Why It's War: I agree with you, Flyer, that the metaphoric "war" is overused. And I agree with you, Razor, that September 11 was not an attack like Pearl Harbor, not the official act of a foreign nation resigned to the clash of armies and the invasion of countries. But the "crime" rubric is painfully inadequate. The first WTC bombing was treated as a crime, and plotters (and conspirators, like Ramzi Yusuf) were or would have been handled like traditional perps. That did us no good, as we know now. At the very least, the 1993 terrorists should have been treated like members of the mafia -- bit players in huge, loosely knit enterprise. But even the mafia comparison falls short.

What we need to accept is that this war, like the Cold War, will redefine the term. Again, we face an ideology, a mindset, more than we face an actual country. (Though if there were a Soviet Union in this war, it would be Saudi Arabia.) The fight against that ideology will be played out by proxy throughout the world, mostly in smaller non-democratic countries, like Syria, and in nominally democratic states weakened by geography, like Indonesia. This is not to say that we will invade them all, but we will prop up their leaders like we did throughout the world during the Cold War. (For what is Pervez Musharraf -- with his cheap electoral veneer and his promises of liberalization, when security permits -- if not a textbook banana republic dictator, angling for U.S. backing by promising not to go commie?) Well, our bastard is better than theirs, as we used to say.

It is in this way that Iraq might prove to be this generation's Vietnam, a place where we face the opposing ideology with a show of force that, though obviously not a death blow, is meant to indicate our willingness to fight. After all, why are we fighting in Iraq? Because we can. Why did we go to the Security Council? Because the history of Iraq's defiance of U.N. resolutions was good cover, nothing more. We're in Iraq because it was a convenient first step, a way to put our foot firmly into the Arab world with a modicum of legitimacy -- a legitimacy we would have sacrificed by aiming directly at the corrupt, Wahabbist-appeasing House of Saud, or at Hamas financier Iran. (Note that we're now on a clear path to build a legitimizing case against Iran on WMD grounds. Deja vu?) One of the reasons ol' Muammar down in Libya is so bent on clearing his debts with the U.S. and U.N. is that he knows that being a misbehaving Muslim country right now is slowly turning into a big game of Whack-a-Mole.

This is war, with all its attendant dirtiness, duplicity, and compromise -- and I'd argue it needs to be. The other option, treating terrorism as isolated criminal acts, is an aspirin for a headache caused by a malignant tumor. Nineteen dead hijackers and 3000 dead civilians later, who do you prosecute? Who's the criminal? (The Taliban, baby, in my book. Now presiding, Judge JDAM. God save this honorable court.)

The Man in Black: Dies at 71. Sad.

War: Actually, Razor, I don't have a problem with what you said. I think the word "war" is overused all the time in this country, whether it's a "War on Poverty," "War on Drugs," or "War on Terrorism." Often, it's an excuse to inflate the size and scope of federal power in order to raise money and create beauracracies. And it's a non-partisan phenomenon, to be sure. Ronald Reagan, sainted conservative that he might be, gave us the Drug War and its wasted money and ruination of many lives over the last twenty years. What's evident is that the public will forgive and sacrifice a lot in the name of war, much as they did in WWII.

That said, we were attacked in the most horrible of ways two years ago and the conventional wisdom at the time was that it was only the first attack of many to come. It felt like war at the time (in the macro sense, as you say, since I've never been in uniform either) and I think most in this country were only too happy to see the gloves come off, on our part.

Time gives us a new perspective and the opportunity to decide what sacrifices are necessary and which are not. This is a good thing. Much like the Cold War, this is going to take a long time and the battle will have many fronts, be they military, diplomatic, or economic. George W. Bush won't win the War on Terror, as Kennedy didn't win the Cold War. But he got the country off the ropes and throwing punches, which I think is good. Those who come after him may have better plans and new strategies. I hope they have the guts for the job, too.

What Happened?: Certainly the morning of 9/11/01 was one of those "Where were you when...?" incidents, a la JFK/MLK/RFK being shot; Challenger exploding; Berlin Wall tumbling. I was listening to Howard Stern in a waiting car, on the way to a deposition. The partner from my firm was dropping off something inside. Stern mentioned that a plane had hit one of the towers. "Huh.." I thought "how strange. How could you just run into it?" At the time I figured it was a small plane and the pilot had a heart attack or something. Then the partner came back to the car (he is a two-star admiral in the Navy Reserve, by the way). "Another plane just hit. It's war."

Thinking back, it sure felt like war that day - or what I supposed war to be in the macro sense (since I was hardly on the front lines and I've never been a soldier). I also know the partner didn't mean "war" in the Western Front sense, but war as we've come to understand it these past decades - concentrated, forceful attacks; not sustained campaigns.

But since it all happened, and through the prism of time, I've come to conclude that what happened that day was really more of a police action - or the failure of one. It was about security, not war. I know the two are often intertwined, but think about it. We invaded a country, Afghanistan, over what was done mostly by a tiny group of (mostly) Saudis. This small group of individuals took over some planes and crashed them. It wasn't war. It was massive, horrible and completely unjustified, but it wasn't war. If our security forces (i.e. customs, FBI, CIA, police, etc.) had done their job, these guys wouldn't have probably gotten on board.

Now I'm pleased as punch, tickled pink, that Saddam and Al Qaeda are on the run. I'll shed no tears for their deaths, and I don't think anyone lied to me in order for me to support the battles that have been fought. However when viewed from a historical/intellectual perspective, the actions which we took based on what occurred, are unprecedented. Said another way, when Oklahoma City happened, we put two men on trial. We didn't raid "separatist" camps; we didn't round up all white males who were disgruntled. Their actions were as "political" as those scum bags on the planes. You don't think there were thousands of people in this country who were happy, maybe even supportive of the carnage; how two men "got back at" the Federal Government?

Nothing I'm saying denigrates the memories of those who fell. What I'm proposing is that while we all felt good over what W did in response, it should not be our response any time a crime is committed against our people by someone foreign. Stated another way, calling a crime "terrorism" is not justification enough. Okay, let the beatings begin...

Reflective: Two years ago today I went for a morning jog knowing two things: "a small plane had crashed...." and I had one whopper of a hangover. Despite how bad I felt, I ran what seemed like an awful long way, probably a couple miles further than my normal route. It was a spectacularly beautiful morning, one of those days that you only get as summer ebbs and autumn starts to show its face. That's one of the things I'll always remember, how nice a day it was, perfect for shaking the fog of too much booze the night before while watching football.

I just returned from a similar run through the same neighborhood (I've moved to an adjacent neighborhood, but I purposely detoured to cover some of the same ground as I did then, and again last year). There weren't as many flags outside the houses, though I guess that's not a surprise. Not everyone can keep up the patriotic fervor that day isnpired for the first year or so. One guy on a Harley pulled up next to me as I waited for a light to change and gave me a look that said something, I don't know what. Maybe, "Hey, I remember. Do you?" Maybe not.

Something was going on in the park this morning, a memorial of some kind perhaps. Anyway, there were more stragglers hanging out than on a normal day. A homeless guy was handing out (selling, I guess) American flags. I think I bought one from him or his twin two years ago. I guess business hasn't been as good for him lately.

It's another amazing day, about 80 degrees and blue skies, just like it was that day. Again, I ran much further than normal despite once again waking with a ringing head. Probably will again next year, too.

The start of the war: Clifford May on NRO points out that this war began long before 9/11. That's just when America began fighting back.

It's a little unnerving to read the timeline of terrorism committed against Americans over the past 20-plus years in the name of Islamo-fanatacism. That's a lot of sustained hate (though nothing, I guess, compared to that in Isreal/Palestine or the hundreds of years of "troubles" in Ireland). Maybe it's because you brought up Ambrose earlier, but my mind wandered to something he describes in his meomoir, To America. That was how much the Japanese and Americans hated each other.

The men on the front lines, whether the U.S. Army or Marines, or the Japanese army, were extraordinarily young. They carried in their packs a heavy burden of racism. They fought to live or die, and did so because of the hatred they felt toward each other.

The outrages they committed are surpassed only by the holocaust. In the Pacific, what the men asked of themselves went beyond the notion that there is a limit to human endurance. In an environment that always changed but could always be described as "hell," they did things never seen before or since. There are many contenders for the Worst War That Ever Was, but a combination of factors give the Pacific War some claim

There's a parallel between that war and the one we now find ourselves fighting. Both the Japanese and Islamists fought to preserve an anti-modern, anti-progress relic of a culture. And the Japanese were turned into friends and trading partners/competitors by a horribly destructive, years long war. I can't see the same sacrifice being made by America today to turn Iraqis into friendly rivals, maybe because we're too refined to allow ourselves to hate them the same way they do us, and the Japanese and American infantrymen did. And so the war creeps on, tragedies adding up much more slowly.

Longfellow: And then, there's this, the last stanza of Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride":

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, --
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

The Anniversary: If I could choose to have one idea spread today, it is this:

War. Two years ago, what we call 9/11, was the Battle of New York; it was the Battle of Washington; the Battle of Shanksville. We lost the first two battles that day, in New York and Washington, because we were caught sleeping. By the time the third battle was fought, in the skies over rural Pennsylvania, we had stirred. Though there were no survivors in Shanksville, it was a decisive American victory, the first of the war, the first counterattack.

