Jiblog

Murder in Jefferson, Wisconsin

2009-12-06T23:59:00.003-06:00

This weekend, an off duty police officer from Oconomowoc, and what appears to be her boyfriend, lost their lives to a gunman in the little town of Jefferson, Wisconsin. To their families, I cannot convey the depths of my sympathy. Their loss is tragic, and all the more so given the Christmas season.

At the same time, I hope that Jefferson Mayor Gary Myers retracts his statement on local TV broadcasts that Jefferson has not seen something on this scale since Dillinger. I don't enjoy the fact that I have to remind him that his is the city of Diane Borchardt. While Borchardt was only responsible for the death of one person, hers was such a sordid tale that it has been the inspiration of movies both factional and fictional. For him to erase that history with his statement is a disgrace to the family and friends of Ruben Borchardt.

Nagging Discomfort About the Afghanistan Plan

2009-12-06T23:45:00.002-06:00

This is really eating at me. In Iraq, we attempted a "surge" and it worked quite well. As Afghanistan has deteriorated, President Obama has seemingly come to the conclusion that another similar "surge" (albeit with many fewer troops) is just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, Afghanistan isn't very similar to Iraq. Iraq was downright civilized in comparison to Afghanistan. While I think history has shown that massive (and 80,000 troops doesn't count as massive) buildups in Afghanistan do not work, I'm also quite skeptical that aping the Iraq strategy in smaller scale is going to accomplish anything but unecessary American deaths. I find this president quite lacking in military curiosity when it comes to this decision.

An NFL Thought

2009-11-30T22:59:00.003-06:00

Wouldn't it greatly diminish the Patriots' perfect season of two years ago if the Saints and the Colts went 16-0 this year with the Vikings right behind at 15-1? (Don't worry, Packer fans...Viking 15-1 records have a good track record for ignominity.)

Half Assed...

2009-11-30T22:45:00.001-06:00

...is no way to fight a war, Mr. President.

Fish or cut bait, sir.

On The Topic of Love, Lust, and Betrayal

2009-11-24T00:01:00.002-06:00

I'm disappointed to see this story back in the news. I'll give the benefit of the doubt that it belonged splashed across the Milwaukee media this summer because there was something to the journalistic ethics angle. Now, however, it really doesn't. Now it is just salacious society gossip. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, including Daniel Bice. None of the parties central to this 'story' are acquitting themselves well.

Palin, From A Distance

2009-11-23T23:50:00.002-06:00

By my own choice, I've kept a healthy distance from politics for the second half of this year. At times that gnaws at me because I get an idea for a post, but I'm uncomfortable writing it because I haven't followed the topic as closely as I should have. At other times, though, it is nice to have the long view of things. Sarah Palin is one of those topics that it is nice to have the long view on. I know she has some ardent supporters on the right. To those of you, feel free to continue your ardent support. On the other hand, I think a much larger portion of her followers are caught up in the politics of this all. To you, I say reconsider before you make a mistake. She is not Presidential, not now. And she won't be by 2012. If things continue to trend the way they are in this country, she might be the only person Obama will be capable of defeating in 2012. So step back in the privacy of your own home and ask yourself, "Am I really comfortable possibly catapaulting this person to the 2012 Republican nomination, or am I looking for something else in that person?"

Speaking of Bouncers...

2009-11-14T22:26:00.003-06:00

...are there any other parents out there whose kids would bounce themselves past the point of exhaustion, and then bounce some more because they just couldn't stop?! My boy will actually lean his head down on the toys around the ring because he's so tired, but keep on bouncing.

Wherein My Contradictory Nature Kicks in on Parenting Advice

2009-11-14T21:30:00.003-06:00

Through the mangled weave of links that is the web, tonight I ended up at a site called Let's Panic! Basically, it's a web page about surviving and thriving in pregnancy and parenthood. I'll admit, I didn't read a single article there, just the quick teasers on the main page. Just the same, some of the things the authors wrote on the main page were provocative enough for me to write about, but not enough to actually give a rat's ass what their opinion was. So here are my gut responses to incomplete information.

Your husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, sugar daddy, one-night stand, and/or gynecologist all have one thing in common: they want to be more involved in your pregnancy than you can possibly imagine.

I don't even know what that means. I wanted to see my baby in the ultrasound. I wanted to feel him kick. I wanted to take some of the daily burden off of my wife. Typical daddy to be things, I believe. I wanted to be involved in the pregnancy because I love my wife and my child. However, I have no idea how I could have wanted to be more involved in the pregnancy than my wife could have possibly imagined.

It's very important to never raise one's voice above 50 decibels, or, in case you don't have a decibel meter, the level of a half-heard murmur brushing past your ear as you cross a darkened threshold, or the sound of dozens of hooded acolytes whispering the lord's prayer backwards in a room lit only by candles stuck into the skulls of goats.

