Purveyors of Pessimism

It seems a slow morning here at Flares. Well, whatever and anyway, let's go somewhere.

I was doing my normal checkin at Instapundit and my eye got caught on his 7:15AM post. In it he linked to Mickey Kaus and Ann Althouse. The entire linky-loop more or less revolves around the articles Upbeat Signs Hold Cautions for the Future in the NYT (you may need to register, Idunno) and the WSJ Pouting Pundits of Pessimism (see Idunno stuff above and, in case you couldn't guess, that's the one from which I purloined the title I used).

Due to some interruptions I've lost track of where I wanted to take this (if I ever knew). The Nabobs of Negativity, and they seem to be like hordes of Flying Monkeys these days, are really irking the heck outta me. What is wrong with these people? Yes, there's a war on but we're winning it. It couldn't have been won already and it can't be won tomorrow or next month. We're winning - that should be enough to be something other than relentlessly pessimistic. Yes, the economy is not perfect and there are some things to be concerned about. But overall the economy is doing remarkably well all things considered. Yes, there have been natural disasters - a tsunami, earthquakes, hurricanes - but these things happen when one lives on a spinning, molten rock hurtling through space. They've happened before and life goes on and, oddly enough, generally improves despite the difficulties.

What the heck are so many people so freakin' all fired pessimistic about?

Information of the People

"The information of the people at large can alone make them safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1810.

Rick Ballard, in Arlington National Archives (below) notes that the National Archives are where some reports of Independent Counsel are published for all to read and use as they see fit and others sent to rest in something other than peace, away from public view.

It is curious that some matters are made available for public perusal via the National Archives website and others are not. Independent Counsel reports regarding Watergate and Iran-Contra are readily available. Yet the reports of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr (Whitewater, etc) and Donald Smaltz (Clinton Agriculture Secretary, Mike Espy) are not - one needs to peruse university or legal sites for those reports.

Is this a matter of budgetary or staffing constraints or something else? Has the Nation Archives simply not yet caught up with the years of the Clinton administration regarding the publishing of impeachment and OIC information or have they chosen, as a matter of policy, not to publish documents that might reflect badly upon a beloved former POTUS?

In Congressional Omerta, we are made aware of an effort by a joint oversight committee to prevent release to the general public of Section V of the report by Independent Counsel David Barrett. Barrett was the IC charged with investigating Henry Cisneros (Clinton Housing and Urban Development Secretary). On the surface it might seem that Barrett's report about his investigations may be deemed insufficiently important - legally or otherwise - to warrant publication. The HUD Secretary's lies to the FBI regarding his philandering and funds shifting were of no lasting national import or damage. He plead guilty and paid a fine.

While it is impossible to know precisely what Section V of Barrett's report contains it is a reasonable guess that it is related to the investigation of the potential misuse of the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes. Barrett twice sought and was granted expansion of his investigation to include potential misuse of, or misbehavior by, the IRS. And it is apparently that portion of the report that a DC appeals court has ruled should be released only to specific members of congress rather than to the public.

The DC court of appeals ruling seems to leave ample room for those members of congress who receive Section V to make it public as they see fit. The joint oversight commission could, I believe, authorize release of Section V to the archives. Will they? If not, why not?"

The federal government belongs to us. The Internal Revenue Service is an agency of our government. Independent Counsel, whether a good idea or not, were duly authorized investigative agents of our government. Investigation is meant to discover and, ultimately, to inform.

The ways by which We the People can become poorly informed or inattentive are as many and varied as those who would prefer us in that condition. Burying information clearly hinders our ability to remain informed. Is the failure of the press to cover the burial of that portion of Barrett's report which documents his investigation into potential abuse of the IRS an attempt to manage our attentiveness?

"If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787

More than a century later a similar warning was issued to We the People:

The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens... but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others. Theodore Roosevelt, Sept 7, 1903

In whose interests is it to have the National Archives behave so selectively in their publication of Independent Counsel reports? What special class is protected by the suppression of the Smaltz report? Or of the Starr report?

Why is the press so inattentive regarding Section V of the Barrett report? One might imagine the press would be very much interested in a report which very likely contains information regarding potential abuse of the powers of the IRS by the Executive.