Stephen Ambrose, in his book on D-Day, relates the landing of Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. at Utah Beach in 1944. Realizing that his landing was swept off target by strong currents, and that both time and lives would be wasted attempting to track back nearly a half-mile to the target, Roosevelt told his 4th Infantry Division, "We'll begin the war from here." And so we did.

It's not that we're wrong. It's just people will think we are: The NYSE, in an amazing show of restraint, is not going to give Grasso an additional $48MM on top of the $139.5MM package already received. Why?

The minutes do not detail the discussions related to Mr Grasso's pay. But one set notes that Mr Schrempp [the CEO of Daimler-Chrysler] referred to "negative speculation and criticism" surrounding the size of the compensation. He asked whether extending the chairman's contract to 2007 - approved in late August - was in the exchange's best interests.

He also questioned whether it had been independently reviewed, suggesting he was not aware that three consultancies on executive pay had advised the NYSE.

So, it's not that it was wrong to give him the money, just that everyone would criticize the move. And we wonder why no one has faith in Big Business.

But We're Petty and Minor with a Bullet! Makes a great slogan, eh? Yes, it's true that there is a "linkage gap" in the blog world. But part of that is built into the system. You can be comprehensive (check out Chip Taylor's long-version blogroll, which includes us, by the way), you can categorize (like Radley, with his Dylan-album categories), or you can say "Screw it," as we do, and keep the list short and sweet. (And I'm glad we do. I wouldn't link to someone I don't read regularly anyway. In fact I turned away the first request we ever got to "trade links" since the other site turned out to be of the, uh, tin-foil hat variety.)

My initial idea of having a blog at all was to have an easy way for us to trade ideas, jabs, recipes for haggis, etc. Having a readership is nice, and we get more than a handful of repeat customers here. Be nice to have some more, perhaps, but in the end you -- and Flyer -- are my audience. (And I'd like to think that even with Sullivanesque traffic, I'd apply the same rule.)

But I know what you mean, too, that there is no real way to sell your blog without one of the hooks you mentioned. The biggest traffic spike we ever had was when we were, inexplicably, the Right Wing News site of the day, which shows the power of one good mention.

We could, perhaps, aim for a libel suit to pump up traffic. Nominations?

"Always think of it, never speak of it": This is the third time I've tried to post on this, and my beautiful prose got lost each time. I'm just going to link and make one comment. Christopher Hitchens, over at Slate, makes a good argument about why we shouldn't commemorate 9/11/01. I mostly agree, but certainly those who lost loved ones, or who survived the crashes, should certainly do what they feel is best to remember those who died, or to celebrate their own life. I think Hitchens is talking more about this.

Roadmap: Den Beste looks at the prospects for the next Palestinian PM, with or without Arafat's exile. He gives a nod to the all-important demography, too, in this quote from Douglas Davis:

The reason the Palestinians have not run with the ball is that they are convinced that they have far more to gain by playing for time. On present trends, say the demographers, Palestinians will outnumber Jews in the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River — Israel, the West Bank and Gaza — by 2020. At that point, Israel will cease to exist as a democratic and Jewish state.

I don't doubt that one of the driving forces behind the Roadmap is this very datum. The thinking -- what one might call the neoconservative bet -- is that a Palestinian population with its own state, stricter control of extremist parties, a modicum of freedom, and a government of laws might -- might! -- conceivably pacify naturally, occupying itself with the details of running an independent state. No doubt there are many Palestinians for whom there is no greater goal than the success of an independent Palestine. Of course, those who cling to the river-to-the-sea goal of Greater Palestine will be more than happy to see a nascent state fail at just these distracting responsibilities.

I'll tell you what tyranny is: I sort of anticipated your last point as I was writing my first post. To be sure, if you're a smart cookie, then people will read you because you're entertaining/well-informed/insightful. However, I was making the point that to get attention in the Blog world, you have to either have a) previous notoriety; b) break news; c) have some sort of national outlet which you then use to pump up your blog; or d) word-of-mouth. Since most fall into the "d" category, they need links and the occasional mention. My bet is that while you might get linked by someone who disagrees, but respects you, you're not going to get much press in terms of some guy saying: "Go read so-and-so." At least among the petty "minor" blogs who all fight for their piece of the bandwith (we're certainly both petty and minor).

Pure Silliness: The Democratic candidates' favorite songs, as stated in the debate in Baltimore. Howard Dean picked Wyclef's "Jaspora." (No doubt Dr. Dean was famous for driving around Montpelier with the Fugees kicking on the benzi box.) Hmmm. I wonder if this is a harbinger of some pandering-to-come.

More Tyranny: To further illustrate, the libertarian-leaning Reynolds links to Talk Left, an unapologetic left Democrat, and to National Review's Corner, the gold-standard of GOP blogging. Meanwhile, the conservative Viking Pundit links to us, as does the Cato-minded Agitator. I'm not sure "toeing the line" is as important as having a serious, informed opinion. One of the reason's that Balko's Agitator is so important to me is that I will just as likely disagree as agree, even though I'm ideologically in his corner. But when I do disagree, I can be fairly certain that he is informed, interested in knowing more, and not entirely opposed to suasionary discourse.

Tyranny/Blogging: It's an interesting point, and one that I think folds in with so much other commentary about the media. The right and left were shut out of the TV establishment in the early days (more specifically, the right and the far left) because it was assumed that blandness would sell best. Both went to radio: the left to NPR and Pacifica ventures, the right to commercial syndication. The internet happened to be a perfect outlet for the libertarian (stereotype, that is: wonky, tech-literate, individualist). The left likes to march because they believe in the power of self-righteous groupthink. They feel comfortable in that setting, surrounded by the moral support of their correct-thinking comrades. The right is more community-focused (think locally, act locally) and, aside from the NRA, tends to choose local groups like the Rotary or the chamber of commerce. The libertarian is more likely to distrust crowds, hence, in one respect, the failure to make a viable Libertarian Party. Libertarians are also a quirky lot, given to odd disagreements on policy. A fire-breathing, pro-legalization, Cato Institute type might turn out to be strongly pro-life. An ACLU-ish left-libertarian might turn out to be strongly pro-war. The perfect outlet for this sort of individualist is the blog, which is in its essence about, to put it in the most overused term, authenticity. Hence the emphasis on unmasking bias, exploding euphemism, and unraveling spin.

You're right, though, to hint at a certain type of media bias in blogging. It is the bias of the alternative media in general, believing its own declarations of authenticity, devolving into a smug superciliousness. Read any city's City Paper and you'll get a stale whiff of the last time a medium got too self-satisfied. There is the democratizing effect of cheap internet publishing, which allows for anyone to rebut anyone else. But obviously if I set up a blogspot site tomorrow because I disagree with an estabished site like Sullivan's Dish, the only way it'll get any serious eyeball is if Sully himself mentions it. This means that, as in any other medium, there will be an ivory tower effect. On the positive side, it will likely be a more meritocratic tower.

There are exceptions to any rule. There are plently of banal, NPR lefties out there, as the Dean-blogging phenom suggests. (But, again, it's a movement thing, a virtual Kumbaya session.) Then there are some straight up Republicans out there, too. Predictably, though, they tend to be of the fiscal conservative variety, not the moral majority variety. Not many blogs took to Judge Moore's side in the Ten Commandments hoopla, except as an intellectual exercise on the merits of strict constructionism. (Modestly ends post by pointing to self.)

Tyranny of the Bloggers: It would come of no surprise to most members of the "blogosphere" that the vast majority of recognized, respected and (most importantly) read bloggers are of the Libertarian/Neo-Conservative variety. Much like talk radio, people of these persuasions are usually a) the most pissed off, b) the most entertaining, and c) the most verbose. Leftys tend to marches and demonstrations it seems more than the written word - perhaps it's the fresh air, perhaps the nifty slogans. In any event, the Left is significantly absent from the upper tier blogs - hell just about from any of the blogs you've ever heard of. Moreover, since most bloggers depend on links/referrals from other blogs to draw in readership (whether it's 10 people or 10000), the logic would dictate that if you want to get linked, you're going to have to be pleasing/agreeable to the site linking you. More often than not, therefore, it pays to be of a similar bent to your referral/link base. For example, Right Wing News isn't throwing people over to Krugman's latest on his website (to give an over-the-top possibility).

Yes, some of the "established" blogs are fairly apolitical: I'd argue Kaus doesn't really thump for anyone - he just likes to point out foibles and other fun gossip; likewise Instapundit is more a news commentary site, but for all the "rest of us" it pays to toe the line idealogically. You could say that this represents a more true representation of the state of mind of America, but again, I'm not so sure. I think the left-wing voices are more likely to be drowned out by the Randians who reproduce like rabbits. Probably the only way to rise among the fray is to have a non-blog source (say, your own article in Slate) that you can use to refer to your blog. To be clear, I'm not really complaining, just remarking - most of the libertarians are more interesting to read (shout out to Eno). The bloggers pride themselves on their grassroots ability to create discussion, and how they are different from "mainstream" media who are all "biased" (which way depends on who you're asking). I'm just not so sure.

