Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Waxed, Nostalgically
Last night's mauling by the Gators was an good ol' fashioned taking to the woodshed jes like grandpa used to do. Schadenball at its finest too (do you prefer white or dark crow meat Hugh?). A good--although ridiculously delayed and still somewhat inconclusive--way to end another drawn out and ultimately unsatisfying college football season. Wake me when you come up with a playoff system.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Tails You Lose?
If by chance, the Buckeyes happen to fall to Florida tonight, how long will it take Hugh Hewitt to assign the blame to John McCain for the opening coin toss? I'm sure that if Romney had tossed the coin, the Buckeyes would have won.
Damned If You Do...
Bing West and Eliot Cohen opine on the paradox facing President Bush in Iraq in today's Wall Street Journal:
We prefer an offensive strategy based on three ironclad principles: take the offense immediately against the death squads in Sadr City, who are now unsettled; arrest and imprison on a scale equal to the horrific situation (or at least equal to New York City!); and insist on a joint say in the appointment of army and police leaders. If the Iraqi government refuses, we should be willing to disengage completely, and soon.
The paradox of American strategy in Iraq is this: President Bush can achieve success only by threatening to do something he is morally opposed to doing -- leaving swiftly and risking chaotic civil strife. If the president showed the same iron will toward Mr. Maliki that he does toward Congress and public opinion, Mr. Maliki would blink first.
The only course that will work entails not only the risks of greater casualties, but the risks of walking away from promises unmet and hopes unfulfilled. More money and troops are inputs, not outputs. A new strategy needs benchmarks for success -- arrests, imprisonment and the adviser ratings of leaders. Our only hope lies not in American troops but in the development of an Iraqi security force free of militia influence, working for a government that understands the penalty for failure.
We prefer an offensive strategy based on three ironclad principles: take the offense immediately against the death squads in Sadr City, who are now unsettled; arrest and imprison on a scale equal to the horrific situation (or at least equal to New York City!); and insist on a joint say in the appointment of army and police leaders. If the Iraqi government refuses, we should be willing to disengage completely, and soon.
The paradox of American strategy in Iraq is this: President Bush can achieve success only by threatening to do something he is morally opposed to doing -- leaving swiftly and risking chaotic civil strife. If the president showed the same iron will toward Mr. Maliki that he does toward Congress and public opinion, Mr. Maliki would blink first.
The only course that will work entails not only the risks of greater casualties, but the risks of walking away from promises unmet and hopes unfulfilled. More money and troops are inputs, not outputs. A new strategy needs benchmarks for success -- arrests, imprisonment and the adviser ratings of leaders. Our only hope lies not in American troops but in the development of an Iraqi security force free of militia influence, working for a government that understands the penalty for failure.
Killed By Reality
John Derbyshire relates a tragic tale he came across on a recent visit to New Orleans at National Review Online:
The most recent murder, in the early hours of Thursday morning, was of a young wife in the pleasant middle-class Fauborg Marigny district. The woman and her husband had a two-year-old son. Police found the husband, shot three times but still alive, clutching the infant near the front door of the house. The wife had been killed by a gunshot wound to the neck. The husband has survived.
These were educated white liberals--they had been dormitory mates at Harvard--who had returned to New Orleans after Katrina to do good works in "the community." The husband, a doctor, ran a clinic that turned no one away. The wife... well, let the Times-Picayune tell it:
The couple also ran a feed-the-homeless enterprise named Food Not Bombs. You get the picture. These were not Republican voters.
What happened to this young couple was unspeakably horrible, and there is of course no excusing such barbarism. It is hard, though, not to shake your head at the couple's unworldly naivety. What kind of people did they think they were going to encounter when they got down and dirty with "the community"? The Times-Picayune story quoted a neighbor of the couple saying this: "They would never do it, but they should have answered the door with a gun." Hard to disagree with that--either part of it.
The most recent murder, in the early hours of Thursday morning, was of a young wife in the pleasant middle-class Fauborg Marigny district. The woman and her husband had a two-year-old son. Police found the husband, shot three times but still alive, clutching the infant near the front door of the house. The wife had been killed by a gunshot wound to the neck. The husband has survived.
