A simple truth

New laptop, new blogging

One of the reasons posting has been so slow over the past several months has been my laptop computer from which I've always done the vast majority of my blogging. It was a 10-year old Dell with Windows XP. But for the last year or so it has had a miserable time getting on the web. When I wrote my latest column for Independent Voter Network, it took me literally two days to write it simply because my old laptop kept locking up on  me when I tried to get a news article to reference. I could still use it for court, but barely. Even Microsoft Office was starting to have issues with it.

So, this week I was finally able to get a new laptop. It's an ASUS Transformer T300LA. Not a perfect design, but it is a very good design, and it can switch between laptop an  tablet when I need it. Quite happy with the computer itself so far.

What I am not happy with is Microsoft. Because I do so much word processing and share so many files with clients and publishers, I had to get Windows and Office. I was thus forced to get Windows 8. After using it for about a half hour, I decided that if there are computers in Hell, they use Windows 8. This operating system is nothing short of an abomination, an insult to Microsoft customers. It's almost as if Microsoft took all the comments made by Windows users and decided to do the exact opposite. It is not user-friendly. It is not intuitive. Most of the time you can't even tell what you're doing on it or what processes are working in the background, because the user interface won't tell you. I "upgraded" to Windows 8.1, but it is only marginally better.

Then there is Microsoft Office 2013. It's not bad per se. The format is different, but I'm normally able to adjust to it and I've had little trouble doing so now. In fairness, though, I've had Office 2013 for a year now on my main computer, so I'm kinda used to it.

However, there are some major, major annoyances with Office 2013. For one thing, when you try to save a document, it defaults to the "SkyDrive," which Microsoft recently renamed the "OneDrive." It's Microsoft's Cloud-based application, for which they plan to charge at a later date, I'm sure. Except, most people want to save their documents to their computer or its LAN and not to the Cloud. At the Solo and Small Firm Conference last summer, we had a CLE session that said lawyers had to be very careful about saving anything to the Cloud, because it could compromise client confidentiality. But Microsoft wants to push the damn SkyDrive. And so your save location defaults to the SkyDrive. Now, you can change the default location, but Word will still try to ram the SkyDrive down your throat with its big icon compared to your small default save location icon.

A far, far worse problem is the color. In older versions of Windows you could change the color scheme. I've never liked having a white screen, as my eyes are very sensitive and a white  screen all day tends to be very hard on them. So, I'd change the screen to light blue, light green, pink, gray, light purple, or something like that. In Office, you used to be able to change the color, at the very least use the colors to which you set Windows to run. In Office 2013, you cannot. You are allowed to change the color of the borders from white to light gray or dark gray. Crayola won't be running in fear of that kind of palette. It's not an issue on my main computer because it has Windows 7, on which you can change the colors. You can use the Windows 7 colors to override the Office 2013 colors. Not Windows 8. Windows 8 has nothing in the way of color options for applications, so the only color choice you have for Office 2013 is blazing white. I have checked out the tech forums and message boards, where, it is safe to say, the users have been outraged by this change in Office. But, well, Office 2013 has been out for more than a year, as has Windows 8, and so far Microsoft has made no effort to allow color changes in Office.

This is what I was talking about earlier when I said the free market had failed with Microsoft. Microsoft is almost at the point where it hears what its customers want -- and proceeds to do the exact opposite. Because, hey, it's Microsoft! Who are these mere mortal customers to tell it what it should do?

At least, that was Steve Ballmer's attitude when he decided to create Windows 8 to leverage Microsoft's dominance in computer operating systems to dominance in tablets and smart phones. Consumers have revolted against Windows 8 and driven Ballmer from the top spot at Microsoft. Hopefully, the new management will be more responsive to the needs of consumers.

But when they refuse to do something as simple as allow the customer to change the color of the program, when they had allowed the customer to do so before, it is not encouraging as to the future of this once-great company.

In any event, with a new, more capable laptop, I should be able to blog much more often now.

"[V]oter fraud is just a GOP myth."

So says Glenn Reynolds, dripping with sarcasm. And he has every reason to be sarcastic.

First, from Florida, there is the case of one TV station finding 100 people who voted who were legally ineligible to do so:

The investigative piece was aired this week by an NBC affiliate in southwest Florida that actually tracked down and interviewed non U.S. citizens who are registered to vote and have cast ballots in numerous elections. The segment focused on Lee County, which has a population of about 620,000 and Collier County with a population of around 322,000. The reporter spent about two months digging around the voter rolls in the two counties and the discoveries are dumbfounding.
In that short time, more than 100 people registered to vote in those two areas were proven to be ineligible by the reporter. A Cape Coral woman, eligible to vote in elections, was tracked down through jury excusal forms that verify she’s not a U.S. citizen. A Naples woman, who is not a U.S. citizen either, voted six times in 11 years without being detected by authorities. A Jamaican man is also registered to vote though he’s not eligible. The reporter obtained his 2007 voter registration form, which shows the Jamaican man claims to be a U.S. citizen. Problem is, no one bothers checking to see if applicants are being truthful.
Incredibly, election supervisors confirmed on camera that there’s no way for them to verify the citizenship of people who register to vote. The only way to detect fraud is if the county offices that oversee elections receive a tip, they say, and only then can they follow up.  As inconceivable as this may seem, it appears to be true. Election supervisors in counties across the United States have their hands tied when it comes to this sort of voter registration fraud. They neither have the resources nor the authority to take action without knowledge of specific wrongdoing.
In an effort to remedy the situation, Florida Governor Rick Scott launched a program a few years ago to purge ineligible voters from registration rolls. The Department of Justice (DOJ) was quick to sue the state to stop the purging because the agency claims it discriminates against minorities. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has colluded with the DOJ in Florida and the head of the group’s local chapter says purging voter rolls disproportionately affects the state’s most vulnerable groups, namely minorities.

That's right. Documented evidence of ineligible voters having voted. And Rick Scott's efforts to fix it are being blocked by Eric Holder's Justice Department. Charming.

Then, there is the mummy in Michigan who voted:

How could a dead woman vote?
The mummified remains of a Michigan woman whose death went unnoticed for six years appear to have turned up last week — along with a vote she supposedly cast from beyond the grave.
A contractor found the body in question in a garage last Wednesday after the $54,000 in Pia Farrenkopf's bank account dried up and her house in Pontiac, outside Detroit, went into foreclosure, according to local media.
Authorities say they think the remains belong to Farrenkopf, whom they believe died in 2008. But the mystery turned even murkier Monday.
Voting records show that Farrenkopf voted in Michigan's November 2010 gubernatorial election, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Farrenkopf, who would be 49, registered to vote in 2006 but did not vote until 2010, and that the vote may have been an administrative error, they revealed. Otherwise, the ghastly discovery may have uncovered something politically nefarious.

