A Fanboy's Notes: the Morality of Power - So UO's roleplaying group has been talking about possibly doing a superhero game. We were discussing one of the problems of superhero games, which is that superheroes are structurally reactive - they spend their time thwarting the designs of bad guys. So we asked ourselves, what if you had superheroes that instead had activist agendas to pursue, some plan for using their powers to bring about their own vision of the just society, and the answer we came up with was that what you would actually have in that case would be villains.

Ahoy There! - Unqualified Offerings has been keeping Seablogger to itself, which is not very generous of it. Only partially-accurately billing itself as "A Nautical Journal," Seablogger is the personal site of Alan Sullivan, poet, critic and old friend of Unqualified Offerings. Alan's literary archive, Cruising with Catullus, is itself a treasure trove, just not as frequently updated. It includes Alan's essays on poetry (including substantial pieces on A.D. Hope, Robert Francis and Richard Wilbur), a memoir of his sailing life, an online poetry collection, Jade Mountain, substantial passages of the verse translation of Beowulf he completed with his life partner, Tim Murphy, and, as they say, more.

But let's say you're not up for all that. Then Seablogger is the site for you. Unqualified Offerings knows what you are thinking: What do I need with another blog by a (self-described) homocon named "Sullivan?" Answer: Alan Sullivan writes real good! The "Fresh Bilge" link on the main page is where the latest entry is to be found. Seablogger tends to do one substantial entry at a time, rather than dashing off several smaller ones. The current item, "High Noonan," is his effort at what he describes (in e-mail) as "a (quasi) libertarian argument for taking down the Baath regime in Iraq." Along the way he meditates on the political effing up the personal:

But then came the hostage crisis. I remember visiting some gay friends on the night of Reagan's election. They all thought an American theocracy would soon be preparing a gulag for us. Tim and I scoffed at them. Reagan would be busy purging the economy of stagflation and bringing home the hostages. His fundamentalist supporters would go back to their churches and shut up.

We lost some friends that night.

Unqualified Offerings doesn't buy his argument for conquering Iraq (as if you expected it too), but it likes the matter-of-fact way he puts things. Earlier entries may be found at - where else? - "where the bilge goes." Try "Orchard in Autumn," where he talks about the roots of his political beliefs during the course of a memoir of a much-loved plot of land.

I'll Take My Stand...Where? - Reuters reports that Turkish police arrested smugglers with 23 pounds - that's critical mass - of weapons-grade Uranium. Glenn Reynolds reads more into the article than is actually there - he's already convicted Iraq of being the "demand side" of the transaction. It may well be; the article doesn't say. It could be Iraq trying to complete a bomb before the US can start the invasion; it could be Syria trying to complete a bomb before the Bush Administration turns its sights southwest from Baghdad; it could be an unsociable NGO like al Qaeda. (It could also be a black op to provide precisely the "smoking gun" Reynolds descries.) The suspects are in custody and Unqualified Offerings does not doubt the ability of the Turkish police to get any answer they fancy out of them.

Iraq is certainly the logical first suspect, though. Unqualified Offerings has never based its case against conquering Iraq (and Iran, and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and...) on the thesis that Saddam Hussein wasn't trying to acquire nukes, germs and chemical weapons. UO has believed and continues to believe that nonproliferation is a fantasy and a lost cause, and that pursuing it seriously will do more harm than good. (See several of the "Best of" pieces linked at left. The Turkish story is especially interesting in light of the actual thought-provoking parts of Eugene Volokh's article yesterday in National Review Online about what Saddam Hussein might do with nukes. (There's also a major Freudian slip in the piece that we'll get to as well, in another item.)

For the next phase of the conflict over the conflict, UO sees two issues: First, the "soft opposition" to conquering Iraq is going to have to decide which way to jump. UO suspects that if you assign primacy to keeping weapons of some destruction out of the hands of Saddam Hussein, as many administration critics do, you're ultimately going to have to come down on the pro-war side. Long-term, any opposition to the war has to cluster around one of two sets of principles, which we'll tentatively - and tendentiously - call "pro-american" and "anti-american."

