Yeah sure, let's gradually limit our options until all we have left is nuclear war. The deterrent will always work, and if it doesn't, President Bristol will make the wise choice.
Anyway, Xe can handle the gruntwork more efficiently, IYKWIM
Dear bob, put on your clownshoes.
"Under the sea there'll be no frustrations. Just friendly crustaceans. Under the sea."
That's your solution to everything, Muammar, go under the sea. Well it's NOT going to happen!
Dear Turgid, pick up your own obnoxious insults.
yoyo I quite like that one, and believe I'll continue appropriating it. Thanks!
Dear yoyo, perform the Man with the Flying Trapeze.
Yeah, Gates seems okay. Some have expressed regret that he's a Republican if only because that makes it seem as though only Republicans deserve to be listened to regarding defense, but whatever. We should take what we can get. Has Gates been accused of being a seekrit liberal yet?
Gates, like Obama, is a conservative in the tradition of George HW Bush. That is to say, he's a pig, but fundamentally pro-American (which isn't entirely bad).
Maybe there is some other criticism I'm missing.
Didn't Obama put a lot of troops into Afghanistan? Isn't the defense secretary normally supposed to support administration policy?
Read the quoted graf again JBS.
If there's a valid criticism of Gates's statement it might be along the lines of: are we looking to the Princess Bride for strategy? Or maybe: saying out loud that a course of action invites reactions by others to which the only good response is the one you just made impossible.
Gates, like Obama, is a conservative in the tradition of George HW Bush.
I guess I can't use my usual expression here
Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency ...Wiki
Like GHWB. There is actually a lot to say about the New Model Army World Control Mechanisms Gates and Obama are trying to build. Think Central America in the 80s.
Bradley Manning ...today
Because of his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran-Contra Affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. In 1984, as deputy director of CIA, Gates advocated that the U.S. initiate a bombing campaign against Nicaragua and that the U.S. do everything in its power short of direct military invasion of the country to remove the Sandinista government.CIA thugs like Gates don't want the military to get their fingers into pies. I am not sure why. It isn't because they don't like to kill people.
They're fucking torturers, people. Gates is scum. Have you no conscience, parsi, is Gates "ok" as long as it is only lil brown people he and Obama torture and kill?
Yes, I think the United States may be approaching a time when we can control it all without large standing armies or invasions. It will be horrible, probably worse than war.
El Salvador manages pretty well. Egypt was doing fine with the torture and political repression, with American assistance and training.
Science marches on. All over us.
are we looking to the Princess Bride for strategy?
Iocaine? I'd bet my life on it.
Reading the headlines on all the budget cuts the administration seems to be agreeing to and remembering all the other things they've negotiated away, I'm thinking all those comparisons to Lincoln were just slightly off. He's more like McLellan, and there's no Lincoln out there.
It will be horrible, probably worse than war.
bob, you have never been within a thousand miles of a war zone and therefore has no idea what he is talking about. Go away and read "Dulce Et Decorum Est", bob.
Didn't Obama put a lot of troops into Afghanistan?
No, that happened in 2001, when your guy was in charge.
17:Neither have most of the people who abhor war, either. Fuck your personal experience privilege. (I read the complete Owen every Armistice Day)
Bradley Manning would probably prefer to back at the front now, whatever mind he has left. And according to the lawyers at FDL, it appears the new death penalty charges cite Wikileaks as an enemy of the US.
None of us can imagine Gates BNW without war. Since he was a chief spook (Casey didn't run operations) during Central America, Lebanon, and the Iran-Iraq War among others, we can get an idea of how he would protect American troops. Gates never seemed to worry about Iranian children or the rape victims of the Contras.
I don't like this sudden death from the electronic skies version of peace in our times. USA, the fucking Predator State.
are we looking to the Princess Bride for strategy?
As in "it's easier to fight lots of guys at once than just one at a time"?
(I read the complete Owen every Armistice Day)
Good. Hasn't stopped you saying silly things about war though, I notice. Like hearing a US defence secretary say that large wars abroad are to be avoided, and concluding that this is a bad thing because peace would be worse.
You seem to think that violence has some sort of redeeming purity to it, bob, and that puts you in very bad company. Never mind Owen, maybe you should stop reading Brooke and D'Annunzio.
You have no idea who I am
War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
"The communal march against an enemy generates a warm, unfamiliar bond with our neighbors, our community, our nation, wiping out unsettling undercurrents of alienation and dislocation," writes Chris Hedges
Both Hedges and Tony Judt took a look around the aughts and said "Wait a minute, this is what Post-war will really look like? This was not the plan." Opposition to war was the force that gave the Left meaning.
"War is the Health of the State" ...I think most people on this blog think a healthy state is not such a bad thing. As war declined after the 60s, so has the protective state. Nasser's Egypt vs Mubarek's is the kind of thing I think about. LBJ's America vs Obama's.
The simple minds think this stuff is simple.
"When an instinctual trend undergoes repression, its libidinal elements are turned into symptoms, and its aggressive components into a sense of guilt" ...Freud, CaID
Excuse me, I have 700 pages to read on Globalization, and then Bradley's book on Egypt. And Hobsbawms histories, especially the first and last volumes. Too much
Hey bob, I'm down here in Texas right now. Holy fuck are these people fucking rubes.
20: It's difficult to classify the 00s as "post-war", what with fighting two open ones and several more covert ones.
