October 31, 2009
Happy Halloween
It would seem as though the idea of witches must be based, historically speaking, on something real. Through the Daily Grail, here's an excerpt from a book by Paul Devereux with an explanation as likely as any other. At least it makes sense to me. And one wonders whether such folk-lore practices might still survive into the modern era?
Enemy Borderlands
It seems as if Abdullah Abdullah may be a smarter politician than Mr. Obama when it comes to rigging outcomes in Afghanistan. It's a perfectly reasonable position to not want to participate in a rigged election: Why give those who rigged it an undeserved legitimacy? Yet Mr. Abdullah's unwillingness to play his assigned role seems to have confounded the Obama administration (note particularly Secretary Clinton's imbecilic response). Above all else, the administration needs the appearance of a credible Afghan government in order to justify the American presence, not to speak of escalation. Perhaps Mr. Abdullah believes — we can only speculate — that at this moment the most effective means at his disposal to encourage an American departure is a political boycott. If he does believe something like that, he would be right. Two roads diverge: one leads to de-escalation and withdrawal, the other promises a long, bitter slog ending with humiliating defeat. Time has almost run out but Mr. Obama can still choose one or the other. Never both. And he must make up his mind.
October 30, 2009
Sola Fide
"The sleep of reason breeds monsters."
– Francisco Goya
By Werther*
As yet more evidence for why the newspaper industry is in an apparently terminal decline, yesterday the New York Times published neoconservative columnist David Brooks' justification for more quagmire in Afghanistan. [1]
There are so many things wrong with his reasoning that we can only skim the surface. One of the defects has already been pointed out by Glenn Greenwald: Brooks apparently takes it as his sacred journalistic calling to talk to "sources" (unnamed in every case) who allegedly spend all their time thinking big thoughts about Afghanistan. [2] Miraculously, what they all advise, according to Brooks' paraphrasing, is what he has been advocating all along: escalation of the war.
October 29, 2009
A Thimble Full of Reform
It's hard to say much positive about the House health care bill. It's a step in the right direction, sort of. But, to be honest, it's not going to work very well: the costs of the mandate will be exorbitant for the middle class; coverage through a weak "public option" will be problematic; and one can only wonder about how many give-aways to industry might be stuffed into 1,990 pages. Far superior — infinitely superior — would have been one or two dozen pages that mandated coverage with a Medicare buy-in. So it's a tough call whether progressives in the House should vote this proposed bill down. At a minimum, as progressive caucus Co-Chair Raúl M. Grijalva wants, Speaker Pelosi should allow an up or down vote on a more robust approach, so that the public can identify, and then appropriately punish, those Democrats who are against real reform. The difference, I guess, is between trying to achieve a real health care result or trying to get "free-market" based health insurance reform. The latter being an oxymoron. I predict that those who seek to "compromise" with a fictive marketplace will crash and burn.
October 27, 2009
Caucus As A Democrat; Filibuster As A Republican
Well, it's no surprise that Joe Lieberman wants to have it both ways. He gets to chair an important committee, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, but he says he'll side with the Republicans to prevent a vote on health care if any bill includes a public option. There are two things here to keep in mind: First, Lieberman has no business caucusing with the Democrats if he votes with the Republicans on a filibuster and, second, the fact is — as I like to point out — that the filibuster is a rule, only a rule, and that the Senate majority (that would be the Democrats) can change it by majority vote at any time. If Senate Majority Leader Reid really wants to earn his chops he'll give Lieberman, the Republicans, and the White House a big Bronx cheer and ram a bill through with a simple majority. The way the U.S. Constitution intends. And then he'll dump Leiberman from all his leadership and seniority privileges.
Why the U.S. Military is Doomed to Fail in Afghanistan and Iraq
Little details tell the story. According to the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes, more than six years after sending its Stryker armored vehicles into desert combat the U.S. Army has realized that it's better to paint them tan than the standard Army green. You see, a big green vehicle in a desert environment stands out. It makes a fine target. Whereas a big tan vehicle is harder to see, harder to shoot at. Whatever failure(s) of organizational intelligence led to the improper paint it's reasonable to assume that such deficits are the rule, not the exception. And a military that has its priorities so chronically fouled up cannot be expected ever to win any kind of war, let alone a complex counter-insurgency.
October 26, 2009
Late October-Early November EP Podcast Schedule
We've got a change in the announced EP podcast lineup. On Friday, October 30, my guest will be Abolhassan Banisadr, the first President of Iran following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This is a three-way conversation with a translator, going back and forth between English and Persian. Then, on Friday, November 6th, my guest will be Kathleen Christison, to talk about her latest book, Palestine in Pieces
October 23, 2009
Lead, Follow, or Get Out of The Way!