"Pro-American": Deterrence works in combination with a non-interventionist foreign policy; the risks of pursuing what amounts to an imperial foreign policy outweigh the risks of Iraq or any other international actor carrying through with a desire to attack the United States with weapons of - you know.

"Anti-American": The US does not deserve to be secure from other countries' arsenals; the US is a bigger "roque state" than Iraq or any other international actor; the proper US role is to put its wealth in the service of the "international community"; the US can not complain about any steps its victims decide they need to take in their struggle with American hegemony.

The first thing that must be noted is the similarity between the two views. Both think US imperialism is bad. Both expect that imperialism begets hostile reaction (our old friend "blowback"). You might argue, with some justice, that the two positions are substantially the same shape, but substantially different colors. to be a bit cheeky, one is red, white and blue (and with a field of thirteen stars), while the other is - let's say green and red?

The problem for any effective antiwar movement will be, of course, that the two tendencies will instinctively despise each other. That can limit cooperation.

UPDATE: Don't you hate these discursive bloggers? UO wrote that it saw two issues, then dealt with only one of them. Gaaah! The other one, another item, another time. Off for an afternoon out with Offering Boy.

Sequel to Where's Osama? Announced - File this one under Hunh!

An Iraqi doctor who fled to Iran says the Iraqi leader has not appeared in public since 1998, and uses at least three men who act as his doubles. The exiled doctor says the doubles take President Saddam's place at all appearances, including top government meetings.

Appearing on German television Thursday, the doctor (identified as Moslem al-Asadi) pointed out differences between the real Saddam and the look-alikes, including smaller ears, jutting jaws and thinner cheeks.

The doctor alleges that most television footage of Saddam Hussein is archival, and he believes the real Saddam may have disappeared.

via Voice of America News.

On the Other Hand... - Christopher Hitchens, who has a lot more credibility with Unqualified offerings than anyone in the Bush Administration, offers some interesting anti-Iraq arguments in his final Nation column. Based on his own reporting, he places a high probability of an Atta-Al-Ani meeting in Praque, and he writes ruefully of friends of his among Iraqi officialdom who have suffered losses at Saddam's hands. An excerpt:

But what I cannot bear is the sight of French and Russian diplomats posing and smirking with Naji Sabry, Iraq's foreign minister, or with Tariq Aziz. I used to know Naji and I know that two of his brothers, Mohammed and Shukri, were imprisoned and tortured by Saddam Hussein--in Mohammed's case, tortured to death. The son of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to twenty-two years of imprisonment last year; he has since been released and rearrested and released again, partly no doubt to show who is in charge. Another former friend of mine, Mazen Zahawi, was Saddam Hussein's interpreter until shortly after the Gulf War, when he was foully murdered and then denounced as a homosexual. I have known many regimes where stories of murder and disappearance are the common talk among the opposition; the Iraqi despotism is salient in that such horrors are also routine among its functionaries. Saddam Hussein likes to use as envoys the men he has morally destroyed; men who are sick with fear and humiliation, and whose families are hostages.

Now the thing is, this sounds rather like Joseph Stalin, so we are right back to the issue of the odious-but-deterrable bastard. And knowing that the Atta-Al-Ani meeting happened is, properly, only the beginning of an investigation, not its end point. A country that had been pursuing a sane Iraq policy the last dozen years would issue an ultimatum that Al-Ani be produced for questioning, a la the demands, eventually successful, that Libya turn over the Lockerbie bombing suspects. Our actual policy however, has been to make it explicit to Saddam Hussein that there is no reward whatsoever available for cooperating with us.

One reads this passage

I am much more decided in my mind about two further points. I am on the side of the Iraqi and Kurdish opponents of this filthy menace. And they are on the side of civil society in a wider conflict...

and wonders, how long will we be on the side of Saddam's Kurdish opponents after the conquest? (Not very, as I have argued.)