The place to start thinking is
Robert Gates is a fucking monster
He is not on the side of any decent person
His goals and purposes are the opposite of ours
If he thinks he doesn't need ground wars, it is because he thinks he can achieve his goals and purposes without ground wars
IOW, he thinks he has new sufficient means to achieve his goals
This is not good news, because Gates is not stupid, and is a monster
21:No shit. But you probably know more about Texas than I do, I pay no attention to it. I'm global, I embrace the multitude.
Bob, I'm pretty sure that you are a monster also. Monstrous, at least. So where does that leave me? Stuck between a delusional keyboard revolutionary monster and the former director of the CIA. Sucks to be me, I guess.
||
They've finally found a voter fraud case in Indiana to justify their identification requirement law. Scalia was right!
|>
23 is an excellent example of how the extreme right wing thinks - it's not "x must be a good man because I know his actions are good", it's "the actions of x must be good because I know x is a good man". Should we endeavour to reduce our use of fossil fuels? No, because liberals want us to, and they are evil, therefore everything they want must be evil. Shall we torture? Yes, because our leaders want to, and they are good.
It's basically the complete abdication of all moral judgement and its replacement by simplistic tribalism. It's the ad hominem fallacy extrapolated to form the basis for an entire moral system.
And it always, as in bob's case, goes hand in hand with an unhealthy love of violence, because if your moral code is based on judging the goodness of actions, then the way to increase the general good is to encourage good actions and discourage bad ones. But if your moral code starts off by drawing up lists of wholly good and wholly bad persons, then the only thing you can do to increase the general good is to kill the bad people.
17
No, that happened in 2001, when your guy was in charge.
CBS news thinks otherwise .
26
They've finally found a voter fraud case in Indiana to justify their identification requirement law. Scalia was right!
Stevens too :
But, as Justice Stevens noted, there have been flagrant examples of voter fraud in American history. He cited the 1868 New York City elections, in which a local tough who worked for Tammany's William (Boss) Tweed explained why he liked voters to have whiskers: "When you've voted 'em with their whiskers on, you take 'em to a barber and scrape off the chin fringe. Then you vote 'em again with the side lilacs and a mustache. Then to a barber again, off comes the sides and you vote 'em a third time with the mustache. If that ain't enough and the box can stand a few more ballots, clean off the mustache and vote 'em plain face."
28: start of your guy's term: zero US troops in Afghanistan. End of it: over thirty thousand US troops in Afghanistan.
Try harder.
Shorter Shearer: look! A jackalope!
Or maybe: it's OK because Democrats do it too, so they're even worse.
30
28: start of your guy's term: zero US troops in Afghanistan. End of it: over thirty thousand US troops in Afghanistan.
Currently 68000 and rising. It's Obama's war now.
23:Quite the sophist, aren't you. You have probably managed to convince the crowd that the guy who armed the contras and told Saddam which way to send the mustard gas deserves to be a blank slate, get another chance. You want to eliminate history as a means of prediction, by looking only at present actions we may disregard Gates' character and intentions. They don't matter.
You are right, I didn't give Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt when I voted for Gore. I am a monster. I prejudged them, made assumptions and wild guesses when predicting how they would govern.
We don't make policy. We will never get to decide where the armies go or don't go. Never. I can't believe the Wisconsin Unions tried to help Walker balance the budget. They gave him power.
We do politics. That means we try to judge people's characters, predict their future behavior, and put them in power or keep them out based on our assessments and interests.
Aww...fuck it. For 25 years I let you sane process liberals try to run things or gain power and I got neo-liberalism and the Bush/Obama torture wars. You have fucking failed, and I am not the crazy one.
I ain't killed or tortured anybody in like decades. How bout Gates or Obama? You are refuted by your fucking alliances.
31
Or maybe: it's OK because Democrats do it too, so they're even worse
My question remains, how is Gates' advice to stay out of land wars in Asia consistent with current US policy?
31: It's consistent because he's saying that we shouldn't get into any more land wars in Asia. The ones we are already in are grandfathered.
Does this make any actual sense as policy? No, I don't think so.
My question remains, how is Gates' advice to stay out of land wars in Asia consistent with current US policy?
Because current US policy is to get out of any land wars in Asia that the US is currently in. Iraq - all out by the end of 2011. Afghanistan - withdrawal to start in mid 2011, handover to ANSF in 2014.
33: 23:Quite the sophist, aren't you.
The fact that both 33 and 23 are by bob reinforces the impression of a man having a feverish argument with the voices inside his head.
The fact that both 33 and 23 are by bob reinforces the impression of a man having a feverish argument with the voices inside his head.
You say that like you think it's a bad thing.
Bob was really gung ho about the Iraq war back in 2002, wasn't he? Ajay's right, the one constant with Bob is his enthusiasm for violence.
27 is dead on, and 33 is just more of the same. "I am not the crazy one" is a nice touch, though.
39: He's been commenting that long? I had no idea.
No. Nor did Unfogged exist in 2002.
The fundamental asymmetry here, as noted first by John Q AFAIAA is that there are dozens and dozens of ways to not have a war, and only a few ways to have one. It should be expected, then, that anti-war positions are held by lots of people who have little else in common.
Or to use an analogy, the widespread popularity of being anti war is like the widespread popularity of buttered toast (because it's really good!) rather than being like the widespread popularity of "Two and A Half Men" (because it appeals to hollow-eyed monsters!)
