Posted 6:55 PM by Floyd

The San Jose Mercury News editorial page prints the first line of the individual articles that it links to. Thus I could see in a few seconds that Molly Ivins is consistent: She may know dick about France or North Korea, but then she knows dick about anything.

Here is the teaser given in the article link:

LET'S review the bidding on North Korea. ``Review the bidding'' is a bridge player's term for ``how the hell did we get into this mess?''

To "review the bidding" is to repeat the auction aloud. No one reviews the bidding because they are in a mess; usually the request is made by a defender after the auction was complex and/or involved artificial calls. Sometimes a player was not paying attention.

Speaking of people who don't pay attention, Crazy Molly's history of the Korean crisis contains this gem:

In 1994, the Clinton administration came to something called the Agreed Framework with North Korea, under which Pyongyang agreed to put its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods -- which can be easily converted into weapons-grade plutonium -- into storage, watched over by U.N. inspectors and cameras. In return, they were supposed to get two light-water nuclear reactors and economic and diplomatic relations.

We didn't quite live up to our end of the bargain...

That should be enough to convince you not to waste five minutes of your life reading this drivel. Besides, like me, you might have just eaten.

Posted 6:42 PM by Floyd

Matt Welch has asked his blogging readers for "to-war-or-not-to-war" posts. I am happy to write a post on this as I have not done much blogging lately.

In early September I wrote a long article on whether the US should go to war with Iraq. I remember that post with affection, because I wrote it under time pressure (I was about to leave for a weekend trip) and wasn't sure if I had done a good job. Colby Cosh linked to me and said "Floyd McWilliams, whoever you are, you hit a 500-foot home run." He then blogrolled me and called me The Declarer, which was an obvious name for my blog that I had somehow overlooked.

A brief summary of my earlier article (in unordered-list-o-vision):

• Saddam is nasty but not insane
  
• Evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq is unconvincing
  
• "Iraq first, Saudi Arabia next" is a puerile fantasy
  
• Going after Iraq distracts the US from what should be the real targets: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt
  

My thinking has changed since September. I believe that there is a reasonable case for attacking Iraq. What I am about to say is not the case that most people will make.

Many warbloggers have said that we need to save the Iraqi people. This seems somewhat hypocritical as none of those people were advocating a war for liberation two years ago. However I do think that we have the right to liberate the victims of tyrants, as we see fit. (I learned this from James Donald: We have a right to liberate people, but not a duty to do so.) The US should intervene in the Arab world and right some of its wrongs, not from idealism but from self-interest. The Arab world, like Africa, is a failure; unlike Africa it is a dangerous failure. Improving the Iraqi regime will not solve all our problems but it's a helpful start.

Some warbloggers say that Iraq is a step on the path to conquering Saudi Arabia. Don't believe them. Bush and company have no inclination to overthrow Saudi Arabia, and even if they did such an action would be a disaster. Bush has asked Saudi for permission to help with the Iraqi campaign; to subsequently attack them would be a betrayal worthy of Hitler. But even though we will not march into Riyadh, a US-sponsored Iraqi democracy will give other regimes pause. It will encourage dissidents in other countries (such as Iran).

The fundamental reason why the US must attack Iraq is this: America must destroy its enemies, and be seen doing so.

The United States has been attacked and is at war. The US cannot win this war on defense -- by "defense" I mean doing nothing except attempt to guard against attacks. If the US remains passive after being attacked, our enemies will be encouraged to attack again and harder. Also, I do not want to live in an America which is mobilized to prevent any conceivable attack. The result of such a policy would be a civil liberties nightmare and a practical nightmare.

The United States cannot win its war by attacking individual terrorists. There cannot be a "war on terrorism" because such a war cannot be won. To fight such a war would require the cooperation of all countries in the world, cooperation which is obviously not forthcoming. The government of Pakistan is afraid to help us. The government of Saudi Arabia is two faced; it wants to fund terrorists and also be our pals. The governments of Iraq and Iran are opposed to us and will never cooperate. Furthermore, a war against Al Qaeda with no reference to governments would quickly turn into a war of the US against the world, as it is an act of war to attack someone in another country without that country's permission.

George Bush laid the foundation for the only sensible policy when he said that governments were either with us or against us, and that any government which allowed terrorism to fester in its borders would be held responsible. The US must win its war by attacking and intimidating governments.