Still, unlike some otherwise libertarian hawks, Hitchens isn't shy about telling you where he departs from the Administration's brain trust:

Only a fool would trust the Bush Administration to see all of this. I am appalled that by this late date no proclamation has been issued to the people of Iraq, announcing the aims and principles of the coming intervention. Nor has any indictment of Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity been readied. Nothing has been done to conciliate Iran, where the mullahs are in decline. The Palestinian plight is being allowed to worsen (though the Palestinians do seem to be pressing ahead hearteningly with a "regime change" of their own). These misgivings are obviously not peripheral.

Hitchens may get UO's coveted "Hawk of the Year" award twice running.

Football: an Intellectual Journey - Asked how to become a writer, Ray Bradbury famously said, First, write a million words. Asked how to become a great pro football coach, Steve Spurrier said, First, work through your Danny Wuerffel obsession.

You Want I Should Answer Trick Questions? - Unlike lots and lots and lots of people, Unqualified Offerings can't get worked up about Dick Armey's response to a reporter's question in Florida about the differences between liberal and conservative Jews. It seems like one of those questions whose very structure makes it impossible to answer without pissing someone off. (UO is working from this story in the Cleveland Jewish News.) Had he launched into a peroration speculating on whether the tradition of rabbinical disputation is especially in tune with the "rule by experts" principle behind the managerialist state, it's unlikely his critics would have been happier. Not that his critics are unhappy now. For sheer insincerity, it's hard to top this from the joint statement of Reps. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Martin Frost (D-Texas):

"It's very disappointing to us that a high-ranking leader of the Republican Party and the House of Representatives would make such divisive remarks."

Translation: This rocks! We practically pissed ourselves with joy when we heard this story! How long can we keep it going do you think?

I Suppose Neo-Phalangist is Right Out! - Eve Tushnet has an interesting item about trying political labels on for size:

..., what are my options? I can't make up a word like "jfaoheihah" and use that to denote my political beliefs; I'm stuck with words that already exist, words that people understand.

She also doubts that the EU is a fascist superstate in the making.

The Dog Ate My Homework - Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff was kind enough to ask me what I thought about libertarian Republican congressman Ron Paul's recent manifesto on national security. The first thing I think is, it's an awful lot to get through! I'm working on it, Charles, honest! but this is one statement for the Congressional Record where it would be nice if the author had reserved the right to "revise and reduce."

So You Say - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on TV that the Administration has evidence that Saddam is "sheltering members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network in Baghdad and helping bin Laden's operatives in developing chemical weapons" and that "details of the contacts will be released later," according to this story on FoxNews.com.

Wake Unqualified Offerings when it happens. UO is serious. The Administration has earned the benefit of zero doubt on the Iraq qusestion.

How's That Again? - Has Greil Marcus really earned the right not to make sense? Must've. Unqualified Offerings was playing around with the new Google News and came across the Salon squib Marcus wrote on the terminal illness of Warren Zevon.

Playing: "Mohammed's Radio," the churchy live version from the 1982 "Stand in the Fire" ("Even Jimmy Carter's got the highway blues"); the delirious rising in the 1978 "Johnny Strikes Up the Band"; the regret in the melody of "Looking for the Next Best Thing" in 1982; the shared dread of "Run Straight Down" in 1989; the delicacy of "Suzie Lightning" in 1991 and "Mutineer" in 1995. From 1976, when he went public with "Desperadoes Under the Eaves" on the album "Warren Zevon," it has been more than a quarter century of gunplay and bravado, not for a moment concealing Zevon's loathing for his own betrayals and those of the world around him. "I was in the house when the house burned down," he sang in 2000. From afar he has been a good friend.

Uh, right. Give UO Virginia Postrel on the subject any day.

Now speaking of Google News, the first thing UO sees for them to work on is jiggering the algorithm so that you don't get two dozen versions of the exact same AP story at the top of the results list. (Check the "Warren Zevon" results if you haven't already experienced this.)

