Springfield Mill to Become Home of Nanotechnology Innovation

The 76 year old MFA building will become home to research and development companies, says News-Leader.

The Myth of the Scandinavian Model

In July, I posted about Sweden's shift from Socialism to Liberalism citing the downloadable book, Sweden after the Swedish Model. More recently, the Brussels Journal has compared the Scandinavian economies with others, in particular, Ireland. Charts a-plenty demonstrate the Liberal (liberty seeking) notion that low taxes stimulate growth while high taxes combines with generous welfare benefits result in stagnation and decline. Further, Ireland's tax structure puts relativly more emphasis on taxing consumption, rather than the more usual suspects of labor or capital.

Pentagon Podcasts

The Pentagon is bypassing the MSM with its own internet streaming and podcasting. Streaming can be found at pentagonchannel.feedrom.com and podcasting links are found here.

Reverse Vietnam

Instapundit has a good post on Iraq and Vietnam. With the situation in Iraq, I have taken a longer and harder look at Vietnam, including reading Jim Dunnigan's Dirty Secrets of the Vietnam War and Max Boot's Savage Wars of Peace. My own thinking is reflected by the Tom Plank e-mail to Reynolds, "I am deeply skeptical of the claim that the military misled the press or the American people about the Vietnam War. [...] I thought the reporting on the war was nevertheless much more negative than what was actually going on."

One of the things that certainly different about Vietnam is that the military learned a lot of hard lessons about how to fight a large scale insurgency. This time around there is more nation-building, no attrition strategy, and no Johnson/Westmoreland happy talk. Apparently there is enough happy talk out there to give Jane Hall the notion that it should all be a ribbon cutting, but anyone who pays any attention at all hears analogy to the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, a long hard slog, and the like.

"The battle in Iraq and the battle in Afghanistan; it will be a slog, a long, hard slog. ...We're finding these terrorists where they are, and we're rooting them out, and we're capturing them, we're killing them. It's difficult work. It won't be over any time soon. And I will close by saying it will be a long hard slog, indeed."

Not as New as Some Think

Newsweek (via MSNBC's web site) thinks pod-casting lectures is new. Putting these things on televison, the campus public broadcasting channel, or the internet is not brand new. Podcasts are just the newest form of an older phenomena.

A Ribbon Cutting?

Today on Fox News Watch, Jane Hall said that coverage of the Iraq War should be negative because the war isn't "a ribbon cutting."

Insurgency

I don't get the claims that argue that Iraq isn't an insurgency. The Department of Defense (JP 1-02) defines "insurgency" as, "An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict."

Good News on the New German Chancellor

Dawn's Early Light reports that in one tour through Europe, Angela Merkel, "has distanced herself from the non-democratic Russians, usurped the stumbling French, and opened the door to the outsider British while affirming America's role in European security."

Some Star Wars thoughts

Picked up Ep III and have watched all the extras (and the movie). I really miss the rebellion stuff with Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and Padme Amadala plotting to stop Palpatine in the Senate. The stuff where the Jedi are doing this, seemingly by themselves, is far less satisfying than it would have been if the plots of this group had been in the film.

1) It makes the tragedy of Anankin's sticking with Palpatine even more painful to realize that Padme was organizing against the Sup-Chan.
2) As it is, the struggle seems to be between Palpatine and the Jedi for control and influence, but with the future rebels, its more like Palpatine against everyone he hasn't tricked and co-opted. The more broad-based and legitimate the resistance to Palpatine, the more Anakin has been seduced (the word Obi-Wan uses several times in Ep IV) rather than acted on legitimate grievances against the ambitious jedi.
3) It sets up another layer of connection and continuity with later films, where we heard about Bail Organa, see a little of Mon Mothma, and know about the rebellion.

My brother has posted on EP III recently. He's concerned about the curious style of acting involved. I make several points on that subject. 1) These people are largely artificial people. Like a lot of politicians, they have a fake front, and that false presence is visible. 2) Lucas doesn't want character to get in the way of his mythology. 3) Lucas' direction is as off-kilter as he is. Interviews with Lucas kind of reveal him to be stilted and wooden. Interviews with directors are often less smooth and silky than those with actors, but Lucas is particularly unnatural. I suspect he just put himself into those roles. 4) Palpatine and Obi-Wan were established characters. That might have created a bit of room for those actors to work. 5) Hayden Christenson is the Anthony Perkins of his generation. 6) Natalie Portman is a good actress, but couldn't get out from under Lucas' direction. Watching the extras, Lucas appears to think you show emotion by turning away from the camera.

