3 weeks ago
Monday, March 31, 2003
IF YOU NEEDED ANOTHER REASON TO HATE FOX NEWS: The blonde sameness of their on-air womenfolk is another good reason. Via Radley Balko. Fuck conservatism at the specific point where it remains frozen in the 50s and imagining blonde white chicks the highest standard of female beauty. Fuck The Man Show, for that matter, for its imagined universal standards of masculinity. And God bless the all-American multiethnic hotties of MSNBC. U-S-A! U-S-A!
THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MICHELLE: The deal with Michelle Kwan, I think, is that she's the best at what she does. At the same time, she is completely beatable--her skates are physically conservative. But her performances are completely flawless. So you can beat her if you do something physically spectacular and do pretty well on the performance angle. But if you're going to beat her that way, there's a much greater chance you're going to screw up. So while Michelle gets beat by the Lipinskis and Hughes of the world in these flash-in-the-pan Magic Moments at the Olympics (where Michelle, of course, assists them with her own mistakes) she ends up being a far better skater than they because of her devotion to her sport. I mean, maybe she'd've retired years ago if she won a gold and gotten overwhelmed by it all, like Sara Hughes, who is probably retiring right now. But she didn't, and so she continued to develop into the dominant figure she is now. Figure skating needs more athletes like her, doing it for the love of the game and not because East European taskmasters are driving them on. Check out this bit from The Washington Post:
"This year has been so enjoyable because it's been so relaxed," Kwan said. "Maybe it's telling me something: I should put less pressure on myself, just go out there and have fun . . . I like it this way. It's just like, no pressure, easy-going. It's the way it should have been last year, and at other competitions when I was too intense."
She found her coach, Scott Williams, whom she hired late last summer, a perfect partner with whom to take this season's weird ride. A handful of prominent coaches offered their services after she competed last year with only her father rinkside. Kwan, though, chose the little-known Williams, a long-haired, longtime friend and former elite skater who shares Kwan's California tan.
She no longer needed the strong opinions of Frank Carroll, whom she dumped a year before the Olympics. She did not need the hard-core training approach of Russian coaches Tatiana Tarasova or Alexei Mishin. She needed someone who exuded calm rather than tension. Williams seems to consider himself little more than the instrument-tuner in Kwan's symphony. And that suited her perfectly.
"He has this sort of aura, very relaxing, very calming," she said. "He has a great effect on me on the ice and off the ice. It helps me get in that zone when I am very confident."
It's like, for her, little league is over--she's got a major league mentality, where browbeating is no longer required and a soothing, dareIsay Phil Jacksonesque figure is. This can only be good for the athletic legitmacy of figure skating, which needs to encourage skater to stay "amateur" and develop into really really good skaters. It's a shame this is happening at the same time as the ISU is at it's lowest state, but what can you do.
Michelle Kwan won her fifth world title on Saturday. By the way.
"This year has been so enjoyable because it's been so relaxed," Kwan said. "Maybe it's telling me something: I should put less pressure on myself, just go out there and have fun . . . I like it this way. It's just like, no pressure, easy-going. It's the way it should have been last year, and at other competitions when I was too intense."
She found her coach, Scott Williams, whom she hired late last summer, a perfect partner with whom to take this season's weird ride. A handful of prominent coaches offered their services after she competed last year with only her father rinkside. Kwan, though, chose the little-known Williams, a long-haired, longtime friend and former elite skater who shares Kwan's California tan.
She no longer needed the strong opinions of Frank Carroll, whom she dumped a year before the Olympics. She did not need the hard-core training approach of Russian coaches Tatiana Tarasova or Alexei Mishin. She needed someone who exuded calm rather than tension. Williams seems to consider himself little more than the instrument-tuner in Kwan's symphony. And that suited her perfectly.
"He has this sort of aura, very relaxing, very calming," she said. "He has a great effect on me on the ice and off the ice. It helps me get in that zone when I am very confident."
It's like, for her, little league is over--she's got a major league mentality, where browbeating is no longer required and a soothing, dareIsay Phil Jacksonesque figure is. This can only be good for the athletic legitmacy of figure skating, which needs to encourage skater to stay "amateur" and develop into really really good skaters. It's a shame this is happening at the same time as the ISU is at it's lowest state, but what can you do.
Michelle Kwan won her fifth world title on Saturday. By the way.
Friday, March 28, 2003
NO, IT WASN'T DAVID FRUM: It was, in fact, Harlan Ullman who came up with "shock and awe." Here's something of his from the New York Post. You learn a lot listening to NPR all day.
