Afghanistan is not where empires go to die

One of the memes of those who advocate a rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan is that historically the Afghans have never been conquered; that Afghanistan is “the graveyard of empires”.  I have argued against this view in the comments sections of other blogs as well as here, most recently last year when Ralph Peters once again called for us to withdraw.  Once again I must be a trend setter because now almost a year later Foreign Policy magazine has published an article entitled, “Bury the Graveyard” which advances the idea that the graveyard of empires meme is hurting our progress in Afghanistan:

The Victorian British and the Soviet Union, the story goes, were part of a long historical continuum of arrogant conquerors that met their match in the country's xenophobic, fanatical, trigger-happy tribesmen. Given a record like that, it's obvious that the effort by the United States and its NATO allies to stabilize the shaky government in Kabul is doomed to fail.

Look, failure is always a possible outcome, especially judging by the way things have been going lately. But if the United States and its allies end up messing up their part of the equation, blame it on their bad policy decisions. Don't blame it on a super simplified version of Afghanistan's history -- especially if you prefer to overlook the details.

…

One of those myths, for example, is that Afghanistan is inherently unconquerable thanks to the fierceness of its inhabitants and the formidable nature of its terrain. But this isn't at all borne out by the history. "Until 1840 Afghanistan was better known as a 'highway of conquest' rather than the 'graveyard of empires,'" Barfield points out. "For 2,500 years it was always part of somebody's empire, beginning with the Persian Empire in the fifth century B.C."

…

Unfortunately, popular views of the place today are shaped by the past 30 years of seemingly unceasing warfare rather than substantive knowledge of the country's history.

So, what does this mean as far as the current war in Afghanistan go?  Well in practical terms probably not much.  The COIN strategy that GEN Petraeus is likely to pursue is inherently based on the idea that a stable government (or more accurately a stable enough government) can be established.  All that an acceptance of this view of history can really accomplish in the current fight is to foster an acceptance, among the political class, that it actually can be won, and I stick by that assertion.  From the article:

I made my first visit to Afghanistan that same year (ed. 2001). The Afghans I met were neither xenophobic nor bellicose. What they wanted most of all was peace, and they didn't trust their own leaders to bring it. "We're sick of fighting. We hate war. We want to have a free election," one grizzled -- and illiterate -- warrior told me. "And let's have the United Nations come in and make sure it's fair, so the warlords don't interfere." I heard similar views from many Afghans.

Really the fight is ours to lose, but given the attitudes currently in existence in D.C.  I think that we are well on our way to that outcome.

Uh-Oh, Climate Change and Illegal Immigration Have Teamed Up to Deal a One-Two Punch to the United States

[S]cientists are predicting another consequence of climate change: mass migration to the United States.
Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The number could amount to 10% of the current population of Mexicans ages 15 to 65.

Oh Dear God, what can we do?  Wait I know we can adopted the green house gas emissions targets set at Copenhagen.  It’s the only way to preserve the American way of life.

Or we can look at this as what it is, scare tactics to try and drum up support for the Cap and Trade bill and comprehensive immigration reform, and probably any other languishing social program you care to name.

source

Basil Marceaux 2012

Finally a candidate I can get behind for President:



Currently Mr. Marceaux is running for Governor of Tennessee, his official campaign website is here.

Daniel Schorr, NPR Senior Correspondent, Irresponsible Hack, Dead At Age 93

What more can be said except that he died without ever addressing my open letter.  It’s not like he was unaware of it, besides the enormous audience (2 people) of Kuru Lounge I sent it to NPR.    I am sure he will be lionized by the journalistic community, but to me he was just a hack who was more interested in advancing his meme than telling the truth.

Source - NY Times

John Stossel comes out against the Arizona Immigration Law and for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Today on Neil Cavuto (this is the best transcript I can find so far.  Stossel starts at 00:22:08)

No one else has picked up on this; I’m surprised because normally John Stossel's word is treated like Holy Writ, but if this is actually his position I expect him to be relegated to the idiot file soon. Immigration reform is currently one of those areas where there is no middle ground.

(Note: This was a three minute interview on Cavuto's show this afternoon. Stossel has a special on immigration tonight that should provide more context to his remarks, but they seem pretty unequivocal)

Started "The Great Contraction 1929-1933" today

This is the portion of "A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960" that deals with the Great Depression. I have skimmed this portion of "Monetary History" before (in the library at school over the course of a few hours) but I can't claim to have read it in depth. Of course over the past couple years I have come to believe that most people who claim to have read anything of this nature (such as "The Road to Serfdom") haven't, so I don't feel too bad. Anyway I will read it in depth now and let you know what I think.