What about us "C" players?: The New Yorker put out a great article nearly a year ago on how companies were going about recruiting the A-players from B-school. The article was called "The Talent Myth". There was this management-consluting group that put together this dogma on how it should be done (they, naturally, wrote a book about the concept, called "The War for Talent"). Basically the theory was to only go for the shooting stars, the A-1 talent, then overpay for that talent, and encourage these stars, once employed, to do whatever they want. The premise is their talent will open up doors previously unrecognized, and that they will drag upward those at the B or C level. In their own words:

"Bet on the natural athletes, the ones with the strongest intrinsic skills," the authors approvingly quote one senior General Electric executive as saying. "Don't be afraid to promote stars without specifically relevant experience, seemingly over their heads." Success in the modern economy, according to Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod [the three consultant-authors], requires "the talent mind-set": the "deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels is how you outperform your competitors."

Makes sense, no? Well maybe on paper. The prime exemplar of this philosophy (a company guided by this management consultant) was none other than Enron. Oh, and Enron paid tens of millions a year for this fine strategy. Of course, before the fall, no one was daring to question this strategy. In fact, books were being written to praise it. To wit:

Among the many glowing books about Enron written before its fall was the best-seller "Leading the Revolution," by the management consultant Gary Hamel, which tells the story of Lou Pai, who launched Enron's power-trading business. Pai's group began with a disaster: it lost tens of millions of dollars trying to sell electricity to residential consumers in newly deregulated markets. The problem, Hamel explains, is that the markets weren't truly deregulated: "The states that were opening their markets to competition were still setting rules designed to give their traditional utilities big advantages." It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that Pai ought to have looked into those rules more carefully before risking millions of dollars. He was promptly given the chance to build the commercial electricity-outsourcing business, where he ran up several more years of heavy losses before cashing out of Enron last year with two hundred and seventy million dollars. Because Pai had "talent," he was given new opportunities, and when he failed at those new opportunities he was given still more opportunities . . . because he had "talent." "At Enron, failure—even of the type that ends up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal—doesn't necessarily sink a career," Hamel writes, as if that were a good thing. Presumably, companies that want to encourage risk-taking must be willing to tolerate mistakes.

As the article then pointedly puts it: "[I]f talent is defined as something separate from an employee's actual performance, what use is it, exactly?" This was a metaphor for Enron as a whole. It was a company that, it turns out, really didn't produce or service anything. Its profits were all on paper, and then, not even there. All the Board desired was an inflated stock price so articles got written and bonuses/loans got okayed. In then end, this massive ball of talent imploded upon its hollow, vacuous core. Let's hear it for the mediocre and lazy!

Luskin: The problem with spear-heading a crusade is that once you're in full attack mode, you seldom pause to question whether your cause is just. With Luskin, there is no doubting his glee in playing "gotcha" with Krugman (side note: Perhaps shockingly, perhaps not, I have almost no first-hand experience with Krugman. Not because I don't like him, but simply because I'm unaware of him. I only read the NYT online, and then, only selectively.), but while he claims Krugman is dead wrong with his "Bush lies" campaign, Luskin is guilty of the same hyperbole in reacting to Krugman saying that NRO has only managed to find him wrong a small % of his columns: "A mind-boggling defense. Actually, it's not a defense at all — it's a confession. He is confessing that he lies — but, he has an excuse: He had to write 100 columns a year! He was too busy to tell the truth."

Language loses meaning when we overuse words or use them consistently in an incorrect way. Here's Merriam-Webster on the word "lie": "to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive". Krugman, like Luskin, like W, is an idealogue. He drapes himself in the clothes of an academic (like Luskin does in the clothes of a journalist; W, a politician), but in the end, he's going to use his pulpit to push an agenda. He wants to discredit Bush. Fine. Luskin wants to discredit Krugman. The point being that Bush isn't "lying" anymore than "Krugman" is. He's taking facts and information he thinks supports his conclusion and uses them. Sometimes he is wrong. Yes, there are better ways to display those facts (a la Bush and the great WMD hunt), but in the end, the goal is not to deceive, I don't think, but to argue, to convince. Stated differently however: if Krugman is lying, then so too is Bush. Luskin can't have it both ways (i.e. Bush as pinnacle of honesty; Krugman a snakey cheat).

Luskin claims to be in the "truth squad". I think he's lying.

Krugman hits the wall: Donald Luskin critiques Paul Krugman's performance on Tim Russert. Luskin take great joy in spanking Herr Doktorprofessor on a regular basis, but even more joy from watching Russert do it on camera.

"I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers": Damned Blogger, you told me that post didn't go through the first time.

Grading Keynesian policy: Arnold King, on TCS, reviews Bush fiscal policy. He makes some very good points, including that the politics of economic critics matters. He also introduces (to me, anyway) the concept of Sweetwater economists and Saltwater economists. The easy breakdown: Sweetwater=Milton Friedman, Saltwater=Paul Krugman.

CFR up for a vote: McCain/Feingold likely to get a split vote from the Supremes. What's it mean?

(UPenn law prof Nate) Persily said he sees a conflicted opinion emerging on all the issues.
"It would probably be better if they upheld the law in its entirety, or struck it down in its entirety," he said. "But they probably won't. That makes it possible that they'll keep it in place, but leave it completely ineffective."

This is a terrible law that will only make things worse as it complicates election law further and makes it easier, not harder to game the system.

Question: do our thousands of pages of tax code legislation make it easier or harder to cheat on your taxes? That's the kind of system McCain/Feingold gives candidates. The beneficiaries are fat-cat incumbents. It's a shame the law made it this far, since, barring a surprising Supreme Court strike down of the whole thing, it will be impossible to get rid of entirely.

For The Resident MBA: While Flyer is in his undisclosed location, here's something for him to ponder. (Update: He returned as I was composing this!) USA Today looks at "B players" in the corporate world. The theory appears to be that the stars, or "unicorns," are the most likely to leave the company for a better offer:

When employers aren't busy weeding out the bottom 10% of their workforce, they've been trying to steal the A players from the competition in a battle to lure the best. But some of those employers are coming around to the realization that failure and success might not lie among the weakest and strongest links, but in the solid middle . . . A players, by definition, don't hang around when opportunities for riches and promotions dry up, DeLong says. So when dot-com and other tech stock options started to take on water, many in Silicon Valley ran like rats, some back to the industries from whence they came.

Left behind were the loyal B players, who still retained the organizational memory to help their companies survive and now move forward.

Ooh, I like this theory, particularly since it describes . . . me:

There are many types of B players, but most are loyal (to a point), don't live and die for the next promotion (but want challenging work), don't need coddling (but can die of neglect), are honest (if not diplomatic) and are not as driven by power, status and money as are A players, who live for little else. Indeed, A players admit to being maddened by the B players' seeming indifference to what matters to those at the top.

And, by the way, we laugh at you A players, particularly when you sound like this.

Nature and the prejudices of others have conspired to keep me from blogging lately. My apologies for that, but a couple twelve hour days at work plus the new school year kicking pretty much knocked me out. No, I haven't been playing golf, though I did get to actually watch the Panthers/Jaguars game on Sunday. Best game of the year! For either team (snicker snicker)! It was a fantastic finish, with newly named starter Jake Delhomme coming in to rescue the Panthers from career backup Rodney Peete. I like Delhomme (he played at Univ. of Louisiana-Lafayette, better known down south as "Oooh-La-La," and then was a backup for the Saints) and hope he does well this year. Best of all, the Panthers and the Steelers are still undefeated!

Bad news, the Saints get trounced by the Seahawks. Which brings me to my next (and last) football comment. For years I have had a NFL tradition. In order to make the gameday a little more interesting, I make two (For Entertainment Purposes Only!!!!!) picks - one lock and one upset. Gotta find one favorite and one underdog for the day, including applicable point spreads. Just a way to look at all the games of the week, rather than just the ones I am emotionally attached to. Unfortunatley, I wan't able to blog much last week, so I didn't get my (FEPO) picks in. For the record, I won the Bills/Pats game (way too much bad karma in New England these days, with Bledsoe and Lawyer Milloy looking to make a point) and lost the Saints game. Oh well, .500 and moving on.

Lock 'em all up: So, the RIAA is getting down to brass tacks and moving on with the lawsuits. First, they identify large-scale "sharers". Next, the RIAA lawyers subpoena the internet providers based on user information they find, to get the name and address of the "sharer". Third, the lawsuit. Now, the RIAA is kind enough to offer you amnesty in return for you coming forward voluntarily and certifying that you have destroyed all protected songs and won't do it again. This of course doesn't help you much when one of the other record companies then sue you (having now thrust yourself into the spotlight), so my legal advice would be to stay in your foxhole.