Tacitus.org existed, though. Good times.
Whoa. Tacitus.org is now a porn site. Sorry, IT Department!
45: And people say the internet hasn't improved!
Tacitus.org was that funny fellow who thought Clement Attlee was the devil incarnate, wasn't it? I can see how that sort of thing would have limited durability.
|| David Koch is across the street today. I can feel the evil gravitational waves! |>
49: I've heard it was more of a particle.
48: I'm beginning to suspect bob doesn't give very good political advice.
51: If that were true, he'd have an op-ed column.
48: so bob's a fairly standard paleocon trolling us for lulz? Shocker.
48,51:There still remain, and always will remain, idiots who think Bush's war was preventable. It wasn't, thanks mostly to process liberals.
Given there was going to be a war, how did your resistance work out for the Iraqis?
2) Myself:"The invasion can have a decent outcome for all if executed properly, but Good Lord, it must be executed properly with adequate resources allocated and a public committment made."
I stand by this. Shinseki x 2. x10. + George Marshall. The only possible better outcome for Iraqis was with more troops.
You pure ones can absolve yourself of guilt, in your pointless circle jerks. You put no pressure on anyone ever. Democrats laughed at you in 2006, 2008, and are laughing at you still.
The great thing about "more troops" is that no matter how many troops there were, there could always have been more, so it's unfalsifiable.
And I am afraid that you don't just need to spin "more troops", you need to find an acceptable gloss on "a more brutal occupation" as well. You appear to be tripping over yourself a bit, which is often a good occasion to consider your choice of footwear.
55: You could just admit you were wrong, and you've changed your mind.
And it was a fucking war crime not to control the militias, which killed thousands, and was only possible with more troops.
War crimes are still being committed in Afghanistan.
I don't understand the point of people like you.
I knew what was coming all along. Death from the air for Iraqis and Afghans, in long protected wars. Predator America was visible in the Clinton administration.
We occupied Germany and Japan with troops, and Marshalls civil service troops, and the killing stopped.
You do understand that Predator America will never stop killing, will never stop taking out boys gathering firewood?
Yes, this is worse in many many ways than adequate ground forces occupying territory.
Bob is winning. Bob is bi-winning. He wins here, he wins there. Bob is on a run that makes Ogged, Unf, Apo... all of you look like droopy-eyed armless children. Bob is on a drug called Bob McManus. It's not available. If you try it once, your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body. Bob is not a soft target. There's a new sherriff in town, and he has an army of assassins.
57:I wasn't wrong.
I didn't hide behind opposition to war and watch the Iraqis die for my self-righteousness.
And yeah, I want a draft and a large standing army, since no wars is not an option.
Death from the air is more evil.
Correction
Death from the air is fucking criminal, and that is what you people are signing onto.
Bob has tiger's blood, man. His brain fires in a way that's maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm.
59,62: Are you saying bob is a poor hooker's Charlie Sheen?
63: Not at all. I'm saying Charlie Sheen is a poor hooker's Bob McManus.
And my first choice, if you read the fucking global archives, was always to bring the war home.
I wanted Bush taken out the day after 9/11, and said so, in my avoiding indictment type language.
Since around 1975 I have had to listen to the keyboard fucking peace party, as they avoided responsibility for war after war and death after death, and basked in their self-righteousness.
And then came Bush.
You people loved it. Cause all you got is your victim status.
64: Oh! I guess I owe both you and bob an apology!
66: Charlie Sheen, on the other hand, can go fuck himself.
67: he can! Easily! With his mind.
65: Since around 1975 I have had to listen to the keyboard fucking peace party, as they avoided responsibility for war after war and death after death, and basked in their self-righteousness.
So, avoiding responsibility for war is bad and self-righteous.
Bob, which wars are you responsible for?
Think people.
Bush was going to have his war.
With a much smaller army and a refusal to engage in land wars, what would Bush and Cheney done to Iraq in 2002?
Do you even give a shit?
69:Bob, which wars are you responsible for?
Apparently, all of them.
I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.
You want to end the wars? Revolution, the war to end all wars.
in your pointless circle jerks. You put no pressure on anyone ever.
Bob's strategy, on the other hand, was wildly efficacious.
Apparently, all of them.
WE BEG TO DIFFER.
72: Well, he keeps himself amused, it seems.
What else would you expect to accomplish from commenting on a blog?
You want to end the wars? Revolution, the war to end all wars.
It worked in Cambodia, I have to admit.
13:Or go back to comment 13
Your buddy Gates wanted to carpetbomb Nicaragua.
This is Nixon's lesson. As long as you hold down American casualties, the liberals and Democrats will let you kill as many people overseas as you want to.
Clinton proved it.
Most of the time, and this includes naps, Bob McManus is an F-18, bro. And he will destroy you. He took out George Dubya in a strafing run in his underwear before his first cup of coffee. He closed his eyes and made Bush's war into Shinseki's war with the power of his mind. He embarrassed you process liberals in front of your children and the world by transforming American policy at a rate your unevolved minds cannot process. Last I checked, Bob spent the last four decades effortlessly and magically transforming his thoughts into pure action. And you're hanging out with your reasonable friends and your well-educated wives and looking at your process liberal lives and then looking at him and saying, 'I can't process it.' You never will! Stop trying. Just enjoy the ride.
The Post-WWII Conventions demand you occupy countries with adequate troop levels precisely to criminalize this New American Way of War.
