Posted 2:00 PM by Floyd

We just had hailstones the size of ... I don't know, not golf balls. I'm at a loss. Hailstones the size of little hailstones?

Posted 1:58 PM by Floyd

Why is it taking us so long to attack Iraq? Well, look at it this way: What is the optimal length of the War on Terrorism from the perspective of the people running it? For George Bush and his administration, it would be best if the War on Terrorism lasted six or seven years, until 2007 or 2008. This gets Bush reelected while the outcome of the war is still in doubt; gets him lauded with encomiums as he retires for his successful pursuit of the war; and provides a springboard for the more ambitious officials to secure office for themselves.

You may think that I am being cynical. Perhaps, but from Bush's point of view who are the cynics? His father prosecuted a war swiftly and successfully, and a year and a half later the American populace decided that the president hadn't done much for them lately. Bush the Younger is a helpful fellow who doesn't repeat a mistake; he will be happy to accomodate the American electorate's short attention span.

Posted 1:45 PM by Floyd

Bill Quick and Stephen Green are arguing about the efficacy of Bush's "rope-a-dope" plan for combating terrorism. Quick has been complaining that the administration is going nowhere; Green said that things are going according to plan and that Iraq will be invaded soon; Quick then pointed out that Bush supporters have been predicting that war will start in October, then November, then January or February, and finally April.

There is no way to say who is correct at this point; only the passage of time can render judgement. I do think that there is a good reason why the attack on Iraq is being dragged out so long, and I will get to that in my next post. (Provided that my satellite dish can push microwaves past all the falling H2O.) Right now I will get to work on something that has been bugging me for a while, and that is the error of rope-a-dope.

The phrase "rope-a-dope" is applied in the blogosphere -- I believe originally by InstaPundit -- to describe and excuse the less savory elements of America's foreign policy. The two actions most frequently cited are the coddling of Al Qaeda Lifetime Patron Saudi Arabia, and the bowing and scraping before the United Nations re Iraq. The idea of rope-a-dope is that Bush allows himself to be pushed around and constrained by his opposition; then he emerges with new actions and policies to punish his enemies and break out of his self-imposed box.

I argue that rope-a-dope is not a good idea. At best it is a waste of time and diplomatic energy; at worst it will lead to failure. The reason is that rope-a-dope is a tactic, not a strategy; and it is suited to physical contests but not political or moral fights.

Ali coined the phrase "rope-a-dope"; he was describing a tactic where he would hang near the ropes, ducking his opponent's efforts to attack him; then later when his opponent was tired from the effort of punching, Ali would finish him off. Note that to Ali, "rope-a-dope" described the physical actions taken in a fight. He did not hold meetings with luminaries in the boxing world to ask whether it would be appropriate for him to prevail over Liston or Frazier or Foreman.

The greatest rope-a-doper was probably Fabius the Delayer. In the second Punic War Hannibal of Carthage crossed over the Alps into Italy and demolished the Romans in three battles. Then he started to persuade the Italian locals to abandon Rome. Rome was not strong enough to challenge Hannibal directly, but neither could they sit behind their walls and allow him to subvert the peninsula. Fabius' strategy was to harass Hannibal, but withdraw whenever Hannibal threatened combat. Thus Hannibal could never have a secure base for his attempts at subversion, nor could he destroy more Roman forces. This bought Rome enough time to hang on to their Italian possessions and then attack the Carthaginians afield -- first in Spain, then in Africa. Again, rope-a-dope was a military tactic. Strategically, the Romans remained committed to the use of their naval supremacy and to the eventual destruction of Italy. They were merciless, not conciliatory, in their policy toward recalcitrant Italians and toward external foes like Philip of Macedon.

Rope-a-dope is an appropriate strategy if you are weak but expect to get stronger, or if you think you can make an opponent overextend himself. Neither is the case for post-9/11 America. America has tremendous advantages in military power and economic might. Our cause is just and our enemies vile. Furthermore we cannot expect to gain by waiting for small teams of suicidal warriors to attack; we must strike first. All our advantages would be thrown away by the policy of rope-a-dope.

I wanted to discuss rope-a-dope because it is a powerful meme in the blogosphere. But I don't think that the Bush administration considers rope-a-dope to be its foreign policy. I will explain the reason for the slow progress of the war on terror in my next post.

Posted 7:00 PM by Floyd

Today's online Mercury News contained a strange article headline: Russia sad that U.S. will begin deployment of anti-missile defense system. (The Merc is probably not to blame as the article is credited to the Associated Press.)

We do tend to anthromorphize nations, and there are emotions that can you can use to describe a country that sound natural. "Sad" is not one of them. Russia "expressed regret", which does not mean that 150 million people are walking around with tears in their eyes. "Expressed regret" is diplo-speak for "you're doing something we don't want to do, but we're not going to do jack about it."

Anyway, why are the Russians so sad? Were they planning to send us a hydrogen bomb for Christmas?

