The 13 Kumaon

Posted on April 21, 2006 by Alaska

A shooting buddy of mine, a Zoroastrian (!) Parsi of Indian extraction, recently borrowed my copy of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300, so he could read it in advance of the movie.

(300 is Miller’s tale of the few hundred Spartans whose deaths at Thermopylae ultimately allowed the Greeks to rally against and defeat the Persians. Had the Persians won, Western civilization as we know it would never have existed.) 

Yesterday, my friend came into my office and mentioned that in school in India, he and all his classmates learned of a similar small band of heroes who fought to the last man, in this case defending a Himalayan pass against thousands of Chinese infantry in the 1962 Indo-Chinese war. However, to his shame he didn’t recall the name of the unit.

A quick Google search showed that it was “C” Company of the 13 Kumaon, an Indian battalion primarily comprised of cattlemen and farmers. On November 18, 1962, the 127 men of “C” Company held off wave after wave of Chinese despite a withering Chinese artillery bombardment (the 13 Kumaon was beyond the reach of friendly artillery support), despite being armed only with .303 Enfields vs. the Chinese self-loading SKS-variants, and despite being woefully outnumbered.

In the end, 14 men of the 13 Kumaon survived, nine of them grievously wounded.

Little was known of the battle until after the war, when a shepherd stumbled upon the frozen battle site. The positions of the dead, unchanged from the day itself, told the story of what happened. The men of “C” Company became national heroes in India. An excellent writeup is here.

Continue reading →

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 4 Comments

What is that they say

Posted on April 21, 2006 by Phil Kadath

About the blind leading the blind?

Washington state transportation secretary can’t drive

Washington state Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald can’t drive.

He told a meeting last night in Everett that he has been unable to renew his driver’s license because he failed his eye exam three times.

Now, I don’t fault the guy too much because having diabetes for nearly three decades will do that to you, but I though of it as somewhat symbolic of our local lack of sight on transportation issues in Washington State.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

ATF Convenience

Posted on April 20, 2006 by Alaska

Smartasses say, “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store.”

Well, looky here! (Found via NoQuarters.)

If the link don’t work, the goods are below the fold.

Continue reading →

Posted in Kewel!, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Soundboard: I Remember

Posted on April 20, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Today is the 20th of April. It is the fourth anniversary of the day Layne Staley was found dead in his apartment, having OD’d, most likely, on the 5th of April.

Now normally, I could give less than a rat’s patootie about some junkie musician’s number getting called up, but I’m allowed one and this is it.

If you don’t recognize his name, he was the lead vocalist for the band Alice in Chains. If you’ve never heard their music, well, I pity you. The guy was a hurting unit and you could tell just by listening to him sing and the words he wrote into music. There was no doubt that he was telling the truth as he knew it. If he would have been born in the 1920’s or 30’s, he’d have made one hell of a blues singer. But his outlet was rock music. Heavy duty rock. Rock with so much crunch that it made your teeth hurt.

But that is not what I am going to play today. You can hear that stuff on any alt-music station in your town, probably with just tuning in to that station for an hour or so. Nope. Today is something different.

In 94-95 he collaborated with other Seattle artists in a band they called Mad Season. The album they made was titled ‘Above’ and is an amazing piece of art that sounds like nothing else from the time or since and I always make sure to listen to it whenever I see it in the stack.

Staley teamed up with the vocalist for the band Screaming Trees, Mark Lanegan, for today’s tune. It is a mellow piece that lets the power their very different vocal styles play off one another, to the enjoyment of those listening.

So here you go:

Long Gone Day – Mad Season

So long Layne. I’m still listening.

(BTW, we’re back to mp3’s. Those .wav files are just too damn huge)

Posted in Kewel! | 2 Comments

The RNC Fights Back Against the Dems’ Immigration Trap

Posted on April 20, 2006 by Alaska

…and Paul Campos doesn’t like it.