Speaking of Google itself: WE'RE NUMBER TWO!

That's right, Unqualified Offerings is now the number two Henley on Google. UO has outcompeted the Henley Management College. Has-been singer Don Henley has seen the Deadhead sticker on UO's cadillac. Square in the sights of Unqualified Offerings? Some boat race.

The Second Time as Farce Dept. - A lot of NFL observers have knocked Denver Broncos QB Brian Griese for being too injury prone. And that was before this happened.

Unqualified Offerings: If You Don't Get It, You Don't Get It - Sensible thinking on "weapons of mass(?) destruction." Get it from the New Republic now or get it from Unqualified Offerings three and a half freaking months ago! And the New Republic is having all sorts of bandwidth problems. You, ahem, never have to worry about that here.

(Apologies to the Washington Post for recycling their old slogan.)

Standing Athwart Canadian History Yelling Stop - Your official Colby Cosh quote of the Day:

Any true, hardcore conservative would be happy to return us to the world of mail-order laudanum.

Why? Read all about it here.

Danger! Danger! - As a public service for this site's Canadian readers, Unqualified Offerings passes on the following warning obtained via the Elvis Costello Mailing List:

For those of you in Toronto, Sam the Record Man on Yonge (the big one) is giving out 2 free tickets to Ron Sexsmith's wednesday show at the Phoenix when you buy his new album Cobblestone Runway.

Presumably if you avoid Toronto, or at least the Sam the Record Man store on Yonge, you should be safe.

We'll Transform Their Culture, Like We Did with Germany and Japan - Hawks inside and outside the Bush Administration are cranked off about things that Gerhard Schroeder said to get re-elected in Germany - basically, swearing as vociferously and, likely, as forthrightly as Woodrow Wilson once did that he would keep his country out of other people's wars. Here's an interesting passage from the Washington Post's coverage:

The Social Democrats and Greens won a second term in office by the narrowest of margins. Schroeder had trailed badly in opinion polls until he began opposing U.S. policy on Iraq. His position tapped a strong pacifist sentiment that mobilized his supporters and energized his campaign.

"Strong pacifist sentiment." Where did that come from? Oh right. And damn if they can't just turn it on and turn it off to suit us.

UPDATE: This item gets an Advantage: Nick Denton! and even an Advantage: Slate! descriptor, it turns out.

FURTHER UPDATE: Gary Farber e-mails to point out Germany's break with its past in its last election, choosing a Chancellor not named "Helmut." Unqualified Offerings regrets the error. Once you get past John Major in Britain and Prime Minister Poutine in Canada, UO has a little trouble keeping all these foreign leaders straight. Gary also commends to the attention of this site's three or so readers that actually agree with it ideologically (as opposed to coming here for the jokes) this item on his own blog, Amy G. Dala. Unqualified Offerings commends it too.

(Stealth) Digital Rights Management - So the London Sunday Times included, curiously, a free Elvis Costello CD this week. And the free Elvis Costello CD included...

Hardware supporting Microsoft's Secure Audio Path DRM technology seems to have arrived, albeit somewhat bashfully, and as if that wasn't enough, today the UK Sunday Times newspaper unleashed a neat little trojan that'll upgrade you to Windows Media Player 9, complete with all those lovely facilities to protect 'your' music. If you're not careful, that is...

The hardware could get kind of tricky to avoid, but the file format itself is currently less so. Which makes today's Sunday Times exercise rather interesting. As far as we know this is the second such exercise performed via a ST freebie. We didn't pick up on the first (Oasis, sorry people), but we've had a good look at this one.

It consists of preview tracks from Elvis Costello's When I was Cruel - Collector's Edition, due out on Monday...

From The Register

Everybody's a Critic (Some of Them Are GOOD Critics) Dept. - Gene Healy on the Sopranos:

Here’s the point of the Sopranos, to the extent a show as rich and multifaceted as it is can have “a point.” The show is about an evil man with some vestigial traces of a conscience making his way in a world that has decided that feeling warm and fuzzy about yourself is more important than being a decent person. And everywhere Tony Soprano goes—Jennifer Melfi’s office included—he finds people willing to indulge that view. His depression, which is palpable, is largely a result of that conscience. He knows he’s a reprehensible person, and he’s half crying out to hear it from someone.

