A quick Thursday evening round-up and Open Thread

Victorian posy of pansiesSome days, I’ve got nothing. And some days, I’ve got so much I can’t keep up. Here’s more of that muchness:

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I linked last week to Mike McDaniel’s thoughtful look at whether involuntary incarceration would work to prevent shootings such as that which took place in UCSB. He concludes that, human nature being what it is, people determined to do evil will always find a way.

Today, Mike explores further that concept of “people determined to do evil.” The Left has tried to reduce evil to a glanduar condition, or one arising from too much or too little money, or something that a government program, if taxpayers would just cough up the money for whatever such program, could have stopped.

Mike, however, is like me in that he believes that there are genuinely evil people who do bad things because they like too. (How anyone who knows anything about the Holocaust could deny that evil exists is beyond me, but we know that Leftism is premised on cognitive dissonance.)

I’m not doing justice, of course, to Mike’s elegantly written analysis, based both upon knowledge he acquired during his years as a police officer and the infamous Ted Bundy case, so please be sure to read it here.

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The Rolling Stones are awesome. I’m not talking about their music (some of which I like) or their ability to live as Zombies (all those blood transfusions!!). Nope. I’m talking about their awesomeness, not only in performing with enthusiasm in Israel, but in making an effort to learn some of the lingo. For me, that’s satisfaction.

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When it comes to climate change, the Republican mantra in 2014 and beyond should be “adapt.” Any Republican who gets tangled up in the tar baby of whether climate change is man caused should be beaten soundly with over-boiled noodles. Repeat after me: Adapt.

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Some Bowe Bergdahl stuff:

It’s possible, but not likely, that Bowe Bergdahl could have “forgotten” his English, at least temporarily.

It’s beginning to look more and more as if Bergdahl was a loose screw from the beginning. Regardless of his ultimate behavior, if Bergdahl really was that screwy, the Army should have gotten him out long before he took matters into his own hands.

I also agree with Joe Scarborough that a different parent might have seen that his son was near breaking point and acted to protect him — that is, unless Bergdahl Sr. agreed with everything Bowe said. Perhaps it’s asking too much of Bergdahl, Sr. to turn his son into the authorities (that’s just Monday morning quarterbacking), but it appears that he made no effort whatsoever to help Bowe reconcile himself to his situation.

There is a lot of back and forth about whether Bowe left a note amounting to a statement of intent to desert. The White House and Pentagon are claiming that no such note existed. Jake Tapper also says no one told him about a note, but a retired Special Forces officer has stated in public that the record immediately after Bowe’s disappearance the record spoke of such a note, and others have corroborated this claim. This is an interesting issue and, I have to admit, my presumption is that the Obama administration is lying.

There’s also breaking news that, while held captive, Bowe converted to Islam and declared jihad on the United States. Even if true, I’m disinclined to make too much of this. The same report says that he tried to escape, was kept in cages, and was subject to other physical and mental stress, some of which definitely amounted to torture. Bizarre, spaced-out Bowe was never going to measure up to the guys in the Hanoi Hilton. The moment he was in Taliban hands, he was going to crack and do whatever they asked of him. As Ace says:

One thing I’ll say: I think the evidence that Bergdahl deserted is fairly clear. I think, however, the evidence he freely cooperated with the Taliban is thin and speculative.

I really don’t agree with claiming that, absent firmer evidence. Critics of this swap often state — I stated it was alleged a few times myself — that he cooperated with the Taliban as if it’s an established fact. It’s not.

The other thing that bothers me about this allegation is this idea: If he essentially voluntarily enlisted in the Taliban, and was helping them conduct the deadliest possible attacks against Americans, why was he held as a prisoner?

Al Qaeda types like foreign or non-Muslim recruits.

If Bergdahl was freely advising them on how to kill Americans, why wasn’t he just made part of the Taliban?

Now, it’s possible he was beaten/coerced/torture into revealing information about his former comrades’ tactics, and he would have been in this position to be compelled to reveal this information due to his own voluntary actions. But that’s not the same as willingly enlisting with the Taliban. *

[snip]

* Oh, I should clarify, I’m not actually denying this charge. I’m just saying there is insufficient evidence to prove it, and there is enough doubt about it that it seems unfair to throw the charge around as if it’s true and we’re merely waiting on confirmation for it.

To me, the important issue is whether Bowe deserted and voluntarily headed to the Taliban. That’s treason right off the bat. After that point, we’ll never truly know what happened. Our White House will lie and, as Ace said in a different post, it’s gotten to the point at which the Taliban may be “more credible, candid, and trustworthy” than our own administration. Or then again . . . not.  It is the Taliban, after all, and has its own agenda to pursue.

And another thing…. You know that Biblical verse in which Jesus says “”Let the little children come to me” (Luke 18:16)? I think Obama is having messianic delusions again, because he gave a press conference in which he seemed to be saying “Let the little children come back to me.” Maybe the way he keeps referring to soldiers as “children” is part and parcel of the Left’s belief that a 26-year-old is still a child for insurance purposes. Adolescents are malleable. Adults are less so.

Two more links about Obama’s weird “I am father to all Americans” speech:  The first is Bill Whittle’s video about the lessons in manhood from a classic TV show; and the second is Charles C. W. Cooke examining directly Obama’s bizarrely defensive claim about his responsibility to care for children.

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Meat and butter = good (or at least, not bad in moderation). Yay!

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I love it when the Left eats its own: Vicious homofascist Dan Savage is coming under fire from transsexuals for using the term “tranny,” which they say is a slur.

The sad fact is that, no matter the word used, eventually it will become a slur.  Why?  Because I suspect that no amount of education will change the atavistic negative feeling straight and closeted people have towards transsexuals. We can learn to be polite, and we can work to ensure that they’re not victims of political prejudice or social violence but, in Mother Nature’s binary sexual world our lizard brains view outliers with suspicion.