Apparently, Brussels has decided that it has had enough of the Dutch-speaking Flemish in the city, so in the words of Bertholt Brecht, it is deciding to dissolve the people and elect another.
This is very similar to the situation in Canada with Quebec, where immigration is encouraged by the federal government in an attempt to dilute the Quebecois, at least electorally, as Steve Sailer mentions in this comment on the Brothers Judd blog.
That is all.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Listen People, Soldiers AREN'T ALLOWED to Tell the Truth!
A common theme in the "Iraq is wonderful, the media is just lying to you," storyline is that the soldiers on the ground, who should know what is going on better than anyone, all think that things are going great and that the media is distorting things, not telling the whole truth, ignoring the good news, etc.
Well, this indicates that we may not be able to trust what the soldiers are telling us:
“The message is clear,” says one reservist who is home for the holidays but has to return and asked not to be identified. “If you want to get out of this man’s Army with an honorable (discharge) and full benefits you better not tell the truth about what is happening in-country.”
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Lunaville (link is from Sol at 3:03 am Jan. 15).
That is all.
Well, this indicates that we may not be able to trust what the soldiers are telling us:
“The message is clear,” says one reservist who is home for the holidays but has to return and asked not to be identified. “If you want to get out of this man’s Army with an honorable (discharge) and full benefits you better not tell the truth about what is happening in-country.”
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Lunaville (link is from Sol at 3:03 am Jan. 15).
That is all.
Save Spider-Girl!
Update: Spider-Girl has officially been cancelled, i.e. it will not be renewed after issue #100. But it has been officially cancelled before and then resuscitated due to fan support. Please, if you buy comics, start buying this title. The last issue does not come out until August. We still have amonth or so before they can change their minds without a significant publishing disruption. Increased sales figures are Spider-Girl's best hope. (Current sales figures are going down fast).
Spider-Girl, one of my favorite comics, may be in danger of cancellation at issue 100 if sales do not pick up.
I seriously encourage Glaivester readers who like comic books to buy one at the local comic store, or if you subscribe to comics, to consider subscribing to Spider-Girl. (You can subscribe at Marvel's subscription site).
Spider-Girl is the only current regular title set in the "MC-2" universe, an alternate version of the Marvel Universe about 15-20 years ahead of the mainstream Marvel Universe (also known as the "616" universe, reportedly named because the first issue of Fantastic Four came out in June '61).
In the MC-2, Spider-Girl, aka May "MayDay" Parker, is the daughter of Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, and Mary Jane Watson. She has a lot of her father's powers (although some are at a lower or higher level than dead old dad's), and some of her own.
I don't know what else to say. Buy it. Oh, and New Excalibur is also good, and features Her Sexy Blueness. But that is a post for another time.
That is all.
Spider-Girl, one of my favorite comics, may be in danger of cancellation at issue 100 if sales do not pick up.
I seriously encourage Glaivester readers who like comic books to buy one at the local comic store, or if you subscribe to comics, to consider subscribing to Spider-Girl. (You can subscribe at Marvel's subscription site).
Spider-Girl is the only current regular title set in the "MC-2" universe, an alternate version of the Marvel Universe about 15-20 years ahead of the mainstream Marvel Universe (also known as the "616" universe, reportedly named because the first issue of Fantastic Four came out in June '61).
In the MC-2, Spider-Girl, aka May "MayDay" Parker, is the daughter of Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, and Mary Jane Watson. She has a lot of her father's powers (although some are at a lower or higher level than dead old dad's), and some of her own.
I don't know what else to say. Buy it. Oh, and New Excalibur is also good, and features Her Sexy Blueness. But that is a post for another time.
That is all.
Is Iranian President Ahmadinejad Actually a Holocaust Denier?
Al S.E. offers a rebuttal.
Essentially, his argument boils down to that what Ahmadinejad was actually saying was that the Holocaust has become Israel's raison d'etre and that the west in general exploits it as a way to attack Muslims.
As for the first part, I have commented on the "the Holocaust caused Israel to exist" idea here. As for the second, I think that that is not only a gross oversimplification, but also assumes that the people in Muslim countries are a lot better than I think they really are. But if this is what he was saying, it is a far cry from what he has been accused of saying.
That is all.
Essentially, his argument boils down to that what Ahmadinejad was actually saying was that the Holocaust has become Israel's raison d'etre and that the west in general exploits it as a way to attack Muslims.
As for the first part, I have commented on the "the Holocaust caused Israel to exist" idea here. As for the second, I think that that is not only a gross oversimplification, but also assumes that the people in Muslim countries are a lot better than I think they really are. But if this is what he was saying, it is a far cry from what he has been accused of saying.
That is all.
Bio-Terrorism
Dennis Mangan notes an interesting story:
Apparently a group of gay men in South Africa have decided to lie about their sexuality so they can donate blood.
It seems that once again, AIDS has begun to be treated as a political/rights issue rather than as a %*##$$!!! disease.
That is all.
Apparently a group of gay men in South Africa have decided to lie about their sexuality so they can donate blood.
It seems that once again, AIDS has begun to be treated as a political/rights issue rather than as a %*##$$!!! disease.
That is all.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Random Blogs
Here are some blogs I found clicking "Next Blog" button:
Interessieren
Frank's Life... Whatever
emily mills.net
Soli Deo Gloria
That is all.
Interessieren
Frank's Life... Whatever
emily mills.net
Soli Deo Gloria
That is all.
Ol' Reliable
Michael Ledeen once again trots out the notion that the reason things are not going well in Iraq is because we haven't overthrown the mullahs in Iran yet, and that we will have to expand the war in order to win it.
His writing, as usual, contains numerous faulty [dishonest] assumptions, such as the idea that the only Iraqis who would use terrorist tactics they learned from Iran are on the other side. I'll try to critique his piece in more detail later.
That is all.
His writing, as usual, contains numerous faulty [dishonest] assumptions, such as the idea that the only Iraqis who would use terrorist tactics they learned from Iran are on the other side. I'll try to critique his piece in more detail later.
That is all.
Agent Provocateurs, Entrapment, and Planted Evidence?
Gordon Prather has some theories about what the mission of the "Russian defector" - who was supposedly used by the CIA to give disinformation to the Iranians - really was.
Namely, the goal was to give the Iranians something which could be used as a casus belli to attack them.
A little Byzantine, I suppose, no more unbelievable than what the American Enterprise Institute's resident necromancer claims his dead CIA buddy told him.
That is all.
Namely, the goal was to give the Iranians something which could be used as a casus belli to attack them.
A little Byzantine, I suppose, no more unbelievable than what the American Enterprise Institute's resident necromancer claims his dead CIA buddy told him.
That is all.
Maybe There Is a Slippery Slope
Despite liberal claims that same-sex marriage is not a slippery slope, the federal government in Canada has sponsored a study which is encouraging the legal recognition of polygamy.
So the question is, are the liberals naive or are they just lying?
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Steve Sailer.
That is all.
So the question is, are the liberals naive or are they just lying?
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Steve Sailer.
That is all.
Kudos to Victor Davis Hanson (Really)
I would be remiss if I did not compliment Victor Davis Hanson on a fine article that shows dismay at the possible of the self-destruction of Europe.
As Lawrence Auster has pointed out, this is far preferable to the schaudenfreud-laced American triumphalism* that Mark Steyn displays on the topic. (Yay! Those dumb Euros are gonna die out!)
*By which I mean that Steyn sees the failure of Europe as being a "win" for the U.S. by comparison. Actually, his latest writing suggests he might not care if the U.S. is defeated, too.
That is all.
As Lawrence Auster has pointed out, this is far preferable to the schaudenfreud-laced American triumphalism* that Mark Steyn displays on the topic. (Yay! Those dumb Euros are gonna die out!)
*By which I mean that Steyn sees the failure of Europe as being a "win" for the U.S. by comparison. Actually, his latest writing suggests he might not care if the U.S. is defeated, too.
That is all.
Lottery, Schmlottery
Dennis Mangan discusses the lottery and Social Security.
This reminds me of a thought I once had.
Someone was talking about the fact that so many lottery winners seem to lose all of their money in a year or two. They wondered if it weren't a cosmic karmic payback of some sort.
Pfah. The real answer is that the people most likely to win the lottery are probably people who spend the most money buying lottery tickets. That is, they are not too good with money. The people who would play the lottery enough to have a decent chance of winning are the exact type of people who would blow through their winnings because they don't understand that (a) even a million, or several million, dollars is a finite quantity, and (b) they only get to keep a percentage of what they supposedly won; due to taxes, penalties if they want it all paid out at once, etc.
Murray Rothbard once said: "In fact, if you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place."
If by criminal gang you mean a mafia, then therigged numbers game education-funding state lottery certainly seems to fit in with the overall motif.
That is all.
This reminds me of a thought I once had.
Someone was talking about the fact that so many lottery winners seem to lose all of their money in a year or two. They wondered if it weren't a cosmic karmic payback of some sort.
Pfah. The real answer is that the people most likely to win the lottery are probably people who spend the most money buying lottery tickets. That is, they are not too good with money. The people who would play the lottery enough to have a decent chance of winning are the exact type of people who would blow through their winnings because they don't understand that (a) even a million, or several million, dollars is a finite quantity, and (b) they only get to keep a percentage of what they supposedly won; due to taxes, penalties if they want it all paid out at once, etc.
Murray Rothbard once said: "In fact, if you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place."
If by criminal gang you mean a mafia, then the
That is all.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Whose Hearts and Minds?
According to this post by Juan Cole, a major criticism of American troops by other countries' troops in Iraq is that we are too quick to assume that the solution to our problems with the insurgents lies simply in "killing 'em dead until there ain't no more." Attempting to get the hearts and minds of the ordinary Iraqis has gone by the wayside.
Michael Schwartz at AntiWar.com makes a similar point at how we are trying to view every problem a a simple military one with a simple military solution: kill 'em::
Rather than allow the perpetrators to take refuge in a nearby home and then quietly slip away, the U.S. command decided to take out the house, even though they had no guarantee that it was uninhabited (and every reason to believe the opposite). The paramount goal was to kill or capture the suspected guerrilla fighters, and if this involved the death or injury of multiple Iraqi civilians, the tradeoff was clearly considered worth it.
Which leads one to question whether any of the talk about hearts and minds is about Iraqi hearts and minds or American ones. That is, as I have asked before (as have others), is the goal of funding propaganda in the papers, painting schools, etc., to gain Iraqi suport for an American presence, or to put on a nice face for American news cameras, so Sean Hannity can dutifully report on all of the "good news that is being ignored by the eeeeevvvvil MainStream Media (MSM)." (Of course, the fact that there has been an air war going on in Iraq, not in the future, or recently, but from the beginning, mentioned by Tom Engelhardt in the same article as the Schwartz piece, is a piece of news that the media has ignored and that I have a feeling that a lot of the pro-warriors would be just as happy not be reported).
If you look at the administration as using the Iraqis as props to rebuild American support for the war, and not as trying to actually help the Iraqis for the purpose of winning their hearts and minds (at least in the case of the Sunni Arabs), I think that you get a far different picture of what is going on in Iraq.
That is all.
Michael Schwartz at AntiWar.com makes a similar point at how we are trying to view every problem a a simple military one with a simple military solution: kill 'em::
Rather than allow the perpetrators to take refuge in a nearby home and then quietly slip away, the U.S. command decided to take out the house, even though they had no guarantee that it was uninhabited (and every reason to believe the opposite). The paramount goal was to kill or capture the suspected guerrilla fighters, and if this involved the death or injury of multiple Iraqi civilians, the tradeoff was clearly considered worth it.