The Founders and subsequent national leaders repeatedly warned us about the misuse of government power and the need for an active and impartial press to help keep us informed and attentive. The Congressional joint oversight committee's failure to bring forth information concerning possible misuse of the IRS by "wolves" and the curious practices at the National Archive are among the more dangerous abuses of power and discretion in recent times.

The failure of the press to exhibit even mild curiosity regarding potential IRS abuse - and congressional grave digging - is puzzling. While the press gets itself in a lathered frenzy about Scooter Libby and the leak that didn't even drip, they "impartially" ignore potential misuse of the IRS by the previous executive. It's a shame - theirs and ours.

Ah, Computers

No analogy is perfect but I've found parallels regarding Macs as Socialist and PC's as Capitalist. As in Central Planner vs Market System. Though there have been changes in the last few years whereby Macs now utilize some third party hardware, it wasn't always that way. When something went wrong, you took your Mac to an Apple Dealer and replaced an Apple part with another Apple part. It was simple--and expensive.

PC's, on the other hand, have parts made by heaven only knows who which can be replaced by parts made by yet another company. It can be a little confusing with all the choices, but the availability of so much and the competive pricing lead to more innovation and cheaper prices for all kinds of hardware from mouses to video cards to storage devices and monitors. Even to various types of merchants and PC support people and technicians. The choices available for PC hardware purchase, support, repair, and replacement are almost mind boggling.

The market has worked to bring us affordable computing which is good for everyone, but as in everything capitalistic and market driven, sometimes you have to trade convenience for price.

Take my video card. Please.

Six months ago I went through about 3 weeks of hell with my PC. Strange noises. Harddrive failure. CDR failure. Machine turned off for days at a time while I tried to figure out what was wrong and what to do. I wanted to be a computer geek and handle it myself. After replacing harddrive and CDR (with a DVDR) and all that entailed. I still had problems. I finally figured out it was the fan. I just didn't know WHICH fan.

But I got a replacement fan from DELL to replace the fan I thought was the problem. But I couldn't figure out how to install it (long story) so I broke down and took the PC in to the Computer Geeks at Best Buy.

It turned out to be the fan on my video card. It had stopped working and scorched the sound card into uselessness (and taken out my harddrive and cdr but thankfully didn't affect my processor or ram). I didn't even know my video card HAD a fan. Such a geek was I. So I bought a new video card and all was well.

Until a few days ago.

The same bad sound. A whining and buzzing. Very loud.

Panic.

And here is where the inconvenience lies.

I found my receipt and called the video card supplier. They were willing to give me an RMA to return the video card and they would replace it. Great. BUT the process would take TWO WEEKS. I cannot no way no how live without my PC for TWO WEEKS. I said thanks, but no thanks.

So I went pleading to Joe. Please let's just get a new video card. He says no because he doesn't have the money (no shit sherlock, we had to borrow money from his ex-wife to get groceries a week ago. No turkey for Thanksgiving either. Embarrassing, but what can you do.)

But he agreed to take the PC to the Geeks to see what they had to say.

Yes, it's the video card fan. Have to replace the video card. Nothing they can do about the warranty because it was beyond 30 days. I have to deal with the supplier directly for that.

So he suggested we buy a new video card. Get the replacement from the supplier. Replace the card then return the card from Best Buy to Best Buy for a refund by the end of the month.

Okay. So that's what we're doing. I have my PC back and working (quietly) and I'll give the supplier another call, send them the old card and wait for the new. Switch out the cards, then return the one that's in there now. But what a hassle!

I am grateful there is a solution that won't cost very much.

But a one-stop deal where the manufacturer/repair/retail are all the same would have been much more convenient.

You just can't have everything. And in the end I do prefer the wealth of choices and good pricing.

And maybe someday I'll be able to replace the sound card!

Meanwhile, listen to your PC. Get used to the sounds it makes. Listen for the overtones and the harmonies created by, say, your refrigerator sounds with the pc sounds. Then you will know when something is about to go wrong if they change. That's how I suspected something was going wrong this time before the buzzing even started. The overtones had changed.

Don't worry too much. Have fun. And if something goes wrong, there's always a solution.

On Progress In Iraq

One of joys of reading blogs is the discovery of fresh thinking on complicated matters. Not infrequently in wandering about the blogosphere, one discovers a new bird in an obscure corner of the forest.

