Among the blessing that is about biggest in my inventory of them – aside from finishing out my final military tour in Texas, which I didn’t much like at the time, since it was third on my list of choices. Dammit, the personnel who dictated broadcaster assignments were supposed to turn themselves inside out, giving retiring broadcasting personnel their first choice of a final assignment location since they could then do things like buy a house and work up local connections to facilitate the post-retirement second career which the customary long stretches of overseas/remote duty tours usually didn’t allow an opportunity to do. It turned out for the best, although I certainly didn’t see it so at the time. The main thing is that not only am I now glad that I am retired and long past being recalled to active duty (like they couldn’t get enough military broadcaster talent that they have to recall a slightly overweight lady of certain age) but I am glad that Blondie is also long past recall. And that she didn’t sign up for Reserve duty, either.
Month: August 2013
Obama’s Anti-Terror Policy Can’t Be a Continuation of Bush’s Policy
Foreign policy doesn’t operate mechanically, on autopilot. Its effectiveness is determined entirely by the nature of the national administrations involved. You take the Bush 41 administration, and it can make a particular basic policy — say, in the war on terror — achieve a detectable level of good effect, in spite of the setbacks and “friction” (in the Clausewitzian sense) that are inevitable with international relations.
You take the Obama administration, and officially, it will modify the same basic policy on the edges. But in reality, the Obama administration becomes known for things like zero follow-through, strategic sclerosis, narcissism, unreliability, and desperation for photo ops and a favorable narrative. The same policy, modified, can’t work under those conditions.
This is a good point and should give pause to anyone who is reassured by assertions that the Obama administration’s anti-terror activities are an extension of what the Bush administration did. In fact, Obama’s weakness and ineptitude make it impossible for him to get the results Bush did, even if Obama wants to.
Executive competence is a critical variable in foreign-policy success. There is no adequate workaround for executive incompetence.
Why, Yes – Everything is Bigger
In Texas. Proof below the fold.
NIN At Lollapalooza And Sign Language Interpreter
Dan and I went to Lollapalooza for the Friday, August 2nd show. We primarily went to see Nine Inch Nails who headlined on the North Stage late Friday night.
I saw NIN at Lollapalooza a few years ago and frankly, the show sucked. I am a big NIN fan and I came away seriously disappointed, especially since Kanye was tearing it up on the other side of the festival. The crowd was dead, the volume was low, they seemed to choose a strange mix of songs, and the light show was boring.
This time NIN put on a great show, with a huge light show, and an awesome sounding band. I was very impressed. Also note the “sign language interpreter” on the lower left. They have these ASL interpreters at many festivals now and they are fun to watch and really seem to get into the music. You can see her dance and move with “The Hand That Feeds” in the short video here. I wanted to see what she was going to do for the notorious song “Closer” but this is more family friendly.
Cross posted at LITGM
An Age of Decline?
In 2011, I reviewed a biography of General Bernard Schriever, who led missile development activities for the US Air Force. The bio noted that Schriever and his crew had been referred to as “tomorrow’s men” in a 1957 TIME cover story, to which I commented:
In retrospect, this was true only if one defined “tomorrow” as the interval between the appearance of the article and, say, July 1969. Actually it could be argued that Schriever was a man of the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, the era of the Panama Canal and the Hoover Dam and the Empire State Building. In our current era, the execution of such projects has become difficult almost to the point of impossibility. Schreiver faced down General LeMay and Secretary Talbott..would a modern-day Schriever be able to prevail against the lilliputian army of lawyers, “community activists,” and “public interest” nonprofits who obstruct every single project of any size?
July 1969 was of course the month in which the American manned moon landing took place. A couple of months ago, Daniel Greenfield (aka Sultan Knish) marked to anniversary of the landing with one of the most depressing blog posts of the year.
No one who was born after 1935 has walked on the moon. That period is swiftly becoming a historical relic. A thing that men did who lived long ago. A great work of other times like the building of dams and fleets, the winning of wars and the expansion of frontiers. Those are things that the men of back then did. Those are not things that we do anymore…
In those long lost days, we did great things. The bureaucrats took their cut and the contractors chiseled and the lobbyists lobbied and the whole great vulture pack of government swarmed and screeched and still somehow, with a billion monkeys on our back, we moved forward, because we still had great goals. Now our goal is government. There is no longer a moon. Only a paper moon.
The whole mess of bureaucrats, contractors, lobbyists, policy experts, consultants, congressmen, aides, crooks, creeps, thieves and agents is no longer a necessary evil that we put up with in order to accomplish great things. It is the great thing that we accomplish. There are no more moon landings, no more dams or tallest buildings in the world. The massive towering edifice of our own government is now our moon landing, our Hoover Dam, our Empire State Building…
We have replaced confidence with attitude. And the difference between them is the same as the difference between a civilization and the savages outside. Confidence comes from competence. Attitude comes from rituals of pride uninformed by achievements.
Please read the whole depressing thing. And then think about it. And discuss.
Can we convince the Sultan that things are not really so bleak, that American can and will have a brilliant future?
Or do we have to admit that things are really as dark as portrayed in the post?