Which leads one to question whether any of the talk about hearts and minds is about Iraqi hearts and minds or American ones. That is, as I have asked before (as have others), is the goal of funding propaganda in the papers, painting schools, etc., to gain Iraqi suport for an American presence, or to put on a nice face for American news cameras, so Sean Hannity can dutifully report on all of the "good news that is being ignored by the eeeeevvvvil MainStream Media (MSM)." (Of course, the fact that there has been an air war going on in Iraq, not in the future, or recently, but from the beginning, mentioned by Tom Engelhardt in the same article as the Schwartz piece, is a piece of news that the media has ignored and that I have a feeling that a lot of the pro-warriors would be just as happy not be reported).
If you look at the administration as using the Iraqis as props to rebuild American support for the war, and not as trying to actually help the Iraqis for the purpose of winning their hearts and minds (at least in the case of the Sunni Arabs), I think that you get a far different picture of what is going on in Iraq.
That is all.
Randy Graf vs. Jim Kolbe on The Border
UPDATE: I have been told that Jim Kolbe has dropped out and been replaced with another candidate (so Graf is not going to have an uncontested race, he still needs support). More on this as it develops.
I figure that I ought to say something about the guy who I am advertising for (disclosure: I'm being paid to run the ad on the left).
He is Randy Graf, who is currently running against Jim Kolbe in the G.O.P. primary for the U.S. House seat representing the 8th district in Arizona.
If you look at Randy Graf's position on border security vs. Jim Kolbe's, it's pretty clear who is the real conservative. Who wants to protect our orders, and who simply wants to keep them porous but formalize it.
[Just in case I am being too subtle here, Graf = Good Kolbe = Bad].
That is all.
I figure that I ought to say something about the guy who I am advertising for (disclosure: I'm being paid to run the ad on the left).
He is Randy Graf, who is currently running against Jim Kolbe in the G.O.P. primary for the U.S. House seat representing the 8th district in Arizona.
If you look at Randy Graf's position on border security vs. Jim Kolbe's, it's pretty clear who is the real conservative. Who wants to protect our orders, and who simply wants to keep them porous but formalize it.
[Just in case I am being too subtle here, Graf = Good Kolbe = Bad].
That is all.
Glaivester Reader Predictions
Earlier I asked my readers for predictions.
Well, here they are:
Dennis Mangan: Pat Buchanan will attend Ariel Sharon's funeral.
Derek Copold:
Calderon will edge out AMLO in surprise upset in 2006 Mexican election.
Republicans will hang on to Congress by the skin of their teeth.
Dubya will find good excuse to declare victory in Iraq and pull troops back to Kuwait and Kurdistan. Iran-Friendly Shiite government will lower the hammer in the Sunni triangle under our watchful eyes.
The Iranians will continue to jab us in the eye with nuclear threats, and we won't be able to a damned thing about it.
The Likud will take over the Israeli government, making big promises to the settler right, which they will betray after a few months of being in office.
HR 4437 will pass in a watered down form, but still with no "guest worker" provision.
A few GOP congressmen will get stung by the Abramoff scandal, but DeLay will escape with his seat. He won't return to the leadership.
Mel Gibson's Apocolypto will rock, sending his critics into further conniption fits.
daveg:
I think the Republicans will lose very few seats in the house, and perhaps even gain seats.
They will lose seats in the Senate, however, and may even lose control.
The House is more in touch with rank and file voters as demonstrated by the passing of real immigration reform. I think they will be rewarded for that.
The Senate has not done the same, and the Senate is also viewed as being the chamber involved in foreign policy and therefore more responsible for the war in Iraq. They will be punished for that.
Michael Brendan Dougherty has his own predictions post.
Martin Kelly:
We will all get rich from blogging.
Mark my words, my boy, mark my words...
That is all.
Well, here they are:
Dennis Mangan: Pat Buchanan will attend Ariel Sharon's funeral.
Derek Copold:
Calderon will edge out AMLO in surprise upset in 2006 Mexican election.
Republicans will hang on to Congress by the skin of their teeth.
Dubya will find good excuse to declare victory in Iraq and pull troops back to Kuwait and Kurdistan. Iran-Friendly Shiite government will lower the hammer in the Sunni triangle under our watchful eyes.
The Iranians will continue to jab us in the eye with nuclear threats, and we won't be able to a damned thing about it.
The Likud will take over the Israeli government, making big promises to the settler right, which they will betray after a few months of being in office.
HR 4437 will pass in a watered down form, but still with no "guest worker" provision.
A few GOP congressmen will get stung by the Abramoff scandal, but DeLay will escape with his seat. He won't return to the leadership.
Mel Gibson's Apocolypto will rock, sending his critics into further conniption fits.
daveg:
I think the Republicans will lose very few seats in the house, and perhaps even gain seats.
They will lose seats in the Senate, however, and may even lose control.
The House is more in touch with rank and file voters as demonstrated by the passing of real immigration reform. I think they will be rewarded for that.
The Senate has not done the same, and the Senate is also viewed as being the chamber involved in foreign policy and therefore more responsible for the war in Iraq. They will be punished for that.
Michael Brendan Dougherty has his own predictions post.
Martin Kelly:
We will all get rich from blogging.
Mark my words, my boy, mark my words...
That is all.
Private Health Care in Europe Does Exist
I have a feeling that most Americans think that all European healthcare is directly provided for, or paid for, by the government. This is not entirely accurate.
The Brussels Journal reports on differing systems in Europe. This even includes systems where there is some level of opting out from the government program, or where opting out is mandatory for some people. It also includes systems where private insurance can be added as an additional layer on top of government-provided health care.
That is all.
The Brussels Journal reports on differing systems in Europe. This even includes systems where there is some level of opting out from the government program, or where opting out is mandatory for some people. It also includes systems where private insurance can be added as an additional layer on top of government-provided health care.
That is all.
Coleman Guilty
Well, the case of Roger Keith Coleman, a minor cause in the anti-death penalty movement, has finally been solved conclusively.
DNA evidence confirms his guilt.
To be fair, it appears as if all or almost all anti-death penalty groups were lobbying to have the DNA testing done on the evidence, or were suggesting that the case against him had not been proven well enough in court; I didn't see any actually proclaim his innocence.
However, this is not the case that finally proves an innocent has been executed in the U.S., which a lot of people were probably hoping for.
That is all.
DNA evidence confirms his guilt.
To be fair, it appears as if all or almost all anti-death penalty groups were lobbying to have the DNA testing done on the evidence, or were suggesting that the case against him had not been proven well enough in court; I didn't see any actually proclaim his innocence.
However, this is not the case that finally proves an innocent has been executed in the U.S., which a lot of people were probably hoping for.
That is all.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Gotta Love WorldNetDaily
In their link on their front page to this article, their subtitle shows what is really important about the story:
Male teacher accused of raping girl, 16
48-year-old English instructor also opponent of military recruiting
Oh, yeah, the political message here is difficult to decipher.
That is all.
Male teacher accused of raping girl, 16
48-year-old English instructor also opponent of military recruiting
Oh, yeah, the political message here is difficult to decipher.
That is all.
Paul Bremer: The Administration Has No Common Sense
Paul Bremer was on Hannity and Colmes last night. Specifically, he was interviewed by Sean Hannity.
After the usual tripe about "How could you say anything against the Bush administration? You hurt our troops if you don't worship Dubya!" (brought up in relation to Bremer bringing out that he had requested more troops and was rejected), Sean Hannity actually asked Bremer a good question.
I don't have a transcript, but Sean Hannity essentially asked him why the administration did not anticipate an insurgency.
His response was that all of the intelligence was dedicated to the WMD issue.
I say, so what? Can't you tell that fire is hot and water is wet without intelligence data? The real question, of course, is, "why didn't you consider the possibility of an insurgency and dedicate intelligence to it?" I mean, a reasonably intelligent (no pun intended) five-year-old should be able to tell that when you invade a foreign country, they will fight you. They should have prepared even without intelligence data, just on the basis of common sense, and they should have been smart enough to know to gather intelligence.
The real answer, of course, is either one of two possibilities:
(a) That the administration was so blinded by its own propaganda that it thought that we would be welcomed as liberators and then we could just get around to rebuilding the country with the support of all of the Iraqis.
(b) It decided to lie about the insurgency it knew would happen, figuring that it needed to lie in order to get support for the Iraq Attaq. Perhaps Rumsfeld or Bush thought that if they could get us into the war, then they could figure out how to quash the insurgency later. Or perhaps, they plan a brutal, brutal, put-down, as suggested by Michael Schwartz, but realized that they need to get us good and desperate first.
That is all.
After the usual tripe about "How could you say anything against the Bush administration? You hurt our troops if you don't worship Dubya!" (brought up in relation to Bremer bringing out that he had requested more troops and was rejected), Sean Hannity actually asked Bremer a good question.
I don't have a transcript, but Sean Hannity essentially asked him why the administration did not anticipate an insurgency.
His response was that all of the intelligence was dedicated to the WMD issue.
I say, so what? Can't you tell that fire is hot and water is wet without intelligence data? The real question, of course, is, "why didn't you consider the possibility of an insurgency and dedicate intelligence to it?" I mean, a reasonably intelligent (no pun intended) five-year-old should be able to tell that when you invade a foreign country, they will fight you. They should have prepared even without intelligence data, just on the basis of common sense, and they should have been smart enough to know to gather intelligence.
The real answer, of course, is either one of two possibilities:
(a) That the administration was so blinded by its own propaganda that it thought that we would be welcomed as liberators and then we could just get around to rebuilding the country with the support of all of the Iraqis.
(b) It decided to lie about the insurgency it knew would happen, figuring that it needed to lie in order to get support for the Iraq Attaq. Perhaps Rumsfeld or Bush thought that if they could get us into the war, then they could figure out how to quash the insurgency later. Or perhaps, they plan a brutal, brutal, put-down, as suggested by Michael Schwartz, but realized that they need to get us good and desperate first.
That is all.
More on Salman Pak, etc.
Daniel Larison of Eunomia adds some thoughts to the "Saddam trained terrorists" issue, adding his voice of skepticism to Jim Henley's.
That is all.
That is all.
Are We Heading for More My Lais Abu Ghraibs?
The recent concern over lowering the intellectual requirements for Army recruits has another angle:
Steve Gilliard worries about the fact that the My Lai massacre was perpetrated by soldiers who were probably disproportionately Category IVers.
Whether My Lai was the result of incompetence, or whether they were chosen for the mission deliberately because of their low intellectual caliber (i.e. they were more likely to follow orders without question and not notice that the people they were killing were civilians, this has some disturbing possibilities.
Could this mean more Abu Ghraibs, either because the soldiers don't think about what they are doing or because they can easily be convinced to do it (if the administration wants it done) and then made to take the fall?
More on this as it develops.
That is all.
Steve Gilliard worries about the fact that the My Lai massacre was perpetrated by soldiers who were probably disproportionately Category IVers.
Whether My Lai was the result of incompetence, or whether they were chosen for the mission deliberately because of their low intellectual caliber (i.e. they were more likely to follow orders without question and not notice that the people they were killing were civilians, this has some disturbing possibilities.
Could this mean more Abu Ghraibs, either because the soldiers don't think about what they are doing or because they can easily be convinced to do it (if the administration wants it done) and then made to take the fall?
More on this as it develops.
That is all.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Yglesias Censored?
Kevin Drum posts this bit from a Matt Yglesias posting on TAPPED:
I tend to doubt, however, that this line of criticism will gain any traction, since making the argument requires you to say that IQ tests (which is all the AFQT really is) are an important measurement and most liberals prefer to shy away from the topic.
