The Poor Man Institute

President Bush’s speech in the Knesset got results:

Israel and Syria have begun indirect peace talks, mediated by Turkey, aimed at reaching a comprehensive peace accord, the three governments announced in a coordinated statement Wednesday. [...] 

The public disclosure that Israel, albeit indirectly, is talking with Syria, one of its most implacable enemies and a sponsor of groups that both Israel and the United States consider terrorists, came less than a week after President Bush, speaking to the Israeli Parliament, created a stir by criticizing those who would negotiate with “terrorists and radicals.”

Mr. Bush’s remarks have become an issue in the American presidential campaign because they were widely perceived as a rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner, who has advocated the kind of engagement that Israel and Syria are now undertaking.

John McCain promptly released a statement claiming that Israel’s appeasement of terrorists proved that Israel wasn’t fit to be President of the United States.  Bush added: Israel is the new Chamberlain. 

They’re right of course.  By speaking to Syria, Israel will most likely get duped into dismantling the entire Israeli military.  Or trading the Golan Heights for some fancy beads.  Or both.  Not that it matters much.  The mere act of holding a summit with Israel will greatly invigorate Syria’s confidence.  They will be emboldened and cheerful. 

Not to mention the fact that just sitting down at the same table with Israel will cover Syria in the magical light of legitimacy.  The US and Israel can do that you know.    

Operative formula: confidence + legitimacy =  juggernaut

Look on the bright side Israel: at least you made it to 60!

Jeffery Record on the mythical history of Allied appeasement (.pdf):

No historical event has exerted more influence on post-World War II U.S. use-of-force decisions than the Anglo-French appeasement of Nazi Germany that led to the outbreak of the Second World War. Presidents have repeatedly cited the great lesson of the 1930s—namely, that force should be used early and decisively against rising security threats—to justify decisions for war and military intervention; some presidents have compared enemy leaders to Hitler. The underlying assumption of the so-called Munich analogy is that the democracies could and should have stopped Hitler (thereby avoiding World War II and the Holocaust) by moving against him militarily before 1939. This assumption, however, is easy to make only in hindsight and ignores the political, military, economic, and psychological contexts of Anglo-French security choices during the 1930s. Among the myriad factors constraining those choices were memories of the horrors of World War I, failure to grasp the nature of the Nazi regime and Hitler’s strategic ambitions, France’s military inflexibility, Britain’s strategic overstretch, France’s strategic dependence on Britain, guilt over the Versailles Treaty of 1919, dread of strategic bombing and misjudgment of the Nazi air threat, American isolationism, and distrust of the Soviet Union and fear of Communism.

There’s a tradition on the internets, derived from “Godwin’s Law“, that anyone who brings up Hitler/Nazis/WWII in a debate automatically loses. This tradition is, like everything else on the internets, pretty stupid – you can’t improve the quality of discourse by pretending the seminal event of the last 100 years didn’t really happen. But it does acknowledge a problem: that, as the seminal event of the last 100 years, it tends to crowd out other events, which are likely more useful for analyzing current events. WWII is important because it is exceptional – Hitler was exceptionally evil, Germany was exceptionally warlike, the Holocaust was exceptionally barbaric; most things in this life, by definition, are not the exceptions. Many things are qualitatively similar to exceptional things – Saddam is like Hitler, North Korea is warlike, being catty on the internets is like the Holocaust – but, quantitatively, do not measure up. For a Godwin’s Law-violating example of this, see above – viewing events of 1938 too much through what was then the seminal event of the century, most European leaders failed to understand the un-Great War nature of their situation. If they had, WWII might not have been the seminal event it became, and we’d all be making lousy analogies to something else entirely. History is largely accident.

Maybe that’s a bad lesson to draw from WWII – it ties up the paragraph nice, at least, so give me a break. And it’s not as bad as the usual lesson, generally offered up by wind-up right-wing idiots, that “appeasement never works.” Appeasement often works quite well, even when dealing with our present-day Hitlers manqués – look at North Korea. Endless index card-reading wingnut rants notwithstanding, even rather awful people can often be satisfied if they are given what (note: not “whatever”) they want, will often be willing to make concessions in order to get it, and doing business is often much cheaper than acting tough, which is why grown-ups prefer it. WWII, as the exception, proves the rule.

