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LGM Tourney Challenge Update

[ 18 ] March 28, 2013 | Robert Farley

Here’s the top tier:

RK ENTRY, OWNER R64 R32 S16 E8 F4 NCG CHAMPION PPR TOTAL PCT
1 LWillis38 1, LWillis38 260 240 0 0 0 0 Michigan St 1240 500 99.9
2 Elfers Gallinippers, PascoCracker 230 240 0 0 0 0 Michigan St 1120 470 98.8
2 Jersey Burkers, john theibault 250 220 0 0 0 0 Michigan 1120 470 98.8
2 dwatkins0 1, dwatkins0 230 240 0 0 0 0 Kansas 1000 470 98.8
5 Drstankus 1, Drstankus 220 240 0 0 0 0 Louisville 1240 460 97.3
6 matthewdkirk 1, matthewdkirk 250 200 0 0 0 0 Kansas 1240 450 94.4
6 byeh 1, byeh 230 220 0 0 0 0 Duke 1240 450 94.4
6 Calipari’s Vacated Title, chalkcity09 250 200 0 0 0 0 Indiana 1200 450 94.4
6 bisonblaine 1, bisonblaine 250 200 0 0 0 0 Ohio State 1200 450 94.4
6 Cool bracket, bro, ramfish43 230 220 0 0 0 0 Miami (FL) 1200 450 94.4
6 Willcylpse 1, Willcylpse 230 220 0 0 0 0 Florida 1160 450 94.4
6 lucky4lecky 1, lucky4lecky 230 220 0 0 0 0 Florida 1160 450 94.4
6 Zapoteca_y_villa 1, Zapoteca_y_villa 230 220 0 0 0 0 Louisville 1160 450 94.4
6 mackintheknife 1, mackintheknife 230 220 0 0 0 0 Louisville 1120 450 94.4
6 eduardoleonidas 1, eduardoleonidas 210 240 0 0 0 0 Duke 920 450 94.4

 

I’m tied for 49th, Lemieux is tied for 64th, and Watkins, as you can see, is sitting there tied for 2nd.

Go Ducks!

Sea Control: The Evolutionary Approach

[ 11 ] March 27, 2013 | Robert Farley

My latest at the Diplomat takes a look at China’s approach to naval aviation:

Ranging from the Colossus class carriers distributed across the world at the end of World War II, to the Spanish Dedalo, to the modern Hyuga class Helicopter Destroyer, the USN could and can depend on allies to conduct escort missions. The USN could also rely on access to airbases worldwide in order to support land-based sea control aviation.

China has none of these advantages. No Chinese ally is likely to devote treasure to the construction of sea control ships in the near future (Pakistan might be the best long term bet), and China lacks access to good bases for counter-sea aviation.  For sea control beyond China’s littoral, the PLAN has few, if any, good options.

In a structurally similar position to China (although much less dependent on foreign trade), the Soviet Navy started with what amounted to Sea Control Ships, in the form of the Moskva class helicopter carriers and the Kiev class “heavy aviation cruisers.” Although these ships weren’t designed specifically with commerce protection in mind, they were specialized for anti-submarine warfare, with allowance for air superiority and surface warfare in the Kiev class. Moreover, Soviet naval aviation evolved over time, with new platforms benefitting from experiences earned with older vessels.

China has been determined to leap several stages, with consequences for training that are already becoming apparent. But perhaps more importantly, by skipping ahead the PLAN has left itself bereft of the kind of low cost, medium size platforms that can support sea control operations at a distance from home.

 

War Between the States!

[ 61 ] March 26, 2013 | Robert Farley

Who to cheer for in this one…

Georgia senators today passed a resolution calling for the correction of survey areas along the state’s northern border in a 48-2 vote, a news release states.

“The Tennessee Valley Authority has identified the Tennessee River as a likely source of water for North Georgia,” said Sen. David Shafer, R-Duluth, as he presented the resolution. “Yet the state of Tennessee has used mismarked boundary lines to block our access to this important waterway.”

