Writer Will Shetterly, blogging for all of two weeks, says all of his heros are cowboys - and he doesn't recognize George Bush in the role. Scroll down to the section titled "Don't Call That Man A Cowboy"
Baseball season is just around the corner. And this is the year the Red Sox will finally win the World Series!
No dreams are fruitless at this point, dammit.
I'm watching the Red Sox tonight, playing Boston College. Goofy game with a dozen guys playing who won't be on the Sox roster when the season begins. Game just ended with the Sox winning, 9-6.
All through the game there were folks climbing down the stairs behind home plate. They had their cell phones glued to their faces and the other hand waving to their people back on the other end of the connection. I find this particular narcissism extremely annoying. But it reminds of a story my otherwise levelheaded brother told me this weekend.
The last time he was in Atlanta he was put up in the Omni Hotel at CNN Center. CNN has a talk show down in the foyer and people passing through can position themselves to appear on camera. He called home to Rhode Island to tell his son to turn on CNN. My brother, CNN background geek.
SK Bubba directs us to a test of Hidden Racial Bias. It has an intriguing interface: my fingers got confused. But that seems to be part of the point. My result was "Your data suggest little or no preference" but I'm not an ideal - or even close to a normal - test subject as I spend several weeks every year in Africa and Asia.
SK Bubba also instructs us to look around the rest of the site. I cannot but concur.
On my way to read an article about "Corporate Social Responsibility and Disaster Reduction" (short, simplistic), I encountered this headline:
"Flood Risk in England & Wales: are there lessons to be learned from Scotland?"
Yes? No? Discuss.
More important, I learned that the 2003 hurricane season is being predicted to be more active than the norm. This June through November should see activity 10-20% higher than the ten year norm, and 40-50% higher than the thirty year. Of course, this is the weather we're talking about.
Someone showed up at my site this week after Googling on "iraq chemical weapon delivery systems". I'm amused, because I ran the same query through Google over the weekend while writing "Where Are They Hiding the WMDs?" - and now, this week, I'm #12 with a bullet.
The talking dog is a gentleman - and handsome too.
In honor of De Spectaculis being included in the Dog Run (because I asked; surely you didn't think it was on merit?) I include here a picture of my wife's parents' German Shepherd pup. This is Shadow enjoying his first snowfall - which was not the blizzard of '03. He's a few months older now and looking much more Shepherdy. But I can only post the pictures that I have.
There are three reasons to set up a blogroll.
One, we honor those blogs we like.
Two, we share links back and forth in mutual regard.
Three, we use them to "pay" attention. Visitors to our site can click through and continue their journey around the sphere - and we show up in the referral logs.
I've taken my time in setting up a blogroll. For no very good reason. And now I've set one up, split into the four factions of Rome, each supporting a different chariot racing team - the NASCAR of the ancient world. Only way cooler.
I've assigned my fellow bloggers to the factions based upon my whim and my sense of humor. In general, these folks to the right are the jumping off points for my weekly blog surfing. And I can get almost anywhere I want to go from them too. Enjoy!
John J. Miller writes about "The next space race" in the Boston Globe's Ideas section today.
" Any succesful trip into the black vacuum of the solar system is a human triumph, no matter whose country can claim credit. But spacefaring nations are likely to be military powers as well. The United States can project force around the globe because it maintains an unchallenged constellation of satellites that permit instant communications, robust surveillance, and precision targeting. The Pentagon has integrated these resources so thoroughly into its operations over the last decade that every American conflict is now necessarily a space war, even one fought in the wilderness of Afghanistan. With a new competitor, the United States will have to redouble its own efforts in order to preserve the lead in what may be the world's second great space race.
...
" As Americans debate our own space program in the wake of the Columbia disaster, we should regard the Shenzhou 4 as an opportunity. We should welcome the Chinese to space-they're coming anyway, so there's really no other option-and then accept their implicit challenge. Just as the Soviet Union pressured us into shooting for the moon in the 1960s, in what became a technological contest between competing ideologies with the whole world as an audience, the challenge from Beijing must prod us to maintain our superiority in space, if only for military reasons. This doesn't necessarily require resuscitating the shuttle program or continuing to put people in space, but it does demand an increased commitment to developing new technology. "
Is that title funny or just silly? And is it relevant, as I've never said a word about duct tape? And, in any case, the whole tape thing is so over - at least until the next time the people march.
Actually, the title is appropriate. Friday I was reminded by a friend, who travels back-and-forth to Israel a fair amount, that during the Gulf War Israelis were told to secure a room in case of chemical attack. One of the methods suggested was to duct tape plastic sheeting over all the openings. There were a few accidents of the not-being-able-to-breathe kind. He didn't remember if people had actually died, but duct taping a room is no longer exactly in favor in Israel.