Seriously, you've got to be kidding me. Even when I'm sweet talking my boy, he doesn't pay attention to me until I hit 75 decibels, and even then it has to be in my deep voice. And that loud, deep voice doesn't scare him; he thinks it is funny. The context of loud can disturb him, but not loud in and of itself. I sing Rammstein in my deepest, darkest, loudest, scariest voice and the kid loves it. It is only when that loud, deep voice occurs in certain contexts that it bothers him. So what I'm saying is, occasionally be loud around your kid unless you want him or her to fear everyone that ever raises a voice in his or her direction.

Here at Let's Panic About Babies!, we believe that passive-aggressive acting out toward your child is the new spanking.

My boy is still waaaayyyy to young for it, but there is a place for spanking. There isn't a place for passive aggression, even though when you are tired and worn out, it might happen. You are the adult, act like it. So passive aggression is not the new spanking. It is probably worse.

That's my only critique of the site (and soon to be book) that I have for now. I could do more, but my boy has exhausted himself in his bouncer, and I have to amuse him with loud sounds before I feed him and put him to bed.

Predicting Failure for News Corp.

2009-11-09T23:21:00.002-06:00

If you own stock, I advise that you sell. Why? Because apparently nobody has bothered to explain the internet to Rupert Murdoch:

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has suggested the company's online newspaper pages will be invisible to Google users when it launches its new paid content strategy.

Umm, Mr. Murdoch, if I were an agency for one of your advertisers, I wouldn't give you a red cent for placement on any of your paid sites. And good luck getting subscribers if something, oh, say, GOOGLE, isn't driving people to those sites to get the information they want.

Another Thought

2009-10-31T00:15:00.002-05:00

I feel fortunate in that I realize how important I am as a father in my child's development. Too many males out there do not and never end up as much more than a baby daddy, much to their child (children's) disadvantage.

A Thought

2009-10-31T00:14:00.001-05:00

I once felt very influential as a blogger.

Now, I feel more influential as a father.

Over Heard...

2009-10-17T14:18:00.000-05:00

...outside the UW locker room after UW's 20-10 loss to Iowa:

"Umm, Mr. Tolzien, it seems your carriage in the parking lot has turned into a pumpkin."

Dear Nobel Peace Prize Comittee,

2009-10-09T07:29:00.001-05:00

If that is all it takes to win the Peace Prize, I'll get to work on accomplishing nothing and I'll have my nomination to you for next year. I look forward to accepting your 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Jib

Post Favre Loss Packer Thoughts

2009-10-05T23:07:00.002-05:00

*Dom Capers' strategy for this game was obviously to make Brett Favre beat them. He did. They need to find a happy median for the game at Lambeau.

*Many will see this game as a repudiation of Ted Thompson's strategy to not tie up money on the offensive line. I disagree. I think the Mike Sherman Packers proved that you don't need to spend your money on the line. This is a repudiation of Thompson's ability to evaluate offensive line talent.

*Favre fans will see this as justification of their belief that Packers should have kept Favre. It isn't. With his current lack of mobility, that game would have been very ugly with #4 under center for the Packers.

*At the same time, if the Packers don't want to squander what they have in Aaron Rodgers, they sure as hell better find a way to keep him upright.

*I said it then and I'll say it again: Ryan Grant owes Brett Favre for his big contract. He just doesn't earn yards on his own.

*The Vikings could be tough down the stretch, but I think the true test for the them will be after the game at Lambeau. Anyone who tells you that Favre didn't come back to stick it to the Packers is lying to you and themselves. He may very well fold down the stretch, screwing yet another team.

*This team has some problems that cannot be fixed in season. The o-line is atrocious and too many blown coverages are occurring in the secondary. 9-7 may be a victory for this squad.

Shut Up

2009-10-04T22:54:00.001-05:00

You've got to be kidding me.

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in Chicago's Olympic bid dying in the first round Friday.

President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for years, they said.

This whole blame Bush thing was cute once upon a time, but really, it is just an excuse now. Go ahead and blame Bush, Chicago. You are only insulating yourselves from some uncomfortable truths.

I Apparently Could Have Been a Genius

2009-09-25T00:29:00.002-05:00

I doubt this:

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others.

Apparently, kids have their brains in their asses.

I, for one, will tell you that the spankings I got helped me form the discipline to actually use the smarts my mom and dad passed on to me. Even if this study is valid, give me a kid with a lower IQ and discipline and I'll show you a success. A high IQ with no discipline is no gift and no guarantee of success.

