Decline and fall

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note just got back from Europe and this is what he observed:

. . . the Germans are angry at Bush and America as a whole for so badly screwing up a number of collective efforts -- particularly on climate change -- but also in the Middle East. They are angry that Europe is not in a position to fill the void America is leaving and focus their frustration not on their own leadership problems but at the U.S. for undermining the dynamics of global order.
A widespread view among elite Germans and the non-elite normal types I spoke to is that America is in fast decline -- sort of like Britain after World War II. I think that the impressions foreigners have of this decline is "overshooting reality" as there are many substantive realities about America's ability to deploy force and purpose in the world that remain formidable.
But conversation in some serious circles is turning to what Europe can do to help America stabilize in some position of "lesser global stature." There is also a sense that the nation that is filling much of America's previous geopolitical space is China and that Europe feels tension in its strong alliance with U.S. power in decline and its strategic distance from China clearly ascending.

A few of the commenters to this post disagreed with what Clemons said.
But everyone from outside the US thought Steve got it just about all right -- they objected only to Clemons' assertion that America still remained "formidable" in some ways.

Great line of the day

The downside of going away was that I missed some good stuff on the internets.
Here's Rabble columnist Duncan Cameron, from Friday, talking about the Security and Prosperity Partnership:

The SPP is a poorly disguised attempt to remove economic decisions from public view and democratic oversight. Security does not mean improving pensions, or providing health care for all. Prosperity does not mean alleviating poverty, or improving access to public services. And partnership does not mean partnership.
It means whatever the U.S. decides, goes.

Alison at Creekside has more here and here.

I'm baaaack!

Great holiday but also great to be home.

Summer holiday

Well, we're off on our holiday on Thursday -- flying to Victoria for a few days, then to Vancouver, then home on July 14th.
I don't think I'll be able to blog, or even keep up with reading anyone else's blog -- unless I happen upon an internet cafe.
So see you in a couple of weeks!

Who ya gonna call?

Here are some of the construction problems at the new US embassy in Baghdad:

... when the kitchen staff tried to cook the inaugural meal in the new guard base ... Some appliances did not work. Workers began to get electric shocks. Then a burning smell enveloped the kitchen as the wiring began to melt.
... The 252 prefabricated residential trailers, with either two or three rooms each, filled with formaldehyde fumes. The trailer manufacturer, a Saudi company called Red Sea Housing Services Co., confirmed to the embassy it had used the toxic chemical in preparing the housing. Red Sea told the embassy to keep the windows open and use charcoal in the rooms to absorb the odor, but "the fumes are still prevalent," the cable said.
...The embassy cable noted that five people had been identified at various times as the project manager, and that it was all but impossible for embassy officials to obtain information from them, with no one seeming to be in charge.
...fire hazards in the dining hall's wiring that were so serious that the few guards who had moved into the base's new residential housing were sent back to Camp Jackson.
"It was unknown as to whether similar wiring was present in the residential trailers," the cable said.
... KBR found that the reworked wiring "is still substandard," the cable said. The embassy also said that it believes it has discovered counterfeit wiring, labeled as 10mm when it was actually 6mm.
... First Kuwaiti provided only "minimal spare parts" for the power generators and "less than minimal spare parts" for the water-treatment plant, the cable said.
Finally, on May 25, a KBR hazardous-materials expert discovered that all 10 generators had developed leaks. The fuel tanks were installed without corrosion protection or leak detectors, and fuel had begun to saturate the soil around the tanks. The cable said that Teflon tape designed for water pipes had been used on the fuel tanks, and that such tape "will dissolve on contact with diesel fuel." KBR refused to operate the power generators unless its liability was waived.

How much does everyone want to bet that the largest and most expensive embassy in the world will turn out to be uninhabitable due to shoddy construction?
Here's who they're going to have to call:

Great line of the day

Oliver Stone, on being denied permission to shoot a movie in Iran about Iranian President Ahmadinejad:

"I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."

Shorter

Shorter Gordon Campbell:

Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who.

Music for the occasion

Yankee Doodle Dandy


American Pie

War by PowerPoint

Here's another one of the Scary Iran news stories. This time its about how the US military briefers in Baghdad are saying Iran is getting Hezbollah to kill Americans in Iraq. Apparently, the US has some documents or something, which they are allowing reporters to view in glimpses. McClatchy notes that:

...there was no way to verify the authenticity of the documents independently, some of which Bergner presented on a large-screen monitor.