Now that the lawsuits have begun, the press has started searching for angles. Here's the first: a 12-year old schoolgirl is a defendant. She's shocked, shocked she says, at this lawsuit. See, she and her family didn't even download the songs to keep them, just to listen to them once. "There's a lot of music there, but we just listen to it and let it go," said her mother. Riiiiight. What's funny is the righteous indignation: "It's not like we were doing anything illegal," said [the mother]. "This is a 12 year-old girl, for crying out loud." That's what they called a non-sequitur. It's also logically flawed. Leave aside the fact that it is in fact illegal. The mother was doing it with her. They may have named the 12 year-old, and maybe that can be viewed as a bit much, but the mother knew she was doing it the whole time, and most likely encouraged it.

Now, I've known some people who've "file-shared". And let's just say that while those people enjoyed sharing music with their peers, they also recognized that there was no real justification for doing it (i.e. the record companies make too much money; it's not really stealing). The mother above thought because she payed Kazaa a monthly fee, she was somehow buying license to the music. Well, that's interesting, and maybe Kazaa is guilty of implying that, but in the end, whether it's a 12 year-old or a dedicated hacker in his basement, they're all doing the same thing; namely stealing intellectual property.

Having said that, I do think that the recording industry needs to change and adapt to the times and technology. Charging $18.00 for a CD that cost $.69 to manufacture is overkill. Sure, you're allowed to recover marketing, sales and other costs through mark-up, but if they could sell cassettes for $9-11 a pop, those cassettes being probably more expensive to manufacture, something has to give. iTUNEs is the first step (having recently sold its 10 millionth song). Let's hope there's a veritable march to progress in the near term.

Question Authority: I've had a question knocking around in my head for a couple of months. Is Osama bin Laden a true believer? Is he in it for the greater glory of Allah, or is he in it for the power, the cult, the authority? By all accounts he was a fiery young radical; but he's older now, he's got a large following (even if that following is shrinking at, er, greater than actuarial rates), and -- let's be frank here -- he's not exactly courting martyrdom personally. When we stormed Tora Bora with daisy cutters, I think he was on his way to some more hospitable locale, even as his folowers may have surfed the shock wave thinking heaven (not to mention those virgins) was just a few burning seconds away. In the pantheon, if you will, of false prophets, including the secular ones, how many really do buy their own schtick? Not Stalin, surely. He saw Marxism through his will to power only. Hitler? Nobody who employed Goebbels and his tactics could take himself completely seriously, though he may have bought into the German nationalism more than Stalin bought into "Mother Russia." On the smaller scale, the cult leaders seem to be more of the David Koresh stripe: "God bless you and have your wife in my chambers by 11:30 that she may receive the holy spirit." That sort of thing. Even someone as bone crazy as Charlie Manson seems to have gotten a deep-down kick from being followed, no matter the message, which was always a rag-bag anyway, from the Beatles to Jesus to the swastika on his forehead, like a guy making it up as he goes along.

What does Osama get?

Anecdotal Evidence: The ecomomy lost 93,000 jobs last month, leaving every CNBC pundit with the words "jobless recovery" in their talking points. I'm skeptical. I mean, I believe the numbers, but I'm not sure what they signify, other than something I don't see. You can't drive a block down the big-retail/fast-food strip in my town without encountering "Help Wanted" signs. Everyone seems to be hiring. Granted, we're not talking about jobs for PhDs, but it's work, and it beats panhandling (you'd think).

My guess is that we'll see a slow adjustment leading to slow but sustained job growth, due at least partly to the extension of unemployment bennies. I know several people riding those bennies right now, and most of them are plenty happy to hold off the serious job hunting until they really need to. The economy will not be said to be "creating jobs" simply because those openings are there. Somebody has to take the job before the checkmark goes in the plus column. Those checkmarks will increase as people begin to lose their extended unemployment coverage.

AKA Easterbrook: On weekdays, he's a serious contributor to the Atlantic, TNR, and Beliefnet. On weekends, he watches all the games as TMQ. (It's a dirty job, but . . .) And now? He blogs. This guy must warp space-time to make 48-hour days.

That said, he's still riding the Governor Riley issue, which he highlighted in his TMQ column last week. Here he is today:

[I]t's an outrage that the civil-rights movement has not gotten behind the campaign of Republican Governor Bob Riley to overhaul Alabama's state tax laws . . . Not many Republican leaders lay it on the line for a tax increase--the Alabama proposal would raise taxes on the affluent in order to cover the funds lost by exempting the poor and working poor, black or white. Why isn't this effort being lavished with praise by the national media? Because the reason Riley is pushing the initiative is that his Christian faith compels him to do so. Riley has openly promoted the tax reform to Alabamans as justified by religion, saying, "According to our Christian ethics, we're supposed to love God, love each other and help take care of the poor." . . . In the same state, Alabama, the national media have given nonstop coverage to the crackpot judge with the Ten Commandments statue . . . Why does the crackpot judge get 24-7 coverage when the noble governor gets almost none?

As I said previously, if Christianity shouldn't take precedence in the decorating of courthouses, it certainly shouldn't drive tax policy. In addition, most practicing Christians also tithe, so this appeal might be lost on them. Finally, who is Easterbrook to peer into Gov. Riley's heart (the way Bush, say, peered into Putin's -- and drew chuckles from the left)? Riley, like everyone else in politics, is selling something, mainly himself.

The Blog Economy: So, if you had invested in FauxPolitik at its inception, when we traded for a measly $.70, and held for only about two weeks, today your shares would be worth $41.01 (down from a 52-week high of just over $44). But noooo, you all thought we were just a flash in the pan. A fly-by-night operation. Ha! Who's laughing now? We're re-writing the rules; the old economy is dead. And whatever else everyone at Enron said about two years ago.

Re: Tax Cut Myths: Very interesting. I have a couple of minor disagreements to air on the myths. First, Myth #1, that deficits drive up interest rates. But deficits can put pressure on interest rates. Besides, I don't think many economically minded folks out there think there's a rock-solid deficit-to-interest-rate rule at work. Wesbury makes it sound as though this view is prevalent beyond the fringes.

Myth #2, that putting money in people's pockets is what counts. Wesbury says, as you quote, "A tax rebate must come from somewhere. If the government borrowed money to pay the rebate, then taxes would eventually be raised to pay it back." This requires the assumption that the stimulus fails. Repayment need not come from tax hikes if revenue grows based on the tax cut. The correlation of the two is anecdotally sound, if not axiomatic, so must be considered.

Myth #3, that sunset provisions are self-defeating. Not in the short-term, as Wesbury points out. But long-term is where the effects of tax policy are felt. Inventory may change in the short term, but hiring and capital investment are what the supply-siders want to see now, and sunsetting dampens the enthusiasm for that, if perhaps less than would be expected. (As Wesbury correctly notes, politicians who don't vote to extend past the sunset risk an electoral spanking, but that's not enough guarantee for a CFO.) See Wesbury's own note on Say's Law, which you quoted. Supply does create its own demand, but at what speed is it created? The fax machine was invented before the telephone, and look how long it took for the world to beat a path to that door.

Myth #4, that size is what matters in a tax cut. Sure, the effect of a tax cut is more important, in the long run. But size is easier to measure than effect, at least in the policy-making stage. Wesbury cites an example:

In 1997, the Clinton capital gains tax rate reduction was estimated to "cost" just $3.3 billion over five years. By any measure of absolute size, this was small. But its impact was huge. Venture capital investment soared by 400 percent and the stock market expanded at an annual average of over 20% for five consecutive years.

It's foolish, though, to say that this was all because of the capital-gains cut. Timing was important, and in this case the timing was incidental, if not accidental. I doubt anyone in the Clinton administration foresaw the tech boom, at least not as it turned out. This was fortuitous policy-making, but not much more, because there was already pressure on venture capital to get into the bio, dot-com, and telcom worlds. Besides, as it turned out, much of this was bubblicious anyway (remember "irrational exuberance"?) and not the sort of thing an interventionist economist would want to encourage. To take credit for the boom, then, by way of permissive tax policy, is to take some blame for the bust, which nobody in the administration ever did.

Myth #5 I have no problem with. Wesbury is right on.

Tax Cut Myths: How often did George Bush tell us that his tax rebates and/or cuts would "put money in the pockets of Americans"? We were then supposed to believe that everyone would rush out and spend that money and therefore stimulate the economy. Turns out, that's not quite right. Apparently, while the tax cut can still be very beneficial, it's not for the reason many believe.

"A tax rebate must come from somewhere. If the government borrowed money to pay the rebate, then taxes would eventually be raised to pay it back. As a result, any rebate would be viewed, not as a permanent change in after-tax income, but as a temporary loan. Surveys show that consumers spent just 25% of the 2001 tax rebate. The other 75% was either saved or used to pay down debt."

So okay, the rebate is still helpful to the individual (decreased debt or increased savings), but it's not a jump-start to the economy. Instead,

"tax cuts work by increasing the incentives for new investment, not by stimulating demand. In the early 1980s, despite large tax cuts, consumers were not banging down the doors of local retailers for fax machines, cell phones, PCs, or broadband Internet connections. It was only after some very smart entrepreneurs decided to risk a great deal of money, time and talent developing these new goods and services that they became so ubiquitous. By cutting taxes on income and capital gains in the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan encouraged these entrepreneurs to take the risks necessary to develop these new technologies. To paraphrase Say's Law: Supply created its own demand."

