Do the Whirlwind
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Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:27:49 +0000
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The Lie of Hybrids
I’ve never understood the hype behind hybrid cars: sure, they look funky, and they have slightly higher mileage numbers than their conventionally-fueled counterparts, but they just never made any sense. An extra $5k for a car that saves a few gallons of fuel won’t ever be recouped over the probable lifetime of ownership… which is [...]
Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:04:41 +0000
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End the War on Drugs
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Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:20:09 +0000
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A Retrospective of Retrospectives
Five years past the invasion of Iraq, every body has been posting their own recollections-with a surprisingly small number of mea culpas. Over at Cynic’s Party, “Blogenfreude” summarized the roundup on Slate quite ably:
"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I believed the groupthink and contributed to it," by Jacob Weisberg.
"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? [...]
Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:14:43 +0000
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You can never trust the Dutch with anything
Not even a electro-reggae cover of John Denver’s “Country Roads”
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Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:38:51 +0000
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I'm barely here
I’m sure you’ve noticed my blogging here has reduced itself significantly in recent months. This is several-fold: my new job eats up a bunch of my time, I’m actually being social and spending time with people (and one in particular), and I’m blogging elsewhere at A Secondhand Conjecture and Registan.net.
I still cross post some things, [...]
Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:10:29 +0000
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Tibet Simmers
Tibet seems to be ill at ease with the Chinese again. With good reason-the last five decades can be called nothing short of cultural rape. Some of this was partially sparked by an ill-timed outburst from Björk, of all people, who called for Tibetan freedom at a concert she performed in Shanghai.
Agitating for Tibetan freedom [...]
Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:39:07 +0000
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Howlers on Fallon
There are many reasons to speculate about Adm. Fallon’s resignation at CENTCOM: a probable policy dispute over how best to handle Iran (despite the self-serving claims by military officials there was none, it was clear Fallon is at odds with the Iran hawks), a rumored severe personality clash with friend-of-the-President David Petraeus, and so on. [...]
Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:20:28 +0000
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Justice
This is catchy.
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Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:59:45 +0000
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An Interesting Contrast
Something has been bugging me a lot lately, but it’s been tough to put my fingers to it. I have been a faithful subscriber to Foreign Affairs for many years; since college I have deeply appreciated the insight and perspective those essays gave on the world. For much of that same span of time, I [...]
Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:03:20 +0000
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Stretched, but Not Broken
A poll conducted by Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security (which just hired the almost-retired LTC John Nagl, one of the coauthors, along with GEN Petraeus, of FM 3-24) asked what worries 3,400 active and retired military officers ranked O4 and above.
88% think Iraq has stretched the armed forces “dangerously thin” [...]
Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:37:29 +0000
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The Underpants Gnomes Teach Us How to Win in Iraq
Think I’m joking? At the risk of raising the ire of those I consider friends, here is Anthony Cordesman’s briefing from the battlefield, which describes what remains to be done in Iraq:
Consolidate gains against Al Qa'ida in Mesopotamia.
Move towards stable accommodation: Change de-Baathification law, provincial powers act and elections, oil law, etc.
Keep Shi'ite militias (Sadr [...]
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:51:09 +0000
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How Pakistan Accidentally Killed the Internet
Last week, a Pakistani ISP blocked YouTube in response to a video that apparently involved a cartoon pig defecating on the word “Allah.” Fine, whatever-there clearly is no appreciation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone in Islamabad. But the way they did it, which involved replicating a nasty redirect up the chain to several root-level [...]
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:02:24 +0000
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Glimpsing into Swat and Maulvi Fazlullah. And Putin
Frontline, which is consistently impressive in its programming, is running a big segment tonight on tribal militancy in Pakistan-especially the valley of Swat, which has transitioned over the past year from a tourist haven to a hotbed of violent extremists. Plus, to satisfy those of you who are yearning for more Slavic/Turkic-oriented coverage here, they’re [...]
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:45:28 +0000
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Pushing Collectivism
Two shows on Nickelodeon are teaching Chinese values to the kids. The first, Ni Hao, Kai-lan is meant to teach pre-schoolers Mandarin Chinese and Chinese values. It sounds innocent enough (and certainly a welcome change to the insipid Dora the Explorer), even though those values include “being a good member of a group,” and the [...]
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:41:30 +0000
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Obama Is Right, Again
Far be it for me to carry water for a Presidential candidate, but some criticism just goes far over the top. Many months ago, Barrack Obama got a lot of heat from the right-o-sphere for pointing out that the high number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan was harming the war effort-a point I quite vigorously [...]
Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:16:56 +0000
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Dirty Diplomacy: The Rough and Tumble Adventures of a Scotch Drinking, Skirt Chasing, Dictator Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the War Against Terror, by Craig Murray
Cross-posted to Registan.net.