Gene officially joins Radley Balko and Myles Kantor as great, essential and libertarian critics of the show.

UPDATE: Mr. Mike of Random Ruminations points out that UO forgot to link to Gene Healy's essay, which is considerably longer than the quoted bit and well worth reading. UO can be such a dumbbell sometimes.

Military Census - More retired generals urge against rushing to war in Iraq (and Iran, and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and...), as reported by the New York Times - three, in fact, all with three stars. No doubt your NRO and Weekly Standard types will soon inform us that these men too are washed-up has-beens, like all the other retired and active-duty brass who have been pooh-poohing their clever plans. Makes you wonder how the US got to be a superpower in the first place, if all our past and present generals are such blinkered time-servers as we keep being told.

Vague Hints and Indirect Indications Dept. - From yesterday's Associated Press, via FoxNews:

WASHINGTON — An FBI supervisor, sounding a prophetic pre-Sept. 11 alarm, warned FBI headquarters that student pilot Zacarias Moussaoui was so dangerous he might "take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center," a congressional investigator said in a report Tuesday.

But really, what are the odds. More:

In the other example, a Phoenix FBI agent's warning in July 2001 that Usama bin Laden might be sending terrorists to train at U.S. flight schools was deemed "speculative and not particularly significant," said the report by Eleanor Hill, staff director for the House and Senate intelligence committees' joint inquiry into the attacks.

New York-based agents already knew Middle Eastern flight students associated with bin Laden were training in the United States, but believed he wanted them to transport goods and people in Afghanistan, she said.

In presenting her report to the committees, Hill did not suggest that better handling of the Moussaoui case or the so-called Phoenix memo or any other lead would have prevented the Sept 11 attacks. But she said the country could have been better prepared if those cases had been tied together and with other clues

Gosh, I suppose so. Remind Unqualified Offerings again who got fired over all this.

Advantage:...? - Well now! A golden oldie topic resurfaces in a striking way!

President George Bush decided to turn to the United Nations after being advised that the U.S. military was unprepared for a war with Iraq.

Related factors included a simulated defeat of U.S. naval forces by Iraq in the Millennium Challenge military exercises last month and an intelligence dispute between the CIA and the DIA.

Western diplomatic sources said Bush's surprise call for the return of UN weapons inspectors stemmed from a recommendation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the United States required up to six more months to prepare for any war against the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The sources said U.S. Central Command was preoccupied with the the war in Afghanistan and possessed insufficient assets, logistics, and supplies in countries that neighbor Iraq.

The shortcomings in the U.S. military were pointed out in the Millennium Challenge exercise launched last month, Middle East Newsline reported. The exercise sought to simulate a U.S. attack against a Middle East enemy that resembled Iraq.

Officials said in the simulation U.S. naval forces were decimated by an Iraqi missile and weapons of mass destruction strike. The Iraqi side in the exercise used cruise missiles to overwhelm the U.S. Navy's GS radar and sink the entire simulated Blue Armada fleet of 16 ships.

So says an article in the World Tribune. Mind you, it could all be disinformation. But, to repeat: Well now!

Memo to Jane Galt: See paragraph 3. It relates to a question you had yesterday.

Jane also weighs in on bikinis and burkhas, with an interesting consideration of sexuality and the forbidden.

Imitation Music Blog Post - 'Yes, you are a groupie'
And 35 more things every rock critic should know from the Austin American-Statesman's SXSW 2002 section, including, but not limited to

1. Writing for rollingstone.com isn't the same as writing for Rolling Stone. But then, these days writing for Rolling Stone isn't the same as writing for Rolling Stone.