I'll bet it was PowerPoint slides.
This reminded me of another US slide show back in February in which the US military briefers in Baghdad were saying Iran is supplying explosive devices to kill Americans in Iraq. The reporters got a better look at this presentation, and it apparently fell pretty flat.
I think its the slides -- the US military is apparently entranced with PowerPoint, which is really just a communications tool, sometimes not a very good one.
In Yale professor Edward Tuft's discussion page about powerpPoint and military intelligence, one of the commenters describes the military reliance on PowerPoint:

1. Briefings are often not created by the actual person who will deliver the brief. Subject Matter Experts are tasked with developing content, which then is briefed to a military officer who then is tasked with briefing up the chain of command.
2. When briefing up the chain, information must be put in "words a colonel can understand." And when a colonel briefs a general, the brief must be put in "words the general can understand." This is usually referred to in terms of elevations: from 10,000 feet, or the 50,000-foot view, etc. I've been told to "keep it out of the weeds" -- limit detail, only make general statements.
3. The expectation is that the handout is also simply a printed copy of the briefing slides themselves, so that while the PP slides are being projected on screen, the participants in the meeting are simultaneously reading the printed versions. The projection is used for debate reference once everyone reads the printed slide.
4. Since PP is often used for a "decision brief" only the words that will be approved are to be included in the slide.

Another commenter describes how a slide can become a military order. He refers to an excerpt from the Thomas Ricks' book Fiasco:

McKiernan had another, smaller, but nagging, issue: He couldn't get Franks to issue clear orders that explicitly stated what he wanted done, how he wanted to do it, and why. Rather, Franks passed along PowerPoint briefing slides that he had shown to Rumsfeld. . . . That reliance on slides rather than formal written orders seemed to some military professionals to capture the essence of Rumsfeld's amateurish approach to war planning. . . . It was like telling an automobile mechanic to use a manufacturer's glossy sales borchure to figure out how to repair an engine.

Here is one of those slides -- it shows how Iraq reconstruction was supposed to work:


Just flash on that for 10 seconds. With mythical faux-precision, the little marching arrows and stars show that every day in every way things are going to get better and better in Iraq until everybody reaches Strategic Success, at which point the Tooth Fairy will shoot an arrow down from heaven and...well, Phase Three.
Here's another one, from October, 2006


What could anyone make of seeing such a mess on a screen? Here are some of the things Tufts says about this slide:

The slide reports performance data--a list of phrases, with each phrase accompanied by a measure of performance. This is what the tables in the sports section, mutual fund page, and weather page of newspapers do very well. Those designs are much better for reporting performance data than the slide format here. In sports and stock market tables, each phrase is accompanied by multiple measures of performance, often over varying time-periods. All that won't fit on the slide; this suggests that we should use better reporting method than PP, instead of abbreviating the evidence to fit the slide. As the millions of readers of sports tables each day demonstrate, people can easily manage large tables of information. Thus those being briefed in the military should ask: Why are our presentations operating at 2% of the data richness of routine tables found in the sports section? Let the viewers read and explore through a range of material; different eyes will search for different things in the evidence. The metaphor should be the cognitive style of the sports section (or weather or financial newspaper pages) not the cognitive style of PowerPoint.
There is no cloud of uncertainty or error history associated with the editorializing color. At times, such color codings suggest an excess of certainty.
The Iraq slide above provides some relevant but thin and overly short-run time-comparisons: 2 arrows on the left showing "change since last week," and the "Index of Civil Conflict (Assessed)", which sort of compares "Pre- Samarra" with "Last week" and "Current". And there's a potent time-comparison in words: ". . . violence at all-time high, spreading geographically."

Then again, maybe its not just the PowerPoint. As one of Tufte's other commenters notes:

As someone who remembers watching US military briefings during the VN war, I can confidently state that PowerPoint is not a necessary requirement for producing obfuscated piles of meaningless crap.
There is a story in the biography of John Paul Vann by Neil Sheehan in which Vann's map of precincts in his district is returned by central command for having too few precincts colored in "white" (our side) and too many red (them) and pink (in issue). How's that for graphical information.

Speaking of who's winning, the British say they have lost Basra.

Ya think?

Jesse Wendle at Group News Blog asks:

What would the response have been of all the Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) -- who in the days ahead will be saying what a righteous and proper move the President has made -- had President Bill Clinton pardoned the aide of Vice President Al Gore who'd been convicted of perjury over outing a CIA agent?

Did you have to ask?

Hey, Mr. Minister

Hey, Mr. Minister?
Hmmm?
Minister!
Umm -- yes, just a sec, I'm drafting another press release. So what is it, Deputy?
Can I get a supplement?
No, no, you don't need one, You're not being fired! Far from it, you've been a great Deputy -- you've done everything I asked you to do, even when it was pretty stupid . . .
Yes, Minister, I know. But now I'm going to retire and I want my supplement!
You're not really entitled to one, you know.
But Minister, all the other deputies are getting them!
Now, now, that's not really the case. Why there are only 20 deputies who qualify ... hmmm, well, actually, I guess its closer to 50... no, actually, I guess its 79... 79? Seems like a lot...
So, Minister, why can't I get one too?
Well, come to think of it, why not? You're a good guy and you've taken the blame when I screwed up, so sure, here's your supplement -- after all, its not coming out of MY pocket!