Today while reading the comments section on a post at Belmont Club, I encountered Evan, whose comment at 7:33 A.M. begins thus:

I suppose the battle of Iraq is won or lost to the extent to which it is not or is a contributor to the Islamic madness. There are several measures one could use, say five years after withdrawal: Is it serving as a jihadi incubator, as Afghanistan did (and the banlieues soon will)? Is it plagued by pathological conspiracy theories and hatred of the infidel, particularly Jews? Is consensual government holding? I am cautiously optimistic that these questions will be answered the way the civilized world wants them to be. There was this extraordinary scene recently, a day or so after the "dungeon" with 174 prisoners was revealed. A senior Iraqi minister had to sit there and explain this, and take hostile questions from both Iraqi and foreign reporters. He looked just like a harried press secretary in any Western government, a scene familiar to all of us. We take this for granted, but it would've been unimaginable in any Arab country two years ago. I hope that enough Iraqis have now crossed the mental bridge to normalcy - they are turning their backs on indispensable strongmen, on suicide bombing, and the other repellent aspects of so much of the Muslim world.

One has in this gem the outlines of a very reasonable "metric" for our success I have not before encountered, namely, the extent to which [Iraq] is not or is a contributor to the Islamic madness. And this is coupled with an astute perception and interpretation of an event, the discomfort of the senior Iraqi minister being made to squirm before a hostile press, I had not seen anyone else call our attention to. (Of course I don't read everything!)

So I wandered over to Evan's blog, The Future Uncertain, and was not disappointed by his most recent post, Economic Growth as a Moral Imperative, where I learned something new about child labor in the Third World, among other things.

But back to Iraq. President Bush's speech yesterday began what I hope will be a sustained corrective process, one directed at helping the American public see beyond the agenda of The New York Times. It is only two weeks to the parliamentary elections in Iraq; it is high time we begin to appreciate this for the watershed it is.

When insiders blog

It is a curious phenomenon when insiders in politics, business, or media take up blogging as an alternative way of doing PR. Do they think they will get a significant audience for their opinions, or is the name of their game simply to insure that their opinions get inserted in MSM stories on what's going on in the blogosphere, to create the impression that blogs are just an alternative medium for carrying the same reality as is promoted on tv and in print?

Anyway, if you spend any time in the Canadian blogosphere, you will have noticed the snow in the air. If you are interested in following the Canadian federal election campaign that has just gotten under way, here is a good site to find political blogs of various shapes and stripes. I expect to be getting out to help my local candidate, so you might see a little less from me here at YARGB the next while.

Far Away and Very Very Big

You're looking at the most detailed picture of the Crab Nebula ever created. Thanks to our friends at Hubble (and Ball Aerospace).

Update: Here's a catalogue of Hubble imagery I just serendipitously came across thanks to the new Stumble plugin available in the brand new Firefox 1.5 browser which just came out Tuesday (why Firefox 1.5 is really that good). Wow. I love the Internet. (Cool astronomy/Firefox 1.5 demo showing how the moon got into orbit.) (Ok, I'll stop, I'll stop.)

Arlington National Archives

The Arlington National Archive is that section of the United States National Archive where certain material that should be on display is instead laid to an unquiet rest. A potter's field where remains are interred in unmarked graves pending the passing of a suitable period of silence. It is easy to imagine legitimate reasons for such a period prior to archival display of all documents pertaining to a given matter. Proper cataloguing, numbering and the preparation of document inventories take time. A question remains as to identification of certain matters which are undergoing the archival process and an additional question arises as to what should be done with wholly completed documents that may be of interest to researchers if presented in their final form even without all ancillary documentation.

It is passing strange, for example, that if one uses the term "Office of Independent Counsel" in the marvelous National Archive search engine, the most comprehensive list returned is this. It seems somehow... incomplete?

We know about Watergate, of course. And who could ever be allowed to forget Iran/Contra and Walsh's effort. Understandably, the current Congressional efforts to allow a quiet, if undignified, burial to Section V of the Barrett investigation make publication of his report problematic, even without the diligent efforts of archival interment experts. It is remarkable that Congress is acting as if Executive misuse of the IRS is a matter of little public import. Are we prepared to live in a country where some Office of Independent Counsel Reports are more equal than others and some indiscretions are deemed unworthy of mention?