Try as I might, I have been unable to find any report of these accidents to link to - which is not surprising. The Gulf War and 1991 was a long, long time ago in internet years.
With a war creeping ever closer, we wonder whether the Iraqis will pull out their chemical and biological weapons and start spraying them around the landscape - or even the region. The UN Inspectors rush madly across the desert and over the hills, hither and yon, seeking, ever seeking, for the stockpiles. Yep, Iraq is big. Most countries are, after all. There are a lot of nooks and crannies in a country the size of Iraq, a lot of places to hide stuff and forget about it.
But I'm confused about a few things regarding this hiding. And when I'm confused, I fall back on the one rule that has never failed me: if something is being done, then it is people who are doing it. Because forgetting about the weapons is the last thing anyone is going to want to do.
I trust two things about the Inspectors. First, that they are really trying to find any existent stockpiles of weapons or evidence of the capacity to produce them; and second, that they are good at their jobs. I don't expect that the Iraqis can just leave stuff lying around; that if they are hiding weapons or factories, they really have to, you know, hide them. If the Inspectors were not doing a good job and/or the Iraqis were not successfully hiding whatever they have to hide (if they have anything to hide, of course), then I'm pretty sure the US case for the existence of such weapons would be a lot stronger than it is.
The weapons (if there are any) are well hidden. But if Iraq is about to be invaded, then they might want to use the weapons on the invading forces (or to provoke Israel, or to punish Kuwait, or to do any of a host of other nefarious things, if we're to believe what we read). So, the weapons have to be accessible.
Weapons don't fight by themselves; they don't work sitting underground; you have to have troops of some sort to use them. In order to effectively use chemical or biological weapons, you probably need troops who have training in their use. Would you give an untrained and scared young man a weapon which improperly used is more dangerous to him and his unit than to the enemy?
Does Iraq have special c/b trained units or individuals? How were they trained (classroom or field; if field, did our satellites watch)? Do the Inspectors know which units they are? Does the CIA? Are these units or trained individuals stationed anywhere near the weapons?
How will they deploy the c/b weapons? Do they store the delivery systems with the active c/b agents? How will they get the c/b weapons to the point of attack? (The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says that Iraq has the capacity to deliver chemical or biological weapons by: missile warhead, rocket, aerial bomb, artillery shell, and aerial spray tank; the CIA says Iraq is developing an unmanned aircraft too.)
If a chemical weapon is loaded into an artillery shell (or rocket or warhead or bomb), then it still needs to be fired in order to be effective. The Iraqis are probably not storing the shells with the artillery units (rockets with the rocket launchers, warheads with the missiles, etc.) because the inspectors would look there. So, in order to deploy a chemical weapon, someone has to go and get the weapon/loaded shell in order to bring it to the delivery system. Which means someone has to drive a truck (more likely more than one) to the hidden storage place, load several cases of scary stuff onto the back (where do the teamsters come from?), and then drive to an artillery unit. All of this has be done at breakneck speed, possibly under fire, definitely under the glare of satellite and aircraft surveillance. Maybe the pace can be a little slower once the Inspectors leave, but not much, as the hot war could begin at any moment once those gentlemen clear Iraqi airspace.
A thought about roads. Iraq is not well supplied with good roads (38,400 km of paved highway; anyone who has driven around a poor country or a poor county can tell you that a lot of that is probably not "good"). Certain types of vehicles need a certain quality of road. Trucks can't go just anywhere. And the places trucks can go, they can't go quickly. Iraq gets a whole lot smaller if you have to follow the roads.
It seems to me that for the chemical or biological weapons to be able to be used effectively, the Iraqis have to be able to move them quickly. That means access to roads. And the Inspectors should be able to find them more easily. Or, if they are well hidden, it means that the Iraqis won't be able to use them against attacking forces.
So where are the WMDs?
Kieran Healy clearly doesn't have a job as important as keeping the rest of us entertained.
Go and read.
Well, not right at the moment (though more is expected over the weekend), but they had a blizzard a couple of days ago.
Friend e-mailed to say that the people are dancing in the streets. Those Afghans, they'll dance for anything that gives the Taliban cold feet.
(They're still having a drought there, so any precipitation is good precipitation.)
Armies are always fighting the last war and always imagining that this time they'll get it right.
Debarati Guha-Sapir is director of the WHO collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters and professor in the Epidemiology Unit at the University of Louvain School of Public Health in Belgium. She writes that the experience of Somalia in 1994 should have taught the international force in Afghanistan that mixing humanitarian goals with military goals is a recipe for disaster.