Blue Sunday

So on Canada Day in Ottawa, Harper gave a very nice speech about Canada's role on the international stage.
But why, oh why, must he remain so incurably parochial?
You can take the boy out of the small town, but you can't take the small town out of the boy.
He just couldn't resist slathering Tory Blue all over everything:

The traditional red and white blanketed a sea of people on Parliament Hill, but there was also more blue than usual.
The blue of police uniforms peppered the crowd as security was stepped up for the celebration -- and there was also a blue presence on large banners that adorned the centre stage.
A spokeswoman for the National Capital Commission, which organizes Ottawa's annual Canada Day celebrations, says the colours were chosen from a number of designs.
Blue is the colour of the Conservative Party.
An Ottawa radio station pushed for a boycott of Sunday's festivities over the move.
"Show your support for Canada by avoiding Parliament Hill and its festivities," said an online statement by station Hot 89.9.
"There are hundreds of things to do besides attending this bizarre display of 'patriotism.' If you do attend, you'll be left feeling blue."
Conservative talk radio host Lowell Green at CFRA ridiculed the move.
"What, are we going to boycott the blue of the skies, too? There's red there, too (on the stage). There's as much red as there is blue."

Well, no, there wasn't.
Here's the photo now posted on Harper's website:



You can also see the stage in the CTV video clips -- it's all blue, blue, blue. Including the podium. The Toronto Star noticed too.
And now the Tories can all complain about how mean the media is, to criticize the Conservative party's campaign photo op the government's Canada Day celebration.

Philosophy for the 21st Century

Sorry for the lack of posts lately -- I've had another go-round with the flu -- but I've been getting a chuckle out of this.
So Jonah Goldberg has announced he has finished his magnum opus book -- and it will NOT be titled "Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton" but instead will be titled "Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods".
This news has provoked some great responses in the blogosphere.
First, here is TBogg with his suggestions for how Goldberg could compare Hegel to America's favorite philosopher today, Homer:

Hegel: "Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion”
Homer: "Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers."
~~~
Hegel: “What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it”
Homer: "When are people going to learn? Democracy doesn't work."
~~~
Hegel: “God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow”
Homer: "Flanders, it's no use praying. I already did the same thing, and we can't both win."
~~~
Hegel: “Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond.”
Homer: "It takes two to lie, Marge. One to lie and one to listen."
~~~
Hegel: “Poverty in itself does not make men into a rabble; a rabble is created only when there is joined to poverty a disposition of mind, an inner indignation against the rich, against society, against the government.”
Homer: "Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American Dream?"
~~~
Hegel: “To be free is nothing, to become free is everything.”
Homer: "How come the bear can crap in the woods and I can't?"
~~~
Hegel: “Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me.”
Homer: "Television. Teacher, mother, secret lover."
~~~
Hegel: "The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom... The destiny of the spiritual world, and... the final cause of the World at large, we claim to be Spirit's consciousness of its own freedom, and ipso facto, the reality of that freedom... This final aim is God's purpose with the world; but God is the absolutely perfect Being, and can, therefore, will nothing but himself."
Homer: "If the Bible has taught us anything—which it hasn't—it's that girls should stick to girl's sports like hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing and such and such."
~~~
Hegel: "America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself”
Homer: "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women."

Coming soon: Baruch Spinoza
Spinoza: “Desire is the very essence of man”
Homer: "I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."

Then there is Jon Swift which his suggestion for Goldberg -- LOLcats!

Like many conservatives I can't wait for Goldberg to publish his book, which he promises will be "a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care." But the publication date keeps getting pushed farther and farther into the future. The first sign of trouble was when Goldberg asked for help from readers of The Corner. "I'm working on a chapter of the book which requires me to read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer," Goldberg said. "There's simply no way I can read all of it, nor do I really need to. But if there are any real experts on Spencer out there -- regardless of ideological affiliation -- I'd love to ask you a few questions in case I'm missing something." The idea that he would try to read any Spenser at all before writing about him already struck me as biting off more than he could chew. But the addition of Hegel to the new subtitle raises more troubling questions. Hegel is even more tedious and difficult to understand than Spenser and I'm afraid that finding someone who can explain Hegel to Goldberg is going to take up yet more precious time. After all, Hegel himself reportedly said, "Only one man ever understood me, and even he didn't understand me."
I don't know how Goldberg can possibly meet his deadline in time for the book to come out on the latest publication date -- December 26 of this year -- so I have an idea that will save Goldberg a lot of time writing and also spare the reader from having to plow through too much prose once it's finished. Most of Goldberg's ideas could be expressed much more economically, not to mention entertainingly, by using LOLcats, an Internet meme where pictures of cats and other cute animals (or "varmints," as Mitt Romney likes to call them) are captioned with grammatically challenged prose.

