Amendment Nine

Bhutto

2007-12-28T20:01:00.001-05:00

My only comments until I return are:

The West underestimates what this has done to the people, especially the poor in Pakistan
Pakistan is notorious for switching horses in midstream
India is on high alert
The most dangerous place in the world just became much more dangerous

See ya in a few!

Don't spread lies

2007-12-12T14:23:00.001-05:00

I am just as riled up against radical Islam as the next red-blooded American, but I don't see any need to lie about shit. Being honest is an American virtue. Playing with numbers and making cute little arguments about numbers that probably never existed is a Continental virtue.

So here's the lie. That the four young souls who needlessly lost their life in Colorado the other day account for more "hate crimes" than all the "hate crimes" attributed to muslims since 9/11. I suppose the lie-originator wants to make the point that Christians are just as persecuted as Muslims. Which no one was ever really getting into anways. ANd besides, who in the hell is this lie-originator to be making a cheap political point about the death of some innocent, young, and from what the reports, altogether terrific people! Its sick. Just sick that you can't let someone die in a tragedy without trying to make some greater point. People who do that aren't understanding that human life is more valuable than political prowess.

But to make things all the worse. Tdaxp says the lie is true. ANd that if you don't agree, its up to you to prove it. Alright, I'll bite, with the understanding that I'm only doing it for fun.

The Human Rights Watch has chronicled all the attacks in the year after 9/11. They document three murders positively ID'd as motivated by 9/11 backlash, and four more murders that were likely motivated by 9/11 backlash. They also document 49 assaults and 249 assaults and property damage from 9/11 through Feb '02, all 9/11 backlash.

They also document multiple reports of places of worship being vandalized, including a Mosque in Oswego, NY being burnt to the ground on 11/29/2001. The teenage arsonists stated they thought the worshipers were followers of Bin Laden.

You can read the document and track down its extensive sourcing here.

FWIW, I'd bet at least one good green American dollar that there are a LOT more incidents of backlash than that little report pulled up. We don't stand by and wait for the government to take care of things in this country when the shit hits the fan. We hit back. Posse comitatus and all. I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying that people who argue it ain't so are people who don't understand people.

One more thing. The incidents described above were non-Muslim attacks on other Muslims (or perceived Muslims) the tragedy in Colorado appears to be Christian on Christian crime. So the perverse analogy Powerline, was trying to draw makes not a drop of sense to begin with.

Sure its a cute argument. But its a god-damned un-American one too. I think ya'll would do better to start playing to our virtues, and not to our vices. I'm just happy that guard had her trigger finger steady that day, otherwise this tragedy could have been MUCH WORSE. Steady trigger finger, and not spreading lies... two American virtues!

Trusting Toyota

2007-12-11T11:44:00.000-05:00

Good blog over here by Chet Richards who knows his way around some Boyd.

I like the post, but one thing I don't understand is why Chet is so insistent on singing the praises of Toyota production and their maneuver theory. Toyota hasn't used maneuver theory successfully in the past decade, at least.

Toyota's quality has of course suffered greatly over that decade. But their market share hasn't suffered, it's substantially increased at the expense of other makers. Their share price hasn't suffered in that time period either, it has doubled! What is the economic rationale when your product becomes worse and worse but your profits get greater and greater?

Toyota's use of maneuver theory simply gave the company a solid foundation on which to springboard into a global giant. Nothing Toyota does today is done without express political calculation and the implicit subordination of quality design to sustainable profits.

Toyota has followed the exact course of the American auto makers. Their pie got so big that to increase it meant letting the heavies move in and get their beaks wet too. American autos used to be every bit as reliable, safe, and sophisticated as today's imports. But their financial success carried a tax on it which caused them to subvert quality in order to uplift political expediency. The same is happening with Toyota now.

The same can be said for Boeing. They "use" the Toyota production "system", but that system has been subordinated to a different goal than what Chet expects.

This is all a tangent to what Chet is talking about, and what he is talking about is good so go give it a read. But I wish he would stop holding Toyota up on a pedestal. The auto business, for them, is no longer about quality but about keeping the status quo.

The 33rd Pirate Brigade

2007-12-10T18:28:00.001-05:00

Or something like that. Could a certain ex blogger's long held fantasy actually be attracting support in today's turbulent times? This article indicates yes.

I don't really think we'll ever see a Pirate Brigade, or a "privateer army" or anything like that, but this argument: "“We argued that there were different capabilities that were needed,” that would require members of the command to spend long periods in far-flung locations to get to know areas and to build relationships, he said. That “starts to point toward a whole different personnel system — ultimately, one in which people don’t go through the lieutenant to general officer set of ranks, for example.”" sounds pretty familiar.

That used to be grounds for getting you stationed in Alaska. Now its cutting edge thought. Times they are changing. Unfortunately though, the one thing that never changes is turf war.

“That’s the right move, and give them that type of authority and autonomy to do an indirect action, UW-type mission,” agreed Maj. Jamie Alden, an SF officer at the Naval Postgraduate School. “USASFC has the units that are trained and have the organizational culture to execute the UW mission. The problem is that USASFC is not given the authorities, etc., to execute such a mission.”

That ain't the only problem, but it sums it up better than I can. I wonder how far we'll go towards realizing a vision where we have a cohesive UW force that can hit and move faster than our UW foes. One thing I know for sure, if the people don't do it, private sector will eventually get around to it, and you don't want a brigade of Blackwater anytime soon.

Good thoughts on Iran

2007-12-10T09:00:00.001-05:00

From Lex in this post. For me, a rather salient one. The sold out left has, for some time now, refused to take a draft seriously. Preferring instead to use its aura as a way to score cheap political points. The rabid war drum beating right has also refused to take a draft seriously, mainly because it would mean exposing their class based ruling principles.

But it doesn't matter. We've gone and kicked the hornets nest. Practically stepped on top of the damn thing. And we are covered with a swarm of nasty, pissed off, bullshitty little bees flying around. We will of course survive this swarm, but we have two choices:

(1) Go grab some more men who aren't afraid of getting stung and send the nest into the fire, or

(2) Sit there and wait for them to disperse, let them sting, let it all pass.

We are practically doing the latter, but ever American I talk to wants to do the former. Why is that?

Arming Tribal Pakis

2007-12-09T20:26:00.001-05:00

Didn't see this article until today, a good post from Intel Dump. FWIW, I think the "blowback" Carter is talking about is most recently seen in good ol' Iraq. But whose being picky? If you think arming aQ was a bad idea back in the 80s, you just wait when you start arming tribes in the only nuclear Islamic republic. It won't end well and we'll have no control. I actually have to wonder aloud about the allegiance of those coming up with the plan. Do they want to see us fail?

In the saddle

2007-12-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

Phocion has turned over the controls. I'm running things now. I'm pissed cause no one has posted as this blog for six months and now I've got to get things up an running or else I owe the man. So alright then. Here I go. Let's mix it up a little.

First, this goose skat from Zenpundit (I like him, think he writes good shit, but this ain't right, just like when a goose poops on your putting green).

Smallness and "homogeneity" are principles long fought over and long lost. Madison's vision was one of a large republic with heterogeneity. That vision was adopted in a little thing we call the Constitution. So long as the "sphere" is extended to incorporate all the multiple factions, power sharing under the rule of law is more steady and at the same time more vital than homogeneity and "one power" rule. Zenpundit might as well take his argument, and Robb's argument (also like him, but again, goose skat needs to be picked up) and start calling themselves the Confederate States of America. Doesn't work. These little states are parasites, wouldn't exist weren't for us. They aren't the end.

Second, more skat, but a bigger mess. Let's call it moose skat (if you've ever seen the stuff, you know what I mean). Stepped in some over here with this post. Poor little tdaxp. Still lost in the term "race". Here's a hint big fella. Race isn't actually a "thing". Your scores and your tests talking about which race is what are worthless. They are just markers. Step out of the little world and step into the small one that you live in. Race is a concept whose time has long since past.

Best Tom Barnett post ever found here. If they make it, and you don't go, I'll be laughing at your sorry ass cause I'll be there with bells on!

Third and final for this post, a good overview of Thailand's military issues found at this place. I like the article, but honestly, what Thailand needs isn't a military solution. They need political will and leadership which they just don't have right now. If a strong leader took over and put the right generals in charge of the southern strategy, they could very easily summon the boots necessary to quell things. They just don't have the will for it. It would be similar to a problem in Montana every now and then. No one wants to start a draft for that! Hell, we can't even get Congress to put the boots necessary in Iraq... where the oil is!!!! How on earth could we get them to go after Montana? My solution: make the south a goal. Make it a place where things end. Inertia will take care of the rest.

Federalist X relays

2007-12-05T16:40:00.000-05:00

A message from some others and asked me to post here.

Hillary's numbers are crashing.

Obama and Edwards are neck and neck.

Could be a third place finish for Hill.

If This Is Not Irony

2007-06-12T23:25:00.000-04:00

Condoleeza Rice "sticks up" for India on charges of slavery.

U.S. officials told CNN the question of India's ranking caused a heated debate between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
Negroponte wanted India listed as a Tier 3 country, or worst offender. Rice overruled him out of concern about alienating the Indian government. India is on the Tier 2 watch list.
Rice agreed to undertake a special evaluation of India in six months, and then take action if India does not make improvements.

Good Lord. What's next? A Connecticut Yankee posing as a Southern good ol' boy?

New blog

2007-06-12T18:32:00.000-04:00

I've been asked to relay a new addition.

Odin's own. Victory Through Airpower - Today. Odin may be more familiar to some from A9 as Blackbird.

I truly hope the title of the blog is a bit of sarcasm. But who knows?

Come on, you can do it

2007-06-11T17:04:00.000-04:00

It appears I've made a friend. Mountainrunner is moving away from "motivations" and towards "goals". Of course the dear lad doesn't even realize the difference, but his drollery is still entertaining to a degree. The scribe writes:

It is fascinating, and more a little disappointing, to continue to hear comments like this that accept enemy attempts to attack our will but cannot comprehend the reverse. How very ironic, especially when it comes from those who support "4GW" and supposedly understand the changing nature of warfare.

I'd like to start out by saying I admire the shear brain power this Mountainrunner writes with. She or he is no fool. BUT,

tisk tisk. I never said I supported "4GW" nor did I ever say I "understand the changing nature of warfare." For me, this discussion of fourth generation warfare and an eventual fifth generation warfare is baseless poppycock!

War is a condition of the human soul. We fight every bit as much as we live. The more of us there are, the more likely we are to turn those fights into battles, battles into wars. This is just the human condition. Why do guerrillas fight the way they do? Because that is what they do. Why do we fight the way we do, because we are not guerrillas.

Understanding the "motivation" for the schoolyard bully doesn't change that he'll bloody the nose of any child who stands in his way. It does no good to understand "motivations", other than to say what is blatantly obvious to even a small child: those with power seek to destroy, and those without seek to avenge.

So what of Robb? What of "tactics" and "strategy"? What of "grand strategy"? These are all quaint terms and quaint thoughts. They do more to obscure and confuse than enlighten and refine.

It matters not whether or not the enemy is having a bad day. What matters is how do we find the enemy unprepared to engage?

Mountainrunner is correct that "goals" matter, for goals tell us where the enemy is going to be. I wonder if Mountainrunner would be so kind as to concede that "goals" and motivations are entirely separate, distinct, and altogether different things?

In fact, motivations are but a lazy mind's substitute for dealing with the hard facts on the ground. One of those facts, most acute and painful to all of us residing in the West in this current fateful epoch, is the fiction that there is but one "enemy". That there is but one motivation. Some predefined goal in their DNA perhaps. We could eradicate them as a species. This is Hitler dreaming. "Those evils Jews." Or "those cowardly Arabs."

Motivations, wills, these are all difficult things to pin down. Trying to abstract some sort of global "jihadi movement" out of all these individual actors is playing into the guerrilla's trap.

If Mountainrunner could answer this, then I suppose I would concede his point:

Did the motivations of the Apache tell us anything valuable in the war for the American West, and would such knowledge help America vanquish them any sooner?

I doubt it. But I'm listening now.

Blathering nonesense

2007-06-11T11:07:00.000-04:00

Whats all this fuss about John Robb and his failure to describe "motivations" of guerrilla warriors? Robb's book (full disclosure: haven't read it and unlikely to for the next three months) discusses guerrilla warfare in the global age. His blog does the same. I believe Federalist X was quite fond of Robb's blog. I enjoy it as well, but I'm no military doctrinal theorist. Just an average bloke trying to make sense of things.

It seems the critique leveled against Robb is unfair and misplaced. I care more about that latter as fairness in critiquing works has never been a strong suit of mine. The criticism to date, if I can generalize, is thus: John Robb doesn't explain the motivation of his guerrillas, he doesn't go into what makes them tick, so therefore his theory of how to deal with them and where they are taking history is unhelpful. A few tastes of this here, here, and here.

This is sad. An entire generation of Americans seems devoted to nothing but Freudian apologetics. Why do these "thinkers" care so much about the "motivations" of guerrilla warriors? Because Freud said thats important. And what Freud says is the Gospel truth, never mind the evidence to the contrary.

Its true! These neo-conservative, neo-liberal, grand world visionaries are so used to sucking off the milky tit of Freud and the thoroughly discredited academics who espouse Freud's doctrine in the quiet confines of literature departments across the US that they no longer realize Freud has infected all parts of their thought.

We care about the guerrilla's motivations less than we do Billy Budd's. Or is it more? I can't remember. You see my mommy didn't love me enough when I was a boy and so ever since then I've been attracted to the smell of ivory tower feces and a dog's ass.

Robb's writings (cannot speak for his book) are unconcerned with motivations because motivations are spiritual. They aren't really important in a historical context. What are important are the consequences of their actions.

What were the motivations for the US Civil War? The list goes on. I'm sure Sigmund would relate it all to the Lincoln's sexual attraction to negro males. Just as I'm sure Dan, Mountainrunner, and the rest of these "thinkers" would opine endlessly on the sexual aggression of suicide bombers, their orgasmic climax of climaxes, and their aspirations to make love to multiple virgins. But what of the consequences? What of the real world?

Whilst the "thinkers" opine their grandiose notions, those of us living in the material world will be left picking up dead bodies. Our motivations have less to do with psychotherapy, and more to do with revenge. Hmm... that WAS simple, eh Sigmund?

Update

2007-06-11T09:05:00.000-04:00

Clearly I'm not the regular poster once imagined. Pity. But I will keep posting when I can. Since others cannot, or will not, that should be good enough.

Speaking of posters, here are some pictures from one of our own. Looks cold!

Scared Shitless

2007-05-17T20:28:00.000-04:00

This article makes clear for me what I dislike so much about Republicans at present, and that is that almost uniformly they are scared shitless.

We have served in combat; we understand the reality of fear and the havoc it can wreak if left unchecked or fostered. Fear breeds panic, and it can lead people and nations to act in ways inconsistent with their character.

The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp.

But more importantly the op-ed also points out the other thing I dislike about them so much, they are impeding victory.

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question. Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its "recuperative power."

Scared defeatists, thats today's Republican Party.

America has routinely had this illness, but never before can it be said that America has had such a paralyzing amount of the illness. That is because, unlike McCarthyism, this current infection runs deep inside all the major institutions which govern power in the country. We are totally ineffective at waging the war on terror because our leaders are so afraid of the future that they forget where they came from.

On September 12, 2001, every single white man, black man, and any other man or woman in any real type of power all across the USA woke up completely, utterly, and so desperately scared shitless. The collective gasp: "what next?"

It will take a real man, or perhaps a real woman, to treat this illness. It will require not just one, or two, or even a handful of really good "take your skirts off and fight like men you pansies" type locker room conversations with the American power structure. Nay, it will require a prolonged course of stoic and spartan minded reform and practice. We've become so depressed by this daily and irrational fear that we no longer can lay claim to anything good or wholesome. We can only lay claim to gluttony, greed, and avarice.

We need a Winston Churchill right now, and instead all we have are some Rudy's and Obama's running around trying to be the next Prince.

Poor Art?

2007-04-09T13:46:00.000-04:00

If art inspires wouldn't we agree that non-art, or perhaps the more politically sensitive "poor" art does not inspire? I would. In fact, I would go so far as to say that poor art leads people to poor conversation, poor conclusions, and poor ideas. It all sounds so snobby. I will not apologize though.

Were we surrounded by inspiration, surrounded by greatness, surrounded by true art, our lives, our education, and our spirits would be filled with the joy of eternal beauty. Instead, in so many of our sanctuaries today, and in so many museums and concert halls, we are surrounded by ugly, ill fitting, mockingly conceited attempts by vain men to challenge mortality.

Dan, the author of the blog TDAXP, was a favorite of Federalist X's. I have no idea why. I've visited Dan's blog often. The vast majority of what he has to say is completely incomprehensible, though there is a good deal of the Catholic guilt thrown in so it isn't all incomprehensible to me I suppose.

