Posted by aogMonday, 12 May 2008 at 10:41 Comments (1) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

Via Brothers Judd we have a story about Israel considering a truce offering from Hamas. Given that all the previous truces have effectively been

• Israel stops attacking.
• The Palestinian leadership announces a truce, while actual attacks continue, although sometimes at a reduced rate.

But, hey, it’s truce, written on paper. That’s gotta be worth something, right?

Posted by aogMonday, 12 May 2008 at 10:15 Comments (1) Trackbacks (1) Ping URL

Declaring victory and going home

Sadr victory watch

GONNA FIGHT THE ENEMY OR THE ALLY?:

Hasty truce with Moqtada al-Sadr tests his sway in Baghdad stronghold: A cease-fire deal between Mr. Sadr’s representatives in the Iraqi government and members of the leading Shiite bloc aims to end weeks of fierce battles in Sadr City (Howard Lafranchi, 5/12/08, The Christian Science Monitor)

The truce was hastily reached as Mr. Maliki’s government announced a new offensive in Mosul against forces affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq. Maliki has said since January that he would take the fight against Al Qaeda to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, believed to be the group’s last urban stronghold in Iraq. Some Iraqi government officials have suggested that Maliki wanted the battle with Shiite militias quieted before the Mosul offensive.

The Sadr City agreement does not call for the disarming or disbanding of the Mahdi Army, which was Maliki’s demand that touched off fighting between his forces and the militia in late March.

That’s some heavy duty spin. Here’s my comment, before it gets disappeared.

Let’s dig in for some more juicy quotes from this article —

The agreement allows government security forces to enter any part of Sadr City to arrest anyone with heavy weapons such as mortars and rocket launchers. […] All explosives planted in the streets of Sadr City are to be removed and the launching of rockets and mortars from the area […] is to stop.

Doesn’t this make the more appropriate headline “Gonna fight the defeated or the still resisting?”

On top of that, I am still trying to figure out what Sadr won. Maliki got de facto and de jure control of the Mehdi Army’s territory, confiscation of all of their heavy weapons, and public acknowledgment of the superiority of his government. Sadr got … a few more months of being alive? If this is a victory for Sadr, why didn’t he “win” this way by surrendering a year ago instead of fighting all this time?

P.S. I think the real bottom line here is that any setbacks for Maliki (and there will be setbacks) will be attributed to Sadr’s clever planning and victory, regardless of the overall direction of the tides of power. It’s a nice non-falsifiable set up.

Posted by aogMonday, 12 May 2008 at 09:46 Comments (4) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Better, but still only worth being free

Instapundit has been praising OpenOffice. Well, it’s OK. I use as my primary document editing application, but I have used MS Word 2003 and it’s not clear to me that OpenOffice is better. I think that if Word were half the price it is, I’d probably by it and use it instead. Although Word has the annoying “I know what you meant” features, in real life I end up fighting with Open Office formatting more than I did Word, particularly with embedded pictures. I recently tried to do a simple 2 column layout for a new letter for a Cub Scout pack. I wanted to put some pictures in it, with very simple layout — A paragraph of text, a picture, another paragraph of text, a picture, etc., with no complex text flow. But every time I would edit any of the text, the pictures would literally jump around like hyperactive toddlers, frequently ending up on top of each other. I would have to patiently straighten them back out and put them in the right place again. Very frustrating.

Oh, and Word crashed less often than Open Office. I crash the latter on a regular basis. If it didn’t have the auto save / recover, it would be unusable for that reason.

Posted by aogSunday, 11 May 2008 at 14:25 Comments (6) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Context, context

Why do people who oppose free trade also think that sanctions are an effective punishment? Isn’t opposing treaties such as the recent free trade agreement with Columbia effectively imposing sanctions on the USA?

Posted by aogThursday, 08 May 2008 at 13:37 Comments (5) Trackbacks (1) Ping URL

It doesn't become men either

I normally find John McWhorter reasonable, but I have to single out this quote from a recent article of his, which seems to show a lack of his normally acute sociological insight —

“She’ll stop at nothing to get power” — okay, but is that so unusual in a politician? Power-seeking is what alpha males do. I sometimes wonder whether one thing that gets people’s knickers in such a twist about Mrs. Clinton is that she displays alpha male behavior as a woman.

