Britain's murder rate is the highest ever
Clayton Cramer links to this article in the UK Sunday Times that explains that in all the time Britain has kept records on murders, the murder rate there has never been higher. In case you missed it, the reason for it is what I wrote about here.

Today's posts so far

Extremely early archeological Jesus artifact found

The two-vehicle hypothesis for sniper shootings is buttressed

Is this morning's Montgomery County shooting a message to Chief Moose?

Army brigade commander says Army not ready for Iraq war

American artillerymen face foggy future

American artillerymen face foggy future
Regular correspondent Richard Heddleson sent me a link to a Strategy Page posting about the disarray of American artillery these days. Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld canceled the Army's only artillery development system, the Crusader. Crusader was slated to begin fielding in 2008, after 14 years of development, replacing the current M109-series of 155mm howitzers.

Most people would be surprised to learn that the Army's current cannon artillery systems, whether towed or self-propelled, are only one generation later than those Ulysses S. Grant used to fight the Army of Northern Virginia. The only real improvements to cannon artillery in the last 140 years have been breech loading, self-contained ammunition (for smaller caliber guns) and recoil management mechanics that prevented the gun from recoiling out of position when it was fired.

Other new features of the Army's present cannon artillery are really automotive rather than cannon related. Perhaps the only significant new feature found in the 155mm Paladin howitzer is GPS and self-emplacement capability. But the cannon system itself would be familiar to any World War I artilleryman.

The Crusader was an altogether new system. It's systems for ammo handling, navigation, fire control, communications and crew protection were leagues beyond the current models. Its rate of fire was much higher. It was highly automated and its speed and mobility were outstanding.

But it was heavy, heavy, heavy. It would have taken a C-17 cargo plane to carry an entire section - the howitzer vehicle and the ammo vehicle. (One's no good without the other.) This is more than anything is what made Rumsfeld kill it. It would have been great once it got to the battlefield, but it was just too difficult to get it there. Strategic transportation is scarce and a Crusader unit simply would have needed too much of it.

But, as the Strategy Page points out, it would not take as many Crusaders to do a better job than current systems, so the total weight required to be transported would not necessarily have been greater.

The JDAM aerial bomb has become the sexy weapon of choice for indirect fires on the battlefield. JDAM is both high precision and all weather, and the artillery has no munition that is both. Artillery has laser-guided rounds for precision, but their use is weather dependent. Artillery can fire ordinary high-explosive projectiles around the clock in any weather, but they are not precise (even though they have become very accurate in the last 20 years because of improved location-determining technology and constant cannon calibration).

JDAMs also have the advantage of being several multiples larger than artillery shells - up to 2,000 pounds

But cannon artillery is more responsive than air support. Experience in Afghanistan showed that getting bombs on target was a very slow process, sometimes taking as long as four hours. Cannon fire is routinely on the way within two minutes of the call for fire being received, with some kinds of missions being fired in less. When I was a battery fire-direction officer in the 2d Infantry Division, we had 30 seconds to fire immediate suppression missions, called for when the infantry unit we supported was being shot at with heavy weapons and wanted something done about it. (Enemy anti-armor weapons always rated I.S. missions.)

Strategy Page also says

Army Apache helicopters were not allowed to go into action in Albania because the Army planned to use MLRS rockets to suppress air defenses, and the high "dud rate" left what amounted to anti-personnel land mines all over the target area.

Each MLRS rocket is packed with several hundred shaped-charge bomblets. They detonate on impact, and have a dud rate of less than five percent - but one launcher's load of 12 rockets can yield a few hundred duds. Duds are very dangerous to our own troops moving through the area later, or to noncombatants. After the Gulf War the Army determined that for less than a dollar per bomblet, an auto-destruct device could be built in that would detonate the bomblet if impact didn't do it. But the cost of retrofitting existing rocket loads was prohibitive.

The task for the artillery now is to find a way to develop all weather, precision munitions that are no more difficult to transport than present systems. My guess is that for the nonce that means rocket systems. Cannons submit the projectiles to several hundred Gs when fired, making a GPS-guided projectile problematic. Also, even with folding fins cannon projectiles are not very maneuverable in flight. But rockets don't achieve the high g-forces of cannons, can carry a larger warhead and can be modified for high maneuverability than projectiles.

Army brigade commander says Army not ready for Iraq war
The writer says he is an Army brigade commander, and he says the bulk of the Army is not ready for prime time. I invite current military readers to comment!