He gives us a perfect case in point of the costs of poor art. Dan quotes Corinthians 15:12-20. A passage that any Christian knows well. What good is it, the Apostle reasons, if the dead aren't raised to preach of Christ then?

Underneath the quote Dan places this horrible painting.

Like some sort of juvenile Chagall imitation, this "holy" relic seems to poke fun at the very serious statements made by the Apostle. What good is it if Christ is not risen? Followed by a cray-pas drawing of a comic, faceless and footless christ floating above the indistinct ground.

The drawing is in fact a mockery of Christ. It is laughing in the face of the resurrection. The artist undoubtedly was amused, like most easterners so cynically are, at the notion that the dead were raised. The Buddha-like hand gestures again show disdain for Christianity and certainly for the Orthodox faith. The whole thing is an abomination. One must wonder whether Dan posted the picture as an insult to Christians intentionally or just naively?

You can't read the Corinthians quote and then see the drawing without experiencing a good degree of uneasiness. Imagine though if that quote were followed by this:

Here is no faceless godhead, but a man. A strong man victoriously lifting the dead from their tombs. He has conqured death and is unblemished. Everyone is beneath him as he lefts the dead from their eternal slumber. This is Jesus, son of Man, winning the fight. Something tells me this is more like what the Apostle had in mind when he said:

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

Nothing could be more true.

Well Hello.

2007-04-09T10:20:00.000-04:00

Sometime ago, Federalist X gave me the opportunity to begin writing here at Amendment IX. I was flattered. A9 is a blog I have admired for awhile. Unfortunately, the opportunity he gave me coincided with a point in time that prevented me from blogging. He reminded me this weekend, and I'm now ready to proceed.

I only hope regular A9 commenters haven't lost their appreciation for the independent minded thoughts that are so often a part of the posts here at this blog.

My first post, short and sweet as it is shall be in the form of a question.

Why are we still in Iraq when the true enemy is here at home?

Some explanation of the term "true enemy" is needed. A true enemy is different from a false enemy in one way only, the true enemy has the ability to vanquish the state you live in. A false enemy can only provide damage. One can think in terms of threat level. Or perhaps one can view this in terms of ontology. However it is viewed, one cannot say that a true enemy awaits us in Iraq. One can say, on the other hand, that a true enemy awaits us here at home.

Culturally, illegal immigrants from Central America have the ability to vanquish our state. All southern border states can, in less than a generation, be seen moving from a western democratic ideal to an authoritarian, dictatorial ideal. Chief reason is the governmental traditions carried with these immigrants. I care far less about their purported propensity to steal than their actual lack of experience in governing themselves freely.

Another true enemy, one that Federalist X often spoke against, is the enemy of government debt and needless inflation. I am financially naive, but I know enough to know that the more paper our treasury prints the less valuable our tangible assets become. As our asset values erode, all experience so far has shown that a parallel eroding of governmental legitimacy takes place.

It would require a lot to destroy or vanquish the United States. Hyper inflation did not vanquish Argentina or Chile. But then again, the dictatorial and authoritarian traditions of those countries perhaps were the only known antidote to hyper-inflation.

In short, I can very easily see a scenario whereby the southern border states are thrown into economic and governmental chaos by the twin catalysts of hyper inflation and mass illegal immigration. I can't see anything in Iraq, even the now fanciful line of "the terrorist fighting us here at home" causing an equal threat to the existence of our Union.

Congratulations

2007-01-20T14:37:00.000-05:00

to Hillary Clinton on becoming the next President of the United States. At some point, the baby boomer generation will begin dying off or becoming senile and someone besides a Bush or a Clinton will be President, but for now the people of the United States have determined that only two families are good enough to represent them.

I honestly can't say I'm happy, nor can I say I'm sad. I'm glad Jeb won't be President for at least another four years. And I'm glad that the Democrats will control the entire Federal government for at least four years. But I'm not excited about Hillary's presidency. I wish I were. She'll be the first woman President, sitting at a time when the first woman Speaker is there. A coup for equal rights activists.

But for all the firsts, its still the status quo at the same time. A President Hillary is just more of the same. America may not be worth more than the Clintons or the Bushes offer, but I don't like believing that. I like believing that America is still naive enough to take chances on someone new, someone not so "right" or not so "left" but someone who doesn't fit a mold.

The press of course makes that impossible, but the people can create a different press whenever they choose.

And that's what a Hillary candidacy and presidency will mean... less choice, more butter molds, less reasoned debate, more vitriol, less creativity, more money. At least the economy will turn around.

Saying Goodbye

2006-12-11T20:14:00.000-05:00

Its the end of the year and like many people I like to go through my personal portfolio and see those stocks I sold over the span of the year... reminisce if you will... so I shed a tear for these great stocks, and bid them adieu.

THO
THOR Industries, Inc. One of the last great run American companies in one of the last great American industries, luxury RVs (thats if you ask me of course). I bought this wonder of a stock in December of 2001 for around $9.27 a share, and I've acquired it at regular intervals for much of the past five years. On March 6th of this year, I sold about almost all of my holdings. Then on December 6th I sold the remainder. However you slice it, Thor has made me a very good return for very low risk. Wade THompson and Peter ORthwein (hence THOR) have made this company one of the best managed companies I have ever seen, your money is safe with them, they don't have gimmicks. So why did I sell? Simple, they were over bought, like much of the market, and even great companies will experience share price deflation from time to time. Baby boomers are still buying RVs though, and they will continue to buy them. If this stock every dips back into a moderate valuation zone, I'm acquiring, but until then, adios THO, its been a nice ride!

AAPL
April 6, 2003, shortly after acquiring my first iPod (I've since purchased four more for myself and as gifts), I bought as much AAPL as I could afford. I've held it ever since. Oh and the good times we have had with AAPL since those days... Feb. 2005, I remember it well. Topped by the thrilling surge in Sept. 2005. And who could forget Jan. 2006? Oh AAPL, how I loved you! I stuck with you through the long, hot, saddening summer this year... but alas, on 12/6/2006, I had to part with you. Don't take it personally, AAPL is still a sizzling company. But I just have that feeling that she's do for another good bump in the road, and this time, I'm looking for love in other places. Seriously, this co. is well run with some questionable key man risk. I worry that the shareholders now love Jobs more than Apple herself.

SIL, CDE
What can I say? After almost a decade in silver mines, I'm starting to move on. Got rid of these guys on March 6th of this year after watching up close the S. American political situation deteriorate. Even participated in the short plays on SIL at the end of Q1... Reward success, punish failure, and do it immediately. I loved these guys, but enough is enough. That said, look for a buying opportunity mid '07 (just guessing).

NSC
Norfolk Southern was one of the first stocks I ever owned (my grandfather, who didn't really buy much stock, told me once that if he did, he'd buy Norfolk Southern). Since then, I've used every sustained share price dip as an acquiring opportunity. 3/6/94... 8/6/96... 1/6/98... 9/6/98... And how was such loyalty repaid? Feb. 2000! That's how. I was so nervous I missed the best buying opportunity I've ever had... well, until 12/6/2000 (heh). After the summer swoon, which I again diligently used as a buying chance, I'd had enough. NSC is a wonderful play on rising commodities, rising population, war, and of course the Gulf Coast reconstruction. Trains are back, and if I didn't have so many excuses to liquidate, I would have kept NSC... But on 12/6/2006, I sold my last share. Hope granddaddy will understand.

BOBE
If you've owned BOBE since the mid 90s, you'll know why selling now is such a good deal. The company is still a good play (in my opinion). But hedgies have moved in, and the valuations are getting all weird as is volume. I just don't have the stomach for Bob Evans anymore, but it was a good meal while it lasted.

So there it is. My cheeks, still tear stained, memories... all alone in the moon... Well, anyway, these stocks have done me some good, and I'm lucky to have been stupid enough to buy them when I did... so it is, with saddness that I bid them a fond farewell. Oh and in case you're wondering, YES, I do only trade on the 6th day of the month... a personal superstition of mine which has served me well!

Anyone out there sold some gold they care to discuss? Any stinkers? Comments welcomed. Where do we go in 2007? Anyone? Bueller?

Protecting the Weeds from the Worms

2006-11-26T18:53:00.000-05:00

An old neighbor of mine used to make so much fun of all the people who invested heavily in fertilizers, chemicals, and weekly garden treatments... A bit of a cottage industry in south western Connecticut. This guy had one of the best gardens in all of Westport, and so it was hard to argue with any gardening advice he gave. One bit of advice he often repeated was: "no need to protect the weeds from the worms."

I'm struck how apt a description this is to today's economic environment. Democrats are likely to push through some sort of protectionist styled legislation within their first few months. And when you see that folks like Jim Webb won on this type of FDR like populist economic protectionism in a state that should be as red as home side during an Indiana Hoosier basketball game, you can't really argue that they should tread cautiously here. America certainly seems ready to give protectionism, or "fair trade" a chance.

But the problem I see is that both China and the US are experiencing slowdowns right now and these slowdowns are likely to last through year end. Considering these two countries account for almost 2/3 of the entire global GDP increase over the last five years, it seems such an event ought to be taken seriously. But I don't get the impression it is.

Instead, I see the liquidity folks getting excited over just a few blips in either the housing or retail sectors... blips that for the most part are brief detours in a long downhill slide. The American consumer is spent, and that should be obvious by their recent historic reversal of Republican electoral successes.

If you add into the mix a little protectionism here and there, the wheels are going to fall off the bus on export demand, and there goes China's economy along with it.

In theory, I support many of the "fair trade" arguments out there today. But the problem is, all we might be getting out of them right now is some protection for our weeds from our worms. I think it might be time to roll our sleeves up and do some of the dirty work thats long overdue.

Pons Asinorum

2006-11-20T19:07:00.000-05:00

When I was in college my freshman mathematics tutorial required going through each of Euclid's Elements from memory on a chalk board. Day in, day out. Each student had a proposition or two assigned to them for the week, but they were expected to know the other propositions as well in case their fellow class mate couldn't make it out.

I was assigned I. 4 that day. To inscribe a circle with a triangle.

Not the most magical stuff of Euclid, but a fun little proof, easily accomplished, and most importantly, easily remembered. I. 4 is one of those propositions that shows it is true that memory and mastery are cousins. The more you remember about that proposition, the more you have it mastered. Its simple.

My somewhat sadistic freshman math teacher, however, thought different.

"Well sir, it seems your colleague assigned to perform I. 5 failed to show today didn't he?"

I nodded.

"One four is fairly simple isn't, it not?" "Oh its simple enough." I replied.

"Good then. Why don't you get us started on I. 5 then and everyone, please review I. 4 tonight on your own."

In case you aren't familiar with proposition 5 of book one, its a pain in the ass. Indeed it has the nickname "bridge of asses" or "Pons asinorum" as Johnnies are want to say. I struggled like hell that day. I hadn't prepared the proposition very well, I took almost the entire class time just getting the basics of it sketched out, and I barely eeked out a proof by the closing bell. What little bit I did remember, was pretty much unhelpful. I had to really think through it as I was going along. Trying different approaches until I finally (and with the help of my guide through gentle questioning) caught the scent of the trail and finished off what otherwise was a total waste.

But I learned more in that utter failure than I ever learned from proposition four, or any other proposition for that matter (I still have trouble with I. 47 for example, but I have prop. 5 down cold.)

When I went on to study Ptolemy and the higher disciplines, I realized something... the experience failing at something very difficult is altogether a liberating experience.

While I have been on the Administration's ass about Iraq for quite awhile, I can't help but think that even after all the wasted blood, wasted treasure, and wasted dreams, the entire saga will be seen by history as the crucial Pons asinorum of our age.

Or as Aristotle said: there is no royal road to geometry.

Free Market

2006-11-16T21:48:00.000-05:00

I just saw something that made me laugh. Some Republican windbag was spewing nonesense about the free market this, the free market that, we can't let the free market be stained by the unholy touch of public funding. He was talking about energy of course, and how we shouldn't let subsidies carry away the market on ethanol, solar, wind, etc.

Horsehockey.

All these overpriced rhetorical whores seem to forget the massive amount of funding the public produces for drug and health care research. I don't see any of them bitching about that.

Nor do I see them bitching about the public funding that causes the demand for massive amounts of ammunition, armor, and weapons technology.

Why is it that for Republicans, the only thing the public should never fund is an alternative to funding the Saudi royal family?

Republicans, against public market intervention before they for it.

Viva Bush!! Viva Saud!

Not So Fast Yourself

2006-11-16T20:22:00.000-05:00

The Moose argues:

The Iraq war is leading some progressives into a full embrace of neo-realism. These liberals shun interventionist internationalism for the type of pragmatic realism that was the hallmark of Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker. In fact, these two Republican figures are rapidly becoming national security role models in progressive circles.

Not so fast. It was the realists' coddling of Middle Eastern tyrannies that helped breed the Jihadist menace with which we are at war. Saudi Arabia which spreads Wahabi hatred is Exhibit A of a theocracy that realists love to love. Back in the nineties, the realists would have us look away from the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans

Actually Bull, that ain't the case. Realism didn't coddle tyrants, corruption did, incumbency did, a failure of our judicial system to intervene did... these aren't failures of pragmatism, they're a failure of the people to lead.

Latest from Nancy

2006-11-12T22:03:00.000-05:00

Interesting maneuver. I'd say Speaker Nancy (by the way, that used to be my favorite nickname for Republicans) is reading between the lines here. The point isn't to make Nancy not speaker, nor to make Murtha leader, but to keep Steny from gaining too much. You need Steny, but you don't need him as Majority leader.

If we don't put the brakes on this cycle, it won't ever matter who wins. It'll just change the names on the checks.

Nancy Pelosi at the Table

2006-11-10T18:29:00.000-05:00

Nancy Pelosi's father was once a congressman and then mayor of Baltimore. Her mother's engagement in politics was along the lines of what people would now call an unsalaried community activist. Among the central memories she recounts are the many people, mostly poor, who encountered her family during her father's mayoral tenure. These people perceived that the family not only cared about them but--as public servants--were in a position to help improve the community in all the countless ways that constitute quality, and dignity, of life. As her mother put it, politics is public service.

Much later in her life, as the first women in a high leadership position (in the minority) in the House of Representatives, she attended an inaugural briefing with the President, the Vice President, and congressional leaders from both parties from both chambers. Still later, in a major speech at Georgetown University, she reflected on the fact that she was perhaps the first and only women ever present at this customary meeting where the major leaders from two branches of government seek clarity and common vision. She went on to describe a brief fantasy in which earlier women leaders in American history--such as Susan B. Anthony--were actually present at her side at that meeting. In a moment, they disappeared from her mental image, but with their words to her still lingering: "We're grateful that we finally have a seat at the table."

Been there and seen that same movie with other actors, and can report that it is one of the deepest but least known secrets in American politics--that people, all people, want more than anything else to come to the table, be included, contribute their gifts and talents, and continue building and rebuilding community. The nation and the neighborhood are one.

Nancy Pelosi knows that, from her upbringing and from her own political experience. That's how I know her tenure as Speaker will be unexpectedly positive. Far from polarizing the party, she will make it all the more inclusive and communitarian. (Of course, experience may show that it takes control of both branches in order to translate the communitarian vision into actual accomplishment--but that will be a problem for the President and his party, not for the Speaker and hers.)

If you think this is too much of a feel good fantasy, or if you think "communitarian" means the same thing as "communist," then just let it be an empirical question whose answer only time will give.

The Big Mo'

2006-11-08T17:26:00.000-05:00

Who got the most momentum out of yesterday's election? And why did Rumsfeld really resign? These are some questions we can only speculate about, but here are some thoughts.

Thirteen additional trial lawyers were put into the House, and three additional trial lawyers made it to the Senate. How's that for stacking an already well stacked deck? It seems the trial lawyer line Republicans have seemed to use to great effect in the past just didn't matter this time around. Maybe even backfired? I'm guessing this isn't something on the radar of most pundits right now, but I'm also guessing that means its important. Of all the special interest groups out there right now, and excepting the military of course, the big winners to me seem to be trial lawyers.

One can't help but recall here the interactions between King James and Coke, and how Coke's lawyers eventually broke through the Ecclesiastical Court's stranglehold. Whenever an executive says "I am the law", the Anglo tradition has, since the time of Coke, always been a pattern of society coming back with a resounding negation.

Now to the second topic, I hear Rumsfeld's departure may not spell doom for the Neoconservative agenda afterall, but that it will liberate them. I don't exactly know what this means, but its something to think about for sure.

Shays and Johnson

2006-11-08T02:32:00.000-05:00

Nancy Johnson is to Connecticut politics what Keith Jackson is to college football: almost a constant. That she got booted, and that Lieberman did not, ought to speak a clear message to Dems and Reps alike.