Wasn't there a fellow named Donald Smaltz? If memory has not failed entirely, another fellow named Kenneth Starr may have written a report that was published as a requirement in completing his service as Independent Counsel. How is it that the Smaltz Report has found its way into the archives of the University of North Texas and the Starr Report is available, (annotated, no less), via the offices of a diligent attorney but the National Archives does not deem them fit for publication?

The motto of the National Archives is "Democracy Starts Here".

That would bring a smile to Winston Smith's face.

France is a shitty little country

I hate to generalize. But after reading this interview, er exercise in humiliation, what else can one deduce?

en francais

English translation (hat tip: Lawrence Auster and friend)

More goodness on other blogs

Consequently, I can’t say for certain how Terry would have tried to weasel out of the rather obvious inconsistency—though if I had to take a guess, I suspect he’d fall back on the Senate’s “bipartisan no-confidence vote in George Bush,” which essentially demanded that the President follow his own plan, and to update the Senate to tell them that he is indeed continuing to do so.

(Jeff Goldstein.)

In the mean time, Jon Henke points out that the "new strategy for Iraq" exactly corresponds to the strategy published in April and May 2004.

(Hey, it works for Glenn Reynolds.)

Peace Moonbeam

After some chicken strips, nachos, popcorn, Gummi Bears, and ice cream bars, Cindy (Sheehan) suggested perhaps a calm and inspirational ride that promotes peace was in order so we all headed for “Its a Small World”. This ride started out well enough, what with all the little children of different nations singing an upbeat song of togetherness and love. I was moved to tears as I wondered why our government couldn’t behave more like these beautiful children of peace.

Unfortunately, things went from good to bad in a hurry as we progressed to room after room inhabited with what seemed to be a million of those little robotic humanoids singing “It’s A Small World” over and over and over. That song got into my head so bad that by the time they got me out of there I was catatonic and suffering mild heart palpitations.

Two days later I still can’t sleep without seeing those armies of tiny ethnic dolls, all moving in unison, singing that stupid, insipid song while their little beady glass eyes stare into my very soul. Whew, I still get chills just thinking about it!

Take it from me: Disneyland + Tai sticks = trouble.

From Peace Moonbeam's Blog

The Officers' Club: Quote for Today

"We're fighting a political war folks, and reality is our artillery. "

The Black Box of Torture

Once again I'm copying too much because I don't want to change the argument:

The anti-torture absolutists take it as self-evident that torture (variously defined) is self-evidently evil. Context doesn't matter. Context cannot justify it. Further, they argue that torture is what defines our enemies in an existential way. We cannot become "like our enemies." And no matter what the circumstances, employing torture would make us like them.

But nobody to my knowledge has demonstrated why torture holds this unique status.

For their argument to be true, torture must be worse than killing, indeed it must be worse than the killing of innocent people. Ask any educated person if war will result in killing innocent people and they will say yes. That’s the nature of war. If taking innocent lives was always and everywhere an unconscionable evil that could not ever be tolerated in American law, then war would have to be illegal. And yet, it is not illegal. We even speak openly about “collateral damage” and the need to “minimize” it, not eliminate it.

It seems to me that one could quite easily argue that killing many innocent people is worse than torturing one evil person, particularly if doing so will save many innocent lives. This may not be the case, but if so nobody has explained why it is so to my satisfaction.

Instead, torture has been made into a moral black box, a stand-in for “something existentially and self-evidently evil.” Thus, in effect, the torture issue has succeeded where all other efforts at moral equivalence have failed. During the Cold War, the left (and some segments of the Right) claimed moral equivalence between the United States and the Soviet Union because we had many of the same tools. The Soviets had nukes, so did we. We put people in asylums, they put people in asylums. We went to war to defend our way of life, the Reds went to war to defend their way of life. And so on.

Morally serious people saw through this. We put crazy people in asylums and murderers in prison. They locked-up Solzenytsins and Sharanskys. We went to war to fight oppression and defend liberty, they fought to oppress liberty and defend oppression. These are, to put it mildly, significant differences. An ambulance driver and a hit-and-run killer both have driver's licenses, but a serious person doesn’t claim the two are therefore morally equivalent.

