Col. Ralph Peters has a fever, and the only prescription is total war

Remember my prescription for ISIS? No, it's not more cowbell.

Apparently, Col. Ralph Peters agrees. Smart guy.

Our military has the resources to shatter ISIS, but political correctness has penetrated so deep into the Pentagon that, even should a president issue the one-word order, “Win!,” our initial actions would be cautious and halting. We’ve bred a generation of military leaders afraid of being prosecuted by their own government for the kind of errors inevitable in wartime. Instead of “leaning forward in the foxhole,” our leaders lean on lawyers.

If lawyers had had to approve our World War II target lists, we couldn’t have won. War is never clean or easy, and the strictures imposed on our military today just protect our enemies. Collateral damage and civilian casualties are part of combat and always will be. The most humane approach is to pile on fast and win decisively — which results in far less suffering than the sort of protracted agony we see in Syria.

The generals who won World War II would start by leveling Raqqa, the ISIS caliphate’s capital. Civilians would die, but those remaining in Raqqa have embraced ISIS, as Germans did Hitler. The jihadis must be crushed. Start with their “Berlin.”

Kill ten thousand, save a million.

Obama, Syria, and Moral Preening

Someone who gets it.

Obama’s own policy decisions—allowing Assad to convert peaceful demonstrations into an increasingly ugly civil war, refusing to declare safe havens and no fly zones—were instrumental in creating the Syrian refugee crisis. This crisis is in large part the direct consequence of President Obama’s decision to stand aside and watch Syria burn. For him to try and use a derisory and symbolic program to allow 10,000 refugees into the United States in order to posture as more caring than those evil Jacksonian rednecks out in the benighted sticks is one of the most cynical, cold-blooded, and nastily divisive moves an American President has made in a long time.

For no one, other than the Butcher Assad and the unspeakable al-Baghdadi, is as responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria as is President Obama. No one has committed more sins of omission, no one has so ruthlessly sacrificed the well-being of Syria’s people for his own ends, as the man in the White House. In all the world, only President Obama had the ability to do anything significant to prevent this catastrophe; in all the world no one turned his back so coldly and resolutely on the suffering Syrians as the man who sits in the White House today—a man who is now lecturing his fellow citizens on what he insists is their moral inferiority before his own high self-esteem.

Indeed.

About all the terrorism...Carthago delenda est

Yeah, I've been absent from the blogging recently. There's been a big crush of work, and when I haven't been working, I've been ferrying kids to soccer games and generally otherwise doing things that need to be done.

By the way, four year old soccer is pretty hilarious.

In any event, something that isn't so funny is all the bad news out of Paris. Obviously, ISIS has decided that it's not "contained". Apparently, they seem to be the opposite of contained. In the wake of the Paris attacks, we're now faced with the decision of what to do with these people.

It seems our President doesn't really want to go and, you know, fight these people. He's decided that sending in soldiers to fight just isn't something he's going to do. I know lots of people support this decision not to get involved in ground combat, given how poorly the Iraq war ended up going. I get the reluctance. I really do.

However, something must be done. These barbarians are not going to stop. In fact, ISIS gets stronger as it continues to have this aura of invincibility. These people need to be stopped. And stopping them means killing them. Sorry, but it does.

I don't think we need to go into Syria and topple Assad. He's a bad guy, but he's not the problem we're dealing with (now). Also, going in and deposing the leader of Syria is exactly a replay of Iraq, and that didn't go so well. So if you are saying that we have to get rid of Assad when we go in to destroy ISIS, then I'm probably going to vote that we just don't go in at all. I'm not interested in regime change in Syria. I'm interested in utterly destroying ISIS. That's it. As Michael Corleone said, "I don't feel like I have to wipe everyone out. Just my enemies."

I don't think we should build schools, roads, or do anything that actually could be construed as "nation building" in Syria and/or Iraq. That's not what the military is for. The military is a tool that we use to kill people and break things. So let's do that.

I would be willing to commit ground troops, air support, and all that goes with it to go into Syria, and kill everyone in the ISIS territory and destroy every building in ISIS territory. After that, I think we should sow salt into the earth.

Then we leave. Bye. Don't make us come back.

No building schools, no building roads. No helping people vote or imposing democracy. Just kill the people in the ISIS areas, leave not one brick stacked upon another, and then leave. (Oh, yeah, don't forget to salt the earth.)

It's not going to be a quagmire. We're going to go in, do the job, and then leave. Done and done. Total war. Complete and utter destruction. Not a proportional response. I'm talking about a disproportional response.

You don't like my plan? Fine. What's your plan? Are we supposed to wait until ISIS detonates a bomb in the US, or downs a US commercial airliner?

A soldier's account of the Western Front on November 11, 1918

Thanks to all the veterans for all the the sacrifice they have made by their service. Although Veterans Day is for all who served, it always seems appropriate first to remember the sacrifice of the men of the First Wold War. After all, the date of Veterans Day is taken from the Armistice Day, which marks the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front.

Colonel Thomas Gowenlock served as an intelligence officer in the American 1st Division. He was on the front line that November morning and wrote of his experience a few years later:

"On the morning of November 11 I sat in my dugout in Le Gros Faux, which was again our division headquarters, talking to our Chief of Staff, Colonel John Greely, and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Peabody, our G-1. A signal corps officer entered and handed us the following message:

Official Radio from Paris - 6:01 A.M., Nov. 11, 1918. Marshal Foch to the Commander-in-Chief.
1. Hostilities will be stopped on the entire front beginning at 11 o'clock, November 11th (French hour).
2. The Allied troops will not go beyond the line reached at that hour on that date until further orders.
                                                                      [signed]
                                                                      MARSHAL FOCH
                                                                      5:45 A.M.