5. The first person is not the First Amendment. It's a privilege, not a right.

7. It's a record review, not a term paper.

13. Stop trying to make Richard Thompson famous. Ain't gonna happen. [Sigh. - UO]

17. Saying you like Radiohead's "difficult" albums will only encourage them.

22. Don't you dare cross the street to avoid Mojo Nixon. Five years ago you were sucking up to him.

28. Greil Marcus has earned the right to not make sense. You haven't.

29. Having Courtney Love hit on you during an interview is as special as a free coffee refill.

35. Re: the Strokes. Make up your mind already.

All of which reminds Unqualified Offerings: "Paradise," the song that's half from a suicide bomber's POV on The Rising? How come nobody has mentioned that it's secretly "The Sounds of Silence?" (Listen, children, and you shall hear.)

Imitation Hip Blog Link - This long text animation is oddly compelling. (Note: No dirty pictures, but adult language and sexual situations.) It's like, a flash animation or something. Yeah, Unqualified Offerings is hopeless as a non-political blogger The sequence has a great jazz soundtrack too. Link via Where is Raed via Eve Tushnet. The proprietor, Salman Pax, also offers some Iraq-War items from a different viewpoint than the rest of the blogosphere - literally.

Three Two-Piece Pieces - Aziz Poonawalla revises and extends his bikini remarks from yesterday. Unqualified Offerings commends it to your attention, though it thinks Aziz is playing out a losing hand here. He makes some interesting points about modesty as a virtue, but never, to UO's mind, bridges the gulf between that virtue and oppression. Several of the commenters make this and allied points. (And on the Really, What Are the Odds? front, Unqualified Offerings got a chuckle out of this passage: "I'll assume that [Jim] holds similar views as Steven Den Beste...")

UO should stress that it never thought that Aziz was defending the forced imposition of the burkha on women. While UO doesn't think bikinis are bad things, its argument was that even if that is true, there is still the question of degree (which is worse?) and that question is easily answered.

Diana Moon of Letter from Gotham weighs in on bikinis, lookism, heightism and suchlike here. But now, UO has to wonder; shouldn't it be Letters From Gotham? There's way more than one.

And Glenn Reynolds, who agrees that Aziz "makes a lot of worthy points," offers a coda:

Is it a "power play" when women want to wear bikinis to please men? Is it a "power play" when men dress or groom or whatever in a particular way to please women? And -- even assuming that this statement is true -- what precisely is immoral about it? Not much that I can see.

I'll go along with that.

Dialogue in a Toys 'R' Us

Mrs Offering: We have to find something for this child.
Unqualified Offerings: How about the Jim Morrison Action Figure in the next aisle?
Mrs. Offering: Jim Morrison of the Doors???
Unqualified Offerings: Honest to God.
Mrs. Offering: How could there be a Jim Morrison action figure??
Unqualified Offerings: Okay, a Jim Morrison Indolence Figure, then.
Mrs. Offering: That makes more sense.

Make that a Double - Unqualified Offerings loves this entire post by Hesiod Theogony, but especially this passage:

At bottom, I think my biggest problem with this war is that, apart from it being unnecessary, it really goes against the fundamental principles and character of our nation. We do not start wars, we finish them.

As for the question of whether and when the US may become an empire, Hesiod Theogony, meet Garet Garrett.

#*$@%$ by an Angel - Hm. Colby Cosh: at least as funny as The Poor Man. And kids, it's humor with a point:

No, Della and Michael aren't that kind of angel: they're the kind who help retarded kids raise money at bake sales. And presumably it's some other angel's job to shatter the kid's chromosomes in the first place. I dimly recall that Touched by an Angel has flirted with this theme, actually--but a truly Christian presentation would try to actively convince the viewer that the "bad" angel's purposes, which are the Lord's will, are every bit as much to be applauded and cheered for as the "good" angel's. How about a whole spinoff devoted to the bad guys? Mutilated by an Angel. Decapitated by an Angel.