But torture seems to be the one thing that changes all that. Suddenly, no matter what the context, no matter what the reason, torture is a stand-alone context-killer. Whereas even many liberals accepted that in some cases dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations could be morally acceptable given the right circumstances, torture never, ever, can be. Again, I'm willing to be persuaded that this makes sense. But as of right now, I can't get my head around the idea that it might be morally acceptable to nuke untold thousands or millions, leaving many to endure vastly greater agony than involved in 2 to 3 minutes of waterboarding but it is absolutely morally unacceptable to humiliate and hurt a terrorist in order to gain information that might help us stop just such an attack on our own citizens.

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner.

Update: Further, via Jonah, from an email:

The real problem with the current debate is the defining of torture downwards. I don't know that there are many out there in prisoner handling positions that object to the continuing existence of prohibitions on actual torture. I do know, for a fact, that the defining of keeping people awake for 16 hours as torture, or the turning on of the air conditioner, is being received as a horrifying witch hunting exercise which cramps legitimate coercive interrogation techniques. This cramps the debate - on one side, Amnesty and others interpret Geneva literally, and wonder why we aren't giving scientific equipment and sporting goods (like baseball bats and hunting knives, perhaps?) to AQ detainees, and calling it torture; at the same time, they are floating an anti-torture bill which will ban what... the denial of baseball bats, hunting knives, and biological lab equipment to AQ detainees? The terms of the debate aren't even properly defined, such is the din. (An aside: The Geneva Conventions prohibit torture, and any form of "coercion." Customary and traditional interpretations of international law are binding, insofar as any vaguely written treaty with noble intentions can provide a useful legal standard. The customary and traditional interpretation of the "no coercion" clause is that it refers to actual torture, that you can say really really mean things to people and make them a bit physically uncomfortable, if that's what it takes to get useful tactical information from them. Our NATO allies all follow this doctrine; the Warsaw Pact followed a much looser version of it).

(10:13AM)

An interesting mix of intelligence issues

Via a column at "Accuracy in Media", I find this column from the Washington Post, by Jim Hoagland (11 november 2005.) Here's an interesting excerpt, emphasis mine:

The hidden management of the criminal justice process and the news media practiced by the CIA to protect itself in Wilson-Rove-Libbygate is nothing short of brilliant. So you were right to fear the agency.

I did read the column, but until I was directed to Kincaid's own column, I didn't make the connection he did:

Think about that statement to the President — "you were right to fear the agency."

Here we have a columnist for a major paper saying that the CIA has been acting independently of the elected President of the U.S., and that Bush had reason to fear it. He said the CIA had engaged in "hidden management of the criminal justice system and the news media." In effect, he is saying that the CIA is pulling the strings behind the scenes, and that reporters following the Wilson/Plame storyline are CIA puppets. He went on to say that the CIA also "triggered the investigation" into the CIA leak about Valerie Wilson by itself leaking. That is, the CIA leaked to the press the fact that it had requested an investigation.

This seems to fit right in with something we were discussing on YARGB some time ago. Now, the puzzle is, who is Fitzgerald investigating?

I continue to predict that further indictments are coming, and that they won't be in the White House.

But let's continue. it turns out that Sen. Harry Reid, (D-NV), let it slip that "he had heard" Usama bin Laden had been killed in the recent earthquake in Pakistan:

"I heard that Osama bin Laden died in the earthquake, and if that's the case, I certainly wouldn't wish anyone harm, but if that's the case, that's good for the world."

(Quoted from John Fund's Political Diary, via GOP.com.)

A quick quiz in tradecraft: how many ways can you think of that this is harmful? How many good side-effects can you see? (Although, I'll say, my grandmother always said it was impolite to actively wish someone harm; I guess Reid is an old-fashioned guy in some ways.)

The Captain and the Sarge - Carpetbaggers

I'm a big fan of happenstance. Look up from the ground at one's feet or listen to a person nearby once in a while and interesting stuff will come to one's attention. A good example of this happened for me over the weekend just past.

In Malmö, Sweden, there is a cemetery; the Eastern Cemetery. It, or at least most of it, was designed by one Sigurd Lewerentz. Lewerentz was an architect and landscape architect of some minor reknown who designed, among other things, at least two remarkably beautiful cemeteries.

Unfortunately I am not in the habit of carrying a camera, nor pen and paper for that matter. It is not important to have any mental picture of this wonderful cemetery other than to know that there is a "central ridge" upon which one can walk and look out over the whole of the cemetery (or nearly so - it is large and has expanded out of sight even from the ridge). If one uses only the internet one would be led to believe that Malmö's Eastern Cemetery's only claim to fame is to chronically make the list of anti-semitic activities. The Jewish portion has been subject to vandalism.