Origins of the current financial mess

Watch it on Academic Earth

Most of the readers here will probably diagree with the narrative / ideology of the speaker but the talk itself is interesting, especially since it was given contemporaneously, Jan 2009 I think. (Be warned, the facial tic is disturbing) Causes according to Dr. Blinder:

Risky lending - based on abnormally low default rates over the past 5 to 6 years (from 2003 to 2009). This was backed up by mathematical models that didn't look back far enough also.

Housing bubble - Irrepsonsible mortgage lending and irresponsible taking of mortgages by consumers. Refinancing ponzi scheme, liar loans, no-doc loans, ninja loans (no income no job or assets). Brokers made risky loans because they would only hold the loans for a short time and then they would be passed on so any defaults would be someonelse's problem. Blinder believes that mortgages should be federally regulated, he also believes there should be a suitability standard, and that brokers should have to hold some percentage of loans they originate to maturity.

Regulatory failure - specifically failure to rein in subprime lending.

Mortgage backed securities - as noted above the mortgages were bad so the securities were bad. When the defaults started the banks held huge amounts of debt. This was caused by bad risk management practices including poor diversification of capital classes (up to 80% in mortgage backed securities).

Rating agencies - didn't do their due diligence. Conflicts of interest exist because the agencies are paid by the bond issuer. He also advocates a bit of Caveat Emptor in that the lage firms should do some of their own investigation and rating.

Derivatives based on mortgage backed securities - unregulated and excessively leveraged. Very short term financing which led to a lack of liquidity when defaults started. (AIG) An attempt was made to regulate these derivatives and it failed. I personally don't know if this would have made a difference but maybe enforcing some liquidity requirements and limiting leverage would have.

George Bush - Of course it had to be George Bush's fault. My memory of events is different that Dr. Blinder's but I am not the one giving the lecture.

The Lehman Brothers failure - destroyed confidence in the financial system.

During the question and answer session it becomes very clear that Blinder was not a fan of TARP or the auto industry bailout.

I write like Issac Asimov...

at least according to the I Write Like site. That's considerably better than what I expected; illiterate non-English speaking preschooler. I have my doubts about the accuracy of this site. I have read Asimov, he writing was much better than mine.

Worst day of World of Warcraft ever

I was playing my level 80 Hunter today running some heroics with pick up groups.  First two went OK.  I am not one of these guys who runs every heroic everyday but I have been thru almost all of them a couple times so the first two went OK (Trial of Champions and Forge of Souls), but the third, (Pit of Saron), SUCKED.  It sucked from the beginning actually.  The group leader wasn’t marking who she wanted killed first, as near as I can tell the rogue wasn’t sapping (maybe the saps were ineffective), people kept leaving (to grab a new bowl of weed or drop a ‘shroom according to party chat) and worst of all the healer wasn’t healing me.  maybe I pissed her off or something, so I am trying to DPS, use my healing potions, keep my pet alive, eat and drink to keep mana and health up and keep up with the group.  It blew.  Meanwhile I died two times I was rezzed, the third the healer said she wasn’t going too, OK great, I have never died in the Pit of Saron before I actually didn’t know the way back from the graveyard.  I asked for directions and the party leader just said to go on without me.  They did and everyone wiped again, meanwhile she is getting pissed at me because of the 2nd party wipe.  I finally told her either help me out or kick me.  No answer and they wiped again, so I left the party.  I am sure I am now blacklisted.

Oh and Blizzard did the second wave of Beta invites last night and dissed me again.  Like I said worst day of WoW ever.

"Fearsome lesbian gangs" desperate to get their hands on Lindsay Lohan

If that title doesn't get links nothing will, as Howard Stern say "lesbians equal ratings".

Inmates of the jail where Lindsay Lohan is set to spend up to 90 days have warned of gangs out to attack the starlet, saying "everyone will want a piece of her," one inmate said in an interview with The Sun

Don't worry though the drug addicted hookers have her back:

Tamara Haley, 38, is doing time for heroin possession and prostitution. She said Monday: "Everyone will want a piece of her. It will make them famous if they hurt Lindsay Lohan."Or if you get her to cry, the whole ward will laugh and people will love it -- even the guards."

Haley also warned bisexual Lindsay of the jail's lesbian gangs -- and offered advice on how to avoid their clutches.She said: "The gay inmates wear their shirts inside out to let others know they are available. "So if Lindsay doesn't want someone to grab her ass she'd better keep her shirt on straight. "Women grab each other like animals when the guards aren't looking. It's disgusting.

Martha Stewart made it OK. Maybe she can teach Lindsay how to shank a b**ch.

source

The jackals and pirates of Tanaris beat on me like my name is Rhianna and theirs’ was Chris Brown

My toon in World of Warcraft took a beating yesterday as I was questing in Tanaris, but I busted through level 48, almost to 49, and moved on to Feralas for awhile.  Killing Naga there, who are almost as annoying as Murlocs but they have a little more personality.