These were educated white liberals--they had been dormitory mates at Harvard--who had returned to New Orleans after Katrina to do good works in "the community." The husband, a doctor, ran a clinic that turned no one away. The wife... well, let the Times-Picayune tell it:
Hill wore thrift store garb and made experimental films, a craft she sought to share with other women, holding "film-making bees" in which they made rudimentary films... Gailiunas [i.e. the husband] sang songs about love and leftist politics in a solo act called Ukelele Against the Machine...
The couple also ran a feed-the-homeless enterprise named Food Not Bombs. You get the picture. These were not Republican voters.
What happened to this young couple was unspeakably horrible, and there is of course no excusing such barbarism. It is hard, though, not to shake your head at the couple's unworldly naivety. What kind of people did they think they were going to encounter when they got down and dirty with "the community"? The Times-Picayune story quoted a neighbor of the couple saying this: "They would never do it, but they should have answered the door with a gun." Hard to disagree with that--either part of it.
Sneak Previews
I've been able to secure an advance copy of a future Star Tribune editorial about the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Read it today so you can tell your colleagues at the next faculty meeting or peace poetry/drum circle workshop that you read and appreciated its wisdom first!
Like any good middle school student using the Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia as a crutch, the Star Tribune likes to rearrange a few words and paraphrase things to keep people guessing. Before you go spouting off about your prescience, how can you be sure the next Star Tribune editorial wistfully recalling the dignity of Saddam Hussein is based on this particular source? Look for these irrisistible Hertzbergian rhetorical flourishes:
1. Glib, leaden alliteration:
The deposed dictator's dangling the President said, "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy"
A phrase like "turned-out tyrant's take down" in the Star Tribune version will be a huge red flag.
2. Moral equivalency arguments:
but the Bush Administration's disdain for such institutions was nearly a match for Saddam's own.
Which could easily be substituted for Bush is worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, or at the most extreme, United Healthcare CEO William McGuire.
3. Taunts that the war critics were right all along and resignation to defeat:
Compared to many of the other horrors that have served as milestones along the four-year journey from shock and awe through stay the course to surge and pray, what happened at 6:10 A.M. on December 30th in that dank, foul-smelling execution chamber was relatively free of bloodshed.
It did not take long for the hanging to become a metaphor for the over-all disaster of which it is part.
Which could be summarized by the Star Tribune as "we were right all along, surrender now!"
Of course, no matter the topic, all Star Tribune editorials include variations on these themes. But with just a little study and pattern recognition ability, you too can say on the date this one is published - that story is so last week.
Like any good middle school student using the Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia as a crutch, the Star Tribune likes to rearrange a few words and paraphrase things to keep people guessing. Before you go spouting off about your prescience, how can you be sure the next Star Tribune editorial wistfully recalling the dignity of Saddam Hussein is based on this particular source? Look for these irrisistible Hertzbergian rhetorical flourishes:
1. Glib, leaden alliteration:
The deposed dictator's dangling the President said, "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy"
A phrase like "turned-out tyrant's take down" in the Star Tribune version will be a huge red flag.
2. Moral equivalency arguments:
but the Bush Administration's disdain for such institutions was nearly a match for Saddam's own.
Which could easily be substituted for Bush is worse than Hitler, Pol Pot, or at the most extreme, United Healthcare CEO William McGuire.
3. Taunts that the war critics were right all along and resignation to defeat:
Compared to many of the other horrors that have served as milestones along the four-year journey from shock and awe through stay the course to surge and pray, what happened at 6:10 A.M. on December 30th in that dank, foul-smelling execution chamber was relatively free of bloodshed.
It did not take long for the hanging to become a metaphor for the over-all disaster of which it is part.
Which could be summarized by the Star Tribune as "we were right all along, surrender now!"
Of course, no matter the topic, all Star Tribune editorials include variations on these themes. But with just a little study and pattern recognition ability, you too can say on the date this one is published - that story is so last week.
Not Your Father's Atheism
In Friday's Wall Street Journal Sam Schulman writes that Without God, Gall Is Permitted (sub req):
What is new about the new atheists? It's not their arguments. Spend as much time as you like with a pile of the recent anti-religion books, but you won't encounter a single point you didn't hear in your freshman dormitory. It's their tone that is novel. Belief, in their eyes, is not just misguided but contemptible, the product of provincial minds, the mark of people who need to be told how to think and how to vote -- both of which, the new atheists assure us, they do in lockstep with the pope and Jerry Falwell.
