zenpundit.com

BAH! I’M RAMBLING TONIGHT

An exceedingly long and annoying day. Nothing like rolling in here at 9:30-10:00pm after getting up at 5 am. One of those Parkinson’s Law days when your reward for moving a prodigious amount of administrivia to your Out box is a new, even larger, pile for your In box.

On the positive side, I did talk on the phone with a friend I have not seen in some time and I also received the green light from my editor Bob on my next contribution to The Rule-Set Reset. This was key because it also allows me to develop one of the alternative topics for another publisher and I can stop pondering and start writing. BTW, the second issue of RSR will, like the first, be free to download before the subscription jaws slam shut. I can promise if you do subscribe, your hard-earned dollars will be ploughed back into RSR to make it the interactive PNM vehicle that The New Rule-Set Project partners envision it becoming and that fans of PNM will enjoy.

Had something of an important breakthrough today too on cognitive theory. I attribute this particular lightbulb popping in my head to the Boyd article below jogging my thoughts but I won’t know if I have just reinvented the wheel until I do a little computer time on ERICsearch and a couple of other databases. I came up with this insight while sitting in a meeting where my presence was serving no constructive purpose whatsoever and it might make the nugget of a good journal article. Or at least a post here.

Ok, enough free-range blogging. Time to focus.

SOUNDS LIKE THEY REALLY DO HATE OUR FREEDOM REDUX

Collounsbury’s Livejournal site is not accepting comments for some reason but he did have a link to Abu Aardvark on Arab reaction on al-Jazeerah to Zawahiri’s latest anti-democracy rant.

The last group to mount so straightforward an attack on liberal democracy as a concept were the Nazis. The Stalinists, being more cautious than the National Socialists and wanting to encourage the willing suspension of disbelief by useful idiots in the West, appropriated
” democracy” as an Orwellian gloss for their form of totalitarianism. Democracy carries with it implications of political legitimacy that are now almost universally recognized and al Qaida is now very clearly its enemy. The ” Zarqawization” of al Qaida continues apace.

Zawahiri’s put himself in an ideological corner that not even all Islamists are going to find defensible. Nice to see that the other side makes its own militantly stupid moves on occasion.

JOHN BOYD’S MAGNUM OPUS

I’m nearing the end of Robert Coram’s bio of maverick fighter pilot turned theorist, John Boyd. Had Tom Barnett not endorsed the significance of Boyd’s contribution to military thought I’d have probably tossed the book on my towering ” to be read eventually” pile with no particular hurry to get to it. Reading Coram’s book, which is, as praktike had commented, somewhat light, spurred me to take a firsthand look at Boyd’s work, so I found a copy of his paper/brief ” Destruction and Creation”.

The man was a visionary genius. We should all see so far.

(straight text version here).

THE WINGNUTS TURN ON HILLARY

Dan at tdaxp stomached a tour of the Hate-America fest known as the Democratic Underground and discovered that Hillary Clinton is now considered a ” war criminal “.

GEORGE BUSH WORLD TOUR

Dave Schuyler at The Glittering Eye has an excellent post up on the motivations for George Bush’s fence-mending tour ( note the Chirac-Bush lovefest) to Old Europe.

“…So why has Bush gone to Europe? I think there are three reasons. First, half a loaf is better than none. Anything that Europe can bring to the party will be gratefully received. Second, when the French and Germans stiff him (as they undoubtedly will), they will look churlish. This won’t go un-noted in New Europe. For New (or Old) Europeans who aren’t predisposed to despise anything American this may be a very important trip particularly if, as some have predicted, the European Union collapses within 15 years.

But Bush is a politician and the third and, in my opinion, most significant reason for Mr. Bush’s Grand Tour must certainly be for domestic political consumption. What might the domestic political considerations for this trip be? He may be trying to demonstrate that he’s doing his utmost on the diplomatic front. This should strengthen his hand for whatever actions are required as future events unfold. And there’s a lot of unfolding going on. “

Agreed.

My expectations bar for the Germans and French is a low one. Paris and Berlin will pursue their own perceived national interests, much of which involves acting as a self-appointed, soft-power, balance to American primacy. However, there still remain fairly large areas for cooperation in mutual interest ( getting the Syrians out of the Bekaa for one) and trips such as these smooth the path. As irritating as French Gaullist and German leftist politicians can be, so long as their envy and anti-Americanism continues to be expressed selectively, we can count on them to help us when it is in their selfish interests to do so.

I also recommend checking out the American Future for Marc Shulman’s coverage of the Bush trip.