Mr. Obama's apotheosis notwithstanding, it's despicable that he could meet with Senator Reid and, according to a wide variety of consistent reports, not express any preference as regards the content of health care legislation. If and when Congress passes real reform Mr. Obama will deserve zero credit. His acolytes, of course, will burble praises for his political genius. All claptrap. He's an imposter President.
October 22, 2009
The Red Team
Newsweek had an interesting piece a little while ago, reporting that Stan McChrystal had inadvertently leaked the existence of an Agency report titled "Chaosistan." Accidentally on purpose, if you ask me. Anyhow, since only Laura Rozen and a couple others picked up the story, without adding much, I thought I might take some creative liberties. What follows is my imaginary interview with the officer who produced "Chaosistan." We'll call him "David."
October 20, 2009
Speaking of Brazil...
Joe Biden's Secret Sharing
You may have noticed Arianna Huffington's essay on why Joe Biden should resign over Afghanistan policy. Since I'd resigned from government over policy — Yugoslav policy — and since I vaguely know Arianna from years ago, last week I sent her a very brief note to the effect that I have some experience regarding resignations and that I could tell her Joe Biden wasn't about to do it. She wrote back asking me for a submission for the Huffington Post, which of course I sent her a thousand words, tout de suite. Not having heard a peep after a couple days I'm guessing that my prose was perhaps too unkind to the establishment. Oh well. But I'll stand by my concluding hook that Joe Biden may well check out the way the character of Sam Lowry does in Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil, humming his own tune...
October 19, 2009
EP Downtime
Switching to a faster server, EP will be down for several hours tonight during the middle of the night. Thanks for your patience! [Update: the move obviously succeeded and EP's new fixed IP address is now propagating through the internet. Within a few hours everything will be just the same as it was, except faster. And thanks very much to BlueHost for their help.]
October 17, 2009
Speaking of Bandwidth
About a dozen EP podcast listeners wrote to me yesterday asking about slow downloads. Well, here's the scoop. It seems that EP is right on the edge of bandwidth constraints from BlueHost. Yes, they say "unlimited" file transfer, but to be realistic you can't expect that for a few bucks a month. There are a couple of interim fixes with Bluehost, then a much more complicated and expensive long-term fix of switching providers to one that offers dedicated servers, something I hope to put off for a while.
October 16, 2009
How Fast Is That?
The Finns have decided that, starting next July, fast broadband access will become a legal right. Actually, a one megabit connection is not so fast, but the Finns plan to increase speed requirements such that by the end of 2015 everyone will be entitled to a 100 megabit connection. Very fast! And an interesting precedent. Finland has been ahead of the game on matters internet since the earliest days, in fact, a trend-setter, and it would not be at all surprising to see very fast broadband emerge as a legal right throughout Europe. No doubt the U.S. will continue to lag far, far behind...
October 15, 2009
The Wages of Corporate Governance
Yesterday evening I learned that a friend out on the west coast, a musician, has been diagnosed with advanced metastatic cancer. Probably due to being a life-long two pack a day smoker. He's about my age but he'll be lucky if he lives through Christmas. Realistically there's no long term hope. In a peculiar way this is a blessing, because he's an alcoholic on a downward spiral that was sure to leave him dying penniless in the gutter — now he can die with some remaining dignity, with a roof over his head. The pity, though, is that he doesn't have health insurance and I can't help but think that if he had had access to health care the last few years, one, he might have been treated for addictive behavior and, two, his cancer might have been caught at an earlier, treatable stage. It's conceivable that he could have had a relatively normal, productive life for another couple of decades. And he should have had that chance. Instead, it's Goodnight, Vienna.
I'm terribly sorry, Jim, and I wish that society could have done better by you.
October 14, 2009
Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
A Nightwatch Comment
The following brief essay on Afghanistan is worth quoting, and thinking about. From Nightwatch, a free, open-source intelligence digest. Highly recommended. The author/editor, John McCreary, is an experienced analyst. Too politically conservative, but nobody's perfect. Is anyone in the White House thinking such thoughts? If they aren't, they should be.
October 13, 2009
Old-Fashioned Spydom
I haven't seen any of the episodes for years so I'm dying from curiosity to find out whether seeing them again I'll still think they're great. I'm sure I'll still like them, but great? I hope so. I always thought Patrick McGoohan (like Joseph Cotten) was a tremendous actor who never got enough prime opportunities to demonstrate his talent. And I really like the concept of The Prisoner
October 11, 2009
Speaking of Marmalade
Another food find. Seville marmalade that's perfect. Choice Seville oranges, just the right balance of rind and sugar, no bitterness from crushed seeds. A natural, artisanal Irish product. As with Yorkshire Tea, I have no idea where you might find Follain marmalade, but it's definitely worth tracking down. With some butter on raisin pumpernickel toast — Yum!
October 10, 2009
An Opt-out Compromise?