Poor Michelle Malkin. He’s just not that into her:

The McCain campaign holds weekly blogger conference calls with its candidate. There are many questions I know you’d like asked, but I’ve never been able to ask them because I haven’t been one of the privileged few conservative bloggers allowed into the McCain sanctum to ask those questions for you.

Yesterday, I learned that several far left-wing blogs were invited to participate in The Maverick’s blogger conference call session (it’s part of that Big Vision Thing). I e-mailed McCain’s New Media guy, Patrick Hynes, asking if I could participate in the next blogger conference call.

After all, McCain said yesterday he’ll “listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse” and “will set a new standard for transparency and accountability” and “will work with anyone, of either party, to make this country safe, prosperous and proud.”

If he’s willing to take questions from hostile liberal bloggers, why not take some from conservative bloggers who represent substantial readerships with dissenting views on how best to make this country “safe, prosperous, and proud?”

A: Because you are all incredibly embarrassing. John McCain wants to be President, and he wants to avoid embarrassment, and being publicly associated with the likes of you can only lead to humiliation. Everyone in the country hates you, blames you (correctly) for the disastrous failures of the past 8 years, and thinks you are completely fucking bazoo. Nobody likes you. Considering the kind of folks John McCain openly embraces, this is quite a thing. Your job is to keep your psychosis far away from the McCain campaign, go vote Republican, and then crawl back into your fucking holes. This has been Easy Answers to Stupid Questions.

(And what’s with this sudden fetish for “dissent”? I thought that was a flavor of treason.)

Gregg Easterbrook, 2/03/08:

Taping from the sidelines during games, although forbidden, is regarded as a minor violation of the rules. Secret taping of a Super Bowl opponent’s practice, if true, would be much more serious.

Throughout the fall, I, as well as other journalists, had many conversations with Walsh. He would not say he taped the Rams’ walk-through, but he would not deny it, either. He would not go on the record about what he knows.

May 14, 2008:

NEW YORK — After meeting with former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh for more than three hours, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said no new information had come to light as a result and indicated that the Spygate scandal had run its course.

Goodell also said he was told by Walsh that the Patriots did not have a videotape of a walk-through practice of the St. Louis Rams before the 2002 Super Bowl. The Boston Herald had previously reported that such a tape existed, but Goodell said Tuesday he was able to verify that there is no such tape.

Logically, then:

A man of dignity, who is caught cheating, would resign. Had Belichick shown dignity and resigned, this week’s humiliating media circus in New York over former Patriots videographer Matt Walsh would never have occurred. Spygate would already be behind us. “Cheaters! Cheaters!” the crowd at Radio City Music Hall chanted when New England’s name went on the clock at last month’s draft. “Cheaters! Cheaters!” crowds will chant next fall when New England takes the field, if the cheater Belichick is still running the show. The way to stop that, and bring Spygate to a close, is to suspend the person responsible.

Followed by 200 paragraphs of unconfirmed Matt Walsh allegations, spiced up and reprinted as fact. ESPN should re-fire Gregg Easterbrook, and fine him at least one superfluous ‘g’.

Of course, the kind of “cheating” which got Belichick in trouble, and worse, has been SOP in the NFL for at least 40 years. Easterbrook either doesn’t know this, or doesn’t care, or, most likely, both. Having declared jihad against Belichick, as with his jihad against Al Gore, he must continue. Having believed and promoted the opinions of people with no knowledge of the subject in question and rather obvious agendas, and having been proven foolish for doing so, one must redouble one’s efforts, to distract attention from one’s own credulity and foolishness. Defending sources who have mislead you, defending yourself for foolishly believing them, and disappearing the opinions of people who know better, is Easterbrook’s SOP. At least this time it’s about a silly game this time, rather than the future of the planet.