'Well - fini la guerre!' said Colonel Greely.

'It sure looks like it,' I agreed.

'Do you know what I want to do now?' he said. 'I'd like to get on one of those little horse-drawn canal boats in southern France and lie in the sun the rest of my life.'

My watch said nine o'clock. With only two hours to go, I drove over to the bank of the Meuse River to see the finish. The shelling was heavy and, as I walked down the road, it grew steadily worse. It seemed to me that every battery in the world was trying to burn up its guns. At last eleven o'clock came - but the firing continued. The men on both sides had decided to give each other all they had-their farewell to arms. It was a very natural impulse after their years of war, but unfortunately many fell after eleven o'clock that day.

All over the world on November 11, 1918, people were celebrating, dancing in the streets, drinking champagne, hailing the armistice that meant the end of the war. But at the front there was no celebration. Many soldiers believed the Armistice only a temporary measure and that the war would soon go on. As night came, the quietness, unearthly in its penetration, began to eat into their souls. The men sat around log fires, the first they had ever had at the front. They were trying to reassure themselves that there were no enemy batteries spying on them from the next hill and no German bombing planes approaching to blast them out of existence. They talked in low tones. They were nervous.

After the long months of intense strain, of keying themselves up to the daily mortal danger, of thinking always in terms of war and the enemy, the abrupt release from it all was physical and psychological agony. Some suffered a total nervous collapse. Some, of a steadier temperament, began to hope they would someday return to home and the embrace of loved ones. Some could think only of the crude little crosses that marked the graves of their comrades. Some fell into an exhausted sleep. All were bewildered by the sudden meaninglessness of their existence as soldiers - and through their teeming memories paraded that swiftly moving cavalcade of Cantigny, Soissons, St. Mihiel, the Meuse-Argonne and Sedan.

What was to come next? They did not know - and hardly cared. Their minds were numbed by the shock of peace. The past consumed their whole consciousness. The present did not exist-and the future was inconceivable."

New study reports that the Medicaid expansion is going to, get this, cost more than previously estimated.

I'm shocked, shocked, to find out that a previously low estimate of the cost a government program is being revealed to be, like, um, completely wrong.

Illinois once projected that its Medicaid expansion would cost the state $573 million for 2017 through 2020. Yet 200,000 more people have enrolled than were expected, and the state has increased its estimated cost for covering each. The new price tag? About $2 billion, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Hey, they estimated $573 million, and it ends up being about $2 billion. No big deal. I'm sure they can just raise some taxes on just a few really rich people. Problem solved.

Thursday Open Thread

Yeah. I'm being slack. Sorry 'bout that. I'll have content tomorrow after court.

Harvard study says, get this, sarcastic people are the smartest.

Thanks a lot, Harvard. Now, my sarcastic friends are going to be even more insufferable.

Interesting new book challenges common knowledge of WWII

Looks like I found another book to add to my nighttime reading.

In my new book The War in the West: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941, first in a three-volume history, I am challenging a number of long-held assumptions about the war, many of which are based on truth by common knowledge, rather than through detailed and painstaking research.\

My Damascene moment came some years ago when I was being given a tour of the Small Arms Unit at the British Staff College at Shrivenham. I was glancing at a German MG42, known as a “Spandau” by the Allies. “Of course, that was the best machine gun of the war,’ I commented, relaying what I’d read in many books.

“Says who? Says who?” retorted my guide and head of the unit, John Starling. In the next few minutes, he proceeded to deconstruct everything I thought I knew about this infamous weapon: that its phenomenal rate of fire caused massive problems of over-heating, that it was widely inaccurate (for which having since fired one, I can now vouch), that is was incredibly expensive to manufacture, massively over-engineered and lacked certain simple additions that would have made its handling so much easier.

I love stuff like this. He talks about looking at the "operational" level of the war as opposed to the strategic or tactical level. It's all about the nuts and bolts of things, rather than the dynamic flair of personalities.

As someone famously said "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."

Relaxing Sunset View

I saw this, and it made me think of how it now gets dark so early in the afternoon. You can just feel the darkness creeping in around you on this picture.

Switching back to "Standard Time" in the fall is something that I enjoy. It's one of the way we mark the passing of the seasons. The winter is cold, dark, and bleak. Summer time is warm, bright, and hot. Rather than complain about how "outdated" Daylight Savings Time is, I say that we embrace the difference in our seasons and enjoy the winter months.

Build a fire, enjoy a good book. Have some bourbon.

Relax.

My Jack-o-lantern carving skills surprised even me.

"Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing." -Optimus Prime

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Halloween weekend. For our part, the kiddos had a good time doing the trick-or-treating deal, and we even managed to squeeze in some fall pictures at the Horseshoe.

I also tried my hand at making a jack-o-lantern on Saturday. Although I am not known for my arts and craft skills, I gave it a whirl. Since the eldest child is into Transformers, I thought I would go with the Autobot insignia. It turned out far better than I had hoped and the eldest child was thrilled.

Excellent dad moment. So I've got that going for me.

Did you think last night's GOP debate was awful? You're not alone.

There's an old saying that goes, "Most people talk about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it".

Well, everyone is talking about how awful the moderators were last night, and Dr. Ben Carson has decided that he's gonna do something about it.