My first thought was “what men who’ll stop at nothing to get power are admired?”. After all, even former President Richard Nixon stopped at something (vs. Kennedy, and vs. impeachment) yet he’s reviled for his excessive power lust. Many of the people who revile Hillary Clinton for her power lust think she’s less restrained than Nixon¹, so it doesn’t strike me as much of a gender based view.

But there’s another, more subtle issue about women display alpha male power lust, and that is in the Anglosphere, a man is expected to also follow some sort of honor code, even if it’s honored mostly in the breach. Women don’t have (or aren’t expected to have) any parallel code, which makes an arguable case for viewing female power lust as more dangerous to bystanders. I.e., “stop at nothing” means something different depending on the gender of the person being discussed².

¹ Of which I am one.

² This comes around to OJ’s view of th GOP being the Daddy party and the Democratic Party the Mommy party, where politicians of the latter stripe are simply expected to be far less restrained in their pursuit of power.

Posted by aogThursday, 08 May 2008 at 13:23 Comments (3) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Flow over content

Via Instapundit is this comment —

The way the Japanese could tell they were losing WWII was that the great victories reported by their media were getting closer and closer to home. Our media problem is like a fun-house mirror version of this - the way we can tell we are winning is that our crushing defeats are happening less often and to different enemies.

I think it’s simpler than that. Don’t look at the content, just the volume. Old Media is just implementing the “no news is good news” cliche and anything you used to read about but don’t anymore almost always means the situation has improved for the USA.

It also reminded me of listening to some BBC broadcaster go on about increased violence in Iraq or Afghanistan (I wasn’t paying enough attention to notice). But I wondered, how is it that all the reports are always of increases? I can’t recall any “violence decreases” stories, which is a more specific case of the above rule. If you hear reports, violence is increasing. If violence decreases, there will be no reports.

Posted by aogWednesday, 07 May 2008 at 15:02 Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Let's look at another Chicago politician

If Obama wins, he’ll never last more than one term. He’s incompetent and doesn’t even have the talent to delegate to those who might now what they are doing.

Blake

I see this thought frequently, and my response is “Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich”. Dumb, ineffective, and corrupt, even for an Illinois Governor, yet re-elected 50-40% (10% went Green).

Posted by aogMonday, 05 May 2008 at 12:54 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Not their style

What with Al Franken in political trouble for tax evasion, if the GOP weren’t the Stupid Party, they’d revive Leona Helmsey for advertisements on the “paying taxes is for the little people” theme.

Posted by aogSunday, 04 May 2008 at 21:13 Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Why we're a world power, and they're not.

Via Brothers Judd we have this review of a book about the 1948 war in the Middle East. It has this quote

And then there were the Palestinians, who had watched in horror over the past 75 years as these aliens first trickled, then poured, into their homeland. Were he an Arab leader, David Ben-Gurion once confessed to the Zionist official Nahum Goldmann, he, too, would wage perpetual war with Israel. “Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them?” he asked. “There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country.”

Well, the Arabs could have welcomed the Jews, with their money, their industry, and the prosperity they created all around them. It would be fascinating, I think, to compare the number of Arabs in what is now Israel from say 1890 to 1948 and see just how much “horror” at the arrival of the Jews there really was.

P.S. Isn’t Judd’s comment endorsing exterminationism, something he lambastes Darwinism for creating?

Posted by aogFriday, 02 May 2008 at 09:45 Comments (29) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Someone who knows when it's time to stop talking

Gosh, where have all the Mehdi Army victorious! posts gone over at Brothers Judd? Did he finally run out of dodgy sources to cite, because even the most blinkered couldn’t support that meme anymore? Discuss!

Posted by aogFriday, 02 May 2008 at 09:21 Comments (3) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Self referential

I had been thinking about OLED technology and the future of personal attire because I bought this WiFi detecting T-shirt for SWIPIAW recently. It’s cool, but in a decade or so OLED technology will be good enough to have VGA (or better) quality displays that you can build in to a shirt like that. The naturally thought was, would people put their Facebook page on the front of their shirt, so they can be present physically and virtually at the same time? I can’t wait!