Scandinavians have a thing for cemeteries. They keep them in a fashion that can only be described as "lovingly". The Swedish word for "cemetery" is "kyrkogård" which, translated literally, is "Church garden". Jokes about "dying to get in" aside, they are lovely and inviting places - parks begging one to walk about them. Which is exactly what I was doing last weekend with my daughter and a borrowed dog.

We'd walked about an hour or so and had climbed the central ridge and were on our way toward an exit when my daughter said, "A pilot must be buried there."

About 100 meters or so in the distance was a large propeller. We decided to wind our way over and see what this propeller in a cemetery was all about. It turned out to be a very large propeller. In fact it was a propeller, I learned later, from a B-24 Liberator.

The gravesite was actually a memorial with two graves, one on each side of the propeller. To the left was the grave of Captain Thomas C. Campbell and to the right the grave of Sergeant Oakley J. Ragland of the USAAF. The date of their deaths was Oct. 20, 1944. The memorial stone holding the propeller was between the headstones. The site was immaculately kept like all the others and the central stone had an inscription with words to the effect that it was a memorial to the brave men of the USAAF who fought for their country and gave their lives in the cause of freedom.

I'd been aware that bomber crews had sometimes nursed their damaged aircraft to Sweden and some had crashed and died there. But I'd never given it much thought (I later learned that some forty USAAF airmen died in crashes in Sweden). Each blade of the propeller bore the scars of flak and projectile damage and I assumed Captain Campbell and Sergeant Ragland were part of a bomber crew and died trying to land their plane. But my curiosity had been piqued and I spent a bit of time on the good ol' internet searching for the story of the Captain and the Sarge. I found a story I hadn't anticipated.

I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of the Carpetbagger portion of the story I've pieced together. The B-24 of which Capt. Campbell and Sgt. Ragland were part of the crew was apparently a heavily modified one. Something about halfway between the bomber and it's C-87 "Liberator Express" cargo/transport version. It was not on a bombing mission. It was on a "secret mission". In fact it was flying a Carpetbagger mission. It was not shot down at all but was lost to weather. It was the only USAAF plane lost over Sweden in Operation Carpetbagger.

Operation Carpetbagger flew insertion and extraction missions all over Europe in WWII. The large planes such as the modified B-24s were used for supply drops and in some cases cargo pickups. They were modified for agents to parachute out of into enemy territory. They retrieved downed pilots and escaped prisoners and various resistance fighters.

One of their "routes" was from Leuchars in Scotland to Bromma near Stockholm. This was done under the pretense (which nobody believed) of BOAC civil air operations. Niels Bohr was surely the most famous passenger carried on the Bromma-Leuchars run (Oct. 1943).

Captain Campbell and Sergeant Ragland were not the only ones who died in the crash of that modified B-24 Liberator on Oct. 20, 1944. They were two of six. The complete list is: Captain Truett K. Bullock, Captain Thomas C. Campbell, Lieutenant James Buchanan, Sergeant Donald J. Johnston, Sergeant Oakley J. Ragland, and Corporal Earl K. Nore. The others were either returned to the US or buried in US military cemeteries in Europe. The families of the Captain and the Sarge requested they remain at rest in Sweden. How they came to be in Malmö remains a mystery to me. Neither their destination nor their crash site were anywhere near the city of Malmö.

They were trying to make Bromma airport, near Stockholm, but were turned away due to bad weather conditions and sent to land at Torslanda, near Gothenburg. They didn't make it and crashed in a field near Alingsås. A memorial for the entire crew can be found there.

Here Died, 20 Oct 1944, six fliers from the United States of America. They fought for their country, for freedom, and for righteousness in the Second World War.

Update: If I left any impression that Operation Carpetbagger was entirely a US effort it was an unintentional error. The RAF was, to the best of my limited understanding, the driving force behind Carpetbagger and - again to the best of my limited understanding - flew at least as many missions if not far more. The Niels Bohr extraction, as just one example, was executed using a Mosquito and, presumably, a British crew. The Brits paid dearly for the wonders of Carpetbagger and lost numerous craft and crew.

