November 30, 2003
Brian Tiemann has an interesting post responding to someone who thinks the film The Two Towers is infected with:
... a bizarre undertone of anti-war smarminess. . .Here are a few snippets from Brian's reply...The Two Towers was a fantastic screenplay. But they tried, in for me what was a horrifying way, to blur the lines between Good and Evil; to compromise with Evil; to preach the bizarre doctrine that maybe it was best to leave Evil alone and go one’s own way, trying to ignore it. Oy.
As I follow the news and some blogs, I ask: am I that far gone that I am the only one to notice this?
In the Two Towers, everyone wants to surrender and nobody is Good....
....just about everybody who was unarguably noble and "good" in the book was given a more self-interested and petty motivation in the movie, one which they all had to overcome-- each in his own way-- before they could be said truly to be on the side of Good. In the book, you knew who you could trust, implicitly; but in the movie, nobody in the entire landscape seemed trustworthy-- not Théoden, not Faramir, not Treebeard, not even Éomer. They all come off, at least at first, as people to be just as wary of as any Orc....I think the change in emphasis is very appropriate for our time.
....I don't think the undertone is that it's "okay" to run away, run away. Quite the opposite-- I think the undercurrent of running away is there, but it's very thoroughly thrust away as a viable course of action, in almost every plotline, across the board. And I think Jackson's purpose in framing these plotlines in such a way-- making everybody into a reluctant and self-interested individual, but then hitting each with some event that turns him around and makes him sacrifice for the greater good-- is intended to establish character depth and growth in everybody under a unifying theme of duty even in the darkest of circumstances. I think that's stronger, even, than the book's portrayal, where these characters are much more self-sacrificing and bound to duty from the outset than how they're portrayed in the movie-- and so they grow less....
....But be that as it may, I think the upshot of all these character and plot tweaks in The Two Towers is very strongly pro-war, pro-doing-the-right-thing, pro-taking-necessary action. The movie is very clear in its insistence that the Enemy cannot be negotiated with, hidden from, or appeased, and any attempts to do so will only end in disaster. In fact, I'd wager that an avowed pacifist watching The Two Towers would be made vaguely uncomfortable by the consequences that it says await those who oppose war under any circumstances.Or the rewards that it says await those willing to wage it.
WORD NOTE: I don't think "smarminess" was quite the right word where it was used; smarmy means a sort of oily and excessive over-friendliness...
Update to WORD NOTE: I think I'm wrong, I found this definition for Smarmy: 1. Hypocritically, complacently, or effusively earnest; unctuous. 2.Sleek
If that's the definition, then the word becomes fairly boring; you could call almost anything you don't like "smarmy." Also, I just saw this, from Mickey Kaus: If Hillary had gone to Iraq and flat-out blasted Bush, that would have been fine by me. The problem is she smarmily wanted to have it both ways, pretending her trip was in part a morale-building visit to the troops while she griped about the mission the troops were on.
November 29, 2003
The post-humanitarian left...
Jaed writes:
...A number of people have commented on the apparent disconnect between some traditional ideals that the left associates itself with (humanitarian causes, human rights, opposition to dictatorship) and the behavior of much of the left and many soi-disant "liberals" at the moment ("People have been murdered in Istanbul? Who cares? It's Bush and Blair who are the killers!")Cllifford May has, en passant, come up with a phrase that resonates: "the post-humanitarian left". It is descriptive. It is non-snarky. And it perfectly expresses the gulf I've been inarticulately contemplating lately, between the ideal and the real...
Paying off a large debt...and making an investment
Bill Whittle gets it precisely right:
....Those men and women who are being killed weekly in Iraq are hard deaths for us to accept. On the surface it looks like a long, painful grind without any victory or consolation.We cut and ran over and over again, starting with Vietnam. And anyone who argued against this was considered heartless and cold and callous of lives. But the oh-so superior, oh-so humanitarian bleeding-hearts who were disgusted by the idea of fighting for American ideals, were, in truth, murderers. And now we are paying the blood-price for their foolishness.But something much, much deeper is going on here, and it is this: we are paying off the red ink we have accrued by cutting and running when it was the easy way out. We are paying off a brutal and unforgiving debt that we have incurred by our lack of resolve in decades past. Lincoln once wrote that the only thing worse than paying off a large debt was being forced to pay off a larger one; exactly so.
But remember this, America: Those men and women of ours who are paying with their lives are not just paying down a debt. They are making an investment, too.
Because if we show that we have the will and the resolve to finish the job we started there, then we will succeed, and by succeeding we will immeasurably strengthen our security in the decades to come.....
Bake it from scratch...
From Deeds blog, a look at some of the frustrations of the CPA:
....For example, we need ID cards, like our drivers' licenses, for our 50K+ Facilities Protection Service (FPS) guards, and the 65K+ Iraqi Police. (The list continues but we'll start with these individuals.) We need to buy the machines that are used to make the cards, which requires that we obtain the funds to pay for the machines. Can't use Iraqi money per CPA mandate. So, we have to use CPA money. That will take at least 90 days to process. Okay, working on that.There's an amazing amount of ordinary stuff that one takes for granted, until you have to build it up from scratch...probably our efforts will start to visibly get traction just when the experts declare that they've failed.Now, how many machines do we need? Someone must call the FPS to find out exactly how many guards are located where. FPS doesn't have permanent offices from which a quick report with the information can be generated.
How do we call them? Use cell phones. We just got 100 cell phones and are trying to link up with the appropriate Iraqis to hand them out.
Before handing them out, however, FPS wants us to make sure they have authority to do so, in writing, from their Ministry of Interior (MoI). Okay--but MoI needs a policy decision made by the CPA Senior Advisor to the MoI. All right, another step.
And this step must go through all 25 CPA Senior Advisors for approval and comment. (Okay, I "cheated" and did this before the ID card requirement was an issue.)
Now I have to wait to get it signed. And wait. While we are waiting, the foreign embassies tell us they want their guards to get cards first, and they want special uniforms for them.
