Quick Roundup 116

Memo to Hannes Hacker

You emailed me last night.

I tried to answer.

It bounced back with the message "User account is overquota".

Thought you'd like to know....

Reports of Blog Name Change Greatly Exaggerated

No. Last night's poll was strictly for amusement. It is not for a new blog name. All entries were things I'd thought of before settling on "Gus Van Horn".

But thanks for asking.

Comment Notification Changed

As many of you know, I moderate comments. The way this works is that usually, unless Blogger has a hairball, I will get an email to the effect that someone wants to leave a comment. I can then log into Blogger through a hyperlink to post the comment and, if I have the time and inclination, a reply.

Until yesterday, I used a myway.com account for this purpose, but I was having to actively refresh it any time I wanted to know whether I'd received any new mail or comments. On top of that, I was having problems with some messages getting queued up and taking ages to arrive. Myrhaf recently emailed me and it took about as long as snail mail. Oh yeah. The filter I set up to segregate my comment traffic into its own folder wasn't working, either.

I am now using gmail for comment moderation. I am not sure that the delays receiving messages I had been experiencing with myway were necessarily on their end, but having to manually refresh my inbox (and wait interminably) was getting really annoying. Gmail automatically refreshes its inbox frequently, allowing me to know pretty much instantly when someone has written.

So if there are any problems with comments over the next few days -- although I really don't see why there should be -- something went awry.

Van Horn, Texas

Back to that email I got from Hannes....

As many of you know, the surname portion of my nom de plume derives from a town in West Texas I once inaccurately recalled as a county name from a map of Texas in an atlas I own. Below is a scanned image from the very page.


Last night, my poll reminded Hannes of a really interesting blog post about a road trip to that very town!

Van Horn is a small desert town of 2,435 people about 120 miles East of El Paso. The town is basically a large truck stop on Interstate 10. But even if vanishingly small, the town seems to be one of the most significant in West Texas. On I-10 East from El Paso, there are many freeway exits that end on dirt roads or no roads at all. I have never been in an area so remote. But even if remote, Van Horn is within easy driving distance of El Paso. This is the kind of freeway where you can open up the throttle on your sports car.

Hacker informs me that, the "name [Van Horn] may one day be associated with a world class spaceport."

Eject! Eject! Eject!

Via RealClear Politics is this very good read, which incinerates various liberal fallacies about the war, including the ubiquitous and absurd "Coexist!" bumper sticker I once ripped to shreds. To get a small taste, author Bill Whittle examines the ludicrous charge that the United States is "imperialist" by momentarily granting the premise. He then considers what this would mean in practice and concludes with, "Well, 8,760 hours divided by 7,481 gives you an answer of 1.17 hours. In other words, it takes the U.S. 1.17 hours to produce what Djibouti produces in a year."

My main problem with the essay is that it does not always go far enough. For example, it takes for granted some of the altruistic premises behind the war as it is currently being fought. He attacks the "blood for oil" myth -- but never asks the question, "Why not just take the oil?"

Nevertheless, it is a very good read, particularly the part in which he dissects the "chickenhawk" argument.

If you ever see this charge again, you may want to reflect that person's own logical reasoning in the following fashion: You may not talk about education unless you are willing to become a teacher. You may not discuss poverty unless you yourself are willing to go and form a homeless shelter. How dare you criticize Congress unless you are willing to go out and get elected yourself? Your opinion on a National Health Care System is negated out of hand since you are unwilling to get a medical degree and open a clinic. And as far as your opinions regarding the Democratic Underground or The Huffington Post are concerned, well, you can just keep them to yourself, mister, unless you can produce an advanced degree in Abnormal Psychology and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Using the internal reasoning behind the Chickenhawk argument means you cannot comment on, speak about or even hold an opinion on any subject that is not part of your paying day job. It is simple-minded and profoundly anti-democratic, which is why it so deeply appeals to those who sling it around the most. [bold added]

Yes. This is one of the most annoying kinds of "arguments" I encounter on a regular basis, although Bill Whittle's dissection of it incidentally caused me to realize that I have seen different versions of this very argument being used by conservatives to pummel critics of our war effort even when they actually make points worth considering.

Highly worthwhile. In any event, I don't know whether Whittle is back for regular blogging, but I'm glad he is not gone for good, which is what I concluded on a visit to Eject! Eject! Eject! a couple or three months back.

-- CAV