Shays apparently has won. Bully for him. He's a tireless campaigner in one of the wealthiest places in the world. Farrell doesn't get it, never made him eat his words, and quite frankly she is never going to get the finance vote if she doesn't grow some. When will the Democrats get a candidate up here that can bring it home? But there's always a recount...

One more thing and then I'm off to bed, the Virginia aftermath is going to be interesting and I hear it could involve some jail time. But that doesn't mean the Reps still won't fight like a wounded racoon to pull it out. This is where Dems really will show their stripes, if they cave in or fail to seize the initiative, they won't build much on their good fortunes tonight. If they fight back like a junkyard dog, they'll put a certain someone's lights out.

San-i-tor-i-um

2006-11-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

Watching Rick concede right now. I'm struck by one thing, and one thing only.

Why on earth would someone want to put their young daughter through such bullshit? Seriously. What bullshit. National politicians are vain, vain people.

Hey George!

2006-11-07T21:43:00.000-05:00

This is called an "accountability moment".

Speaker Murtha

2006-11-07T20:32:00.000-05:00

He took a stand for the military, let's take one for him. Ask your Democratic Congressman to support Murtha for Speaker.

Interesting

2006-11-02T22:58:00.000-05:00

The more you read, the less you know.

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

Ah... how I love those patriotic Congressional Republicans, always putting the country ahead of party.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

Well, I mean, always putting the safety of the troops first and foremost...

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

Oh. Well. Um. Yeah, so about that Kerry joke ... and wasn't Michael J. Fox totally acting?

The only thing missing is a quote about Cheney's "zero percent" doctrine.

Good Try

2006-11-02T20:38:00.000-05:00

House Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is being asked by Democrats to apologize for seemingly blaming senior military officers for any problems with the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy.

Boehner, however, does not appear to be budging.

Geez, everyone knows its ok for Republicans to blame the military... I mean, they can't blame their own man. Come on!

Curious Thing to Say

2006-11-02T16:06:00.000-05:00

At this stage in the election...

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Thursday U.S. troops should remain in Iraq for up to three more years to give Iraqi authorities more time to build up their own security forces.

I can already write the rest of the story...

"But US citizens responded negatively to the suggestion by throwing out the bums that got them into this mess to begin with."

Peeling away

2006-11-02T15:34:00.000-05:00

When you're reduced to bullying the opposition and smearing war hero after war hero, people begin to question your motives, and the base starts to peel away. Oddly, that's all the Bushies have been doing for the last twelve months. But it seems some are catching on. One question I'd like answered though, where is John "Straight Shooter" McCain on Allen's smearing of Jim Webb?

Emerald Warrior '07, A Tune Up?

2006-11-01T17:59:00.000-05:00

AFSOC is conducting a joint force exercise on the Eglin range right now and until the end of this week. It's a pretty large exercise, integrating spec ops from the Air Force and Army as well as coalition countries, all with USSOC as the supported command.

I hear the scenario is intriguing, and I must admit the word choice is a bit odd.

The scenario driving the exercise is based on United States and coalition military units working together to assist a pro-Western country who is being overtaken by a neighboring anti-Western country.

In the scenario, the ally nation requested support with countering terrorist operations and regaining control of their territory.

A "pro-Western country" does not sound like an ally, nor does it sound like a "friendly". Rumor has it that regardless of how it sounds it sure looks a lot like Iraq and its eastern neighbor. More here.

George W. Bush Abandons an American Soldier

2006-11-01T12:22:00.000-05:00

People wonder what Iraq is going to look like over the next six months? It will be filled with instances of George Bush abandoning our soldiers because of political pull from Iraqi leaders. Our boys and girls are at the mercy of the Iraqi leadership now.

American soldiers rolled up their barbed-wire barricades and lifted a near siege of the largest Shiite Muslim enclave in Baghdad on Tuesday, heeding the orders of a Shiite-led Iraqi government whose assertion of sovereignty had Shiites celebrating in the streets.

That's right, Maliki says "move out" and our troops click their heels and obey. But more importantly, they do it regardless of whether or not one of their own is being held hostage.

The move lifted a near siege that had stood at least since last Wednesday. U.S. military police imposed the blockade after the kidnapping of an American soldier of Iraqi descent. The soldier's Iraqi in-laws said they believed he had been abducted by the Mahdi Army as he visited his wife at her home in the Karrada area of Baghdad, where U.S. military checkpoints were also removed as a result of Maliki's action.

Yes, you read that right. George W. Bush just ok'd an order given from a foreign leader to abandon a US soldier. I suppose this is why the Bush Administration suddenly became interested in John Kerry's jokes. It disgusts that the press pushes such filth when on the very same day, our own President abandoned a soldier at the direction of a foreign government.

Well its about damn time!

2006-10-26T10:15:00.000-04:00

Just kidding. John Robb's book is up... but not for sale yet. I'd bookmark the page, you won't want to miss this one. John if you're out there, can we get this in time for the stockings?

Preparing for Civil War?

2006-10-23T22:09:00.000-04:00

We all know Badr and other militant organizations funded via SCIRI are receiving lots of dough from Tehran. But here's a question.

Who's funding the Sunni militias? (besides obvious Sunni neighbors)

I realize they don't need tons of money with so many target rich neighborhoods and all... But haven't we all learned by now that civil wars take funding? And if so, whose funding the out party in this civil war?

And to whose gain?

I've heard a rumor repeated several times now that its coming from some very likely sources.

Question for the Red Meat Crowd

2006-10-22T22:23:00.000-04:00

How many of you out there accused Bill Clinton of wagging the dog, or at least believed he was wagging the dog, when he went after Osama in Sudan and Afghanistan?

The Elephant in the Room

2006-10-14T16:01:00.000-04:00

Seems Charlie Cook is reading the tea leaves and the tea leaves ain't good for GOP Pols. We all know this by now. The chances for the Republicans to not only lose the House, but be absolutely inundated in a sea of blue, are very high.

But why doesn't anyone at the same time discuss what is so obviously the elephant in the room which can change the whole ballgame.

Iran.

Let's game this out on domestic politics (rather than geopolitics). If an Iran attack occurs prior to the election, is it in or out? Do Dems support or oppose? Do polls go red or blue?

In my view, the whole thing would backfire. Americans are in a cynical mood. We won't let cynical maneuvers with our military get in the way of cleaning things up. Maybe I'm optimistic, but I think there's some historical guidance. My hypothesis: an attack on Iran would only further isolate the GOP. Discuss.

The First Afghan War

2006-10-11T19:49:00.000-04:00

During the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan and resulting freedom struggle... a period of approximately nine years... does anyone know how many Soviet troops ended up going through Afghanistan?

The figure, over 500,000, is astounding. What is equally astounding is how well the US played the Soviet Union during the conflict.

It seems to me only fitting that as we now hear about plans to stay in Iraq until at least 2010, we have to begin asking ourselves... have we been caught in an Afghan trap as well?

Foley Roundup

2006-10-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

Billmon has a really nice analysis of the latest defenses being offered up by Republicans in Congress. A couple of things about this can't be underestimated.

(1) The "Crazies" aren't going to flood the polls and pound the pavement helping out a bunch of sexual predators... they just aren't going to do it. Sure the cynical ones, usually the leaders, will be out in force, but the masses won't be there. Their mama's taught them better. That's the problem with these sorts of scandals when your base is motivated by a sense of righteous morality. Inevitably, their leaders fail to live up to the movements high mindedness, and the movement moves on to something else.

(2) The election is now officially nationalized. Not as much as some, but more so than most mid-terms. This isn't good when your national politician is sinking faster than the Titanic. And it presents Dems with a chance to run an absolutely devastating commercial just before the election.

Cut to headlines showing "Haster Denies Knowing" and then headlines saying "Hasterts staff aware of Foley Years ago." With a voiceover, "he says he doesn't remember." Then the same thing with Condoleeza Rice and the meeting she had with Tenet months before 9/11 warning her of an impending terrorist attack on the homeland. "She says she doesn't remember." gets read as the headlines scroll. Then you say: "What else are they forgetting?" Show a scrolling line of coffins coming back from Iraq.

I doubt any Dem has balls enough to run such an ad. But it would seal the deal if they did, and they'll get close to it anyway.

(3) The only thing that can save Republicans now is a terrorist attack or major scare, or bringing out Osama's head on a pole. Problem is, the law of diminishing returns is working against them. Short of wheeling out a handcuffed Osama, I think such antics will only be met with skepticism and a cynical public tired of fighting an illusory war.

The Forgotten War

2006-10-08T19:32:00.000-04:00

We have so many wars going on, its easy to forget the one that started it all... Afghanistan. According to the NATO commander if it isn't under control in 6 months, its lost.

"If we collectively ... do not exploit this winter to start achieving concrete and visible improvement," then some 70 percent of Afghans could switch sides, Richards told The Associated Press.

What never ceases to amaze me is the "transcendental" argument which neocons and indeed, pro-globalization folks make all the time. It essentially works like this: "if "we" (i.e. the west) stays and does Y, then democracy and free trade will spread in area X." This is the epitome of white liberalism as I've always known it. "Oh those poor savages, they just need to see the Queen's Navy, Christ's word, and let us teach them proper English." There's a real view out there that freedom is something outside of personal decisionmaking. That somehow we give freedom to people through some form of warfare or governmental change. I wonder what these folks think of Epictetus?

Anyway, when 70 percent of the population isn't with you, you've lost. Doesn't matter how many ballot boxes you set up, nor how many pray meetings, nor how many soldiers die for the cause, and certainly doesn't matter how many landings your president does on an aircraft carrier. The concrete, underlying choices made by the people who live on the ground dictates the "march of freedom". Trade pacts, cluster bombs and sit ins don't.

Toxic

2006-10-05T20:14:00.000-04:00

Absolutely toxic. This Foley thing is absolutely toxic. Three more pages come forward?

Three more former congressional pages have come forward to reveal what they call "sexual approaches" over the Internet from former Congressman Mark Foley.

"I was seventeen years old and just returned to [my home state] when Foley began to e-mail me, asking if I had ever seen my page roommates naked and how big their penises were," said the page in the 2002 class.

Ouch. The press is going to stick to this like junkyard flies on heaping pile of steaming shit. Sex and power makes journalists rabid, and regardless of the totally fucked situation in Iraq, the story from here on out is going to be:

Republican candidates take pride in saying they defend cultural conservatives and Christian values. But what sort of value is it to take hush money from a sexual predator?

Or if you prefer:

Republican candidates take pride in saying they defend America from terrorists. But how can they protect us from terrorists when they can't even keep sexual predators away from minors on their staff?

I sure as hell wouldn't want to be Karl Rove right about now.

Monica Lewinsky & Rep. Foley

2006-10-01T21:12:00.000-04:00

News like this makes me long for the days when we thought it was impeachable that the President got his jolly's off talking smut on the phone with a consenting adult woman.

The FBI is examining former Rep. Mark Foley's e-mail exchanges with teenagers to determine if they violated federal law, an agency spokesman said Sunday.

Say what you want about cigars and altoids, at least it wasn't man and boy.

Brother Robert Smith

2006-09-28T22:46:00.000-04:00

I apologize to regular A9 readers for the repeated memorial announcements, but it seems over the last twelve to eighteen months, a lot of people I care deeply about have passed away... Since this is my blog, I'll be writing about that. And another service announcement. It has become great sport from the leftiest of left blogs to the rightiest of right to try and figure out exactly what my identity truly is. A lot of people know me only by pseudonym, and almost everyone knows that is intentional. It is likely that what I'm about to write will reveal, at least to those clever enough to piece it all together, exactly who I am. If so, I ask that you take satisfaction in knowing something others do not. If not, then just keep reading, maybe one day :)

Brother Robert Smith died on September 12, 2006. I've been so busy that I only recently found out. It appears many people thought I already knew. Of course, I knew it wouldn't be long, but I would not be the first of his pupils to say that I've always a deep suspicion Brother Robert would never leave this earth. Aerodynamically designed to exhibit Newton's First law, many of us believed "Bro. Ro" as he was often affectionately known as, was a permanent fixture on this earth. So needless to say, though I was well prepared for such an eventuality, I also was schocked to the point of tears that someone I loved so dearly had left this earth.

In just a brief Googling of Bro. Ro's death, one can quickly surmise this was no ordinary man. He made a dramatic impact on the people he came in contact with.

Dr. Jose Yulo states:

After sixteen years at the helm, he journeyed to Annapolis, Maryland, and soon became one of St. John's College's most respected and influential tutors. Even among the august faculty at St. John's, Bro. Robert held place all his own. He deftly practiced his patient, yet uncompromising socratic method, enabling many students to descend unscathed yet humbled from their own Mt's Olympus. All the while, he provided a moral ethos of decency and kindness, gifts essential to softening the socratic's more pointed tendencies. I will always remember and be grateful for the times where he was giving of his time and insight. R.I.P.

Brother Donald Mansir reflects:

“Brother Robert was one of the most influential of the Brothers in the curriculum at Saint Mary’s College,” said Brother Donald Mansir, chair of the Bishop John S. Cummins Institute and teacher in the Saint Mary’s Integral Program. “A true son of Saint La Salle, a friend to hundreds of students, and an inspiration to many of the greatest minds of the last century, Brother Robert will be terribly missed."

What many people might not realize is that Brother Robert is one of the secrets of the vitality of Western Civilization. I kid you not. Go to Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lazard, or any such monolithic investment bank and you'll hear people at the very highest echelons of power whisper fond memories of conversations with Brother Robert. Take a trip to to Columbia Univ., Princeton Univ., Oxford or Chicago, and you'll hear the very tops of these institutions whisper regrets about Brother Robert's passing. All this from a man who seemed shorter than he really was, balder than he seemed, and more concerned with helping any old student than with getting his book published next month.

St. John's College, apparently, is forced to have two memorial services for Bro. Ro, one this weekend and one on Nov. 11th. I hope to be at both. But let me tell you why I hope that...

Brother Robert completely and utterly changed my life, as he has done for so many. His kindness, gentleness, and respectful style were a model of how to turn boys (and girls for that matter) into free men (and women). His ability to correct illogical, distasteful, or uncivilized rhetoric in a school where open-ended, no boundary discussions were as essential as air to fire completely upended today's popular notions of how to deal with unbridled intellectual curiosity. He corrected without any sting, molded without any force, shaped without any design.

Were it not for Bro. Ro, I would never have experienced the Orthodox religion in any real way. For those that truly know me, this is obviously a rather important statement in my life. One summer Bro. Ro invited me to attend a retreat with him at a Greek Orthodox monestary. The memory of that retreat stays fresh in my mind each and every day. Of course, what combined it into the ever powerful moment it has come to mean for me was his constant discussion with me about iconography. He collected them. He had become an expert on them. And his thoughts infused within me and helped solidify what would come to be one of my most fondly held beliefs.

Bro. Ro also taught me Greek. Well, that isn't completely true, two others were my tutors and "instructed" me in Greek. But I never really got it until I started translating for Bro. Ro. I just had a great deal of confidence when I was him. Confidence to be completely wrong, but enough love of learning to continue trying no matter what the result. Ha! Thinking back on all that makes me laugh. We must have sounded like brain damaged ancient Greeks to Bro. Ro. But we had a joyous time doing so, and we all came away with greater proficiency, greater appreciation, and most importantly, greater respect for the thoughts the Byzantine poets than any classics major could ever hope to have.

Spending an evening with Bro. Ro, eating good food, drinking excellent wine, reading great books and viewing fine art, all while probing his mind for clues while he encouraged you to probe your own. This should be the education of all, luckily, it was an education which I was able to partake in for a time.

As those Johnnies out there reading this already know, Rabelais would not be Rabelais were it not for Bro. Ro. A number of quotes come to mind, and I'm sure he'd appreciate that I can't narrow it down to just one, so here are my favorite two...

When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink.

And of course,

Tell the truth and shame the devil.

God bless Bro. Ro, and thank you Heaven for allowing a few of us the moments to spend with him. For anyone wanting to speak with me about Bro. Ro, I'll be in Annapolis, MD over the weekend and hopefully again on the 11th. See you there.

Starting Your Own Shop

2006-09-27T19:56:00.000-04:00

I've started businesses before. Even though technically I was an "owner" in them, it was materially different than now, where I am one of two "principals". Big difference. Some of the things I've noticed about starting your own shop are the following:

You can never rely on a common language once you start your own shop. You'll desperately want to fall back onto lingo and trade specific language which you've acquired over the years. But no one, not even people with fairly similar backgrounds, will ever be able to decipher exactly what it is you're talking about. The reason for this is simple, you're the boss. They want to emulate how you talk. When you're just one of several directors, that isn't a problem, everyone adopts their language to the way the "big boss" talks. But what I didn't realize is that when you're the big boss, and everyone is trying to adopt your language, they all sound like they are speaking in tongues. I spend an inordinate amount of time restraining my use of trade lingo because it simply gets in the way and makes my co-workers sound like raving lunatics.