You know what else is taking a beating?  Any sense of historical decency in this article entitled, “The disintegration of the welfare state” by Neil Reynolds:

Democracies produced Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, fulfilling the expectation of Socrates and Machiavelli that democracies end in tyranny. Now democracies are fulfilling the complementary expectation of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman that democracies end in bankruptcy.

It wasn’t democracy that produced National Socialism or Italian Fascism, they derived from socialism, although they evolved under a democratic system, because that system allowed the free exchange of ideas and associations, and it won’t be democracy that drives the world into bankruptcy.  It will be bureaucracies, overly generous social welfare plans (a point Reynolds gets right) and the growing desire to suppress the free enterprise system.

Level 47 almost 48 and some observations

I didn’t play World of Warcraft  a whole lot this weekend but I completed a bunch of quests in the Badlands and I picked up a piece of Heirloom gear (Tattered Dreadmist Chest) which gives an XP bump so I plowed through a few levels.  That brings me to some observations I have about World of Warcraft, things that have been rattling around in my head since I started playing back in 2006 or so, but they were brought to the front by the comparison of how much easier leveling is with the right gear:

1.  Murlocs suck.  They hit way to hard for just being walking frogs, they are way too aggressive, there are too many of them, they swarm and they make annoying noises.

2.  Gear is important.  When I started playing I had no support system in game so I was using what i picked up off drops.  I died a lot.  Finally I got invited to a guild by someone I had partied up with for a quest who was impressed by the fact that despite that I was undergeared and dying a lot I maintained a good attitude.  She explained stats and gear types to me and gave me a little gold.  After that life was much simpler.  A lot of people will say never visit the Auction House to buy gear.  They are frankly retards.  The money you save by not buying good gear you spend on repairs and wasted time because you aren’t getting stats bonuses.

2a.  Be nice to the noobs, they don’t know any better.  It costs you nothing to answer a question.  If you have some gear that you can’t use it can make a big difference to them and so can a gold piece or 2.  (On the other hand I don’t give anything to the people who sit in Stormwind begging for gold)

3.  Get a mount.  When I started you had to be level 40 and it cost over 100 gold to get a mount.  Now it’s level 20 and costs 4 gold.  It’s the best purchase you can make.  Cuts down on so much wasted time.

4.  Get off the mount.  Once you have the mount get off it occasionally.  Its so easy to just run past mobs now that a lot of XP is lost as well as some pretty good drops.  Especially in Stranglethorn Vale and Tanaris.

5.  Until you are at least level 60 Skinning and Herbalism are the way to go profession wise.  Both items sell well in the Auction House,  most people don’t skin so you get their kills too (they are doing your work for you), and both give nice little abilities.  Master of Anatomy for skinning, which gives you a better chance of getting a critical hit, and Lifeblood for herbalism, which lets you heal your self, even while in combat, that comes in handy if you are like me and you solo most of the time.

5a.  Get the biggest bags you can as soon as you can.  Leather and herbs can eat up a lot of bag space and you don’t want to be throwing money away.

6.  Stranglethorn Vale is an ATM.  Every mob in that zone is worth money and it is a big quest hub.  I picked up 40 heavy leather the other day just off kills other people left behind, add in my own kills and I made about 100 gold.

7.  Use the in game alarm.  Remember World of Warcraft is a game not real life get out and do some other stuff too.

7a.  The alarm is part of the UI.  I like the basic UI for the most part but there are two add-ons that you need.  A coordinates display and auctioneer.  Most quest guides give directions by coordinates and auctioneer keeps your prices competitive so you don’t end up with a lot of unsold overpriced stuff or sell it for too little.

Now that I have shared my WoW wisdom I am going to make a real life observation;  Jesse Kornbluth is an idiot.

But then I never thought I'd see the day when "To Kill A Mockingbird" --- a novel that has inspired readers for half a century --- would be derided as a book about "the limitations of liberalism" (by Malcolm Gladwell, no less, in The New Yorker, of all places) and "a sugar-coated myth of Alabama's past" with a hero who's "a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams" (by Allen Barra, in the Wall Street Journal)

I didn’t read the Barra article, but the Gladwell article is hardly derogatory.  It just points out the weakness of the attitude that allowed segregation to persist for as long as it did. 

We are back in the embrace of Folsomism. Finch wants his white, male jurors to do the right thing. But as a good Jim Crow liberal he dare not challenge the foundations of their privilege. Instead, Finch does what lawyers for black men did in those days. He encourages them to swap one of their prejudices for another.

You can understand that and still see Atticus Finch as trying to do the right thing but being a prisoner of his time and place.  That isn’t derogatory.  It’s realistic.

Man it's nice in Seattle this week

Been in the 70's and 80's. That put me in mind of this:



and this:

44th level and a new guild

Had a phone interview with a placement agency this morning.  Went pretty well so we’ll see.  The job is in the Entertainment (X-Box) Division over at Microsoft.