" The international forces of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan are remodelling their military presence. Winning the hearts and minds of Afghans has now become part of the objective of the 22-nation coalition through the joint civilian-military operation task force. However, its expansion into humanitarian aid could lead to a minefield. It should stop now.
Up to 300 uniformed, armed civil affairs officers will be soon deployed on small nation-building initiatives, so-called "quick impact projects".
...
Whatever success story I may have missed in the Somalia military intervention, their performance as humanitarian workers, was not one of them.
...
We should not mix humanitarian goals with military goals; territorial ground battles between these two protagonists will invariably end in stalemate, loss of face and mutual recriminations.
...
It is critical for Afghanistan, for the region and, indeed, for us all that we get it as right as we can this time. "
Go on over to Winds of Change and read the debate about France.
On Valentine's Day Brad DeLong thanked the Marquis de Lafayette - and France - for helping us toward independence. Mr DeLong called it "a debt that we can never repay, but only honor".
That post garnered over one-hundred-and-sixty comments (162 when I came in). The ahistorical politics of our current day quickly crowded out any other thoughts, with all the common, well-moistened accusations and counter-accusations of "what French people are really like" being flung about like so many grammar-school spitballs. I got real bored real quick. But prior to that degeneration were a few curious posts to much the same effect: "the debt has been paid, goddammit".
There is a Calvinism in the American heart that can never let a debt go unpunished. To a certain miserly species of soul a debt is something to discharge at the earliest possible and convenient moment. Until then, it is a blot upon the spirit, reflecting an unworthy need to rely on the fragile goodwill of others. Debt is, to these people, a reflection of innate inequality, something that calls into question their position among the elect. More, it undermines their notion of absolute personal responsibility, where no righteous person - or nation - should ever need to owe another. All debts must be paid up front and on time (all I can wonder is whether they pay off their credit cards in full every month? do they have mortgages or car payments?).
In their insistence that this debt to France has been paid (goddammit!), they imply a deep worry that somehow the US - as a nation - might still be beholden to France in some way, might be required to perform some service or make some payment - or perhaps France might even make some personal demand upon them, their own blood or treasure.
Honor, in this vernacular, is just another commodity, like love or grief, whose careful tally is inscribed in columns in the great ledger of the spirit. At the end of the day, at the end of a brief life, or at the end of all creation, these emotional books must balance ere we enter Nirvana, else some will be found wanting and they will be tossed into the long, dark debtor's prison of the soul.
How does one approach a debt that, as Mr DeLong says, one cannot pay, but only honor? What does it mean to say that a debt cannot be paid?
Only this, that the debt itself is assumed by one party without obligation.
The "lender" has not offered anything extraordinary, has perhaps acted entirely in its own self-interest, has perhaps taken on debts of its own. But the result of the lender's actions, the loan as it were, is something deemed priceless, something that no coin can compensate. Liberty, my friends. Freedom. Independence. Pearls beyond price.
We can play our "what if" games on lazy Saturdays, over a beer or four. But we live in this world, where certain things happened, and others came to pass as consequences, in part, of those certain things. Did the Marquis de Lafayette fight in our Revolution and did France help to finance it? Then, my friends, know that as long as my family endures, there will be Americans who honor that debt.
Vive la France!
Two complementary things appear to be happening with regard to judicial nominations. First, the Bush Administration and the Republicans are trying to push suspect nominations through the Senate while war hype is high. They are hoping that the public will be distracted and will not bring their attention to bear on this issue.
Second, the Democrats are using this moment to stiffen their collective spine, secure in the knowledge that the public is sufficiently distracted that all howling by the Republicans will go unnoticed.
This was brought home to me on my recent holiday. The war was much on our minds and in our conversations and we watched the tv avidly for the latest news. The filibuster came up now and again on the broadcasts, but when I steered conversation in that direction, neither my in-laws nor my wife had paid any attention to it. "Oh, that's just politics as usual." Would that it were not necessary that it be so.
If the purpose of a terror attack is to spread fear, increase tension, and make you afraid, then the best way to defeat terror is by staying calm. And the best way to achieve that calmness is through knowledge.
Calm is not placidity, sitting still while the world whirls. And calm is not apathy, trusting that someone else will look out for you. Don't wander through the world in a blissful and somnolent haze, trusting that ignorance will maintain your mellow.
Stay calm.
Panic kills.
(Via Charles Murtaugh)
Uggabugga quotes some disturbing news from Peggy Noonan about Bush's gut: it appears to be acting up.
Send the man some Maalox instead of the rice.