The above consumed three long, hard days, interspersed with lunch, supper, sleep, mortars and sleep....
I would prefer see a bit more slashing through red tape—as a taxpayer I'd like to say that I appreciate the effort to be thrifty, but in this case, hey guys, just spend the stuff and get what you need.
anguish and despair
...At every stage of the growth of the debt the nation has set up the same cry of anguish and despair....[After the Napoleonic Wars] the funded debt of England...was in truth a fabulous debt; and we can hardly wonder that the cry of despair should have been louder than ever. Yet like Addison's valetudinarian, who continued to whimper that he was dying of consumption till he became so fat that he was shamed into silence, [England] went on complaining that she was sunk in poverty till her wealth showed itself by tokens which made her complaints ridiculous....The beggared, the bankrupt society not only proved able to meet all its obligations, but while meeting these obligations, grew richer and richer so fast that the growth could almost be discerned by the eye....(Borrowed from Brothers Judd Blog)Macaulay, History of England
November 28, 2003
An expert explains America...
This, in The Age, is a good example of the delusional state of the world's media elites:
Much of the world hates him, but many Americans think their President is the man for the age, writes Graham Barrett.They resolutely maintain that the US is the world's biggest problem, but just as resolutely refuse to learn anything about that problem.Get used to the thought of another five years of George Bush as the most powerful person on earth. Astonishing as it may seem, he is moving into re-election mode with just about everything going for him.
This appears counter-intuitive. Just look at the laundry list that will be making the papers between now and next November. The Middle East is an expensive shambles, [Only if you ignore the fact that we're fighting a WAR] the case for invading Iraq is still shifting from one confection to another, [If you are facing a gang of murderers, the smart thing is to shoot the baddest one. Then negotiate. That's all the "case" we need] the rise of terrorism has exposed the most dramatic intelligence failure since Pearl Harbour, [Big deal. We were ALL asleep, and we know it.] the US deficit is the biggest in history, [not as a percentage of GDP it's not] several million American jobs have been lost, [It's called a recession. They happen, even in your country. And only you haven't noticed it's over] environmental pollution is worsening, [Utterly false. Pollution stats are improving in all developed countries] American diplomacy is in tatters [Actually we seem to get most of what we want] and American global popularity is to be found in a compost bin. [Yeah, the opinion of the French is crucial in our elections]
Bush would seem to possess no chance of staying on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until early 2009. Why, then, are the US Democrats so worried?....[gee, do you think maybe they know something about this place you don't? ]
I'm being unfair to Mr Barrett, who acknowledges in his article that much of his "common wisdom" isn't true. But just the fact that he can label as "astonishing" or "counter-intuitive" things that are in fact utterly obvious and banal reveals how cluelix he is.
Now THIS is real sport...
Soldiers with the 21st Combat Support Hospital team move a simulated casualty (stretcher loaded with sandbags) under a wire obstacle at the combat medic challenge. The competition provided Army medics in Iraq the opportunity to display skills that are normally only required on the battlefield.
U.S. Army photo by Spc. Joshua M. Risner
(See photo essay here.)
#136: Lie
KRUGMAN TRUTH SQUAD
In his column The Good News (11/28/03) Paul Krugman makes the following claim about the structure of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA)”What's particularly striking is the contempt this administration has for the rules. I was on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan administration (those were nonpolitical jobs back then); one thing I remember was that if the experts said a proposed trade restriction violated international trade law, that was that. By contrast, just about every protectionist step taken by the Bush administration has been clearly in violation. And if the major economic powers stop honoring the rules that preserve open global markets, the chances of future development in poor nations will be much reduced.”
This is a complete lie! The only political appointments to the CEA are the Chairman and the two principal members of the Council. All positions on the staff, where Krugman served, are non-political as they have ALWAYS been. Next he’ll be claiming the job market statistics from the Labor Department are politicized (when they don’t go his way, of course).
[The Truth Squad is a group of economists who have long marveled at the writings of Paul Krugman. The Squad Reports are synopses of their discussions. ]
This year we really had something to feel thankful for...
Charlene and I were both thrilled with the President's trip to Iraq. And obviously our soldiers were thrilled. And I have little doubt ordinary Americans (and freedom loving people all over the globe) are thrilled. Our mince pies tasted sweeter than ever before...
Others, of course, are NOT thrilled. My disgust for those sourpusses is mingled most pleasingly with the thought of how their jaws must have dropped. How they must have choked and gagged and sputtered their Thanksgiving wines up their noses as the news reached them. If only I could have watched! "Oh bliss, for former woes a thousand-fold repaid."
Although the White House lied to much of the press to conceal President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, many journalists and analysts yesterday were willing to give the administration a pass....[link]Can you believe it. They're willing to give him a PASS! How rich. The lofty panjandrums will, digging deep into their not-infinite barrel of tolerance, give the man a PASS.
Oh George Bush, how lucky you are. The press gods will FORGIVE you! Some of them. Some fear it will "set a bad precedent." Others are gravely concerned because Bush Lied! He's flying into a battle zone, whose danger the press has been cherishing and exaggerating for months, and they are bothered because he told lies in order to keep it a secret!
They hate the President for doing going to Iraq, because these gestures matter. Words matter. I just read a good book about Ronald Reagan, (I'll blog it soon) and in it was Nathan Scharansky telling how bits of Reagan's speeches were circulated on tiny scraps of paper among the prisoners in the Socialist Gulag, even as sophisticates here and in Europe were heaping derision on them. And I also read how Henry Kissinger visited with leaders in the former Soviet Union, just after the fall, and asked them what had triggered the collapse. And most of them said SDI!
And the thing is, the experts didn't, couldn't see what was happening. The world was being changed, and they couldn't see it. Whereas poor dumb clucks who actually listened to the President could and did.
And it's the same now. Just read the speech. That's the reality; the NYT is the dream.
November 27, 2003
today's joke...
Q; What do you get when you toss a grenade into a French kitchen?
A: Linoleum blown-apart.