Employees who aren't "principal owners" don't really understand that you own the place. It all seems like a corporation to them, and from the outside they are right. But from the perspective of a principal, when your staff purchases, say, a printer, they think they are purchasing it for the fund, or the firm, the institution, the "corp" or whatever. What they don't realize, and what doesn't even make sense to them immediately after you tell them, is that what they just did was buy you a printer. It seems to me this is because the vast majority of people in this country have never worked for themselves. They always work for someone else. This can make things complicated if you don't look out for it. Your sense of ownership and their sense of ownership are very, very different.

Starting up is easy and fun even though it is hardwork, moving from startup to management is a pain in the fucking ass. Seriously! Finding space, getting furniture, logos created, your first big money, all that stuff is exhilirating and meaningful. Turning all of that exhiliration into repetitive processes which can be scaled so that you don't have to make every single decision
is very, very hard. It all comes down to talent and drive. Finding people with the talent to go from startup to management is easy, finding people with the drive is hard.

Well anyway, about a year ago today I was staring at a business proposition on Excel. Now I stare at my name on the wall when I walk into work each day. Guess some reflections are warranted.

A bonehead maneuver

2006-09-26T18:45:00.001-04:00

I thought the GOP was supposed to be the evil geniuses of the bunch... always ready to exploit a weakness... quick to sniff out the other side's wounds... ready to chomp on their jugulars.

The "sanitized" version of the National Intelligence Estimate which President Bush ordered declassified, seemingly in order to save his own political hide, will end up destroying his majority in the House. History will look back on this as the single stupidest political decision ever made by a sitting President. A first class political "bonehead maneuver".

Quotes like this: "the Muslim mainstream emerges as the most powerful weapon in the war on terror" when cast against the current perception of the Iraq war will undoubtedly cost Bush seats in the next election. I think the only question now really is just how many seats will be lost?

I thought Bush and his Texan advisers were gunslingers... but I just can't imagine a seasoned gunfighter going out right before the final firefight and giving his enemy extra bullets.

The Regional Conflict Gambit

2006-09-26T08:38:00.000-04:00

Raising eyebrows.

Meanwhile, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani warned that Iraq was prepared to "make trouble" with its neighbors if nations such as Iran, Turkey and Syria did not "stop interfering in our internal affairs."

In an interview with NPR's "Morning Edition" to be aired today, Talabani, a Kurd, said Iraq was prepared to support opposition groups in neighboring countries as a recourse for what he said was meddling in Iraq. Iran and Turkey each have sizable Kurdish minorities that have been pushing for increased self-determination.

I wrote about this here last year. I don't think this is an empty threat any longer. The possibility of a region wide, decades long conflict which completely reshapes the map of the mideast is better than 50%.

Once again, the US is caught in the middle, and more than likely on the wrong side of history.

The Clinton Interview

2006-09-24T23:52:00.000-04:00

In the much talked about Clinton / Wallace interview, Bill says a lot (as usual). The best part of the interview though is this short exchange between Wallace and Clinton...

CW: Do you think you did enough, sir?
WJC: No, because I didn’t get him.

That pretty much says it all.

Who we Torture

2006-09-24T19:54:00.000-04:00

The ongoing torture debate, and present disgust at making types of torture legal, seems to be missing the point in my opinion. So let me concede some of the more absurd points which proponents of torture make. Let me concede, no matter how absurd it truly is, that torture works. Let me concede the intel we get from torture is actionable, and that it can prevent the next type of the death which the purveyor is known for. Let me concede all of that. I still think, even with that, we miss the point. The point is who we torture? What safeguards are in place to determine that? What balance is there to the selection criteria?

Let's throw it open. Assume we concede that the "known ______" means we have one of these sons of bitches in our cell and we believe they may know about the next event... I ask you:

All in favor of torturing known Al-Qaeda operatives stand... those not in favor, remain seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known Iranian Qod Force operatives please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known Irish Republican Army operatives please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known abortion clinic bombers please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known Ku Klux Klansmen please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known street gang members please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known child molesters please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known armed robbers please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known drug dealers please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known drunk drivers please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Of those standing, all in favor of torturing known cigarrette manufacturers please remain standing... those not in favor, please be seated.

Still standing? Well, don't forget that smoking kills 400K people a year in the US. Now are you still standing? If you weren't, would you like to? 400K people. Fewer people would die in a chemical, biological, or rudimentary suitcase nuke attack. And yet this happens every single year. I feel the same way about torture as I do the death penalty... if we're gonna have this evil, let's fucking use it where it will help most. If not, let's live like honest people.

How to Win the Moral War - Real Adaptation

2006-09-21T20:19:00.000-04:00

India, home of the second (or third depending on who counts) largest muslim population in the world, and a victim of a recent domestic terrorist attack, is figuring out that excellent results can be achieved by fighting terrorists on their turf: the moral plane.

At least two of the clerics have been suspended from their posts, but that hasn't satisfied everyone. Students at one madrassa in north India denounced the clerics, and in the city of Meerut, where a mufti, or cleric, had been caught on camera, the congregation at one mosque refused to offer prayers until he came before them, admitted to taking the money, and apologized.

This should be tracked closely by opinion polls, and I hear it will be. Whenever those polls come out I will try to post (if someone else hears about them, please comment as well). Of course, even better than driving a wedge between "principled" and "greedy" is to get the native population to question the legitimacy of those guerrillas which they shelter.

The "cash-for-fatwas" scandal has also led to a renewed debate on what constitutes a fatwa, and who has legitimate authority to issue one.

Yes. That's the spirit. More than likely utterly unintended, but a perfect example of a vibrant, questioning, open culture. It should not be a shock that this adaptation resulted first in India (the world's largest and most diverse democracy) as India has one of the most republican governments (and federalist governments) in the world. That this adaptation seems like a distant memory here is of course - a sign of the times.

Housing Prices

2006-09-20T22:15:00.000-04:00

Things have a long way to go before they really go "down" in Fairfield County, CT... but one thing is for sure ... things in the real estate market over $1M ain't good. And when it ain't good in places like Fairfield Co., it ain't good for Republicans.

I'm just guessing that means we're about to see something we haven't seen since the late 80s, early 90s. The LA Times has a good graphic of what that means here.

Point being, if Dems really want to win in November as opposed to just sitting around and performing purification rituals and other rites of tribal passage, they need to do one really simple thing...

Connect the evaporation in home equity to the cluster fuck in Iraq.

If you think about it, both are really just symptoms of the same disease.

The Torture Offensive

2006-09-19T08:43:00.000-04:00

I was wondering last night, does it make good political sense to push for torture ahead of an election? I saw a headline in a local rag up in the western part of the state, fairly Republican up there, "Bush wants to break Geneva Conevention on Torture". Not sure if that's accurate, but that was the jist of it. That doesn't play well, clearly, and the law of diminishing returns is always working against such schemes. But why push for torture now? Do you really want to make this election about Abu Ghraib?

Well, maybe you do if you know something that I don't (or didn't).

Urgent news from Abu Dawood, one of the newly appointed commanders of the al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan:
Final preparations have been made for the American Hiroshima, a major attack on the U. S. Muslims living in the United States should leave the country without further warning.

Hat tip John Robb. But why am I finding out about this from a Canadian news outlet? Must not be a very big deal I guess.

Yes a bigger attack than September 11th 2001. Brother Adnan [el Shukrijumah] will lead that attack, Inshallah.

Oops. Guess it is a big deal. So shouldn't Adnan's picture be up all over the place? I suppose we don't know enough about him though, probably just a phantom in the dark.

He is an American and a friend of Muhammad Atta, who led 9/11 attacks five years ago. We call him "Jaffer al Tayyar" ["Jafer the Pilot"]; he is very brave and intelligent. Bush is aware that brother Adnan has smuggled deadly materials inside America from the Mexican border. Bush is silent about him, because he doesn't want to panic his people.

Uh. Nevermind that. I guess that explains it doesn't it? Jesus. But I suppose it's too vague a threat? Not actionable? Not specific enough?

Muslims should leave America. We cannot stop our attack just because of the American Muslims; they must realize that American forces are killing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq; we have the right to respond back, in the same manner, in the enemy's homeland. The American Muslims are like a human shield for our enemy; they must leave New York and Washington.

Unless of course you're a Muslim living in New York and Washington. Looks like al-Qaeda understands responsive government.

A Different Disney Perspective

2006-09-12T23:52:00.000-04:00

Bloggers are all agog about the right wing slant of the Disney Docudrama on the "steps" along the "path" to 911.

Here's another point of view--never mind the Clinton bashing, the bigger issue is how W comes off. Sorry to put it this way, but W doesn't "come" at all in the Monday night version. In fact, except for an oddly mis-timed ("time-compressed"?) speech on 911, where he's mouthing platitudes even before the full scope of the disaster is clear (as the movie itself points out), there is almost zero Bush "presence."

In fact, his "order" to shoot down flight 93 is so obscure that the movie only quotes Cheney to the effect that he has "received" the president's order. No representation in the film of Bush actually giving that order. (Where to start on that one? Do you not give your order directly to those who are to carry them out, Mr. President? Do you expect that the military can lawfully obey an order that is only quoted to them by the vice-president? -- not under the law -- Why did rather more than an hour pass before you gave any orders at all, Mr. President? When you were doing the pet goat, when it was already clear how severe the damage to the towers was, did you not think there was something for a poor president to do? Oh, that's right, presidents have such a difficult job--what with decisions and all. I know, W, it's so hard that you almost certainly just told Shooter Cheny to do whatever he thinks best, you'll back him up)

The almost total absence of Bush from Part 2 of the DisneyDrama doesn't look to me like a pro-Bush slant. Could Disney have been so insulated from public opinion as to imagine that "less is more" when it comes to showing Bush as the commander in chief?" Old, fat, impotent, white men at Disney can be that insulated, to be sure, but are they that incompetent?

And then of course, the scorecard at the end--carrying out the 911 commission's recommendations--something like 5 to 12 (grade F vs. grade D), with only one A (intercepting terrorist money). Not exactly a ringing endorsement of efforts to protect the homeland.

Bush's Iran Policy: or, What's a Poor President to Do?

2006-09-01T11:44:00.000-04:00

First, shut up the political rhetoric about Iran. Make Rummy, Cheney, Rove, and everybody else in your administration shut up, too.

Second, tell the truth about how rapidly Iran is progressing toward a nuclear weapon. Answer: not very, so no immediate hurry, but no time to waste in fashioning an effective policy, either. Since you and the British can't be credible any longer on account of Powell's UN fiasco on WMD's, then develop a covert collaboration with those who could still be credible--maybe the Russians, maybe the Egyptians, maybe the Pakistanis--who would join in documenting the facts of Iran's progression towards a nuclear weapon.

Third, fire Armitage and Rove for outing Valerie Plame, since compromising her and the company she ran dealt a severe setback to our intelligence on middle east WMD's.

Fourth, shut up again.

Fifth, privately inform the Iranians that we have the means to know when their enrichment passes the point of peaceful use, and that when it does, we will regard it as an imminent threat to ourselves and our allies and we will destroy their facilities (which is admittedly a very difficult task if they are deep underground, but then what's an air force for if it can't take out even a deep facility?)

Sixth, start a crash program in alternative fuels, and get prepared for gas and oil rationing until those fuels come on line. Tell Halliburton to go to hell and get some honest, competent businesses to do it.

Seventh, redeploy the American troops to secure positions inside or outside of Iraq, so they can be protected from local or Iranian retaliation, in case we have to act against Iran. Quit running up and down the streets and highways of Iraq triggering IED's and ambushes that kill our troops.

Eighth, if the Iranians pass the point of no return, shut up and destroy their facilities.

Ninth, get your collaborator to explain the facts that required the strikes; and don't smirk.

Tenth, shut up about enforcing the non-proliferation treaty. You already broke it with India.

Some of these things would be public actions that would be accurately perceived by all. Since we haven't seen any such actions from you, Mr. President, we know you are not serious about stopping the Iranian threat.

Looks Like Bush Threw in the Towel on Iran

2006-08-31T17:43:00.000-04:00

Today, President Bush announced: (1) "There must be consequences" for Iran's continuing uranium enrichment and (2) "Iran must not be allowed" to develop nuclear weapons.

Compared to the recent incandescent fulminations from members and colleagues of his administration, this was pretty tame--nothing about a pre-emptive strike, or a destruction of Iranian infrastructure, or an invasion. He's almost saying that as long as we can say that there have been some kinds of sanctions, however tame, and as long as Iran doesn't actually go through with the development of nuclear weapons, then he will declare victory and walk away. Enrichment of uranium is no longer a provocation to war, only an occasion for a good faith symbolic sanction effort (not enough even to provoke Iran to stop shipping oil, which would cripple the world economy). And as long as they don't actually develop a weapon, we won't have to "stop" (read "bomb") anything.

If this is the administration's actual position, then it suggests the adults in the administration have gained the upper hand, perhaps more for economic reasons than for reasons of sound foreign policy or international law. The hard choices on Iran are, like the Iraq question, being bequeathed to the next administration.

If this is not what the administration is doing, i.e. if they are using today's speech to mask their war preparations, and they actually intend to strike Iran soon, then the disaster we all will inherit will make Iraq look like a Sunday school picnic, and make today's speech the final show piece for how truly evil an American government can be.

The Duty of Democrats: (or What Does Bob Reich Have to Hide?)

2006-08-24T13:32:00.000-04:00

So shocking and misguided is Bob Reich's latest "advice to Democrats" that it raises the question of his own integrity. In essence, he advises that if Democrats do gain a majority in either house, they should "resist the temptation" to conduct investigations of the administration and its behavior.

In actual fact, if Democrats are elected it will be precisely because the public wants just that--accountability for the reckless violence, lawbreaking, and greed that has characterized this administration's behavior. Phony pretensions to statesmanship are not the voters' motives; truth is their motive. Not to expose the full truth of the administration's behavior is to become overtly complicit in them. Advocating that they not be exposed is explainable only by fear of their exposure.

(Incidentally, guilt for such complicity--i.e. for passively accepting what others have done to abuse innocent people--is a strong Christian teaching, e.g. when Jesus condemned the Pharisees for "allowing" the misdeeds of prior generations; viz. Luke 11:48.)

Bob, the Democratic voters of Massachusetts have already rejected your "statesmanship." Now you risk being perceived as one who fears personal embarrassment if the misdeeds of the Bush administration are revealed in their full scope. Say it ain't so.

Democrats, for God's sake and the sake of this nation, don't listen to Bob.

And in the larger strategic sense, we need to remember the inttegration of the American West in the latter half of the 19th century, recognizing that such integration will change us in addition to changing those integrated, and understanding that this historical process will be bloody around the margins.

I realize that whenever I evoke the settling of the American West, some knees automatically jerk with the assumption that genocide is somehow the argument. Reducing that complex historical process to just that angle is certainly self-righteous, but it's ultimately diverting.

America's westward expansion was, much like globalization, an integrating and disintegrating process. It reformatted the land from one civilization into another, and because of the strong disjuncture between those civilizations, it resulted in genocidal conflicts, but likewise intense infrastructural networking, state building, and the extension of political rule. It was imposed out of a sense of destiny that was as much justified as it was unjust. It was simply unstoppable, bloody, nasty and ultimately settling.

Now, some in the West assume that the disjunctures between Islam and what I call the Functioning Core of globalization are equally great as that presented by America's westward expansion--thus genocidal wars are inevitable.
I think that's a bad misreading of the region and Islam in general.

Rule-Sets and Old Words

2006-08-21T11:12:00.000-04:00

Despite a rather inappropriate reputation from some quarters, I actually admire Tom Barnett's work... just as I admire Robb's and Lind's work, and the posts of Zenpundit, Wiggins, Purpleslog, Curtis Gale Weeks, and others. Very interesting stuff these folks post about.

But there is something I don't understand about these very talented thinkers. They constantly use the term "rule-sets". Barnett's glossary on his site even contains a definition: a collection of rules that delineates how some activity normally unfolds.

This is borrowed from the programming term, I assume. But I simply don't understand how these writers use the term.

They apply the term "rule-sets" to all manner of political, social, moral, and even economic decision making processes. I can't help but wonder, why use a new word when we've used the same word for such things quite well for quite some time now?

Custom. Course of trade. Convention. Law.

Are these not suitably defined words? Don't they do a better of job of precisely identifying which "rule-set" one is talking about than merely saying "rule-set"?

It seems to me that the generic "rule-set" is actually quite ambiguous. And the latent ambiguity in the term leads to much mischief. For example, Tom Barnett talks about governments switching rule-sets from peacetime to wartime. As if somehow a certain light goes off, or on, when a government decides it is "at war". This is a very convenient way of understanding a very complex mechanism. One might easily object to such a simplistic view on the basis that "government" doesn't go to war at all, but that "people" do. As such, figuring out the rule-sets which "government" uses is only going to lead one down a very dark and ultimately unenlightening path. What matters are minds.