This myth, as well as four others, is dissected. Hell, even Clinton gets props as a tax-cutting fool. Importantly, it's not a diatribe against tax cuts. To the contrary, it finds them very supporting. However, it's the type of tax cut that matters; even more so than size.

The Critique: Clinton-era State Depatment man Jamie Rubin has a piece in Foreign Affairs that offers a critique of the pre-Iraq diplomacy efforts of the U.S. He makes some valid arguments, rightly pointing out the administrations lack of coherent message and tendency to antagonize the sensibilities of "old" Europe. But, in the end, it all sounds just a little too Clintonian; just a little more jaw-jaw, a little more give and take, would have brought the world around. It comes across as, essentially, an argument that his own boss could have pulled off what Bush couldn't. He fails to see the entirety of, say, France's (successful) efforts to stymie the second UN resolution. To put it more bluntly, he criticizes Cheney and Rummy for their "We're going anyway" attitude, but ignores France's "We'll oppose any second resolution that even mentions the use of force" posturing.

It's an interesting read, and a good, non-belligerent presentation of a properly Democratic view. But it suffers the rose-colored view of too much of the Foggy Bottom world: If we could only talk a little more, we could solve this. Twelve years of talk was plenty.

Last Night: I did watch the president speak, in the end. (I had debated.) What's the point anymore? Yes, I'm with the program. It's war, after all, and not one we declared. You want to spend a further $87 bil on this? Fine. (But I do wish we could trim some budget fat to pay for it.) Honestly, I'm the president's man. I was all about nation building when Bush was hinting that he was an almost-but-not-quite neo-isolationist, so he doesn't need to ride herd on me.

And then I see him speak. Granted, he improves as he speaks, and the last 5 minutes of the speech sounded good. But when he steps up to the plate with that deer-in-the-headlights look, I don't feel good. When I hear each speech. In exactly the same. Cadence as the last. I begin to wonder. If the speeches are written. In Weekly Reader sentences. For the public. Or him. Can't we trade Bush for Blair -- maybe just for the season, then waive him? It sure seems like the Brits are peeved at him anyway for sexing up the government. Or something. Whattya say, Mum -- er, Your Highness? Bush, and a player to be named later, for the Blair with a pair . . .

Some final thoughts: I had tried to get my predictions in on Friday, but couldn't access the edit page. Had I made those predictions herein, I would have likely predicted a Capriati-Clijsters final, with the Belgian winning it all. See how foolish I am. I did watch Capriati melt down against H-H (or did H-H simply overpower her?) and at that point, I expected H-H to take the crown, but with more difficulty than it ended up taking. H-H (and I risk Eno's ire over this) is actually not that cute. Viewing her from my luxury suite Saturday night, I am more impressed than ever by her skills, but less impressed by her looks. This is relevant to nothing and no one, but must be said. Justine - get thee to a dentist. Clijsters was just disappointing and seemed mentally drained - going through the motions. H-H was definitely amped to win.

The main sponsor of the Tournie was JPMorgan-Chase. Their President gave out the winner's trophy. A paraphrase in addressing H-H: "Christine, thank you for two weeks of great tennis." Would it be too much for the guy to pay just a little attention to who is playing? And this guy wants to invest your money.

People-watching: From the standpoint of my luxury suite (I am going to keep this up, by the way) between points I took to the stands with my binoculars, seeing who was there. Some actors: Stanley Tucci, Lorraine Bracca, and either Jared Leto or Jude Law (tough call with the scruff and knit cap). Politicos: Koch/Dinkins/Bloomberg. TV: Paula Zahn. Misc: Trump. Interesting point - Trump was with his gorgeous, gorgeous girlfriend (in her six-month stint) and paid absolutely no attention to her the whole time. Got to love that. Athletes: Chris Evert was right next door to our luxury suite, but I missed the chance for an autograph.

Only watched the mens' from home on t.v., not from the vantage of my luxury suite. Roddick may be (may be) a player for the decade. Time will tell.

Quarterfinals: Well, I was right and wrong in my predictions. I was right that Federer would have to step up his game (which he didn't) to beat Nalbandian. I was right that Todd Martin could make a run, though Todd lost in a 5-set heartbreak in which he posted a huge comeback from 2 sets down. Srichiphan didn't push Hewitt as far as I thought and, after the first set, wasn't a real threat.

I suppose it's time to place my bets through the weekend, since it appears (for now) that they'll squeeze it all in by Sunday. I like Andre over Coria, for obvious reasons; Hewitt over Ferrero, though I think this one will be close; Roddick over Schalken in a walk; and El Aynaoui, who has been super-hot in beating the 10-seed and 7-seed to get this far, over Nalbandian. The semis will feature El Aynaoui falling to Roddick, because of the American's power and El Aynaoui's relatively limited arsenal; and Hewitt losing to Agassi, because of Agassi's fitness and the incredible snap Agassi's getting on his forehands.

The final, Agassi/Roddick, is really a tossup. It will likely be some close sets as the hardest serve faces the best return. Roddick has major power, but if Andre can use his jiu-jitsu return to send that heat back over the net in play, Roddick could find himself on the hard end of some break points. If Roddick gets his serve in a groove, winning his serve with little effort, and forcing Andre into longer rallies for his own service games, Andre may find 33 years a bit old for this sport. Hell with it, though: Andre in four.

Any predictions, Razor, before you head off to your luxury box?

How many cases can I put you down for?: Order now while supplies last!

Bush-whacked: With your post concerning Bush's "lies" in mind, I listened to a bit of the Dem debate last night. Interestingly, they all went after W, and very little time was spent separating one from the other. Liebs hit Dean a little on his tax plan, but most of it was a full-fledged assault on Bush with the primary focus on the economy and Iraq. Kerry was certainly the most vicious (the words "miserable failure" being hard to interpret any other way), and he threw in the word "Vietnam" just about every time. I suppose it gets old to those who follow him (or stalk him as Eno does), but I also suppose that he can't miss an opportunity to tell someone who doesn't know who he is that he's a decorated war veteran.

Anyway, I agree that the Bushies didn't "lie" to us about Iraq. I do think the administration did take the best gloss on every situation however when figuring out what to do. In the end, I've come to the conclusion that while the mission was just, the planning was poor. We rushed into Iraq. Or maybe we won too easily. In any event, we weren't prepared for what came next, and that is pretty much not debatable. This run to the U.N. underscores that failure to prepare adequately. There did not seem to be a good idea for the cost, the manpower, or the political quagmire (there, I said it) that Iraq is, and I mean that more from the standpoint that internal Iraqi politics are very complex as opposed to saying that Iraq will be W's Vietnam.

Having laid that out, Bush should be taken to task for it. It's hardly an impeachable offense, and I wouldn't say it's a "miserable failure", but he seems to be winging it. For all the good the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz doctrine does in going to war, it helps very little in establishing peace. If there's a chink in the armor, that's it. The economy needs attention, to be sure, but I still hold that a sitting president can do very little to move the economy (short of all out war) near-term. He gets the blame/praise, to be sure, but the market will act regardless of who's the commander-in-chief. But, as I've also said before, it is the leader's duty to make soothing sounds and show leadership in terms of long-term goals/effects. While he'll tout his tax cut, most view that as a political tool (*gasp*) and not an economic tool. The manufacturing issue is real, but heaven forbid Bush follow Kucinick's lead and aboloish NAFTA and the WTO (by the way, the only cheers the man got from the Lefty crowd) or listen to Dean and "renegotiate" NAFTA and shut out imports. Those kind of withdrawals from the world economy to satisfy the AFL-CIO are economic suicide.

Page Look: Trying out a new template to see if that solves our scroll problem. Bear with me. Color suggestions welcome.

Update: The scroll issue seems to be fixed, though permalinks still only take one to the top of the page. Oof.

There's always a loophole: Most NYC bar and restaurant owners were against the smoking ban, not because of any health concerns, but because they were going to lose tons of money. Turns out, you lose enough, you can get a waiver. As the article explains, the City has the power to grant waivers to the ban to those businesses that have lost too much...ah...business. The rub is that there's no formal process for applying for or granting the waivers. Moreover, there's no requirement that the waivers actually be granted or even considered. Yes, this is a typical bureaucratic snafu, but it certainly gives some hope. Of course, I imagine there's already draft legislation in place to close that loophole or make it basically impossible to get through.

He should stick to CHiPs: Estrada pulls his hat out of the ring for the federal bench. Thank goodness. They guy wanted to destroy our Constitution!

Seriously, and as Eno has posted on quite thoroughly, the war of attrition with respect to judicial nominations is doing more harm than good. It's not even the fact that the nominations get fought, it's the rehtoric that goes along with the fights. Straight-faced statements that a given judge is the anti-christ simply because he disagrees with certain laws the way they are written. Congressmen accusing a president of *gasp* "stacking the bench". No, the fight over judicial nominations is not the way to advance an agenda. Yes, it makes for headlines, but all it really does is waste time. If you don't like a president loading up on his selections, win the damn election next time. And win it convincingly so you don't start whining about the Electoral College.

