticism and tried to censor the danish cartoonist.

I will grant you that political cartoons aren't funny, but this is like Norway having a riot over Hagar the Horrible. Were the cartoons worth the lives of over a hundred and thirty nine people and over eight hundred injured in the international rioting?

Imagine if it wasn't a cartoon, but a movie. Then you can imagine Theo Van Gough being knifed to death in an alley.

Not long ago, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that creating a multi-cultural society has completely failed.

Apparently, this little bon mot was started by central bank board member saying the country was being made “more stupid” by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants.

Merkel's comment: “Multikulti”, the concept that “we are now living side by side and are happy about it,” does not work. “This approach has failed, totally,” she said, adding that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany’s culture and values.

“Subsidising immigrants” isn’t sufficient, Germany has the right to “make demands” on them, such as mastering the language of Goethe and abandoning practices such as forced marriages.....

I'm going to agree that Europe's idea of multiculturalism is stupid. Multiculturalism on the continent is more Balkanization than anything else. The Balkans were held together by Empires and dictators for centuries; there were multiple groups, with separate cultures and identities, who did not want to associate with each other, hated each other's guts, and wanted to kill each other for about a thousand years.

In France, they keep their Muslim immigrant population in glorified slums.

In Holland, government officials have suggested making sharia law officially part of the legal system of the Netherlands (sharia: stone female adulterers, cut off the hands of thieves, and a legal defense for rape ).

I live in Queens. We have 167 ethnic groups speaking 117 different languages. We get along fine. I am the whitest guy I know, yet can walk through the Barrio, Harlem, three Chinatowns, and Brighton Beach, without anyone looking at me like I came from another planet. Then again, within four miles of me, I have dozens of flavors of Christianity, a Bhuddist temple, a synagogue, and a cultural mix of Hispanic, Asian, Indian, Italian, Irish, and those are just the restaurants. We generally all speak English, or we at least attempt to, and if we can't understand each other, there is usually someone who will translate nearby.

So, what the hell is Europe's problem?

They have several. France, for example, insists on a cookie-cutter policy. If you deviate or stand out in anyway, you're a target. The only place for hajibs or yarmulkes are in Catholic schools. Wearing a cross is also banned. Most of these policies were passed under Jacques Chirac, and don't seem to be going anywhere.

Then you have the Netherlands, where the growing Muslim population are mostly young, the first generation born in country (mostly young folk) are growing up with extreme feelings of identity—to their religion. This could just be their version of being a teenager, but instead of being Goth or Emo, it's extreme religion. Unfortunately, until recently, for over ten years no one objected when they assaulted groups of Jews, or committing assorted other hate crimes.

And, recently, one of their politicians was put on trial for … being politically incorrect in a film. Since I haven't seen it, I can't say how offensive it is, but in America, CAIR could have just filed a lawsuit, and made money. People would have boycotted the film. Life moves on. In the Netherlands, you can't even say bad things about Muslims, even when there is a segment of the population that is becoming an issue?

I'm not 100% certain about Germany's problems, if their Islamic population has any specific grievances, or what trouble, if any, they may have caused in Germany in order to spark Merkel's comment.

So, I agree with Merkel that Europe has no idea what they're doing. Time for them to come to Queens.

Then there is Merkel's next line … “We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don’t accept them don’t have a place here.”

Wait, what? I'm sorry, I'm going to hit the brakes right here. Christian values? This is the same Europe that rejected anything religious in the European Union, right? The EU founded on anti-religious Enlightenment ideas? When Pope John Paul II suggested that Europe even had Christian roots, he was told to stuff it. So, Chancellor, you're a little late.

Here's where I seriously start developing problems: A recent study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think tank showed around one-third of Germans feel the country is being “over-run by foreigners” and the same percentage feel foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce. And nearly 60 percent of the 2,411 people polled thought the around four million Muslims in Germany should have their religious practices “significantly curbed.”


Now my BS detector is going into red alert.

Germany has already banned something labeled as a religion. Scientology has been outlawed as being fascist. But I'm assuming that there were not four million scientologists in country when they passed the law.

If this new German thought process is an indication of where Europe's policy is going, I'm worried. It is one thing to ignore, kowtow, or be afraid of a problem, it is another to blindly lash out at a whole group only because a percentage of the group is being a problem.

Maybe if Merkel's “Christian Values” are more like France's Catholic schools, we can talk. But would anyone want to place money on that?  In Europe's past, they have shown only two settings: cower in a corner, or go fascist.  I'm hoping for something in the middle.