Read the post he links to.
Nope, it's not on any January post or December 2005 post either.
Now I don't think that Kevin Drum was lying or that he made a mistake in his link.
Which means that someone altered the post.
Update: The esteemed Greg Cochran comments:
I saw it earlier. it's been changed.
Update #2: Here is a Google Cache of the original post.
That is all.
I tend to doubt, however, that this line of criticism will gain any traction, since making the argument requires you to say that IQ tests (which is all the AFQT really is) are an important measurement and most liberals prefer to shy away from the topic.
Read the post he links to.
Nope, it's not on any January post or December 2005 post either.
Now I don't think that Kevin Drum was lying or that he made a mistake in his link.
Which means that someone altered the post.
Update: The esteemed Greg Cochran comments:
I saw it earlier. it's been changed.
Update #2: Here is a Google Cache of the original post.
That is all.
The Reduction of G.I. IQ
Fred Kaplan provides an excellent analysis of the situation with the military recruiting more from the left-hand side of the bell curve.
Previously, he reported on the reduction in formal qualifications required.
Don't expect the liberals to point this out, though, in response to pro-war bloggers who want to celebrate the seeming success in recruiting.
You see, the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) is really an IQ test, as Matt Yglesias points out (I can't link, I'll explain in the next post), and Kevin Drum points out, the elephant in the room is race, which is the main reason why IQ is so taboo to begin with.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Steve Sailer.
That is all.
Previously, he reported on the reduction in formal qualifications required.
Don't expect the liberals to point this out, though, in response to pro-war bloggers who want to celebrate the seeming success in recruiting.
You see, the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) is really an IQ test, as Matt Yglesias points out (I can't link, I'll explain in the next post), and Kevin Drum points out, the elephant in the room is race, which is the main reason why IQ is so taboo to begin with.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Steve Sailer.
That is all.
Pardon Ben Kahn!
It's nice to see people pointing out that the free-speech restrictions during World War I were actually a bad thing.
That is all.
That is all.
Gold Rush
With gold approaching $550.00/troy oz., silver $9.00/troy oz., and platinum already over $1016 the goldbugs are reminding everyone that they were right.
Gary North and Bill Bonner are among the happy few.
Oh, yeah, I am too.
That is all.
Gary North and Bill Bonner are among the happy few.
Oh, yeah, I am too.
That is all.
Fumento: Good on AIDS, Not-So-Good on Iraq
While Michael Fumento has done a great deal of good work on debunking various AIDS myths (e.g. that it is going to kill huge swaths of the U.S. population, that it is an "equal-opportunity" epidemic), his articles on Iraq leave, I think, a lot to be desired.
First, I do not notice a lot of numerical analysis of the metrics of the war (e.g. casualties, fatalities). Second, he seems a little too eager to believe whatever the government proclaims (i.e. that Zarqawi is the leader of the insurgency, and he uses the highest estimates for the percentage of foreigners in the insurgency (10% rather than saying between 4 and 10%). Third, he either seems a little too trusting of the goodness of our allies, or else he doesn't care if there are massacres carried out against Sunni Arabs:
Iraqi [i.e. Shiite leaders - Glaivester] leaders are also claiming the U.S. is holding them back from fighting the sort of war necessary to defeat savage terrorists, according to a Sunday Washington Post story. This echoes the only complaint I heard from Marines and soldiers when I was in Iraq, that we were trying to win with a "kindler, gentler military."
Reading the story he links to, one gets the sinking feeling that what the Shiite leaders really want is a chance to significantly reduce the Sunni Arab population , to put it mildly.
Earlier this month, I commented on Michael Schwartz's article about U.S. strategy in 2006, where he quotes Seymour Hersh:
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them." The officer went on, "They [the U.S. troops] were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,"
Given this, I am afraid of what not "holding [the Shiites and Kurds] back from fighting the sort of war necessary to defeat savage terrorists" might entail. Either Mr. Fumento does not believe that the Shiites will or are doing stuff like this, or else he doesn't care.
On the other hand, he doesn't like Cindy Sheehan, and while I don't doubt her sincerity, I have to agree with him that she is a crackpot.
More on this later.
That is all.
First, I do not notice a lot of numerical analysis of the metrics of the war (e.g. casualties, fatalities). Second, he seems a little too eager to believe whatever the government proclaims (i.e. that Zarqawi is the leader of the insurgency, and he uses the highest estimates for the percentage of foreigners in the insurgency (10% rather than saying between 4 and 10%). Third, he either seems a little too trusting of the goodness of our allies, or else he doesn't care if there are massacres carried out against Sunni Arabs:
Iraqi [i.e. Shiite leaders - Glaivester] leaders are also claiming the U.S. is holding them back from fighting the sort of war necessary to defeat savage terrorists, according to a Sunday Washington Post story. This echoes the only complaint I heard from Marines and soldiers when I was in Iraq, that we were trying to win with a "kindler, gentler military."
Reading the story he links to, one gets the sinking feeling that what the Shiite leaders really want is a chance to significantly reduce the Sunni Arab population , to put it mildly.
Earlier this month, I commented on Michael Schwartz's article about U.S. strategy in 2006, where he quotes Seymour Hersh:
An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them." The officer went on, "They [the U.S. troops] were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,"
Given this, I am afraid of what not "holding [the Shiites and Kurds] back from fighting the sort of war necessary to defeat savage terrorists" might entail. Either Mr. Fumento does not believe that the Shiites will or are doing stuff like this, or else he doesn't care.
On the other hand, he doesn't like Cindy Sheehan, and while I don't doubt her sincerity, I have to agree with him that she is a crackpot.
That is all.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
James Robbins, Translated
James Robbins' piece on why we need to make certain that Iran cannot acquire nukes essentially boils down to one thing:
We cannot let the Iranians acquire nukes because then we will not have the ability to threaten to invade Iran. As Americans, we need to have the unquestioned right to invade these sh***y little countries at will.
Of course, he neglects the other major concern, which is "how do we stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons (if they are truly trying to do so) and what are the potential consequences of trying to stop them?"
Jorge Hirsch is afraid that the administration is preparing for a nuclear attack on Iran. I'll try to post a more thorough analysis of this later. For now, let me say that I am not convinced that Bush would do this, but there are enough neo-crazies out there who I think would like to see something like this that I am not dismissing the possibility.
Definitely there are a number of circumstances that could easily come together to make nuking Iran (or even parts of Iraq) an attractive possibility to those who wish to continue or expand the war. If things get really desperate in Iraq, it may eventually become the only hope for continuing the war.
That is all.
We cannot let the Iranians acquire nukes because then we will not have the ability to threaten to invade Iran. As Americans, we need to have the unquestioned right to invade these sh***y little countries at will.
Of course, he neglects the other major concern, which is "how do we stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons (if they are truly trying to do so) and what are the potential consequences of trying to stop them?"
Jorge Hirsch is afraid that the administration is preparing for a nuclear attack on Iran. I'll try to post a more thorough analysis of this later. For now, let me say that I am not convinced that Bush would do this, but there are enough neo-crazies out there who I think would like to see something like this that I am not dismissing the possibility.
Definitely there are a number of circumstances that could easily come together to make nuking Iran (or even parts of Iraq) an attractive possibility to those who wish to continue or expand the war. If things get really desperate in Iraq, it may eventually become the only hope for continuing the war.
That is all.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Revised Numbers: Eight Service Members, Four Civilians Killed in Saturday's Copter Crash.
Four of the twelve people killed in the helicopter crash Saturday were civilians.
It is still the greatest number of non-combat deaths in a single day for coalition soldiers in Iraq since the helicopter crash in January 26, 2005 that killed 31 servicemen.
That is all.
It is still the greatest number of non-combat deaths in a single day for coalition soldiers in Iraq since the helicopter crash in January 26, 2005 that killed 31 servicemen.
That is all.
This Is an Interesting Story
Islamic suicide bio-terrorists?
The idea of suicide bombers infected with contagious blood-borne diseases such as HIV or hepatitis is quite disturbing; and the use of such diseases could make suicide bombing much more effective at hurting or killing large numbers of people.
Mike McConnell of KoKoNut Pundits also asks an important question here:
I wonder where they got those diseases in the first place?
For HIV, the pool is somewhat restricted. Well, if they are taking suicide bombers from Africa, maybe from contaminated needles? Perhaps they are gay men or drug users who are being told that this is their only hope to get into Heaven? If they are recruiting female suicide bombers, they could be taking prostitutes.
Of course, when talking about hepatitis (I'm assuming they are thinking sexually-transmitted hepatitis) they could take anyone who is being promiscuous, as hepatitis is easier to spread through heterosexual sex than HIV.
More on this as it develops.
That is all.
The idea of suicide bombers infected with contagious blood-borne diseases such as HIV or hepatitis is quite disturbing; and the use of such diseases could make suicide bombing much more effective at hurting or killing large numbers of people.
Mike McConnell of KoKoNut Pundits also asks an important question here:
I wonder where they got those diseases in the first place?
For HIV, the pool is somewhat restricted. Well, if they are taking suicide bombers from Africa, maybe from contaminated needles? Perhaps they are gay men or drug users who are being told that this is their only hope to get into Heaven? If they are recruiting female suicide bombers, they could be taking prostitutes.
Of course, when talking about hepatitis (I'm assuming they are thinking sexually-transmitted hepatitis) they could take anyone who is being promiscuous, as hepatitis is easier to spread through heterosexual sex than HIV.
More on this as it develops.
That is all.
Don't Be Associated with Crackpots When You Don't Have to Be
Reading a recent column by Paul Craig Roberts about the wiretapping issue (I'll try to post about the column later), I notice a passing allusion to the Reichstag Fire, the incident (the burning of the German equivalent of our National Capitol Building, supposedly by Communists) which led to the Nazis consolidating their power in Germany.
This column on CommonDreams by Harvey Wasserman makes the allusion in much more detail.
I personally do not think that it is a good thing to try to draw parallels between the Reichstag fire and 9/11. This is because there is a strong possibility that the Reichstag fire was set by the Nazis themselves to allow them to take power. Any comparison of 9/11 to the Reichstag fire automatically brings up the crackpot discussion of the idea that Bush and/or his cronies were behind 9/11 in order to allow them to (a) attack Iraq (b) conquer the world (c) destroy civil liberties (d) kill the Arabs on behalf of the Zionists (e) et cetera.
Although I am sure that there are those who will disagree with me, I think that this is a crackpot theory and I think that reasonable antiwar people ought to dissociate ourselves from such tinfoil hattery.
That is all.
This column on CommonDreams by Harvey Wasserman makes the allusion in much more detail.
I personally do not think that it is a good thing to try to draw parallels between the Reichstag fire and 9/11. This is because there is a strong possibility that the Reichstag fire was set by the Nazis themselves to allow them to take power. Any comparison of 9/11 to the Reichstag fire automatically brings up the crackpot discussion of the idea that Bush and/or his cronies were behind 9/11 in order to allow them to (a) attack Iraq (b) conquer the world (c) destroy civil liberties (d) kill the Arabs on behalf of the Zionists (e) et cetera.
Although I am sure that there are those who will disagree with me, I think that this is a crackpot theory and I think that reasonable antiwar people ought to dissociate ourselves from such tinfoil hattery.
That is all.
Education in the U.S.
John Stossel recently did a show about American education, questioning why we lag behind so much compared to other countries:
American high school students fizzle in international comparisons, placing well behind countries, even poorer countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and South Korea. American kids do pretty well when they enter public school, but as time goes on, the worse they do. Why?
Stossel's major goal is to show that extra spending on public education is not needed, because other countries are far more efficient.