In other words "rule-sets" are a very general sort of thing. So general in fact I question whether or not the study of them can be properly scientific, or is it merely mythological?

To be sure, certain laws are passed and certain contingencies go into effect whenever the people of a nation consider themselves to be at war. But other laws stay the same. Other lights stay on. And besides, what the "government" decides to do pales in comparison to what individuals decide to do.

That is, there are customary ways which different countries follow on their way to war. People do certain things be they: symbolic, superstitious, economic, physiological, or even spiritual in order to signify to themselves and others that they are "at war". These are customs. The customs of fighting. They are not a part of the government's "rule-set" for "wartime." Instead, they exist apriori legalistic declarations.

Another example, course of trade, is illustrative. When "wartime" occurs certain trading becomes "taboo". Other trading becomes enormously profitable. And the customs which tacitly govern merchants, exporters and importers, shippers and customers, all reform themselves into an unwritten code of wartime trade. The habits of these business people are again circumscribed apriori wartime codes.

Getting these confused, in my mind, does much more harm than good. The "doctrine of preemption" and the "Patriot Act" may be "rule-sets" but that isn't saying much about them. One is executive made law (fiat), the other duly enacted legislation (positive), both are laws. But one is exceptionally more powerful than the other and missing that is missing a lot.

A Little Truth with our Politics

2006-08-18T21:44:00.000-04:00

Or at least, from our politicians.

One of the immune responses terrorists are not anticipating is greater local and individual autonomy when it comes public safety. I've blogged about this in the context of the Bombay bombing aftermath.

Autonomy of course is nothing unless it is used.

Naturally, the response to any exploited weakness in the social complex is for society to empower nearby agents to ward off the next attempt at exploitation. Just as it is natural for society in these situations to collectively "heal".

This is to say that in response to danger, real or merely perceived, the individual's autonomy in our social and legal systems is at its apex.

For example, in America, under certain conditions, you may use lethal force if the threat is grave enough. This is our custom.

From this the courts, legislators, and executives have reasoned that when the country as a whole operates under an imminent threat of danger, the country's executive power is at its apex.

A conflict arises here however when the executive power interferes with the individual's. Or rather, when the targets are confused.

If "our country" is under a threat as great as the Nazi threat of WW-II, as some politicans have recently implied, then it would make no sense to curtail the executive branch. A threat level like that of WW-II is existential. The very being "America" was put in jeopardy should Hitler have taken Britain.

However, if "our country" is not under a similarly grave threat of annihilation, but instead Americans, as individuals, are under individual threats of annihilation, it would make sense to assume that the individual autonomy, rather than the governmental, should be at its height.

As I stated at the outset, the tactics of terrorists assume Americans will hide behind their government in order to continue to live their blessed lives in as much peace as possible. Fear is particularly powerful where the individuals you are scaring believe they are powerless. After fighting and winning the Cold War in just such a state of relative blissful peace, this paradigm is familiar to Americans as a whole. Our "country" faced annihilation, and we gave up our local autonomy in order for the nation to preserve "itself". The tactics of our enemy suggest they see this as a preeminent weakness, and they will continue to exploit it until a corrective response is generated.

Any knowledge, worthy of its name, can and should be reduced to slogan. Here is the slogan of this post...

Smokey Says: Only YOU can prevent terrorism.

Israel and USA: Losers Together

2006-08-14T10:44:00.000-04:00

As is clear to objective observers (including an unexpectedly large segment of Israeli public opinion), the terms of the UN resolution have essentially ratified the defeat of Israel in Lebanon. Forget the illegal premise of the war, or its illegal conduct; the bigger problem is that we and the Israelis lost.

Hezbollah was not defeated or disarmed and will probably become an integral part of the Lebanese army. Lebanon is now united--as never before--in favor of Hezbollah and against both Israel and the US. Arab moderation is evaporating. The US once more is exposed as a pitiful toothless tiger; its president, as both irrational and irresolute.

"Gonna work with our friends in Israel. See, they'll wipe up those HisBoluses in a few days, and then we can come in and do a ceasefire. See, they get to kick the HisBolus's ass and we'll still come off as peacemakers. Then we can go wipe out the Eye-Rain-ians the same way."

Didn't work. Probably might want to think twice before trying it on Iran, too.

Some Thoughtful Analysis from Robb

2006-08-10T10:49:00.000-04:00

Robb's latest post at Global Guerrillas is very well put ("It's Not Too Late for Israel"), very thoughtful (as always), and has the benefit of being quite concise as well. Do read it in its entirety.

There is, in my opinion, a deep conflict arising within the IDF and Israel as a whole. The camps are split between: a) full scale ground invasion in order to seize enough ground to push Hizbullah back beyond the launch envelope and b) effects based-like operations in order to eliminate Hizbullah's operational basis.

Robb's post hits on several keys, pointing out a middle path is required between the two camps as I've framed them above.

In a world where the state is growing weaker, our victory can easily destroy the enemy state itself, not merely bring about “regime change.” If this happens, it may prove difficult or impossible for us or for anyone to re‑create a state. The result will then be the emergence of another stateless region, which is greatly to the advantage of Fourth Generation entities. As is so easy in the Fourth Generation, we will have lost by winning. Therefore, we must learn how to preserve enemy states at the same time that we defeat them.

(quoting from the Fourth Generation Seminar's own FMFM 1-A).

This is the central problem with Israel right now, they never wanted this war because in their mind they had won. But by winning, they lost. This is a Hegelian moment to be sure. They failed to "preserve" a state in Lebanon strong enough to challenge Hizbullah's violence.

Originally, the stopper in the vacuum of power was Syria (not much of a stopper), but over time this too become sucked away in the blackhole of what Robb terms "open source warfare."

So now Israel is likely to attempt a full scale ground invasion, challenging Hizbullah's violence, and pushing them back behind the Litani river (query whether this is beyond the launch envelope for their newest weaponry or not?).

Yet, as the document Robb quotes extensively from points out, this is not exactly the way to go (it could be, of course, depending on their force mix, but early returns say the mix is too heavy). Here Robb points out:

Light infantry is the best counter to irregulars because it offers... First, good light infantry (unless badly outnumbered) can usually defeat almost any force of irregulars it is likely to meet. It can do this in a “man to man” fight that avoids the “Goliath” image. If the light infantry does not load itself too heavily with arms and equipment, it can enjoy the same mobility as the irregulars (enhanced, as necessary by helicopters or attached motor vehicles). Second, when it uses force, light infantry can be far more discriminating than other combat arms and better avoid collateral damage. This is critically important at both the mental and moral levels.

Robb himself notes:

Israel's only chance to reverse this situation and win (which will be at most a limited victory, given previous blunders) in this war is to fully embrace the light infantry approach and fight this at close quarters. This means sending the tanks back to the sheds, slowing down the air campaign (limiting it to counter-battery fire), and reducing the infantry's dependence of tactical firepower support. Further, all efforts that destabilize the Lebanese state should be reversed.

A9 readers will no doubt note I've noted similar tactical preferences here before. However, I also believe the "light infantry" approach advocated here is capable of some significant refinement.

Light infantry alone will not convince Hizbullah they are beaten. All it will convince them of is that Israel has decided to fight like men.

The short-term consequence of a return to light infantry engagement is to rally Hizbullah's base. You can see the soft, half-smiles on the grizzled faces of Hizbullah's most hardened fighters: "now they fight us on our terms."

In a nutshell, this is the knife's edge between imperliasm and colonialism. Imperialism just sends the Armada to float off the coast and maybe fire a few canons here and there in order to scare the natives back into peaceful acquiesence. Colonialism, however, sends the troops into villages and torches them.

That is: Air power v. grunts or: McClellan v. Sherman or for the Kantian crowd: Power v. Murder.

Again, the Hegelian balance here should be clear enough and the opportunity for even a limited light infantry approach to devolve into a host of still more unintended consequences after the "victory" should also be readily apparent.

Roaming bands of light infantry will be met by the steel of all hardened Hizbullah veterans as well as the steel of the youth of Lebanon, Syria, and many others. As the veterans smile, the youth will rejoice. Rumor will spread. Hopes will be raised. Sure, the battles will roll up in favor of Israel, but the myth of Hizbullah and resistance will inflate the resistance worldwide.

In my opinion, light infantry alone is insufficient. Just as carpet bombing alone is insufficient for a successful air campaign. The enemy will not be disoriented by Israel's change in tactics, they will be thrilled.

Alexander was a ruthless general. He was rumored to have teams of assassins working with his army. They would poison the drinking water of the finest combatants on the other side. Or slip into their tents at night and dagger them in their sleep.

Undoubtedly, this was mostly legend. But it is an important legend. Leaders and fine warriors were afraid of the unknown when fighting with Alexander. They were disoriented. They were scared, more than usual, of death. And this made them uncomfortable in battle.

We must get serious about disorienting and disrupting the tribal hierarchies. They exist even though they are hard to pinpoint or even identify. I'm speaking about their unwritten codes and pecking orders. Their moral, spiritual, and physical rankings are what we can use to upend them. In much the same way good cops disrupt gangs by playing on these social characteristics, we must do the same.

Of course, we can't merely go and put the chief of a small gang in a police cruiser while he's out for a night on the town, thereby embarrassing him and reinforcing the impression that even he answers to the law just like everyone else. But we can resort to the type of tactics Alexander was rumored to use.

Light infantry attacks limit the field of battle, which is good considering the toll expansion of the field of battle has recently taken on Israel's moral fight. But they also limit the field of battle too much if we simply engage the enemy on their terms alone.

Indeed, I fear such a course of action would only harden the resistance for the next few years while bleeding Israel dry.

It may sound like dirty pool to a lot of you, but this is a dirty business... Israel needs to hire teams of assassins, and make the use of them notorious. Some may forget, they once were.

Indeed, in my opinion, killing militia leaders in their homes, in their beds, at night, with no warning, is the only way to turn newly recruited irregular fighters back into disenchanted civilians. Once you start that process, and only until you start that process, will you see the tide starting to turn in this very long of wars.

Israel's Leaders are Cowards

2006-08-06T18:52:00.000-04:00

That's why they have taken the easy, but ineffective, way out by trying to defuse Hezbollah rockets by bombing them. If the last half of the twentieth century taught anything, it is that you can't win a war with surgical air strikes; you can only win by sending troops (a lot more than your adversary has) to do the patient and dangerous work of clearing the enemy from every house and hole-in-the-ground in the territory you invade.

I was encouraged for Israel when I heard a few days ago that the Israeli cabinet had approved a larger ground assault--but obviously that was deceptive. They have a half a million troops but have so far committed only a few thousand, arguably not significantly more than Hezbollah has on the ground.

They are cowards. Not their soldiers, or even their air force--but their leadership. For them, the errant bombs (and when you're killing birds with bombs, then all bombs are errant) are better than Viagra--a reassurance of their potency punctuated and reinforced by the howls and screams of their victims, not women only but also children.

Israeli civilians pay the price for their leaders' cowardice, continued rocket attacks bringing death and destruction to a population that depended on its leaders to protect them.

Come to think of it the Israeli leadership is a lot like the American--old men who've lost their influence and try to regain it by cheap wars. Trouble is, it doesn't work.

What Israel Isn't Doing

2006-07-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

Ralph Peters is starting to write the obituary for the IDF in his latest column. While I think it is a tad premature to wave any white flags, the strategy Israel wanted to execute, compared to the strategy they did execute, has left the latter wanting.

Peters boldly charges Olmert with wanting to "wage war on the cheap." Ralph compares this to Bill Clinton which is fair, but I suppose a more contemporary example would have been equally sufficient, though of course, that is all beside the point.

The point here is to realize that democracies don't like casualties. You can't change that. They especially don't like them when the war is not romantic, when it is fought close to home, and when it involves the destruction of another democracy.

But there are ways around this. And for some reason, the West, Israel, and all "New Core" like nations who are trying desperately to get a handle on terrorism within their own borders are failing magnificently at coming up with solutions.

Before we can come up with solutions, we have to realize our mistakes of course. And as noted above, it is a big mistake to think that Western styled democracies will endure casualties in large number. So therefore, waging a battle which can only be won through the suffering of a large number of casualties is not a good strategy. It's like saying: "our fans came here to watch a baseball game, but we're so much better at cricket." Do that one too many times and you run out of fans, believe me!

So here are some suggestions: don't suffer any casualties. Pay for someone else to suffer them. Private military contractors can and probably should fill the void where democracies don't want to fight. They have the capability to run in quickly, hit camps efficiently, bring intense power to bear on a small locale, and at the end of the day, kill terrorists with bullets. They don't want to lose anyone, but they are also not going to fail the mission if they can help it.

Let's save our blood for the big battles, and pay for someone else's in the interim. I know that sounds crass, but the rate of casualty for Israel in a successful operation in Southern Lebanon is on the hundreds. The rate of professional forces on the other hand, would probably be a little less, and for the political capital saved by using them, you'd come away with a nice profit on the whole. Call it proprietary personnel arbitrage if you will.

Next, go back to the common law to police things within contact to your jurisdiction. Israeli common law exists, though it doesn't have nearly the same power as it does here in the US or in the UK for that matter. Raise a hue and cry, deputize a posse, and round up the bad guys on or near your border... as you have a legal right to do.

I'll post more on the hue and cry later in the week, but it is a legal strategy I'm surprised no one has ventured a hypothesis on as of yet. For a long time border raids were a near constant in American frontier life, and the common law gave these raiders the case specific privilege needed to effectuate localized change. That is the only way to get this done without a full scale occupation.

In short, use the tools at your disposal which will avoid the regular military casualties that your public will not allow you to suffer (and for good reason, in my humble opinion). We might be surprised at the results of such methods (then and now).

The Better Barnett

2006-07-23T18:38:00.000-04:00

I took a little heat for a post of mine which criticised aspects of the Barnett hypothesis. All well and good, and from my view, enjoyable.

But let me laud Dr. Barnett as well from time to time. There is a "better" side of him in my opinion, one which sometimes gets lost in the seemingly frenetic shuffle he makes day to day.

This post of his is the better Barnett. Indeed, it is Barnett at his best. I'll quote the relevant portion:

Now, Gingrich, among others, are reviving the talk of WWIII that a lot of excited pundits were tossing about right after 9/11.
I consider this approach to be as wrongheaded as the End Times thinking: it's a form of escapism that turns the definition of war on its head.

All true, well formulated, and timely. Tom goes on to describe a list of dispostive factors weighing against the WW-III analogy. The most central issue is easily overlooked:

Fourth, the scale here is all wrong. Not just the tiny percentages of combatants, but the tiny amounts of death. This whole "world war" since 9/11 hasn't yielded a good week's worth of WWII dead.

Exactly. Easy to skip this point as some sort of bravado, but that's what makes it all the more true. We fought glorious wars, and this ain't one of them. A commander who misses the place the battle "shall be fought" is someone who will most likely end up captured. WW-III is not the battlefield here, long, grueling, tedious raids and counters are the battlefield. A nation that mobilizes itself for a massive D-Day styled invasion is a nation two steps away from being held hostage.

This is Barnett at his best. Plain, simple, and stimulating.

Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't point the subtle (though direct) similarities between my earlier criticism and what Barnett views as a suitable analogy. He argues the "Long War" where are in is akin to the settling of the West...

I'm pushing the far longer concept (I'm a big believer of Abizaid's Long War concept) of the settling of the Wild West.

Or if you want to be real precise, more like the settling of the East. I agree with Tom, and it appears, he agrees with me. The question remaining is whether or not America is ready for the Wild West again.

The Anti-Lochner

2006-07-20T09:22:00.000-04:00

With these words (and a few others of course!):

Some of these laws embody convictions or prejudices which judges are likely to share. Some may not. But a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the state or of laissez faire. It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar, or novel, and even shocking, ought not to conclude our judgment upon the questions whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).

Holmes provided the spark which would slowly ignite and cause the legal realist movement. It was a dissent of course. Let's not forget that.

But a lot about his dissent has been overlooked. Especially the apparent role played by functionalism in the jurisprudence of Holmes. Compare the above quote with the following...

The logical stickler for justice always seems pedantic and mechanical to the man who goes by tact and the particular instance, and who usually makes a poor show at argument. Sometimes the abstract conceiver’s way is better, sometimes that of the man of instinct. But just as in our study of reasoning we found it impossible to lay down any mark whereby to distinguish right conception of a concrete case from confusion, so here we can give no general rule for deciding when it is morally useful to treat a concrete case as sui generis, and when to lump with others in an abstract class… Suffice it that these judgments express inner harmonies and discords between objects of thought; and that whilst outer cohesions frequently repeated will often seem harmonious, all harmonies are not thus engendered… [emphasis in original.] [William James, The Principles of Psychology, (Hutchins, ed., reprinted 1952) (1890)]

Here, James analyzes moral judgment through the lens of then nascent functionalist psychology. Where Holmes saw such coincidence as accidental, James saw it as arbitrary, and vice versa throughout both texts. For Holmes the slogan is: "every opinion tends to become law." For James, the similar slogan: "A thing is important if anyone think it important."