Gates is not committing to peace, he is promising war crimes.
And the liberals cheer.
Evil fucking country, damn right I want to burn it down.
Man, I tried watching one of the Charlie Sheen interviews yesterday and I just couldn't hack it. As text on the internet, his words are amusing hyperbole. As words coming out of his mouth while he tries to keep it together, it's like watching the saddest, most awkwardly defensive failed intervention ever. It's pathetic and horrifying rather than amusing.
This is similar to but different from the reason I don't read bob's comments.
79: Yeah, I'm with you on the actual Sheen interviews. His meltdown is pretty sad. (Interestingly, he did indeed test negative for drug use, apparently. Which means the drug he's on really is Charlie Sheen. Poor bastard.)
81: Wait, does this mean that we are responsible for the war? Great, then we're not self-righteous!
I'm responsible for the War on Drugs. Sorry about that, guys.
Via slacktivist, here's a possible explanation/defense for bob.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC30/Berry.htm
Bob, stripped of its clownshoe rhetoric, your own position isn't actually any different in its moral status. By your own premises, if Bush wasn't susceptible to pressure to not have a war, then he also wasn't susceptible to pressure to have a much bigger (and therefore more politically costly) war. So the positions of you and the pacifist liberals you apparently despise are exactly symmetrical - your own demands for more troops and for a draft were just as motivated by political vanity and just as obviously ineffectual.
With the possible difference (which does not count in your favour) that your political view was very easy to mistake for de facto support for the war that actually did take place.
(for what it's worth, those with long memories and/or google will recall that my own position before the war was "no war unless done properly", which someone in more of a mood than me to extend vast amounts of unreciprocated intellectual charity might say was not a million miles away from Bob's view. But a) I was careful to phrase it in a way that couldn't have been mistaken for support for Bush's war, b) I took it back and admitted I was wrong when it later became obvious that the project was so intrinsically fucked that it could never have worked, c) although this is for others to judge, I don't think I was quite so studiedly ACAI.
Liberals are certainly responsible for War.
I love the smell of marijuana in the morning. It smells like--
What was I talking about? Jesusfuck, I'm hungry.
Jesusfucksaw, this I know
For the Mineshaft told me so
Little ones just can't go wrong
When power tools meet latex dongs.
Jesusfucksaw, and that little boy's smile
Jesusfucksaw, with that slow southern style
A new religion that'll bring you to your knees
Jesusfucksaw, if you please
You are my fucksaw,
My only fucksaw.
You make me happy,
You make me spray.
You'll never-- oh dear,
Are we in trouble?
Please don't take my fucksaw away.
Dammit, I was going to do "Jimmy crack corn", but now that you've used 'spray', I can't.
Look away, look away, look away, fucksawshow.
To the OP, I like this bit from Ezra Klein today:
I can suspend my disbelief for men who unsheathe adamantium claws through their knuckles and aliens who spit acid and Tina Fey as a frumpy mess with no sex appeal (well, I have trouble with that last one). But I can't believe in guys in suits with the ability to plan things.
That's the main thing I've learned working as a reporter and political observer in Washington: No one can carry out complicated plans. All parties and groups are fractious and bumbling. But everyone always thinks everyone else is efficiently and ruthlessly carrying out complicated plans. ...
Somewhat overstated but, I suspect, more correct than not.
I'd say it's more correct than not, but that the word "complicated" is key. No one's playing eleven-dimensional chess, sure. But a plan like "Hey, let's lie and say we're certain Iraq has WMDs, and use it as an excuse to invade" isn't actually all that complicated.
That you can't successfully carry out a baroque plan depending on all sorts of random factors doesn't mean people can't plan and do all sorts of bad stuff.
The thing about that xkcd is, most two-syllable English words are trochees. Are there no one-syllable internet obsession? Cats, call your cute little office.
97: Emerson doesn't come around anymore, so I'll say it for him: Never attribute to incompetence what you can more easily attribute to malice.
When Klein attributes things to incompetence, it shows he's been inside the Beltway too long.
Is 97 a reference to The Adjustment Bureau? Manohla Dargis actually liked it, which surprised me.
That you can't successfully carry out a baroque plan depending on all sorts of random factors doesn't mean people can't plan and do all sorts of bad stuff.
Yes, of course. I thought about posting a variety of caveats -- as RH-C points out, that Emerson's theory that a lot happens just because people in power make it known that they want [bad things] to happen doesn't require planning either.
Is 97 a reference to The Adjustment Bureau?
yes
When Klein attributes things to incompetence, it shows he's been inside the Beltway too long.
Possible, but I think, in this case, he's just making a more limited point than I suggest with that quotation.
that Emerson's theory that a lot happens just because people in power make it known that they want [bad things] to happen doesn't require planning either.
It doesn't require planning to wonder aloud who might rid one of that meddlesome priest, but it probably does require planning to rid the king of that meddlesome priest.
102.1: The Turbulent Priest theory of management.
103: Goddamn you, nosflow. But you got the adjective wrong.
"Meddlesome" is reasonably well attested and it's not as if anyone knows what he actually said.
Standards are slipping here if nobody can come back with the Middle French word for "meddlesome" in the Angevin dialect.
it's not as if anyone knows what he actually said.
The King's exact words are in doubt and several versions have been reported. The most commonly quoted, as handed down by "oral tradition", is "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?",[6] but according to historian Simon Schama this is incorrect: he accepts the account of the contemporary biographer Edward Grim, writing in Latin, who gives us "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?"