Posted 6:47 PM by Floyd

I have just finished reading the third Harry Potter book, The Prisoner of Azkaban. The glowing reviews in the paperback's front and back pages praise author Rowling as another great children's fantasy writer. For instance, a Publisher's Weekly review quoted in The Sorcerer's Stone: "dances in the footsteps of P.L. Travers and Roald Dahl." But I think that Rowling is the scion not of these authors but of mystery writer Agatha Christie.

Three devices that make Christie mystery novels entertaining are also present in the Harry Potter series. First, the obvious is never the real explanation. Second, seemingly unimportant events turn out to have great significance. Third, there is the same fascination with hidden relationships -- in a typical Christie novel there is always some son or daughter or husband or wife lurking around under an assumed name.

Posted 6:10 PM by Floyd

Just one more post about the Mercury News and then it's time for me to try out my Egyptian tanks ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H clean the mud tracks on the floor. Here is a letter to the editor published today:

Consider the costs

JUDGING by the polls and recent elections, it appears that President Bush enjoys a fairly high level of approval in the United States. However, I wonder if Americans have looked carefully at the consequences of the Bush administration policies.

Do Americans really want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war with Iraq, suffer the loss of hundreds or thousands of American lives, and further alienate the rest of the world, and encourage hundreds to join Al-Qaida, in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power?

Saddam cannot dare to use weapons of mass destruction because he knows that if he did, there would be an overwhelming retaliation from the United States. All of the rhetoric suggests that Bush has little faith in the U.N. inspections, and that he will order military action on the slightest provocation.

Are most Americans satisfied with the state of the economy, the cost and availability of health care, and are they willing to accelerate a huge tax cut largely for the wealthy? Are they willing to ignore the effects of global warming and depletion of natural resources on the quality of life that will be available to their grandchildren?

Mel Rabedeau
Saratoga

I could subject Rabedeaubedeau to a little fisking, but the use of that verb makes Colby Cosh mad. Anyway I'm happy that he's not threatening to lower his cholesterol count unless George Bush acceeds to his demands.

What really burns me up is that the Merc printed a letter that claimed, without documentation, that a war on Iraq would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. This is close to being absurd on the face of it; the entire military budget is a few hundred billion dollars, and only a portion of that can be spent on a specific campaign. Does Rabedeau think that a US-Iraq war will last as long as World War II?

Do I think the Mercury News should censor Rabedeau? No, but I think they are hypocrites, because of the way they treated me the last time I sent in a letter to the editor. A few years I objected to a letter-writer who said that the South Vietnamese in America who hate Vietnam were sore losers. I emailed a letter to the editor:

Al Traugott (Letters to the Editor March 24) complains
that Vietnamese protestors of a Ho Chi Minh exhibit are
sore losers. This is ridiculous and ignorant. The
Communist regime of Ho Chi Minh killed a million people
through slave labor and direct executions.

When Saigon fell there was widespread terror. Vietnamese
fled the country as if they were being pursued by flesh-
eating zombies. They undertook long ocean voyages in
small craft. Hundreds of thousands drowned.

The treatment of the South Vietnamese was not an inevitable
consequence of war. When the Confederacy lost the American
civil war, the losers were bitter. However, the Southern
rebels knew that they would not be summarily executed or
enslaved, and so we do not hear tales of people fleeing on
leaky boats over the Gulf of Mexico.

Traugott excuses the Communist crimes by claiming that
the losers were "naturally treated harshly". I would like
to think that most Mercury News readers do not think
the murder of a million people is a natural occurence.

I got a phone call from an editor who said they couldn't publish the letter unless I documented my claims that of Communist murders! I was able to satisfy him by referring him to James Rummel's "death by government" website.

It's obvious to me that the Merc is selective in choosing which letters to fact-check. All part of the right-wing fifth column decried by Al Gore, I guess.

Posted 5:38 PM by Floyd

I was about to close the tab containing the five day hunger strike article when my eye caught this fragment in the middle:

``We want greater efforts put toward diplomacy . . . and the $50 billion now going to the war effort to be spent instead on domestic issues, like homelessness and education,'' [Sister Alvados] said.

Patricia Adams, 22, held a cell phone that had been lent to her by her parents, who support her mission.

Hey Diet Queen, how about you take the $30 a month for your Nokia and spend it on domestic issues like homelessness and education?

Posted 5:32 PM by Floyd

Maybe there could be a left-wing protester category on Jackass. From today's Mercury News:

Thirteen activists began a five-day hunger strike Sunday night on the windy, rain-drenched sidewalks of downtown San Jose, showing their opposition to President Bush's call for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

The protesters, most of them Santa Clara University students, held candles and prayed in front of the Federal Building, just blocks away from holiday shoppers and moviegoers.

``I'm a little nervous. I'm hungry right now, thinking about it,'' said Blair Thedinger, 21, an environmental science major at the university. ``But I'm really opposed and frustrated by U.S. military policy and our approach to world domination, rather than working through diplomacy.''

Thedinger and fellow activists will sleep in two large tents on Second Street, comforted by sleeping bags and nourished only by bottled water. A visiting nurse will provide medical support and surveillance.

What's impressive about a hunger strike conducted by grownups is that the striker risks suffering and dying for his or her beliefs. No one will give a shit when Blair's tummy gets growly.