What does this mean? Well, it might mean that much of the jurisprudence in the 20th century of America could well parallel the same movements experienced in contemporary psychology . It might also mean we can probably predict how the law will continue to unfold in the next century, as we look to psychological developments as bellweathers.

But at the end of the day, it probably definitely means that the impact of Williams James on the world was bigger than first thought. He seems to have been a little more than just a friend of Justice Holmes.

A Question for the A9 Audience

2006-07-20T09:20:00.000-04:00

Attention all A9 readers, just curious how well a certain paper might be received here and looking for your feedback, appreciative in advance...

If I used the term "information cost theory" what would you think I meant?

Robb's Read

2006-07-17T16:39:00.000-04:00

Robb points out a key to Hizbullah's strength:

They [Hizbullah] are as happy to fight under occupation as they are to rule temporary autonomous zones in Lebanon (same goes for Hamas). Their primary loyalties are actually strengthened under occupation, unlike a state that requires territorial control, a conventional military, and a functional economy for legitimacy. Defeating them conventionally won't matter. They will merely move to guerrilla warfare.

Which is why for myself, and many other watchers of the conflict I've conversed with over the last 48 hours, it seems like Hizbullah's (and by implication, Iran's) goal here is to bog down Israel into guerrilla warfare in Southern Lebanon (and if they can get Hamas to play likewise, all the better to tie them with strings in Gaza as well).

With the US already on overload in Iraq, sucking Israel into a reoccupation plays to the strength of "the resistance"... more importantly, it puts Iran firmly in control of the timetable for the next 6-8 months. That's why the recent Ghajar actions (though predictable) are at least worrisome. Israel's reaction was completely known, and the test run of this back in 12/2005 provided the color to Hizbullah and Iran.

I don't see the US and Israel doing anything other than flying on a rather disorganized auto-pilot at this point. They aren't setting the terms, and if the playbook isn't quickly changed, Iran will be holding yet another face card.

Made in China

2006-07-17T16:27:00.000-04:00

Lots of stuff is made in China these days. My favorite computers, the laptops from Apple, are proudly made in China. The socks I'm wearing, both of them boast a made in China style. Indeed, it's hard to look around anywhere today and not see something that was made in China.

That goes for those of you in Haifa currently examining the holes in the roof of your train depot. As well as the those of you at Lake Tiberius wondering what caused that fire and smoke. And of course, sadly and seriously, it goes for all those survivors who have lost loved ones in Israel over the last few days, especially those of you who lost loved ones on the Israeli warship hit by missles off the coast of Lebanon.

Hizbullah's new toys, their SAM-7s, their 333mm rockets, their C 802 missles, all probably were sent from Iran on their way to Lebanon, which is itself an act of aggression by Iran... but don't forget, all these toys were also made in China.

Worst Post Ever

2006-07-17T16:21:00.000-04:00

Of all the hairbrained, stupid, idiotic things ever said. Of all the selfishly silly, sycophantic, simpleton comments ever made. This has to be the worst...

It's clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting.

Is it now? Seems to me that whats clear is that, at Daily Kos, there's some explaining to do.

Achilles Heel of Non-State Actors

2006-07-17T16:00:00.000-04:00

This isn't my theory, but the person who argued it just now (quite effectively) won't blog on it. So, here goes...

The soft spot of non-state actors (i.e. outlaws) is that they are outlaws, therefore private citizens, therefore without any state sovereignty to run behind should they be sued in tort. Hmm....

Further, the argument goes, the soft spot of certain undesirable states is that they employ private citizens to do their dirty work (i.e. state sponsored terrorism) in order to avoid international opprobrium, and so can be said to have waived their immunity. Double hmm....

If trading partners would tailor their tort laws to respect certain common law rights of action against private citizens, then, complaints a plenty, many a judgment, some whopping liens, and quite a few levies would be certain to follow.

I believe this strategy is being tried (in some sense) in this case, and I call it the "that's it, send in the lawyers" tactic.

Obviously there are some huge problems with the technique, especially in the feasability department. But there are some intriguing aspects to this. If this is truly a "Long War" the surest way to end it is to dry up the other side's capital assets. One time tested way of doing this is by running up their debt (afterall, they are doing it to us). Has anyone thought about what would happen to countries who are essentially debt free if suddenly they had to, for example, start running a 0.5% GDP deficit?

Bombay Bombing and Antibodies

2006-07-13T21:41:00.000-04:00

It will always be Bombay to me... so much for that. I've been slowly digesting the news about the train bombings in Bombay, as well as some rather insightful analysis here and here as well.

I must admit, those who can so quickly analyze these events in a dispassionate and objective frame of mind are people I truly admire. I'm typically on autopilot for the first few weeks after something like this happens. All instinctual, not very intelligent I freely concede.

But piecing together what I can from news accounts, analysis, and other sources of information, I'm struck by a couple of things.

(1) The bombers could not have gone after a more unprepared, overcrowded, inept target. The police in India are pathetic. Their resources scarce. Their capability to counter and foil plots like these is almost non-existent.

(2) The rate of change from utterly useless to somewhat meaningful presence in the police force in Bombay has been staggering. As if overnight, the police and other domestic security forces in India have started to cooperate, burning the midnight oil, getting things done.

(3) Stories of the "poor" in Bombay helping out (like this one for example), indeed in some instances acting as first responders in America, are not only widespread, but the stuff of legend. Inspiration will be found from these, and it will bring an otherwise deeply separated community more together than before.

(4) The people of Bombay appear to have given up completely on their domestic security forces and as a result, are taking many matters into their own hands. They are searching platforms now, looking in bins, under railtracks, etc.

I can't draw too many conclusions from these observations, like I said, my head still isn't really that cool. However, if I were a doctor, and able to give cold, dispassionate diagnosis, I would say these observations are evidence of some type of disease fighting mechanism, and if we allow it to catalyze, it just might kill this ailment off.

I'm equally struck by how many of these trends were present after 9/11 in America, and how few of them are present outside NYC in America today.

UPDATE: I stupidly forgot to link to Mark's post over at Zenpundit, which was equally insightful but having the benefit of piecing all others together. He's also recently posted a comment over here, which I commend to everyone's attention but that I also hope a certain A9 commenter will take a look at when he has the time... nudge, nudge, wink to Smith.

Also, in general, I've received some email from regular commenters here asking about Zenpundit, Robb's site, tdaxp, PurpleSlog and others. There is a certain cross-referential culture between all these blogs (and several more), and they are all excellent. I can't endorse one over the other, but can say without a doubt that each of these writers puts a good deal of thought into what they write about and it shows. Bookmark them!

What Brand of Christianity is That?

2006-07-13T11:28:00.000-04:00

I usually don't interfere with the hows and whys of final tributes. Good rhetoric, regardless of it's veracity, can still be pleasing. But there are exceptions... From the funeral of Ken Lay, a man of the cloth had this to say:

"He reached out to touch many people from many backgrounds ... many economic levels ... that included minorities like me."
"Ken Lay was neither black nor poor, but I'm angry because Ken Lay was a victim of a lynching."
"The folks who don't like him have had their say. I'd like to have mine ... (Like Jesus Christ) he was crucified by a government that mistreated him."

Rage

2006-07-11T09:03:00.000-04:00

If someone called you the "son of a terrorist whore", what should you do?

Would you feel bad if the response was this?

Or would you not really give a shit? More here.

UPDATE: It seems blogger didn't like my Greek. Let me try again...

menin aeide thea peleiadeo achileos

Westport, CT

2006-07-10T09:08:00.000-04:00

It used to be that one side of Westport was all mostly new homes. Sometimes referred to as "Greens Farms", it's the side where Martha Stewart and other Johnny Come Lately types reside. Gigantic Nantucket or New England Farmhouse style homes with as little aesthetic appeal as modesty.

Now though, all the old sections, including my beloved Old Hill, have become carbon copies of the incessant drive to build bigger, more grandiose, more four car garaged homes.

Generally, I don't care about such things. People want to spend a million dollars just to rip down an old lakehouse so they can spend another million building a McMansion, that's fine, their business, their money.

But at a certain point, the scale becomes so overwhelming... Half acre lots weren't meant for 8,000 square foot homes. And if you put one on such a lot, you need to do it carefully.

Little towns like Westport, whose value is found in its beauty, not its size, will find that they quickly lose their appeal with just a few small errors. As for me, I'm already looking for the next border town between New England and New York, Westport has been consumed.

Kosola Story

2006-06-25T22:11:00.000-04:00

I've stayed away from the Kosola story mainly because I pretty much knew about it all quite some time ago, and figured everyone else did too. Tim Russo, a former guest blogger here (though appears to have hung up his hat for awhile), had gone into most of the details people are now all a buzz about.

But I hadn't seen the government complaint against Jerome Armstrong. He was a pumper and dumper apparently during the dotcom boom. When you actually read the government's complaint, you'll no doubt find it sort of boring... unless of course, you were one of the hundreds of thousands of people out there that had a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears caught up in the net business during those days. And perhaps you were one of those people who lost a great deal of money because people were paid to lie to you about a stock's worth. Yeah, you were stupid, but you were also innocent, being taking advantage of, all while they walked away with golden shorts.

What Jerome Armstrong did in the BluePoint pump and dump scam was only different from what Ken Lay did at Enron by a few degrees. Liberal bloggers quick to jump to Jerome's defense shouldn't forget that. And if Jerome and Markos are trying to BluePoint the Democratic party, they wouldn't be the first. Not really news, just a reminder.

(iii) What is Taught By Liberal Education?

2006-06-15T16:11:00.000-04:00

Some A9 readers emailed me why I have given up the Liberal Education Series (parts one and two)? Not true. In fact, I was eagerly anticipating Eva Brann's latest essay: A College Unique and Universal. A little bird had tipped me off it was in the works when I had posted my latest on liberal education, and I'm glad I waited to post again on this until I had a chance to review it. A wonderfully written piece, as is typical of Eva. There is so much here to write about, I will attempt to limit my comments on this post to just one particular aspect. What is it that a liberal educator "teaches" (the term itself is oxymoronic for liberal learners)?

After going on at some length about how a liberal educator helps students learn, Eva sums it all up a wonderful phrase.

So we tutors at St. John's believe - all of us most of the time - in directness and immediacy; we put nothing between ourselves and the reading and behave as if every one of our books was indeed an open book to our students. I call this the "a cat may look at a king" principle - these royal books were written for us, the willing laity.

A College Unique and Universal, pg. 18.

Indeed. This is the American principle which Eva turns into a memorable phrase. No more precise an explanation of our jurisprudence, our morals, and our constitution (small c) has ever been made. It is something we forget in today's world of dark windowed limousines, fenced off free speech zones, private jet excursions, and closed session meetings. Now onto the substance of liberal education. While initially trying to get away from the far too easy tag of "Great books" Brann relents:

I think it is hard to get away from the Great Books designation for the simple reason that "greatness" has real sifnificance for us. It is the criterion by which we have chosen our hundred-plus works-based in part on these millienia-old lists.

Here are some of these crieria: Greantess shous up as inexhuastibility. [...]

Second, these works are pretty self-sufficient. Writers of stature strive to be as context-independent as they can be. [Ed. note: interesting that so many bloggers strive for exactly the opposite isn't it?] They tell you what you need to know to understand them. Good editions with pertinent notes will do the rest.

Third, and most telling, these books are original in two senses. They are often the earliest version of something new that will sweep the world, when it was still close to its roots in common experience and accesssible to lay people. And they are original in the sense of being charactersistic, of bearing the stamp of their author's personality - not only their personal crotchets and idiosyncrasies, but their peculiar ways of reaching depths.

Fourth, these works are infinitely artful, bold and subtle, beautiful by design or ugly on purpose. These authors are masters of the liberal arts that are a large part our Program.

Fifth and finally for present purposes, the works, though their message may sometimes be dismal and dark, are not themselves dreary or depresing but grand and redemptive. We have a sense that this four-year gift of semi-adult freedom that parents make to their children would not be spent on mediocre documents of societal problems and their academic solutions - the world will soon teach all that - but on the deepest, most exhiliarating exemplars of human achievement. The principle here is: First have acquantaince with the best, then face the worst.

[Emphasis mine] Id. at 21-23.

Liberal education helps the learner's soul experience greatness. It seems that simple. I know a great many people, myself included, who believe they experienced a liberal education. But was what we experienced greatness in any sense? Did we view master artworks? Listen to master symphonies? Read master poets? Or did we instead learn about all the greatness through the filter of a professor - someone whose very title is an obstacle to learning - and a professor's favorite "critiques"?

And of course, Brann concedes that the listing of a set program of books that students will read directly is of course elitist. But "so what" seems to be her attitude. Know the best, then face the worst. That sounds like both practical and theoretical wisdom. So what if learning from great works of art is elitist, is it bad to experience greatness or is it necessary? And to those who would argue there is no body of elite works, they miss the point (if they are being honest). Surely no one would deny that Bach's St. Matthew's Passion is one of the greatest musical works ever made. Maybe not the very best, but certainly on anyone's top 100 of all time. That is the point, learning from the best means learning from the greats.

Moreover, and this is me talking not Eva (I'm sure she would bristle at the following notion) but how often is it that we find today circling in the halls of justice, or the surgery room, or the war cabinet even, the most philistine of people? In these grand and powerful places often sits a dangerous sort of recluse, one incapable not only of senstitivity, but of even tolerance or mere appreciation for the things of another. Thieves in suits. I myself have seen such absence of refinement throughout both parties, in the highest offices in government, and of course we all know about Justice Thomas and his Coca-Cola cans.

Decency, civility, these are the building blocks of honor and discipline. And of course, without a culture of honor and discipline, accountability and respectability are soon to suffer. Those who we entrust to guard our Republic are often the bellweathers of such drought. So what if its considered old fashioned? I'm often told manners and gracefulness are old fashioned, and yet they never seem to go out of style. And when we surround ourselves with greatness, with great workers, with great works, can we not but hope some of it rubs off? Can we not help but feel inspired when we hear the works of Palestrina, when we read the works of Shakespeare, when we discuss the Gospel in a free and open format? Is this not communing with the immortals?

Another way of phrasing this would be: It all starts at the top. Or as He once intimated: do not cast your pearls amongst swine. Every American has a pearl, and it should not be cast amongst an education built upon forgetful mediocrity or academic abstruseness. In my next post, I will continue to discuss other aspects of Brann's latest essay.

Modern Day Misanthropes

2006-06-14T14:27:00.000-04:00

That's my new name for inflation deniers. Recently I've had some meetings with several of them. Some so slippery they almost won't even admit that inflation exists at all. And while the goal of today's inflation deniers appears to be primarily a "save the status quo" sort of goal, in truth, they simply hate humankind. They mistrust the basic principle of economic liberty upon which this country was founded, and instead, believe they are the ones who should determine how much of your personal fortune should be melted away by government fiat. I'd call them communists, but some of them would probably appreciate that, so I'll call them misanthropes.

Stefan Karlsson at the Mises Economic Blog has an interesting post on the latest strategy of inflation deniers: they are now proposing a "core" core inflation instead of just looking straight in the ugly face of today's CPI. While I think Stefan's previous article on the fallacy of "core" inflation misses the whole point, which of course is not that inflation ex food and energy is somehow more important, but mainly that inflation ex food and energy shows the rate of supply shock pass through into the broader economy, this quick article lands the hammer flush on the head.

Note of course, he again uses the same misleading bias, even though his overall point is well made. The higher rents are not merely a result of higher land prices and higher rates. While that's obviously a good chunk of it, the steepness or quick acceleration in rent prices (which is the real problem) is catalyzed by the quick acceleration in cost per unit rented. And there is where you see the nasty commodity picture take hold.

Anyway, another recommend from me. I've been busy, as it seems most of you have been as well, and I'll keep posting as time permits.

Indonesia's Bird Flu

2006-06-03T15:45:00.000-04:00

Some pretty serious developments over the last 24 hours.

Bandung, W Java (ANTARA News) - A 25-year old nurse identified by her initials as `Ci` is currently being treated at the Hasan Sadikin Hospital here for bird flu-like symptoms.

By the way, talk about a breach of patient fucking confidentiality! Can you imagine this happening here? "A 32 year old man working on the thirty second floor of the Mens Apparel Building has come down with syphilis. He prefers to remain anonymous but his initials are GLK." Jesus! This nurse is having hard enough time it seems, can't we let "her" (why even say the sex?) deal with this without having her name blasted all over the world? Ok, back to the story...

We could not confirm whether she is positive of having been infected by avian influenza virus or not, although she had earlier have contacts with siblings, 18-year old Ad and 10-year old Ai, who died of bird flu virus recently.