Children look down upon the morning-grey ...
Children look down upon the morning-grey
Tissue of mist that veils a valley's lap:
Their fingers itch to tear it and unwrap
The flags, the roundabouts, the gala day.
They watch the spring rise inexhaustibly—
A breathing thread out of the eddied sand,
Sufficient to their day: but half their mind
Is on the sailed and glittering estuary.
Fondly we wish their mist might never break,
Knowing it hides so much that best were hidden:
We'd chain them by the spring, lest it should broaden
For them into a quicksand and a wreck.
But they must slip through our fingers like the source,
Like mist, like time that has flagged out their course.--C. Day Lewis
November 26, 2003
If you'll stop telling lies about us, we'll stop telling the truth about you. Deal?
PoliPundit puts something in perspective:
"In 30 seconds, this ad distorts the Democrats' views and impugns their motives more crudely than the Democrats have done to Bush in two years."Really, Mr. Saletan? Let's compare it with some of the things Democrats have said about President Bush.
-- Slate's William Saletan on the RNC ad that's currently running in Iowa and New Hampshire.Ted Kennedy: "This [Iraq war] was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud."And this is just scratching the surface. If you go through the innumerable Democrat presidential "debates," you'll find bilious political hate speech of a truly unprecedented shrillness and volume.
Howard Dean: "John Ashcroft is not a patriot."
John Kerry: "We have a fraudulent coalition, and I use the word fraud."
Weasel Clark: "The party that stole the election in 2000 now wants to steal patriotism from us."
Dick Gephardt: "[Bush has] declared war on the American people."
Against this barrage, the RNC (not the president!) runs one mousy ad referring to "some" who're "attacking the president for attacking the terrorists" and this is supposed to be a negative ad? If anything, I expect and want the ad campaign to be much harsher than this. I hope you ain't seen nothin' yet.
We need 270,000 servings of corn on the cob, Squanto...
If you find the logistics of your feast burdensome, read this
By Sgt. Maj. Larry Stevens, USA
Special to American Forces Press ServiceCAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait, Nov. 26, 2003 – 145,000 pounds of turkey. 71,000 pounds of smoked hams. 71,000 pounds of prime rib. 38,000 pounds of shrimp. 576,000 servings of stuffing. 270,000 servings of corn on the cob. 150,000 servings of cranberry jelly. 41,000 pies – apple, pumpkin, cherry, pecan and sweet potato. And don't forget the decorations, eggnog, candies, nuts, ice cream and sparkling non-alcoholic wine.
When the Coalition Forces Land Component Command goes grocery shopping for Thanksgiving supper for its family, it does it big time. And it starts its shopping early.
The CFLCC Food Service section placed its order back in mid-July and started receiving it in October to ensure its soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait get a taste of home this Thanksgiving when they are so far from home fighting for their country. "It took a lot of work and a lot of long hours to make sure the plan was executed right, but I'm proud to say every one of our soldiers will receive their Thanksgiving meal," said Warrant Officer Raymond M. Beu, the CFLCC Theater Food Service chief....
"Pro-democracy brow-beating" What a concept!
I hear so often that clumsy and incompetent Americans can't "do" diplomacy, and that various distant lands will soon implode because of our neglectful policies, that articles like this one come as a distinct relief: Georgia's partner in democracy: US
....Senior US officials pushed diplomatic buttons before and throughout the crisis - in concert with Russia and others - making clear to all sides the dangers of a forceful crackdown or street violence. But untidy as the opposition's seizure of power has been, analysts say that billions in Western aid - and steady prodemocracy brow-beating - proved a key to regime change, one achieved without a shot being fired."The US government has gone to great lengths to back a [democratic] process and institutions, and to be very careful - amid big pressure from both sides - not to back certain individuals," says Mark Mullen, head of the Georgia office of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), funded by the US government, which has engaged in democracy training here since the mid-1990s.
"In the end, this was done by Georgians - it was not done by Americans - and that is vital to everything," says Mr. Mullen, who has spent more than six years in Georgia. "We worked closely with all parties, and did enormous training with the president's party. But the reality is, most of them were not as enthusiastic."
Washington committed $2.4 million to help conduct Georgia's Nov. 2 election. But widespread fraud sparked the street protests that led to the storming of parliament on Saturday. It was part of a 10-year investment of $1.3 billion aimed at helping Georgia create a civil society....
[Democracy in Georgia? Sounds unlikely to work -- I.C.] I should hasten to insulate myself from the sneers of sophisticates by adding that I'm perfectly aware that the experiment may fail. OK? ALL our experiments may fail.
BUT, my sympathies are with the guys who are trying to climb the highest mountain, not with those who warm their bleak little hearts with thoughts of avalanches and frostbite...
November 25, 2003
Unilateralist? There's a much-misused word...
Marmot, a blogger who lives and teaches in Korea, has a long and fact-filed dissection of Josh Marshall's latest steaming mound of lies and distortions. That guy is really despicable. Marmot's piece is worth a read. (Also good are the comments to this...)
No American President "is to blame" for this problem. North Korea is totally at fault. That regime is utterly evil and unscrupulous. But the Clinton/Carter policies have manifestly failed. And Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy" has failed.
Now President Bush is trying a tougher tack. We Americans should be supporting him at this difficult moment. Constructive criticism is fine, but what Marshall is doing is wrong. And unpatriotic. (There. I said it. Senator Daschle will criticize me—he says it's wrong to impugn someone's patriotism. I'm not sure why it should be....)
(via Henry Hanks)
Long overdue...
IRS Audits Nation's Top Teachers' Union WASHINGTON -- The IRS is auditing the nation's largest teachers union, scrutinizing an organization that works energetically to elect candidates but files tax returns reporting zero political expenditures from member dues.Like all the other Leftys, they are quick to say that they are being "silenced" if anyone criticizes them. In fact, they have been brazenly and openly breaking the law for decades, claiming Non-Profit status while operating as a virtual arm of the Democrat Party. And as part of the package, endlessly touting teachers (and by extension teacher's unions) as some sort of selfless and caring and superior group, all the while blighting the lives and hopes of millions of children by blocking education reforms.The National Education Association promised Monday to cooperate, but its president, Reg Weaver, said the union "will not be silenced" by the audit or the conservative law firm that requested it....