A Level-Headed Look: Mike Tomasky of TAP goes for the "Bush lies" roundup and proves how hard it is to make the accusation stick, and why it's giving Bush-misled-me candidate John Kerry no traction. Tomasky starts by calling these 8 purported lies the "president's prevarications," but quickly shifts to calling them "lies the administration has told." Let's look carefully.

1. It said Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States. He was not.

No, he was not. But the administration's argument was to take him out before he became an imminent threat. There's a huge difference. Argue if you want, Mike, whether he would've become an imminent threat; but don't try out third-rate spin on me.

2. It said he sat on massive caches of weapons of mass destruction, which he was ready to employ at a moment's notice. He apparently did not and he obviously was not (or he would surely have used them when the infidels hit his soil).

"Apparently" doesn't make a lie, unfortunately. The WMD issue is still up in the air. If it turns out Saddam destroyed them all in 1999, so be it. But to claim this as a lie, when our intel sources agreed with the UN and Europe that Saddam had and continued to have WMDs, is patently absurd. It reminds me of the old SNL sketch in which Reagan was the smiling dupe whenever anyone visited his office, but when he was alone with his staff he became the sly mastermind who spoke multiple languages and spearheaded a cagey foreign policy. It was a good poke at the liberal critics who couldn't decide which caricature of Reagan they liked, the dupe or the Iran-Contra mastermind.

3. It said regime change would be a cakewalk. It was for two weeks -- during which time the administration naturally showed the tastelessness to gloat about it -- but it sure isn't now.

Bush:

I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.

One of these things is not like the other. (Speech link via the Shark.) Ken Adelman of the Defense Policy Board (not officially part of the administration, by the way) did in fact say, "I believe demolishing [Iraq's] military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." And he was exactly right, as even Tomasky is forced to admit. But then Tomasky implies ("it sure isn't [a cakewalk] now"] that Adelman's comment was an unqualified statement. It was not. As for the administration gloating, Tomasky should provide examples. I can't be expected to waste my time responding to mindless generalization.

4. It said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators. They were for about two days; now they're "greeted" as occupiers.

If I hear this one more time I'll vomit. Some Iraqis see us as liberators; some see us as occupiers. Pundits who make generalizations about what "the Iraqis" think or feel (as though Iraqis are drooling idiots who can only, like amoebae, have simple, uniform responses to stimuli) should have their liberal-media-conspiracy decoder rings taken away. Not only have the blogs been full of news of Iraqis happy to work with us, those blogs have increasingly cited (gasp!) mainstream journalists who have stepped out of the herd to look around for themselves.

5. It said it had a solid postwar plan. It didn't.

Actually, the administration did have a postwar plan. It didn't work out very well, but they did have a plan. To claim that they lied by telling us it was a "solid" plan is pretty persnickety. Besides, imagine Rummy and Cheney meeting with Bush and saying, "We've got a postwar plan, George; it's a piece of shit with racing stripes, but you need to go tell America it's solid anyway because . . ." Um, because . . . well, the lie breaks down here a bit, but you can see where Tomasky's going with this, can't you? If you figure it out, e-mail me.

6. It said toppling Hussein would hem in terrorism. Instead, for now at least, terrorism has spread, as extremists of all stripes swarm into Iraq, where our soldiers are paying the price (four more were injured Wednesday morning, after the United Nations bombing).

I'm not sure it means terrorism is spreading if "extremists of all stripes swarm into Iraq." Sounds to me like terrorism is concentrating. There is speculation of a "flypaper strategy" in which we allow Iran and Syria to ship their militants across the border to attack our troops. (On the theory that we'd rather have terrorists attack Americans whose job is to carry lots of guns than attack Americans whose job is to, say, empty wastebaskets in office buildings.) At any rate, this may be an example of poor predictive power by the administration; but if that's the case, we'd have to say Terry McAuliffe was "lying" last year when he said Jeb Bush was "toast" in Florida and the Dems would re-take the Senate. Tsk, tsk, Terry. Pants on fire.

7. It said the death of Hussein's sons would slow the bloodletting. Violence has increased (and the same will surely happen if Hussein himself turns up dead or captured).

I reject the premise. I recall the administration saying they hoped this would convince Ba'athist holdouts to see the futility of fighting for a dead regime. That's all. If Tomasky has quotes he's like to lay out, I'll reconsider this one. Tomasky himself admitted that Iraq was being overrun by foreign jihadists. I don't think we can say for sure what the death of the regime means to them, if anything. I'd argue that the enemy we are fighting is shifting, and that perhaps the deaths of Odai and Qusai did put the Ba'athists off their program a bit. As for the "bloodletting," how many U.S. troops have died in postwar combat? 66. A tragic figure, yes, but not indicative of bloodletting. If Tomasky means the UN bombing massacre was a bloodletting, he's right, and he should take that up with the UN bureaucrats who hired Saddamite thugs for security.

8. It said we don't need more troops on the ground. A pipeline bombing and a hotel bombing later, it's pretty obvious that, as depressing as it is to contemplate, we need more troops on the ground.

As I said earlier this week, I'm open to the idea a more troops just as soon as Tomasky tells me exactly why it's "obvious" that we need them. More troops certainly couldn't have helped the UN, viz above, and I'm not sure what they could do in general, unless Tomasky thinks we need enough troops to guard every UN, US, Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other NGO worker; every foot of oil pipeline; all the mosques; and any other strategic location you can think of. (Sounds like half a million troops could whip this country into shape, eh? Now what were you saying, Tomasky, about Iraq resenting an occupying force?) It's not as though we know where the enemy is, who is involved, and what they plan to do next; we're not just sitting around saying, "Gosh, if only we had more troops, we'd be able to stop them." We need more intel, more cooperation; that's obvious. The more troops thing? Sorry, not obvious.

Look, the "lies" thing is tired. If someone at TAP wants to tell me how they'd run the operation, I'm happy to listen. But let's hear some real balls-out policy, not chickenshit, drugstore-cowboy criticizing.

"Conservative" needs a new definition: Bush recently announced the creation of yet another bureaucratic position: an assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing and services. His/her purpose? Stop the bleeding of manufacturing jobs in the United States. You know, since those pesky tariffs keep getting ruled illegal by the WTO... Anyway, for some interesting view points on the issue, get thee to EconLog.

Senator Edwards' Hair To Run for California Governor: (AP) North Carolina: Senator John Edwards' hair formally announced its candidacy for the California gubernatorial race. "Clearly, I am the best hair for the job. Arnold, I know a dye/plug job when I see one, and hell, yours doesn't even hide the ol' scars around the ears that well - ya know what I'm sayin'? I am robust, sexily wispy, and ready to take on California's energy/budget/immigration crises. I mean, really who else can tackle this great state's problems yet always appear freshly blown dry? Okay, I mean if Condit was still around, sure, but it's not like Senor "Lex Luthor" Bustamante is going to cause me any problems. Bring 'em on. I gots the mad skillz!" It was at this point that Mr. Edwards' Hair began to frizz and was hastily removed from the podium by his chief advisor, Jose Eber. In a related story, Senator Edwards himself was seen campaigning in Iowa wearing a jazzy beret.

Bush: environmental criminal: At least that's the song that'll be sung when Democrat candidates get ahold of this.

In a major new revision to its air pollution rules, the Environmental Protection Agency will allow up to 20 percent of the costs of replacing each plant's production system to be considered "routine maintenance" that doesn't require costly antipollution controls, according to agency documents obtained by The Associated Press......

"It's an accounting gimmick that eliminates any possibility of pollution controls," said John Walke, director of Natural Resources Defense Council's clean air program. "It's a total disaster. It's the effective repeal of this clean air program, through illegal administrative means."

What's not being talked about? How about why companies have avoided upgrading their technology for 20+ years? Maybe inane regulations that discourage modernization and reward inefficiency? Are we really better off with these companies operating on decades old generators? And, if pollution increases from an individual plant when these repairs take place, are there corresponding increases in production? It might be that the ratio of pollution to production is not being changed much, or maybe even being improved. And, since Eno's already pointed out that pollution is just another cost that needs to be factored in, that ratio's what really counts. How much are we paying for power generation, beyond just dollar terms.

It's of course easier to demonize Bush and his cronies than to examine the issue in depth. I'll be interested in finding some actual answers to these and other questions.

Can't be said enough: And Lileks says it better than anyone. On the Right Wing=Nazi fallacy:

But Communism doesn’t have anything that can be expressed as pithily as “Goose-stepping.” Except, of course, for the goose-stepping: May Day parades featured some marvelously crisp leg-swings. And the parallels just keep coming! By some peculiar coincidence, the attributes of National Socialism are quite similar to the Soviet system: forced relocation of ethnic groups, the extermination of economic classes, the subservience of Art to the needs of the State, the imposition of Terror as a means of enforcing Party loyalty, the mass arrests, the hasty graves.