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference and the issue of deploying was discussed. The colonel in charge recommended that we get some hand cleaning lotion to take with us so that we could be sure to sanitize ourselves before we eat and after we relieve ourselves. I have learned to be quiet, and did not remark on this Suggestion as I looked at everyone else in the room nodding their heads to his advice. Hell, they were even talking about the need to ship portable toilets to the front. That's a sniper's dream come true. Talk about catching us with our pants down!

Our service members need to be put through some tough training now. The kindlier, gentler, in-touch-with-their-emotions leaders need to go through the same training or leave the ranks now.

Deploying soldiers need to be put on the desert in the American southwest for a month before they ship out. Let them feel the heat and the dust storms. Put them in their MOPP gear for days at a time. Make them keep their weapons and protective gear clean. Let them go extended periods without showers. Get rid of the snack food and make them live solely off military rations.

Our leaders can do the same, but we have got to start getting tough now. The harder we go in, the faster victory will be achieved and fewer casualties will be taken on all sides.

I have spent a lot of time with combat support and combat service support troops of active, reserve and National Guard over the past several years, and see the same problems. Their leaders don't have that same inner resolve and grit determination that I still can see in you, Wooldridge, Gates, or Tibbets. As a result, the troops have not been broken away from a soft life and developed into a "let's get tough or die" force. Tough leaders in the 1990s were on the defensive.

Meanwhile, too much time was spent on consideration of others and encouraging soldiers to be in touch with their emotions. They are going to be in touch with their emotions real soon.

Is this morning's Montgomery County shooting a message to Chief Moose?
If the commuter bus shooting this morning this morning was the latest work of the sniper team, I wonder whether the snipers' return to Montgomery County is a signal to Montgomery County chief of Police Charles Moose.

Moose had announced that investigators had been in contact with either the snipers or someone who had information about them. Yesterday, police staked out a drive-up phone booth in Virginia that they believe their unknown contact had used to call them. When a white van drove up to the phone, the police swarmed it and took two men inside into custody, whom they later discerned were unconnected to the case.

In retrospect, the seizure of that van and the arrest of the men was a huge blunder. It served to sever the line of communication that had been tenuously established and let the unknown caller know that his conversation (such as it was) with the police was not received in the way he probably intended it. I am reluctant to second-guess the decisions of the police here, since this kind of case has never happened before. However, the brashness and power of the police seizure of the innocent white van, IMO, served to anger the caller and/or shooter because it proved the police were not going to play his game. Yes, I know - duh, they won't! But the killer isn't exactly stable in the first place. Might it have been a better idea to let the van depart the phone booth and swarm it some distance away?

Moose has been the centerpiece of the investigation from the beginning. Perhaps the shooter now sees himself in a personalized contest with Moose. Because Moose didn't play the game the way the caller/sniper wanted, he returned to Moose's own county to shoot again.

Update: An expert commentator (didn't catch his name) on Fox News this morning said he thinks it is not the shooter who is contacting the police, but an unconnected opportunist. Hence, he said, the Montgomery County shooting is indeed a signal from the shooter to Moose and the police that he is still controlling events.

The two-vehicle hypothesis for sniper shootings is buttressed
According to news coverage of this morning's shooting in Maryland, the police are examing vehicles of all kinds, reinforcing the theory that the shootings are the work of a two-vehicle team, with the second vehicle's description not known.

Extremely early archeological Jesus artifact found
According to the Washington Post, a limestone ossuary (burial box for bones) dating to about AD 60 has an inscription that is the earliest non-biblical reference to Jesus Christ ever found - if the Jesus referred to is the one known as the Christ.

That it carries the name of Jesus is not in dispute. Jesus was a fairly common first-century name of Jewish men. What makes the inscription so compelling, though, is its references to the names of Jesus' father, Joseph, and Jesus' brother, James:

Ya 'a kov bar Yosef a khui Yeshua -- "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

Andre Lemaire, a French philogist and epigrapher who is the first scholar known to have studied the box, believes the inscription refers to Jesus of Nazareth.

"Christ" is, of course, a Greek-derived term meaning, "anointed," the meaning of the Hebrew word, "messiah." Christ is really an honorific, a title, rather than part of Jesus' name. How Jesus referred to himself during his lifetime is not known.

Until the ossuary's appearance, the earliest known artifact mentioning Jesus was a papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John, dated about 125 A.D. Scholars date the Gospel of Mark, the earliest chronicle of Jesus's life, around 70 A.D.