Update #2: I hope to someday dig deeper into this flight. The internet is a useful but far from thorough research tool. The only references I can find about this flight on the net leave me with the definite impression that it was part of Operation Carpetbagger. Yet Operation Carpetbagger seems to have gone dormant in September of 1944 and flew no operations for several months until the last months of the war. That would put the October 20, 1944 mission somewhere outside of Carpetbagger. This one will require some digging in a library or two.

Update #3: Apparently operations out of Leuchars, Scotland, and flying to Bromma (Stockholm, Sweden) were not part of Carpetbagger. Operation Sonnie and Operation Ball flew out of Leuchars. Their missions were similar to those of Carpetbagger but came under a different operational group. A brief snapshot of these operations can be found here (scroll down to near the bottom). Interestingly, Operation Sonnie was run by a rather famous aviator: Bernt Balchen. An amusing little story (scroll down to Helpful Enemies) about how Balchen got the Germans to provide a spare part he needed while operating out of Bromma.

Mission Impossible?

By stealing the title of an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, reflecting on Bush's speech at the Naval Academy today, I am hoping to initiate a discussion about how to interpret the news we get out of Iraq. To me, it seems that those closest to the situation (our military, the Iraqis themselves) are the most optimistic observers, while those safest at home (the mainstream media, Washington politicians, virtually everybody I know in my own North San Francisco Bay area) are by and large pessimistic, if not outright defeatist.

Mark Gongloff, the writer of the WSJ piece, quotes Army War College researchers Andrew Terrill and Conrad Crane:

[V]ictory [in Iraq] may not be in sight next year, according to a new study coming from Army War College researchers... The War College, which trains Army officers but does not reflect the views of the Pentagon, has long been pessimistic about the war. In a 2004 study, the War College called it "an unnecessary preventative war" and a "detour" from the war on terrorism. In February 2003, Messrs. Terrill and Crane warned that the invasion of Iraq would produce a growing insurgency, and that disbanding Iraq's army would only fuel the insurgency, both of which proved prescient. In their new report, they said it was "increasingly unlikely" that the insurgency will be crushed before U.S. troops leave, that it was "no longer clear" that Iraqis would be able to fully secure the entire country on their own and that the best-case scenario was an undemocratic, but stable, Iraq, ruled by factional militias. But they also joined Mr. Bush in opposing a timetable for withdrawal. "The long-term dilemma of the U.S. position in Iraq," wrote Messrs. Terrill and Crane, "can perhaps best be summarized as: 'We can't stay, we can't leave, we can't fail.'"

So, We can't stay, we can't leave, we can't fail?

I am inclined to think the third of these, we can't fail, considered both as a statement of fact, and as an imperative, is the most compelling and important.

But, being merely a very interested observer, and a strong supporter of our troops, I have no special qualifications to analyze our problems in Iraq. Your analysis and reflections are enthusiastically solicited!

What’s the wealthiest state, or what does Mark Steyn know that you don’t?

The competition over which state is the richest has Connecticut edging New Jersey $56409 to $56356 (based on median household income).



But that’s just income. I wanted to know who is richest after adjusting for cost of living and state/local taxes. After all, the extra income doesn’t help much if you don’t get to spend it, or have to spend a lot more of it to get the same stuff.

So I’ve taken cost-of-living adjustments from this report (equally weighting the four studies), and state/local tax rates from here , and crunched some numbers. Connecticut and New Jersey still do reasonably well (6th and 7th, respectively), but the big winner is New Hampshire, followed by Maryland, Minnesota, Virginia, and Colorado.

Kawaii!

Did you notice Bush slap down the New York Times?

I didn't run to the computer fast enough to be the first to note it, but you might recall the New York Times quoting Cpl Jeffry Starr:

Sifting through Corporal Starr's laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the marine's girlfriend. ''I kind of predicted this,'' Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. ''A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.''

and the later discovery that the Times had quoted Starr out of context:

Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

Interestingly enough, Bush quoted the second part of the letter toward the end of his speech.
I wonder if the Times will pubish the full speech?

The easiest job in the world

What makes a good pundit? Actually knowing something about the subject doesn't make the list.

"...the better known and more frequently quoted they are, the less reliable their
guesses about the future are likely to be. "

Daniel Drezner reports on Philip Tetlock's new book.

A Short History of a Long War

Mudville Gazette is running a series on the Iraq War, from its beginnings in 1990.

Extremely useful; highly recommended.