Next, a San Francisco protester will pour a drop of alcohol on the back of his hand and light it.

This reminds me of my favorite newspaper caption. It was in my college newspaper, the Purdue Exponent. It was 1986 and we had anti-apartheid protesters, campus leftists being a few years behind the times. Purdue is not a place where people get weepy when watching idiot commie antics. Someone delivered pizzas to the protesters. Even better, a guy lit a barbeque upwind and started grilling chicken.

The Exponent showed a picture of the barbequer, with the following caption:

I'll have a right wing, please.

Posted 11:48 AM by Floyd

Colby Cosh recently blogged about cross-burning, opining that while cross-burning has a specific and malevolent meaning, we can hardly enshrine specific exceptions to the First Amendment. I concur; however theory is one thing, and practice another.

A few months back I was listening to 60 Minutes in my car -- yes, you can hear 60 Minutes every Sunday night on CBS radio affiliates -- and one segment discussed the Nuremburg Files case. The Nuremburg Files is a website that lists abortion providers' names and addresses, with a line through the ones that have been murdered. Mike Wallace was discussing free speech with someone who wanted the Nuremburg Files shut down. That person's opinion was that the Nuremberg Files constituted a threat, and noted that anti-abortion protesters had been cited for driving Ryder trucks near abortion clinics!

I Googled "Ryder truck abortion", and found a hit on christiangallery.com:

The Associated Press report continued, "Federal prosecutors successfully used that act this week against a bizarre clinic threat. In Little Rock, Ark., J. Fred Hart Jr. was convicted of violating the act (FACE) for parking yellow Ryder rental trucks outside two abortion clinics. Although the trucks contained no explosives, prosecutors said Hart was aware he would cause fear by his placement of the trucks because the bomb that demolished the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 was left in a yellow Ryder truck."

I think the Nuremburg Files case is a hard one; in my opinion the Nuremburg Files is just short of incitement to murder, but I could be persuaded to change my mind. But the case I cited about Ryder trucks is incredibly wrong-headed. First, a Ryder truck is not a well-known symbol like a burning cross or swastika. Maybe one person in twenty knows that McVeigh's truck full of explosives was a Ryder. Second, the Ryder corporation is a legitimate enterprise; it is slanderous, and a takings, to say that a parked Ryder truck should cause fear for anyone nearby. Finally, if you say that parking a Ryder truck is an attempt to intimidate, because it could contain a bomb, than you could arrest anyone who parked any vehicle anywhere.

Posted 11:26 AM by Floyd

Seventeen years ago I discovered Usenet newsgroups. On Usenet you can find discussion on any topic imaginable. I fear that time has passed Usenet by now, as I see no reference to newsgroups in any of the blogs I read. Still, I like to keep an eye on Usenet occasionally.

Recently I was rewarded with this interesting post by James Donald on Argentinian welfare recipients:

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002 00:43:13 -0800, Dan Clore
wrote:
> Those who work in these places are the same people who,
> wearing masks or not, set up roadblocks or set bonfires to
> block access to the capital. The only money the piqueteros
> receive is the welfare payments they fight to get from the
> government. They are supposed to live off this 150 pesos
> (US$41) a month. And pay their monthly 3 peso quota to
> finance their organization’s expenses -- including the leaders’
> cell phones -- and buy food for the kitchens. They have to
> pledge to be at the action centers four hours per day, Monday
> to Friday. Here roll is called, and those who do not show up
> have their names taken off the welfare lists.

Or, in other words, the piqueteros are paid by the government
to protest against capitalism and free markets. Of course
they do lots of useful work for the poor as well, but they are
primarily political organizations, with political paymasters,
from which we should conclude major reason for their existence
is to provide political power for their paymasters. We should
conclude that he who pays the piper calls the tune, and the
tune they sing is "smash capitalism".

This casts an interesting light on politics in Argentina.

Recall the major reason that the Argentinean government went
bankrupt was that the government payroll was padded with large
numbers of public servants that did no useful work, and did not
turn up except to collect pay, but were kept on for political
reasons.

The same thing has been happening in the USA, with certain
political factions receiving large amounts of government
funding, and continuing to receive that funding despite their
hostility to the republican majority that controls both houses
and the presidency. For example the NCSC is ninety six
percent federally funded, was in reality wholly a creation of
the federal government, and exists largely to lobby for various
expansions of the federal government.

Institutions of this form, where the government lobbies itself
for more government, lead to the kind of economic collapse we
saw in Argentina. The fundamental mechanism of the Argentinean
collapse was that people began to realize that their money in
the bank was not safe, their money in the mattress was not
safe, their farms and factories were not safe, but a
government job or a government handout was safe -- that
political power was the only valuable form of property.

The only way to reverse this crisis is to create a separation
between politics and state funding. Organizations like the
NCSC and the two NEAs have to be defunded. Political diversity
must be made a requirement for federal funding of universities.

Without such measures, one gets caught, like Argentina, in a
positive feedback loop. When too much wealth is politically
allocated, democracy cannot function -- it destroys the
economy, as it did in Argentina, requiring a fascist or
communist dictatorship, to operate the already fascist or
communist economic order.