Gee, ya think?

Yeah, we don' need no stinkin' voter ID.  No way it could have prevented this.

Angola or Amity Island?

On January 18, a tanker called the Kerala, Greek-owned but Liberian-flagged, was a few miles off the port of Luanda, Angola when radio contact with its owners was broken. This is not entirely unsusal, but:

[M]aritime experts think the Kerala's disappearance marks a dangerous new escalation of the oil-driven piracy that has increasingly tormented mariners across the infamous Bight of Benin.

Maritime hijackings off of Somalia and the rest of Africa's eastern coast are in sharp decline. But pirate attacks in West Africa have crept upward, turning the waters around the Gulf of Guinea into one of the centers of global piracy. About one out of every five reported pirate attacks last year took place in the Gulf of Guinea, the International Maritime Bureau reported, but it estimates that only about one-third of West African attacks are actually reported.

The piracy on the western coast of African bears little similarity to piracy off the east coast, however. In short, it's even more aggressive. And oil companies operating in the area, West African countries dependent on energy revenues for their fiscal well-being, and regions that rely on sub-Saharan crude such as Europe and China worry that this new breed of pirates may turn the region into a no-go zone for shippers and operators.

The pattern being established is bad, and the case of the Kerala seemed like just one more:

On January 18th, a Greek shipping firm lost radio contact with one of its vessels, a Liberian-flagged, 75,000-ton oil tanker named Kerala, when it was just a few miles off the port of Luanda, Angola. [...]

The Kerala's sudden disappearance came just after maritime security firms began warning of a suspicious, 200-ton tugboat prowling the waters off the Angolan coast. The Kerala's owner, Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd., began to suspect it was again a victim of piracy. A Dynacom ship was the last ship successfully taken by Somali pirates; the ship and crew were released after 10 months of captivity in March 2013.

But never before had the criminal gangs that trawl the Gulf of Guinea struck so far south, raising questions about just what had happened to the Kerala. Angolan navy officials said last week they were searching for the vessel, and warned about the threat of piracy to Angola's energy-dependent economy.

Finally, on Sunday, Jan. 26, Dynacom re-established contact with its vessel: It had indeed been hijacked, the company said. One crewmember was hurt, and "a large amount of cargo had been stolen" from the vessel, Dynacom added. International investigators were set to examine the ship, which headed for port in Ghana, to gather forensic evidence to try to use against the suspected pirates.

So that's the end of the story? Not so fast:

"If substantiated, this latest incident demonstrates a significant extension of the reach of criminal groups and represents a threat to shipping in areas that were thought to be safe," [Dryad Maritime intelligence director Ian] Millen told the press on January 22. It should have been a relief, then, when the Angolan navy announced on Sunday that the tanker had been found and that it had not been hijacked by pirates. Except, on its face, the navy's story makes very little sense: According to Reuters, the crew "turned off communications" on January 18 "to fake an attack, seeking to calm energy sector fears that the vessel had been hijacked by pirates." So ... they faked a pirate attack in order to assuage fears about pirate attacks?

"It was all faked, there have been no acts of piracy in Angolan waters," an Angolan navy spokesman said. "What happened on January 18, when we lost contact with the ship, was that the crew disabled the communications on purpose. There was no hijacking." The spokesman, Augusto Alfredo, told reporters that the Kerala had been in Luanda when it was approached by a tugboat, and that the Kerala's crew then turned off all communications and followed the tugboat to Nigeria. “Our concern that it was an act of piracy proved unfounded. It’s no more than a simulation by the crew of the tanker and the tug’s agent,” Alfredo said.

When the Kerala was found, it was in Nigeria—and missing its cargo. Dynacom is disputing the claims of Angola's navy, insisting that the vessel was hijacked and its cargo stolen. This afternoon the AFP confirmed earlier reports that one crew member suffered an injury in connection with the tanker's mysterious activity. "All crew members are alive and accounted for, but one is wounded and all have clearly been affected by their ordeal," said Dynacom. The AFP also quoted a company source who said that the Angolan navy was trying to evade responsibility for the incident by denying that it was an act of piracy. "Angola is trying to cover up how a loaded vessel was taken in an area under its protection," said the source, and "there will now have to be an investigation by US authorities and Interpol."

So, rather than admit that a pirate attack took place, Angola is claiming the Kerala's crew faked a pirate attack in order to assuage fears about pirate attacks. It sounds like the mayor of Amity Island insisting there is no shark problem as body parts wash ashore.

It's 1937 all over again

I was by no means the first person to compare the current dispute between Japan and China to 1937, but it's still nice to see others echoing the theme. China analyst Gordon G. Chang picks up on it as well, and also starts with the Marco Polo Bridge incident:

In first days of July 1937, Chinese and Japanese soldiers skirmished in Wanping, a few miles southwest of what is now the Chinese capital. China’s Chiang Kai-shek then knew his army was no match for Japan’s, and he had many opportunities to avoid battle with a vastly superior foe. Yet he ultimately chose war.

So why did Chiang decide to fight? And how did a minor—and probably accidental—clash turn into years of disastrous conflict? Now, analysts think today’s Asia feels like 1914 Europe, and last month in Davos Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe likened today’s situation involving his country and China to that of England and Germany a hundred years ago. The better comparison, however, is 1937. The parallels between then and now, unfortunately, are striking.

The “China Incident,” as the Japanese then called the war, began on the banks of the Yongding River in Wanping during the night of July 7, 1937. Imperial troops, shooting blanks in an evening exercise, found themselves under fire, presumably from elements of the Chinese 29th Army. After the minor exchange near Lugouqiao, commonly known as the Marco Polo Bridge, Japanese officers were alarmed when one of their soldiers failed to turn up for a roll call. They then demanded that Chinese guards let them search nearby Wanping, where the Japanese had no general permission to enter.

A refusal triggered days of skirmishes. Once the fighting started, it did not matter that the stray Japanese private, who is thought to have wandered off to urinate, eventually turned up unhurt. Soon, Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China was at war. The Japanese in short order would take the Marco Polo Bridge, cut off Beijing from the rest of the country, and seize that city. They would then drive Chiang’s forces from the metropolis of Shanghai, the capital of Nanjing, and most of the rest of eastern China.

Chang highlights China's latest transgressions:

Why is 1937 relevant to us? Today, China, no longer the victim, is aggressive, continually pressing its weaker neighbors to its south and east. For decades, the People’s Republic has been seizing specks in the South China Sea from Vietnam and the Philippines.