In an interview shortly after the debate, Barry Bennett, manager of the Ben Carson campaign, called the session here in Colorado "unfair to everyone" and said the current debate structure should not remain in place. "I think the families need to get together here, because these debates as structured by the RNC are not helping the party," Bennett said. "There's not enough time to talk about your plans, there's no presentation. It's just a slugfest. All we do is change moderators. And the trendline is horrific. So I think there needs to be wholesale change here."

Bennett said he will call Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski Thursday to propose a unified call for change. "Corey and I talk regularly, so I will talk to him," Bennett said. "I will call Frank Sadler (Carly Fiorina's campaign manager), I will call those guys and say listen, we can choose our own network and our own format. We don't need to be led around like prize steers."

Good for Carson. Good for all of them. They don't need the networks. Way back in the day when the only way to get in front of people was to use television, the networks had the power. Nowadays, the candidates have a myriad of ways to get in front of people. The candidates are the draw. The networks need the candidates now.

I'm glad that someone is wising up a little. For starters, maybe we can get rid of morons asking their moronic questions of people seeking to be President.

Regarding the Spring Valley High School Matter

By now, I assume that you've seen the video of the Richland County Sheriff's deputy "removing" a Spring Valley High School student from her desk. If you haven't seen it, here's a link.

I've noticed that all of the comments I have seen flying around on FaceBook, Twitter, and the other parts of the web have fallen into two categories. The two categories are this:

Category 1: You have to respect authority, and a student who won't obey teachers and openly defies a police officer gets what's coming to her. She should have known better.

Category 2: The police officer has no excuse whatsoever for his actions, and under no circumstances should force be used like this against children in school, who are just there to learn their ABCs in a safe space.

Not a lot of room for middle ground between those two lines of thought, is there? And it would be nice if life was simply a binary choice like this all the time. The answer is either A or B. Either the police officer is totally at fault, or the student is totally at fault. The thing is, life isn't this simple; it's complicated and messy.

Both the student and the officer contributed to this situation. They both made decisions that led to the ultimate violent outcome of the conflict. Both sides are wrong in certain ways, in my opinion. Let's take them individually.

Ok. Very funny. Who's the joker who signed me up for "Team Hillary"?

So, I just got this in my e-mail:

	Hi! Thanks for joining Team Hillary -- we’re so excited to have you, and we hope you’re excited, too! We have a LOT to do to make sure this campaign hits the ground running so Hillary can become the next President of the United States. Can you help? Donate $1 or whatever you can to help put organizers on the ground right now. Sign up to be a Hillary for America volunteer and meet other Hillary supporters in your community. Tell your friends to join the campaign so they can be a part of this, too! Thanks so much! Together, we can do this. Hillary for America

You think this would be enough, right? But no, that e-mail was followed up by this:

	Hi Bryan-- Thanks for committing to volunteer for Hillary for America. This grassroots campaign will only be as strong as its volunteers--we're thrilled you're going to help shape it from the beginning. Stay tuned for organizing opportunities in your community. In the meantime, make sure your friends and family join you to say they're in for Hillary for America: HillaryClinton.com/Now-Ask-Your-Friends-to-Volunteer Thanks again, Hillary for America

Say what? "Committing to volunteer"? I mean, I know that Hillary is feeling really good with Biden not running, and getting through the House Benghazi hearing, but this is probably an overreach. It's slightly too early for me to "commit to volunteer' for Hillary.

I think that my identity is being stolen, or that one of my more left-leaning friends is having some fun with me. Tell you what, come forward right now, and we'll forget all about this. Law school friends, I'm looking at you.

Friday Local News Roundup

Use your imagination to remove the B-25, renovate the place, and add a brewery.

Last night, I took the night off from the news, from blogging, and pretty much relaxed. It was a really nice evening. There was steak involved, there was some wine involved, and I may or may not have played a video game.

In any event, there are lots of things going on in the Capital City that merit at least a note:

1. Hunter-Gatherer is going to be opening up a brewery in the old Curtiss Wright Hangar at Owens Field. This is going to be a great event space if they do it (w)right. I'd love to sit on an observation deck on top of the hangar, drink a beer, and watch airplanes take off and land.

2. The baseball park where the USC Gamecocks play has a new name. No longer simply "Carolina Stadium" it is now "Founders Park". I like that the company ending up with the naming rights is a company with local ties to South Carolina, and doesn't have stupid name like "Smoothie King Park". Good job, Ray.

3. The Exxon in Five Points is going to become...a parking lot? Yeah, I don't really get this, either. This is probably the most "prime" real estate in Five Points. It's on the corner, across from the fountain, and fronts on Harden Street. I get that the existing shops, bars, and restaurants in Five Points want more parking for their patrons, but I really have to question two things.

First, I'm not sure why the City of Columbia paid so much. $100,000 per year (and going up each year) for a fifty year lease doesn't sound like my idea of a good investment by the City. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the City stands to lose money on this deal unless they park a whole lot of cars. 

Also, yeah, Five Points is tight with parking, but it's not impossible. I go to Five Points all during the week for lunches and occasionally on the weekends, and it's never impossible. There is parking available, but you sometimes have to walk. Accordingly, I just hate to see that the premier corner in Five Points turned into a parking lot. So many much better things could have been done with this lot, it's just staggering.

But hey, at least I'll be able to find really easy parking when I want to go to lunch at the Gourmet Shop.

Daily John Adams Quote

“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, that two become a law firm, and that three or more become a congress.”

– John Adams

Not altogether inaccurate. Enjoy your Wednesday, and try not to be useless.

