Apparently, an organization called Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) urged women who were in danger of being raped to defend themselves by, in part, soiling themselves (vomiting, urinating or defecating in their clothing).  Various leftist groups,including at least one college, and some feminists, have signed on to this idea as a useful tactic.

What I want to know is -- how is this even supposed to work?

First of all, would someone attempting violent rape -- a crime that would often be accompanied in any case by various unpleasant emissions (including blood)  from the victim -- really abort his attempt because of some slightly nasty emissions?

Secondly, since the attacker is, after all, violent, what stops him from "punishing" the successful user of this tactic by severely injuring or killing her?

This seems only a marginally saner idea than Andrew P. Marston's famously-hilarious suggestion that women carry booby traps in their vaginas.

Fourteen years ago, the Islamists attacked us in a literal bolt-from-the-blue and murdered almost 3000 Americans, starting with over 100 civilians they had made captive and were under the Laws of War bound to protect from harm.  In that action, they declared themselves not only our foes, but foes who were not entitled to the protections of those same Laws of War.  In that action, they justified not only total war against them, but against any and all States which backed and sheltered them, or simply did not exert suffiicient efforts to root them out and utterly destroy them within their borders.

We chose, instead, to wage a very limited war against them, binding ourselves tightly hand and foot, while their combatants, when captured, were not even subject to war crimes trials for the crimes they had committed.  We prided ourselves on doing this, with exactly the sort of pride that "goeth before a fall."

In consequence, one faction of Islamists is now in the process of conquering Syria and Iraq, while another in Iran is being allowed to acquire nuclear weapons by the most incompetent, and possibly treasonous President in American history, a man who bids fair to beat out James Buchanan (look him up) as the most disastrous President we've ever had.  The situation is being set up for the first multi-lateral nuclear war in global history, while this strutting fool preens with triumph at his negative achievement.

I think that it is very likely now that within 5-10 years -- by 2020 or 2025 -- a Western city or cities will be destroyed or severely damaged by atomic attack -- possibly from Iran, possibly from Pakistan, possibly from the Caliphate itself.  And I think ... i certainly hope ... that when this happens we will cast aside all restraint and respond with total war of our own against Islamism.  (*)

When this happens, of course, millions, tens of millions, possibly hundreds of millions of Muslims will die.

This is what our self-restraint in the first phase of the Terrorist Wars will have bought.  Those of you who urged restraint -- this will be the consequence of the choice you succeeded in having us make.

Enjoy the deaths of the women and children.  You bought it, fools.

Well-meaning fools, but still fools

in conclusion;  Never forget 9-11.  Never forgive 9-11.  And when the foe cries for mercy, give them the same mercy they gave the civilians they made prisoner aboard the four airliners.

Death to the Islamists!  And 9-11 quarter to the foe!

===

(*)  Why do I "hope" this?  I don't hope that a Western city will suffer atomic attack, I hope that if such an event happens that we respond with total war against the attacker -- because if we don't, the alternative is that we will fight half-heartedly, and possibly lose.

The Democrats used to value blacks greatly.

Then, the Republicans made the Democrats stop buying and selling them at auction.

It was a little dispute called the American Civil War. You may have heard of it.

The really sad thing here is that the shooter was successful.  The solution to this is to harden the targets by allowing the military to go armed even when on Stateside assignments.  Had the Marines been armed, there's a good chance nobody would have died, instead of four people.

Yes.  That math was intentional.  The shooter abandoned his humanity when he chose his side.

I am glad that the Supreme Court sustained the legality of same-sex marriage across the country.  It is my profound belief, based on the logic that marriage is a mutual choice between any two people who decide to unite their lives in love, that marriage should not be only allowed between persons of opposite sexes.  Marriage is not purely for the purpose of sexual reproduction:  if that were the case, then what of marriages between people of which at least one is infertile?  Given that marriage is not purely for the purpose of sexual reproduction, then there is no logical reason to forbid it to same-sex couples.

I like the idea of same-sex marriages.  Why should same-sex couples be denied the honorable resolution of their courtship in marriage?

Same-sex marriages do not devalue heterosexual marriages, because same-sex couples do not marry any more easily than to heterosexual ones.  And there is no logical reason to assume that same sex couples somehow don't really mean it when they get married.

I am glad that America is moving beyond a purely religious view of marriage.

I am far less enthusiastic that the Supreme Court chose to uphold Obamacare.  The law was passed unconstitutionally and altered unconstitutionally, and the very same logic being used to justify it (that it would cause disorder were it not to be upheld) could be used to uphold any irregularly-passed law.  What is to prevent Obama, or more importantly his successors, from simply decreeing laws and the Supreme Court holding that we must treat them as properly-passed and constitutional simply because it would be inconvenient to end them?

I fear that in this decision, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the American Republic.

I'm extremely glad that Talha Asmal is dead.  He chose to go fight for the most clear manifestation of Evil in the modern world, and he picked a way (or had it picked for him by his cruel and insane leaders) which blew him to bits, thus disposing of the little knot of vileness that was his self.  If he has a soul, I hope it's burning in Hell, if there is a Hell.

Yes, he was 17.  Boo-hoo.  Being one year under the age of majority in the country that you willingly betrayed to fight for its enemies does not excuse deliberately sgning on to a military force famous primarily for its abuse of civilians, random murder of whoever violates its variable and insane laws-of-the-moment, and repeated rape and wrongful imprisonment of women.

I hope only that nobody about whose life I care was killed or injuried in the detonation which ended the existence of this thing in human form.  I'd call him a "dog," but I like dogs.