Where do I get my information about the conflict with Iraq? Among other outlets, these folks send me a bulletin every week:
Conflict in Iraq: Concerns and Consequences
This site is a clearing house of information and links, as well as having some analysis. The organizations who are running the site seem to be taking special care to be level-headed and even-handed at this point.
- " The primary purpose is to ensure that any international intervention in Iraq acts to strengthen peace and security in the region and is undertaken in accordance with humanitarian principles and international law. "
That does not mean the people who support this web-site are against a war. It does mean that, if a war is fought, they want to make sure it is fought for the right reasons and in the right way. I daresay that a war supporter is likely to view this site with some suspicion given that the funding foundations behind it are generally in favor of peace. That should not, however, dissuade you from this resource.
Well, well, well. The right has finally found a reason to support human rights in foreign policy. And if not "the right", at least Ralph Peters has.
And, as is typical when some guy from the American right finds himself in the unfamiliar position of having a selfless thought about non-Americans, finding himself suddenly awake and lying in that muddy water in the ditch on the road to Damascus, he convinces himself that this insight is his - and his side's - alone. No one on the benighted left could ever have so deep a sympathy for the human condition, or see that while anyone remains a slave, we are all in chains.
And so the US, in all its might and righteous glory, should remake the world. And this time justice, not hoary tradition, will be served. Even though for years I have heard the realists on the right patiently explaining to the rest of us children why adults do things differently, how we can hardly concern ourselves with every fallen sparrow.
Pardon the sarcasm. I happen to agree with Mr Peters that the concept of "sovereignty" needs to be reexamined, and that "legitimacy" needs to be built upon more stable ground. But if we travel that road, we must be serious. We must know what we mean when use such words, we must agree on criteria which are both flexible and clear, and we must be willing to reevaluate old alliances - both international and domestic. And once we do all of that, then we have to decide what to do when countries do not meet the criteria.
All of this is much more difficult than it looks at that first, cursory glance, which is why this project terrifies me. Too many people will reach for simple answers and they will not be asking the right questions. Quickly, run through this list of countries and explain to yourself why their governments are legitimate - or not. Were their governments legitimate fifteen years ago (1988) - or not? Thirty years? Fifty?
Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. Bosnia, Serbia, Greece. Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala. Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland. Egypt, Israel, Jordan. Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Somaliland. Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand. France, Germany, Great Britain. Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh. Angola, South Africa, Zimbabwe. And, what the heck, the US.
How has their legitimacy changed over the years? What changed in those countries? And did you seriously take into account the treatment of minorities (ethnic, racial, or religious) in or overseen by each country? How does that impact legitimacy? Did you use a consistent set of criteria up and down that list?
Now, what are you going to do about those on the wrong end of your scale? Wait, before you mobilize the troops, how did those which are now legitimate but weren't fifteen, thirty, fifty years ago become legitimate?
History is easy. It's the future that's hard.
UPDATE: Some editing and a change of title for clarity.
Roger Scruton explains why I am not an anarchist.
Eve Tushnet explains why I'm human.
Neither has much to say about whether I'm conservative or liberal.
I've just encountered First Draft by Tim Porter, an astonishing, overflowing well of news and newspaper criticism. Mr Porter covers all the bases. Thanks are due to Road to Surfdom for pointing it out (which does not begin to do justice to Tim Dunlop's extravagant methods).
In a post on Media Bias, Mr Porter quotes LA Times writer David Shaw saying, "We're biased in favor of change, as opposed to the status quo. We're biased in favor of bad news, rather than good news. We're biased in favor of conflict rather than harmony."
While this is not exactly news, the rest of the post elaborates both the crisis that this represents and Mr Porter's optimism for newspapers in particular and the special place in the media they might be able to occupy.
- "In an age of omni-media, where the incessant bleating of broadcast and Internet pundits, and the reduction of reporting into stacks of scroll bars creates a clamorously poisonous atmosphere that chokes out quality journalism, newspapers have an opportunity to foster a healthier, more vibrant news environment whose deep reporting, evocative writing and enticing photographs give the public's interest in knowing what's going on in their communities a chance to thrive."
(All emphasis in the original.)
Teresa Nielsen Hayden, bless her, explains why Saint Isidore of Seville is the correct choice. She also thinks about the process of selecting saints in general. As always happens when I read Making Light I both learned something and gained much to think about.
The Wild Monk's political personality test.
I scored a 64 (Center-Right) and a 9 on rationality (but that was a conscious and rational choice; I knew full well that question was part of the "rational" axis and I chose to answer it noncommittally; I think I'll give myself a bonus of two points).