For them, belief in God is beyond childish, it is unsuitable for children. Today's atheists are particularly disgusted by the religious training of young people -- which Dr. Dawkins calls "a form of child abuse." He even floats the idea that the state should intervene to protect children from their parents' religious beliefs.
For the new atheists, believing in God is a form of stupidity, which sets off their own intelligence. They write as if they were the first to discover that biblical miracles are improbable, that Parson Weems was a fabulist, that religion is full of superstition. They write as if great minds had never before wrestled with the big questions of creation, moral law and the contending versions of revealed truth. They argue as if these questions are easily answered by their own blunt materialism. Most of all, they assume that no intelligent, reflective person could ever defend religion rather than dismiss it. The reviewer of Dr. Dawkins's volume in a recent New York Review of Books noted his unwillingness to take theology seriously, a starting point for any considered debate over religion.
The faith that the new atheists describe is a simple-minded parody. It is impossible to see within it what might have preoccupied great artists and thinkers like Homer, Milton, Michelangelo, Newton and Spinoza -- let alone Aquinas, Dr. Johnson, Kierkegaard, Goya, Cardinal Newman, Reinhold Niebuhr or, for that matter, Albert Einstein. But to pass over this deeper faith -- the kind that engaged the great minds of Western history -- is to diminish the loss of faith too. The new atheists are separated from the old by their shallowness.
What is new about the new atheists? It's not their arguments. Spend as much time as you like with a pile of the recent anti-religion books, but you won't encounter a single point you didn't hear in your freshman dormitory. It's their tone that is novel. Belief, in their eyes, is not just misguided but contemptible, the product of provincial minds, the mark of people who need to be told how to think and how to vote -- both of which, the new atheists assure us, they do in lockstep with the pope and Jerry Falwell.
For them, belief in God is beyond childish, it is unsuitable for children. Today's atheists are particularly disgusted by the religious training of young people -- which Dr. Dawkins calls "a form of child abuse." He even floats the idea that the state should intervene to protect children from their parents' religious beliefs.
For the new atheists, believing in God is a form of stupidity, which sets off their own intelligence. They write as if they were the first to discover that biblical miracles are improbable, that Parson Weems was a fabulist, that religion is full of superstition. They write as if great minds had never before wrestled with the big questions of creation, moral law and the contending versions of revealed truth. They argue as if these questions are easily answered by their own blunt materialism. Most of all, they assume that no intelligent, reflective person could ever defend religion rather than dismiss it. The reviewer of Dr. Dawkins's volume in a recent New York Review of Books noted his unwillingness to take theology seriously, a starting point for any considered debate over religion.
The faith that the new atheists describe is a simple-minded parody. It is impossible to see within it what might have preoccupied great artists and thinkers like Homer, Milton, Michelangelo, Newton and Spinoza -- let alone Aquinas, Dr. Johnson, Kierkegaard, Goya, Cardinal Newman, Reinhold Niebuhr or, for that matter, Albert Einstein. But to pass over this deeper faith -- the kind that engaged the great minds of Western history -- is to diminish the loss of faith too. The new atheists are separated from the old by their shallowness.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Jobs Americans Won't Do
Hockey Coach Quota--WSJ.com:
The University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves hockey team is on a roll, and interim coach Dave Shyiak is a top candidate for coach of the year in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.
But the team has a big problem. Mr. Shyiak was born in Canada and is working as a so-called temporary H1-B professional worker. His visa is expiring and U.S. immigration officials fret that this foreigner may be taking a job from an American citizen. So the university must comply with rules that require it to verify that there is no American worker who is "able, willing, qualified, and available to accept the job at the prevailing wage for that occupation." The university is taking out newspaper ads for the hockey team's head-coach position and hoping no one applies.
They're takin' our jerbs!
The University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves hockey team is on a roll, and interim coach Dave Shyiak is a top candidate for coach of the year in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.
But the team has a big problem. Mr. Shyiak was born in Canada and is working as a so-called temporary H1-B professional worker. His visa is expiring and U.S. immigration officials fret that this foreigner may be taking a job from an American citizen. So the university must comply with rules that require it to verify that there is no American worker who is "able, willing, qualified, and available to accept the job at the prevailing wage for that occupation." The university is taking out newspaper ads for the hockey team's head-coach position and hoping no one applies.