Andrew Sullivan cites some worthy reader “dissent”:

Count me among the folks who take the President’s views on foreign policy seriously.

I believe – and have for some time – that the struggle we face is as much between those of us who believe that there is evil in the world and it cannot – will not – go away with appeasement and those who believe that if we can just find the right words that those who hate us will all of a sudden change their ways OR of we just leave them alone “they” will leave us alone.

President Bush is a good man who has tried to do what he thought was best for the country without regard to the political costs. Calling him a war criminal is an easy and unfortunately popular thing to do these days – but the real debate needs to be over what do we do to both protect ourselves and our allies and gain the kind of rights to which we believe all men and women are entitled in the Islamic world.

A religion that permits – indeed requires – the murder of gays and women who go against the principles of a barbaric code is not a religion and it is time we all deal with this “elephant in the room.”

Bush = good. Muslims = evil. The government is owed our unconditional support. It is our duty to defeat the false religions. It’s all sensible because I choose to believe it. I am very brave for saying so. One suspects these few self-evident truths can be repeated at very high volume for long, long periods of time, endurance extended beyond normal human limits by excising any vestigial doubt. This is – minus the charmingly parochial idea that we must wage War on Islam out of a concern for gay rights, obviously – the Republican base, still crazy after all these years.

And it’s this base, and those attracted by the self-serving simplicity of this vision, who John McCain is counting on in November. If the war in Iraq were being managed like any other sort of real-world endeavor, it would have closed down years ago. All the major requirements have either been achieved (Saddam deposed, elections held, etc.) or Overcome By Events (hunt for WMD, connections to al Qaeda, etc.) The top-level MS Project spreadsheet is showing completion, and any sort of dissatisfaction you may have with the results needs to be chalked up to either the inevitable vicissitudes of geopolitics or – if this happens to be one of our infrequent “accountability moments” – fatal errors made in the design phase. You look for answers there.

But the “war” is not, as the President says, the usual kind of war, and so cannot be judged by the usual material standards. (And a good thing, too. War fans like to compare our current struggle to WWII. If WWII ended with allied tanks rolling in to Berlin only to discover that there was no such place as Poland, it would be a near-perfect historical analogy, but probably not be such a popular mythical-historical point of comparison for people looking to justify misconceived and badly-run ventures.) It is, as Sully’s reader has noted, a test of faith. You have to develop your personal relationship with the Iraq War, understand that it loves you and will answer your most tangential prayers, and cultivate your faith that your personal political vindication ( for gonzo libertarianism, liberal interventionism, neocon imperialism, pop eschatology, etc.) will come on this battlefield, and by convincing others to share in your faith. It is, in other words, a religion – albeit one which has required the deaths of 83,000 civilians, or 150,000, or more, as well as thousands of combatants.  Some might consider this “barbaric”, an elephant drenched in blood.  Unbelievers.

WANT.

The full size Airwolf replica was made with an existing Bell 222A airframe. The side panels, nose panel and refueling port were all made from the specs from the original Airwolf and are exact. The ADF pod and chainguns are not included in this auction, but will be available if anyone is interested. The interior is not finished, but the pilot and co-pilot seats have been reupholstered and the instrument panel has been mocked up. Airwolf inspired a whole generation to learn to fly helicopters and this replica is beautiful.

The mock up was done by Steven Stull out of Atlanta, Ga for a helicopter museum in Tennessee. Unfortunately the museum did not make it and all of the displays were removed and will be sold. This was the center piece and fans of the TV show came from all around to see “The Lady”. It took Steve 5 months of painstaking, meticulous work to bring Airwolf back to life and every detail of the airframe is exact, even down to the rivot pattern. This helicopter would be perfect for any aircraft museum or TV related attraction. There has been talk of a new Airwolf movie, but that is unconfirmed. It would make a great prop for the beginning of that movie. They could use it to show how it gets destroyed before they build the new version of “The Lady”. This is a very unique and special item.