Georgia House Resolution 4 proposes a settlement of the boundary dispute, based on almost 200-year-old survey errors, clarifying Georgia’s access to Tennessee River water. It directs the state’s attorney general to sue to gain control of the entire area south of the 35th parallel if no agreement is reached with Tennessee, the Georgia Senate Press Office release states.

House Resolution 4 now returns to the House for agreement on amendments made by the Senate.

 

Twitter Fight Club Round 2

[ 13 ] March 25, 2013 | Robert Farley

Last week I barely escaped the clutches of the perfidious Ali Gharib, squeaking into the second round by a very slim margin (popular vote counts for half, judge assessment the other half). Now, I face a much more serious challenge in the form of Dr. Laura Seay of Morehouse College. Seay has significant advantages in intelligence, charisma, tact, number of followers, and apparently hotness:

It is my intention to offset these advantages by shamelessly pandering to the judges,  waging a vile smear campaign against my worthy foe, and by pointing out that Ezra Klein once praised my “rugged good looks.”

Vote early.  Vote often.

Foreign Entanglements: Alternative Wars on Terror

[ 0 ] March 25, 2013 | Robert Farley

On this week’s episode of Foreign Entanglements, Dan Nexon and I talked about lessons of the Iraq War:

A Noxious Stew of Cowardice and Stupidity

[ 52 ] March 24, 2013 | Robert Farley

Michael Kranish’s story of how part of the home school lobby brought down the UN Disability Treaty is just fantastic:

Then a witness named Michael ­Farris stunned many in the hearing room as he sought to demolish the arguments for the treaty.

Farris was speaking in his role as the president of the Home School Legal ­Defense Fund, a group with 83,000 dues-paying families that he founded in 1983. The group monitors government actions that potentially impact home schooling and says its mission is “to defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms.”

Farris, added to the witness list after Republicans on the committee learned of his objections to the treaty, testified that the treaty was “dangerous” to parents who teach disabled children at home. In a later radio interview, Farris would put his argument in the starkest terms: “The definition of disability is not defined in the treaty and so, my kid wears glasses, now they’re disabled; now the UN gets control over them.”

Kerry sounded sarcastic as he belittled Farris’s claims.

“So you believe that President George Herbert Walker Bush and Attorney General Thornburgh and majority leader Robert Dole, and a bunch of other people, just don’t understand the Constitution or can’t read the law?” Kerry asked Farris.

Santorum soon took up the cause from the outside, followed by Inhofe and Demint on the inside. Most of the rest, terrified of Tea Party challenges, soon fell into line. I do wish Kranish had spent a bit more time on the Beltway-Neocon think tank crowd, which also by and large opposed the treaty and which appreciated the opportunity that the home schoolers offered. Recognizing the  ”morons and people frightened of morons” part of the story shouldn’t cause us to miss the genuinely repellent elements that continue to hold the cards in the GOP foreign policy establishment.

Well, It Does Sound Appropriately Baffling

[ 24 ] March 22, 2013 | Robert Farley

I wanna see how this turns out:

Struggling to stand upright against a howling wind, Bragi Benediktsson looked out over his family’s land — a barren expanse of snow and ice that a Chinese billionaire wants to turn into a golf course — and laughed. “Golf here is difficult,” said Mr. Benediktsson, a 75-year-old sheep farmer.

It was 11 a.m., and a pale sun had only just crawled sluggishly into the sky. The snow, which began falling in September, will probably continue until May. Even for Icelanders accustomed to harsh weather and isolation, Grimsstadir is a particularly desolate spot.

But thanks to a poetry-loving Chinese tycoon with a thing for snow, it has become the setting for a bizarre Icelandic saga featuring geopolitical intrigue, tens of millions of dollars and a swarm of dark conspiracy theories. At the center of the drama is Huang Nubo, a former official in the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department who, now a property developer in Beijing, wants to build a luxury hotel and an “eco golf course” for wealthy Chinese seeking clean air and solitude.

Extra points for working in the phrase “Icelandic saga.”