They're takin' our jerbs!
Economic Surge?
In addition to the much talked about "troop surge," President Bush's "New way forward in Iraq" also includes an economic component (WSJ sub req):
Administration officials say they are still putting the finishing touches on the economic aspects of the new Iraq strategy, but say the broad contours have largely been decided upon. One official involved in devising the new Iraq strategy said the administration hopes that the expanded job-creation and economic-development programs would make it harder for militias and insurgent groups in Iraq to recruit jobless young men.
The State Department section of the administration's fiscal year 2008 budget will ask lawmakers to appropriate $1.46 billion in aid for the Iraqi government, according to people familiar with the matter. These people said the request includes $335 million in security-related aid, $373 million in funding designed to help spur economic growth and $239 million for education and job creation. The largest share of the new money, $486 million, would go toward Iraqi political parties, human-rights groups and other players in the country's nascent democratic system.
The administration will request additional Iraq-related money in a supplemental spending bill that will be presented to lawmakers along with the standard budget.
The supplemental spending bill will ask for a "significant increase" in the money allocated to the so-called Commander's Emergency Response Program, which gives military officers in Iraq money they can use on small-scale reconstruction and job-creation projects that they hope will help stabilize the areas they patrol, according to a senior Pentagon official.
A second senior official said the increase could double the current size of the program from $720 million this past year to more than $1 billion in 2007.
All sound like sound proposals, especially the increase in the CERP funding. There has been story after story about local commanders in Iraq not having enough money for rebuilding projects.
Dan Senor and Roman Martinez also had a piece in yesterday's WSJ suggesting dynamic ideas for Iraq. In addition to a significant increase in troops for an extended period of time and a change in military leadership on the ground (which already has come to pass with Lt. Gen. Petraeus replacing Gen. Casey), they also call for changes in our economic approach:
Economic aid must be matched by dramatic distribution reform. The administration is considering proposals by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and field commanders to pair a troop increase with a funding surge for new Iraq jobs programs. But this only makes sense if there are vast changes in how the new programs are managed by the U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies.
The funds appropriated by our government barely affect the lives of average Iraqis. This is because large-scale U.S. reconstruction programs continue to be subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations applicable in peacetime. This means that major government contracts for Iraq are subjected, in advance, to the slow and cumbersome "Request For Proposal" process. An even larger cause of the bottleneck is that the Iraqi government lacks the manpower, infrastructure and decisiveness in its ministries to disperse funds effectively. So of those funds appropriated to the Iraqi government, only a small percentage ever moves from the government to the Iraqi people.
To make a "New Deal"-style jobs program work in Iraq, the president should propose that Congress streamline the acquisition process to allow for rapid project approval, following the model of the enormously successful Commander's Emergency Response Program. He should also appoint a respected retired military leader or business executive with expertise in logistics management to oversee distribution of aid on the ground. Anything related to funding and contracting for Iraq is understandably a sensitive issue, especially given the new Democratic majority's focus on oversight. So the president should ask the Democratic congressional leadership to propose a candidate for this position of "counterinsurgency economic czar."
More excellent suggestions. My only concern is why such ideas were not implemented three years ago. Let's hope there still is time for them to bear fruit in Iraq.
Administration officials say they are still putting the finishing touches on the economic aspects of the new Iraq strategy, but say the broad contours have largely been decided upon. One official involved in devising the new Iraq strategy said the administration hopes that the expanded job-creation and economic-development programs would make it harder for militias and insurgent groups in Iraq to recruit jobless young men.
The State Department section of the administration's fiscal year 2008 budget will ask lawmakers to appropriate $1.46 billion in aid for the Iraqi government, according to people familiar with the matter. These people said the request includes $335 million in security-related aid, $373 million in funding designed to help spur economic growth and $239 million for education and job creation. The largest share of the new money, $486 million, would go toward Iraqi political parties, human-rights groups and other players in the country's nascent democratic system.
The administration will request additional Iraq-related money in a supplemental spending bill that will be presented to lawmakers along with the standard budget.
The supplemental spending bill will ask for a "significant increase" in the money allocated to the so-called Commander's Emergency Response Program, which gives military officers in Iraq money they can use on small-scale reconstruction and job-creation projects that they hope will help stabilize the areas they patrol, according to a senior Pentagon official.