Matt Yglesias responds by, in essence, saying that diminishing returns have set in, and because we are such a rich country we need to spend more proportionately to have the same level of education. Logically, I'm not entirely certain how this is supposed to work to make education proportionately expensive (as opposed to making each new increment in "goodness" cost more), but it seems to be an interesting argument.
Of course, all of this ignores the real elephant in the room: the U.S. has more students of sub-Saharan African descent and of Latino descent than most, if not all, European countries, and also many, many more than the super-homogenous East Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan. And, as Edwin S. Rubenstein shows, the entire score gap between the U.S. and the average high income country is due to the low scores of Latinos, blacks, and immigrants (the categories do overlap).
Whether one believes that this gap is due to innate characteristics or to racism and other environmental ills, there is no way to address the gap between U.S. and other countries' test scores without addressing the fact that the score gap occurs almost entirely within these two populations (I say "almost entirely" because there may be a few other ethnic groups that contribute to the gap, although fixing the black and Latino gap [i.e. bringing their average scores up to those of non-Hispanic whites] would by itself correct the gap), and that much of the gap is also due to the fact that so much of our Latino population consists of unassimilated immigrants.
That is all.
American high school students fizzle in international comparisons, placing well behind countries, even poorer countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and South Korea. American kids do pretty well when they enter public school, but as time goes on, the worse they do. Why?
Stossel's major goal is to show that extra spending on public education is not needed, because other countries are far more efficient.
Matt Yglesias responds by, in essence, saying that diminishing returns have set in, and because we are such a rich country we need to spend more proportionately to have the same level of education. Logically, I'm not entirely certain how this is supposed to work to make education proportionately expensive (as opposed to making each new increment in "goodness" cost more), but it seems to be an interesting argument.
Of course, all of this ignores the real elephant in the room: the U.S. has more students of sub-Saharan African descent and of Latino descent than most, if not all, European countries, and also many, many more than the super-homogenous East Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan. And, as Edwin S. Rubenstein shows, the entire score gap between the U.S. and the average high income country is due to the low scores of Latinos, blacks, and immigrants (the categories do overlap).
Whether one believes that this gap is due to innate characteristics or to racism and other environmental ills, there is no way to address the gap between U.S. and other countries' test scores without addressing the fact that the score gap occurs almost entirely within these two populations (I say "almost entirely" because there may be a few other ethnic groups that contribute to the gap, although fixing the black and Latino gap [i.e. bringing their average scores up to those of non-Hispanic whites] would by itself correct the gap), and that much of the gap is also due to the fact that so much of our Latino population consists of unassimilated immigrants.
That is all.
More on Vouchers
J. H. Huebert argues against private school vouchers for the right reason, whereas the Florida Supreme Court did so for the wrong reason.
That is all.
That is all.
Bobby Stethem and Munich
A week or two ago, Diana Moon wrote:
DISGUSTED and furious about the Germans releasing Robby Stethem's killer, and this is interfering with my ability to write about and this is interfering with my ability to write about Munich.
Hmmm... what should the U.S. government do about Mohammed Ali Hammadi? Actually, Munich might give the government some ideas (dare I hope?).
That is all.
DISGUSTED and furious about the Germans releasing Robby Stethem's killer, and this is interfering with my ability to write about and this is interfering with my ability to write about Munich.
Hmmm... what should the U.S. government do about Mohammed Ali Hammadi? Actually, Munich might give the government some ideas (dare I hope?).
That is all.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
I'm Not a Big School-Voucher Fan, But...
...Julian at Sully's blog has some interesting thoughts on school choice. Essentially, he is arguing that the whole reason for school choice is to let the standards be set by supply and demand; and that by their nature, private schools are supposed to offer diverse experiences (i.e. one school will give a different education than another). That's the point, that the successful school models will be revealed through competition. Therefore, arguments against private school vouchers - or otherwise against private schools being better than public schools - that rely on the idea that the private schools are not held to uniform standards miss the point.
That is all.
That is all.
The Trials of AdSense
Worrying about experiences like the ones Steve Sailer is having are part of the reason why I am trying to get any advertising on my site done on my own (for the time being anyway).
That is all.
That is all.
Pessimism on Iraq
Charles Peña points out how small and how insecure the troop reductions Rumsfeld is touting really are.
The real problem here is that the U.S. still has no real specific goals to meet in Iraq, so it can't really do anything but reduce troop levels a little and see if things don't fall apart, and if they don't, reduce troop levels further.
In the end, as Mr. Peña intimates, the talk about troop reduction is driven more by a desire to placate the American people with something that suggests we are winning than by the facts on the ground.
That is all.
The real problem here is that the U.S. still has no real specific goals to meet in Iraq, so it can't really do anything but reduce troop levels a little and see if things don't fall apart, and if they don't, reduce troop levels further.
In the end, as Mr. Peña intimates, the talk about troop reduction is driven more by a desire to placate the American people with something that suggests we are winning than by the facts on the ground.
That is all.
The Colin and George Comedy Hour
Gotta love this. Just gotta.
I particularly find it amusing when Dubya [in the parody, it's not real people] insists on calling Colin "Buckwheat" or "Stymie." Not so much because I think that it portrays Bush as a racist, but because it portrays him as entirely clueless as to what is appropriate to say. And clueless essentially describes Bush.
That is all.
I particularly find it amusing when Dubya [in the parody, it's not real people] insists on calling Colin "Buckwheat" or "Stymie." Not so much because I think that it portrays Bush as a racist, but because it portrays him as entirely clueless as to what is appropriate to say. And clueless essentially describes Bush.
That is all.
Rights for Me but not for Thee?
Paul Belien expresses concerns about how the priorities of the European Union may make conscientious objection meaningless, and ultimately drive Bible-believing Christians out of government altogether.
This reminds me of the debate on forcing pharmacists to fill birth control prescriptions, where the so-called pro-choice side reveals that if you are not a pregnant women, they don't give a **** about your choice. (Read the comments here to see how many people on the left essentially believe that governments should determine exactly what a private pharmacy stocks. Oh, you're a Catholic hospital? Well, "separation" of church and state means that the state will impose its values on you. (That's a whole other post, on the difference between leftist and rightist understandings of "separation of church and state.")
[I should point out I don't have a problem with a privately-owned store firing a pharmacist for not filling a prescription, but it ought to be the store's job to make the policy, not the state's).
That is all.
This reminds me of the debate on forcing pharmacists to fill birth control prescriptions, where the so-called pro-choice side reveals that if you are not a pregnant women, they don't give a **** about your choice. (Read the comments here to see how many people on the left essentially believe that governments should determine exactly what a private pharmacy stocks. Oh, you're a Catholic hospital? Well, "separation" of church and state means that the state will impose its values on you. (That's a whole other post, on the difference between leftist and rightist understandings of "separation of church and state.")
[I should point out I don't have a problem with a privately-owned store firing a pharmacist for not filling a prescription, but it ought to be the store's job to make the policy, not the state's).
That is all.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Was Saddam Training Terrorists to Attack Us? We Shall See.
Michelle Malkin posts up on her blog about some interesting claims by Stephen Hayes.
More on this as it develops.
That is all.
More on this as it develops.
That is all.
Sounds Vaguely Familiar
Lawrence Auster has a post on those who advocate "abolishing whiteness" that is vaguely reminiscent of something I wrote during the Kamau Kambon fiasco.
In some sense, those who argue for the abolishment of the white race are ultimately suggesting what they sound like they are suggesting, and when they claim otherwise, they are either being dishonest or deluded, much as Muslims who deny that jihad has any connection to religiously-motivated war are.
That is all.
In some sense, those who argue for the abolishment of the white race are ultimately suggesting what they sound like they are suggesting, and when they claim otherwise, they are either being dishonest or deluded, much as Muslims who deny that jihad has any connection to religiously-motivated war are.
That is all.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Ledeen and Lots of Laughs
How can Michael Ledeen spend most of an article worrying about our intelligence agencies being snookered by double agents and talking about how poor our intelligence is, when he is cozying up to ol' Ali Baba, Prince of Thieves?
That is all.
That is all.
Of Course Torture is Useful at Extracting Information...
...if you don't care about accuracy and only care about getting people to tell you what you want to hear, as Al Qaida higher up Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi claims was the case with him.
Apparently, some of the facts seem to support his side of the story, such as the fact that:
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
This seems to support the concerns of Matthew Yglesias, about which I posted here. (Read an earlier New York Times article about Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi here).
Which indicates one reason why torture is a bad idea. Even if the person being tortured richly deserves his fate, torture corrupts not only the information obtained in an interrogation, but also the people doing the interrogation.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Charles Dodgson.
That is all.
Apparently, some of the facts seem to support his side of the story, such as the fact that:
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
This seems to support the concerns of Matthew Yglesias, about which I posted here. (Read an earlier New York Times article about Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi here).
Which indicates one reason why torture is a bad idea. Even if the person being tortured richly deserves his fate, torture corrupts not only the information obtained in an interrogation, but also the people doing the interrogation.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Charles Dodgson.
That is all.
Down with Antidiscrimination
Wendy McElroy on men trying to force their way into where they are not wanted.
Turnabout, she points out, is not necessarily fair play.
An excellent article for property-rights believers.
That is all.
Turnabout, she points out, is not necessarily fair play.
An excellent article for property-rights believers.
That is all.
Another Listing of Coalition Casualties
GlobalSecurity.Org has a table of U.S. casualties in Iraq.
This is somewhat different than the similar tables found on the Iraq Coalition Casualties website. But it might be interesting to check up on from time to time.
That is all.
This is somewhat different than the similar tables found on the Iraq Coalition Casualties website. But it might be interesting to check up on from time to time.
That is all.
An Explanation
In case the title of my previous post was obscure, this article and this one explain it.
A B R A C A D A B R A
AA B R A C A D A B R
ABA B R A C A D A B
ABRA B R A C A D A
ABRAA B R A C A D
ABRACA B R A C A
ABRACAA B R A C
ABRACADA B R A
ABRACADAA B R
ABRACADABA B
ABRACADABRA
The idea, as I understand it, was that the incantation would cure the sickness because the sickness would slowly disappear as the word did.
So "Coalition Abracadabra" refers to the gradual disappearance of the other coalition countries (or at least their troop strength).
That is all.
A B R A C A D A B R A
AA B R A C A D A B R
ABA B R A C A D A B
ABRA B R A C A D A
ABRAA B R A C A D
ABRACA B R A C A
ABRACAA B R A C
ABRACADA B R A
ABRACADAA B R
ABRACADABA B
ABRACADABRA
The idea, as I understand it, was that the incantation would cure the sickness because the sickness would slowly disappear as the word did.
So "Coalition Abracadabra" refers to the gradual disappearance of the other coalition countries (or at least their troop strength).
That is all.
Coalition Abracadabra
The U.S.'s allies' contribution to the coalition is steadily decreasing.
It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the U.S. presence in Iraq; i.e., whether we wind up having to increase our presence to make up for the drawdown of others.
There is a good graph in the article I linked to showing how many troops come from each country. By my figuring, the total is around 20,000-21,000.
I especially liked this quote:
What we need if we intend to have this global war on terror include some additional military campaigns is substantive military participation by allies and money," says Dr. Bacevich. "A coalition matters to the degree that it brings something substantive to the table."
This is so much more sensible than Deroy Murdock's statement:
None of America's 33 partners ever had to send so much as a Q-Tip to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. The fact that any nation assigns even one citizen to fight shoulder to shoulder with U.S. GIs should elicit celebration and gratitude...
which essentially states that the perception of a coalition is what actually matters, not any concrete contribution than any coalition member makes.