Maybe the Brooklyn museum would like to make an image of Muhammad and cover that in excrement. If anyone complains, it can always be covered by free speech.  Should there be a riot in America, like there was in Europe, I wonder if the NYTimes would refer to it as fascist censorship, (like they said about Giuliani) or if they would call it "freedom of religious expression."

Terrorists Are Stupid, Ft. Hood edition.

Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, also known as the Fort Hood shooter, faced testimony from his victims last week.

On November 5th, Maj. Hasan went through Ft. Hood with a handgun, equipped with a laser sight, and went on a shooting spree.

Not too long ago, I mentioned that Terrorists Are Stupid. I even reposted it as a note on Facebook.

The more I learn about Maj. Hasan, the more evidence I have.

For those of you who are not familiar with the technology, a laser sight is supposed to show you where the bullet is going to land. A commercial laser pointer will guide you to bullet points on your PowerPoint presentation. A laser gunsight will guide your bullet to the point on the target you want to shoot.

Part of his rampage included going through a processing center on the base. If it's laid out like other offices, I can only imagine it as shooting fish in a barrel. His path also took him through a soldier-readiness center (go there, get a checkup and sign your will before heading to a war zone). The Military Police had no bullets in their weapons, making one conclude that their rifles are only for clubbing people over the head (note to army: I hope someone has rescinded whatever stupid order armed your MPs with empty guns).

One of Hasan's first attempted victims was a Sergeant Alonzo M. Lunsford. Sgt. Lunsford was in the readiness center when Hasan stood, shouted “Allahu akbar,” and opened fire.

Sgt. Lunsford was shot five times, at least once in the face, requiring reconstructive surgery and has resulted in the loss of eyesight in his left eye. At least one of Hasan's bullets obviously hit him in the head.

Sgt. Lunsford is alive, at least in part, because Hasan is obviously an idiot.

Major Hasan “Chop,” terrorist idiot, killed thirteen people, and shot thirty-two others.

It is most likely my mindset for creative havoc that leads me to think: Only thirteen? Hasan “Chop” had the shooting equivalent of training wheels on his handgun, shot up a bunch of soldiers in the midst of paperwork, and he had no armed resistance, AT ALL, until the local police arrived. He could only kill a baker's dozen?

Pretend that you are a terrorist … if it makes you feel better, pretend I am a terrorist … you now have the ability to hit what you aim at. Your mission is to kill as many people as possible. You have surprise on your side. One victim you shoot in the head, emptying five bullets into him; would he have survived the first bullet?

From the point of view of a terrorist attack, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had “the right idea.” If a terrorist is doing it right, they should spread, well, terror. If al-Qaeda wanted to wage a campaign, they would have recruited a dozen other Major Hasans, and have a day of shootings.

I am not worried about inspiring al-Qaeda, by the way. If this idea can be thought up a guy in the back end of Queens, NY, who has never even seen a gun up close, I suspect that someone in the AQ hierarchy just MIGHT have thought of it by now.

However, let's take a closer look. Because, even if al Qaeda decided to wage such a campaign, it would be proof that terrorists were ineffectual bunglers, who only manage to kill people if they get lucky.

Maj. Hasan shot forty-five people, and killed thirteen. He couldn't even assassinate one-third of the people he shot at.

He fired over one HUNDRED rounds of ammunition and only HIT forty-five people?

Let's do some basic math.

13 (Killed) + 32 (Wounded) = 45 (Shot).

13 (Killed) / 45 (Shot) = 28.8% (Of victims died.)

Hasan had all of the advantages on his side, and had a rather pathetic “success rate.” If success for a terrorist is mass casualties and widespread panic, Hasan is a complete and utter failure.

A twenty-three-year-old college student with a history of mental illness did a “better job” at Virginia Tech, and he was an utter nutbar: 58 shot; 33 dead; 25 injured. That caused fear and trembling all over the place, and was a cause of conversation for weeks, at least on college campuses.

When I applied to be an Air Force historian, I was told that I would have weapons training, even though I would be a civilian employee. One can assume that someone doesn't get to being a Major in the U.S. Military without something like basic weapon's training, no matter the position.

And yet this wannabe terrorist couldn't even outperform a schizophrenic college student at Virginia Tech.

Hasan's rampage was an attack waged by an idiot, full of sound and gunfire. He had all the advantages one could have, and still managed a paltry outcome.

However, for all that, thirteen people still died.

Which leads to the same conclusion I had at the end of my last “Terrorists Are Stupid” article.

Even idiots can get lucky.