Most recently, Chinese vessels took Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in the middle of 2012. Washington, not wanting to antagonize Beijing and hoping to avoid a confrontation, did nothing to stop Beijing gobbling up the shoal despite America’s mutual defense treaty with Manila. The Chinese were not satisfied with their seizure, however. Now they are pressuring Second Thomas Shoal and other Philippine territory, also in the South China Sea. Beijing claims about 80 percent of that critical body of international water as an internal Chinese lake.

And as soon as the Chinese took Scarborough, they began to increase pressure on the Senkakus in the East China Sea, regularly sending their ships into territorial waters surrounding the islands and sometimes flying planes into airspace there. The barren outcroppings are claimed and in fact administered by Japan, but Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyus, wants them.

Why should the Japanese care about rocks in the East China Sea? The reason is that the Chinese are acting like classic aggressors. They were not satisfied with Scarborough, so they pressured the Senkakus. Chinese analysts, egged on by state media, are now arguing that Beijing should claim Japan’s Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain.

Then he goes into specific comparisons, some of which mirror my own:

First, the Japanese military then, like the Chinese one today, was emboldened by success and was ultra-nationalist. The views now expressed by China’s senior officers are deeply troubling. For instance, General Liu Yazhou, the political commissar at the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University, recently urged armed conflict to seize territory. “Those borders where our army has won victories are more peaceful and stable, but those where we were too timid have more disputes,” he said in a recent magazine interview. “An army that fails to achieve victory is nothing.”

Second, the media in the 1930s publicized the idea that Japan was being surrounded by hostile powers that wished to prevent its rise. That’s exactly what the Communist Party says today about China.

Third, then, like now, civilians controlled Asia’s biggest army only loosely. Although many believe that new Chinese ruler Xi Jinping is firmly in command, he appears to be allowing the military to engage in provocative behavior to obtain its support. In the complex bargaining process inside Beijing, Xi may be letting flag officers, head of the most powerful faction in the Party, tell him what policies he will adopt. If the PLA is now Xi Jinping’s faction—as many now believe—it is unlikely that he is in a position to tell the top brass what to do.

Yet whether Xi is an aggressor in his own right—a logical conclusion of the majority view that he is in control of the military—or is being led by the nose by flag officers, China is lashing out, taking on many nations at once. That is the same thing Japan did beginning in the 1930s.

Read the whole thing.

Another Sino-Japanese War in the offing?

For some time now I have been trying to call attention to the increasingly dangerous situation in the East China Sea, where Japan and China are snapping and growling at each other over a tiny set of islands.

The disputed islands, called Senkaku by the Japanese, Diaoyu by Communist China, and Tiaoyutai by Nationalist China (Taiwan). Source: Wikipedia.

These islands, called Senkaku by the Japanese, Daioyu by the Chinese Communists, and Tiaoyutai by the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan, appear to have little or no strategic value. There has been speculation that the islands may sit atop significant mineral resources, but that has not been substantiated. Yet the islands have sparked naval incursions, fighter scrambles, and increasingly belligerent language, especially from China.

What is going on?

In an article titled "Someone Just Said Something About The Japan-China Conflict That Scared The Crap Out Of Everyone" Henry Blodget of Business Insider gives a chilling explanation in the form of a comment made at a reception at the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:

One of the guests, an influential Chinese professional, talked about the simmering conflict between China and Japan over a group of tiny islands in the Pacific.
China and Japan, you may recall, each claim ownership of these islands, which are little more than a handful of uninhabited rocks between Japan and Taiwan. Recently, the Japan-China tension around the islands has increased, and has led many analysts, including Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, to worry aloud about the potential for a military conflict.
The Chinese professional at dinner last night did not seem so much worried about a military conflict as convinced that one was inevitable. And not because of any strategic value of the islands themselves (they're basically worthless), but because China and Japan increasingly hate each other.
The Chinese professional mentioned the islands in the context of the recent visit by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine where Japanese killed in Japan's many military conflicts over the centuries are memorialized — including the Japanese leaders responsible for the attacks and atrocities Japan perpetrated in World War 2. A modern-day Japanese leader visiting the Yasukuni Shrine is highly controversial, because it is viewed by Japan's former (and current) enemies as an act of honoring war criminals.
That's certainly the way the Chinese professional at the dinner viewed it.
He used the words "honoring war criminals," to describe Abe's visit to the shrine. And, with contained but obvious anger, he declared this decision "crazy."
He then explained that the general sense in China is that China and Japan have never really settled their World War 2 conflict. Japan and America settled their conflict, he explained, and as a result, the fighting stopped. But China and Japan have never really put the war behind them.
The Chinese professional acknowledged that if China asserted control over the disputed islands by attacking Japan, America would have to stand with Japan. And he acknowledged that China did not want to provoke America.
But then he said that many in China believe that China can accomplish its goals — smacking down Japan, demonstrating its military superiority in the region, and establishing full control over the symbolic islands — with a surgical invasion.
In other words, by sending troops onto the islands and planting the flag.
The Chinese professional suggested that this limited strike could be effected without provoking a broader conflict. The strike would have great symbolic value, demonstrating to China, Japan, and the rest of the world who was boss. But it would not be so egregious a move that it would force America and Japan to respond militarily and thus lead to a major war.
Well, when the Chinese professional finished speaking, there was stunned silence around the table.

The technical term for this Chinese professional is "idiot." And he was called out on it:

The assembled CEOs, investors, executives, and journalists stared quietly at the Chinese professional. Then one of them, a businessman, reached for the microphone.
"Do you realize that this is absolutely crazy?" the businessman asked.
"Do you realize that this is how wars start?"
"Do you realize that those islands are worthless pieces of rock... and you're seriously suggesting that they're worth provoking a global military conflict over?"
The Chinese professional said that, yes, he realized that. But then, with conviction that further startled everyone, he said that the islands' value was symbolic and that their symbolism was extremely important.
Challenged again, the Chinese professional distanced himself from his earlier remarks, saying that he might be "sensationalizing" the issue and that he, personally, was not in favor of a war with Japan. But he still seemed certain that one was deserved.

Interesting word choice, "deserved." Not sure if it was Blodget's or the Chinese professional's. Even less sure what it means.

But his thinking is idiotic, to put it mildly. Let's assume that China does pull off this "surgical invasion," that they land troops on the islands, plant their flag, and then leave.

What happens after that?

I'll tell you what happens: Japan lands their own troops on the islands, removes the Chinese flag, and plants their own.

And we're back at Square One -- except the precedent of use of military force to assert sovereignty over the islands will have been set. And you will have the stupidly named People's Liberation Army Navy (though some reports have said the Chinese have finally realized the stupidity of the name and changed it to the "People's Liberation Navy") and the awkwardly named Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force ("Imperial Japanese Navy" or Nihon Teikoku Kaigun, regardless of the bad history, is actually far cooler) will be hanging around the islands.