Jack Aubrey: "He feels your pain"
Souls in torment can come up with strange, messianic visions. And if I were a Democrat right now, I'd probably be in a bit of torment myself. Still, this guy's gone beyond the call of loopiness. He thinks Captain Jack Aubrey, in the film of Master and Commander, is going to remind people of.......of........are you ready?.........Bill Clinton! And also, apparently, of the Democratic candidate yet-to-come.
#135: A good column to skip...
KRUGMAN TRUTH SQUAD
Paul Krugman's The Uncivil War (11/25/03) is a waste of time and a good column to skip. However, if you must read it, start with the last paragraph in which he finally gets to the point."And even aside from the double standard, how important is civility? I'm all for good manners, but this isn't a dinner party. The opposing sides in our national debate are far apart on fundamental issues, from fiscal and environmental policies to national security and civil liberties. It's the duty of pundits and politicians to make those differences clear, not to play them down for fear that someone will be offended."
We agree. So what's Krugman's problem? Why the whining about being demonized and called unpatriotic? The likely Democratic presidential nominee will be from the anti-war left and probably a trade protectionist to boot. President Bush will go after him with all the guns $200 million can buy blazing away.
Fasten your seat belt PK, you're in for a bumpy ride!
[The Truth Squad is a group of economists who have long marveled at the writings of Paul Krugman. The Squad Reports are synopses of their discussions. ]
Update: Krug's wandered onto Cori Dauber's turf:
I generally avoid dealing with Krugman because, hey, why bother -- it's a crowded market. But today I have no choice -- he makes a play at my trade, rhetorical criticism. ......Some texts need Fisking, when they do indeed use metaphor, analogy, etc, to suggestively imply something in a deniable way. But Krugman, let's just say, should really stick to economics. Here's his take on the new RNC ad defending the president:
"The ad was clearly intended to insinuate once again -- without saying anything falsifiable -- that there was a link between Iraq and 9/11."
Seriously, dude, leave the driving to professionals.
A smidgeon of news bias
Charlene and I were driving just now, and heard on ABC News something like, "...figures released show GDP growing at 8.5%, the fastest growth in 20 years. But Wall Street was unimpressed with the numbers, the Dow only up 9 points..."
I said I guessed that the truth was that Wall Street had already figured out what was happening and it was already reflected in stock prices. Charlene said, "Didn't you hear, the Dow was up 165 points yesterday!" And she added, "If the economic news was bad, they would have quoted some Democrat blaming the Bush Administration." Isn't that the truth.
Since the news is good, the economy is like Topsy: "I wasn't born, I just grew."
Strykers
The Army's new armored vehicle, the Stryker has been very controversial. Critics, including Donald Rumsfeld, say it's overpriced, overweight, and I don't know what all. It's hard to know what credence to give the criticisms, especially since I remember similar things being said about Bradlys and M1 Tanks, both of which turned out to be superb.
So I'm very interested in how the Stryker Brigade does in Iraq. They have an embedded journalist too. He's said nothing interesting yet about the vehicles, but this, about the training our guys are getting when they deploy, is fascinating.
....Troops from the brigade's 296th Brigade Support Battalion have spent the last several days in classroom and field training on Camp Udairi's barren ranges just south of the Iraqi border.When you read in the NYT that the Embed Program is over, you are reading lies.Instructors from a private military contractor, Military Professional Resources Inc., talk to soldiers about the most recent tactics employed by insurgents in Iraq. They suggest ways to respond. And the soldiers get live-fire training, in which they shoot on the move at targets that come at them from nearly all directions.
"It was an eye-opener," Love said. "I expected to see IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in piles of rocks, but I didn't expect MRE boxes, or soda cans, or some of the other things they were telling us."....
....Pugh said he's been working with the Army at Udairi for a few months. All units on their way to Iraq get the convoy training, and many units that have been in Iraq for months are being sent down for the sessions, too, he said.
"We've had a couple of Guard and Reserve units come through here who've lost a couple soldiers to IEDs. They say, 'Why didn't we get this training before we deployed?' and that's a good question," Pugh said.....
November 24, 2003
"uninhibited money bazaar" Moi?
My friend Frank sends:
I don’t know if you find this as irritating as I do, but the New York Times has become even more disingenuous than usual over recent developments in financing political campaigns. The Times agenda in this area has always been clear. With “freedom of the press” constitutionally protected, they would like to leverage that protection into becoming the dominant voice of political opinion going into elections. So naturally they support any “reforms” aimed at silencing speech that is privately funded. In today’s editorial they are bemoaning the “collapse of Watergate-era restraints on special-interest money in presidential politics” because candidates can opt out of publicly financed subsidies and “aim for prodigious amounts of private contributions to out spend competitors.”If my little political contribution helps buy a Republican ad in the NYT, that's " special-interest money." If the NYT endorses the Democrat (they've never yet endorsed a Republican presidential candidate, by the way) that's not campaign spending, it's wise counsel from an august institution.What the Times will never acknowledge is that these private contributions are coming from individuals giving five or six hundred dollars each to their favorite candidate. What could be more democratic than this we wonder? But instead of celebrating democracy in action, the Times is deliberately falsifying the activity by giving the impression that these “prodigious contributions” come from special interests and are part of an “uninhibited money bazaar” and that the presidency will soon be determined by a “blank-check bidder’s war.”
Surely it’s just the opposite! I hope the Times’ transparent attempt to achieve political monopoly is just as obvious to others.