Posted by aogFriday, 02 May 2008 at 08:46 Comments (3) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

It's the bitterness and clinging

A bit of an interesting discussion about Senator Obama and his lapel pin problems. What I think is that Obama created this problem because he just could not help being condescending and mean, if not bitter. He couldn’t just explain his own action, he felt it necessary to defame others who were different. Had he just said “different people express their patriotism in different ways, some with lapel pins, others by … “. OK, I start see the problem. But, ignoring the issue of coming up with an example of Obama demonstrating patriotism, I think this is a classic of how so much of the MAL is, at a basic level, highly intolerant of difference. It’s exactly the same philosophical defect that led to the “bitter clinging to God and guns” comment. People can’t just be different, they must be wrong. And, of course, punished for it.

Yet people still bitterly cling to happy thoughts about Obama. I couldn’t believe the positive reaction among nominal Obama detractors to his interview on Fox. Does not the possibility that he was faking in order to pander to his presumed audience not occur to people? It’s not a matter of different emphasis (which is quite legitimate) but outright contradiction to his previous (as little as they were) policies and actions. When he tells the same thing to his billionaire friends, then I will be willing to consider the possibility that he means it.

But that’s not just among the conservatives — much of the Obama phenomenon is people not just suspending but launching in to orbit their disbelief. I ran in to this one today, by someone who’s normally clueful for a progressive. The basic thesis is “Sure, Obama’s an ambitious politician, but I’ll still take just his word over any evidence”. And the root of that is that Obama wants us to “talk”. Well, yes, that’s true. But I agree with those who think the he wants us to “talk” the way a cult leader does, in self criticism and abject agreement. One need merely observe any instance in which Obama is confronted with strong, principled dissent from his party line to see what he really thinks of what normal people call “talking”. Or one could quote any number of Michelle Obama statements. Heck, Obama apparently couldn’t even have one good, down to earth talk to his much admired, spiritually advising pastor in 20 years! The author even notes

The kind of insane beliefs that Wright espouses wouldn’t stand up to an honest discussion in the light of day

yet doesn’t twig to Obama never managing such an honest discussion.

The more standard socialist blindness bit is discussing Obama’s sordid past —

[.…] what I want is a politician like Tom L Johnson - who is idealistic at core, but willing to get his hands dirty in the back and forth of the reality of politics.

I can see that, but Obama has the no omelets problem. What, exactly, did he accomplish while getting his hands dirty? Besides the mansion, the $4.2M last year, and the $300K/year job for his wife.

Posted by aogThursday, 01 May 2008 at 21:28 Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Not encouraging

I saw this article on ‘21 ways to shoot better photographs’ but frankly, I didn’t much like any of their examples. If that’s what I would get by following their techniques, I think I’ll just keep on as I am. It may be that I am just permanently crippled by a flawed aesthetic sense and cannot appreciate real photographic art.

Posted by aogThursday, 01 May 2008 at 16:51 Comments (1) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

That's not us, it's someone else!

I got a call today asking for money for the RNC. I expressed my displeasure with the GOP abandoning its conservatism and the GOP Congressional delegation in particular. The caller was quick to point out “we’re not the Republican National Congressional Committee or the Senatorial Committee!”. Sounds like some desperate times, but not desperate enough to actually reform.

Posted by aogThursday, 01 May 2008 at 13:07 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

It's a very foggy area

I saw this declaration of support for Senator Obama via Instapundit and I had to read the whole thing and consider the context before I could decide if it was a parody or not. Currently, I think it’s not, only because of the author and that it appears on the Puffington Host. It does seem appropriate, though, that it was published on May Day.

Money quote:

The difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is that you are always welcome in the Democratic Party.

Yeah, the same way a cult welcomes new members. Just don’t ever contradict or even dissent from the One True Path.

Posted by aogSaturday, 19 April 2008 at 14:54 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

R,YMB

While I was reading this article about how the current Democratic Party Presidential contenders are using Karl Rove as a pretext for political attacks (by framing it as “it’s not us, we’re just discussing what Rove will do”), it occurred to me that if Rove really wanted to make heads explode, he should let a picture of himself wearing a “Magnificent Bastard” T-shirt leak out. Or maybe you could sell T-shirts with his picture and the logo “He may be a bastard, but he’s our magnificent bastard”. Just another money making tip from your local writer!