And when was the last time Chinese and Japanese forces hung around each other peacefully? May I suggest 1937?

Which brings me to an interview Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times had with Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Rachman tweeted that Abe told him "China and Japan now are in a 'similar situation' to UK and Germany before 1914."

That's not actually true. A far better analogy would be US and Japan before 1937, but obviously Abe can't say that, as it would be admitting the Japanese were the bad guys in World War II.

But a 1937 analogy very much is true. In 1937 Imperial Japanese Army troops of the Kwantung Army stationed in Japanese-occupied Manchuria were across the Marco Polo Bridge from Nationalist Chinese troops on the other side. As usual, Imperial Japan was doing some katana-rattling in the form of maneuvers. On the night of July 7, 1937, during these nighttime maneuvers, someone opened fire. To this day no one is sure who -- arrogant Japanese, panicked Chinese nationalists, or devious Chinese communists hoping to provoke their two foes into fighting each other. Whatever the party, it was the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, a war that exposed the sheer barbarism and brutality of the Imperial Japanese Army soldier in such incidents as the Rape of Nanking. It was during this time that Japanese navy bombers attacked and sank the US gunboat Panay in the Yangtze upriver from Nanking. The attack was unintentional inasmuch as the navy pilots and their commanding officers did not know they were attacking an American target -- they had apparently been deceived by the army into making the attack. Only a quick apology and some dollar-and-yen diplomacy averted a US-Japan war in 1937.

Now, like 1937, we have an aggressive fascist power in the Chinese Communists (who are communist in name only these days). We have an arrogant leadership, this time in the Chinese Communists, with a sense of entitlement and a basket full of grievances, both real and imagined. We have in the Chinese a country that has taken to bullying its neighbors. Remember that these islands are by no means the only ones China is trying to gain by intimidation. The Spratlys come to mind.

And, now, we have an admission that the Chinese, like the Japanese before World War II, are not basing their actions on a rational assessment of self-interest but on emotion and ego. This idea of a "surgical invasion" that supposedly would not provoke a response is a classic self-delusion.

And wars based on national emotion and national ego are often the most intractable, the most devastating of wars. See World War II in Europe and the Second Punic War for examples.

Hang on. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

Mohenjo BOOM-o?

I'm a big fan of the mysterious Indus River Valley ancient civilization of Pakistan. The Indus Valley has given us the two creepy cities known as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, very cities that look like ancient versions of the suburbs of Communist Bucharest. Boring, generic buildings: no art; defensive citadels dominating the residential centers; even a statutette of a sneering "king." Very little is known about them, as their writing as yet tobe deciphered and there are few accounts of their contemporaries that deal with them. No one knows how they started or ended, in part becaue very few bodies have been found among the ruins of Mohenjo-daro:

[I]n contrast to the well-appointed houses and clean streets, the uppermost levels at Mohenjo Daro contained squalid makeshift dwellings, a careless intermingling of residential and industrial activity and, most significantly, a series of more than 40 sprawled skeletons lying scattered in streets and houses. Paul Bahn (2002) describes the scene: In a room with a public well in one area of the city were found the skeletons of two individuals who appeared desperately to have been using their last scraps of energy to crawl up the stair leading from the room to the street; the tumbled remains of two others lay nearby. Elsewhere in the area the ‘strangely contorted’ and incomplete remains of nine individuals were found, possibly thrown into a rough pit. In a lane between two houses in another area, another six skeletons were loosely covered with earth. Numerous other skeletons were found within layers of rubble, ash and debris, or lying in streets in contorted positions that suggested the agonies of violent death.

For that reason, many archaeologists have concluded that these people violently in a futile effort to defend the city. Except ...

There was no evidence that the skeletons belonged to ‘defenders of the city’ as no weapons were found and the skeletons contained no evidence of violent injuries.

So ...

An alternative theory was put forward that the city suffered extensive flooding and that people died off as a result of water-borne diseases such as cholera. Recent investigations revealed considerable evidence of flooding at Mohenjo Daro in the form of many layers of silty clay. The Indus River was prone to change its course and through the centuries moved gradually eastward, leading periodically to flooding within the bounds of the city. [...] The conclusion that many mainstream archaeologists now make is that the ‘massacre’ victims from Mohenjo Daro were simply the victims of the natural tragedy of fatal disease rather than that of human aggression. But this conclusion also has many holes – why did the remains of individuals appear in contorted positions, almost frozen at the very moment of death? Why did they appear to have been struck down suddenly? Surely if they died of disease their bodies would have been buried and not found scattered around the city?

So, now what?

There exist a growing number of ‘alternative archaeologists’ and researchers who have not settled for theories that do not satisfactorily explain the conditions of the skeletal remains and who have sought other explanations. One such individual is David Davenport, British Indian researcher, who spent 12 years studying ancient Hindu scripts and evidence at the site where the great city once stood. In his book Atomic Destruction in 2000 B.C. he reveals some startling findings: the objects found at the site appeared to be fused, glassified by a heat as high as 1500°C, followed by a sudden cooling. Within the city itself there appeared to be an ‘epicentre’ about 50 yards wide within which everything was crystallized, fused or melted, and sixty yards from the center the bricks are melted on one side indicating a blast. A. Gorbovsky in his book Riddles of Ancient History, reported the discovery of at least one human skeleton in the area with a level of radioactivity approximately 50 times greater than it should have been due to natural radiation. Davenport claimed that what was found at Mohenjo Daro corresponded exactly to what was seen at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Davenport's theory was met with intense interest from the scientific community. Nationally known expert William Sturm said: “the melting of bricks at Mohenjo Daro could not have been caused by a normal fire”, while Professor Antonio Castellani, a space engineer in Rome said: “it's possible that what happened at Mohenjo Daro was not a natural phenomenon”. Since there is no indication of a volcanic eruption at Mohenjo-Daro, one answer that has been put forward is that the ancient city might have been irradiated by an atomic blast. If true, it would be impossible to ignore the conclusion that ancient civilization possessed high technology.

Yikes! The folks at Ancient Origins think the theory bears some examination:

If Mohanjo Daro was destroyed by a nuclear catastrophe, who created the weapons and how? If not, then what was it that produced enough heat to vitrify rock and bricks? What could explain the high degree of radioactive traces in the skeletons? How did all of them die, in one instant? We believe it is time to stop accepting the sanitized view of the world provided to us by mainstream science and to begin digging a little deeper.