A second senior official said the increase could double the current size of the program from $720 million this past year to more than $1 billion in 2007.
All sound like sound proposals, especially the increase in the CERP funding. There has been story after story about local commanders in Iraq not having enough money for rebuilding projects.
Dan Senor and Roman Martinez also had a piece in yesterday's WSJ suggesting dynamic ideas for Iraq. In addition to a significant increase in troops for an extended period of time and a change in military leadership on the ground (which already has come to pass with Lt. Gen. Petraeus replacing Gen. Casey), they also call for changes in our economic approach:
Economic aid must be matched by dramatic distribution reform. The administration is considering proposals by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and field commanders to pair a troop increase with a funding surge for new Iraq jobs programs. But this only makes sense if there are vast changes in how the new programs are managed by the U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies.
The funds appropriated by our government barely affect the lives of average Iraqis. This is because large-scale U.S. reconstruction programs continue to be subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations applicable in peacetime. This means that major government contracts for Iraq are subjected, in advance, to the slow and cumbersome "Request For Proposal" process. An even larger cause of the bottleneck is that the Iraqi government lacks the manpower, infrastructure and decisiveness in its ministries to disperse funds effectively. So of those funds appropriated to the Iraqi government, only a small percentage ever moves from the government to the Iraqi people.
To make a "New Deal"-style jobs program work in Iraq, the president should propose that Congress streamline the acquisition process to allow for rapid project approval, following the model of the enormously successful Commander's Emergency Response Program. He should also appoint a respected retired military leader or business executive with expertise in logistics management to oversee distribution of aid on the ground. Anything related to funding and contracting for Iraq is understandably a sensitive issue, especially given the new Democratic majority's focus on oversight. So the president should ask the Democratic congressional leadership to propose a candidate for this position of "counterinsurgency economic czar."
More excellent suggestions. My only concern is why such ideas were not implemented three years ago. Let's hope there still is time for them to bear fruit in Iraq.
Friday, January 05, 2007
The Better Half Unleashed
Mary Pawlenty to resign district judgeship:
Minnesota First Lady Mary Pawlenty will resign her post as a Dakota County district judge next month to become general counsel of the National Arbitration Forum, the governor's office announced Thursday.
The move will free her from political restraints on judges and allow her to campaign for her husband, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is considered a possible candidate for national office as early as 2008.
Minnesota First Lady Mary Pawlenty will resign her post as a Dakota County district judge next month to become general counsel of the National Arbitration Forum, the governor's office announced Thursday.
The move will free her from political restraints on judges and allow her to campaign for her husband, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is considered a possible candidate for national office as early as 2008.
Paging Black Jack
Guardsmen overrun at the Border:
U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.
According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.
The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.
The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.
The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.
If this story turns out to be true, it's a disgrace. Why send the National Guard to the border if they're unable to prevent incidents like this?
UPDATE: Help is on the way?
The Minnesota National Guard said Friday it will deploy about 200 soldiers to help prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the border with Mexico.
Soldiers from units in Albert Lea and Rochester will be sent to New Mexico for a three-week rotation, as part of Operation Jump Start.
Let's hope they're bringing their guns.
U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.
According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.
The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.
The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.
The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.
If this story turns out to be true, it's a disgrace. Why send the National Guard to the border if they're unable to prevent incidents like this?
UPDATE: Help is on the way?
The Minnesota National Guard said Friday it will deploy about 200 soldiers to help prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the border with Mexico.
Soldiers from units in Albert Lea and Rochester will be sent to New Mexico for a three-week rotation, as part of Operation Jump Start.
Let's hope they're bringing their guns.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Oh That Media Bias
Funny how Hugh Hewitt dismisses every Boston Globe story about Mitt Romney as a "hit piece" that only makes Romney stronger by "inoculating him," but then quotes extensively from a Vanity Fair story on John McCain as evidence that he shouldn't be the GOP nominee for president in 2008. You'd almost think that Hugh already has his horse in this race, except that we have his word that he is in no way in the Romney camp.
It's reassuring to know that we can continue to look to Mr. Hewitt for objective, unbiased analysis as the race for '08 unfolds.
It's reassuring to know that we can continue to look to Mr. Hewitt for objective, unbiased analysis as the race for '08 unfolds.
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