"He died serving his country"
Cori Duber notes:
...The President today went to Ft. Carson, a base that has sadly lost all too many troops in recent weeks. As is his habit he met privately with the families of the fallen. Are the troops themselves offended by his decision to do this, rather than attend individual funeral services? It will be interesting to see how the networks edit their soundbites, but Fox was careful to leave in a split second or two of tape after his sentences had ended, and let background noise play -- by which I mean, the thunderous roar of approving, cheering troops....Here are a few words from his speech at Fort Carson, Colorado. (You can read it here)
....This community knows firsthand that the mission in Iraq is difficult and the enemy is dangerous....It is the nature of terrorism that a small number of people can inflict terrible grief. And here, you felt loss. Every person who dies in the line of duty leaves a family that lives in sorrow, and comrades who must go on without them. The Fort Carson community said farewell to some of your best. One of them was Staff Sergeant Daniel Bader. This good man left behind his wife, Tiffany, and their 14-month-old daughter. Tiffany Bader said this to a reporter recently, "I'm going to wait until she is old enough to realize what happened, and I will tell her exactly what her daddy did for her. He died serving his country so that my little girl could grow up free." (Applause.)....THESE are Americans! And that's an AMERICAN President. And the mockers who have been attacking and vilifying and sabotaging our efforts and dreams 24/7 are just pond scum compared to them. Heck, I'm just pond scum compared to them...
"insufferably condescending"
Cori pointed me to a really good military blog, Iraq Now
.... Here's Robert Scheer, writing for the progressive/left magazine The Nation--continuing to cling to the tired comparison between Iraq and Viet Nam. "For me, there are two particularly symbolic victims, one from each war. They stand out for their parallel experiences, marked by tragedy and bravery before and after their experiences in battle. Ron Kovic and Jessica Lynch were both working-class kids vulnerable to the siren song of jingoism."Link.And this:See, this is why military voters overwhelmingly vote Republican. It's deeper than Bill Clinton 'loathing the military.' It's deeper than Clinton-era budget cuts.
The antipathy between the military and the media culture is bigger than politics. It reflects an immense, yawning cultural gap between military people and the culture of journalism. It's red-states vs. blue states. It's Manhattanites at the Newsweek editorial office blithely referring to heartland America as 'flyover country.'
Military voters vote Republican because even when the American left tries to be understanding and sympathetic towards veterans, they too often wind up being insufferably condescending instead. "Working class kids vulnerable to the siren song of jingoism?"
Please.
...I have recruited one of my evil henchmen (rubbing hands together in nefarious and sadistic glee) to procure a bunch of index cards. We will fill out each index card with the date and bumper number on the vehicle, and a note that says "when found, please return to 1LT Van Steenwyk."Our plan is to steal into the motor pool, under cover of a cold and moonless night, go to each vehicle, and tape the cards to different places around the vehicle that the crews are supposed to check before leaving the gate.
Soon...SOOOON we shall see who has actually been checking the tightness of the belts, checking coolant levels, transmission oils, brake fluids, and generally doing things right.
Those drivers who return their cards to me within 48 hours--slack shall be cut for them. As for those who don't, they're doomed. DOOOOOMMMMED, I tell you!
(Shhhh...don't tell anyone!)....
November 23, 2003
Above all, dignity ....
Krugman speaks on the Bizarro book cover...
....Mr. Krugman, for his part, said he did not remember seeing the cover until prepublication copies were sent to reviewers. "I think it was intended to be ironic," he said.Is this goofy, or what? Undignified? He gives up the role of thoughtful and respected economist to become a ranting partisan hack, and then worries about being undignified?The cover images of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were borrowed from puppets carried by protesters outside the World Economic Forum in New York in 2002. Mr. Krugman said that he took part in the forum and does not share the protesters' views. He noted that his columns have defended free trade and argued that the administration's war in Iraq was not about oil.
"It is a marketing thing, not a statement," he said. "I should have taken a look at that and said, `What are you doing marketing me as if I am Michael Moore? This is silly.' "
Incivility is one thing, he said, but the book cover "may be undignified, which would be a reason to object."....
November 22, 2003
Ya, we are ostriches...
From an article in Deutsche Welle, Kenya Rocket Attack: Is Europe Next?
....The Internet magazine Salon.com reported last week on a secret Nov. 5 meeting between the U.S. Transportation Security Administration at which executives from 25 U.S. airlines were warned that al Qaeda might be planning to attack U.S. airlines shoulder-launched missiles.Dream on, Fritz. Guarding an airport (and its vicinity) is soooo easy. Nice compact perimeter and all. And of course your planes never ever fly to any other country's airports. No. So you are safe. The War on Terror only concerns Jews and Americans.There’s plenty of reason for caution, too. According to Jane’s, a leading military think tank and publisher, more than 27 terrorist groups possess shoulder-fired missiles. U.S. government reports paint an even grimmer picture: Since the 1970s, at least 42 aircraft have been struck by the missiles, killing at least 900 passengers.
Speaking at a meeting in Brussels, German Interior Minister Otto Schily sought to reassure Germans that the same thing isn’t likely to happen here. "Our airports are better guarded than airports in other parts of the world," he said. But he warned it would be impossible to provide protection for every civilian target in Germany....
What FOOLS these appeasers are. Danger is staring them in the face, and they think that pretending it isn't there will protect them.
Our Arab can beat your Arab...
Take a look at this good artcle in the Atlantic on General Abazaid:
....he had an understanding that the new graduates [of West Point, where Abazaid was Commandant] had to be more than just guys who could shoot rifles and maneuver. You were going to find a young lieutenant by himself as the mayor of a small town."(via Brothers Judd)That is just what is now happening across Iraq. The problem, of course, is that General Abizaid cannot command a 130,000-strong army of occupation the way he led the cadets at West Point or his airborne brigade in war games at Fort Polk—by leaving his staff behind in order to be hands-on at the front. The irony of being a four-star general is that all your tremendous power must be wielded through others. Abizaid has spent three decades building the experience and the education that now underlie his plans for running Central Command, but he can be only as effective as the soldiers working for him on the ground. It is the young captains and lieutenants in their twenties—the generation brought up in the new military that Abizaid helped to create—whose day-to-day decisions will pacify, or provoke, the people of Iraq..