So, what, is your contention then that Simon Schama (of all people!) knows what he said?
And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling priests!
So, what, is your contention then that Simon Schama (of all people!) knows what he said?
That (a) you are correct that nobody knows exactly what he said, (b) some people have attempted to be more precise than the oral tradition and that version is (c) amusing and (d) doesn't contain either "meddlesome" or "turbulent"
Hey, that's funny! The book I've got going right now is (so far as I can tell) Lee Clarke's modified dissertation on why complex plans are all fantasies that are written for their symbolic power (looking as if the situation is controllable by the planners who should therefore keep being in charge) and not for their ostensible content.
It is taking me a while, but promises to become part of the way I explain the world. (After _Disciplined Mind_, _For the Common Good_, which was the economics text that Emerson recommended to me, _The Authoritarians_ and maybe some other book.)
"What Miserable Drones":
(a) title of a negative review of an album of depressive black metal
(b) title of an album of Thao Nguyen-ish sunny pop music
"What, what, miserable Drones!"
Opening line of dialog from a little known Wodehouse story about a gentlemen's club devastated by fire.
An exposé on the honey production industry, obviously.
a gentlemen's club devastated by fire the morning after boat race night.
"What miserable drones
Born to soon; we modern liberals can build one that'd take that fucker out and everyone in his village.
That's the main thing I've learned working as a reporter and political observer in Washington: No one can carry out complicated plans.
This seems to me to be pretty good evidence that his talents lie elsewhere than being a reporter and political observer in Washington then. Like the four minute mile and sustained outperformance of the S&P500, this falls into the category "just because you can't do it and don't know anyone who can, doesn't mean it can't be done".
"Meddling" s/b "middling"
And "middling" s/b "diddling"
(Interestingly, he did indeed test negative for drug use, apparently.
I wonder how controlled these tests were because he's acting exactly like a dude on a metric shitload of coke.
120: I know, right? I get a contact high just from reading his quotes.
re: 118
Indeed. I've been meeting* with architects recently, overseeing a major job [tens of millions, but not 'chunnel' scale], and it's scary. Every last thing planned in minute detail, and annotated records of fucking every word every single person said in every meeting going back to day dot on the project. Little things like all of the documents they say they'll circulate actually being circulated at the time they say they will, and comments and revisions being incorporated and then recirculated exactly when they ought to. It's little stuff, but it's so rarely done it's almost anthropological watching it happen.
* i.e. sitting silently in a room, listening while more important people talk
120, 121: I dunno -- drugs could do it, sure, but from the 5 or so minutes of some tv interview I saw, he seemed extremely manic (in a clinical sense) or whatever-else-gives-you-delusions-of-grandeur-expressed-in-a-manic-fashion. Mental illness of some kind, in other words.
(/armchair psychiatry)
I actually haven't been following much of the Charlie Sheen saga; just heard about the "goddesses" a few days ago in the context of the tv interview. I must say I've continually marveled that the guy had been paid $1.2 million (? or so) per episode of Two and a Half Men. Seriously? It's a sit-com, and not a very good one! Like, what's that about?
Previous comment just as an example of how a perfectly common place business can manage complicated shit if people care about it and money is involved.
I'd still bet high on something, not that I rule out being high for long enough to permanently discombobulate much of the frontal lobe.
Sorry if I stepped over your comment, ttaM. I take it Klein was talking specifically about elected politicians.
124.3: It's baffling, I know, but apparently that sitcom was a license to print money. It's like, there are all these people out there buying Yanni albums, but who are they? Your guess is as good as mine.
126: Brain damage from drug use would be my guess.
As a body who does a lot of the same things in 123.*, and witnesses a lot of the same things in the body, and yet still agrees with Ezra's observation, I begin to wonder if this is one of those "divided by a common language" things.
129 cont'd
What I mean is that you all practice a sort of representative democracy thing, but I think you don't quite grok the level of fuckeduppedness in the US government.
128.2: Or smacking his head on the floor because of passing out.
Brain damage from drug use would be my guess.
I'd go with that. As someone said upthread, watching him is sad and grim; guy seems damaged altogether.
I'm content to remain baffled about how it can be that that sitcom is a license to print money.
md20/400, we should grab lunch sometime!
(bring your comment resolution matrix!)
TJ, we should. Next week is lousy (or good, as I am out of the building for most of it), but later in the month should work.
I'm so far in the weeds I'm praying for Roundup. My particular load ought to lighten towards end of the month. Then though. Email me at linked address?
I finally read Disciplined Minds. It was ok. It was very good on the disciplines and professionalism he used in examples, but I don't think it's as widely applicable outside of the scientific/engineering disciplines he talks about as he claims.
That is, I'm sure there's similarly insidious stuff involved in arts and humanities professionalization, and in credentialing (i.e. masters-based) professionalization, but having experience with educational programs in both of the latter categories, it doesn't quite match what he says goes on in physics.
I don't know how you'd be able to tell stimulant abuse from mania, without something like a drug test or detailed history
123, 125: That's impressive. I wonder if it's also related to accountability and a sense that people are going to need to go back and check on the records in the long-term. If it's building planning, the records are going to need to last the life of the building and plus some.
I bet lots of poor government planning, especially when it's part of political (in the electoral sense) decisions, has an attitude of "we'll be gone by then, anyway so it'll be someone else's problem if it becomes a problem." Which is no defense, of course, and no reason to think it just can't be done right.