Posted by aogSaturday, 19 April 2008 at 07:12 Comments (1) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

A single thread

I was thinking about the basic MAL position on WWIV, which as far as I can tell is “if anyone is going to get violent, just do whatever they say”. I thought it a bit odd, but then I realized that it’s of the same piece as MAL domestic policy, as evidenced by the career of William Ayers. Unless, of course, the violence is threatened in the name of one of the bitter rubes. And it does seem to be the person, not the idea. Segregation? Don’t the the rubes do that, but it’s fine for any liberal university. Suppress free expression? Same thing. But I suppose that kind of tribal animosity should be expected as the end point of decades of identity (i.e., tribal) politics.

Posted by aogWednesday, 16 April 2008 at 11:18 Comments (18) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Not just a happy coincidence

Orrin Judd accounts for the incompetence of our cultural enemies by divine providence. I think it’s much more of a structural issue. Essentially, if our enemies were competent, they wouldn’t be our enemies or we wouldn’t be theirs. It’s the same logic as the New Model Empire — the sort of liberal democracy present in the USA is been known model for operating a technological society. Such societies are very unlikely to be enemies, so any enemy will perforce have to select inferior organizational structures. This will happen either deliberately (as with Black Liberation Theology) or incidentally because of a “cargo cult” mentality which apes the forms of Western structure but has no understanding of them (Al Qaeda). The only successful way to be non-Western is to accept the limitations of an alternate form (e.g., the Amish) but by accepting the secular dominance of Western society, such niche societies make themselves not enemies of Western civilization.

The result is that, until something fundamentally better comes along, our enemies will by their choice of being enemies be more incompetent than we are. We can still lose by rendering ourselves too incompetent, but that can’t be imposed from without. And, if someday a better societal structure is found, I expect we’ll change to adopt it, rather than fight it.

Posted by aogMonday, 07 April 2008 at 00:07 Comments (5) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Travelocity

I am heading out to California this week for the RSA conference and to visit some potential customers. I may write a lot, or not at all. But I guess that’s not much different than normal.

Posted by aogThursday, 03 April 2008 at 20:26 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Unleash the pain while it still hurts

Via Hot Air is the claim that Hugo Chavez is behaving himself better with respect to Colombia because of data captured during a raid on FARC.

If true, I think that’s a dumb move. In the long term, Colombia would be better off to release as much accurate and discrediting information as possible, because thugs like Chavez don’t reconsider, they only bide their time. Meanwhile, the impact of any captured information will fade. What would be smart, though, would be for Colombian President Uribe to pretend to have damaging information because it’s a sucker bet that Chavez has been more involved with FARC than any currently public annoucements indicate.

Posted by aogThursday, 03 April 2008 at 20:13 Comments (27) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Anti-pain sneakers

I find articles like this somewhat bizarre. It starts off with

How do you stop a foe whose tolerance for pain exceeds your willingness to inflict it?

Answer: You don’t. If you start with that as a premise, all that remains is determining the details of surrender. The article goes on to discuss various approaches, all of which (surprise!) turn out to be doomed to failure. It’s a national expression of how pacifism begets violence — if you’re not willing to fight back, there’s never a shortage of people who’ll take advantage of that.

UPDATE: Here is the reductio ad absurdum of gist of this post — Israel wasn’t inflicting enough pain on the Palestinians in Gaza to suit Hamas, so they arranged for an attack to generate it. It’s not even that Israel isn’t willing to inflict more pain than the Palestinians can endure, it’s that Israel is not generally willing to inflict as much pain as the Palestinian leadership wants.

Posted by aogWednesday, 02 April 2008 at 13:28 Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

A hex upon you

I got some junk email today trying to trick me out of financial data by claiming to be from the IRS with a tax refund for me. What makes this funny is that the URL to click to get my “refund” is

http://0xCA.0x27.0x30.0xDD/blah-IRS-looking-name-blah

The URL works, which actually surprised me. I realized that it was just an IP address encoded in hexadecimal (that’s what the “0x” means to most computers and code geeks) but I didn’t think that most browsers would bother to parse it. I suppose it’s an effort to get around sending the target to a bogus website without being obvious about it, which would mean that that junker thinks most people will recognize “normal” looking IP addresses (such as 172.16.177.34) and decided that hexadecimal would fool more people.

Posted by aogWednesday, 02 April 2008 at 09:34 Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Ping URL

Alone in the middle

So Big Business is donating to the Democratic Party candidates instead of Senator McCain. Gosh, all that illegal immigration pandering has really paid off, hasn’t it?

And one is left wondering how both Big Business and the “Corporations Are Evil” crowd can be supporting the same candidates.