This is an imprecise use of the word, "artifact." An artifact is an object, not a record of an object. An actual papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John counts as an artifact, but as far as I know, there is no text of Mark that dates near the time of its calculated writing. However, there is a text fragment in Britain that has part of the Gospel of Matthew; it more likely than not dates from AD 60, but this dating is still disputed. Josephus, a Jewish historian, refers to Jesus in his chronicle of the Jewish rebellion against Rome in the sixth decade AD, written probably in the 80s.

AD 70 for dating Mark is also disputed, there being excellent reasons to date it closer to 60. In fact, most scholars date Mark to about 64. The gospels, though, were not the first books of the New Testament to be written. Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, Greece, takes that honor, dating to 47 with confidence. However, there is no extant text of the epistle that old.

James was stoned to death in the early years of the 60s. The ossuary has withstood technical scrutiny so far, including that of Jewish archaeologists expert in ossuaries of the period. The inscription has been shown through technical means not to have been etched into the stone later than the stone was made into the artifact.

Update: Here is the article in Biblical Archeology Review website. It's reasonable overall, but starts and finishes on a stumble:

After nearly 2,000 years, historical evidence for the existence of Jesus has come to light literally written in stone.

Does this mean that until now, there was no evidence for the existence of Jesus? Really? On the contrary, there has been conclusive evidence for the existence of Jesus for the last two millennia: the Church. There was no Church before the time of Jesus, the first third of the first century AD. There was provably a church almost immediately after that. Every record, within and without the Church, from those days ascribes the existence of the Church to the person of Jesus Christ; for example Roman records refer to the Church. Liberal critics had a brief flirtation a few decades ago with the notion that there was no such person as Jesus of Nazareth, certainly no one who came to proclaimed as the Christ. But even the most radical, far-left scholars have abandoned that position now. The ultra-left Jesus Seminar, for example, questions the reliability of the Gospels as the record of Christ himself, and denies Christ's resurrection, but the seminar explicitly accepts the fundamental other assertions of Jesus - the time of his life, his Jewishness, his socio-religious-political world, the time and manner of his death.

"The James ossuary may be the most important find in the history of New Testament archaeology," says Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. "It has implications not just for scholarship, but for the world?s understanding of the Bible."

I'll not argue that this find may well be the most significant in New Testament archaeology, but it's a real stretch to claim it has implications for the world's understanding of the Bible. We will not somehow understand the Bible better because of this ossuary. The relationships is asserts are exactly those the Church has asserted from the days of the apostles.

Succeeding militarily, failing politically
Fareed Zakaria says that in regard to international politics, America's war on terrorism is failing.

"Mostly countries that hate America. . ."
So says Mark Steyn in yesterday's Chicago Sun Times:

There are 192 countries in the world. One is America. The remaining 191 are mostly countries that hate America. I say "mostly" because I don't want to get into a lot of quibbling about whether it's 183 or 185. Some hate America actively--that's to say, they're in favor of flying planes into American skyscrapers. Some (like France) despise America because they can't quite figure out how a great historic culture like theirs wound up a bit-player in a world dominated by ghastly vulgar cowboys. Others express their feelings more or less harmlessly by going out of their way to laud the most incompetent and ludicrous Americans, as the Swedes did the other day by giving Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize. "For what?" you may be asking. Oh, come on. It was Jimmy who handed the Islamofascists their first great victory, in Iran a quarter-century ago. If that ain't worth a Swedish meatball, what is?

He savages the American networks' (including cable news) non-coverage of the Bali terrorism:

"ABC World News Tonight With Peter Jennings" is all Peter Jennings and no World News; ABC World News Headquarters in New York is a headquarters with no branch offices. CBS News covers the British Isles, Europe, Africa and the Indian subcontinent from a three-man bureau in London. Dan Rather's hairdresser sucks up the rest of the budget.

Remember, proportionately, Australia lost as many people in the Bali bomb as America lost of 9/11.

How Americans became radicalized
William Rees-Mogg, a Briton writing in The Times Online, attempts to put a finger on the pulse of American opinion regarding the war on terrorism.

In all politics, and in particular in American politics, events change attitudes. The South should not have fired on Fort Sumter in 1861; the Germans should not have sunk the Lusitania in 1915; the Japanese should not have attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941. By the same logic, Al-Qaeda should not have destroyed the Twin Towers in 2001. Before these acts of aggression, negotiation was still open; the American determination had not crystallised.

