Cheers.

There was a fire this evening in the Spiller dormitory in the Hamilton complex. Four fire trucks, three ambulances and a few squad cars were present. The entire complex was evacuated pending the fire department going through every room in Hamiltion. No word on injuries as of yet.

I just happened upon this excellent Joe Queenan resource and thought I’d share. His books are getting depressingly hard to come by, but I heartily recommend Imperial Caddy – a thoughtful, reasoned analysis of Dan Quayle – and The Unkindest Cut, in which Queenan makes a low-budget movie that savagely attacks twelve-step recovery programs and nearly drives him into bankruptcy.

Of course, our regular readership will probably want to flip straight to this. Here endeth the book club meeting.

I was thinking of writing something on this story, because it’s exactly the kind of issue I like: a big, fat, hanging curve which will generate a thousand words of invective without requiring any particular effort or research.

And I still may, but I’ll have to come up with a slightly more thoughtful angle, because Travis Willse just beat me to it. Not enough jokes, but at least he’s on the side of righteousness. (Plus, I feel bad for slighting him in a post below. Good for him for riling up the PETA kids.)

If you love Jack Chick as much as I’m sure you all do, and have a nodding acquaintance with the work of H.P. Lovecraft, then this should reduce you to abject hysterics. It certainly did me.

(Link taken directly from Hit & Run, once again.)

For The Commentator to drink its weight in beer, we would have to chug 1916 pints of our favorite fermented beverage! I believe we can do this, Now we must strive to achieve!

How big is the Voice’s alcohol problem?
Powered by the mighty Rum and Monkey.

It is by now a matter of record that the quote

There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There’s nothing good in war except its ending.

attributed to Lincoln by anti-war protestors earlier this year – although doubtless a noble sentiment – was actually uttered by an actor portraying Lincoln on an episode of Star Trek. We’ve been kicking this one around the office for a couple of days now, trying to come up with other circumstances in which this kind of unfortunate misunderstanding could occur. (The best one we’ve thought of is Ralph Wiggum as George Washington, but alas – he wasn’t in character when he said “This snowflake tastes like fishsticks!”)

Suggestions welcome.

Meanwhile, it might be prudent to check your next ostensible Mark Twain quote against a transcript of this episode of Cheers.

Maybe it’s just the hair, but cursory inspection of today’s ODE front page leaves the distinct impression that they’re accusing Ben Franklin of cheating at something, possibly the invention of bifocals.

Ahh…the zero tolerance policy. It effectively gets kids with headaches expelled while allowing dope fiends to continue using in the woods behind the gym. Even better is that this resulted from a search of kids at school for something completely unrelated. As long as schools are operated on the “in place of the parent” principle, this kind of crap will happen.

I completely forgot that the OC blog turned one year old on Nov. 18th. The OC Blog shares its birthday with famous celebrities such as Alan Shepard, Jr., the second man in space (the first being Russian Yuri Gagarin), and Kevin Nealon, SNL alumn, whose latest film roles include ‘Mr. Baker’ in the ‘dogs-are-talking’ comedy, Good Boy!, Bruce in Daddy Day Care, ‘Mayor’ in Eight Crazy Nights, and ‘White Collar Executive’ in The Master of Diguise.

Also ‘born’ on Nov. 18th, Mickey Mouse.

The woman who was trampled at Wal-Mart has apparently been filing all sorts of injury claims for years. This article says 16 total at previous employers, Wal-Mart, and other places she’s shopped. I guess you have to give her kudos for persistence, but this is a rather conspicuous detail.

And, speaking of capitalism doing some killing, a UN official has said that the DPRK’s experiments with capitalism have caused mass starvation and other problems. Yes, it’s gotta be the capitalism. There’s really no other explanation for it. Couldn’t be a two-bit dictator, or oppressive regime causing these poor people harm. It must be the market, brilliant!

And, just in case that wasn’t enough capitalism for you, this Economist is Very Angry.

What’s up with the guy in the Bush/Cheney shirt?

I know many Commentator members and readers are fans of video games so I thought I’d point out that the creators of Penny Arcade are sponsoring a toy drive to collect toys, books and video games for patients at the Seattle Children’s Hospital. Considering that many reporters, columnists and a certain Portland-based filmmaker continue to perpetuate the myth that kids who play video games are being trained to become killers, I hope that these guys get some positive coverage.