YOUR POLITICAL SPECULATION OF THE DAY: From Steve Sailer, Man Without Permalinks:
In the unlikely event that this war turns out very badly, Rumsfeld might go too for his credulity. Perhaps Powell would then switch to Defense to reinstate the Powell Doctrine of massive force. Pressure would then emerge for the appointment as new Secretary of State of the one man best situated to patch up American relations with the rest of the world. Who is that American statesman popular worldwide? You guessed it: Bill Clinton.
That would be a pure pro wrestling moment--Team Bush down in the ring, right after Dubya has laid out Rummy with a chair shot. "I'd like to introduce.....our NEW....Secretary Of Defense....." And out comes William Jefferson Clinton. "My God! That's--that's Bill Clinton's music!"
In the unlikely event that this war turns out very badly, Rumsfeld might go too for his credulity. Perhaps Powell would then switch to Defense to reinstate the Powell Doctrine of massive force. Pressure would then emerge for the appointment as new Secretary of State of the one man best situated to patch up American relations with the rest of the world. Who is that American statesman popular worldwide? You guessed it: Bill Clinton.
That would be a pure pro wrestling moment--Team Bush down in the ring, right after Dubya has laid out Rummy with a chair shot. "I'd like to introduce.....our NEW....Secretary Of Defense....." And out comes William Jefferson Clinton. "My God! That's--that's Bill Clinton's music!"
ON HANNITY AND COLMES LAST NIGHT: I don't know who he was, but he was the smirkiest, most sarcastic and greatest French guy ever. Hannity was trying mach-five levels of self-righteousness and nothing worked--the French guy was deep deep in a smug bunker from which he could not be rooted out of. And he had this weird shifty-eyed thing going on; he wasn't going to play that direct eye contact game, nosiree. "The ferocity of the French taunting took him completely by surprise."
DR. RUTHSFELD: Sex tips from Donald Rumsfeld. Via medpundit. "There is no such thing as premature ejaculation. There is ejaculation, and there is non-ejaculation. If your husband is ejaculating, then count your blessings. Congratulations, you just had sex. That's what men do—they ejaculate."
WORLDS THIS WEEKEND: As figure skating self-destructs, you can still see if Sasha Cohen can finally beat Michelle Kwan, now that all the screeching teenagers seem to have eliminated themselves.
Thursday, March 27, 2003
MOST ENGAGING PART OF TELEVISION COVERAGE OF WAR THUS FAR MAY BE ENDING: So says Bruce O'Flit:
Sitting here, looking at a couple websites, I've been able to build up a 90% accurate picture of the strategic situation. There have been no surprises, no aces up Gen. Franks' sleeve that I didn't see coming hours or days off. Everyone in the world knows, if they care, roughly when the next U.S. armoured division is likely to arrive in Kuwait, how many tanks the U.S. lost yesterday, and to what... imagine how much more you'd have if you were the Iraqi commander and you also had the input of your own recce assets to feed into that.
In 1991, using skilful misdirection and overwhelming aerial superiority, the Americans basically denied the Iraqis ANY intelligence about their location or intent. When the hammer fell, it fell, for the Iraqis, out of fricking nowhere. Not this time. All that's been ceded over. Now everyone knows where the Americans are: it's the knowledge of the Iraqi situation that's imperfect.
Watch for the embeds to start being left behind or clawed back. We've already seen one kicked out of theatre, for saying something actually rather innocuous. It was probably more to encourage the others. In fact, the lull you're seeing today in news probably has less to do with actual quiet on the ground, and more on reporters and their minders trying to establish what the new rules are going to be. And expect the generals to start shutting up.
Lousy stupid shock and awe....
Sitting here, looking at a couple websites, I've been able to build up a 90% accurate picture of the strategic situation. There have been no surprises, no aces up Gen. Franks' sleeve that I didn't see coming hours or days off. Everyone in the world knows, if they care, roughly when the next U.S. armoured division is likely to arrive in Kuwait, how many tanks the U.S. lost yesterday, and to what... imagine how much more you'd have if you were the Iraqi commander and you also had the input of your own recce assets to feed into that.
In 1991, using skilful misdirection and overwhelming aerial superiority, the Americans basically denied the Iraqis ANY intelligence about their location or intent. When the hammer fell, it fell, for the Iraqis, out of fricking nowhere. Not this time. All that's been ceded over. Now everyone knows where the Americans are: it's the knowledge of the Iraqi situation that's imperfect.