Pearl Harbor and the Fiddler Crab Flu

In case you have been wondering where I have been for the past month, it has been crazy. In mid-November, Rising Sun, Falling Skies was due to the printer, so we had to make the final edits to the text and finish up the maps. We got it turned in on time, and the book is on schedule for its March 2014 release. Just as I turned that in, I got what I think was the flu. Since nowadays every strain of influenza has to be named after an animal, I'm calling it the Fiddler Crab Flu. Because why not? It rendered me literally unable to get out of bed for an entire weekend, then left me with among other things, a shattering cough that destroyed my voice and my ability to sleep. I am still not quite recovered from that. On top of all this, my laptop, from which I do most of my blogging, is dying. It's only ten years old. So I've been struggling to get anything posted. So if some of this post seems a bit dated, you know why.

In the interim we have had, inter alia the anniversary of both the disappearance of Flight 19 in the Atlantic off the Florida coast in 1945 and, obviously, the Pearl Harbor anniversary. The December 7 edition of "Civil Discourse Now" discussed Pearl Harbor, with me as a guest. You can listen to the podcast -- and my shattered voice -- here. In my Veterans Day Post, I shared a picture of the attack by the Japanese Kido Butai on Pearl Harbor. I want to show that picture again, because I want to point out an often overlooked detail.

Look at the far right at the very edge of the picture. Maybe about 40% of the way up. You should see what looks like something poking its nose into the picture. Entering it at maybe a 45-60-degree angle from the horizontal.

We talk about the USS Arizona and her horrific destruction when her forward magazines exploded. And she gets most of the attention. What is often lost in the equation is the sinking of the battleship USS Oklahoma. Disemboweled by Japanese aerial torpedo hits, she capsized and sank into the mud at Pearl Harbor. For her crew trapped below decks almost upside down, it must have been horrific. Most died of suffocation before rescue crews could cut their way through the hull to them.

That angled thing at the right edge of the picture is the mainmast of the Oklahoma in the midst of her capsize. It's one of the few images of any kind of her sinking.

Please do not forget her or her crew.

A big THANK YOU

To all of our veterans, who had to endure unspeakable horrors to protect and defend our freedom, our civilization, and our way of life.

The Pride of the American Side

Yesterday was the anniversary of the sinking of the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald in a storm on Lake Superior just short of Whitefish Point, Michigan, on the evening of February 10, 1975. The exact cause of the sinking is still unclear, but was most likely caused by the accidental grounding of the Fitzgerald (caused by the storm-related loss of her radars) on a poorly-charted reef, which caused her to ride lower in the water and leave her vulnerable to foundering under a series of rogue waves known as "The Three Sisters."

The Edmund Fitzgerald's skipper, Ernest McSorely, a 44-year veteran of the Great Lakes, was from Toledo, OH, which was also a frequent stop for the ship. Thus, her sinking was a big story there. My father covered it extensively when he worked for WTOL. They used the same stock picture of the Fitzgerald:

For little 4-year-old me at the time, this picture was both fascinating and frightening. That ominous-looking black crane in the background, apparently used to dispense coal and taconite, looked to this toddler like some sort of monster.

I guess it was best that I never saw this picture:

May Captain McSorely and his crew always be remembered.

A too-novel legal theory of self defense

Criminal defense lawyer Andrew Branca highlights this weird story from Colorado:

A Colorado judge denied immunity under the state’s “Make My Day” law to a woman charged with 1st degree murder. The defendant, Marla Abling, has been charged with first degree murder for the strangulation killing of her estranged boyfriend, Rory Alba.
The couple had a history of alleged domestic violence, and Abling had obtained a temporary restraining order that forbid Alba from going to Abling’s apartment. Despite this, Alba was in Abling’s apartment when she killed him.
Abling made a pre-trial motion for immunity from criminal prosecution under Colorado’s “Make-My-Day” law. In relevant part, §18-1-704.5 “Use of deadly physical force against an intruder” authorizes the use of deadly force, and provides both criminal and civil immunity for such use of force, even against a person who does not present an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm if all of the following conditions are met:

(1) The person using the deadly defensive force is the occupant of a dwelling at the time, AND
(2) The person against whom the deadly defensive force is used has made an unlawful entry into the dwelling, AND
(3) The occupant has a reasonable belief that the other person has committed a crime in the dwelling (in addition to the uninvited entry) OR the other person is committing or intends to commit a crime (in addition to the uninvited entry) AND
(4) The occupant reasonably believes that such other person might use any physical force, no matter how slight, against any occupant.

Abling argued that she meets the conditions of the “Make-My-Day” law because (1) she was the occupant of the dwelling; (2) Alba’s entry into the dwelling was unlawful because of the presence of the temporary restraining order; (3) based on his prior conduct she had a reasonable belief that he intended to commit a crime in addition to the unlawful entry; and (4) for similar reasons she had a reasonable belief that he might use physical force against her.
Unfortunately for Abling, however, over the course of six days of testimony on the immunity motion, the prosecution presented evidence that convinced the judge that Abling’s conduct did not fall within the scope of the “Make-My-Day” statute.
There was evidence that Alba may have been invited to the apartment by Abling, rather than being an intruder. Phone records indicated ongoing and mutual communication between Alba and Abling, and the two had also been seeing together around town, despite the prohibitions against this by the restraining order.
Further, Alba’s keys were found hanging neatly on the key hook by the front door. It also appeared that Alba spent hours at the apartment with Abling before he was killed, and that the two may have engaged in consensual sex during that time. All of this seems behavior more consistent with that of an invited (and welcome) guest than of an unwanted intruder.
Most damning, however, was the prosecution witness that testified to overhearing Abling at a hair salon days before Alba’s death talking about ways to kill him. Oops.

You don't need a law degree to get to the logical heart of this self-defense claim, but Branca, a specialist in the law of self defense, gives it anyway, in the somewhat understated form for which we lawyers are generally known:

[W]hile I have seen a great many items used as defensive weapons in my years as a defensive trainer and in my legal work in the law of self-defense, the claimed necessity to kill an attacker by means of strangulation via electrical cord is certainly novel to my experience.

I wonder if Abling will next try the Chewbacca Defense.

Book review -- John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General.

Sorry for the extremely light posting. Between work and final preparations for the book, I’ve had very little time for blogging, though if you follow my Twitter feed I’ve been fairly active over there.

But it has not stopped me from reading my usual dozen or so books at one time, so let’s do a book review.

My latest interesting read is John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General, by Stephen M. “Sam” Hood, who is a distant relative of John Bell Hood.

John Bell Hood is a controversial figure in Civil War histories, generally seen as brave (he lost the use of one arm and one leg to battle wounds), but overly aggressive and rather stupid. He is most (in)famous for the ill-fated 1864 Nashville Campaign, in which he led the Confederate Army of Tennessee in an invasion of its namesake, with the operational objectives of liberation of the state and potentially driving up to the Ohio River, and the strategic objectives of forcing Union General William T. Sherman to abandon his march to the sea and move west to stop Hood.