Speaking of games, check out the Japanese Shockwave site to play games with the bonus challenge of trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

This one has got to be my favorite, mostly because it deals with cake and LSD.

Bush will finally be lifting the steel tariffs today. But this still does not look good:

The administration will promise to closely monitor the industry to ensure that foreign steel is not dumped into the United States at below market rates, and will make the case that both the American steel industry and the overall U.S. economy have made significant strides since President Bush imposed the tariffs.

Hello? Isn’t this a free market? Won’t the market value determine itself without government intervention. I hope that is not too laissez-faire for everyone.

Den Beste has been thinking about nukes lately. At the bottom he links a whole host of responses which can be lumped into two basic groups, “You’re damn right Steve” and “Den Beste is a jingoistic extremist.” It’s no secret that I’m rather a fan of Den Beste’s writing, and I do think this latest piece is an interesting hypothetical in a Jacksonian policy framework, but I think he uncharacteristically misses possible outcomes due to the law of unintended consequences.

If, say, a group of Islamic terrorists managed to detonate a nuclear device in a major American city, I do think we’d probably strike back with nukes. I agree that we’d probably hit Mecca, Tehran, Medina, or any number of other major middle-eastern cities in some nation run by theocrats. I can’t even say that I’d think such a reaction would be unjustified, and I’d probably support it. Also like Den Beste, I sincerely hope it never comes to that. Such an outcome would be a tragedy such that mankind has never seen, and a truly horrible thing. I also think it would be worse than Den Beste seems to suggest.

Why? Because the MAD doctrine went out with the USSR. Now, the Soviet Union may have been run by some severely deranged tyrants over the years, but at least they had enough sense to understand self-preservation. Furthermore, we pretty much knew who had The Bomb. Things are a little different now. North Korea has nukes, they probably couldn’t hit us with them at this point, but they’ve got them. And the DPRK is run by a man who could fairly be categorized as “unstable” to put it politely. It’s also a certainty that Kim Jong Il could obtain the capability to strike the US without a terrible amount of difficulty. [Note: I am not going to make an argument for invasion of NK] China already has the ability to hit us with nukes, and they’re not exactly friends. They’re not openly hostile, most of the time, but they could pose a threat under the right set of circumstances. Iran is working on a nuclear program, and God only knows where half the stuff from the Soviet Era wound up. Rusting in the Balkans, in the hands of [generic “rogue nation”/enemy state] who knows?

The point is that a US strike with nuclear weapons probably won’t be the last because there are any number of other states who have the capability. A nuke goes off in Boston. We strike Medina, Iran strikes Israel. Israel then strikes back at Iran. Pakistan takes offense at this, decides to get in on the game, and fires at India to settle an old score now that the genie has gotten out. Also, they fire back at Israel. India doesn’t like this and decides to hit Pakistan. Then China might decide it doesn’t like this whole “nuclear war” thing, especially so close to home in India, and fires at the US because we’re the ones who launched the first missile, they might also fire at Japan. We fire at China while their missiles are on their way here, &c. All of that happens while North Korea is debating whether to hit Seoul or Tokyo first. It’s a lot like a Cold-War scenario, except now there are many more players in the game and some of them either don’t know or don’t care about the possibility of becoming the newest residents of a glowing, irradiated wasteland.

ADDENDUM: To be clear, I do think that in the [rather unlikely at this point] event of a nuclear strike on American soil by Islamic Terrorists launching our own missiles is probably what will happen. And, even given my above description of the likely consequences, doing so would be the most expedient way to eliminate the threat. Furthermore, it might be the best alternative in the situation: Our choices will be thus, “let them keep coming at us which will most certainly lead to our demise” or, “nuke them back and hope for the best, which will probably lead to our demise.” Probable death is better than certain death, after all. This position not only demonstrates American willingness to go to any extent needed to defend itself, but also the American willingness to make sure its enemies are destroyed in the event that they manage to bring down America. A sort of “see you in hell” mentality. None of this is pleasant, nor is it pretty, and here’s hoping to God that we can end this long before it ever gets to that point.