Watch for the embeds to start being left behind or clawed back. We've already seen one kicked out of theatre, for saying something actually rather innocuous. It was probably more to encourage the others. In fact, the lull you're seeing today in news probably has less to do with actual quiet on the ground, and more on reporters and their minders trying to establish what the new rules are going to be. And expect the generals to start shutting up.
Lousy stupid shock and awe....
YOUR GREATEST SEARCH THAT FINDS MY WEBLOG POST OF THE DAY: Number 8 for "Tony Blair is a wanker." Read 'em and weep, beeotches. I mean, pooftas.
RALPHY 'N' RUMMY: Here's some Ralph from a few days back:
I do not doubt our ultimate success. But the impressive television images of tanks charging across the desert mask a numerical weakness for which technology may not fully compensate. One senior officer serving in the Persian Gulf complained to me that had we had sufficient forces on hand to deploy security elements along our routes of march -- the usual practice -- those American POWs who appeared on Iraqi television might not have been captured.
The troops at the front of our attack are performing superbly, but they are operating on adrenaline at this point. Four to five days into any conflict, another division should have conducted a "forward passage of lines" with the 3rd Infantry Division before the final push to Baghdad, giving the 3ID a chance to rest, rearm and reequip before returning to battle. But no other heavy division is on hand in the theater of war to relieve or reinforce our tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. The closest unit is on ships in the Red Sea, at least 10 days away from any ability to influence the battle.
Why did Rumsfeld and his most trusted subordinates overrule the advice of their military planners? For political, bureaucratic and theoretical reasons. Rumsfeld, who is otherwise an inspiring wartime official, was out to prove a point. In his vision of the future -- one shaped by technocrats and the defense industry -- ground forces can be cut drastically in order to free funding for advanced technologies. To that end, Rumsfeld has moved to frustrate the Army's efforts to field medium-weight brigades that can be deployed swiftly to a crisis, which would have been invaluable in this conflict.
This war was supposed to prove the diminishing relevance of ground forces, while shock-and-awe attacks from the air secured a swift victory. Instead, the plan had to be rearranged so that ground forces could rush into Iraq to prevent economic and ecological catastrophes -- you still cannot seize ground, prevent sabotage, halt genocide and ethnic cleansing, or liberate anybody from the sky.
We are headed for victory, but, as the Duke of Wellington observed of Waterloo, it may be a "near-run thing" on the ground.
Some lessons of this war are already clear: Ferocity, skill and determination, not theories, win wars. And our nation will continue to require balanced, adequately funded forces -- in all of our armed services -- for a very long time to come.
Oh, and here's a put-down:
Some things do not change. The best way to shock and awe an enemy is still to kill him. Those who want to wage antiseptic wars for political purposes should not start wars in the first place.
Daaaaamn.
I do not doubt our ultimate success. But the impressive television images of tanks charging across the desert mask a numerical weakness for which technology may not fully compensate. One senior officer serving in the Persian Gulf complained to me that had we had sufficient forces on hand to deploy security elements along our routes of march -- the usual practice -- those American POWs who appeared on Iraqi television might not have been captured.
The troops at the front of our attack are performing superbly, but they are operating on adrenaline at this point. Four to five days into any conflict, another division should have conducted a "forward passage of lines" with the 3rd Infantry Division before the final push to Baghdad, giving the 3ID a chance to rest, rearm and reequip before returning to battle. But no other heavy division is on hand in the theater of war to relieve or reinforce our tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. The closest unit is on ships in the Red Sea, at least 10 days away from any ability to influence the battle.
Why did Rumsfeld and his most trusted subordinates overrule the advice of their military planners? For political, bureaucratic and theoretical reasons. Rumsfeld, who is otherwise an inspiring wartime official, was out to prove a point. In his vision of the future -- one shaped by technocrats and the defense industry -- ground forces can be cut drastically in order to free funding for advanced technologies. To that end, Rumsfeld has moved to frustrate the Army's efforts to field medium-weight brigades that can be deployed swiftly to a crisis, which would have been invaluable in this conflict.
This war was supposed to prove the diminishing relevance of ground forces, while shock-and-awe attacks from the air secured a swift victory. Instead, the plan had to be rearranged so that ground forces could rush into Iraq to prevent economic and ecological catastrophes -- you still cannot seize ground, prevent sabotage, halt genocide and ethnic cleansing, or liberate anybody from the sky.