More of the non-reality-based community, I suppose.
That is all.
It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the U.S. presence in Iraq; i.e., whether we wind up having to increase our presence to make up for the drawdown of others.
There is a good graph in the article I linked to showing how many troops come from each country. By my figuring, the total is around 20,000-21,000.
I especially liked this quote:
What we need if we intend to have this global war on terror include some additional military campaigns is substantive military participation by allies and money," says Dr. Bacevich. "A coalition matters to the degree that it brings something substantive to the table."
This is so much more sensible than Deroy Murdock's statement:
None of America's 33 partners ever had to send so much as a Q-Tip to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. The fact that any nation assigns even one citizen to fight shoulder to shoulder with U.S. GIs should elicit celebration and gratitude...
which essentially states that the perception of a coalition is what actually matters, not any concrete contribution than any coalition member makes.
More of the non-reality-based community, I suppose.
That is all.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
And Now it is Your Turn to Predict (New Posts Appear Below this One)
Glaivester readers, now it is your turn to post your predictions for 2006. Just put them in the comments section of this post. I use Haloscan, so you don't even need a Blogger account.
That is all.
That is all.
"Legitimate Resistance"
I know that I am six to eight weeks late in commenting on this, but the recent statement by Iraqi leaders about resistance being "a legitimate right of the people" at a reconciliation conference in Cairo bears some consideration.
Specifically, this statement was made:
Though resistance is a legitimate right for all people, terrorism does not represent resistance. Therefore, we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships.
Now, there are two interpretations of this.
The pessimistic interpretation is that the leaders of Iraq are saying that it is legitimate to attack coalition targets, but not Iraqi targets; i.e., kill as many American, European, and other foreign troops as you like, but leave other Iraqis, including us, alone.
Such an interpretation is the one that tradcon Lawrence Auster believes is accurate.
The optimistic interpretation is that the leaders of Iraq were okaying resistance against an occupation, but as we are not occupiers but liberators of Iraq, they are not condoning attacks on us.
Such an interpretation is the one that neocon Dan Darling prefers.
Obviously (to me, anyway) the Iraqi leaders were deliberately vague in order that both sides would be able to interpret it the way they wanted to. That is, they are allowing the insurgents to believe that they agree that this is an occupation, and allowing the coalition to believe that they are simply making a pro-freedom statement, and not one that really applies to the insurgents.
This way, they can try to appease the insurgents as much as possible by throwing the coalition troops to the wolves (or at least to appease those who sympathize with the insurgents), while still maintaining that they are loyal to the coalition.
In a very real sense, though, this amounts to a victory for the insurgents, because ultimately, we need the full and unequivocal support of the Iraqi government more than they do. So this truly is a betrayal by Iraq's leaders, at least to the extent that the Iraq leaders owe the coalition loyalty for bringing them to power. Alternately, if on is liable to be sympathetic to the Iraqi leaders and not to the coalition, one could argue that this shows how alienated the Iraqis, even their leaders, are from the U.S., and by extension the other coalition countries. Either way, it does not bode well for the U.S. and the coalition it runs.
It also shows the naivete of the neocons, who essentially believe that they get not only to define the legitimate terms of debate (e.g. whether the U.S. is an occupier or a liberator), but to expect that everyone else will accept their terms.
This is the end result of the disdain for the "reality-based community," whereas one simply wills the world to be a certain way and it is. If it isn't, then just keep pretending it is, and somehow it will be.
(By the way, this is not a Christian belief system, for those of you who want to blame this sort of belief on Bush's evangelical Christianity. Despite the common belief that Christianity teaches blind faith and that faith itself is the imporant thing, Christianity actually clearly teaches that faith alone is worthless; it is the object of that faith that matters; faith is only useful if it coincides with reality:
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
- Corinthians 15:17, King James Version
Christianity clearly teaches that its validity is dependent on an objective reality; the quality of one's faith is not as important as the object of that faith.)
So the neocons' own faith in the universal desire for liberal democracy and freedom not just for "me and mine" but for everyone, and their belief in the power of will to make things so ultimately leads to their destruction, because they are unwilling, and perhaps philosophically incapable, of recognizing non-loyalty to their ideals.
There is also the Rich Lowry position that "they didn't really mean it."
This, I think, represents unwarranted hopefulness, and perhaps a form of transference (I don't mean what I say, so they can't, either). Both are extremely dangerous.
That is all.
Specifically, this statement was made:
Though resistance is a legitimate right for all people, terrorism does not represent resistance. Therefore, we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships.
Now, there are two interpretations of this.
The pessimistic interpretation is that the leaders of Iraq are saying that it is legitimate to attack coalition targets, but not Iraqi targets; i.e., kill as many American, European, and other foreign troops as you like, but leave other Iraqis, including us, alone.
Such an interpretation is the one that tradcon Lawrence Auster believes is accurate.
The optimistic interpretation is that the leaders of Iraq were okaying resistance against an occupation, but as we are not occupiers but liberators of Iraq, they are not condoning attacks on us.
Such an interpretation is the one that neocon Dan Darling prefers.
Obviously (to me, anyway) the Iraqi leaders were deliberately vague in order that both sides would be able to interpret it the way they wanted to. That is, they are allowing the insurgents to believe that they agree that this is an occupation, and allowing the coalition to believe that they are simply making a pro-freedom statement, and not one that really applies to the insurgents.
This way, they can try to appease the insurgents as much as possible by throwing the coalition troops to the wolves (or at least to appease those who sympathize with the insurgents), while still maintaining that they are loyal to the coalition.
In a very real sense, though, this amounts to a victory for the insurgents, because ultimately, we need the full and unequivocal support of the Iraqi government more than they do. So this truly is a betrayal by Iraq's leaders, at least to the extent that the Iraq leaders owe the coalition loyalty for bringing them to power. Alternately, if on is liable to be sympathetic to the Iraqi leaders and not to the coalition, one could argue that this shows how alienated the Iraqis, even their leaders, are from the U.S., and by extension the other coalition countries. Either way, it does not bode well for the U.S. and the coalition it runs.
It also shows the naivete of the neocons, who essentially believe that they get not only to define the legitimate terms of debate (e.g. whether the U.S. is an occupier or a liberator), but to expect that everyone else will accept their terms.
This is the end result of the disdain for the "reality-based community," whereas one simply wills the world to be a certain way and it is. If it isn't, then just keep pretending it is, and somehow it will be.
(By the way, this is not a Christian belief system, for those of you who want to blame this sort of belief on Bush's evangelical Christianity. Despite the common belief that Christianity teaches blind faith and that faith itself is the imporant thing, Christianity actually clearly teaches that faith alone is worthless; it is the object of that faith that matters; faith is only useful if it coincides with reality:
And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
- Corinthians 15:17, King James Version
Christianity clearly teaches that its validity is dependent on an objective reality; the quality of one's faith is not as important as the object of that faith.)
So the neocons' own faith in the universal desire for liberal democracy and freedom not just for "me and mine" but for everyone, and their belief in the power of will to make things so ultimately leads to their destruction, because they are unwilling, and perhaps philosophically incapable, of recognizing non-loyalty to their ideals.
There is also the Rich Lowry position that "they didn't really mean it."
This, I think, represents unwarranted hopefulness, and perhaps a form of transference (I don't mean what I say, so they can't, either). Both are extremely dangerous.
That is all.
Upsurge in Violence
The recent large-scale terror attacks in Iraq do not bode well for the coalition. As I recall, large-scale attacks on Iraqi civilians after a time of relative calm (say the past week or two) sometimes lead into an uptick in attacks in general (i.. against coalition troops and Iraqi military troops as well. It is quite possible that the two months of calm I predicted will not now materialize.
(No, I am not trying to have it both ways. I will count it as being a strike against my predictions if the violence upticks in January or February; this fear that the calm will not materialize is not an official Glaivester prediction, so if it is right, no points for me).
We shall see.
That is all.
(No, I am not trying to have it both ways. I will count it as being a strike against my predictions if the violence upticks in January or February; this fear that the calm will not materialize is not an official Glaivester prediction, so if it is right, no points for me).
We shall see.
That is all.
Woundings and Fatalities in Iraq
I have modified the tables of coalition fatalities and woundings found here and here, respectively.
Here is an update of my previous table comparing coalition hostile deaths. The bolded 57 represents the number of hostile fatalities in December. My original table predicted that December would have 68 hostile fatalities.
I'll try to do the analysis later.
2004..2005
131...79
129...75
74....74
65....71
63....69
58....69
58....57
45....48
45....46
39....45
35....42
14....33
Here is the table comparing wounded:
2004...2005
1424...611/576
1212...602
895....595
757....572
706....545
648....539
589....508
552....498
544....477
323....413
189....398
150....371
398 is the number of wounded for November, replacing my previous extrapolation of 662/627 (estimates were based on assuming the number of wounded to be proportional to fatalities, for details, see the original post).
611/576 is the new extrapolation for December (final numbers not back yet), replacing the previous extrapolation of 634/600.
Here is an update of my previous table comparing coalition hostile deaths. The bolded 57 represents the number of hostile fatalities in December. My original table predicted that December would have 68 hostile fatalities.
I'll try to do the analysis later.
2004..2005
131...79
129...75
74....74
65....71
63....69
58....69
58....57
45....48
45....46
39....45
35....42
14....33
Here is the table comparing wounded:
2004...2005
1424...611/576
1212...602
895....595
757....572
706....545
648....539
589....508
552....498
544....477
323....413
189....398
150....371
398 is the number of wounded for November, replacing my previous extrapolation of 662/627 (estimates were based on assuming the number of wounded to be proportional to fatalities, for details, see the original post).
611/576 is the new extrapolation for December (final numbers not back yet), replacing the previous extrapolation of 634/600.
Deadly
Yahoo! News lists the deadliest days of the war for Iraqis since the war began, listed reverse chronologically or in descending order of number of fatalities.
That is all.
That is all.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
They Just Don't Get It
Rachel Raskin-Zrihen informs us that the life in Islamic societies (both those that exist in the west and those that exist in the Middle East) is terrible, and therefore we should not feel bad about imposing our way of life on them.
Two things are apparent here:
(a) The idea that maybe we shouldseverely limit the number of Muslims that we allow into the west does not occur to her. She thinks that we can just turn them into us.
(b) She assumes that these societies make the people the way they are, not considering that maybe sometimes the people make the societies the way they. Just going in and assuming that they are exactly like us, they just need to be taught differently is a little like assuming that you can install Mac OSX on a Dell.
That is all.
Two things are apparent here:
(a) The idea that maybe we shouldseverely limit the number of Muslims that we allow into the west does not occur to her. She thinks that we can just turn them into us.
(b) She assumes that these societies make the people the way they are, not considering that maybe sometimes the people make the societies the way they. Just going in and assuming that they are exactly like us, they just need to be taught differently is a little like assuming that you can install Mac OSX on a Dell.
That is all.
By the Way, Thanks!
Thank you to whoever gave me the $10.00 donation. It is appreciated.
That is all.
That is all.
On Shifting Blame
An excellent article by Ralph Nader on the vast disconnect between the civilian administration and the military, as well as an indication that the administration will not take any responsibility for its own policies.
This, of course, ties in nicely with the attempt to blame the CIA for all of the intelligence "failures" and problems in Iraq.
That is all.
This, of course, ties in nicely with the attempt to blame the CIA for all of the intelligence "failures" and problems in Iraq.
That is all.
Raimondo Echoes Glaivester on Topic of Propaganda
A while back, in reference to the planted stories in the Iraqi press, I wrote:
It's one thing to propagandize Iraqis, it's another when you get the impression that some of this propaganda is designed for its effect on American audiences.