No one will be intimidated if they believe that the US will not fight its enemies. Saddam Hussein is an enemy of the United States. The United States waged war against him, he surrendered under promise to give satisfaction, he has failed to give satisfaction. It's true that Saddam is a minor enemy but so what? If the United States cannot confront its crippled and easy-to-kill enemies, how can anyone be intimidated? Do you really think that the mobs in Cairo and Riyadh and Islamabad understand noblesse oblige? Perhaps Saddam plans to use weapons of mass destruction and perhaps he does not. Again, so what? How can anyone take a nation seriously if it dithers while its enemies acquire new weapons?

You may think that this policy of attacks and intimidation is brutal. What choice do we have when fighting savages other than to use brute force? The US cannot treat other nations as though they were defendants in an American criminal trial.

For those who say that an attack on Iraq will make people hate us and strive against us: Have you ever read a history book? Japanese soldiers raped and bayonetted a quarter of a million Chinese in one brutal orgy in Nanking. Where is the Chinese suicide bomber who destroyed a Tokyo skyscraper? The Soviet Union ground nine European countries under its heel for 45 years. Where is the Estonian or Czech or Romanian who blew himself up in Red Square? Bin Laden despises us not because the World Court tut-tutted when America mined harbors in Nicaragua; he hates us because our women are allowed to show their faces, because we are irreligious and irreverent, because we are a success and his heartland a failure. You can only make these people stop hating you by destroying every vestige of civilization that the West has painfully accumulated over the last three centuries.

Posted 7:29 PM by Floyd

I've been job hunting since early January -- though I for all I have to show for my efforts, I could have stepped onto my deck every morning, yelled "Experienced Java Engineer Needs Work", and gone back to my Civilization III game.

My previous job hunts have been in 1992, and several times in 1995, 1996, and 1997. In the mid-90's the economy was strong and I had recruiters doing all the work for me. Not since 1992 have I had to perform a job search on my own. Back then the major vehicle for communicating job openings was the San Jose Mercury News Sunday classified. Now of course everything is done online. I picked up a Sunday rag a few weeks back and there were three entries for software engineering jobs. (Not that my $1.25 was wasted; a comic was funny, which in the post-Watterson era probably happens as often as I look for new work.)

I have used three online job sites and I will rate them.

Monster is the most famous but also the least effective. There are not many software engineering jobs, and applying for a job is badly designed: You cannot write an ad-hoc cover letter. Monster's idea is that you write up to five cover letters and send one with your application, but what good is that? Who wants to send out a generic cover letter? When I send an application I want to be able to grease the skids with a list of their requirements and my amazing skills in those areas; I don't want some clunky generic letter saying "I would be an ideal candidate for your product or service."

HotJobs has about the same number of jobs as Monster, which is to say not many. HotJobs allows you to write ad hoc cover letters. I rate HotJobs as having the best interface of the job sites.

Dice is oriented toward Bay Area technology professionals. It has a lot of jobs, and the interface is reasonable. The only objection I have to Dice is that it does not send you a confirmation email after you apply for a listed job. (Monster and HotJobs both do this.)

Posted 7:15 PM by Floyd

An important first: I was mentioned in the Bridge World. Not for anything important, just for my Master Solver's Club score of 680. One of these days I will get a perfect 800 and the panel will have to suffer my witticisms for a month.

Posted 10:49 AM by Floyd

The Pope has called for Catholics to fast on Ash Wednesday against war in Iraq.

Hows about a fast against child molestation? Against hush money? Against suppression of felony evidence?

Okay, I'll stop firing into the barrel. I was raised a Catholic and went to a Catholic school. We were taught by a few nuns, but they did not influence me as much as the principal, a squat, powerful Irishman in his fifties who grew up in Hell's Kitchen. (The stereotype of a principal is an ineffectual milquetoast. We were terrified of our principal.) The school was run on a shoestring budget; the teachers were underpaid and the principal showed up early every morning to do custodial work.

I am an atheist and have happily discarded Catholic dogma. What was instilled in me by my Catholic youth was a respect for the people and institutions of the church. I was furious when Sinead O'Connor tore up a picture of the pope, even though I had not been to church in years and did not believe in God.

Just as I never forsaw the day when Metallica would sue Indiana University for copyright violations, I could not have imagined 20 years ago that the people and institutions of the church would become a joke. Can water turn into wine? Is a tasteless wafer the body of Christ? I don't believe it but I could see giving a believer the benefit of the doubt. Is the Pope a force for peace? Don't make me laugh.