I personally think that, unless we have intelligence to be obtained by the interrogation of ISIS members, they should be shot out of hand , and in the case of suicide-bombers, self-detonated.  I'd say "in pigsties," but I like pigs more than I do ISIS members, and I believe that pigs have more right to live than do ISIS members.

Besides, the explosion would ruin the bacon.

Seriously, only when we stop pretending to ourselves that those who join the Terrorists are combatants like any other combatants and deserve the respect we would give other combatants will we start to win the psychological war.  Joining the Terrorists means voluntarily abandoning one's humanity; we must begin to acknowledge this.  Until we do, they will keep using our respect for other humans against us.

Last night I slept safe in my bed and awoke after a good night's sleep.  I did not fear that, in the night, the enemies of my country would come and destroy my house and kill myself or my wife or any of my loved ones.  I take this for granted, as do most Americans.  Even though I know better, having extensively studied both military and social history, I tend to assume that peace and law are the norm, war and crime very rare exceptions to the rule.

The truth is that -- to the extent that peace and order are the norm -- this is only because the brave have been willing to fight and subdue those forces which would bring war and crime to our shores and make them normal -- as, indeed, they have been normal for depressingly large numbers of humans during depressingly long periods of history.  Read about the Classical Dark Ages -- it's very beautifully discussed in the works of Homer, among dryer and more academic places.  Or the Medieval Dark Ages.  Or Europe during the World Wars, or Africa and the Middle East right now.

This brings up the point that we are far from safe now, though we are safer than we might otherwise be, because of the brave people in uniform who guard us while we sleep.  A new evil -- or simply this generation's version of a very old evil -- is rising in the Mideast and in Africa.  It wants to kill or enslave us all.  It is willing to burn up as many of the humans running its meme in their brains as it needs to win, and it won't be stopped until we are both able and willing to instead kill the humans who have been the most virulently infected by it.

Its name is radical Islam, and it won't go away just because we whine that it won't play fair and we pick up our toys and go home.  It will follow us home, as Europe has already found out but mostly refuses to face, and as America should have realized on 9-11 and maybe is starting to realize again after a score of pinprick terrorist attacks, most recently on a convention in Garland Texas, which might have been worse had not a brave man with a pistol shot straight enough to neutralize the superior arms and armor of his foe by killing the creatures bearing them.

It is in the process of acquiring nuclear missiles.  Soon, it will be able to kill not a half-dozen here or a half-dozen there, nor even a few thousand when it gets its hands on some passenger jets, but hundreds of thousands per attack.  More, if we're actually stupid enough to let the radical Muslims build up a sizable arsenal.  Our best hope there is a sadly-selfish one -- it's far more likely that the first atomic war radical Islam will start will be Iran vs. Israel or Pakistan vs. India, which both will give us warning, and allies who will have flashed-over from rules-of-engagement to kill-em-all mode, and will probably remain in that mode until the end of the war.

We are facing a global war of survival, a true "clash of civilizations" in Huntington's famous term, and it will not end until either their survivors tremble and beg before us, offering concession after concession in return for being allowed to live and practice a safely-watered-down version of what they once considered an invincible Faith; or our survivors tremble and beg before them, hoping for mercy and lives in dhimmitude, which will mean accepting whatever abuse the Faithful choose to dish out to us, whenever they want to, with scant hope of redress -- and virtually no freedom of speech or ability to bear arms.  Read up on it -- the social history of non-Muslims under Islam is scarcely secret.  Heck, it's playing out right now in Iraq and Syria under ISIS.

The Pony relevance of this?

In the Shadow Wars, the Ponies struggle for survival against a merciless alien foe.  They win, and in winning earn the right to live on, to see their civilization live on, and to have a future for their foals.  And then time passes.  New generations are born.  And these new generations don't understand that the peace and prosperity and safety that they take for granted was bought with the blood, sweat and tears of their elders.  The veteran Ponies become strange old stallions and mares, who start at loud noises and seem saddened by certain memories, and their children and grandchildren don't know why.  Or rather, they know, but don't want to admit it to themselves, because that would mean admitting that the Universe is a dangerous place, and safety can turn to terror in an instant of bad fortune.

Princess Luna is used to this.  It's part of why she went mad, over a millennium ago.  The generation that fought the Wars, long-lived as never before due to advancing medical technlogy, will learn it.

This scenario required little creativity for me to invent.  It's basically a Ponification of what happened to the Greatest Generation, the one that fought World War II -- as should be obvious from the Translation Convention I gave for the titles of Sweetie Belle's hit songs (two of them based on the Andrews Sisters -- the other one cribbed from Robotech, because I just couldn't resist having her be that world's "Lin Minmei"

Ah, well.  The Millennials haven't learned the lesson yet, thanks to poor leadership on George W. Bush's part, and close-to-treasonous leadership on Barack H. Obama's part.  The lesson will be learned, one way or another.  My personal belief is that at the end we will still be standing tall, and it will be the Muslim world in ruins, having to submit to our culture; because we are a damned strong people, and history is littered with the wreckage of would-be global tyrannies who thought we were weak.  That applies both to us, and to the British who originally founded our nation.

But we shouldn't get too cocky.  There's an even longer history of wrecked civilizations who went down before the mindless will to hate that is the essence of Islam.  We will win if we are both smart and brave, but we can lose by being stupid and cowardly.  And if we win, as always it will be because the courageous among us would rather die on their feet than live on their knees.

I guess my theory is simply that Love beats Hate.  If I didn't believe this, I'd hardly be a fan of My Little Pony, nor would I be writing the Shadow Wars Storyverse.

Hooray for the Harmony!