Star Wars Open Thread

So here's the new trailer: squeeeee!

This looks like it's going to be way better than the horrible, no good, very bad prequels that George Lucas did with all his overblown CGI, idiotic dialogue, and plots that made no sense. Basically, it looks like JJ Abrams might be the right guy to bring Star Wars back from the awfulness that Lucas drove it to.

It's kind of like coaching. Eventually, you have to fire the head coach who lacks the fire to bring in a young talent looking to re-kindle the program. JJ Abrams might just be the head coach that Team Star Wars needs. 

Also, forget that movie trailer. This looks like a better Star Wars promo. Yes, I'm a lawyer in his mid-thirties, but I would buy this game and play it for hours like a 12 year old kid, which is why I am not allowed to own a video game system.

And speaking of kids, it's going to be really fun to watch Star Wars with my four year old son, who si already starting to get interested in it. After going to Disney and riding on the Star Tours ride, he's been requesting the "Star Wars music" in the car on the way home from school.

Yes, I've done well.

In defense of the lecture as a method of teaching.

"Listening continuously and taking notes for an hour is an unusual cognitive experience for most young people. Professors should embrace — and even advertise — lecture courses as an exercise in mindfulness and attention building, a mental workout that counteracts the junk food of nonstop social media. More and more of my colleagues are banning the use of laptops in their classrooms. They say that despite initial grumbling, students usually praise the policy by the end of the semester."

Interesting Viking Board Game

Check out this interesting board game.

“I love the asymmetry in this game. To win in this game, you absolutely have to think like your opponent,” emails Kristan Wheaton, a former Army foreign area officer and ex-analyst at U.S. European Command’s Intelligence Directorate. “Geography, force structure, force size and objectives are different for the two sides. If you can’t think like your opponent, you can’t win. I don’t know of a better analogy for post-Cold War conflict.”
The game is similar to chess, but with several important differences. Instead of two identical and equal opponents facing each other, Hnefatafl is a game where one side is surrounded and outnumbered—like a Viking war party caught in an ambush.

Pretty cool. Wonder where I can pick one of these up. 

Clean at last, clean at last!

The water is clean again, here in Columbia, SC.  I'm gonna go just run the taps and look at the sweet, sweet, gift of clean water. Seriously, it's nice to have clean water again. It's amazing what we start to take for granted.

Spurrier Takes Himself Out of the Game

And just like that, he's gone. No farewell tour, no victory lap, just gone.

I tweeted about this yesterday evening when the story broke on Twitter, but this topic deserved an entire post.

First of all, anyone who is criticizing Spurrier for not staying until the end of the season has no idea what they're talking about. Also (and this isn't news for y'all who know anything about college football) Spurrier doesn't care what we all think about him.

He was the kind of coach who kept scoring as much as he possibly could, and if the opposing coach complained about him "running up the score", he'd just spin it back around and say that it's the other team's job to stop us.

He didn't follow the script as to coaching norms, whether it was calling plays on the field, saying what he thinks in the press conferences, or otherwise. When he got to South Carolina, he openly called for the Confederate Flag to come down. And that ways way back in 2007, well before everyone changed their minds after the Charleston shooting.

He did everything exactly like he wanted to, all the way up through the end, when he decided that he wasn't the best coach for the job here at South Carolina. As soon as he decided that, he called it quits, because in his mind, that is what was best for the team.

Spurrier is famous for taking struggling quarterbacks out of games midway through games, and putting in the back-up, only to pull the back-up out if he struggled. He always, always preached the gospel of getting the best guy in the position, no matter what. Even though the accepted conventional wisdom in college football is to kind of stay with the starting quarterback through struggles, Spurrier openly defied that and made no-bones about pulling a starting player if he didn't think he was going to be as good for the team as someone waiting in the wings.

He was no different with himself, in the end. He decided that even though he was the head coach, he owed it to his team to get the best guy in the head coach position, and he knew that it wasn't him.

It's fitting that he made the same decision about himself with the same objectivity. It would have been so easy to stay too long, even knowing that you were going to call it quits at the end of the season. Spurrier realized the he needed to take himself out of the game for the good of the team, and good for him.

The Steve Spurrier era has come to an end at the University of South Carolina. It's been a heck of a ride.

Open Thread for Monday, October 12, 2015

It's been a busy week and the work (legal and non-legal) continues. Accordingly, I'll put up some links for some stuff today.

1. Will Grier, the Florida Gators starting QB, has been suspended for the year after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.

2. In what is an obvious attempt to squish the right-wing "Freedom Caucus" in the House of Representatives, the Chamber of Commerce is threatening to primary any member of congress who opposes Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House.

3. News of the strange: At UT Austin, anti-gun students are going to carry around dildos to protest a recently passed Texas statute that allows concealed weapons to be carried on college campuses. Right, because that's gonna change people's minds. 

4. In other local, gun-related news, don't leave your .357 in the back of your car where your toddler can get to it and accidentally shoot the driver. Seriously. Don't be a moron.