Now, Justin Raimondo writes:
The "information warfare" campaign being carried out by the Lincoln Group and other sub rosa government contractors is not primarily directed at the Iraqis: the real target audience is Americans, whose support for the war is waning to near zero.
It's nice to be ahead of the curve.
That is all.
It's one thing to propagandize Iraqis, it's another when you get the impression that some of this propaganda is designed for its effect on American audiences.
Now, Justin Raimondo writes:
The "information warfare" campaign being carried out by the Lincoln Group and other sub rosa government contractors is not primarily directed at the Iraqis: the real target audience is Americans, whose support for the war is waning to near zero.
It's nice to be ahead of the curve.
That is all.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Other People's Predictions
Diana Moon also has some predictions for the new year. Well, she doesn't specify a time frame, but I am assuming the time-frame is the calendar year 2006. Read them here at Letter from Gotham.
That is all.
That is all.
20,000 Visits!
I have reached the fabled 20,000 mark!
I just wanted to take a moment to say that I find it interesting how many bloggers tend to make their sitemeter counter as inconspicuous as possible, choosing the smallest possible version and hiding it at the bottom of the screen.
Not me. Well, not unless your web browser shunts the right-hand sidebar to the bottom of the screen (Internet Explorer does that on both my Mac and my Virtual PC).
That is all.
I just wanted to take a moment to say that I find it interesting how many bloggers tend to make their sitemeter counter as inconspicuous as possible, choosing the smallest possible version and hiding it at the bottom of the screen.
Not me. Well, not unless your web browser shunts the right-hand sidebar to the bottom of the screen (Internet Explorer does that on both my Mac and my Virtual PC).
That is all.
Glaivester Predictions for 2006
Having an okay track record with my 2005 predictions, here are my predictions for 2006 (I'll add to these as time goes by).
(1) Killing of U.S. and other coalition troops will be down (< 50 hostile deaths for the entire coalition per month) for January and February, and then will start to climb again in March. Unless major changes in the way the war is fought occur, (see next prediction) there will be >1000 U.S. deaths in Iraq (hostile and non-hostile) by the time 2007 rolls around.
(2) There will be at least one "Lebanon attack" in Iraq this year against the coalition. By "Lebanon attack," I mean that a single attack will kill more than 50 coalition troops, as with the Beirut barracks bombing.
(3) Increasingly we will rely on airpower and on vengeance-minded Kurds and Shia to maintain control in Iraq, with the result that there is an increasing number of unreported Iraqi civilian fatalities. We won't get full reports, but the independent antiwar media will have a lot of ominous partial reports. There is a good chance that the Iraqi civilian death counts will appear to be the same or lower than they are currently, but there will also be more incidents that indicate something is being covered up (e.g. reporters being forced to leave the country, being barred from certain areas, Giuliana Sgrena-type incidents, etc.)
(4) U.S. troop levels will stay >100,000. Non-U.S. coalition troop levels will decrease by a larger percentage than American troop levels do.
(5) There will be mild attacks on Syria, from air bombing inside the Syrian border to ground raids inside the border, but nothing on the level of an invasion and nothing serious enough to produce regime change.
(6) Israel will attack Iran. This will lead to an increase in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, particularly in the previously peaceful Shiite areas. Iran will not fall, however, even though the Israeli attack will lead to a bunch of neoconservatives frothing Michael-Ledeen style about supporting the Iranian people. The U.S. will avoid endorsing or condemning Israel's attack.
(7) The market (i.e. the Dow Jones) will not break its previous record of 11722.98 (01/14/2000), and will close below 11,000 on the last day of the market year (i.e. December 29).
(8) By the end of 2006, gold will be over $650.00 and silver over $10.50.
(9) Fighting inflation will become an issue. We will hear more and more about actions being taken against inflation. And the consumer price index will either start going up, or else the goods used to calculate the index will begin to change in a way that is designed to make inflation appear to be less than it is.
For now, that is all.
(1) Killing of U.S. and other coalition troops will be down (< 50 hostile deaths for the entire coalition per month) for January and February, and then will start to climb again in March. Unless major changes in the way the war is fought occur, (see next prediction) there will be >1000 U.S. deaths in Iraq (hostile and non-hostile) by the time 2007 rolls around.
(2) There will be at least one "Lebanon attack" in Iraq this year against the coalition. By "Lebanon attack," I mean that a single attack will kill more than 50 coalition troops, as with the Beirut barracks bombing.
(3) Increasingly we will rely on airpower and on vengeance-minded Kurds and Shia to maintain control in Iraq, with the result that there is an increasing number of unreported Iraqi civilian fatalities. We won't get full reports, but the independent antiwar media will have a lot of ominous partial reports. There is a good chance that the Iraqi civilian death counts will appear to be the same or lower than they are currently, but there will also be more incidents that indicate something is being covered up (e.g. reporters being forced to leave the country, being barred from certain areas, Giuliana Sgrena-type incidents, etc.)
(4) U.S. troop levels will stay >100,000. Non-U.S. coalition troop levels will decrease by a larger percentage than American troop levels do.
(5) There will be mild attacks on Syria, from air bombing inside the Syrian border to ground raids inside the border, but nothing on the level of an invasion and nothing serious enough to produce regime change.
(6) Israel will attack Iran. This will lead to an increase in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, particularly in the previously peaceful Shiite areas. Iran will not fall, however, even though the Israeli attack will lead to a bunch of neoconservatives frothing Michael-Ledeen style about supporting the Iranian people. The U.S. will avoid endorsing or condemning Israel's attack.
(7) The market (i.e. the Dow Jones) will not break its previous record of 11722.98 (01/14/2000), and will close below 11,000 on the last day of the market year (i.e. December 29).
(8) By the end of 2006, gold will be over $650.00 and silver over $10.50.
(9) Fighting inflation will become an issue. We will hear more and more about actions being taken against inflation. And the consumer price index will either start going up, or else the goods used to calculate the index will begin to change in a way that is designed to make inflation appear to be less than it is.
For now, that is all.
Fester on Recruitment
A blogger calling himself Fester has done some numerical analysis about the recruiting situation.
Specifically, he is interpreting recent data on recruitment and aptitude test scores (registration required) to determine how much quality is suffering, or alternately, how good or bad recruiting would be if the Army had not lowered its standards.
I earlier mentioned this issue here.
That is all.
Specifically, he is interpreting recent data on recruitment and aptitude test scores (registration required) to determine how much quality is suffering, or alternately, how good or bad recruiting would be if the Army had not lowered its standards.
I earlier mentioned this issue here.
That is all.
Yet Another Glaivester Prediction
A few days ago I repeated a prediction that I had made several times before. Namely, I suggested that to relieve the strain on the soldiers, the U.S. Military would begin resorting to brutality in order to get more "bang for their buck" as soon as troop levels began to become unsustainable. Michael Schwartz is suggesting that this is exactly what is coming to pass, with bombing raids being used to punish recalcitrant towns, and with this likely to happen more frequently and harder as the year wears on.
Also coming to pass is another prediction, that the U.S. is beginning to participate in a civil war; that is, it is beginning to allow Kurds and Shiites to use fighting the insurgency as an excuse to execute bloody vengeance on the Sunni Arabs.
I hate to say "I told you so," but - no, wait, I love the act of saying "I told you so." It's being right about people killing each other that is not so nice.
That is all.
Also coming to pass is another prediction, that the U.S. is beginning to participate in a civil war; that is, it is beginning to allow Kurds and Shiites to use fighting the insurgency as an excuse to execute bloody vengeance on the Sunni Arabs.
I hate to say "I told you so," but - no, wait, I love the act of saying "I told you so." It's being right about people killing each other that is not so nice.
That is all.
Elect A Mormon? No Way.
A. C. Kleinheider on why Mitt Romney doesn't have a prayer of winning the GOP nomination.
I addressed this issue earlier here, where I discussed a posting on Gene Expression.
Kleinheider makes the same point as Razib, namely, that atheists, agnostics, or people with a vague belief in some sort of God are less likely to be concerned about someone having unorthodox religious beliefs than those who are strongly religious and orthodox, because they don't take religion that seriously. (Or put another way, they view all religious beliefs as weird, so the fact that Mormonism is very weird to someone brought up in the monotheism that makes up the American mainstream doesn't affect them).
That is all.
I addressed this issue earlier here, where I discussed a posting on Gene Expression.
Kleinheider makes the same point as Razib, namely, that atheists, agnostics, or people with a vague belief in some sort of God are less likely to be concerned about someone having unorthodox religious beliefs than those who are strongly religious and orthodox, because they don't take religion that seriously. (Or put another way, they view all religious beliefs as weird, so the fact that Mormonism is very weird to someone brought up in the monotheism that makes up the American mainstream doesn't affect them).
That is all.
Monday, January 02, 2006
They Do Have, and Link to, Interesting Articles, BUT...
...one thing that is frustrating about WorldNetDaily is the fact that some of its writers, including Joseph Farah, like to cloak their opinions in just enough vagueness so that they can be interpreted in very bloodthirsty ways, but they also have plausible deniability.
For example, this piece by Barbara Simpson is to some extent correct, in that we need to recognize that it is dangerous to bring alien cultures into the U.S. unless we can determine that they are compatible, and in that we should not hesitate to point out that Islam and particularly Arabs seem to be a major force behind terrorism, not only in the world, but specifically they seem to be the source of the terrorist threat currently facing the U.S.
On the other hand, because she shies away from discussing actual policies, even in vague terms, it is easy to interpret lines like
We cling to a utopian image of how to behave and ignore the rats chewing on our toes – and they won't stop there. The only way to end it is to kill the rats.
as advocating that we simply kill all of the Arabs in the Middle East. So is that what she means or not? Maybe she just wants us to kill the "terrorists."* But exactly how broadly is she defining the term?
That is all.
* The "scare quotes" are not because I deny that there are a lot of Muslims who are terrorists, or because I deny (I don't) that "terrorist" is a meaningful designation; it is simply to indicate that I am talking about whomever she defines as terrorists, and I don't trust her designations.
For example, this piece by Barbara Simpson is to some extent correct, in that we need to recognize that it is dangerous to bring alien cultures into the U.S. unless we can determine that they are compatible, and in that we should not hesitate to point out that Islam and particularly Arabs seem to be a major force behind terrorism, not only in the world, but specifically they seem to be the source of the terrorist threat currently facing the U.S.
On the other hand, because she shies away from discussing actual policies, even in vague terms, it is easy to interpret lines like
We cling to a utopian image of how to behave and ignore the rats chewing on our toes – and they won't stop there. The only way to end it is to kill the rats.
as advocating that we simply kill all of the Arabs in the Middle East. So is that what she means or not? Maybe she just wants us to kill the "terrorists."* But exactly how broadly is she defining the term?
That is all.
* The "scare quotes" are not because I deny that there are a lot of Muslims who are terrorists, or because I deny (I don't) that "terrorist" is a meaningful designation; it is simply to indicate that I am talking about whomever she defines as terrorists, and I don't trust her designations.
INSANITY
If this report is to be believed, preaching the gospel in Italy could become a civil offense.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to WorldNetDaily.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to WorldNetDaily.
Glaivester's Greatest Hits
I've added a new set of links on my sidebar for the benefit of people who reach Glaivester from a link to a particular blogpost, in case they want a good sampling of what type of stuff write about.
I'll add to it from time to time, and I may also make a few posts referencing old columns that I think are relevant to current events otherwise interesting.
That is all.
I'll add to it from time to time, and I may also make a few posts referencing old columns that I think are relevant to current events otherwise interesting.