"one of the most-wanted 55 is my neighbor's uncle"
It's interesting to see how Iraqi weblogs are slowly starting to emerge and join the conversation. I think it's another example of something we are re-learning: It takes a lot of time for life as we know it to start up again in what was a totalitarian police state. The yammering critics have (or pretend to have) absurdly unrealistic ideas about how quickly things can be expected to change. [Reason #87 why Leftists dislike the study of history]. This is a selection from a post by Omar, at Iraq the Model:
Here are some answers to questions sent to me by one of the readers, I feel these questions are important and worth answering them....-About unemployment: yes before the war more Iraqis had jobs, very little of those jobs were making enough money to keep a family alive and each official employee had to find a second job to support his family (for instance I, a dentist had to open a grocery to pay for daily life expenses).
Surely I gave it up after liberation....
-About affording more consumer goods: here's a simple example, one of my relatives who's a high school principle had to sell his furniture piece by piece to support and educate his 5 kids, his house was nearly empty a year ago (no TV no fridge. no car no air conditioner) today 7 months after liberation he has all these stuff, still looking for a car though, and his kids are much more properly fed and dressed....
-About women safety: it's been months since ordinary life came back to the streets of Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, and women do walk completely safe through all Baghdad even at night, and they do not have to cover up except in the holly cities of shia (najaf&kerbala)while elsewhere especially Baghdad and the northern parts of Iraq the majority of women do not cover-up, and there's absolutely no one trying to force such an attitude, though the mullahs are still preaching in the mosques about this as they have been doing for decades....
-About Iraqi police: they have the authority to investigate, do arrests, enforce law and they do patrol all over Iraq unaccompanied by coalition forces and they're well armed and I haven't witness a single situation of authority abuse.
-About detained people: I can't tell the exact number, maybe some thousands, I can tell you they have contact with their families, for example: one of the most wanted 55 who is detained by the coalition is my neighbor's uncle and his family was allowed to contact him through the red-cross and supplied him with his needs....
Effervescent Universe ...
A friend sent a link to this slide show of the best Hubble Space Telescope pix.
Gorgeous stuff. Though I never see pictures of splendiferous nebulae and imploding dust-clouds without thinking of a certain science fiction book, where humanity discovers, too late, that the reason we've never detected any radio signals from other civilizations is because our galaxy is actually a very dangerous place, and that our first radio and television broadcasts have already triggered an attack by the bad guys--they are now approaching us at sub-light speed and our doom is already sealed....
November 21, 2003
#134: Hell hath no fury like a leftie scorned
KRUGMAN TRUTH SQUAD
Wow! Hell hath no fury like a leftie scorned. In AARP Gone Astray (11/21/03) Paul Krugman goes after America's most noted advocacy group for retired people with a viciousness normally reserved for Dick Cheney and Halliburton. AARP, normally a pillar of Democratic congressional support, has jumped ship over Medicare expansion and the Krugster is highly pissed. With the cruelist cut imaginable, he accuses them of acting like a business!
Amazingly enough, we come down legislatively on the same side as Krugman. We, too, would like to see this entitlement expansion defeated. AARP has it exactly right when they say that this bill can be "fixed" later. What we have here is a classic case of getting the "camel's nose under the tent." Havoc always follows.
So why doesn't Krugman see it the same way? Partisan politics, of course. He doesn't want to see Bush get the credit for an entitlement expansion.
[The Truth Squad is a group of economists who have long marveled at the writings of Paul Krugman. The Squad Reports are synopses of their discussions. ]
"His critics have yet to offer anything close to a competing vision"
This, in OpinionJournal, is dead on....
....In his Whitehall speech, Mr. Bush continued his recent (and welcome) effort to focus on the battle of ideas behind the war on terror. In this he echoed Prime Minister Tony Blair's words to the U.S. Congress in July: "Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs." Mr. Bush's Administration--his Pentagon--has been more effective at killing and disrupting the terrorists than his State Department has been at promoting an alternative vision to the Mideast status quo.Mr. Bush is now taking up the latter task himself, and without moral apology. "We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East," he told Britons. "Your nation and mine in the past have been willing to make a bargain: to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability." He added--in a direct rebuke to his critics in the old foreign policy establishments--that "it is not realism to suppose that one-fifth of humanity is unsuited to liberty; it is pessimism and condescension, and we should have none of it."
Many, including some of Mr. Bush's admirers, predicted his British trip would be a public-relations debacle. But with so much of the world watching the visit has proven instead to be a great opportunity to explain the moral purposes of what the President and Mr. Blair are attempting in Iraq. His critics have yet to offer anything close to a competing vision.
November 20, 2003
Shocking evidence of Conservative infiltration...
From Ith:
...My favourite columnist. Jonah Goldberg, is going to be interviewed for a documentary that will be on the RotK [Return of the King] DVD when it's released! How cool is that?When my Lord of the Rings-obsessed daughter Betsy reads this, Jonah will immediately become her favorite Conservative columnist! We catch Jonah on the KSFO Morning Show sometimes, and he's as good live as he is in print, so I'm sure he will be fun to see on the DVDOne of his Corner comments on it gave me a giggle:
If you're sitting there, fists clenched in rage around Frodo and Gandalf action figures wondering why I get to do this Lord of the Rings interview while you can recite the The Silmarillion from memory, I'm sorry. Apparently the documentary's producers liked my review of the first movie. You may be more qualified -- you know who you are -- but in this instance, "there can be only one!"Oh, wait, that's from Highlander.....
Says Lexington Green
....This process of "savage capitalism" is what the folks in Old Europe want to "protect" themselves from. That's fine. Suit yourself. Build yourself a cocoon, move into it, guarantee yourself a "right" to a cozy, trouble-free, event-free life. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger said, eighteen year old kids in Austria talk about their pensions, and he wanted more. Everyone with any gumption, globally, now hear this, straight from Lex: Get your ass to America, and we'll build the free and prosperous future here. The Old Europeans can park their beach chairs on the ash heap of history, look around at the rubble of the great things their ancestors did, think about the kids and grandkids they never had and will never have, grumble about how the Americans are cowboys, and wait for their pension checks.It's been nice knowin' ya, folks. See you in the rear-view mirror.