And from whence could this gem come today:

How can we understand you if we don’t know your race?

Hint: Think about the maize and blue.

Kitchen hot: And Bush is ready to get out. Or at least let the U.N. come in with a bucket of water. Two possibilities: either things are so bad and our military is so far over its head that bringing in the clowns in the white helmets could actually be an improvement, or Bush is afraid the public sees him bungling the whole thing and will only forgive him if he admits now his mistake and seeks help from the wise and powerful Kofi Annan.

Bush loses all the mojo he built by defying the U.N. by crawling back now. The one thing most Americans like about his policy is the finger it gave to the French and now he'll look even worse by begging forgiveness. If he's trying to cover his ass politically before '04, he's going about it all wrong.

If I believed bringing in the international peacekeeping bureauracracy would benefit the Iraqi people, ease their suffering, and bring democracy to the region more quickly, I'd be all for it even if it ensured Bush's demise at the polls. But show me how this is going to happen first. Are more bodies in the region what's needed? More accents? More committees? Bush gambled that he and his troops could pull this off to the public's satisfaction before facing reelection and he ought to roll up his sleeves and make it happen "unilaterally." If the U.N. succeeds where he's failed, he's dead. If nobody succeeds, he's dead (since he brought it on). May as well go all in and hope the cards go your way. Sharing the blame for a failed mission won't sell at the polls.

Link via vodkapundit.

Just a Thought: Reading Mark Bowden's fascinating article in the Atlantic on torture and coercion tactics, and specifically their place in the terror war, I stopped at a passage in which Bowden mentions how many terrorists (particularly Khalid Sheikh Mohamed) were declared "captured" long after the actual apprehension (to keep their underlings from cutting bait, presumably). I thought, What if George Bush has the ultimate October surprise in store? Namely, Saddam -- or his head on a stick anyway. Of course, October is a long time from now. If you had Saddam secretly in custody (perhaps coerced into making his scratchy "jihad" tapes in support of the flypaper strategy), when would you let the cat out of the bag? If I took Howard Dean seriously as a candidate, which Karl Rove must be increasingly inclined to do, I might pull the old goat out right around the NH primary, blunting the publicity coup Dean will pick up with a victory there and implicitly reminding America that Dean was against the war.

Far-fetched, to be sure, but you know Bush and Co. would love to have that ace (of spades, no less) up their sleeve.

Eugene working hard: Volokh's warned us that the need to do some paying work will keep him from answering emails or blogging as much as normal. Good to see he's hard at work.

Okay, so that's a cheap shot. Just reminds me of some professors I know.

Official Notice: Viking Pundit has officially endorsed a candidate for 2004. And it's not Kerry.

Analogues: I was pondering recently historical precedent for the war on terror in which we are now engaged, thinking specifically about the Barbary Pirates of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (who, like the modern terror organizations, were not states themselves, but were harbored and even encouraged by local strongmen in the relatively decentralized and far-flung Ottoman world) and a young country's evolving response to that threat. A quick googling of "barbary pirates" pulled up this brief sketch from the Library of Congress. While the analogue is not precise, the similarities are compelling:

Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy. Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa.

An international coalition was not, however, forthcoming. Europe continued to consider the paying of considerable "tribute" to the pirates the best option, as late as 1830, and Thomas Jefferson, president during the crisis, broke from earlier principles:

To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . .

Historian Thomas Jewett has a more complete account from the journal Early America Review. In it he details what may have been America's first anti-terror commando raid, wherein Lieutenant Stephen Decatur and his men, disguised as North Africans and sailing in a captured pirate ketch, stormed and scuttled the captured ship Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor.

I never would have thought of the similarities if not for the episodes related in David McCullough's John Adams, which I was reading about this time last year, and which I wholeheartedly recommend.

Ten Commandments: Eugene Volokh has a nice post up on the Judge Roy Moore flap. He obviously taps into the issue a lot better than I, but I think he nails the thorny parts of the dispute quite well, and helps clear up some things I was only able to stab at.

The Open: Not much to update as of this writing. However, I'm going Saturday night, and it was supposed to be for the Womens' Finals. Now, I'll probably be watching mixed doubles semi-finals at this rate. My only solace is the open bar in the "luxury suite".

This keeps getting weirder: By now, most of us have read about the exploding pizza delivery man. For those who haven't, a pizza delivery guy gets called to deliver an order to a remote area near Erie, PA. He shows up an hour later with bomb clamped to his neck and two hand-written notes apparently instructing him to rob a bank. Well, the cops show up and set him down in an isolated area until the bomb squad arrives. Ooops, too late. The bomb goes off, and so does the delivery guy's head. Yes, I'm being callous, but doesn't this seem straight out of a movie? Now they're reporting he had some strange gun-like device in his car. Oh, and the delivery guy's co-worker and friend are also found dead the same day, although the feds are saying it's unrelated.

I guess what I'm trying to get my hands around is the logic behind the "caper". If he truly was ordered to go and rob a bank with this device around his neck, what made the robbers think he'd get away? There was no communication from the bad guys that unless he was set free they would remotely detonate the device. Therefore, the cops kept ahold of him. If the guy did it himself, again, there was no escape route. It would therefore reason that either this was an elaborate homicide or suicide. I'm very intrigued and not just a little disturbed.

Kerry's Announcement: Surprise! He's running for president! Yet another shocker: his announcement was heavy on the Vietnam schtick, in word and in symbol. He opened with a nod to former congressman and vet Max Cleland, then called up his gunner from Vietnam. he thanks his family. Then, back to his boat in the Mekong:

And as I look around here and I'm surrounded by the love and affection and respect of my crew mates and veterans who are here today, I am reminded that the best lessons that I learned about being an American came in a place far away from America on that gunboat that Max referred to in the Mekong Delta with a small crew of volunteers.

Then, in a passage ready-made for quoting in wire reports, Kerry summarizes why he's running:

George Bush's vision does not live up to the America I enlisted in the Navy to defend, the America I have fought for in the Senate and the America that I hope to lead as president. And everyday of this campaign, I will challenge George Bush for fundamentally taking our country in the wrong direction.

And some questions are answered. To wit, didn't Kerry vote to authorize using force against Saddam? Turns out he didn't:

I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations.

(Emphasis added.) This looks like the new dodge on the Iraq resolution. Get used to hearing it. And the post-war difficulties in Iraq? Kerry:

Being flown to an aircraft carrier and saying, "Mission accomplished" doesn't end a war.

Is that what the president did? Here's what I remember from Bush on that carrier:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous . . . The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort.

Kerry on diplomacy:

For the Bush administration to reject the participation of allies in the U.N. is a miscalculation of colossal proportions.

It seems to me that our "allies" in the U.N. had every opportunity to help out in any way they wanted, but stalked away in a fit of pique instead; now they won't come back until we agree to play by the mother-may-I rules that allowed Saddam a 12-year lease on life. Kerry continues:

In Iraq and across the world, we must share the burdens with our international allies and the international community. Then and only then can we assemble a worldwide coalition truly sufficient to be able to defeat the terrorists, to keep the most dangerous weapons out of their hands and out of the reach of unstable regimes.

Fat lot of help the U.N. was making Iraq walk the walk; Iran may offer the sequel. And the "international community" didn't seem to care a whit about weapons in the hands of unstable regimes like North Korea until we told them flat out that we wouldn't go to Pyongyang and grovel. The it was suddenly a Major Crisis and a Failure of American Leadership.

Domestic policy:

In World War II, Detroit was the arsenal of democracy. Today, they need to raise their gas mileage and build the vehicles of the future that use clean, renewable energy like ethanol; they need to help move America to energy independence.

Ah, ethanol, the panacea of short-term liberal energy policy. But where do we get the energy required to make ethanol from corn? Anyone? Bueller? From fossil fuels, of course. You need to burn more energy to make ethanol than that ethanol is capable of producing. It's like a metaphor for the federal government!

On energy and the environment, George Bush seeks to undo the progress of 30 years under presidents of both parties. His clean skies--his Clear Skies Initiative actually means dirtier air. His healthy forest proposal actually means cutting down trees. He proposed to let the oil industry--friends of his--drill in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge.

Wait, even some environmentalists think Clear Skies will help more than the policy it replaced. (More here.) Nobody who isn't a charter member of the Julia Butterfly Hill Church of the Sacred Bark is opposed to cutting down trees to improve forests. Disagree with how much cutting needs to be done, but oppose it in general and you take responsibility for the resulting fires. And as for ANWR drilling, mentioning that Bush has friends in the oil industry is cute in a typically sleazy and insinuating way, but it's not an argument against drilling.

The truth is that prosperity doesn't come from pollution. The most powerful economic engine in this nation has always been opportunity; the ability for anyone from any start in life to get a good education, to go to work, to start a business, to take an idea and to change the world.

No doubt you're always bumping into the organic hemp farmers who are the backbone of employment for semi-skilled workers in America. Look, nobody said prosperity comes from pollution, but it is a cost to facter into the cost-benefit evaluation. We pollute more than, say, Ethiopia. But we live twice as long. Worth thinking about.