After they had occurred, the destruction of the aggressor became inevitable. In each of these wars, the initial challenge came from the other side. But once Americans are convinced that they face an implacable enemy, that has a revolutionary effect. The aim of terrorists is to radicalise their own potential followers; 9-11 radicalised the American people, despite their anxieties. . . .

So far as most Americans are concerned, Islamic terrorists, whether they belong to the al-Qaeda network or are Palestinian suicide bombers, or plant bombs in Indonesia or Kashmir, or lead terrorist governments, all form part of the same global threat.

By Jove, I think he's got it!

George Will rips Jimmy Carter a new one
And for such excellent reasons!

Two men arrested in sniper investigation not suspects
Fox news just announced that the two men arrested this morning in Virginia as possible sniper suspects have been cleared of involvement, but are still in a world of hurt. They are being turned over to the INS for deportation, as they are illegally in the country. One was said to be Mexican, I didn't hear the nationality of the other. I suppose that means their white van is not connected to the case, either.

Slant, slant, slant - why many think the mainline media are biased
Drudge links to this article in the Des Moines Register online that purports to be coverage of Bush the elder's speech to a Des Moines audience Sunday.

Bush said nothing in his 15-minute address about his son's effort to oust President Saddam Hussein in Iraq - a nation whose army U.S. and allied forces drove from Kuwait in 1991, when the elder Bush was president.

Bush also said nothing about the nation's wobbly economy, the very issue blamed for his re-election defeat in 1992.

Why did the writer include anything at all about what Bush did not say? This is just bad journalism - the reporter is sent to cover a speech, but the speaker doesn't talk about what the reporter want to hear, so he writes about it anyway.

This guys isn't even at the Jimmy Olsen level.

Crime and the surrender of sovereignty
In my essay on the Second Amendment, I delineated three ways in which we, the people of the United States, can lose our sovereignty:

invasion and conquest by a foreign power

the swallowing of sovereign authority and power by the federal, state or local governments

by failing to resist those who act destructively toward the common welfare . . . We call them criminals.

In reference to the last item, I referred to the experiences of Britain and Australia since their governments outlawed private ownership of firearms except in severely limited circumstances.

Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized. The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime. (citation)

Australia's experience is not much better.

Comes now Gun Control?s Twisted Outcome in Reason Online, found thanks to Glenn Reynolds. Britain, by British sources' own admission, had overtaken the US for all major crimes except murder and rape rates, both of which are rising. So are all violent crimes.

Over the course of a few days in the summer of 2001, gun-toting men burst into an English court and freed two defendants; a shooting outside a London nightclub left five women and three men wounded; and two men were machine-gunned to death in a residential neighborhood of north London. And on New Year?s Day this year a 19-year-old girl walking on a main street in east London was shot in the head by a thief who wanted her mobile phone. London police are now looking to New York City police for advice.

Before Englad clamped down the strictest gun control measures in the industrialized world, its personal crime rates were extremely low. Overall, the rate began to rise in 1964, but the violent-crime rate really exploded after harsh restrictions on private gun ownership were instituted in 1997. Now the police in almost every large British city make their patrols armed, a practice unknown there until just a few years ago.

In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent. . . .

Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England?s rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America?s, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world?s crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

The article outlines in detail the decreasing legal authority British citizens have to protect themselves against assault - even if the assault is clearly potentially lethal - to the point where a leading British law textbook observes that it is doubtful that the people actually have any legal right to defend themselves at all.

This fact highlights the essential difference between English and American sovereignty. In Britan the people are not sovereign, the government is. One does not properly speak of British citizens, but of British "subjects." They people there are subject to the authority of the government in a way that is literally alien to American citizens.

America's Founders clearly understood that a people armed are much less likely to surrender their sovereignty than otherwise. If necessary, an armed people can defend their rights by wielding the ultimate power of sovereignty, violence. It may be defense against a foreign invader (which in the Founders' day was a quite real threat) or it may be against a sovereignty-grabbing domestic government, which the Federalist Papers show was of even greater fear to the Founders than foreign invasion. Or it may be the last resort for enforcing peaceable lawfulness among society at large and suppressing those who would do others harm. In any case, the ability of the people themselves to exercise the ultimate state power was crucial. That is why the Second Amendment insists that the people are he militia: an armed people are the sovereign state.

French say their deserter could be Md.-Va. sniper
Or more precisely, have alerted American authorities that a junior Frech army officer with a reputation as a crack shot is "missing in North America."

France has alerted Interpol about a French army deserter who is known as a marksman and is missing in North America. A Defense Ministry spokesman said there was speculation of a link to the investigation into the Washington-area sniper.