If you lend me $50,000 I will pay you back in missiles. Failure to loan me $50,000 will only serve to appease Blue Thunder with predictable results, e.g. WWII with helicopters. The only language evil helicopters understand is Missilese: the international language of missiles. Airwolf is fluent in Missilese, and he can get by in Machine Gunnish, too.

… Also, I want this for my morning commute. Make me one.

The self-similarity of wingnuttery:

It’s all like this.  Everything is just like this.  Some blank young person who has memorized a 5″x7″ index card of focus group-approved phrases, yelling, yelling, yelling over everyone.  And you can say what you want, and be as right as you want, but he’s going to keep yelling, and yelling, and yelling until you get sick of it, and at the end of the day everybody knows that Barack Obama goes to secret Muslim church.  Everything is like this.  An election won’t fix it.  This rules the world.

Via.

NFL professionals watch the tapes:

Trying to steal signals is nothing new in the NFL. All teams have advance scouts who watch and log opponents’ personnel groupings and record the signals they see from the sideline. The Patriots, however, took things to another level with their videotaping of opposing coaches. [...]

However, these videotapes likely were not used to make in-game adjustments because there simply is not enough time during game action and a 12-minute halftime to decipher and decode what those tapes contain. At halftime coaches and personnel staff are barely able to get a drink, use the restroom and relay to players the most basic things they saw in the first half, before the team heads back onto the field. Where the advantage lies is in the time it takes to prepare for the next game against the particular opponent being filmed: What would normally require watching and splicing hours of tape was already done in one fell swoop during a previous game.

If Scouts Inc. were running the scouting department of an NFL team, this kind of video would allow us to chart tendencies, personnel variations and play calls in a shorter time. Answers to questions about the opposing team would appear more quickly. What’s important to remember, though, is that teams eventually glean this kind of information from film study anyway: The video in question would simply be a shortcut in a process that is already under way. There is an advantage, but it is minimal. [...]

We don’t know for sure whether more tapes ever existed in New England, or how these tapes were broken down and used. But after reviewing the material released by the league, this much is clear: We saw nothing in that video that would allow us as a scouting department to provide a team with an unfair advantage over an opponent.

Yes, preparation time was reduced and film study was streamlined, but not in a way that single-handedly turned the Patriots into one of the premier teams in the league. In the end, the Patriots’ success comes down to having better players who make full use of the information provided to them.

But, of course, Mark Schlereth (of the great Denver Broncos) knows how these tapes could be used to great advantage at halftime, which is why NFL teams are constantly banging down his door to offer him coaching gigs. Oh, wait.

… Aaaand the Herald retracts. The Boston Herald, for those who don’t know, is often compared to the NY Post, but that’s not quite right. The NY Post actually does reporting. The Boston Herald is the journalistic equivalent of This Weird Dude I Met On The Bus Who Wouldn’t Stop Talking To Me, except you can clean up after your dog with it. It’s basically ten pages of transcribed Bill O’Reilly monologues followed by 5,000 pages of sports reporting, all of it ungrammatical and 99% made up. “According to an anonymously-sourced Boston Herald report” is not the way Great Tales of Journalism begin.

UPDATE: Why does Ted Kennedy hate America?

“With the war in Iraq raging on, gasoline prices closing in on $4 a gallon, and Americans losing their homes at record rates to foreclosure, the United States Senate should be focusing on the real problems that Americans are struggling with,” Kennedy said through a spokesman in response to a question posed by a Globe reporter. “I’m looking forward to another great Patriots season where they can let their play on the field speak for itself.”

Well, you all have made so much progress on this stuff over the last 18 months, it would be a shame if you got distra … Oooo! Steroids in Baseball! *Fap! Fap! Fap!* Face it: Senator Kennedy is just trying drown this young investigation before it has had a chance to blossom and mature, just like … hmmm. Well, just like something.

Wow. That was very ‘white working class‘. I believe I will spend the rest of 2008 like this:

Defibrillate me when it’s over.