Conditions of Gills Creek Watershed

Here is the latest from the Gills Creek Watershed Association:

It has been a disastrous few days. Never before have we seen this much rain falling in one storm event, up to 20 inches of rain in some places. The effects of this rain were devastating - leading to the loss of several lives and hundreds, if not thousands, of homes. Our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy. The conditions in the watershed are stabilizing and things are looking up. The information being reported about the lakes and dams has been shaky at best. Here is what we know for sure:  Sometime Sunday morning around 7:30am the Cary Lake Dam AKA Arcadia Lake Dam failed. This was probably around the same time that Pine Tree Lake Dam failed (just below Windsor Lake). That surge of water rushed downstream, washing out Rockbridge Rd and overtopping the Spring Lake Dam. Forest Lake Dam and the Lake Katharine Dam were also overwhelmed and overtopped and that floodwater continued downstream along Gills Creek.  Also Sunday morning the Semmes Lake Dam on Wildcat Creek (on Ft. Jackson) failed. This water came down Wildcat Creek which flows through Kings Grant and meets Gills Creek just below the Lake Katharine Dam near Shady Lane and Kilbourne.  On Monday the Upper Rockyford Lake Dam failed sending excess water into Lower Rockyford Lake. Shortly thereafter the Lower Rockyford Lake Dam failed sending the excess water into Forest Lake. The Rockyford Lakes are much smaller than Forest Lake and by this time the Forest Lake level had dropped enough to buffer the excess water from Upper and Lower Rockyford.  On Tuesday there were multiple FALSE reports from news outlets that the Windsor Lake Dam had failed. The Windsor Lake Dam is fine, as is the Upper Windsor Lake AKA Parliament Lake Dam.  Beaver Dam (Boyd's Pond) off of Polo Road is experiencing erosion and is at risk of failing. Crews worked all day Tuesday to stabilize the dam and dug an emergency "controlled breach" around the side of the dam to alleviate pressure and move more water downstream. As of Wednesday morning, the Beaver Dam is stable and not expected to fail.  The Spring Lake Dam was heavily damaged during the storm. It is still holding water and as of Wednesday morning appears to be stable. The Spring Lake HOA is working to drop the lake level 6 to 12 inches per day (the maximum safe amount) until the lake has been mostly emptied.  Lake Katharine Dam and Forest Lake Dam appear to be in good working order.  President Obama has declared Richland County a disaster area which means residents that were impacted by this storm are eligible for federal assistance. If you have experienced any sort of hardship or property damage as a result of the storm (flooding, tree falling, missed work, etc.) you need to file a claim at www.disasterassistance.gov or by calling 800-621-3362. We are updating our Facebook page with accurate and timely information. Please like our Facebook page to get the latest updates and to see pictures from around the watershed. This newsletter is only being sent to our membership and contact list so please help us spread the word by forwarding this email to everyone you know that's been affected. If you are not on our mailing list please email Erich to be added to the mailing list. We will be sending periodic email updates as conditions change. Thank you, Erich Miarka Executive Director, GCWA

No, this isn't my cargo trailer....

...but it could be. This guy was right in front of me on Two Notch yesterday as  I left the rental car location. This is a picture of his cargo trailer.

It's hard to pick a favorite sticker, but if forced, I'd probably go with the one in white circular sticker in the top right that is the picture of gun sights that says "My peace sign".

My car is disgusting.

Normally, that means I've spilled some coffee in it or something. This is entirely something else, though.

You would not believe how bad this smells.

My cup holders still had flood water in them a day later.

The flooding totally submerged my Honda Accord where I left it on Shady Lane, and what you're seeing is the muck and disgusting mess left inside. You can't smell it from the picture, but it smells awful. How bad? Based on the smell alone, you would total the car.

The dirt and muck is on every surface of the car, and the whole thing is dead. I can't even shift the car into neutral to push it anywhere, so it's going to have to get moved via a roll back truck whenever that happens.

Luckily, this is really my only big loss. My house is a few miles from Shady Lane, so it's fine. We're not as bad off as my parents, who are going to have to replace all of their flooring on the first floor of their house.

Thanks to everyone who has been supportive. Columbia, Forest Acres, and the Lake Katharine community has really been pulling together to help each other out.

Yesterday, while my family and I were moving all of my parents' stuff out of the first floor (to make way for demolition), the entire football team from my high school showed up and assisted in getting personal property either upstairs or into a moving truck. Totally amazing. They were going house to house, and helping people all over. The coach said we were the ninth house they had done at that point, and I know they did many more after us.

The whole neighborhood had been outside and taking care of each other in any way that we each can. We'll all get through this because of all of the people pulling together to help each other. As long as no more dams break (knock on wood) we should be rebuilding stronger than we were before.

Flooding has receded.

Time for action. Beveryone careful, though.

Historic Flooding in Columbia (Shady Lane Still Cut Off)

My house is up on high ground, so I am able to provide a place for my parents to stay until the water goes down. Their house is ground zero for all the Gills Creek flooding, so they were rescued by boat.

Just tried to get back to their house this morning, but all roads to Shady Lane (Kilbourne, Quail Lane, and Woodlake) are all still impassibly flooded. Shady Lane is still cut off. Hopefully, the water will go down soon so we can get them back in there and start the process of drying things out.

Meanwhile, everyone is safe, dry, and in high spirits here at my house. Here are a few pictures from this morning. Here are two pictures from our attempt to make it back to Shady Lane, where we had to turn back.

Woodlake and Kathwood. You can't tell from this picture, but water is flowing with force.

Kilbourne Road bridge over (well, actually under) Gills Creek.

Apparently the New York Times thinks that "Modern Man" means "Consumer Obsessed Teenage Girl".

"A man may make a list. But he may not make a dumb one." -Jaqen H'ghar, probably.

The other day, some dopey guy at the New York Times decide that he was going to tell all us rubes about how to be a "modern man". Because we all know the NYT is where we go to learn about being real men, right? I'm not really even sure what a "modern man" is supposed to mean. Either you're a man or you're not. In fact, we men don't really talk about being manly. To do so...isn't. You just do it.