140.2: I don't think that's quite it. Elected officials don't assume they'll be out of office. I think it's that planning is generally focused beyond the immediate electoral short term, and it's hard to make politicians look beyond the next election.
I see your point on planning simply for the electoral short term.
But on the long-term, I wonder what difference term limits make in this? I was thinking of planning for things where you need to think in terms of 20-30+ years down the line. Do a lot of politicians think they'll still be in office for that long? I suppose many of the ones who can stay on indefinitely do imagine they'll stick around that long, and of course Congress doesn't have limits. But stuff linked to the President is on a shorter cycle.
Apropos of 130's I think you don't quite grok the level of fuckeduppedness in the US government:
A good post -- chiefly links to the words of others -- by Doug at Balloon Juice on the dysfunctional nature of beltway policy-making.
It was this quotation that reminded me of the sentiments in this thread:
The Democrats aren't blameless, but they don't like to waste time. After a few days, it gets really boring trying to reason with Republicans. Then you just figure out what you can muscle through and you go for that.
This may not be what TJ and md are talking about; I don't know what they do for a living. They may feel that the fuckeduppedness of US government isn't just a function of the Republican party's recalcitrance.
it doesn't quite match what he says goes on in physics.
Now I'm curious.
After reading the book, I failed to close a tag in a comment.
watching him is sad
Why? He's the poster boy for no consequences. For decades he's snorted mountains of coke and banged every pornstar he could get his hands on and all the while has raked in money from a number of movies and two hit television series. Offhand I don't recall any jail or hospital time. Lesser transgressions got Tiger chased with golf club and a financial beating in divorce plus lost endorsements.
Hmm. Poking around the website, it looks like one of the claims is that physics graduate students become more conservative and less politically and socially conscious over time? I wonder if he has in mind work that's more directly applicable to industry or work with direct political consequences. My experience was nothing like that; my own trajectory has been to pretty much always grow more liberal over time, and I don't think grad school had much of a direct effect one way or another.
Today I was really pleased to have a discussion, as part of an interview, with someone who was telling me about his experience teaching a course on physics with policy implications, like energy sources and global warming. He didn't bother to feel out my opinions first, just talked as if we obviously would agree that climate change is an important problem. Then we had a bit of an argument about how to communicate this problem; he said it's dishonest to make strong statements like "we know the observed warming is due to human activity", but rather must make intellectually honest claims like "with high confidence, the data that we have strongly suggest that the earth is warming and that this is most plausibly due to human activity, and we are unaware of other possible explanations". We both agreed that this kind of caveat-loaded message is exactly what allows the press to get more bold claims from denialists and muddle the issue, but he took the stance that this is not a problem scientists should solve by making more forceful statements. I'm skeptical that this form of "intellectual honesty" in talking to non-experts is a more important value than getting the main point across.
Anyway, maybe I should read the book. Certainly I've been pissed off by some of my local colleagues who don't seem to have any interest in social and political issues and like to mock my environmental concerns. I doubt grad school shaped them much, though; I suspect they were always like that.
tiger combined banging people with sanctimonious role-model shit. And i'm not sure how 'real' alimony money is for him
"Watch it. You got your sanctimonious role model shit in my boundless sexual compulsion."
"No, you put your boundless sexual compulsion in my sanctimonious role model shit."
tiger combined banging people with sanctimonious role-model shit
Is the sanctimonious part actually true?
I don't follow golf but I don't think I've ever heard Tiger say anything that wasn't about golf except for occasionally mentioning his parents. Did he have a side gig as a Promise Keeper or something?
Well i just remember his image being clean cut, hard working, all about family, etc. Not strong hypocrisy, but he cashed in on a manufactured image playing by judgemental celebrity standards so its not too sad he got bit by them too.
149
... I'm skeptical that this form of "intellectual honesty" in talking to non-experts is a more important value than getting the main point across.
I totally agree with your colleague. Once you start lying for political reasons it's hard to stop. Politics (especially partisan politics) is corrupting and antithetical to scientific values. Scientists would do well to stay far away.
"What Miserable Drones":
(a) title of a negative review of an album of depressive black metal
(b) title of an album of Thao Nguyen-ish sunny pop music
Or the next album by this lot. (Good song, btw.)
148: Why? He's the poster boy for no consequences.
Is he? He's largely estranged from most of his family, he's lost his kids and a major paying gig, his entire life now consists (and by most reports has consisted for a long time) of money-grubbing sycophants and hookers and people watching him out of morbid fascination. I suspect his dad called in a lot of favors in the industry to keep him afloat even this long, and that he knows it.
I'll grant it was refreshing to see someone go on a celebrity interview show and refuse to play the bullshit "I'm very sorry and am now seeking treatment for 'sex addiction'" game, and it certainly resulted in one of the most quotable anythings ever to happen, but I don't think Sir Charles is as oblivious to the huge shitstorm he's in as he's trying to seem.
I liked Craig Ferguson's take on Sheen.
158: reminds me of his take on Britney Spears.
The magnitude of the downfall in Tiger's image was massively and incontestably aided and abetted by racial issues and racism.
The general thesis in Disciplined Minds (maybe broadened a bit beyond his scope) is the central fact in the economic and intellectual lives of a large majority of "professionals" and is an institutionally necessary component of the way the modern world works. Sublimation of the individual (publicly at least*) to organizational goals is certainly not a new thought, but it is a process which proceeds apace, and which developments like Citizens United potentially ratchet up to a new level.