Winter Light Bulbs

2009-09-25T00:13:00.002-05:00

While I applaud the good intentions of this, I still have a problem with it that really sticks in my craw:

The L Prize has garnered significant attention in the lighting industry because 60-watt incandescent lamps represent 50 percent of all the lighting in the United States, with 425 million sold each year. The Energy Department says that if all those lamps were LED equivalents, enough power would be saved to light 17.4 million American households and cut carbon emissions by 5.6 million metric tons annually.

The Energy Department fails to consider one very big thing, and that is winter. I will grant them the fact that in summer, current incandescents waste energy. But living here in Wisconsin, any time nighttime temps drop below sixty degrees, seasons known as spring, fall, and winter, that energy is not lost. Heat from incandescents is viewed as a waste of energy, but I will tell you unequivocally that the "wasted" heat from those bulbs keeps my furnace from kicking in as often during the colder two thirds of the year. The radiant heat that they give off also keeps me from turning my thermostat up to a higher temperature. If someone smarter than me can prove to me that the energy used to create the electricity for those bulbs is greater than the increased natural gas I'd use in a CFL world, I'll change my position. Until then, I will continue to warn that the "energy savings" that the government proclaims for new bulbs is a fallacy.

Identifying My Malaise

2009-09-23T23:30:00.001-05:00

I'm not real big on cults of personality. That would seem to make me a natural fit for the growing tea party movement. Unfortunately, I'm not real big on anti-cults of personality, either. I'm uncomfortable with the level of emotion in each.

Tragedy At Grandad's Bluff

2009-09-17T23:57:00.002-05:00

This is a tragic story, and I don't want to diminish how horrible this young woman's death is. But sometimes, you are prohibited from being in certain areas for a reason. We spent only a short time at Grandad's Bluff last fall, but we saw plenty of people flaunting Ordinance 3477. It is a little amazing that more people don't have tragic falls from this very scenic overlook.

President Bush had...

2009-09-16T23:41:00.002-05:00

...some of the chattiest speech writers in American history, didn't he?

Best #1 Search Result Ever

2009-09-16T23:27:00.003-05:00

I doubt it'll last, but for the moment, I'm the number one Yahoo search for Jimmy Carter, sorry son of a bitch.

Jimmuh the Peanut Man

2009-09-16T21:19:00.002-05:00

Is it just me, or has Jimmy Carter become the "crazy uncle" of the presidential family?

This is Your Brain on a Child

2009-09-16T21:02:00.001-05:00

I keep coming up for great post ideas during the day. By the time I complete the 40 minute drive home, they are fuzzy but still there. After 10 minutes with my boy, I can't remember the damn things at all, let alone why I thought they were so brilliant. Right now, the most brilliant thing in my life is the little guy's huge toothless smile.

I Hate the Strikeout

2009-09-09T23:59:00.002-05:00

The strikeout in baseball is a useless out. For that reason, it used to be stigmatized. Obviously, those days are long gone. Stat heads now say things like, "hey, at least he didn't create two outs that at bat" or "they come with a player taking swings that lead to more productive contact." Both are bunk, but that runs counter to current popular opinion, so be prepared to be shouted down if you say so.

Sometimes it is the players themselves that drive me the most nuts, though. Take Adam Dunn, for instance:

But it depends on when you’re striking out. If you strike out with two outs and nobody on, who gives a [expletive]?

You should, you dumb [expletive]. At least with runners on and less than two outs, it can at least be justified that you didn't hit into a double play. With two on and two out, you should be doing everything in your power not to strike out. By striking out, you give your opponent a free out. What a good hitter should be doing in that scenario is attempting to force the issue by doing anything they can to continue the inning. It is pressure on the defense that leads to rallies. Yes, sometimes even with two outs.

Debunking Buchanan

2009-09-06T18:41:00.004-05:00

Pat Buchanan is not a man conservatives should hold in much esteem. Yet still to this day, when he writes revisionist crap like Did Hitler Want War?, some read and, rather than think critically about Buchanan's points, instead say, "hmm, could be," or "that makes sense." While I'd prefer not to address anything the man writes, in the case of the article previously mentioned, I feel compelled to fill in the many blanks that he creates in his piece.

Let's start with Buchanan's first point that the entire war started merely because of a small Polish town with German speaking citizens:

Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland’s rescue.

But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?

Buchanan sets this up be glossing over what lead up to this point. France and Britain watched on, at first disinterested but then increasingly uneasy, as Germany very rapidly rebuilt a military that was outlawed under Versailles and swallowed, sometimes at the allowance of both nations, to gobble up a vast tract of central Europe. As the the dominoes of Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, and Czechoslovakia tumbled and Germany became much more militarily bellicose, France and Britain had every right to be concerned about Germany's intentions. Taking a stand at Poland was not a Franco-Anglo hair trigger for war. Germany had already re-acquired many German speaking areas. If Germany did not have expansionist plans, Poland would have been a good place to stop, or even limit their Polish excursion to Danzig, which would have put Britain and France in an awkward position.