Frankly, the whole article is embarrassing - for the guy who wrote it that is. Apparently, all you have to do to be a "modern man" is to buy a few certain things, have certain fashion preferences, and (get this) have all the same behaviors as a liberal white girl living in downtown Portland.

Luckily, I'm here to correct the record. I'll put the New York Times list in italics, and my commentary in bold. Let's begin, shall we?

Donate to Greg Alia's Family

I meant to get this up earlier, but there have been some extenuating circumstances. As I'm sure you know, there have been tragedies all over America recently. However, if you're reading this blog regularly, you know I live in Columbia, SC and we've had one local tragedy here with Forest Acres police officer Greg Alia being killed in the line of duty on Wednesday morning. He leaves behind a wife and a newborn son.

Here is the link to the website that is helping to raise money for his family.

The outpouring of generosity from the community has been overwhelming, but we can do more. If you haven't given yet, do so. 

Reconciling the New Testament with the death penalty

I've been thinking about the death penalty a little bit since the execution of that Georgia woman coincided so recently with the Pope's visit here. (Confession, I've also being going to church more regularly than I used to.) In any event, I hadn't heard anything about this woman before yesterday, so she was just a name. Apparently, she killed her husband or something. In any event, Georgia gave her the death penalty last night.

I thought about a verse from Romans 12:19-21.

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good

It's an old debate, I know. For as long as I can remember, I've always been in favor of the death penalty. 

I'm not sure I still am.

I've never supported the death penalty for deterrence. That's never been a valid reason for me. If you support the death penalty for the deterrent effect, then you would have to say that the Islamic practice of chopping off a thief's hand is okay because of the great deterrent effect. Obviously, that's a penalty that is vastly out of balance with the crime. 

For me, I guess my support of the death penalty was a gut-sense of justice or retribution. Not revenge, but more of the idea that there are some crimes that carry the penalty of death simply as a matter of balancing accounts. If you do X, then you get Y. We as a society have decided that certain crimes warrant the death penalty. It's kind of the idea that you know what you're getting into when you decide to go on a killing spree. There's a cost that we have decided to impose for certain crimes - your life is forfeit.

However, spending a lifetime in prison is still a form of losing your life in a certain kind of way. You could almost say it's worse. Being sentenced to a life of imprisonment is a long, slow way to die. It gives that person a lifetime to forfeit their own life, rather than meeting with a quick end. There's no blaze of glory or martyrdom. You're just kind of forgotten. There is obviously the possibility of the criminal justice system erring, but that's not really what moves me. I guess I'm just not as sure about the whole idea of balancing accounts as I used to be.

Maybe I would feel differently if someone I loved were the victim of a horrible crime - I don't know. Hopefully, I never face that. However, the families of the Charleston Nine expressed their forgiveness to the person that killed their loved ones. Deep down, I know that's the right path. It's the harder path, but it's the right one. It's easy to get all Inigo Montoya and tell yourself that you're gonna go exact revenge against the six-fingered man. Isn't it harder to not?

There's also the idea that we leave room for God's wrath, as the passage from Paul's letter to the Romans tells us. Imposing the death penalty doesn't leave any room for God to carry out his sentence. Perhaps I'm growing older and losing some of my youthful bravado - a mellowing, if you will. Because now, I have a hard time seeing myself as the instrument of carrying out a punishment that leaves no room for God to work.

Anyway, I think I've changed my mind about the death penatly, or at least I'm less sure of myself than I used to be.

"A family outing is a family outing, whether you go to the Lexington Blowfish or the Columbia Fireflies.”

...says Moe Baddourah, when asked about the new baseball team that will be coming to Columbia next spring.

Mayor Benjamin, who is the number one supporter of the minor league baseball team coming to Columbia is super-duper optimistic. Like Pollyanna level optimistic:

“This is one of the most baseball-friendly regions in the country,” Benjamin says. “You can have [NCAA] Division I championship-level baseball, you can have professional minor league baseball and you can have a successful wood bat league team in the Midlands."

Color me skeptical. I love baseball, and I love going to baseball games. I have young children who I want to take to baseball games. However, there's only so much time in the budget for baseball. When you're taking young children to games, baseball is baseball. I'm not going to stop going to Carolina baseball games to go to see some team that there is no emotional connection to. I don't think I'm alone.

I think the minor league team is going to have lots of corporate sponsors buy seats, but I'm skeptical that they will fill the seats with people. Maybe there are people out there that are dying for minor league baseball, but Mayor Benjamin is wrong about the idea that you can have three teams play for full stadiums of fans. The reason he's wrong?

It's called supply and demand.

A young Gamecock fan sees and hears 2001 for the first time ever. [VIDEO]

Being a dad is awesome. Over the weekend, Permanent Press, Jr. turned four years old. Part of his present was getting to go into a Carolina Gamecocks football game and actually seeing the game live.

Up until this, he had only been to tailgates or seen the game on television. He'd never actually been inside. So this past Saturday, on the day of his fourth birthday, he got to go inside and see it all.

We had a great time. We yelled, cheered, danced, ate a hot dog, and generally enjoyed a fall Saturday in the South. He really likes doing things that I like to do, so going to a college football game was a big deal for him.

One funny moment was during the first half, when I was explaining the end zones and that the general point of the offense was for our team to score a touchdown in that particular end zone, he seemed to understand. After a few drives where we only kicked field goals, he asked "Daddy, when are we going to score a touchdown?" Excellent question, son. We were all asking that.