The Rocky Mountain News columnist is appalled at the unmitigated gall of the Republican National Committee in running a Spanish-language radio campaign accusing the Democrats of “voting to treat millions of hard-working immigrants as felons.” Well, as Campos admits, by voting against the Republicans’ amendment to change the penalty back to a misdemeanor, they pretty much did just that. Campos’ point is that the Republicans voted for the felony thing first, so they must somehow be obligated to say so in their ad. Dude, it’s a political ad.

The obvious truth is that neither party wants the felony language to pass into law. I’ve written before about how last fall, the Stupid Party House members (according to Campos, apparently at the behest of the Bush Justice Department) thought they’d score political points by pushing a felony bill so that Stupid Party members in tight districts could be on record voting for it, then safely dissolve the issue by counting on Democrats to join in voting for an amendment stripping the felony language from the bill. The Democrats saw their chance and sprung their trap by unexpectedly voting against the amendment pretty much in lockstep.

What’s the trap? As a commenter on this post by GeekWithA.45 noted a while back, “if there are 9 million illegal immigrants they’ve got 225% the members of the NRA.” Now obviously, illegal immigrants can’t vote. But as I’ve mentioned before, they virtually all have legal relatives who do. If the Stupid Party fails to pass felony language, they will piss off the base that got all excited about it, and the base will stay home from the polls. But if the felony language becomes law, the 9 million or so legal relatives of the illegals will instantly become single-issue voters as committed to voting against Republicans in the next election as any NRA member is against an anti-gun politician. This terrifies Republican political consultants. Right now, it seems to be a numbers game: which is worse? Losing the base or creating a massive, single-issue anti-Republican voting force?

As for the ad, hey, the Stupids are still stuck twisting on the horns of this dilemma they created for themselves by falling into the Democrats’ trap. If the RNC can at least gain a little political mileage among Latinos from this debacle with an ad or two, bravo to them.

However, unlike a political organization paying for an ad, which has no obligation except to make the strongest case for its side that it can, columnist Campos presumably has an obligation to inform his readers completely about the Democrats’ reasons for voting against the amendment. Sure the Republicans introduced the felony bill, but the Dems did just as much to keep it in play. By discussing the vote without including the “inside-baseball” political context, Campos has misled his readers. Tsk, tsk.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 2 Comments

The Iraq Index

Posted on April 20, 2006 by Alaska

The Brookings Institution, a lefty place, publishes the Iraq Index. Despite the source, this looks like a very good collection of FACTS about Iraq over the last few years, showcased in nice charts. Worth a look next time you anticipate debating some anti-war types and want to be prepared to nail them with some FACTS from a source they can’t impeach.

Found in Dennis Byrne’s column at RealClearPolitics.

Posted in Kewel!, Useful Idiots | Leave a comment

“I’m from the government”

Posted on April 19, 2006 by Phil Kadath

“And I’m here to help.”

Those should be words that make you do one of two things: 1. Run, or 2. Grab you weapon of choice and get behind something impervious to small arms fire.

Yet, for some strange reason, I don’t think many Californians are going to do either, after reading this.

California is testing whether the government can ease taxpayers’ annual pain by completing tax returns for them.

Under the pilot program, called “Ready Return,” the state mailed 50,000 taxpayers completed state tax returns that computers filled in from financial records on file. The taxpayers either signed them and sent them back or redid them each of the past two years that the state has run the program.

California’s test is being watched by Congress, the tax industry and economists, some of whom say the Internal Revenue Service — not individual taxpayers — should prepare simple federal returns.

I can’t get a guarantee that my state government will have their on-line vehicle license tabs renewal program working, as I found out last week, but I should let them do my taxes for me?

I can’t count on the fed to not take three years to tell the wife and I that one of her previous employeers miscalculated her withholding percentage in 2001, and that in 2004, after fees and interest, we owed them hundreds of dollars, and these folks expect me to trust them with my bank account routing number?

I have a long, spikey steel thing and a place I would prefer them to stick it.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Scary Gifts

Posted on April 19, 2006 by Phil Kadath

My new city of residence, Tacoma, is looking to add throwing stars and toy/display swords to their list of “Dangerous Weapons”.