This is quite possibly the worst-named book ever. The UK version was the very simple, stark, and compelling Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror. Why did that not suffice? Why the obvious play for the stereotypical American reliance on alcoholism, sluttery, and moral preening? [...]
Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:41:38 +0000
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Pushing the Envelope
Does anyone else think the Air Force is being exceptionally pig-headed, and borderline treasonous with their reckless profligacy?
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Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:46:35 +0000
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Bookends to War: Afghanistan by Louis Dupree, and Taliban by Ahmed Rashid
It is difficult to say anything useful about either of these books: after all, both have been read and discussed to death-Dupree’s because, 35 years after its publication, it remains the definitive source on Afghanistan, and Rashid’s because, eight years after its publication, it remains the best source on the Taliban’s origins, and the U.S.’s [...]
Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:34:20 +0000
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I Hope This Doesn't Spark War
Kosovo is independent. They love America, too, so who cares what else might happen? No surprise Russia is withholding recognition, but other countries trying to suppress separatist movements, like Spain, are refusing recognition as well-and Serbia still might attack as they said they would.
No word yet from Ron Paul advisor Doug Bandow, who has been [...]
Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:14:34 +0000
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Did You Know Somalia Still Sucks?
Somalia, which I have been trying to track as best I can since we paid Ethiopia to invade it for us last December, is quite conspicuously not on the President’s agenda. David Axe, who ballsily quit his job at Defense Technology International to go file reports from Mogadishu, notes the irony:
Somalia is the opposite of [...]
Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:01:35 +0000
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What is Kip Going On About?
It sounds strangely familiar:
The Air Force is going to use operations and maintenance funds that could be used to repair and maintain its current fleet, research and development funds on extending fleet life, and procurement funds for technology much cheaper than an F22 to increase fleet capability and is going to apply it toward purchasing [...]
Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:40:29 +0000
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Will You Be My Anti-Valentine? Volume V
Five years on, my annual ode to the bitterest Hallmark holiday knows no bounds. In recent years, I’ve looked at the giddier aspects of dropping some stupid trick like a coke habit; this year, it’s all the morning after. You can look up the lyrics if you want; the songs make a lot of sense [...]
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:50:34 +0000
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Quote of the Day
“I would venture to say that if the management of the Embassy and of the State Department’s Iraq operation were judged by rules that govern business judgment and asset waste in the private sector, the delays, indecision, and reorganizations over the past year would be considered willfully negligent if not criminal. In light of the [...]
Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:07:43 +0000
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The Weekend Hit, in Question Form
Who are The Hazara?
Why does ambassador Craig Murray love strippers so very much?
Is Uzbekistan granting amnesty to the human rights activists it jailed because of Admiral Fallon?
Why are the British so damned incompetent?
Why are memes so fracking tedious?
How did the Air Force become so incredibly useless so very quickly? And how are more people not [...]
Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:28:21 +0000
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How come I never heard of this?
“Beefcake, gerbils, big tits, scary white people, politically incorrect lesbians, and Reese Witherspoon. What more could you want?” Well yeah.
This looks, quite simply, awesome.
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Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:33:48 +0000
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What A Dumb Jerk
Kevin McCullough, who hosts a Jesus-Radio show called “The Musclehead Revolution” (it means “to use one’s head” and not, as one would think knowing the term, to be a dumbass jock), wants to destroy liberalism. Why? It is Godless-despite all that Jesus-talk about social justice, McCullough is convinced only GOPers can be Christians, or perhaps [...]
Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:36:34 +0000
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The Weekend Hit
My weeks have a remarkable tendency to fill up. I suppose moving up the job ladder does that-constricts your time to blog, that is. Alas.
Did you ever wonder why, years after Bill Clinton scored one of the biggest geopolitical coups we’ll see in our lifetimes-the building of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline-George W. Bush still can’t seem [...]
Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:15:51 +0000
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Your Thomas Barnett WTF of the .Year
Thomas P-to-the-M Barnett, who doesn’t at all want eternal warfare for the sake of “connectedness” thrown onto Europe’s back (ask him; he’ll say so, no matter what his books, essays, and lectures say), seems to think the one problem the U.S. hasn’t yet tackled well is annexing enough states into the Union. I wish I [...]
Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:08:20 +0000
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What War Are We Preparing to Fight?
We all know the cliché “fighting the last war.” It’s meant to explain why the first phases of any war seem out of whack-because the command staff is usually relying on doctrine and tactics honed in the previous engagement, and has yet to adapt them to the eccentricities of the current conflict. This can sometimes [...]
Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:42:05 +0000
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