As a senator, I was proud to work with President Bill Clinton to turnaround the last Bush downturn.

Any fair-minded observer would be forced to admit that the last "Bush downturn" was well into recovery before Clinton came to office -- at which point Clinton stalled the recovering economy again with tax hikes. And the current economy seems to be recovering nicely, despite the fact that Kerry hasn't been around to help much.

After that Kerry spins off into some hackneyed potshots, like this:

Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton, it has 58 offshore tax havens. And the Bush administration's response is to hand Halliburton a $7 billion no-bid contract. My response as president will be no more lavish government-funded life support for favored corporations.

Actually, Clinton gave that contract to Halliburton. Bush just renewed it -- after the appropriate bidding had taken place. As usual, there are two possibilities here: Either (1) Kerry is too ignorant to know how government contracting works, in which case he's too dumb to be president, or (2) he knows exactly how it works but likes how this cheap dig sounds, in which case he's too unscrupulous to be president.

And my fellow Americans, a tax code that once ran 14 pages now takes up 17,000 pages, filled with twists and turns and customized loopholes.

Actually, Senator, you and your buddies on the hill built that tax code, one incentive at a time. Congress has the power to fix this problem, you know. In fact, for years you've had the right to sponsor legislation reforming the tax code. Why didn't you?

Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I was cured because as a United States senator, I was lucky to have some of the best medical care in the world. Millions of our fellow citizens are not so lucky . . .

I don't think luck has much to do with it. I think the benefits package that comes with being a career legislative hack in D.C. is just a case of those hacks being generous to each other with my money. Like when you give yourselves raises for the bang-up job you're doing.

A just America demands a Supreme Court that honors our Constitution, and it demands an attorney general whose name is not John Ashcroft.

Wow, where to begin with this one? (Here, for starters.) This is about as reasonable as Kerry's view on "settled law" -- an implicit argument against the reversal of Dred Scott. But it's red meat (er, red miso?) for the sandals-n'-dreads crowd rocking Howard Dean's bus.

In closing:

Today, I ask all of you to enlist in a mission that is bigger than any of us . . . And I hope to be the president who asks all of us to serve, because in the end the ideals of this nation will not be realized by presidential decree, but by national service that can only be measured in the countless individual acts and of a commitment to do what's right for America . . .

Is it me, or did he just do a Joe Biden on John McCain's 2000 stump groove?

I am honored to join you in this endeavor as a candidate for president of the United States. Thank you and God bless you all.

Which God do you suppose he means? And don't you find it offensive to be blessed without your permission? Oh, those Taliban Democrats!

John Kerry: In your heart, you know he's . . . er . . . running for president.

The Master: P.J. interviewed by the Onion's A.V. Club. Here he is on the warnings that ccame with his new tractor:

I buy a tractor two years ago, and four-fifths of the tractor manual is about not tipping over, not raising the bucket high enough to hit high-tension wire... not killing yourself, basically. The tractor itself is covered with stickers: Don't put your hand in here. Don't put your dick in there. And in that manual, I found out—and it cost me a thousand dollars—that when the tractor is new, 10 hours into use of the tractor, you have to re-torque the lug nuts. If you don't, you will oval the holes. This is buried between the moron warnings. I never found it. I take the tractor in for its regular servicing, and they say my wheels are gone. A thousand dollars worth of wheels have to be replaced because I didn't re-torque after 10 hours. How am I supposed to know that? "It's in the manual." You fucking read that manual! You go through 40 pages of how not to tip over!

Via Tim Blair.

More American Terrorists: Here's one who expects to be a martyr. Jihad? Nope, Jesus:

Anti-abortion activist Paul Hill, who murdered a doctor and bodyguard at a Florida abortion clinic, said on Tuesday on the eve of his execution that his death would make him a martyr and he expected others to follow in his footsteps.

Oooh, trust me on this one, Paul: If there are any others who want to follow in your footsteps, I expect Florida can fire up "ol' sparky" to help handle the line outside the injection room. Try to send martyrs who haven't passed on their genes yet, eh?

"Send out mo horses; skirr the country round": So the call continues for troops to Iraq. According to John McCain:

Security remains a serious problem in Iraq partly because, contrary to administration assurances, our military force levels are obviously inadequate.

Inadequate for what purpose? Security? With all due respect to Senator McCain, he sounds like a dinosaur saying this. I've yet to hear someone make a convincing case that more troops will mean more security, rather than simply more targets for drive-by turkey shoots. (Israel, which is, for obvious reasons, quite keen on security, proves that there is no such thing as perfect security.) I'd like to hear a plan from the "more troops" folks before we commit to following their advice.

That said, we're surely in a pickle with the U.N. content to sit this out until we crawl back to kiss Kofi's Ring of Multilateralism (one ring to rule them all, eh?). That means ceding control of Iraq to those who were just fine with the policy of issuing empty resolution upon empty resolution, each time sure that Saddam repent of his crimes (of which the highest, to the U.N., was likely that he was inconsistent in the vigor his condemnation of Zionism). It's going to be a big job to rebuild only the Brits and a handful of NGOs (the limousine liberals of the third world) helping us out. But it's worth it to continue to stiff the U.N. on this. Bush was right when he said they risked irrelevance. And they rolled snake eyes on that risk, history will show.

I'm baaack!: It was a good trip to New Orleans, though not as wild past visits. We're all a little older, and the events of the weekend (baptism of my niece, for whom I stood as godfather, and lots of golf) precluded any thrashing about in the French Quarter. Good thing, since it turned out to be Southern Decadence Fest this weekend. And our hotel, the W, was right downtown and filled with revelers. It was more humorous than anything, though some members of our party found it a little more troubling. Having lived in The Big Easy, the gay culture of the city kind of rolls of my back. They're less annoyng than drunken Florida football fans and it's easy to steer clear of the craziness. Still, those who are not used to it get quite a shock.

Unfortunately, it's back to school starting tonight. So much for summer. The upside to that, though, is that Andrew Sullivan is back from hiatus with lots to talk about.

Look forward to resuming blogging asap, but now it's off to the bookstore to offer up a pound of flesh. Cheers!

Blog Problem: I too have seen this problem where the page only seems to load to the bottom of one screen's worth of postings. Strangely, if you go down to the corner or bottom of your screen, where you can drag the frame to make it smaller/bigger - as soon as you do, you'll see the entire week's postings appear. It's unsatisfying in terms of the problem, but easy enough to fix. Maybe we need a tech service call.

"They neuter dogs don't they?": Interesting article on a program here in the U.S. on neutering drug addicts. Not only are we neutering them, we're offering them cash to come in for the procedure to be done. Here's how it works:

"It offers drug addicts and alcoholics a sum of $200 for opting for a long-term form of birth control, such as sterilisation or a contraceptive implant. Those interested are asked to submit documents proving that they have been arrested on narcotic offences, or provide a doctor's letter as evidence that they use drugs. After she or he has been accepted on the programme, fresh documents are then required to show that the procedure has indeed taken place. The money is then despatched."

Now, you can imagine the cries of outrage when the knee-jerks hear about this (especially considering how it's one of "Dr. Laura's" pet programs), and how it's trading on the addict's desire for a quick-cash versus her long term goals of possibly having a family. However, I think what is left unsaid with that argument is all of the women who trade their bodies for that same desire of quick-cash, and end up mothering multiple children to multiple men. Of course, these children end up "in the system" and often suffer physical ailments from their mothers' conditions. To equate this with the early 20th Century practice of sterilizing the retarded is hardly fair.

Rain: As the weather for tennis turns foul, the players will begin to stew this week. They'll lose some days off, too, and that will add to the pressure. This will mainly benefit the underdogs. One particular case worth watching will be Federer/Nalbandian -- scheduled for today, but unlikely to go ahead soon. Federer's match against James Blake was two sets of classic Federer perfection bracketing an awful middle set of missed breaks, lost focus, and surprising errors. Federer took the set anyway, but any boxing judge would've given it to Blake; he looked more in control than Federer. Nalbandian won't be as forgiving. This could be a classic match, with the winner likely to meet Roddick.

Federer needs to head to the net more against the Argentinian; he traded groundstrokes nicely with Blake, but Nalbandian has more variety and more consistency. Federer will have to look for volley opportunities to put the points away early. And if he has mid-set lapses like he had in the third round, Nalbandian will eat his lunch.

Other underdogs are in contention. Paradorn Srichiphan is likely hoping for rain interruptions to help rattle Hewitt, who has rattled quite easily this year. It's not as long a shot as it appears. I think Scrichiphan can ride into the quarters by testing Hewitt's confidence, like a pitcher might brush back an aggressive hitter. And Todd Martin has a good shot for the quarters against Juan Carlos Ferrero, but only if he makes use of every opportunity to remind Ferrero that these are hard courts by putting heat on the serve and stepping into the volley, which should help him pick up a half-second on the quick Spaniard, who is a decade younger than Greybeard Todd. Martin has a long reach and should cover the net well. Hell, I'm feeling foolish. Put me down for both Martin and Srichiphan, and lightning on the deuce points.