They also say she doesn't eat poultry, so it is likely that IF she has bird flu (which they haven't confirmed yet) she got it from the kids who died recently (that familial outbreak). This is an enormous deal for two reasons. First, the reported cases of human-human bird flu transmission have all been in cases of very intense, very close, very intimate human contact. The story only says she had "contacts" with the two bird flu victims, it doesn't say how intense or how prolonged those contacts were. Unfortunately, it sounds like they weren't very intense, and they weren't very long. This suggests some mutation.

Second, of the cases of earlier human-human bird flu transmission, almost every single one was with another family member. There was talk of a genetic trait which made one susceptible to such transmission. While the story doesn't rule out that she was a relative, it also doesn't state it, and I think if she were a relative (given their seeming unconcern for her privacy) they would have printed it. This also suggests some mutating.

Remember, we need to get the test results back. Having bird flu like symptoms and having bird flu are totally different things. But if a nurse has contracted it from an unrelated patient after not very prolonged contact, these tests are likely to reveal the virus is mutating.

The next big update is from Pamulang (outside Jakarta). A seven year old girl has died from bird flu, it now appears (though we're still awaiting confirmation). A couple of things about this case are troubling. First, she was taking Tamiflu before she died. This isn't such a huge deal since her parents also refused hospital admission, but it is nevertheless troubling. Second, her brother also recently died after showing flu like symptoms. He wasn't tested when he died though. This suggests that there is a second cluster.

Now I just checked Drudge's site and it looks like he is getting to run with a story talking about how there have been plenty of human-human transmissions of bird flu but no one has spoken about them before. That is simply untrue. We've known about human-human transmission for quite awhile, but no one was concerned because it was so isolated and almost exclusively a by-product of families living closely together. If he runs with that, he's full of shit (as usual). He's probably wanting to fan the flames of discontent against WHO. But of course, it is a mistake the media makes, not WHO, when stupid reporters quote a doctor and don't really understand what they are being told.

So let's recap, given that some misinformation is about to be dished. First, there have been numerous cases of human-human transmission. WHO has been upfront about that for quite some time. Just because Drudge and other lazy reporters can't be bothered to check the infectious disease communities around the web doesn't mean that WHO or other infectious disease scientists haven't been reporting this for a long while now.

The human transmissions have mostly been limited to family members. A new suspected case of bird flu appears likely to be a case of human-human transmission. This new suspected case is alarming in that there are no signs of familial relationship or prolonged contact. Another cluster of bird flu in Indonesia appears to have been discovered, and there may be human-human (brother to sister) transmission there as well. That's the bird flu update.

What the ?

2006-06-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

I've always loved this picture. Still do. It's one of the pictures I have in my slideshow for my screensaver. You'll note, it still shows the WTC. Some think that's morbid, but I like seeing them still there. Reminds of a better time...

Which is why this stuff, Via PurpleSlog, pisses me off. Apparently the reason the DHS reduced NYC's anti-terrorism budget was that it didn't really have any landmarks, and only had "four significant banking assets." That's how they describe the Big Apple folks. That's what they think of the financial capital of the world. What a bunch of nitwits. I join PurpleSlog... fire the bastards. Turning anti-terrorism funding into pork barrel politics is a high crime in my book. Throw out every single incumbent, every vestige of the current political class. They all must go. Then, replace them with the firefighters, subway operators, janitors, volunteers, school teachers, nurses, EMTs, and all the other civic minded folks we have running the day to day of this country and we'll probably save ourselves some money and some lives.

I've pasted some non-landmark, insignificant, not worthy of protection NYC landmarks... Hopefully many will recall that we were once told, during a presidential election notsofar away, that several of these non-landmark landmarks were on terrorist hitlists.

Says a lot that our current ruling political class doesn't think these are worth protecting, doesn't it? Look, they already destroyed one of the best landmarks ever achieved, how much more are we going to let them take from us?

Chicken Shit

2006-05-31T20:33:00.000-04:00

More on the human-human case of bird flu in Indonesia.

The initial case in the cluster was a 37-year-old woman who sold fruits and chillies at a market in the village of Tigapanah. Her stand was located about 15 metres away from a stand where live chickens were sold. The investigation uncovered no reports of poultry die-offs in the market. However, the woman kept a small number of backyard chickens, allowed into the house at night. Three of her chickens reportedly died before she became ill. She is also known to have used chicken faeces from these household chickens as fertilizer in her garden.

Again the culprit appears to be chicken feces as fertilizer. That's one hell of a vector. Good news is after multiple chances for the disease to spread to other non-family members, no spread is reported.

Jesus Christ

2006-05-29T20:32:00.000-04:00

Pope Benedict XIV travels to Poland.

Rain fell over Auschwitz until the main ceremony, when the skies cleared and a rainbow appeared.

The Pope said it was almost impossible, particularly for a German pope, to speak at "the place of the Shoah [Holocaust]".

"In a place like this words fail," he said. "In the end there can only be a dread silence, a silence which is a heartfelt cry to God: 'Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this'?

"Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?"

The Pope, one of the church's leading theologians, said humans could not "peer into God's mysterious plan" to understand such evil but only "cry out humbly yet insistently to God: 'Rouse yourself. Do not forget mankind, your creature'."

And of course, the eternal prophetic voice...

"But dost thou know what will be to-morrow? I know not who Thou art and care not to know whether it is Thou or only a semblance of Him, but to-morrow I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very people who have to-day kissed Thy feet, to-morrow at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap up the embers of Thy fire. Knowest Thou that? Yes, maybe Thou knowest it,' he added with thoughtful penetration, never for a moment taking his eyes off the Prisoner."

Indeed. Words do not fail.

Nixonomics

2006-05-23T20:47:00.000-04:00

John Robb points to this story, scoffing at the oil industry's "whining". But even though many of us can't stand some of the stupidity the oil industry has been engaged in lately, we should be clear about something. The House of Representatives is returning the country, full circle, to the days of Nixon and his rather, shall we say, "un"orthodox economic formulae.

George Bresiger over at Mises hits the ball out of the park with this post. All of this oil industry finger pointing, all of the spikes in inflation hedges, all of the criticisms against hedge funds, and the slow, steady drumbeat heard for more protectionism, more tariffs, more controls, are all a direct result of George W. Bush's economic policies... which for the most part, are the economic policies of Richard Milhous Nixon.

It is a long post, but I commend it to all A9 readers. The Mises blog, a favorite of A9 blogger Mitya K., always delivers exceptional work, but this essay is one of their best. I'll give some highlights below, but please, read the whole thing for yourself and let George know you appreciate his work.

The story of price controls begins, as it usually does, in wartime. A government can't pay the bills through direct taxation and tries inflation. Soon, its trading partners and some of its citizens realize what's happening and start dumping its currency. [...]

Inflation and unemployment started to become a problem, with both running at about five percent midway through Nixon's first term in 1970.

There was a run on the dollar as the federal government ran deficits. That was because it was paying for both the Vietnam War and the expanding welfare state by printing money. [...]

While there is always debate about the gold standard, few economists will disagree about the Nixon administration's wage and price controls. They were — as thousands of previous episodes with controls — a disaster. The stock market declined some 50 percent in an eighteen-month period of 1973-74.

Our nation was in a brutal recession through most of 1973-1975. But Nixon, and most of the incumbents in Congress who voted for increased spending, were re-elected. [...]
How did a "conservative Republican" administration give the nation wage and price controls? The Nixon administration — like the Bush administration today — was never fiscally conservative. [...]

We should also understand that Bush, like Nixon, cannot resist the political temptation of public-sector spending and various price controls to achieve short-term political goals. Bush, backed into a political corner, may well re-impose wage and price controls. [...]

Nixon's economic problems — like George Bush's — stemmed from his embrace of inflation as an economic cure-all. He increased state spending at the same time that he pressured the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to expand the money supply.

Like I said in the intro, this post links all the things you're seeing happening right now into a cohesive whole, with the benefit of being one of the simplest explanations available... To pay for war governments inflate the economy and steal what they need to afford their plans. It is a trick tried a thousand times. Shame on us for not throwing the entire federal government out of their jobs.

Barnett Bites Back?

2006-05-19T21:20:00.000-04:00

The amount of slams of Tom Barnett lately have increased in both their number and their precision. The consensus of the critique seems to be that Barnett's PNM thesis, and specifically CORE/GAP dichotomy fails the Iraq test. Whoda thunk?

Some bloggers have even gone so far as to argue that Barnett's theories are shrouded in a deliberate inattention to real world events in order to make it an easier sell. But we'll let those bloggers remain nameless at this point, though I know of at least three.

Barnett bites back today though, at least he shows his teeth to John Robb in this post. In the short jab, Barnett manages to get in:

... Robb straw-mans opposing views too often, reducing them to absurdity...
... Robb's being silly and mechanistic ...
... Robb is being rhetorically obtuse ...
... Robb prefers to fight straw-men ...
... This is very weak Robb today...
... He usually performs better ...

Somewhere in that post there is a criticism which deals with Robb's work, but I'm still looking. Of course, he should have stopped there, but Tom has an uncanny ability to say a little too much. Love to play poker with the guy at some point. He ends with this:

I find a lot of it has to do with your daily confidence level.

I'll call.

What Spreads Bird Flu?

2006-05-19T20:52:00.000-04:00

First let's backtrack. Over a year ago the wildbirds at Qinghai Lake were devastated by birdflu. This scared the piss out of everyone cause once you get this in migratory bird populations, you have a major problem.

But so far, this isn't what happend. The spread of bird flu so far has not correlated to any known migratory pattern. Instead, the outbreaks are centered around poultry farms, and major transport routes. Continued study seems to confirm the theory that the vectors for bird flu are commercial poultry products.

According to a well placed source I know, the idea that bird flu was introduced by man is not at all absurd given the disease dispersion and rate of outbreak over the last 12 months. At any rate, even if its not designed by man, it is beginning to look like it is a by product of modern man and his food system. This makes the outbreak at Qinghai all the more puzzling. How'd this "domesticated" disease get wild all of a sudden?

Deeper research into the vector borne disease has yielded the new theory which so far is gaining the most traction: the outbreak of bird flu in migratory birds at Qinghai was caused by a widespread practice of feeding fish farms (hold your stomach) chicken dung from poultry farms. This practice is especially prevalent in Chinese poultry farms, and it is thought this was how bird flu entered into the migratory bird population. A similar occurrence somewhere in the world could spell disaster.

No shit... as the saying goes.

Truth and Treason

2006-05-16T10:57:00.000-04:00

Emptywheel has his finger on the trigger today: BushCo operatives had no problem with Wilson's report; only three months later did Cheney start wanting to savage Wilson.

So ASSUMING the motive of Cheney's vendetta was not to damage Joe Wilson; THEN IT FOLLOWS that his/their motive was to damage Valerie Plame--thereby to disable her cover company, Brewster-Jennings, from surveillance of Iraq and Iran, thereby be free either to plant weapons or prevent the CIA, at least temporarily, from certifying there were none. Political motives seem obvious, but financial ones can't be ruled out.

Quite a charade--all the way to handwritten notes by Cheney on the Wilson document. Blame plame on pique, or politics, while the truth is to disable our front line defenses against WMD. If it's true, it's Treason. Life in prison should be the sentencing minimum.

Although some of this this has been said before many times many ways, it started out seeming a bit fanciful or paranoid. Still, even at the beginning we had to admit that they knew the consequence of outing Plame would be to disable Brewster-Jennings so it was hard not conclude that to be their motive. With emptywheel's revelation today, though, it's getting harder to explain the facts any other way. it's moving from fancy (even paranoia) closer to Truth and Treason.

Inflation & Hedging

2006-05-14T12:21:00.000-04:00

Everyone is worried about inflation (except for those who believe inflation isn't measured by consumer price levels). And for good reason. But I think its a consensus view that the bleed into core consumer price levels is taking longer than anticipated. One reason for this might be that corporations, especially industrials, heavily hedge their energy purchases (much moreso than in the past). The upshot of this for consumers is that price levels have remained relatively tame (or at least not so volatile) in an environment of surging energy costs since the cost to production has trailed, significantly, the market price.

But we don't care about the major trend. No one makes money there. Where you make money is predicting what will happen next. And the old adage, what goes up must come down, rings a bell does it not?

When (not if, but when) oil prices come back down, the corporations who so wisely hedged their gas and other energy purchases are likely to be losing money... big time. Like any hedge, at some point you have to go back to the open market when your hedged the wrong way. In my opinion, there are a lot of companies out there right now who should be switching over from mainly hedged to mainly open market. If they don't, they could make a lot of vultures rich.

(ii) Liberal Education in a Nutshell

2006-05-12T09:18:00.000-04:00

In this, the second part of a developing series on Liberal Education, I will quote extensively from Jacob Klein's essays: The Idea of Liberal Education and On Liberal Education. For those of you not up to speed on Klein's role in the New Program at St. John's College, please see the Wikipedia entry on St. John's College for a description therein.

Also, many A9 commenters are likely to bring up the "friendship" or "feud" (depending on one's point of view) between Leo Strauss and Klein, as well as the relationship they had with their teacher, Martin Heidegger. All of this biographical information, interesting and entertaining as it may be, is very well beyond the point of this meager post.

Liberal education is the education of free people for the purpose of nothing but its own sake, that is, for the purpose of knowing.

From the very beginning one detects an ambiguity in the meaning of "free men." In ancient times free men are contrasted with slaves and, morevover, with men who, though not slaves, are engaged in menial labor and have to do that to cope with the necessities of life. [...]

To bring up children to the level of free men means to bring them up for the enjoyment and duties of a life which, secure in its subsistence, is attuned to the pleasures of bodily, sensual and intellectual exercises and to the challenges of military and political activity. Such life tends, however, to move along traditional lines, be it in games, in polite conversation or in the turmoil of public affairs. Its freedom is endangered by the dominance of accepted opinions, the "idols of the market-place," in Baconian terminology. However "free" the free man may be, he has thus still to free himself from the shackles of conventional views which pass for the truth of things. He has to cultivate pursuits in which the truth of things is truly made an attainable goal. These pursuits constitute the arts of freedom, the "liberal arts."

Klein, Lectures and Essays, 261-262 (1985).

To be a free man [for the Greeks] meant to be a man enjoying leisure - that is, precisely, a man not under any necessity or compulsion to do servile work. [...]

To study for the enjoyment of leisure and in leisure means to be engaged in liberal education. It is an arduous task. This kind of education does not look for some goal or good beyond itself. [...]

What this understanding of liberal education assumes is that man's most proper and specific character is his desire to know. Only in pursuing this goal is man really man and really free. To acquire the various means that enable man to persist in this pursuit is to cultivate the arts of freedom.

Id. at 165.

Liberal education is not subject matter specific, but procedure specific: to liberally educate one means to lead them to a place where they have only aporia (without a way).

The idea of liberal education, then, whether you accept or reject it, is not definable in terms of some peculiar subject matter. Some applied sciences may well fall outside its scope. But, by and large, any formal discipline may form its vehicle and basis. It is not the subject matter that determines the character of studies as liberal studies. It is rather the way in which a formal discipline, a subject matter, is taken up that is decisive: whenever it is being studied for its own sake, whenever the metatstrophic way of questioning is upheld, whenever genuine wonderment is present, liberal education is taking place.

Id. at 166.

Liberal education is impeded by the modern academy as an institution.

Since time immemorial, institutions of learning, especially higher learning, have been established, called "schools" -- and the ambiguity of the term becomes immediately apparent. Institutionalization means ordering of activities into classes, schedules, courses, curriculums, examinations, degress, and all venerable and sometimes ridiculous paraphernalia of academic life. The point is that such institutionalization cannot be avoided. [...] And yet we all know how this schedule routine can interfere with the spontaneity of questioning and of learning and the occurrence of genuine wonderment. A student may never become aware that there is the possiblity of spontaneous learning which depneds merely on himself and on nobody and nothing else. Once the institutional character of learning tends to prevail, the goal of liberal education may be completely lost sight of, whatever other goals may be successfully reached.

Id. at 166-67.

Liberal education is impeded by the very progress in knowledge it helps maintain

Each generation adds something to what has been previously built and preserved. We are proud of this fact and call it progress. And, indeed, such progress does exist in definite areas. But this very fact confronts us with the ever-present danger of sedimentation, fossilization, or petrification of our knowledge. We are fond of pointing to the European universities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which exhibit those petrifying tendencies rather clearly and are prone to exalt the fresh wind of the Renaissance and Humanism that blew all the accumulated dust away. But it behooves us to look at our own insitutions of higher learning and to discern these same tendencies among us. We are not immune.

Id. at 167.

Liberal education is in conflict with the political community, especially its elite

The demands of the political community to which we belong are indeed inexorable. It is important to understand, however, that the idea of liberal education cannot be easily reconciled with those demands. It is important to see that there is a definite tension between the exigencies of political life and the self-sustained goal of liberal education. [...]