The 25-year-old second lieutenant, who was not identified, did not return to class in September at the elite military school, Saint-Cyr Coetquidan in Brittany, in western France, after going on vacation in August, officials said.

Stephen Green demands a recount
And explains why.

Why hasn't $500,000 bought somebody off in sniper case?
Last I heard, the reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the Md.-Va. shooter was up to half a million dollars. It may be more now. Which makes me think that the fact he is still loose argues against there being a team, or ther shooter having an accomplice. "There is no honor among thieves," as the saying goes. If there is a non-shooting accomplice, I would think that half-a-mil would get his attention in exchange for some kind of lea bargain.

As for the white van seized and the arrest made in Virginia this morning, we don't yet know where that will wind up.

If Saddam disarms, he can stay in power
So said Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice on Sunday. The secretary also said that is President Bush's position.

"What I [Powell] said was that if Saddam disarmed entirely and satisfied the international community, that would be a change in attitude, a change in the way the regime is looking at its situation in the world. And it is consistent with what the president has said previously and subsequently," he said.

"So [Saddam] can save himself, in effect, and remain in power?" host Tim Russert asked Mr. Powell [on NBC's "Meet the Press"].

"All we're interested in is getting rid of those weapons of mass destruction. We think the Iraqi people would be a lot better off with a different leader, a different regime. But the principal offense here are weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Powell said.

This really is not a waffle or change of position. President Bush said a long time ago that the US objective was Iraqi disarmament.

In any event, the statements by the SecState and Ms. Rice are not intended for Saddam anyway. They are intended for America's wobbly "allies" in Europe and the Middle East. Because Saddam will not disarm. The statements by the administration may reinforce the pressure on the UNSC to act resolutely since the statements indicate, however minimally, that there is a way to avoid war.

But the way to avoid was has not changed since Sept. 12, when Bush spoke to the UN General Assembly: full compliance with the existing UN resolutions calling for Iraq's disarmament and unfettered access by weapons inspectors. So nothing changed in Bush's policy over the weekend.

See Rand Simberg's compilation of "semantically equivalent statements."

More about the Religious Left
Reader Emily Puskar writes:

I was delighted to find your website. I am so glad to find clergy types speaking out (deconstructing, as my daughter would say) the liberal theology re: the pending war.

I work for the Episcopal Diocese of CT, I am chair of the Diocesan Stewardship Committee. In fact am off to Hartford today to meeting at Diocesan House. Their politics drives me crazy. They are always against something but never for anything. And they never tell us how to be good Christians they just say call our congress person and be against stuff. Oh that's real leadership.

I read an article in the NYT once by Steven Carter where he said that the separation of church and state was to keep the state out of the church, not the other way around. I totally agree with him.

Anyway look forward to reading your other stuff, as I just found your link from Glenn Reynolds. Our Army connection. Peggy Pace, widow of Frank lives at the end of our block. She is a life long friend. [note: Frank Pace was the youngest-ever secretary of the Army.]

Thanks be to God for bloggers.

Emily, thank you for reading and for writing!

Men's rules for women

Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

Birthdays, Valentines, and Anniversaries are not quests to see if we can find the perfect present yet again!

Sometimes we are not thinking about you. Live with it.

Sunday = sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

Don't cut your hair. Ever. Long hair is always more attractive than short hair. One of the big reasons guys fear getting married is that married women always cut their hair, and by then you're stuck with her.

Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

Crying is blackmail.

Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!

We don't remember dates. Mark birthdays and anniversaries on the calendar. Remind us frequently beforehand.

Most guys own three pairs of shoes - tops. What makes you think we'd be any good at choosing which pair, out of thirty, would look good with your dress?

Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

A headache that last for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.

Check your oil! Please.

Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.

If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.

If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us. We refuse to answer.

If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

Christopher Columbus did not need directions, and neither do we.

The relationship is never going to be like it was the first two months we were going out. Get over it. And quit whining to your girlfriends.

ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

If it itches, it will be scratched. ...We do that.

We are not mind readers and we never will be. Our lack of mind-reading ability is not proof of how little we care about you.

If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. ....Really.

Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as navel lint, the shotgun formation, or monster trucks.

You have enough clothes.

You have too many shoes.

It is neither in your best interest or ours to take the quiz together......No, it doesn't matter which quiz.

BEER is as exciting for us as handbags are for you.

Thank you for reading this; Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight, but did you know we really don't mind that, it's like camping.