Conglomerate gobbles up small producers ...
Jay Mainifold is going to be doing some blogging with the Chicagoboyz. Sounds like a good mix...
Interesting ...
A friend writes:
JohnI've never tried this sort of thing because I'm lucky enough to be a naturally fast reader. What I wonder is, does the improved speed persist, or will it fade away after a while?
In reading Cryptonomicon I've experienced an interesting by-product that for me that is worth as much as the book itself. Here's the story.When I saw an 1100 page book I said "no way." I've always been a slow reader. Then I started anyway because of your recommendation. After 3 weeks of reading a half hour or so at night I was up to 100 pages. Pitiful.
So, on a whim, I looked around the web for speed reading technology. I discovered Rocket Reader. It's reading software for kids. The first selection one must make in using it is to say if you are above or below 10 years old.
That aside, the technology is simple and sound. It's based on the fact that the eye moves in discreet jumps and sees only when it's still, between jumps. To read faster you need to take in more words when the eye is stationary. This is well known of course, but how to do it?Rocket Reader uses a flash system in which word groups flicker on the computer screen for a 1/10 of a second and you have to respond by typing what you saw. Your progress (gold stars and bar charts) is based on your success rate. It begins with just two letter words and then moves up to groups of several words. I started with 10 min. sessions twice a day and within a week my reading speed doubled. After that progress slows down, but I think I am close to tripling.
Here's the really good part. You don't have to DO anything; or TRY to do anything. Just read normally and it's significantly faster. And it's only $60.00.
My friend writes: I'm pretty sure we slow readers need to make Rocket Reader (or something comparable) a daily exercise. Otherwise we regress to normal. At least it's short (10 min.) and fun. And unlike pumping iron, say, the results are quick.
Odd ...
Donald Luskin pointed out this Grotesque book jacket for the British edition of Paul Krugman's The Great Unravelling. (With the joke being that Krugman himself was part of the Enron scandal, something a Brit might not be aware of). But if you go to Amazon.uk, you see nothing of the sort....One wonders if that cover was a hoax...it's hard to imagine even the most anti-American publisher going for something so tawdry.
Here's more on the Cover flap. Apparently that really is the bookjacket. Unbelievable.
By the way, if your memory should need refreshing, Enron paid Krugman 50k a year to do essentially nothing. And, purely by coincidence, Krugman wrote glowing articles about Enron, of the "I've seen the future, and it works" variety. So he's just the guy to to harshly criticize supposed corruption in the Bush Administration...
November 19, 2003
When death was taking the air outside...
IN THE SHELTERIn a shelter one night, when death was taking the air
Outside, I saw her, seated apart—a child
Nursing her doll to one man's vision enisled
With radiance which might have shamed even death to its lair.Then I thought of our Christmas roses at home—the dark
Lanterns comforting us a winter through
With the same dusky flush, the same bold spark
Of confidence, O sheltering child, as you.Genius could never paint the maternal pose
More deftly than accident had roughed it there,
Setting amidst our terrors, against the glare
Of unshaded bulbs and whitewashed brick, that rose.Instinct was hers, and an earthquake hour revealed it
In flesh—the meek-laid lashes, the glint in the eye
Defying wrath and reason, the arms that shielded
A plaster doll from an erupting sky.No argument for living could long sustain
These ills: it needs a faithful eye, to have seen all
Love in the droop of a lash and tell it eternal
By one pure bead of its dew-dissolving chain.Dear sheltering child, if again misgivings grieve me
That love is only a respite, an opal bloom
Upon our snow-set fields, come back to revive me
Cradling your spark through blizzard, drift and tomb.-- C. Day Lewis
The Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) is an English plant that can bloom in the darkest months of the year...
Death of a true original...
I just read that Fritz Kraemer has died, at the age of 95. I thought instantly of Peter Drucker's book Adventures of a Bystander. (In fact there are many happenings that make me think of that book. I give it my very highest recommendation.)
Drucker has a chapter on Kraemer, who he met when they were young men in Frankfurt in the 1930's. It's entitled The Man who Invented Kissinger. The chapter-title is perfectly accurate, and you will just have to read the book yourself to discover the details...
...It was on one of those miserable days in early April [1929] with freezing winds and blinding rain squalls that I espied a kayak amid the ice floes on the Main River in the middle of the city of Frankfurt. In the little boat a cadaverous man, naked except for the scantiest of black bathing trunks and a monocle on a wide black ribbon, was furiously paddling upstream. And the stern of the fragile craft flew the black, white and red battle pennant of the defunct German Imperial Navy...
..The ultra-nationalists and the Nazis were for Kraemer pure scum, proletarian rabble, motivated by resentment at their own inferiority and by envy of their betters, all the more contemptible for covering their Jacobin lawlessness with the rags of nationalist and pseudo-conservative rhetoric. For Kraemer considered himself a genuine Conservative, a Prussian monarchist of the old pre-Bismarck, Lutheran, and Spartan persuasion...
...Many years later, during World War II, I had to explain again and again why Kraemer was not a Nazi and could not be a Nazi because he was a genuine conservative....the investigators came to me repeatedly, and went away shaking their heads....However romantic Kraemer's notion and behavior were—and he was, of course, very young in those years—the fact remains that all effective resistance to the Nazis came from the likes of him, from men and women who were old-fashioned pre-Bismarckian "Conservatives" or pre-Bismarckian Lutherans. The men who made the desperate attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944—Count Helmuth Moltke, Count Stauffenberg, and the former Lord Mayor of Leipzig, Dr Goerdeler—were "old-fashioned Prussian Conservatives"; and the leader of the Protestant resistance, Pastor Niemoeller, was an old-fashioned Prussian Lutheran monarchist and former submarine commander....
Putting a toe into the water...