Thursday Notes

[ 12 ] March 21, 2013 | Robert Farley

For assistance planning your day…

Iron Dome Revisited

[ 30 ] March 20, 2013 | Robert Farley

I have a piece at Open Zion on new skepticism about the effectiveness of Iron Dome:

Keeping all this in mind, we should take care in assessing claims about Iron Dome without having all of the evidence. Postol may be wrong, and the Israelis may have good data demonstrating the effectiveness of the system at the publicly stated intercept rates. Given the history of missile defense deception and the strong Israeli incentives to deceive, however, the people who pay for the system should be asking hard questions about how well it really works.

The comments are awesome.

How We Remember Iraq

[ 16 ] March 20, 2013 | Robert Farley

Over at the Diplomat a take a stab at thinking about how memory of the Iraq War will matter:

The tenth anniversary of the launch of the Iraq War has helped spark a debate over how the war will be interpreted by history.  Was the invasion of Iraq the catastrophic outcome of intelligence errors made in context of an overly-enthusiastic push for war?  Was it the result of the deft play of a group of ideologically committed policymakers and foreign policy thinkers (known colloquially as “neocons”)? Was it part and parcel of a long term U.S. policy of aggressive military response to minimal provocation? Or was the conflict, in fact, motivated by legitimate concerns of security and justice? Finally, irrespective of the reasons for going to war, did the United States “win?”

Disagreement over these questions will undoubtedly persist, even as ongoing events in Iraq and the Middle East provide more grist for debate.  Majorities in the United States have long believed that the war was a mistake, but hawks continue to argue the contrary case. Deep skepticism about the wisdom of Iraq has surely characterized much of the U.S. policy response to Libya, Mali, and Syria; it seems that America will participate either as a background facilitator, or not at all. To some degree, the existence of a bitter debate is enough to scare policymakers away from further foreign entanglements.

See Michael Cohen for some additional thoughts. I’ll add briefly that I wish the view that the Iraq War was a mistake was held by more than 58% of the American population. I suspect that some of that is tribalism; people who won’t publicly say that the war was a bad idea, but who would be deeply reluctant to engage in another such adventure.

Well, that Didn’t Work Out

[ 26 ] March 19, 2013 | Robert Farley

Losing to Robert Morris as the #1 seed on the opening night of the NIT… not what the good people of the Commonwealth had been hoping for.

… remember to fill out an LGM Tourney Challenge bracket. Password “zevon”.

You Gotta Own That

[ 295 ] March 19, 2013 | Robert Farley

I’ve never actually read How Would a Patriot Act, or assessed the claims that Glenn was pro-Iraq War, until today:

During the lead-up to the invasion, I was concerned that the hell-bent focus on invading Iraq was being driven by agendas and strategic objectives that had nothing to do with terrorism or the 9/11 attacks. The overt rationale for the invasion was exceedingly weak, particularly given that it would lead to an open-ended, incalculably costly, and intensely risky preemptive war. Around the same time, it was revealed that an invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein had been high on the agenda of various senior administration officials long before September 11. Despite these doubts, concerns, and grounds for ambivalence, I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president’s performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.

It is not desirable or fulfilling to realize that one does not trust one’s own government and must disbelieve its statements, and I tried, along with scores of others, to avoid making that choice until the facts no longer permitted such logic.

Setting aside the obvious, overwhelming contradictions in the first paragraph, I gotta wonder; why should anyone ever take seriously a person who wrote the sentence “I believed that the President was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country?” It’s actually quite a bit worse than “I thought Iraq had WMD,” or “I believed in the possibility for Iraqi democracy,” or “I believe we need to throw a little country against a wall every now and then.” All those are wrong, but they at least involve independent, engaged political thought; “I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to” is, in effect, an abdication of the duties of citizenship. Glenn insists that the claim that he supported the Iraq War is a lie; seems to me that “deferred to” and “accepted his judgment” rather clearly indicate support.  You gotta own that shit, Glenn.

The first paragraph is also rich; a seventh-grade belief in the notion that the American Republic was fine, dandy, and largely self-balancing until the “creeping extremism” of the last decade. I suppose I’d find this less irritating had Glenn not spent the day delivering tirades against fellow Iraq War supporters with characteristic bombast.

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