It was a desperate move, but by this point in the war with the Mississippi, Chattanooga, and Atlanta now in Union hands, the Confederacy was well-past desperation.

Sherman did not move west. To stop Hood’s move, Union General George (“Rock of Chickamauga”) Thomas was collecting federal troops in a blocking position at Nashville, which had been held by the Union for 3 years and was heavily fortified. The trick was that those troops had to beat Hood’s army to Nashville.

For Union General John Schofield, this was kind of a problem, since his troops were directly in Hood’s line of march. That problem became a grave crisis on November 29, 1864, when Hood managed to outflank Schofield and get between the Union army and Nashville near Spring Hill. But through command and control problems and a poor deployment of the army, Hood’s troops did not block the road which Schofield was using to march to Nashville, and Schofield’s troops marched within a football field of Hood’s sleeping troops during the night and escaped. When Hood woke up the next morning, he went had breakfast with his senior generals at a mansion with the bizarre name of Rippavilla and supposedly threw a tantrum for the ages.

Schofield continued his flight northward towards Nashville, but was blocked by the flooded Harpeth River at the town of Franklin. As his forces repaired two damaged bridges and started his supply train across, his infantry and artillery were forced to deploy in defensive positions facing south. Sure enough, late that afternoon, Hood’s troops caught up with him.

The result was the Battle of Franklin, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War and Hood’s most controversial action. With the fading light, Hood ordered a frontal assault, and the Confederate infantry charged over two miles of open ground with no artillery support against prepared Union positions with enfilading artillery coverage from an artillery position on the north side of the Harpeth called Fort Granger. It was a slaughter. The Confederates suffered 6,252 casualties, including 1,750 killed and 3,800 wounded. Fourteen Confederate generals (six killed or mortally wounded, seven wounded, and one captured) and 55 regimental commanders were casualties. Among the dead were “The Stonewall of the West” Patrick Cleburne and the talented States Rights Gist (yes, that was his real name).

As one might expect given that Sam Hood is a relative of John Bell Hood, John Bell Hood is a defense of the Confederate general. In fact, it is more of a defense than it is a history, and it, while it does present excerpts of many of the accusations against Hood,   assumes considerable knowledge on the part of the reader of both the Civil War and the conventional opinion of Hood’s actions.

One might say that at times Sam Hood tries too hard to defend the general. One of the generally accepted beliefs is that Confederate General Robert E. Lee had a low opinion of General Hood and was not happy at the prospect of his selection for commander of the Army of Tennessee to replace General Joseph Johnston (himself another controversial figure) during the Atlanta campaign. Sam Hood, who is honest in presenting contradictory evidence, gives Lee’s statements about John Bell Hood to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. First is this:

Telegram of today received. I regret the fact stated. It is a bad time to release the commander of an army situated as that of Tennessee,. We may lose Atlanta and the army too. Hood is a bold fighter. I am doubtful as to other qualities necessary. (Page 12.)

Lee would later elaborate:

I am distressed at the intelligence conveyed in your telegram of today. It is a grievous thing to change the commander of an army situated as that of the Tennessee. Still if necessary it ought to be done. I know nothing of the necessity. I had hoped Johnston was strong enough to deliver battle. We must risk much to save Alabama, Mobile and communications with the Trans Mississippi. It would be better to concentrate all of the cavalry in Mississippi and Tennessee on Sherman’s communications. If Johnston abandons Atlanta I suppose he will fall back on Augusta. This loses us Mississippi and communications with Trans Mississippi. We had better therefore hazard that communication to retain the country. Hood is a good fighter, very industrious on the battle field, careless off, and I have had no opportunity of judging his actions, when the whole responsibility rested upon him. I have a high opinion of his gallantry, earnestness and zeal. General (William) Hardee has more experience in man aging an army. (Pages 12-13.)

 Sam Hood’s conclusion:

In the morning, Lee had rejected not Hood, but rather the act of changing the Army of Tennessee’s command. However, later that same day, after considering the broad geopolitical and military consequences of losing Atlanta, Lee agreed that a change in commanders was necessary. Lee, upon further thought, seemed to endorse Hood, making five positive comments and one negative about his former subordinate. Lee […] noted only Hardee’s previous army management experience but had nothing else to say about him. […]

Lee’s cautious advice to Davis about one of his favorite former subordinates an hardly be taken as a rejection of the proposal to install Hood, although many authors and historians have stated that Lee advised against elevating Hood. The full text of Lee’s longer reply to Davis, rarely provided by authors, speaks for itself. (Page 13.)

Indeed it does, but it does not say what Sam Hood says it says. He calls Lee’s response “cautious” and says Lee “seemed to endorse Hood.” Really? Given that John Bell Hood was indeed one of Lee’s favorite subordinates, don’t you think he would have given a more glowing endorsement than this? If Lee was endorsing Hood, so you think he would have ever said “I am doubtful as to other qualities necessary?” Lee compliment’s Hood’s bravery and fighting ability, but little else. Lee’s statements read like specifically not endorsing Hood while not coming out and saying as much, so as not to be seen as betraying a friend.

For a second example, Sam Hood tries very, very hard to refute the charge that John Bell Hood accused his troops of cowardice, especially after the “affair” at Spring Hill. He does present the quote that is used to support the charge, which comes from John Bell Hood’s own memoirs Advance & Retreat. The quote is a full paragraph:

The best move of my career as a soldier, I was thus destined to behold come to naught.  The discovery that the Army, after a forward march of one hundred and eighty miles, was still, seemingly, unwilling to accept battle unless under the protection of breastworks, caused me to experience grave concern. In my inmost heart I questioned whether or not I would ever succeed in eradicating this evil. It seemed to me I had exhausted every means in the power of one man to remove this stumbling block to the Army of Tennessee. And I will here inquire, in vindication of its fair name, if any intelligent man of that Army supposes one moment that these same troops one year previous, would, even without orders to attack, have allowed the enemy to pass them as Rocky-faced Ridge, as he did at Spring Hill. (Page 214.)

 Sam Hood comments:

Nowhere do the words “fear,” “bravery,” “cowardice,” or “courage” appear in this or any other paragraph relating to this event. All Hood explained was his frustration at the army’s apparent unwillingness to accept battle unless from behind breastworks, which he believed was a “stumbling block” instilled by the tactics of the previous commander. (Page 214.)

A fair interpretation, but by no means the only one or, in my opinion and that of many other historians, the most likely one. For one thing, you do not need to use the words “fear,” “bravery,” “cowardice,” or “courage” to accuse someone of cowardice. Just call them “chicken.” Accusing someone of an “unwillingness to fight” someone unless behind breastworks can reasonably (and easily) be interpreted as cowardice. 