On the World of Warcraft front I played for a couple hours off and on; got up to 44th level.  I also joined a new guild.  I know that doesn’t ean much to anyone who doesn’t play the game and actually it doesn’t mean much to me either other than some chat interaction.  Once I get up to the higher levels it will mean more as we start doing raids.  These are the doldrum levels unfortunately.  40 to 68 absolutely suck, fortunately since I am concentrating on achievements this time I can set little mini goals

New video:

Never heard of this group before but both the song and video are interesting.

I am going to have to sue the US Postal Service

I'm sure my invite was lost in the mail.

[W]hen the out-of-another-era glamorous and gorgeous Christina Hendricks hosted a private dinner and Johnnie Walker pairing at the penthouse of the Chateau Marmont, it seemed a match made in Don Draper heaven.

The evening unfolded with close friends of Hendricks on the terrace—including her husband, actor Geoffrey Arend, and whiskey master Stephen Wilson—sipping Johnnie and Gingers (Johnnie Walker Red Label and ginger ale) and Blood and Sands (Johnnie Walker Red Label, orange juice, sweet vermouth and cherry syrup) and nibbling from plates of bacon-wrapped dates and teeny beef Wellingtons.

Scotch, Bacon AND Christina Hendricks how the hell did the guy have the presence of mind to take notes for the article.

I told you I was going to be posting about World of Warcraft

So here’s the deal.  I started playing WoW again about 6 weeks ago after a year long absence from the game.   My main reason (aside from the fact that I actually enjoy the game) is that the game is going to change completely with the release of the Cataclysm expansion in November, and I wanted to level one more character in the old world before all the changes. 

Anyway I have been playing this new character for about 3 weeks and I have gone in a totally different direction this time.  Usually I follow a leveling guide and try and get my character leveled as fast as possible.  In addition I skip the things like cooking and fishing and usually play DPS or tank classes.  This time I am concentrating more on things like faction reputation, achievements, and secondary skills.  It is actually a little more work but it is also a little more fun and interesting.  You miss a lot of stuff when you just powerlevel.  I am also playing a mage this time  which I have never done before.  It’s a lot harder than a hack and slash class.

So that’s where I am at with this.  I am just going to post updates – like I made level 42 in Stranglethorn Vale (my favorite zone) today and thoughts on the game as I go along.  There are already a ton of WoW blogs and podcasts out there, and I am not going to be trying to compete with them as far as posting quest maps etc.  Just stuff I find interesting.  One example would be the change to class talents that got posted today.  Personally I think this is a great change.  I hate piddling around trying to decide how to spend talent points, I wish they would come up with something similar for professions. 

I'm dying a little bit inside

Not only was I turned down in my application for the customer support position at Blizzard, but I have been denied a Cataclysm beta key. Why, why, is God tormenting me so?

(I should warn you that there will probably be a lot more World of Warcraft blogging going on here over the next couple months)

The Reader's Digest Condensed Version of "The Road to Serfdom"

It was recently suggested that I am not intelligent enough to understand Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” so I am rereading it again, and doing a little outside research on Hayek’s views.  Today I was looking up a quote on deflation, that I had seen previously, in response to a post I saw by R. S. McCain.  McCain seems to like the idea of deflation, whereas my understanding is that most economists consider deflation to be much more damaging to an economy than mild to moderate inflation.  During the course of digging up the quote I was looking for I came across the April 1945 Reader’s Digest condensed version of “The Road to Serfdom”.  I have never seen this version before and I think it is probably safe to assume that most people currently jumping on the Hayek bandwagon haven’t either so I am linking it here for the curious.

BTW – the quote I was looking for was:

“I agree with Milton Friedman that once the Crash had occurred, the Federal Reserve System pursued a silly deflationary policy.  I am not only against inflation but I am also against deflation.  So, once again, a badly programmed monetary policy prolonged the depression.”

A further BTW – The reason it was suggested that I am too stupid to understand Hayek is that I maintained that in “The Road to Serfdom” Hayek expressed some support for things such as welfare and universal health care.  I gave page numbers and quotes, but apparently I am to stupid to read and comprehend.  If I am so were the people at Reader’s Digest who condensed the book:

The successful use of competition does not preclude some types of government interference. For instance, to limit working hours, to require certain sanitary arrangements, to provide an extensive system of social services is fully compatible with the preservation of competition. There are, too, certain fields where the system of competition is impracticable. For example, the harmful effects of deforestation or of the smoke of factories cannot be confined to the owner of the property in question. But the fact that we have to resort to direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function. To create conditions in which competition will be as effective as possible, to prevent fraud and deception, to break up monopolies – these tasks provide a wide and unquestioned field for state activity.

Hayek himself endorsed the Reader's Digest condensation.