The Brits got national health care in 1948, during the political tumult following the war. The Canadians got a start on their superb system in the province of Saskatchewan in 1946, with the rest of Canada catching up by 1961, on a province by province basis. You might say that the U.S. is about sixty years behind the curve. Anyhow, now, with an "opt-out" compromise promising to gain enough legislative support to make a robust public option available in most states, the question is whether it's better to follow the nationwide British method or the piecemeal Canadian one.
October 9, 2009
The Triumph of Hope
Those Norwegian rascals! They figure a massive pre-emptive strike at Mr. Obama's ego — the Nobel Peace Prize, don't you know — will make making peace all the more irresistible. It probably can't hurt, at least I don't see how it could, but the Nobel Committee might want to reconsider its lack of any provisions for revoking the prize. Things may well turn out much, much, much worse than they expect.
A Podcast Technical Note
Today's podcast is a larger file size than usual relative to the length of the show, because I've encoded it at a higher bit rate than usual — 160 kbs rather than 96. And there are a couple reasons for that. But I'm assuming that 90%-plus of EP listeners have no operative constraints on either bandwidth or storage; I'd like to know from you, please, if that's not the case. Think of this as something of a test production. I'd also like to know if you can hear a difference in audio quality. In A/B tests I can, and the 160 kbs sounds sufficiently better that I thought I should offer it up. Again, please give me your feedback!
October 8, 2009
Thinking Outside the Box
Whoa, Nellie! Let's just take a deep breath and think about this for a minute. The claim is that if we don't "pacify" Afghanistan it will become a base of operations for our enemies, who will attack us again in "the homeland." In all our speculative reasoning we seem to be forgetting exactly what it was that previously had been so wrong with Afghanistan. That's the real problem.
October 7, 2009
Two Links
It's difficult to say enough good things about Gore Vidal. He has an exceptionally strong mind, and he's honest with himself and for the most part, with us. I'm sure if ever I got the chance to talk with him he'd think I'm a naïve optimist, but that's OK. And, of course, sometimes he's mistaken, as in his respect for Timothy McVeigh (perhaps due to a misplaced homoerotic impulse), or his complete loss of faith in America. Still, a very canny cat. So I thought his recent comments over the course of a two hour interview with a British journalist were important, both on their merits and for what they signal about the direction of high leftist thought.
October 6, 2009
Useless Dithering
A lot more often than you might think, the best policy option is to do nothing. It's certainly a lot better than rushing around doing anything for the sake of doing something. Doing nothing, in virtuous circumstances, preserves the option of intelligent action once the alternatives have been carefully weighed. (If this seems painfully obvious, believe me, in the thick of things it isn't.) Doing nothing, nevertheless, while at the very same time closing out most or all of the clear options, cannot be a good thing.
October 5, 2009
The 2009 Podcast Awards Competition
In each of the past two years the EP podcast has been one of ten finalists in the political category at the Annual Podcast Awards Competition. Winning the category outright would be better, but being recognized is just great in itself. Other shows in the top ten have included the Rachel Maddow Show podcast, the Democracy Now podcast, and the Slate podcast — and none of them have won the category either. To be honest, I'm not sure being recognized has helped at all in terms of building EP's audience, but I do know it's helped a lot in terms of booking high quality guests. So now it's that time of year again for the competition and I'd very much like for the EP podcast to again make it into the finals.
That will happen (I hope) if you, the EP audience, stand up for the show. Nominations are now open. It'll just take a moment of your time. Please, please, please participate!! ✘
October 4, 2009
Alexander Cockburn Is Wrong
If you want to understand why the American unwashed tend to self-identify more with "conservative" than "liberal" camps, you need look no further than Alexander Cockburn's hallucinatory apologia for Roman Polanski. The unwashed notice such outbursts and they don't like them. For many, and quite correctly, too, the Polanski case epitomizes the choice between a society that operates according to rules or one that operates according to an individual's influence. With Mr. Polanski we can't have it both ways. And when a society does not operate according to rules, people do not feel safe.
Taylors of Harrogate
Sometimes there's nothing quite so good as a cup of tea. Unfortunately, these days mass market teas sold in the U.S. seem to be made up mainly of leftover sweepings from teahouses around the world, after smart foreign buyers have snapped up the quality merchandise. To be honest, most teas sold in the U.S. — even supposedly fancy brands — make me physically sick. Seriously, I mean sick. Not to mention that they scarcely taste like tea. It's possible to order real tea, actual clusters of tea leaves in little pouches, at astronomical prices, but then you're practically talking tea ceremony, not just a cuppa in the morning. Enter Yorkshire tea, by Taylors of Harrogate. It's delightful with a very complex black tea flavor. Perky. Old fashioned tea bags. You know that the tea leaves were carefully sorted and handled responsibly. Delicious! Highly recommended.