That is all.
Farris Assan: Who the Bloody Heck Cares?
I will try to post something about the sixteen-year-old who supposedly managed to sneak off to Iraq all by himself.
Tex MacRae doesn't buy the story.
I'm not sure if I give a rat's behinder one way or the other.
That is all.
Tex MacRae doesn't buy the story.
I'm not sure if I give a rat's behinder one way or the other.
That is all.
New Blog of the Week: Mr. Snitch
An interesting blog that I discovered by using the "next blog" button on the bar on the top of the screen.
Here's to you, Mr. Snitch!
That is all.
Here's to you, Mr. Snitch!
That is all.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Predictions for 2005 - How Did I Do? (New Posts Appear Below this One!)
By the way, a big thank you to Jim Henley for the link.
Here is a post I did back at the start of 2005, predicting some things for the year.
How did I do?
1) At least 1000 American troops will die in Iraq during 2004. Troop levels will not decrease unless by necessity.
So far 844 troops have died in 2005. Barring 156 deaths in the next 18 hours or so (I'm assuming that 2005 ends for casualty counting purposes at midnight Iraqi time), this prediction will not have come true.
Troop levels reached a new high this year, and the baseline level is around 138,000. So this prediction was accurate. This graph gives a better idea of U.S. troop levels throughout the war.
2) The January 30 elections will occur, and there will be many charges of irregularities by the Sunnis, and some charges of irregularities by a few Kurdish and Shiite groups, although the majority of those groups will support the results, or at least be indifferent to them.
This is more or less what happened, I think. I'll try to find some documents to support this.
3) The insurgency will not be affected in any significant way by the elections.
Well, if one measures the strength of the insurgency by the number of combat deaths it produces, the insurgency certainly appears to have gotten weaker at the start of 2005; the number of monthly coalition deaths it produced dipped below 50 for 3 months (February, March, and April), after having been above 50 each month since August 2004. Of course, the number of deaths in the Iraqi military went up beginning in March, and the number of Iraqi civilians killed may have also gone up during this time, although no information on the civilians is available for January or February, so this isn't possible to tell at this time.
In any case, the number of coalition troops killed by hostile action went back up again in May and has stayed up for the most part since, with fatalities at 69 or above for 5 out of 8 months since, and above 45 for the other 3. During the same time, there was a marked increase in the number of Iraqi deaths, both civilian (compared to March and April) and military (compared to January through April), the former of which has stayed up throughout the year, and the latter of which has gone back down to March and April, but not January and February, levels.
Coalition wounded appear to be down, but I am not certain that that is due to the elections as much as to either increases in body armor or in alterations in the tactics of the insurgency (e.g. more IEDs, fewer armed confrontations).
I think it is fair to say that the insurgency has not been terribly affected in terms of its strength by the elections. I am cannot think of any other way in which it has been affected by the elections either [i.e. I see no effect on its make-up or tactics that appears to be connected to the elections], so I think that my prediction was correct.
[For more discussion on the insurgency throughout 2004 and 2005, see here, here, and here; these posts compare the statistics for 2004 to those for 2005; this is almost the same as comparing the year before and the year after the elections, except that it includes January 2005 as the beginning of the later period being compared instead of the end of the earlier period].
4) Ahmad Chalabi will get a position of political power.
Well, he didn't do too well in the recent elections, but he has been oil minister, deputy prime minister is now being put in charge of the oil ministry again.
Whether or not his current position is a "politically elected" one, it do give him political power, so I was right about this. Moreover, his position as deputy prime minister was not only one with political power, but one that was at least partly due to the election, and therefore a political position in all sense of the word, so I was very right about this.
5) Neither Syria nor Iran will fall on its own, but we will not invade either or them either, as we lack the number of troops to do so. Basically, I don't see the situation in the greater Middle East (i.e. outside of Iraq) changing a whole lot, whatever occurs in the war on terror or in Iraq.
Yup. Pretty much what happened, unless the de-occupation of Lebanon is considered things "changing a whole lot."
6) Nothing will happen on the Social Security front.
Nothing has.
7) Bush's amnesty proposal will begin to cause a break-up of the GOP; not that people will defect, but we will get increasing levels of criticism from the GOP against Bush that will make it difficult for the GOP to get any sort of agenda passed.
We are seeing an increasing willingness to criticize Bush on a number of issues, but that may be more from the Harriet Miers controversy than from amnesty. However, on the whole my prediction here was borne out.
8) Nothing new will happen on the gay "marriage" front.
Well, in England gay unions are now legal, and a few states may have made moves in the direction of gay quasi-marriage, but there have been no new states legalizing gay marriage, no progress on the anti-same-sex marriage amendment, and nothing really altering the situation on actual gay marriage in the U.S., and my predictions about gay marriage were mainly intended to be about gay marriage in the U.S. So I think that my prediction by and large was accurate.
9) There will be a major terrorist attack (>100 deaths) in Europe by Muslims that will cause an anti-Muslim backlash.
There was a smaller attack in England (~60 deaths), but it has not led to an anti-Muslim backlash. There were also major but mostly non-fatal riots in France, which have not apparently led to a backlash yet. Australia has had an anti-Muslim backlash, but not as a response to a major terrorist attack. So this prediction did not quite pan out.
Here I made two other predictions
I think that the Dow will go below 10,000 at least once.
No, not if you count by closing prices (see chart but we came close. And the Dow did get as low as 9,961.52 during the trading day. (This chart apparently tracks the average over the day, not just at closing). If anyone has a link to the highest and lowest closing prices of the Dow for 2005, it would be appreciated.
We will still have at least 150,000 troops in Iraq by December.
Yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup. Yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup.
Uuuuhhhh-huh, uuuuuuh-huh.(1)
So there you have it.
Predictions for 2006 to come out soon.
That is all.
(1) Apologies to Sesame Street.
Here is a post I did back at the start of 2005, predicting some things for the year.
How did I do?
1) At least 1000 American troops will die in Iraq during 2004. Troop levels will not decrease unless by necessity.
So far 844 troops have died in 2005. Barring 156 deaths in the next 18 hours or so (I'm assuming that 2005 ends for casualty counting purposes at midnight Iraqi time), this prediction will not have come true.
Troop levels reached a new high this year, and the baseline level is around 138,000. So this prediction was accurate. This graph gives a better idea of U.S. troop levels throughout the war.
2) The January 30 elections will occur, and there will be many charges of irregularities by the Sunnis, and some charges of irregularities by a few Kurdish and Shiite groups, although the majority of those groups will support the results, or at least be indifferent to them.
This is more or less what happened, I think. I'll try to find some documents to support this.
3) The insurgency will not be affected in any significant way by the elections.
Well, if one measures the strength of the insurgency by the number of combat deaths it produces, the insurgency certainly appears to have gotten weaker at the start of 2005; the number of monthly coalition deaths it produced dipped below 50 for 3 months (February, March, and April), after having been above 50 each month since August 2004. Of course, the number of deaths in the Iraqi military went up beginning in March, and the number of Iraqi civilians killed may have also gone up during this time, although no information on the civilians is available for January or February, so this isn't possible to tell at this time.
In any case, the number of coalition troops killed by hostile action went back up again in May and has stayed up for the most part since, with fatalities at 69 or above for 5 out of 8 months since, and above 45 for the other 3. During the same time, there was a marked increase in the number of Iraqi deaths, both civilian (compared to March and April) and military (compared to January through April), the former of which has stayed up throughout the year, and the latter of which has gone back down to March and April, but not January and February, levels.
Coalition wounded appear to be down, but I am not certain that that is due to the elections as much as to either increases in body armor or in alterations in the tactics of the insurgency (e.g. more IEDs, fewer armed confrontations).
I think it is fair to say that the insurgency has not been terribly affected in terms of its strength by the elections. I am cannot think of any other way in which it has been affected by the elections either [i.e. I see no effect on its make-up or tactics that appears to be connected to the elections], so I think that my prediction was correct.
[For more discussion on the insurgency throughout 2004 and 2005, see here, here, and here; these posts compare the statistics for 2004 to those for 2005; this is almost the same as comparing the year before and the year after the elections, except that it includes January 2005 as the beginning of the later period being compared instead of the end of the earlier period].
4) Ahmad Chalabi will get a position of political power.
Well, he didn't do too well in the recent elections, but he has been oil minister, deputy prime minister is now being put in charge of the oil ministry again.
Whether or not his current position is a "politically elected" one, it do give him political power, so I was right about this. Moreover, his position as deputy prime minister was not only one with political power, but one that was at least partly due to the election, and therefore a political position in all sense of the word, so I was very right about this.
5) Neither Syria nor Iran will fall on its own, but we will not invade either or them either, as we lack the number of troops to do so. Basically, I don't see the situation in the greater Middle East (i.e. outside of Iraq) changing a whole lot, whatever occurs in the war on terror or in Iraq.
Yup. Pretty much what happened, unless the de-occupation of Lebanon is considered things "changing a whole lot."
6) Nothing will happen on the Social Security front.
Nothing has.
7) Bush's amnesty proposal will begin to cause a break-up of the GOP; not that people will defect, but we will get increasing levels of criticism from the GOP against Bush that will make it difficult for the GOP to get any sort of agenda passed.
We are seeing an increasing willingness to criticize Bush on a number of issues, but that may be more from the Harriet Miers controversy than from amnesty. However, on the whole my prediction here was borne out.
8) Nothing new will happen on the gay "marriage" front.
Well, in England gay unions are now legal, and a few states may have made moves in the direction of gay quasi-marriage, but there have been no new states legalizing gay marriage, no progress on the anti-same-sex marriage amendment, and nothing really altering the situation on actual gay marriage in the U.S., and my predictions about gay marriage were mainly intended to be about gay marriage in the U.S. So I think that my prediction by and large was accurate.
9) There will be a major terrorist attack (>100 deaths) in Europe by Muslims that will cause an anti-Muslim backlash.
There was a smaller attack in England (~60 deaths), but it has not led to an anti-Muslim backlash. There were also major but mostly non-fatal riots in France, which have not apparently led to a backlash yet. Australia has had an anti-Muslim backlash, but not as a response to a major terrorist attack. So this prediction did not quite pan out.
Here I made two other predictions
I think that the Dow will go below 10,000 at least once.
No, not if you count by closing prices (see chart but we came close. And the Dow did get as low as 9,961.52 during the trading day. (This chart apparently tracks the average over the day, not just at closing). If anyone has a link to the highest and lowest closing prices of the Dow for 2005, it would be appreciated.
We will still have at least 150,000 troops in Iraq by December.
Yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup. Yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup-yup.
Uuuuhhhh-huh, uuuuuuh-huh.(1)
So there you have it.
Predictions for 2006 to come out soon.
That is all.
(1) Apologies to Sesame Street.
Thoughts on Surveillance
Lawrence Auster defends the rationale for warrantless surveillance here and here and here.
On the other hand, Norman Solomon shows that surveillance power has been abused in the past by this administration (yes, I know that former Libido-in-Chief Slick Willy did stuff like this too).
That is all.
On the other hand, Norman Solomon shows that surveillance power has been abused in the past by this administration (yes, I know that former Libido-in-Chief Slick Willy did stuff like this too).
That is all.
Yeah, Right
An interesting Brussels Journal update on the Muslim-offending cartoons.
My favorite part was about Bjorn Atldax, a Swedish jeans designer. He hates Christianity a "force of evil" in the world, makes anti-Christian symbols on his jeans and also plans to make anti-Hindu jeans to protest the caste system.