Why, because someone or a group of someones, are frightened by the sight of them for sale in stores.

Some government officials are crusading to get cheap versions of medieval weapons off the shelves of local convenience stores because the appearance of collectible swords, crossbows and throwing stars is upsetting people who just want to buy a pack of gum.

The city’s lawyers are having a difficult time, however, figuring out how to revise Tacoma’s “dangerous weapons” ordinance to stop the stores from selling collectible swords without also making it illegal for grocery stores to sell bread knives or camping stores to offer hunting knives.

There is a definite difference between doing what is right and what is easy. There is also a difference between doing what is right and what is stupid.

This clearly falls under the “Stupid” category. How do I know?

The City Council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee first heard complaints about the weapons from neighborhood activists, but police say they haven’t seen an increase in crimes involving such weapons.

So the only people with a problem with these cheap representations, usually in miniature, and almost always made out of the cheapest steel that Pakistan can find, are “Neighborhood Activists”.

These people are also known as “Busy Bodies”; people with nothing else to do but hunt down something to complain about. First your grass isn’t cut every week or it is cut too long. Then your lawnmower is too loud. Then your dog frightens them because it is the “wrong” breed, so they talk the block-watch Captain into passing out flyers asking for support for a city-wide ban on certain breeds of dogs.

Pretty soon these ‘people with too much free time’ start running for City Council. Then you just have to move to get away from them.

But only because tarring and feathering is considered “Cruel and Unusual” nowadays.

Meethinks they should not want to look into my safes. My edged weaponry isn’t made of cheap steel and they definitely aren’t miniatures.

Posted in Too Stupid to Live | 2 Comments

Exhibit A

Posted on April 19, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Of an Expert Level Fisking.

I’m not all that good at fisking, so I don’t do it much around here. I’ll get about halfway through ripping some dingleberry a new sphincter and then get bored with it.

I’m a Gen-X’er and I have a short attention span, I guess.

My other excuse is that I’m woefully over-critical of myself and am willing to just let some else do it, because surely they can do it better.

I’m glad I never saw the article that Keving Baker of The Smallest Minority took to Fisky-town.

I would have had to burn the thumbdrive my fisking was stored on just to make sure all the evidence of my piss-poor fisking skills was destroyed.

Please remove all breakables. OK? Go. Read. Now.

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

Please sir, may I have another

Posted on April 19, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Tax?

The County Executive of King County, Ron ‘Tax to the Max’ Sims, this week proposed adding .01% to the state sales tax, bringing it up from 8.8% to a 8.9% to pay for, waaaaiiiiit for it…….. a new plan for mass transit!

He wants the consumers of goods in King County to vote for the increase this November so that he can buy 190 new buses, so many that, as Ron says

“Just like having your car available any time you need it, the bus service also needs to be there,”

Other reports say that the plan calls for so many buses running around, 24 hours a day, that you wouldn’t need a bus schedule to get where you need to go.

Oh the joy! First off, I’m glad I moved the hell out of Ron Sims’ personal fiefdom. Secondly, this has got to be the most inane plan I have ever heard of.

With ridership below 10% of the county population, Sims and Metro Transportation are expecting the other 90+% to pay for these new buses to run routes that they won’t ever use. Instead of making the riders pay by increasing fares to a reasonable rate, they would rather Ma & Pa Pudwocket of BFE Enumclaw/Black Diamond get gouged in the wallet.

If KCMT would eliminate routes with low ridership and use those buses to take up the gap for routes that need increased service, no extra tax would be necessary. But instead of doing the logical thing, KCMT decides that just shotgunning a bunch of buses out into the population, which will tie up traffic on surface streets to no end, is the best idea.

Make the people who use the service pay for it. There is no right to subsidized transportation. Hell, there isn’t even a right to transportation. Unless you’re a Seattle Lliberal.

As I said before, Sims is hoping to get this on the November ballot. $20 today, if it makes it on there, says it’ll pass. Remember, the vote takes place in King County. Even people registered at the County Building and inactive PO Boxes get to vote there.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 1 Comment