*For instance, why even someone as professionally inconsequential as I will not participate in a forum like this under my real name. (... Well that and getting busted for how much I fuck off at work.)
149, 155: I do agree that when a scientific topic becomes "politically hot" the actual quality of science (and scientific discourse of course) sadly tends to degrade somewhat and it becomes extremely challenging for practitioners and institutions.
155
I totally agree with your colleague. Once you start lying for political reasons it's hard to stop. Politics (especially partisan politics) is corrupting and antithetical to scientific values. Scientists would do well to stay far away.
I wasn't saying to lie, I was saying to drop some of the nuance. If you're very confident that something is true, just say so, don't attach all the qualifiers and caveats that you might attach when presenting your conclusion to colleagues. Given that there are many people who are lying to the press, and doing so quite forcefully, I don't see any other way to get the point across. (I put most of the blame on journalists, of course....)
163
I wasn't saying to lie, I was saying to drop some of the nuance. If you're very confident that something is true, just say so, don't attach all the qualifiers and caveats that you might attach when presenting your conclusion to colleagues. ...
Replace "lying" with "fudging the truth" if you prefer, you are still on a slippery slope. And lots of scientists are unduly enamored with their own theories so your standard leads to scientists confidently making all sorts of reckless statements to the press. For example attributing any unusual weather event to global warming. Pretty soon the public realizes there is a lot BS in the air and tunes you all out.
... Given that there are many people who are lying to the press, and doing so quite forcefully, I don't see any other way to get the point across. ...
Most of these people are professional liars. It is generally a mistake to try to beat someone at their own game.
attributing any unusual weather event to global warming
In my experience, that's a tactic largely deployed by the climate-change-denial crowd. "OMG, it snowed. GLOBAL WARMING, MY FOOT!"
And lots of scientists are unduly enamored with their own theories so your standard leads to scientists confidently making all sorts of reckless statements to the press. For example attributing any unusual weather event to global warming.
Citation or it didn't happen. I'm sure you will find a lot of scientists saying, after (for example) a hurricane, "extreme weather events like this will become more common as a result of climate change" but I don't think you will find any saying "this specific extreme weather event was caused by climate change". As Stanley says, that's more the other side of the debate.
I think you're not telling the truth, Shearer, and, unlike some of your cohorts, you're not very good at it.
163: I put most of the blame on journalists
In the larger scheme I put them second after those who wish to bend the science to their economic or political agenda. But yes, pretty bad. Journalism done right shares some common characteristics with science* ** and journalists should avail themselves of more of the tools of the scientific method in general (test the hypothesis that this thing true, is there a reason this person might be lying to me? etc.), but most certainly they should do so when reporting on science itself.
*Discovery and communication of truths about the world, emphasis on the former in science and the latter in journalism, plus generally different types of "truths".
**I see no reason that the "natural" place for the practice of journalism is via for-profit entities. (and indeed very little journalism is committed on such organizations).
166: And lots of scientists are unduly enamored with their own theories
Gee James,it's almost like a whole method hadn't evolved in the practice of science over the centuries to specifically deal with the cupidity of individual humans. There's some specific name for it ...
167: Clinton's Al Jazeera comments were really pretty extraordinary for a US Secretary of State. Of course she's very familiar with the pointy end of the US journalism stick as practiced even by the WaPo and the Times, much less the fulminating idiots, screamers and liars on TV.
Well, James, I'm at least with you on the point that "beating them at their own game" -- turning scientists into propagandists -- is a bad idea. But my interlocutor's idea was something like "teach non-science undergrads enough about how science works that they appreciate why the caveats are there and which side to take seriously", and I think that's not nearly good enough.
I don't think there's any fudging in saying you "know [scientific statement]" when you mean "the data suggests with high confidence levels based on our current knowledge." That's what knowing always means in science. This isn't lying, it's just using non-jargon-y ways of saying the truth in order to communicate clearly.
168
Gee James,it's almost like a whole method hadn't evolved in the practice of science over the centuries to specifically deal with the cupidity of individual humans. There's some specific name for it ...
And this method requires, among other things, that scientists give appropriate caveats when discussing what we "know".
171
I don't think there's any fudging in saying you "know [scientific statement]" when you mean "the data suggests with high confidence levels based on our current knowledge." That's what knowing always means in science. This isn't lying, it's just using non-jargon-y ways of saying the truth in order to communicate clearly.
Sure it's fudging and it has no clear stopping point. How confident do you have to be to say you "know" something?
169: Clinton is in hot water for saying that Al Jazeera has had some good reporting recently? Shouldn't that be a comment on the order of "Gee these new smartphones are really versatile!"
Related: will the quality of coverage stay high if the Qatar royal family is threatened by unrest?
166
Citation or it didn't happen. I'm sure you will find a lot of scientists saying, after (for example) a hurricane, "extreme weather events like this will become more common as a result of climate change" but I don't think you will find any saying "this specific extreme weather event was caused by climate change". As Stanley says, that's more the other side of the debate.
Replace "leads" to "will lead" to be clearer. In any case the idea that climate change means more hurricanes is not in fact well supported.
170
... But my interlocutor's idea was something like "teach non-science undergrads enough about how science works that they appreciate why the caveats are there and which side to take seriously", and I think that's not nearly good enough.