Next, Buchanon asks a series of questions that the answers to which he pretend don't exist in order to create the doubt he wants in his readers minds. Let's take them one at a time.

why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France?

Germany was very well aware that it was vulnerable to a two front war. German doctrine was to stabilize one front while fighting a more vigorous battle on the other front. The Siegfried Line was part of that strategy. It was meant to stabilize the Western Front, freeing more supplies and men to fight on the Eastern Front. The fact that it never played out that role is due to Hitler's impatience and poor strategic thinking.

Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines?

One does not conquer the world in a day, even an impatient dictator such as Adolf Hitler. And even Hitler realized the limitations involved in one nation conquering the entire world, hence the alliance with Japan. The fact is, mainland Europe and the British Isles were the first targets in his sights. By quickly decapitating France, Britain, and Russia, Germany would leave their empires vulnerable in other lands. The fact is, in order to accomplish this, Germany did not need a huge surface fleet, at least not right away. If Germany had been able to quickly take out Britain through air warfare, they would have had the security on their western front to allow them to swing resources toward the USSR. They also would have been in unmolested possession of many advanced shipyards in Britain, Western Europe, and Northern Europe with which to build a fleet for future engagements far ashore.

Had Hitler waited until he had built a fleet to compete with the British, he'd have forfeited the advantage that he had built by quickly re-arming and shoving his way into new lands across the European Continent. He'd have also given France and Britain extra time to build up their own militaries in anticipation of a conflict with Germany. All Germany really need at this stage was u-boats to harass shipping and enemy fleets. And remember, the German U-boats and their fleets still did outclass anything the allies had. Additionally, Germany had a total of 65 U-boats at the outset of war. 29 were oceangoing, but they had a lot more about to go on line.

How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?

You don't, but again, stage one wasn't about conquering the world. It was about conquering Europe. Germany, laying in the west-central region of the continent, did not need a massive surface navy. Not yet, anyway. In light of that goal, a massive Navy seems a waste of resources, no?

If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?

Again, he did not need strategic bombers, not yet. Germany clearly intended to quickly destroy Britain through bombings from France. There was no need for strategic bombers. If Germany does not hold France, then going after Britain is pointless. And Germany very well may have taken Britain out of the war had they not made a very significant strategic error-initiating war in the east.

Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?

Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?

Nobody is really sure to this day, but the smart money is something that Buchanan himself brings up later in the article:

...and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.

The Germans and the Brits are ethnic cousins. In Hitler's twisted ethnic world view, that made them acceptable, if subordinate, allies. He very likely was giving Britain a chance to seek peace by becoming a subordinate partner to Germany, saving the German military from having to expend money, men, and material on Britain.

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez?

They were not critical and they were not going to be handed over as simply as Buchanan implies. The British sunk ships that they suspected were not Free French, and at times, French sailors scuttled their own ships.

Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?

Germany was preparing for Operation Barbarossa, and any Italian failure in Greece could be problematic for the planned invasion of the USSR. It is tough to be preparing for war while at the same time wishing an ally not to attack because you want war to be over.

I do not for a minute believe that Buchanan is so dim as to not understand the facts on as they were in this period. I do believe that, because of his isolationism and his hostility towards Jews, Buchanan does want to diminish World War II in the eyes of the public. Unfortunately, for many with a thin understanding of the war, he does have some success.

Update

In light of Buchanan's Polish question, I did want to also share a snippet from the memoirs of Albert Speer, Nazi Germany's Minister of Armaments and War Production:

On May 2, 1938, Hitler drew up his personal will. He had already outlined his political testament on November 5, 1937, in the presence of the Foreign Minister and the military heads of the Reich. In that speech, he referred to his extensive plans for conquest as a "testamentary bequest in case of my decease." With his intimate entourage, who night after night had to watchtrivial operetta movies and listen to endless tirades on the Catholic Church, diet recipes, Greek Temples, and police dogs, he did not reveal how literally he took his dream of world dominion. Many of Hitler's former associates have since attempted to establish the theory that Hitler changed in 1938. They attribute the change to his deteriorated health resulting from Morell's treatment. It seems to me, on the contrary, that Hitler's plans and aims never changed. Sickness and fear of death merely made him advance his deadlines. His aims could only have been thwarted by superior counterforces, and in 1938 no such forces werte visible. Quite the opposite: The successes of that year encouraged him to go on forcing the already accelerated pace. [Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (The Macmillan Company, 1970), 106-107]

Doesn't sound like a man who was ready to settle for just the reconquest of German speaking lands to me.