While I might say that this underlines the problem with two-dimensional tests, I think I'll limit myself to suggesting that there are bound to be problems when the two axes are "left = anti-US" and "right = pro-US".
Rick Husband, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon.
. . .
From Ode to Joy, Fredrich Schiller
Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell.
Joy is called the strong motivation
In eternal nature.
Joy, joy moves the wheels
In the universal time machine.
Flowers it calls forth from their buds,
Suns from the Firmament,
Spheres it moves far out in Space,
Where our telescopes cannot reach.
Joyful, as His suns are flying,
Across the Firmament's splendid design,
Run, brothers, run your race,
Joyful, as a hero going to conquest.
As truth's fiery reflection
It smiles at the scientist.
. . .
A serene hour of farewell!
Sweet rest in the shroud!
Brothers--a mild sentence
From the mouth of the final judge!
For a full translation into English.
Ode An Die Fruede, Fredrich Von Schiller
Freude, schoener Goetterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum.
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was der Mode Schwert geteilt
Bettler werden Fuerstenbrueder
Wo dein sanfter Fluegel weilt.
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!
Brueder - ueber'm Sternenzelt
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seinen Jubel ein!
Ja - wer auch nur eine Seele
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle
Weinend sich aus diesem Bund
Was den grossen Ring bewohnet,
Huldige der Sympathie!
Zu den Sternen leitet sie,
Wo der Unbekannte thronet.
Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Bruesten der Natur,
Alle Guten, alle Boesen,
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Kuesse gab sie uns, und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprueft im Tod,
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott.
Ihr stuerzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahndest du den Schoepfer, Welt?
Such ihn ueberm Sternenzelt.
Ueber Sternen muss er wohnen.
Freude heisst die starke Feder
In der ewigen Natur.
Freude, Freude, treibt die Raeder
In der grossen Weltenuhr.
Blumen lockt sie aus den Keimen,
Sonnen aus dem Firmament,
Sphaeren rollt sie in den Raeumen,
Die des Sehers Rohr nicht kennt.
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels praecht'gen Plan
Laufet, Brueder, eure Bahn,
Freudig wie ein Held zum Siegen.
Aus der Wahrheit Feuerspiegel
Laechelt sie den Forscher an.
Zu der Tugend steilem Huegel
Leitet sie des Dulders Bahn.
Auf des Glaubens Sonnenberge
Sieht man ihre Fahnen wehn,
Durch den Riss gesprengter Saerge
Sie im Chor der Engel stehn.
Duldet mutig, Millionen!
Duldet fuer die bess're Welt!
Droben ueber'm Sternenzelt
Wird ein grosser Gott belohnen.
Goettern kann man nicht vergelten,
Schoen ist's, ihnen gleich zu sein.
Gram und Armut soll sich melden,
Mit den Frohen sich erfreun.
Groll und Rache sei vergessen,
Unserm Todfeind sei verziehn,
Keine Traene soll ihn pressen,
Keine Reue nage ihn.
Unser Schuldbuch sei vernichtet!
Ausgesoehnt die ganze Welt!
Brueder, ueber'm Sternenzelt
Richtet Gott, wie wir gerichtet.
Freude sprudelt in Pokalen,
In der Traube goldnem Blut
Trinken Sanftmut Kannibalen,
Die Verzweiflung Heldenmut--
Brueder, fliegt von euren Sitzen,
Wenn der volle Roemer kreist,
Lasst den Schaum zum Himmel* sptruetzen:
Dieses Glas dem guten Geist.
Den der Sterne Wirbel loben
Den des Seraphs Hymne preist,
Dieses Glas dem guten Geist
Ueber'm Sternenzelt dort oben!
Festen Mut in schwerem Leiden,
Huelfe, wo die Unschuld weint,
Ewigkeit geschwornen Eiden,
Wahrheit gegen Freund und Feind,
Maennerstolz vor Koenigsthronen--
Brueder, gaelt es Gut und Blut.--
Dem Verdienste seine Kronen,
Untergang der Luegenbrut!
Schliesst den heilgen Zirkel dichter
Schwoert bei diesem goldnen Wein:
Dem Geluebde treu zu sein,
Schwoert es bei dem Sternenrichter!
Rettung von Tyrannenketten,
Grossmut auch dem Boesewicht,
Hoffnung auf den Sterbebetten,
Gnade auf dem Hochgericht!
Auch die Toten sollen leben!
Brueder, trinkt und stimmet ein,
Allen Suendern soll vergeben,
Und die Hoelle nicht mehr sein.
Eine heitre Abschiedsstunde!
Suessen Schlaf im Leichentuch!
Brueder--einen sanften Spruch
Aus des Totenrichters Mund.