Not good enough for what? The political arguments about climate change have very little to do with the science.
173: So you never use the word "know"?
173:
Where is the borderline for "know"? Do you know that the sun will rise tomorrow? Are you fudging when you say that it will?
Ah, the sweet smell of epistemology ...
177 178
I generally try to use "believe" instead of "know". I may sometimes use "know" in the sense "have provisionally accepted as true in this context".
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Then why bring up this particular use of the word "know" for disapproval. Science journalism is full of quotes saying "we used to think x, we but now we know y." It's not misleading to use a word in its normal usage just because you have a weird hangup about using it.
Does anybody really know what time it is?
In the biblical sense? Awww, yeah.
I think using "believe" is much more misleading than "know," because to most people "believe" suggests something subjective and lacking in rational basis.
179: Indeed... Though part of my point is that people popularizing science should be taking their linguistic cues from popular usage, rather than from academic philosophy. I'm not arguing whether we actual "know global warming exists" based on some particular epistemological claim, but rather that "we know global warming exists" is not a misleading claim in popular non-technical English.
182
Then why bring up this particular use of the word "know" for disapproval. Science journalism is full of quotes saying "we used to think x, we but now we know y." ...
There is no good reason for this not to be "we used to think x, but now we think y". Perhaps "we used to think x but now we know x is wrong" would be ok.
... It's not misleading to use a word in its normal usage just because you have a weird hangup about using it.
The question is whether it is misleading to drop the caveats present in normal scientific discourse when talking to laymen. I think it is. The caveats are there because even scientists need reminding that knowledge is provisional and this is even more true for laymen. And this is not some weird personal hangup as it is shared by essear's colleague and many other scientists.
I also deny that scientists actually don't use the word "know" in this way. Yes published scientific papers have weird conventions and emphasize specificity. But in informal conversations and even in semiformal talks, surely scientists use "know" the same normal ways everyone else does. If pressed on how or why or how sure they are about the thing they know, then you get the caveats and details.
At any rate, think is much better than believe. But I still think "know" is more accurate in a lot of situations.
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Rock o'clock?
187
I also deny that scientists actually don't use the word "know" in this way. Yes published scientific papers have weird conventions and emphasize specificity. But in informal conversations and even in semiformal talks, surely scientists use "know" the same normal ways everyone else does. If pressed on how or why or how sure they are about the thing they know, then you get the caveats and details.
But we are specifically talking about commenting on politically controversial topics to a hostile (at least in part) audience. In which case you "know" you will be pressed so it is better to give the caveats up front rather than have them dragged out of you (or worse getting trapped in an indefensible position).
It's time to stop lying, of course.
Speaking of these issues, today I went to the Koch Hall of Human Origins just to piss myself off.
187 189
And of course your "side" of a political controversy can also be a problem because they likely care as little about the actual scientific issues as their political opponents. So it is best for a scientist to be very careful when discussing (especially for a wide audience) subjects that are politically controversial.
Some things it's appropriate to say we know, scientifically - say, that atoms exist. With other things, it might be less appropriate - maybe it would be better to say that it's a plausible hypothesis on current evidence. What I don't like is the idea that you can flip things from the first category to the second via working the refs - i.e. getting a lot of lay people to express incredulity. If consensus plays a role in determining which category a claim falls into, it's scientific consensus, not lay consensus.
i wonder if there is a libertarian forum somewhere with a liberal arguing that ....
ok i can't think of the conservative analogue for 'scientist' to finish that analogy. shillologist? fundamentalist bible interpreter (who do the greek etymology bullshit stuff)?
...such people should moderate their claims to enhance their accuracy in some esoteric fashion.
The most telling thing about that piece of Bob's is the *date*. We knew very well just how brutal the occupation had become by 2005, (we'd had plenty of Guantanamo, plenty of Abu G, the Taguba Report, the battles of Fallujah I and II, Karbala, Najaf, and Mosul..) and just how much more brutal anyone who wanted to "marginalise the Shia and Sistani" would need to be.
181 has given me a Kool Moe Dee earworm. "Some girlies are pretty, some girlies are fine, but most girlie girlies like to play with your mind."
The most telling thing about that piece of Bob's is the *date*.
The most telling thing about that piece of Bob's is that he's been saying the same shit for the better part of a decade now. The piece cited was written in '05, but I recall him writing similarly at Saiselgy's earliest blog in '03 or '02. Which, if I were to speculate, has less to do with any opinions Bob may have had about the prosecution of the Iraq War and more to do with Bob's love for a certain kind of hick Nietzscheanism.
hick Nietzscheanism
The Gübermensch cometh!
Tacitus.org is now a porn site.
Does it at least have a Roman theme?
Like, can I talk classics with a cam girl? I'm imagining a Whore of Mensa sort of thing, but with more actual nudity.
Friedrich Nacho! Ha ha ha! No, but seriously. Let's get an order of nachos, guys.
#198. "Mama always said 'What y'all done to surpass Man?'"
Ta-nehisi.com is now... I don't know what.
200: How do you think I afford all my fancy shoes, rob?
175Replace "leads" to "will lead" to be clearer an inherently unprovable assertion rather than an out-and-out lie.
FTFY.
By no means am I suggesting that the U.S. Army will - or should - turn into a Victorian nation-building constabulary - designed to chase guerrillas, build schools, or sip tea.
Take that, Greg Mortenson! And Flashman, I guess.