Here are some of Swift's suggestions:







Finally, however, it is necessary to note just how "tempting" that Totalitarian Temptation can really be -- it has snared poor Jonah himself! Glenn Greenwald reports on a recent appearance by Goldberg on Tucker Carlson where they were both panting over Dick Cheney:

In just two minutes of chatty, giggly Cheney worship, the following tough-guy cliches flew from their mouths:
* Cheney "doesn't bother talking the talk, he just walks the walk";
* he's "a politician who doesn't look at the polls. . . another Harry Truman";
* "love to have a beer with the guy";
* "a smart, serious man in American life";
* "Have you ever seen Dick Cheney give a speech? I mean, the contempt for the audience is palpable" -- "I know, I -- see, I love that. He looks like he should be eating a sandwich while he's doing it, eating lunch over the sink . . I love that";
* "I can just see him yelling, hey you kids, get off my lawn. I love it."
As always, the pulsating need among the strain of individual represented by Tucker Carlson and Johan Goldberg to search endlessly for strong, powerful, masculine figures so that they can feel those attributes and pose as one who exudes them. . .

Greenwald continues on to describe the most disturbing conversation of this interview, then Goldberg praises Cheney's secrecy:

GOLDBERG: And you know, but I do think that what Cheney has learned after a lifetime in Washington as a power player, is that the person who holds the secrets has power. And he is using that for what I would say, or probably what he believes to be certainly good ends. A lot of people disagree on that, but he's trying to do best as he can and he sees holding onto power as a tool to do that.

That, of course, is the defining mentality of the Authoritarian Mind, captured in its purest essence by Jonah. Our Leaders are Good and want to protect us. Therefore, we must accept -- and even be grateful -- when they prevent us from knowing what they are doing. The less we know, the more powerful our Leaders are. And that is something we accept and celebrate, for our Leaders are Good and we trust that the more powerful they are, the better we all shall be.
No inferences or interpretations are required to describe Jonah's mentality this way. That is precisely -- expressly -- what he said. And though it is rarely expressed in such explicit form, this is the mindset which, more than anything else, has enabled the rampant lawbreaking and unprecedented secrecy of the last six years.
...
Our government leaders know that they can act in complete secrecy -- and can act illegally -- because such a sizable portion of our population, and our press corps, not only accepts, but eagerly desires, such behavior in our Leaders. The authoritarian mind, by its nature, craves powerful government officials, the more powerful the better, because -- as Jonah made clear -- they place blind faith in the Goodness of those Leaders and crave an all-powerful figure whom they can follow and who, in exchange, will protect them.
And anything which diminishes that power -- whether it be the limits of the law, checks from other branches or the media, or even the basic obligation to govern out in the open -- will be opposed by the authoritarian follower, for whom maximizing the strength and power of the Leader is always the overriding goal. Conversely, anything which limits the power of the Leader is to be opposed.

I guess having just written a book about totalitarianism, Goldberg found it pretty seductive -- its always easier, of course, to let someone else make big decisions for you, and then if they turn out to be wrong it isn't your fault either -- so now he is ready to worship totalitarianism too. Maybe his title should be "The Last Temptation of Jonah".

Signs of progress

Bears: The Globe and Mail reports that the last of Europe's dancing bears has finally been set free, courtesy of the Bardot Foundation.

How about those Riders? Austin wins in Roughriders head coaching debut. Go team go!

Taking a stand: Watch this -- MSNBC news anchor Mika Brzezinski not only refused to read the lead-off story in her newscast about Paris Hilton but she grabbed the pages so that Joe Scarborough and the other fellow couldn't read the story either, and then, having failed to set them on fire, she shredded them. Then she went on with the rest of the news. It was priceless. The two men seemed shocked -SHOCKED- that she actually was taking this stand. Apparently the clip is circulating around the world.

Great line of the day

From TBogg:

Shorter Recently Concluded Roberts/Alito Court Term:

Well, lessee... we screwed over the atheists, the coloreds, the tree-huggers, consumers, the pregnant sluts, and we were this close to killing a crazy guy. ..It's Miller time!

UPDATE: Remember the phrase "you can never be too rich or too thin"? Well, in our society, you can never have too many rights. The Canadian supreme court knows this. They know that any decision they make which erodes people's rights would be like a crack in a dam, where a trickle would become a torrent -- because there is still a pent-up pressure of racism and sexism, particularly in people of my age, which could explode if it is let loose. The Roberts Court thinks it is rolling American society back to a mythical Conservative Golden Age of the '50s, but it has actually unleashed a racist, sexist beast. This won't be a very happy time for America.