I own a good many Makita tools. Yesterday I had a question about a replacement part, so I went to the Makita USA web site. It was a fascinating mixture of Information Age and Industrial Age.
One can easily download parts lists or manuals for each tool in PDF form. Great! Pure bliss. But there isn't a single e-mail address to be found! If you go to the "contact us" page, there's only a phone number. So, perforce, I called (I hate making phone calls) and I was put on hold, listening to the usual messages: "All our representitives are still busy. Please stay on the line..." And then after about 6 minutes, a different message:"...or if you'd like to leave a message, press "one" and we'll get back to you. Or you can e-mail us at callcenter2-at-makitausa.com..."
November 18, 2003
a shower, clean clothes, pep-talk, a lot of coffee...
I just read some of the "letters to President Bush" in the Guardian. I couldn't read very far; the smug, flippant, condescending tone of most of them was just too irritating. This one is by the famous Blogger of Baghdad himself...
Dear George,"Bombed to freedom?" You weren't bombed. You don't know jack about bombing! Try Googling "Daisy-Cutter." If we wanted to minimize our casualties, we could have worked you guys over for a couple of months. Dropped millions of pounds of bombs. Tikrik wouldn't even exist any more. But instead there was almost no preliminary bombing. We sent a hundred-thousand of our guys racing into Iraq on the first day of action to avoid the usual destruction of war.I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.
Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.YOU don't get it. What we are doing is not "cleaning up the mess." It's more like getting you into good enough shape to start cleaning up your own nasty mess. Sort of like taking in hand someone who's been on a drunken binge. Get 'em a shower, clean clothes, pep-talk, a lot of coffee...so that maybe they can make it into work and not get fired. What you would call "cleaned-up" is just a starting-point for what we call a clean-up. The best day Iraq ever had is still squalor by our standards.
To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service. We are a bit disappointed. So would you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, get your act together and stop telling people you have Iraq all figured out when you are giving us the trial-and-error approach?Actually, we are a bit disappointed in Iraq. Have been for, oh, well, quite a few centuries now...You have no idea how pathetic you sound, whining and sniveling because Uncle Sam isn't taking care of you.
Anyway, I hope this doesn't disturb you too much. Have a nice stay in London, wave hello to the demonstrators, and give my regards to your spin doctors. I bet they are having a hell of a job making you look good.Is this jerk like, 16, or something? Didn't his parents teach him any manners? And where exactly was he when Saddam was murdering his countrymen by the hundreds-of-thousands? If he calls what was going on "an already dirty carpet," I'd guess he wasn't worrying too much about having his own tongue cut out or his own sister raped. Wonder why? Well, my sympathies are with those Iraqis who are sifting bones out of the sand, looking for their loved ones. NOT for smart-alec kids of the nomenklatura.Regards,
Salam Pax
The Baghdad Blogger
And what exactly is he doing to help his country? Not much I'd guess. Just looking down his nose at any poor grown-ups who are foolish enough to roll up their sleeves and try to fix things. If he were here he'd be a Democrat for sure.
What we've given you Iraqis, Mr Salam Pax, is not freedom. It's a chance to become free. Like teenagers wanting to leave home, you will be truly free only when you can take care of yourselves.
#133: this time we agree with Paul Krugman
KRUGMAN TRUTH SQUAD
This is one of those rare occasions when we agree with Paul Krugman, except he did not go far enough in criticizing the Mutual Fund industry in Funds and Games (11/18/03). The cheaters in the mutual fund industry should be punished severely and, if the law allows it, go to jail. But the mutual fund problem in the US goes much deeper. These funds have been getting by with smoke and mirrors for years.
To put it simply, mutual funds are overpriced and don't deliver. Anyone who has seriously researched the problem (the academic financial literature is full of such studies) finds that mutual fund managers cannot consistently beat the broad market averages. They get by on aggressive marketing, brokerage kick backs that border on corruption, and exploiting the natural desire of investors to "beat the averages." In America no one wants to be average!
The answer, however, is simple and getting simpler. For years there have been inexpensive index funds that replicate the various market averages for investors. Fidelity and Vanguard are leaders in this area and have many no-load index funds. Just check their web sites. These funds are growing in popularity with both individual investors and institutions who are tired of getting ripped off by managers promising more than they can deliver.
Historically, there were valid criticisms of index funds for being too broad to be useful to those investors who wanted to focus on just certain industries or geographic regions or companies of a certain size (large cap, small cap, etc.). But now there are ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) which are bundles of individual stocks that trade as units. One example is SPDRs, or Standard and Poors' Depository Receipts. These are ETFs that replicate a variety of S&P indexes including the S&P 500 in its entirety, and also sector-specific SPDRs that carve up the S&P 500 into separate industry groups. For techies there are Qubes (QQQ) that do the same for the technology-laden Nasdaq-100. And this is just the beginning. There are ETFs on just oil services stocks, just transport stocks and just about any other sector that comes to mind. More can be read at Morningstar or Indexinvestor.
You can still lose money, of course. But the point is there are more and more alternatives now to the bullshitting, high-fee mutual fund manager. The recent scandals should accelerate the trend to these obvious alternatives.
[The Truth Squad is a group of economists who have long marveled at the writings of Paul Krugman. The Squad Reports are synopses of their discussions. ]
November 17, 2003
Seen in OpinionJournal
....The truth is that, notwithstanding real differences, the two strains complement one another. Libertarians occasionally need reminding that the market requires virtues and a rule of law that it cannot itself create. Less well appreciated is that social conservatives likewise need the injection of optimism that comes from a market-based appreciation for what man might yet, even in his fallen state, accomplish for himself...
When he's hot, he's really hot ....
In the last couple of days I've read at least 3 different interesting quotes by George Will. I just realized they all come from this one column! Don't miss...
On May 24, 1945, just 16 days after V-E Day, Britain's socialists were sanguine. A Labor Party firebrand, Aneurin Bevan, anticipating the Labor victory that occurred five weeks later, said that privation would be a thing of the past, because essentials would soon be abundant: "This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only a