Such stretches are found throughout the book. But that is merely a minor note. Most of Sam Hood’s defenses of John Bell Hood are well reasoned, worthy of consideration, and in many cases persuasive. For instance, as ugly and perhaps Quixotic as the Nashville campaign was, it was done with the complete knowledge and support of Jefferson Davis. Far from keeping Richmond in the dark as to the desperate plight of his army, Hood kept them well informed. Hood also did try his best to take care of his troops, requesting reinforcements and supplies at every opportunity, only to be repeatedly turned down. Sam Hood presents John Bell’s Hood’s tactics as desperate but defensible, which is a reasonable position.

Sam Hood’s John Bell Hood is more case than history, and not always a convincing case, but it presents enough of a case to merit a re-examination of John Bell Hood. And it is a very enjoyable read. The publisher Savas Beatie has made a habit of making high-quality history books focusing on the United States. This is yet another. While not agreeing with all of Sam Hood’s conclusions, it is well worth it to buy John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General and decide for yourself.

Ancient mysterious ruined cities

Nice Australian piece giving snapshots of what they call "Ancient ruined cities that remain a mystery." Not sure I agree that Pompeii "remains a mystery" but they have some fun choices here. My favorites:

Derinkuyu, Turkey
The largest and deepest of 200 underground cities in the Cappadocia region, this eerie location was home to approximately 20,000 people (plus livestock, a church, school and kitchen). The inhabitants dug tunnels and rooms beneath their homes in the soft volcanic rock.
The city reportedly grew to 85 metres and 11 levels deep. It is believed to date back to the early Byzantine Empire, as early as the 7th-8th centuries.
People fled to the area to find safety from anti-Christian Romans, bandits, and later on, anti-Christian Muslims. Huge rocks were rolled across the entrances, with air shafts letting fresh air in. It was sealed up at some point after the 10th century but reopened in 1969.

This one I had not heard of. Sounds like a fascinating way of life. I'm wondering if this was referenced in Assassin's Creed: Revelations.part of which took place in an underground Christian city in Cappadocia.

Machu Picchu, Peru
It's the destination at the top of many travellers' bucket lists. The spectacular 'lost city' of Machu Picchu in Cusco was discovered in 1911 and is one of the most famous sites created by the Inca Empire.
In a remarkable feat of 15th-century construction, the Incas flattened the top of the 2430 metre high mountain to accommodate 140 structures including temples and houses. The city was divided into areas for royalty and the lower classes.
And it's not the jawdropping architecture that's the most puzzling part of Machu Picchu. How they ran a vast empire in an isolated area of Peru without building any marketplaces is quite puzzling, and dramatically different to most other old cities, where market squares were key. Why did they have no recognisable economy, and how did they prosper without it?

Machu Picchu has been called "The Lost City of the Incas," but actually it is not. The term "Lost City of the Incas" is actually a reference to Vilcabamba, which was actually the last capital and refuge of the Incas and was destroyed by the Spanish. The location of Vilcabamba had been lost for almost 400 years. For a while Machu Picchu was thought to be Vilcabamba, but Machu Picchu was intact, had not been touched by the Spanish, and may not have even been a town at all, but some sort of religious center. Works starting in the 1970s going up to 2000 have definitively identified the site of Vilcabamba as a site deep in the Ecuadoran forest known as Espíritu Pampa, which from a development standpoint was a steep drop from the Inca heyday in Cuzco.

Great Zimbabwe
The giant, walled and wealthy city of Great Zimbabwe was home to around 30,000 people at its peak in 1200-1450. An important trade centre, it was rich in gold from local mines. The technologically advanced city features a huge enclosing wall some 20 metres high and was believed to have served as a royal palace for the Zimbabwean monarch. Famines may have contributed to its mysterious demise.

Great Zimbabwe is a rather curious case. It's peak may have been 1200-1450, but technologically the town looks more like Bronze Age Mycenae or Troy. No one knows why Great Zimbabwe fell, though as suggested above speculation has focused on famine. Even more curious, no one knows what the purpose was of the Great Conical Tower of Great Zimbabwe. It's completely solid, with no entrance.

A tower with no entrance: the Great Conical Tower of Great Zimbabwe.

As I said above, I probably would not have put Pompeii on this list, since we know so much about its demise. Hisarlik, the site generally but not universally believed to be the mythical city of Troy/Ilion, fits much better, because we still don't know why, how or at whose hands Troy ended. For that matter, we don't know that about Mycenae or pretty much any other place in Bronze Age Greece.

But perhaps the most mysterious city that deserves to be on this list is Mohenjo-daro, in the Indus River Valley of Pakistan. Of all the ancient civilizations whose ruins have been identified, Mohenjo-daro may be the one about whom the least is known. I'll let Exploring Dystopia take it from here as to some of the creepy details:

In ancient history, advanced civilisations evolved around rivers: Egypt around the Nile river and Mesopotamia around the Eufrat and Tigris rivers. Less well known is the mysterious civilisation which evolved around the Indus river in India, 2500-1500 B.C.
In the old religious texts called Rig-Veda, it is told how the war god Indra — also known as Puramdara, the "castle destroyer" — destroyed ninety fortifications. These castles probably belonged to Dasyas, a people briefly mentioned in the Rig-Veda and described as strangely dark. No ruins were ever found, though, and for many years the Indus civilisation was considered to be a mere myth.
It was not until 1921-22 any remains of this lost civilisation were to be found: the ruins of two cities called Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (the latter means "The Heights of Death"). Unfortunately, building material from the cities had been used by British colonists to build railway embankments, especially in the case of Harappa.
The cities are located in hostile environments, salt desserts with the worst climate in India. The climate was probably more suitable when the cities were built, but it seems conceivable the environment has been at least partly destroyed by merciless exploitation.
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro are twin cities, literally; they have almost identical structures. They are both examples of remarkable city planning. Large boulevards stretches through the cities along a north-south axis and all street and alley crossings have right angels, just like in fairly modern cities.
Judging from the ruins, all appartment buildings were standardised with two floors, small rooms and a courtyard in the center. The building material is baked mudbrick of the same size and weight, which indicates governmental control of weights and measures. Doors and windows always face the courtyards and alleys, never the streets. Thus, the streets of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were surrounded by plain brick walls. There are almost no decorations, which is remarkable as later Indian architecture is famous for its rich detail.
There are many indications of a strong central government. This is most obvious in Mohenjo-daro, which is better preserved than Harappa. The city plan is dominated by a building complex called the Citadel, which is located on an artificial, 15 meter high hill. The Citadel was most probably the financial and governmental center of Mohenjo-daro and possibly the cult center as well. The largest building is undoubtedly a granary, but it is not known for sure what the functions of the other buildings were. There are indications that the city had a kind of police force, but no military buildings such as castles have been found. Mohenjo-daro also has an advanced sewer system, more advanced than many sewer systems in the Third world today. Hygiene seems to have been important, as there are large baths in both cities and basins in every building.
The Indus writing is yet to be deciphered. Many examples of their writing have been found — on seal stones, pot shards and walls — but they are seldom longer than half a dozen letters. There are few examples of art as well. One of the best preserved stone sculptures depicts a man with well-groomed beard, narrow eyes and a subtle smile, described as a tyrannical sneer. Two anatomically perfect torsos have also been found, so well crafted that many archaeologists doubt their Indus origin. Compared to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, there are extremely few cultural findings.
Why the Indus culture ended is uncertain. There are three possible explanations:

• Natural catastrophes such as flooding.