This isn't an argument its a list of observations.

Is Wobbliness New?

There is a sentiment out there ( I hear it a lot, most recently in Hugh Hewitt) that at one time Americans understood and supported their wars. I cite the large number of Tories during the Revolution, the consideration of succession in New England during the War of 1812, the serious Copperhead movement in the Civil War, the draft riots during same, the American Anti-Imperialism League, the WWI draft resisance movement, and only then do we get to Vietnam. American wars have been beset from the begining by large segments of people who didn't support the wars of their own generation. WWII is an exception in part because both the left and the liberals accepted the fight against fascism, and the right is generally willing to fight other rightists. And yet even then, we can point to the exceptional delay in getting involved in the war because of isolationism. From 1939 to 1941, Americans did not undertstand war or the neccesity of defense against a hostile ideology. Going Wobbly is as old as the Republic.

Wargames use in Analysis

There is a good piece up recently over at Strategy Page on the analytical use of wargames.

"What about the war on terror? From a wargamers perspective, it’s not a difficult conflict to simulate. [...] Same with the war in Iraq, or Afghanistan. Both countries are behaving as they have for centuries. Anyone familiar with the history of these two places, won’t be surprised with what’s going on there now, or how it’s all going to turn out. Forget the media, they haven’t a clue, and don’t need one to stay in business. Remember, wargamers are also historians. They look at things from a historical perspective, and immediately apply an OR approach to any even they are studying."

Tigerhawk updates Den Beste

See the revised and annotated Strategic Overview here.

Podhoretz on the "Bush Lied" meme

John Podhoretz has a discussion of the "Bush Lied" meme in Commentary. It includes quotes from Democrats in 2002 that those same Dems try to dodge today.

Riots in France

Gina Cobb poses some interesting questions that have not been addressed much.
Gateway Pundit has a nice round-up with pics, locations, and a chart or two.

When Katrina hit, the c18-L list was very active with posts on what this reveals about America's dark under-belly. As of the last time I looked (maybe yesterday) there has been no comment on this, and its been going on for a long time.

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

Such is the nature of revolution, that once begun, it is hard to end; at least for everyone. I have been witness to an office revolution that was originally caused by a spectacularly bad manager. Everyone had great discontents and these were generally known. What was missing was some action to set things over the edge. Of course this could be some 0utrage by the manager, but might also be the act of a praticed revolutionary. In this case, enter the revolutionary. A practiced hand at office politics, this individual had twice before conducted revolutionary actions in the workplace. Once to oust his boss and take her place, once with little effect on behalf of others more agrieved. This effort would be the third such effort. For some time he had been willing to follow the banner of another, but took no action on his own.

Enter another, more radical revolutionary. He proposed a more radical agenda with no widespread support.

Concerned that this more radical revolutionary might take the day, if only because he was the only one acting, our more experienced revolutionary decided to act to produce a more moderate revolution. Skilled with the various arts of politics, the moderate won the action of the whole office, and with some bumps, revolution was achieved. However, the radical got little if any of his agenda. Others advanced their agenda broadly, sometimes too hurridly, but the radical got nothing. So he continued to foment revolution, but as a radical cell disconnected from his peers, and indeed against his peers. Our moderate revolutionary now found himself in the role of a counter-revolutionary, like Washington putting down the Wiskey Rebellion.

Salafi Jihad

I've found Marc Sageman's Understanding Terror Networks to be very useful. Recently I've been reading Fawaz A. Gerges The Far Enemy. Its a vert good compliment to Sageman, since they cover the same material, but draw on different sources and vary a bit in their emphasis and interpretation. Sagemen asks, who are the terrorists, and after a history of the Salafi Jihad, considers their background, experiences, education, social class, and other factors which dispell myths about who the terrorists are. Gerges explains that among jihadists, the concern with the far enemy is unusual, and tries to explain why Al Qaeda made this move to internationalize jihad. Sageman discusses this, but not with the depth and sophistication of Gerges. Of course Sageman deals with some things better than Gerges as well.