It's always great to see your children experience new things for the first time.

This is why people hate politicians. (Part 2 in our ongoing series)

In our ongoing series of "Why People Hate Politicians", presented for your approval is the case of City of Columbia councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine, who wants not only a pay raise for herself, but, get this: She wants lifetime health insurance for anyone who gets elected to city council three times.

Listen up, politicians. You are not some sort of nobility to be showered with taxpayer generosity. City council is a part time job. It's not supposed to be your gravy-train. You're not entitled to extra benefits simply because you convinced a bunch of people to allow you to manage the City.

This is why people hate politicians. Quit being such freakin' vampires.

Five tips for going to Disney World with small children from a dad who made it back alive.

You're looking at your most important piece of equipment here - your stroller.

Just a few weeks ago, Mrs. Permanent Press and I took our four year old son and our fourteen month old daughter to their first ever trip to Walt Disney World. After a bunch of research, lots of walking, lots of standing in line, some tears, and lots of smiles, I can say with experience that I have some good tips of what to do and what not to do when you're taking young children to Walt Disney World. 

For purposes of these tips, I'm assuming that you have at least one child under six, and you probably have at least one younger than that. If you're taking more than three children to Disney, and they're all under the age of six, then you're either really brave or really dumb. In any event, here are some tips from a dad who made it back alive.

1. Avoid Downtown Disney. Downtown Disney is a really cool shopping, dining, and entertainment area right on a beautiful lake. It has live music, cool places to eat, lots of neat stores....and nothing good your young children will really want to see.  You have children, remember? Downtown Disney is where you go for a night out away from your children when you get a babysitter. Don't worry about missing the shopping, either. There is so much shopping at Disney, you really will be okay. I promise.

2. Your stroller is the most important thing you will bring with you. Listen up, dads. Your stroller is vitally important for your Disney trip. Vitally. Think of yourself as a tank commander in WWII. You need a good tank to make it home alive. Your stroller is your tank. Your stroller will be a resting place for your children, a sleeping place for your children, an eating place for your children, a storage place for food, water, extra clothes, and all the other stuff you bring with you into the park. It will protect them from the sun and the rain if it has a canopy. You can certainly rent a stroller from Disney, but we decided against that, because the Disney strollers don't have adjustable backs that can lay your child all the way back.

Believe me, you want your young children to be able to take a nap in the stroller. Heck, you're going to want to take a nap in the stroller before it's all over. If you have a great stroller of your own - bring it. We had a good stroller, but we didn't have a double stroller, and we knew we wanted to avoid carrying either one. Even a young child will get very heavy very fast. Disney is very spread out. There's no way you can take a child who is a beginning walker and expect them to just hold your hand. You'll end up carrying them, and then you'll get tired. You see the one pictured above? We rented it from a third party vendor who delivered it to our hotel, and then picked it up from our hotel on the last day. Totally worth it. Don't skimp on the stroller.

3. Fast Pass. Learn it. Use it. Disney is a pretty popular place. You won't be there by yourself, and unless you enjoy standing around in lines with your four year old for an hour, you need to listen up.

Fast Pass is Disney's gift to parents with small children. A Fast Pass reservation allows you to bypass about 98% of the existing line and basically go right to the front of the line. For instance, if the regular a/k/a "Standby" line for Thunder Mountain Railroad is at eighty minutes, a Fast Pass reservation gets you on the ride in just a few minutes. Gee, what sounds better? Standing in line for forever with your child in the heat or just riding immediately? And you get three Fast Pass choices a day. I used one in the mid-morning, one right after lunch, and one late. This worked out rather well for our family. In the morning, some rides are no wait, so you can just walk up and go, no Fast Pass needed. For instance, when we got to It's a Small World one morning, there was no line at all. So we just rode the ride. (Side tip, this is a good ride to give your child a snack on since it's kind of long and slow.) 

If you are staying in a Walt Disney World Resort, you'll get to make Fast Pass reservations sixty days before you arrive. Do that. Repeat. Do that.

4. Rider Switch is great for families with really small kids. Rider-Switch is Disney's extra gift to parents with really small kids. We took advantage of it multiple times. Some websites make it sound complicated, but it's not. Basically, if you have a family like mine where an older child can ride a ride that the younger child cannot, then you qualify for Rider-Switch. Star Tours is a good example. Our son was just tall enough to ride, but our daughter was nowhere near tall enough. So one of us stays behind with the small child while the other parent takes the older child. With me so far? Good.

Then, after the older child and parent finish the ride, you switch - so your older child gets to ride the ride again, but with the other parent. Our son rode Star Tours a ton with this technique. All you do is ask the Disney person at the entrance for a Rider Switch ticket. They'll take care of you. Mostly, they didn't even have to be asked. It's an obvious benefit to the older child, but that's what your there for, remember? (Note, Rider Switch is only available if the younger child is ineligible to ride. They can't simply choose not to ride.)

5. Don't make each day the Bataan Death March. If you have children, you know how they get whiny and fussy when they're tired, and that typically happens around 5:00PM or so? Yeah, that's going to happen to you even if your at Walt Disney World. Don't be the dad who tries to march everyone through the hottest part of the day to make it to every single ride. Relax. It's your vacation. Pace yourself.

Here's the way we did it that worked best for us. Get up early. I mean early. Get yourself up, get your children up, and get to the park early. This has many benefits. First, you'll beat the big rush of people who arrive exactly when the parks are set to open. Think of it as beating rush-hour traffic in the morning. Yes, getting up early sucks, but trust me, being crammed asses-to-elbows on a bus at 9:00AM sucks, too.