• Thoughtless exploitation such as over-use of the soil.

• Conflicts such as invasions or civil wars.

Very few corpses have actually been found in the ruins and in all cases the cause of death seem to be summary executions. Judging from this, the Indus culture might have ended because of an invasion.
Everyone who have been exploring the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro have found them monotonous and depressing. The cities are strictly utilitarian in their design and there are few, if any, expressions of beauty. Walking through Harappa and Mohenjo-daro has been described as walking through the ruins of some modern mining city like Lancashire. The buildings have been compared to Soviet barracks and the Indus culture has sometimes been called "1984 B.C."! There is undoubtedly something cold and anonymous over the Indus culture.

That statue of the "man with well-groomed beard, narrow eyes and a subtle smile, described as a tyrannical sneer" is this:

Count Dooku? Saruman? The "Priest King" of Mohenjo-daro bears an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Lee.

The statue is generally known as the "Priest King," presumably because he bears an eerie resemblance to Christopher Lee. In reality, no one knows what the statue represents or what it was for.

Which is pretty much par for the course for the Indus River Valley civilization of which Mohenjo-daro was a part. Aside from the ruins, we know almost nothing about it. And unless we can find a sort of Rosetta Stone that allows us to decipher its language, we may never know much more about Mohenjo-daro.

Where's the outrage now?

Let's turn the way back machine to a few years ago. The Ohio State Buckeyes -- America's Team, Defenders of Western Civilization and All That Is Good About America, was on its way to the Sugar Bowl when it was revealed that several of their players had traded their own property (jerseys, autographs, championship rings; that last bit justifiably enraged Buckeye Nation) for tattoos. For some absurd reason, this was a violation of NCAA rules, but they were allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl. It became a scandal that engulfed head coach Jim Tressel and cost him his job on the grounds that he had not told his superiors and had lied to the NCAA about not knowing of the rules violation. There is considerable belief in Buckeye Nation that Tressel, in fact, did tell his superior, Athletic Director Gene Smith, about the issue and that Smith himself did not tell anyone, lied about it, and scapegoated Tressel to save his own butt.

Through 2011, ESPN consistently had Ohio State on trial. The NCAA sandbagged Ohio State, by, for instance, waiting until receiver DeVier Posey was about to complete his NCAA-mandated suspension before suspending him again, this time for being paid too much at a construction job, even though he was being paid consistent with union-required prevailing wage rules.

Gene Smith, in one of his dumbest and most inexcusable decisions, had the Buckeyes play in the Gator Bowl. The NCAA came down later with a ridiculous punishment: vacating the entire 2010 (which had been stupidly offered by Smith) and 2011 seasons, a one year bowl ban, and some scholarship reductions. The alumni wanted Smith's head, and still do -- he is regularly booed at public appearances. His job may have been saved only by his landing Urban Meyer as new head coach.

The most memorable feature of this "scandal" was the constant coverage and abuse Ohio State took at the hands of the sports media, ESPN in particular. Ohio State and Jim Tressel were vilified.

This was on the heels of the scandal in which Cecil Newton, the father of Cam Newton, was found to have solicited payments from schools who were recruiting his son. The NCAA did nothing about this. So, soliciting payments is OK, but selling your own property is not.

Or is it?

Since then, we've had multiple NCAA scandals, including academic fraud at North Carolina; Oregon paying a recruiting service; prostitutes, drugs, and payments at Miami;  DJ Fluker allegedly taking payments at Alabama; Oklahoma State doing ... something ... maybe ...; and Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel selling his autographs. Manziel's case is particularly revealing, but we'll get to that.

The first thing to note here is that all of these scandals combined did not get the coverage the Ohio State matter did. Not even close. Like Caesar in the Senate on the Ides of March, everyone in the media outside Ohio wanted to stick a knife in the Buckeyes, starting with ESPN's Kirk "Culture of Corruption" Herbstriet, a mediocre quarterback for the Buckeyes under the even more mediocre John Cooper.

(You see, you must understand. For those of us who attended Ohio State in the John Cooper era, there is just no getting over it. Every week was like being the Romans facing Hannibal. I call it "Post-Idiotic Stress Disorder.")

Anyway, somehow those knives don't seem to be out for Alabama, or Texas A&M. Oregon got almost nothing of a punishment. As bad as the violations at Miami are alleged to be, the NCAA has been turned into the villain -- and justifiably so -- by its corrupt practices during the investigation. Yet the NCAA was just as corrupt with Ohio State.

Perhaps most infuriating is the Johnny Manziel saga. Manziel sold his own property -- exactly the "crimes" for which Terrelle Pryor, DeVier Posey, and the other Buckeyes were convicted. Yet, while the Buckeyes in some cases were suspended for half the 2011 season (Posey lost the other half of the season for the construction job), Manziel lost ... half a game. Seriously.

For exactly the same crime.

By itself, this should show that the NCAA is nothing but a bunch of lying, corrupt bastards whose "justice" is arbitrary and capricious, and NCAA head Mark Emmert is an arrogant, dishonest, sanctimonious jerk who plays favorites, but if you read Taylor Branch's excellent article "The Shame of College Sports" in the October 2011 issue of The Atlantic, you already knew that.

What's more interesting right now is the, say, "evolution" of the sports media. Those same people who couldn't wait to stick the knives in Terrelle Pryor and Ohio State are lining up to defend Johnny Manziel.

Two-faced? Or double-standard? Yes.

Ramzy Nasrallah details the hypocrisy and deceit by the sports media that piled on Ohio State. So you don't have to. If you are a member of Buckeye Nation like I am, read it and be enraged. And know that ESPN is not your friend.

The simple fact

of alliances shifting all the time, from war to war, from year to year, based on strategic or tactical needs, is the subject of my latest column for Independent Voter Network. Short story long: the prospect of our siding with al Qaida to defeat Bashar Assad is no more strange or devious or unusual than Persia siding with Sparta to defeat Athens.