We are headed for victory, but, as the Duke of Wellington observed of Waterloo, it may be a "near-run thing" on the ground.
Some lessons of this war are already clear: Ferocity, skill and determination, not theories, win wars. And our nation will continue to require balanced, adequately funded forces -- in all of our armed services -- for a very long time to come.
Oh, and here's a put-down:
Some things do not change. The best way to shock and awe an enemy is still to kill him. Those who want to wage antiseptic wars for political purposes should not start wars in the first place.
Daaaaamn.
NEOCON DECEPTICONS: Josh Marshall lays out the neocon scheming for all to see:
The hawks' grand plan differs depending on whom you speak to, but the basic outline runs like this: The United States establishes a reasonably democratic, pro-Western government in Iraq--assume it falls somewhere between Turkey and Jordan on the spectrum of democracy and the rule of law. Not perfect, representative democracy, certainly, but a system infinitely preferable to Saddam's. The example of a democratic Iraq will radically change the political dynamics of the Middle East. When Palestinians see average Iraqis beginning to enjoy real freedom and economic opportunity, they'll want the same themselves. With that happy prospect on one hand and implacable United States will on the other, they'll demand that the Palestinian Authority reform politically and negotiate with Israel. That in turn will lead to a real peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. A democratic Iraq will also hasten the fall of the fundamentalist Shi'a mullahs in Iran, whose citizens are gradually adopting anti-fanatic, pro-Western sympathies. A democratized Iran would create a string of democratic, pro-Western governments (Turkey, Iraq, and Iran) stretching across the historical heartland of Islam. Without a hostile Iraq towering over it, Jordan's pro-Western Hashemite monarchy would likely come into full bloom. Syria would be no more than a pale reminder of the bad old days. (If they made trouble, a U.S. invasion would take care of them, too.) And to the tiny Gulf emirates making hesitant steps toward democratization, the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt would no longer look like examples of stability and strength in a benighted region, but holdouts against the democratic tide. Once the dust settles, we could decide whether to ignore them as harmless throwbacks to the bad old days or deal with them, too. We'd be in a much stronger position to do so since we'd no longer require their friendship to help us manage ugly regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
The audacious nature of the neocons' plan makes it easy to criticize but strangely difficult to dismiss outright. Like a character in a bad made-for-TV thriller from the 1970s, you can hear yourself saying, "That plan's just crazy enough to work."
But like a TV plot, the hawks' vision rests on a willing suspension of disbelief, in particular, on the premise that every close call will break in our favor: The guard will fall asleep next to the cell so our heroes can pluck the keys from his belt. The hail of enemy bullets will plink-plink-plink over our heroes' heads. And the getaway car in the driveway will have the keys waiting in the ignition. Sure, the hawks' vision could come to pass. But there are at least half a dozen equally plausible alternative scenarios that would be disastrous for us.
Via Matthew Yglesias. You should really read the whole thing, it's all about how every neocon plan could have different consequences from what the neocons say will happen. And argues one of the key neocon strategies has, in fact, been deception:
Today, however, the great majority of the American people have no concept of what kind of conflict the president is leading them into. The White House has presented this as a war to depose Saddam Hussein in order to keep him from acquiring weapons of mass destruction--a goal that the majority of Americans support. But the White House really has in mind an enterprise of a scale, cost, and scope that would be almost impossible to sell to the American public. The White House knows that. So it hasn't even tried. Instead, it's focused on getting us into Iraq with the hope of setting off a sequence of events that will draw us inexorably towards the agenda they have in mind.
More inevitability crap. Or in this case, inexorability crap. Dang it. When all the neocons form a giant robot, what do they call it? Imperius Rex? Rovinator? Machiavelli Max? Cybertron, my Cyberton, I weep rusty tears for ye.