Anti-Muslim jeans, though? Nooooo:
But he is not considering any anti-Islamic designs because “there are already a lot of anti-Islamic sentiments.”
I think this is the real reason he won't be making anti-Muslim jeans. Yeah, you can give organized religions a poke in the eye; but not the ones that most need a poke, 'cause they're the ones that poke back - and they use things that are far sharper than their fingers.
Of course, the leftist intelligentsia love to talk about how courageous they are for "standing up" to organized religion. But unless you stand up to the religions whose followers actually threaten to do you harm for doing so, the "courage" thing is mere posing.
That is all.
My favorite part was about Bjorn Atldax, a Swedish jeans designer. He hates Christianity a "force of evil" in the world, makes anti-Christian symbols on his jeans and also plans to make anti-Hindu jeans to protest the caste system.
Anti-Muslim jeans, though? Nooooo:
But he is not considering any anti-Islamic designs because “there are already a lot of anti-Islamic sentiments.”
I think this is the real reason he won't be making anti-Muslim jeans. Yeah, you can give organized religions a poke in the eye; but not the ones that most need a poke, 'cause they're the ones that poke back - and they use things that are far sharper than their fingers.
Of course, the leftist intelligentsia love to talk about how courageous they are for "standing up" to organized religion. But unless you stand up to the religions whose followers actually threaten to do you harm for doing so, the "courage" thing is mere posing.
That is all.
Ooooo.... It Must be Good!
Bowling for Columbine did it to the gun culture.
Super Size Me did it to fast food.
Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion.
Wow, if it's up to the journalistic standards of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, it must be trustworthy!
I suppose he will go after Dan Brown's endorsement next?
That is all.
Super Size Me did it to fast food.
Now The God Who Wasn't There does it to religion.
Wow, if it's up to the journalistic standards of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, it must be trustworthy!
I suppose he will go after Dan Brown's endorsement next?
That is all.
Iraq War Winding Down? Nope.
Gateway Pundit recently posted that Iraqi civilian fatalities have decreased markedly in Iraq, which to Robert suggests that the war is winding down.
Of course, GP had to correct the table he was originally using with this one, which shows some decrease in 2005 compared to 2004, but not anywhere near as significant a one as he thought based on the original graph.
And one other thing that no one is considering is who is causing the casualties. I would think that in 2003 and 2004 a lot of the casualties were caused by U.S. forces, particularly in the initial invasion and in the two attacks on Fallujah. So these deaths would not be indicative of the strength of the insurgents. So it is totally conceivable to me that the civilian deaths caused directly by the insurgency have increased.
That is all.
Of course, GP had to correct the table he was originally using with this one, which shows some decrease in 2005 compared to 2004, but not anywhere near as significant a one as he thought based on the original graph.
And one other thing that no one is considering is who is causing the casualties. I would think that in 2003 and 2004 a lot of the casualties were caused by U.S. forces, particularly in the initial invasion and in the two attacks on Fallujah. So these deaths would not be indicative of the strength of the insurgents. So it is totally conceivable to me that the civilian deaths caused directly by the insurgency have increased.
That is all.
Oh, Yeah, and Have a Paleoconservative New Year
2006 - the year of the antiwar conservative (we can hope, can't we?).
That is all.
That is all.
Can't Help but Notice
A heck of a lot of bloggers have an identity that does not match their blog title, which does not match the address for their blog.
Good ol' Glaivester, of course, that is to say I, have my primary blog named after my identity, and my blog's address named for the blog (glaivester.blogspot.com). So finding my blog is way easy.
That is all.
Good ol' Glaivester, of course, that is to say I, have my primary blog named after my identity, and my blog's address named for the blog (glaivester.blogspot.com). So finding my blog is way easy.
That is all.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Can You Say "Ironic?" I Knew You Could!
I was listening to the report on Fox News of the New Year's Celebration at Camp Slayer (hmmm.... why does a person with the nom de plume Glaivester find the idea of "Camp Slayer" intriguing? Oh, yeah).
In any case, in the background, Green Day's "Holiday" was playing, and you could see people rocking in the foreground. Does anyone else see the irony in an anti-war song being played at a camp in Iraq?
(Maybe I am mistaken and the person reporting was actually somewhere else, but I am pretty certain they were in Iraq near a military base).
That is all.
In any case, in the background, Green Day's "Holiday" was playing, and you could see people rocking in the foreground. Does anyone else see the irony in an anti-war song being played at a camp in Iraq?
(Maybe I am mistaken and the person reporting was actually somewhere else, but I am pretty certain they were in Iraq near a military base).
That is all.
Iraq Stats
In a day or two, after the figures for coalition deaths in December are finalized, I will redo my analysis of coalition fatalities for 2005 vs. 2004 (also see here). The predicted number of hostile deaths was 68, and the actual number is currently around 55, so the numbers shouldn't play too differently.
I'll also redo my analysis of the American combat wounded (no stats on the rest of the coalition). This ought to be somewhat different, as my predictions for November were 627-662. and the actual number was 398. This may not affect the overall results, but will probably influence the month-by-month comparisons significantly.
Stats for December's wounded will hopefully be out sometime in mid-January, but may take a month or more to be finalized.
Stats are all taken from Icasualties.
That is all.
I'll also redo my analysis of the American combat wounded (no stats on the rest of the coalition). This ought to be somewhat different, as my predictions for November were 627-662. and the actual number was 398. This may not affect the overall results, but will probably influence the month-by-month comparisons significantly.
Stats for December's wounded will hopefully be out sometime in mid-January, but may take a month or more to be finalized.
Stats are all taken from Icasualties.
That is all.
Happy Hanukkah/Chanukah to All My Jewish Readers
I'm really glad you weren't assimilated or wiped out by the Greeks.
Okay, on a more serious note, when I was involved with JPFO (as a proud Gentile member), I thought a little bit about Hanukkah, and from a Right-to-Keep-and-Bear-Arms standpoint, it is really an awesome holiday, in that it commemorates a people rising up and defending themselves, and overthrowing the tyrants who ruled them, something which requires the type of attitude that only an RKBA culture can really provide.
That is all.
Okay, on a more serious note, when I was involved with JPFO (as a proud Gentile member), I thought a little bit about Hanukkah, and from a Right-to-Keep-and-Bear-Arms standpoint, it is really an awesome holiday, in that it commemorates a people rising up and defending themselves, and overthrowing the tyrants who ruled them, something which requires the type of attitude that only an RKBA culture can really provide.
That is all.
Vegetable Oil Makes Fish Less Healthy for Us to Eat
Why farm-raised salmon may not give us the same Omega-3 benefits. I hope they still give us the same Vitamin D.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to LewRockwell.com.
That is all.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to LewRockwell.com.
That is all.
Friday, December 30, 2005
How is Glaivester Doing?
I have been saving the emails on my stats that Sitemeter sends me since the beginning of the year. (This means that the stats I have start at Christmas of 2004).
So I can't compare my current stats to my stats for the first 2.75 months that I had sitemeter (i.e. Sept. 30, 2004-Dec. 24, 2004).
However, I can see how I have been doing this year.
Here is a graph. The blue line is my daily visit counts, and the red line is a 7-day moving average. You may notice that the graph of daily visits goes "of the chart" at one point. This represents my best day in terms of visits, November 12, 2005, when I had 399 visits (thank you, Mr. Sailer). To make the chart large enough to include this point would have made the other ups and downs in the chart too small to see easily, so I kept the range of the chart 0-250.
So here it is:
Clicking gets you the LARGE version.
My traffic looks good, doesn't it?
That is all.
So I can't compare my current stats to my stats for the first 2.75 months that I had sitemeter (i.e. Sept. 30, 2004-Dec. 24, 2004).
However, I can see how I have been doing this year.
Here is a graph. The blue line is my daily visit counts, and the red line is a 7-day moving average. You may notice that the graph of daily visits goes "of the chart" at one point. This represents my best day in terms of visits, November 12, 2005, when I had 399 visits (thank you, Mr. Sailer). To make the chart large enough to include this point would have made the other ups and downs in the chart too small to see easily, so I kept the range of the chart 0-250.
So here it is:
Clicking gets you the LARGE version.
My traffic looks good, doesn't it?
That is all.
Some Alterations to Glaivester
I have decided to go back to my postings from 2004 and a few early 2005 postings and add my catchphrase to my old posts. This will likely be done slowly, so you still have some time to see me before I ended every post with "that is all" or some variation of it.
In case you are wondering on which post this started, it was this one (If you are too lazy to click, or if you don't use Netscape or some other tabbed browser and it is too annoying to go to a new page or open a new window, the post was about my predictions at the beginning of the November assault on Fallujah). I suppose that after making so many predictions, I just wanted to sound sort of regal and fact-oriented, and "that is all" gave the impression that a great man had spoken and imparted all of the wisdom that was worth imparting (I'll leave it up to my readers to determine whether they felt that this was what was conveyed, and if so, whether they think the impression was an accurate one). For some reason, I just grew fond of using the phrase, and then started using it on more and more posts, until I started making it my signature for every post sometime in January or February of 2005.
That is all.
In case you are wondering on which post this started, it was this one (If you are too lazy to click, or if you don't use Netscape or some other tabbed browser and it is too annoying to go to a new page or open a new window, the post was about my predictions at the beginning of the November assault on Fallujah). I suppose that after making so many predictions, I just wanted to sound sort of regal and fact-oriented, and "that is all" gave the impression that a great man had spoken and imparted all of the wisdom that was worth imparting (I'll leave it up to my readers to determine whether they felt that this was what was conveyed, and if so, whether they think the impression was an accurate one). For some reason, I just grew fond of using the phrase, and then started using it on more and more posts, until I started making it my signature for every post sometime in January or February of 2005.
That is all.
AntiWar Stories
This piece on Counterpunch about the top ten antiwar stories and the ten most underreported ignored antiwar stories deserves a mention and a link.
However, I wish he had excluded Cindy Sheehan. If we want to talk about an antiwar mother, how about Mary Tillman, who mentioned that her son Pat, although he left the NFL to fight in Afghanistan, was against the Iraq Attaq. (It probably didn't make the family any more sympathetic with the military that the military appears to have initially lied about the circumstances of his death).
That is all.
However, I wish he had excluded Cindy Sheehan. If we want to talk about an antiwar mother, how about Mary Tillman, who mentioned that her son Pat, although he left the NFL to fight in Afghanistan, was against the Iraq Attaq. (It probably didn't make the family any more sympathetic with the military that the military appears to have initially lied about the circumstances of his death).
That is all.
Iraqi Democracy - Pfah, I Say, Pfah!
Daniel Larison has some good thoughts on Iraqi democracy and indeed on democracy in general.
One part I disagree with though:
At the moment, Iraqis find elections exciting and inspiring because they have scarcely seen the sorts of governments elections produce,
No, the Iraqis who find them exciting and inspiring do so because such Iraqis are mostly Shiites and Kurds who see an opportunity to stick it to the Sunnis.
Also, many of them probably do see what sorts of governments democracies produce, and are excited about the possibility of getting cushy patronage jobs from elected relatives.
That, or else it's because we're paying them to be excited.
You, know, like we pay the newspapers.
That is all.
One part I disagree with though:
At the moment, Iraqis find elections exciting and inspiring because they have scarcely seen the sorts of governments elections produce,
No, the Iraqis who find them exciting and inspiring do so because such Iraqis are mostly Shiites and Kurds who see an opportunity to stick it to the Sunnis.
Also, many of them probably do see what sorts of governments democracies produce, and are excited about the possibility of getting cushy patronage jobs from elected relatives.
That, or else it's because we're paying them to be excited.
You, know, like we pay the newspapers.
That is all.
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