Month: March 2013

Sixty Years after Stalin

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Sixty years ago one of the greatest monsters in history, a mass-murderer of tens of millions many times over, the yellow-eyed, “Kremlin mountaineer”  breathed his last.

We live, deaf to the land beneath us,
Ten steps away no one hears our speeches,
All we hear is the Kremlin mountaineer,
The murderer and peasant-slayer.
His fingers are fat as grubs
And the words, final as lead weights, fall from his lips,
His cockroach whiskers leer
And his boot tops gleam.
Around him a rabble of thin-necked leaders –
fawning half-men for him to play with.
They whinny, purr or whine
As he prates and points a finger,
One by one forging his laws, to be flung
Like horseshoes at the head, to the eye or the groin.
And every killing is a treat
For the broad-chested Ossete.
– Osip Mandelstam

So great was the terror he had inflicted that many of his victims, dazed and bloodied by decades of fear, savage oppression and war, openly wept. The greatest fear of the late dictator’s closest henchmen and accomplices, who had more than likely escaped the conveyor belt of torture, gulag and execution only by their master’s death, was that the people would think that they had murdered their dear vozhd and would storm the Kremlin and tear them to pieces.

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It’s Been One Year

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…since we lost Neptunus Lex

Here again are some of my favorite Lex posts, most but not all of which I linked last year at this time. All are very much worth reading.

The captain wakes before dawn…with a feeling that all is not well with the ship

Reading Solzhenitsyn at the US Naval Academy

Movie vs reality. Lex, who served as executive officer of the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), answers some question’s from his daughter’s friend about the movie.

Hornets, Tomcats, Scooters, Girls & Guys, Oh My!

Lex, in a pensive mood

Some reflections on a less-than-perfect carrier landing, a verbal interchange that probably shouldn’t have happened, and  the nature of leadership

Have you ever killed anyone?  asked the massage therapist, after learning that Lex had been in the Navy.

You’re having a dinner party and have the magical ability to invite 10 people5 men and 5 womenfrom all of history.  Who would you pick?

A troubled pilot and an F-18: Maybe they saved each other.

Colors and continuity.

Tennyson’s Ulysses, personalized and hyperlinked. Created by Lex to mark his retirement from the Navy. Perhaps my favorite of all of Lex’s posts, and particularly appropriate today.

Bill Brandt, a frequent Chicago Boyz commenter, has a tribute to the Captain at The Lexicans.

American Exceptionalism, American Individualism

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These findings are consistent with the claims that Jim Bennett and I make in our upcoming book America 3.0.

Americans stand out relative to Westerners on phenomena that are associated with independent self”concepts and individualism. A number of analyses, using a diverse range of methods, reveal that Americans are, on average, the most individualistic people in the world (e.g., Hofstede, 1980; Lipset, 1996; Morling & Lamoreaux, 2008; Oyserman et al., 2002). The observation that the U.S. is especially individualistic is not new, and dates at least as far back as Toqueville (1835). The unusually individualistic nature of Americans may be caused by, or reflect, an ideology that particularly stresses the importance of freedom and self”sufficiency, as well as various practices in education and child”rearing that may help to inculcate this sense of autonomy. American parents, for example, were the only ones in a survey of 100 societies who created a separate room for their baby to sleep (Burton & Whiting, 1961; also see Lewis, 1995), reflecting that from the time they are born, Americans are raised in an environment that emphasizes their independence (on unusual nature of American childrearing, see Lancy, 2009; Rogoff, 2003).
 
The extreme individualism of Americans is evident on many demographic and political measures. In American Exceptionalism, sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset (1996) documents a long list of the ways that Americans are unique in the Western world. At the time of Lipset’s surveys, compared with other Western industrialized societies, Americans were found to be the most patriotic, litigious, philanthropic, and populist (they have the most positions for elections and the most frequent elections, although they have among the lowest voter turnout rates). They were also among the most optimistic, and the least class-conscious. They were the most churchgoing in Protestantism, and the most fundamentalist in Christendom, and were more likely than others from Western industrialized countries to see the world in absolute moral terms. In contrast to other large Western industrialized societies, the United States had the highest crime rate, the longest working hours, the highest divorce rate, the highest rate of volunteerism, the highest percentage of citizens with a post-secondary education, the highest productivity rate, the highest GDP, the highest poverty rate, and the highest income-inequality rate; and Americans were the least supportive of various governmental interventions. The United States is the only industrialized society that never had a viable socialist movement; it was the last country to get a national pension plan, unemployment insurance, and accident insurance; and, at the time of writing, remain the only industrialized nation that does not have a general allowance for families or a national health insurance plan. In sum, there is some reason to suspect that Americans might be different from other Westerners, as de Tocqueville noted.

Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine and Ara Norenzayan, “The Weirdest People in the World?,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2010) 33, 61-135.

Cross-posted at America 3.0

Iran May Have the Bomb

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A report suggests that the most recent North Korea nuclear test, which used Uranium, not Plutonium as in their others, may have been the Iranian bomb.

the RAND Corporation reports that the third North Korean nuclear test appears to many experts to be fundamentally different from its previous two efforts. North Korea’s first tests used plutonium to trigger the nuclear explosion. This one, according to some atmospheric tests, likely used highly enriched uranium, exactly the form of nuclear weapon pursued by Iran.

The report is not that positive about the weapon type.

Key aspects of North Korea’s third nuclear weapon test, carried out on Tuesday, remain unknown. We do not know whether it was a test of a plutonium or highly enriched uranium weapon, though many experts suspect the latter.

The report is hardly definitive but it would not be a surprise if Iran has pushed through to a success in its program, unencumbered by any serious US opposition. Still, there is some serious concern.

The question is whether the weapon North Korea tested this month was its own, Iran’s or a joint project. A senior U.S. official told The New York Times, “It’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.” It would be foolish for Iran to test a nuclear weapon on its own soil. Nuclear weapons cannot be detonated in secret; they leave unique seismic markers that can be traced back to their source. An in-country test would simply confirm the existence of a program that for years Iran has denied.

If that were not enough:

Ralph Peters has some serious concerns about where the Obama administration is going.

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Another Tale From the Front – A Year’s Worth of Guns and Ammo Sold Out in 3 Weeks

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This is another installment from our friend Gerry over at LITGM who is in the “front lines” of the gun rights issue working for a major retailer.

It is becoming all too weary for me to tell customers “no”. As a major outdoor equipment retailer it must be frustrating to know how a great sales period that is usually slow could have been even greater if they had the product to sell. That said, our store and the entire chain is doing very well. Turkey season is approaching and all the necessary items are being bought at a brisk rate. Now it’s fishing’s turn and yesterday the customers who are fishermen came in for a special sales event. They were all buying new tackle in anticipation of the season.

At work the phone doesn’t stop beeping so we started playing a new game. Between us we call out a caliber we each predict that will be requested by the caller whenever the phone beeps. I usually go with .22. Paul likes 9mm while Don prefers 5.56 or .223. “Hello, hunting department, how may I help you?” is soon followed by a “no sir, we are all out of 9mm.” Paul quickly lets out a “woo-hoo I won!” No bets, just fun. Breaks the monotony of constantly saying no.

Not much new to report from the firearm front. There is no retreat, more of a cease fire mode, awaiting replenishment from the supply line. AR’s come in small numbers and are quickly snapped up. Same holds true for ammo. Each morning the same dozen or individuals so show up looking for their favorite calibers. These are the battle hardened. They know they’re unlikely to find what they want but they still arrive to look. Maybe, and occasionally when they show up we actually have meager replenishment for them. Then it’s Katy bar the door – soon it’s gone. It goes into basements, garages and some to the great aftermarket to be resold. My bet is not much is being used at the range right now. When asked how soon ammunition will return to full supply I repeat the same answer trying my best to appear positive instead of weary. When the entire nation’s supply of consumer ammunition is sold within three weeks it takes a long time for manufacturers to recover. That is the simple truth.

What I witnessed last week was astonishing. 62 cases of PMC .233 55 gr. FMJ disappeared within 36 hours. That is 62,000 rounds (1000 per case) packaged in boxes of 20 and with a limit of 10 boxes per customer sold out in our one store alone. The first wave of regulars came in and while packing their baskets were simultaneously calling friends to alert them to their find. About an hour or two later that larger second wave arrived. Late in the day the after work crowd came in to clean up the leftovers.

They tell me of their own conspiracy theories or those they discover on the internets. The one most interesting is that the government is intentionally buying enough ammo with the intent of keeping the civilian supply low. So I went to a close acquaintance who is with the FBI. I asked him if what I hear about government bureaus such as NOAA and the DCFS buying excessive quantities of ammunition is true and why they would need so much, as many customers have claimed.

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