The hawks' grand plan differs depending on whom you speak to, but the basic outline runs like this: The United States establishes a reasonably democratic, pro-Western government in Iraq--assume it falls somewhere between Turkey and Jordan on the spectrum of democracy and the rule of law. Not perfect, representative democracy, certainly, but a system infinitely preferable to Saddam's. The example of a democratic Iraq will radically change the political dynamics of the Middle East. When Palestinians see average Iraqis beginning to enjoy real freedom and economic opportunity, they'll want the same themselves. With that happy prospect on one hand and implacable United States will on the other, they'll demand that the Palestinian Authority reform politically and negotiate with Israel. That in turn will lead to a real peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. A democratic Iraq will also hasten the fall of the fundamentalist Shi'a mullahs in Iran, whose citizens are gradually adopting anti-fanatic, pro-Western sympathies. A democratized Iran would create a string of democratic, pro-Western governments (Turkey, Iraq, and Iran) stretching across the historical heartland of Islam. Without a hostile Iraq towering over it, Jordan's pro-Western Hashemite monarchy would likely come into full bloom. Syria would be no more than a pale reminder of the bad old days. (If they made trouble, a U.S. invasion would take care of them, too.) And to the tiny Gulf emirates making hesitant steps toward democratization, the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt would no longer look like examples of stability and strength in a benighted region, but holdouts against the democratic tide. Once the dust settles, we could decide whether to ignore them as harmless throwbacks to the bad old days or deal with them, too. We'd be in a much stronger position to do so since we'd no longer require their friendship to help us manage ugly regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
The audacious nature of the neocons' plan makes it easy to criticize but strangely difficult to dismiss outright. Like a character in a bad made-for-TV thriller from the 1970s, you can hear yourself saying, "That plan's just crazy enough to work."
But like a TV plot, the hawks' vision rests on a willing suspension of disbelief, in particular, on the premise that every close call will break in our favor: The guard will fall asleep next to the cell so our heroes can pluck the keys from his belt. The hail of enemy bullets will plink-plink-plink over our heroes' heads. And the getaway car in the driveway will have the keys waiting in the ignition. Sure, the hawks' vision could come to pass. But there are at least half a dozen equally plausible alternative scenarios that would be disastrous for us.
Via Matthew Yglesias. You should really read the whole thing, it's all about how every neocon plan could have different consequences from what the neocons say will happen. And argues one of the key neocon strategies has, in fact, been deception:
Today, however, the great majority of the American people have no concept of what kind of conflict the president is leading them into. The White House has presented this as a war to depose Saddam Hussein in order to keep him from acquiring weapons of mass destruction--a goal that the majority of Americans support. But the White House really has in mind an enterprise of a scale, cost, and scope that would be almost impossible to sell to the American public. The White House knows that. So it hasn't even tried. Instead, it's focused on getting us into Iraq with the hope of setting off a sequence of events that will draw us inexorably towards the agenda they have in mind.
More inevitability crap. Or in this case, inexorability crap. Dang it. When all the neocons form a giant robot, what do they call it? Imperius Rex? Rovinator? Machiavelli Max? Cybertron, my Cyberton, I weep rusty tears for ye.
LISTENING TO THE BUSH/BLAIR NEWS CONFERENCE: And comparing both of their answers to a question that was something like, "Why are traditional allies not supporting the war?" The Blair answer was something like, yes, there are differences of opinion, some are for us and some against us and these will need to be addressed after the war. The Bush answer was something like are you nuts, there's no problem whatsoever, we have more nations on our side than during Gulf War I--denial, basically. This whole "aura of inevitability" crap--defined as the persistent overstatement of one's case--is as annoying now as it was in 2000.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
GOOD POST: RiShawn Biddle answers Patio Pundit's question, "Have you lost any friends since 9-11?" I liked this part:
[T]here are going to be Reagan-era libertarians (Virginia Postrel, Reynolds, etc.) who will become aligned with conservatives within the next ten years. One reason: They're getting old; age can change points of view. The other reason: Because they had bought into the conceit that dollar diplomacy (a.k.a free trade can fix anything) would restrain ideologically-driven and power-hungry types such as terrorists. Now, any old-time libertarian/old whig such as Hayek could have told them otherwise; so could this newbie libertarian. But it took the World Trade Massacre to prove to them that their conceit was wrongheaded. Now that they're disillusioned, they're casting the whole baby out with the bathwater.
Which is good an explanation as any for Virginia's Frum-love.
[T]here are going to be Reagan-era libertarians (Virginia Postrel, Reynolds, etc.) who will become aligned with conservatives within the next ten years. One reason: They're getting old; age can change points of view. The other reason: Because they had bought into the conceit that dollar diplomacy (a.k.a free trade can fix anything) would restrain ideologically-driven and power-hungry types such as terrorists. Now, any old-time libertarian/old whig such as Hayek could have told them otherwise; so could this newbie libertarian. But it took the World Trade Massacre to prove to them that their conceit was wrongheaded. Now that they're disillusioned, they're casting the whole baby out with the bathwater.
Which is good an explanation as any for Virginia's Frum-love.
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