Since you got up early, you'll be able to ride a few rides first thing with very minimal lines, which is great. Then, you can use a Fast Pass as the park fills up. By then, it's time for an early lunch, and then it's time for the really big, super-secret tip. You ready?

After lunch, ride one or two rides...and then go back to your hotel. Just go back. Don't try ride a bunch of rides. Just do one or two, and then go back to your room. Your children will sleep like rocks. You will be able to relax. If you're staying at a Disney Resort, you can go to what will be an amazing pool and completely refresh yourself. It's amazing how a dip in the pool can revive you.

Then, you're all set to head back into the park around 6:00PM or so just when everyone else who stayed there all day is leaving. Suckers. You're now there a lower volume time, you're rested, and you can enjoy yourself more. Even better, your children have napped, so they're not completely unreasonable monsters who say "no" to everything. You can eat some food in the park for dinner, stay for the fireworks, and then head back. Seriously, if you take nothing away from this but this one tip, you'll be great. Go back to your resort a little after lunch. You'll thank me.

Have fun. It will be expensive, but it will be totally worth it. You can make more money when you get back home.

South Carolina has the third "fairest" tax structure.

According to WalletHub, South Carolina has the third "fairest" tax structure.

Only Montana and Oregon rated higher. Interestingly, Georgia came in next to last, at 49, and North Carolina was a mediocre 23.

So maybe our tax system here isn't so bad.

Why People Hate Politics

You know why people hate politics? You know why a lot of your friends who are really smart, funny, and really enjoyable don't talk about politics? You know why people hate "the media" and "career politicians"?

Politics. Is. Completely. Dumb.

Candidates, politicians, and journalists treat it like a game, and it's dumb.

Ben Carson says the United States should not elect a Muslim president.

"I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," the retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Apparently, this is now the big controversy that all the important journalists and politicians need to weigh in on? This is why people hate politics.

First of all, we don't even have a Muslim candidate out there anywhere who is waiting in the wings to run for President at this time. It's an entirely non-factual hypothetical.

For that matter, we might as well be asking Dr. Carson if he would support or be comfortable with a Jedi as a President. There are no Jedi candidates. If one ever comes along, okay, we'll talk about it. Until then, what the hell are you people doing?

Obviously, there's a better way to answer this question. Jonah Goldberg has it here:

I think this is a ridiculous question designed to create bogus controversies that distract from real issues and paint me and my party in a negative light. But since you asked: Of course a Muslim can be a president. So can Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. For that matter so can Satanist, Klingons and Jedis (if they’re natural-born American citizens of course). But that doesn’t mean a candidate’s faith is irrelevant. It is deeply relevant. Liberal politicians love to invoke their religious faith when defending welfare programs, spending on the environment and education. They only say faith has no place in politics when faith proves inconvenient to the liberal agenda. Suddenly, they don’t think the government should be imposing religious values on others. What they really mean is that no values should ever come before the liberal agenda. If a Muslim wants to run for president, great. Throw your hat in the ring and explain how your faith informs your agenda. The rest of us have to do it, so should a Muslim. If his answers are no good, he won’t get elected.

Crap like this "Muslim President controversy" is precisely why people hate politics. It has nothing to do with our lives, or making this country better, or anything remotely relevant to actual issues. It's just a dumb game that some people in DC play for their own amusement.

It makes me want to vote for a big freakin' meteor to hit the Earth.

Note: Thanks to @JeffMfromSC for pointing out that I needed to credit Jonah Goldberg on the answer to the question. I need to get better about linking great stuff from other people so they can get credit for their great lines. Apologies to the great Jonah Goldberg.

Meta Link

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that I said I was back. I'm still catching up on all the work that accrued over vacation, so I don't have a ton of time to blog. So since I'm slacking off, here's a link to a post that Brad made over on his blog that is something that I tweeted to him.

So it's kind of a link to myself. Very meta.

Enjoy.

I have returned.

Much like Douglas MacArthur, I have returned.

I know, I know a trip to Walt Disney World ain't exactly the Bataan Death March, but we did a lot of walking in the heat. I'll have a full breakdown of the Disney trip with some do's and don'ts for those of you who may be thinking about going, but in the meantime I'll leave you with this.

Selfie while on Dumbo the Flying Elephant with Permanent Press, Jr.

Dumbo was fun.

Disney Vacation Post

I'm off this week for a well-deserved family vacation in Walt Disney World. Blogging will be light this week, eh, who am I kidding, blogging is pretty light regularly. In any event, I'll be posting here and there.

For what it's worth, it's been nice to unplug from the news and just relax. The biggest concern right now is making sure that we make it to our FastPass reservations online. Oh, and the eldest child is now a huge Star Wars fan after going on the Star Tours ride.

Today is a resort day - we're going to go to a fishin' hole and generally relax. That's good because tomorrow will be the early morning day to get to the Magic Kingdom and try and ride every ride possible until just before we drop from heat exhaustion.

May the force be with you.

The F-35 suffers another setback.

Yeah, I laughed.

Lockheed Upbeat Despite F-35 Losing Dogfight To Red Baron http://t.co/X4TZlW2q8e pic.twitter.com/IVQaRaBUW2

— Duffel Blog (@DuffelBlog) August 31, 2015

Enjoy. I may or may not be blogging during my upcoming vacation. It depends on how much you loyal followers demand of me.