I can hardly think of a better illustration of that tension than the story of Archimedes' death, which I shall recount by way of conclusion.

There are many versions of that story. It seems, at any rate, that Archimedes took an active an even decisive part in the defense of Syracuse, his home town, when it was besieged by the enemy, and he contrived, by means of ingenious machinery, to repel the attacker. He was fulfiling his civic duty. His end came when a Roman soldier stepped close to the place where he was drawing his figures on the sand. This is how Plutarch relates one of the versions: "A Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him... Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was then at work upon inconclusive and imperfect; but the soldier, nothing moved by the entreaty, instantly killed him."

Id. at 169.

Financial Literacy

2006-05-09T23:08:00.000-04:00

It occurred to me today (actually, it has occurred to much earlier, but I've never put it down on paper) that having little or no financial education today is akin to having little or no computer education in the 80s and 90s. Or perhaps little or no literacy in the 60s and 70s. It just puts you at such a disadvantage that there is really no getting around it. I just spoke to my father on the phone. His financial background is sparse and outdated. At a certain point the conversation was almost unintelligible to me. Luckily, he's smart. In our conversation he quickly figured out he was artificially limiting the impact of market forces for no good reason (other than tradition). But most people aren't that smart. They must think today's talk of default swaps, derivatives, PIPES, and other financial instruments is some sort of alchemy or dark art.

Yankees v. Red Sox

2006-05-09T19:47:00.000-04:00

At Yankee Stadium, early May, a nip in the air. God I wish was at the game, but watching it with a cool glass of Old Rip Van Winkle is alright as well. Go Yanks!

Secondo Pars: L’un Globo – A Dialogue

2006-05-04T11:49:00.000-04:00

Capolio: I’m not sure I agree with that. But I do know that there is only peace through arms. The paese must be defended through force, or more violence and bloodshed will befall us. We will not let threats mount, but will smite them before they menance.

Debolio: You are right Capolio, that there may be no peace without arms to enforce it. But you miss that the paese is more than a two-armed animal. Our trade, our letters, and our laws are the envy of all. They form three arms, to which there is no defense.

Niccolo: The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws.

Debolio: I understand that, but trade is an important extension of good laws. Trade is an interest that our allies and we have in common. We should exploit it. Raise an army with those with which we share common dreams. A coalition is less costly, and it makes the enemy even more isolated. Let us call on them now.

Niccolo: These arms [Auxiliaries] may be useful and good in themselves, but for him who calls them in they are always disadvantageous; for losing, one is undone, and winning, one is their captive.

Capolio: You are right Niccolo. We cannot become captive to our friends. No! We will not let this paese become but one of many. Our prerogative is ours alone, and we will pursue it no matter the cost. If we have to, we will hire private armies to help us. In this way, we can make our numbers more, and vanquish the enemy wherever he may hide.

Niccolo: I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these [Mercenary] arms. The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way.

Capolio: Both choices of arms seem ill advised?

Niccolo: Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.

Prima Pars: L’un Globo – A Dialogue

2006-05-03T21:33:00.000-04:00

Niccolo: You wish to take this state?

Capolio: We will take out the evil tyrant, and install a friendly regime. This will be a lesson to others who may threaten us. Afterall, the people of the state love freedom, and by bringing them freedom they will love us, so long as we do all we can to avoid bringing them undue harm.

Debolio: But there is no reason to take this state. We could isolate them. Make them weak. They are no harm to us. Eventually we could entice them out of isolation, through a series of promises and agreements, for in their weakness they will become poor, and through agreements with us, they may become rich. What in your opinion must we do?

Niccolo: In seizing a state, the usurper ought to examine closely into all those injuries which it is necessary for him to inflict, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have to repeat them daily; and thus by not unsettling men he will be able to reassure them, and win them to himself by benefits. He who does otherwise, either from timidity or evil advice, is always compelled to keep the knife in his hand.

Debolio: By showing restraint, offering things of value to those who would disturb our peace, we will gain influence and respect. We cannot rule through fear alone. This violates our own most sacredly held beliefs, and it is the foundation of our laws and trade. Were we to sacrifice that, we would have nothing left.

Capolio: I agree Debolio. We are known as a gentle paese. A place where liberty and equality before the law can be found. To sacrifice such a value would be the ruin of our moral superiority, the blessings of the generations to precede us.

Niccolo: It appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of a matter than the imagination of it; for many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.

Maps versus Hands

2006-04-27T12:06:00.000-04:00

Or, if you prefer, Tom Barnett versus J Smith. In the comments to this post below, regular A9 commenter J Smith hits on something I've thought about for awhile... haven't we seen all this before?

While Smith doesn't take his argument as a foil for Barnett's "New Map", I think the argument serves well in that mold.
That is Barnett's now famous "New Map" using a "core" and "gap" dichotomy to describe the current security of the world (clicking will take you to a low res pdf version). The "Core" is made up of mostly Western or western-like liberal democracies with a free market economy. The "gap" is made up of mostly third world countries. Smith, in the comments mentioned, reduces this to a more simplistic dichotomy: first world versus third world.

The above is a map of colonial N. America circa 1770 (click to see an enlarged view, where you may zoom in with another click). Note the Proclamation Line of 1763 and the eventual Indian Territory border of 1768. Note also the dots of major port cities: the "core" of the colonies if you will. Recall now that Vermont was the first new entrant into the "core", in 1791. Looking at the map above it is easy to see why. For about three decades, the borders of Vermont and the "gap", or Indian territory, had been very well defined.

Looking South one sees why it took so long to get Mississippi and Alabama admitted... they were deep inside the "gap". Indeed, E. Louisiana became part of the "core" before these two areas did. It would require the wholesale liquidation of the Cherokee, the slaughter of the Creek, and the destruction of the Choctaw to make those states "settled", all of which weren't complete until well after the turn of the century.

Barnett and other globalization theorists talk about "soft kills" and "integrating" the gap countries into the "core". But we did that already, here, in America. It wasn't soft either. About the softest "kill" was the legendary purchase of Manhattan; now known to be mostly myth. But that was the exception. For two hundred years, the rule was wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. It isn't pretty. It isn't made for TV. Here is a reminder:
That may look like a nice picture, but if you study it carefully (click to enlarge) you'll see it depicts British soldiers surrounding a village of innocent Indians, with torches lit. The whole village was lit up in flames. This innocent picture depicts this horrible story:

the burning of the fortified Pequot village on the Mystic River in 1637, by English soldiers and their Narragansett and Mohegannative allies. They surprised the sleeping village of several hundred, burned the village to the ground and killed the fleeing natives. Neither women nor children were spared in the massacre. Native allies who had not already fled (not really having the stomach for war) were horrified at the English savagery. Captain John Underhill, who led the slaughter, would later find justification for killing those women and children by citing Kind David's Old Testament genocidal slaughters.

That was the rule. Underhill later perfected this strategy and used it up and down the Northeastern coast. America later perfects this strategy again, and uses it to great effect in the battles for the plains and the West.

Smith chastizes the theorists for not realizing the implications of their theory. And I happen to think Smith is right. None of these theorists wants to face the horror of the reality of their ideas. This is the difference between those that use maps, and those that use their hands. The practical implication of Barnett's thesis, if it is to be successful, is the colonization of much of the third world.

And the practical implication of colonizing the third world is that America will need to once again be "ok" with burning villages, slaughtering women and children, and doing it all at night with no pretext. I don't think the American people have the stomach for that... if you doubt it, just look at what American theorists have the stomach to "draw".

Gas Tax Holiday

2006-04-25T22:45:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: I'm thinking out loud here, but doesn't this picture belong in Rep. Menendez's press release?

I like Menendez's proposal here. It's pretty clever. First though, if it works for oil, would it work for say... cars? How about diamond engagement rings? I know, totally different tax scheme, but that begs the point. Everyone will like this. But won't they always like it then? Can we add, along with a gas tax holiday, perhaps a more simple tax code? One slightly less "progressive" than the one we see today? Anyway, cheers to Bob for not being afraid to buck the "tax tax, spend spend, elect elect" status quo. If only we could have him break the borrow borrow status quo as well.

One more point, ending the LIFO accounting break is long overdue, and should be universally applied. Tricks like that cost average investors billions of dollars a year, and it becomes an even bigger problem after our fearsome CEOs drive their piggybanks into the ground.

The "Earnings" Gap

2006-04-25T12:42:00.000-04:00

Becker and Posner argue persuasively in these back to back posts that income inequality is a) a sign of healthy economic returns and b) not the social problem it is cracked up to be. I wonder though if in a few decades part b) will still be true? As the population grows and our representation levels in the federal government continue to decrease, there will be, at least literally, an "aristocratic" element in American society. Those who can afford lobbyists and big campaign donations will be represented, even moreso than now, while those who cannot will not be represented. I can see such a state of affairs, if allowed to persist, resulting in a rather ugly class schism.

But for now, and for much of the foreseeable future, I agree with both posts. I can only hope that they will apply the same logic to the debate on high gas prices. Though somehow I doubt it. Kudos to Posner for also pointing out the cynical way in which many political groups purposely confuse the issue between poverty and income inequality. I can hear little Johnnie Edwards already using the line.

Nazis and 4GW

2006-04-25T10:42:00.000-04:00

Zenpundit has an important and interesting article of a historical nature. This teaser should wet your appetite.

What if Hitler and the Nazis represented not the triumph of the total state but the first harbinger of the nation-state's passing ?

What if?

(i) Great Lies & Liberal Education Generally

2006-04-22T12:12:00.000-04:00

One of the greatest lies ever told is that the march of freedom we’ve witnessed here in America over its 200+ year history is an unqualified good. It is much like the lie we tell our young as they begin their education: that knowledge is an unqualified good.

Both lies can, and do, lead to unfortunate results when left unrestrained.

Democratic conceit can not only lead to mob rule (a misfortune our founders were dedicated to avoiding), but the conceit of freedom can also readily lead to a far more absurd, far more difficult to fix, far more dangerous problem: self-enslavement.

Students of ancient philosophy no doubt are familiar with the problem in a way students of modernity are not. This is a main issue of focus in Plato’s Republic, given an eternal form in the famous “Allegory of the Cave”. The student of modern thought will find the allegory almost quaint, with its deference to “universals” and “eternals” and self-conscious fear of details and particulars. But the student of ancient thought knows something that has been lost on modernity.

Plato’s Republic is a book about education. More specifically, it is a book concerned with the way a society may educate free people without at the same time binding these people in a new set of chains. What America’s Constitution is to the problem of freedom, Plato’s Republic is to the problem of learning.

In other words, the book is about helping us not only see past the shadows, but see past the candle causing them, see past the steep incline behind the candle, and most importantly, have the courage required to face the light of the day outside.

I say “most importantly” because this is the singular aspect of a liberal education which is most un-discussed; but which is itself perhaps the most remarkable trait of the truly liberally educated person: they are not afraid to think on their own.

Dan at tdaxp, Mark at Zenpundit, and various interlocutors at those sites have for the last few months engaged in a dialogue which has touched on the products of liberal education. There has been some confusion in this dialogue, and this post will be my first of five (or four) on this topic.

To help clear up the definition of liberal education, and provide for some more useful ways of using the “tag” (for me, liberal education is that method by which young men and women become independent thinkers and responsible citizens), I will allow one of the world’s foremost experts on liberal education to describe what “it” is:

But that [the young] must not be taught all of the useful arts is evident, once free pursuits have been distinguished from those that are unfree - and also that they must take part only in those useful pursuits that will not make the participant [merely] mechanical.

That was Aristotle in his Politics, expressing the sense that liberal education is, most importantly, for its own sake. Here is what today’s foremost expert on liberal education has to say about that:

It is simply the case that our students almost universally declare their education to have been of the greatest use to them: in keeping them from being merely "mechanical," it has made them both brave and versatile in facing practical problems.

That was Eva Brann, former Dean and current tutor at St. John’s College. She continues, taking issue with what I posited as a definition above, and beginning to reveal the whole of what is meant by the term:

The kind of education I am about to delineate perhaps could not survive if not for the fact that learning undertaken for its own sake - not as a means but as its own end - turns out to be a means to moderate worldly success as well. This circumstance may not be a gratuitous accident but may instead speak to the logic of a world that is after all hospitable to liberal learning. However tempting favorable Graduate Record Examination scores, career statistics, and alumni tracking may be, they are not the right and finally not even the most persuasive defense of an education to which they are merely, if happily, incidental. And though I have great faith in the close relation of thoughtfulness to goodness, even the development of useful citizens should not, I think, be cited among the direct aims of liberal learning; it is an obliquely achieved though ardently desired by-product.

I hope the thoughts expressed here can at least curtail the dialogue somewhat, and help those of us participating in it to be slightly more rigorous with our language. More later.

Dear God

2006-04-06T11:42:00.000-04:00

I'm no lawyer, but this is big, and disturbing.

According to Fitzgerald's filing, an excerpt of which you'll find below, Libby, 55, testified in 2003 that he provided reporter Judith Miller with information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate after being told by Cheney that Bush "specifically had authorized" him to "disclose certain information in the NIE." Libby also testified that Cheney also specifically directed him to speak to other reporters about information in the classified NIE (which addresses Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction programs) as well as a cable authored by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. The leaking of the classified material was apparently done in an effort to counter claims made by Wilson regarding the White House's justification for invading Iraq. The Fitzgerald filing also notes that Libby told grand jurors that he conferred with David Addington, Cheney's counsel, about the leak directive and that Addington told him "that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."

4GW and Ambush

2006-04-06T09:31:00.000-04:00

The Braddock expedition of 1755 into Ohio country was a logistical masterpiece. Over 100 miles of dense wilderness, all three ridges of the Appalachians, and several major rivers were magnificently overcome by a dedicated force of almost 2,000 British regulars and American recruits.

Braddock should have engaged the French at Fort Duquesne by going through Pennsylvania. But Virginia politicians and shareholders in the Ohio Company needed a road through the Appalachians, and they "convinced" Braddock to make his way through some rather untamed wilderness to engage the French, instead of using Pennsylvania and it's already vast resources.

Though the logicial masterpiece was complete, a force of less than half, comprised of a few "wily frenchmen" and several hundred Indians routed the British and their superior firepower at the Battle of the Monongahela. How did this happen?

Capt. Beaujeu, charged with the defense of the Fort Duquesne, convinced around 300 Indians to abandon their plans of retreat and stay and fight the British. He did this by appealing to their sense of nobility, their ideals of war, and perhaps most of all, by reportedly stripping off his officer's attire and painting himself in the traditional warpaints.

The Indians saw the signs of solidarity, and heard the appeals to avoid dishonoring their ancestors. They fought with Beaujeu, and were a major reason reason for the French success at Monongahela.

At the battle, the Indians scattered around the British in a horseshoe, not forming a single line anywhere. They hid in the hills, behind trees, and in pre dug trenches. They shot and ran to a new location. The British responded in a disciplined fashion. Forming lines and firing volleys on command. But what good is it if 9 men are commanded to shoot into a dark forest at only one of the enemy? The return on that type of return fire can, at best, only be 8 missed shots.

At some point, a group of French regulars deployed at the front of the battle line, and kept the British from outflanking the Indian snipers. Then, as the British at the front retreated, Gen. Braddock sent more up front in support. They collided with one another, adding to confusion and disorientation. A huge mass of disorganized redcoats began to form, and the Indians and Frenchmen in the hills poured lead all over that mass.

There are numerous paralles between this small battle in the French Indian War, and today's current fight in Iraq: business interests dictating military strategy, arrogant commanders unwilling to adopt native tactics, impressive logistical feats countered by inexpensive ruthlessness, superior firepower being turned into an Achilles heel.

What I would like to know though is whether or not the method of attack used by the Indians here meets what is currently held out as "fourth generation warfare".? Remember, the Indians were natives, not Army regulars. They had "teamed up" with French regulars based in the Ohio territory. But perhaps this was much the same as how many "Iraqi insurgents", who are really just natives, have "teamed up" with "al-Qaeda" regulars?

And another question along those lines, is it possible that the entire psychology of "ambush" is really the sine qua non of fourth generation warfare? Do all "natives" always fight in "the Indian mode"?

Zinni Strikes Back

2006-04-04T12:14:00.000-04:00

J Smith points out in comments Zinni's latest call for Rumsfeld to go, over here at Mountain Runner. The context is important. Just prior to his appearance on Meet the Press, Sec. of State Rice slimed the military leadership of the US, stating in her trip to Europe that thousands of "tactical" mistakes had been made in the Iraq War. The mainstream press did not pick up that her comment was part of an overall Administration effort to shift the blame from civilian to military leadership. Zinni isn't having it. Good for him.

Integrity and getting on with the mission and doing it right is more important than loyalty. Both are great traits, but integrity, honesty and performance and competence have to outweigh, in this business, loyalty.