Not going to happen, I guess. We are often told that America is the most Christian society left in the world, but for how many people is it a trivial Christianity--a thinly disguised cult of whimpering zombie niceness? A lot, I suspect, or the Christian clergy wouldn't stand for televised Manichaean nonsense trafficking under its brand name.

We Get Letters - Loyal Reader Kevin Maroney writes to quibble with an aspect of the Godwin's Law item, below:

Adolf Hitler was never Adolf Schickelgruber. His father was born Alois Schickelgruber, but changed his name to Hittler as part of the condition of marrying his third wife, Klara; Adolf was born several years later.

I don't know why this is an issue for me. On the first level, I find making fun of people's names to be pretty much the lowest form of insult humor. (I'm sure the fact that I was subjected to a lot of it when young has nothing whatsoever to do with this.)

Also, I know that within Hitler's lifetime, the "Schickelgruber" name was used as a class insult against Hitler. It's a Bohemian, not a "true German", name. So mockery of the name is tied in with precisely the nationalism which is supposed to be one of the reasons the Nazis were bad.

Finally, the fact of Alois Schickelgruber's illegitimacy fuelled rumors that Alois's father was Jewish. It strikes me as disturbingly likely that this had significant historical consequence. Harping on it seems to be a recapitulation.

It's an interesting idea. Unqualified Offerings was, needless to say, casting about desperately for a way to avoid using "Hitler" twice in the same sentence. Perhaps next time it will cast farther.

Everybody's a Critic, Including Unqualified Offerings - Otherwise-reasonable Aziz Poonawalla averred today that "Actually, the bikini is as much a tool of female oppression as the Saudi burka," which is, much as UO admires Aziz, nevertheless a crock.

1) This would be a shade closer to true if western women who ever tried to wear something other than bikinis - like, say, a business suit - GOT THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF THEM FOR DOING SO. But there's more: 2) We may feel very ambivalent about it, but women's sexual power is real. In a REAL patriarchy, as opposed to a half-assed one, it's practically the only power women have available. Afghanistan is a real patriarchy for sure, and the burkha robs women of their sexual power by design. That is its function. But we're still not done. 3) A bikini-clad woman has a face. Men can see when she is happy, when she is sad, when she is cogitating, when she is pissed off and, especially, when she suffers. There are some sick bastards who get off on visible evidence of female suffering. But even most squishy sexists are as squeamish as the rest of us about seeing torment play across the face of another human being. This too is what the burkha takes away by design. There is simply no comparison that is not invidious.

Updates Dept. - Gene Healy seems to have successfully made the transition to Movable Type. This means that about a week's worth of stillborn Blogger posts have been salvaged and published as part of the import process, so there's lots of new material.

Timothy Virkkala e-mails to say that you can access the "Instead of a Blog" archives by clicking the "Past Comments" button.

Colby Cosh has a couple of excellent, funny pieces supporting the legalization of pot, which just makes sense somehow. See here and here.

He's a man who knows how to respond to critics, too:

Finally, American-living-in-Edmonton Sam Mikes has a rebuttal to my thoughts on pot. And, er, also a rebuttal to my thoughts on Canadian healthcare. Jesus, Sam, isn't there another goddamn pinata you can go whack? Hit me all you like, I don't shit candy.

That Was Fast - The Elvis Costello News Blog already has its own domain. Currently on offer, a setlist from last night's Seattle show.

Good News for Doves! - We have captured the coveted "simplistic" designation from our opponents! You may recall that one Hubert Vedrine, of the Republic of France, gave an interview last winter criticising the US for its "simplistic" ideas about foreign policy. Ever since then, the hawks (with and without blogs) have worn the term "simplistic" like a badge of honor.

Well, guess what, fellow anti-interventionists: It's ours now! UO's favorite hawkish blogger, Megan McArdle, today wrote

I just realized one of the things that really, really, bothers me about a lot of the anti-war arguments; it's the huge number of people who want to cast this in the simplistic terms of a morality play.

This so rocks! Give up now, Imperialists! Our simplisme will refute you at every turn!

Everybody's a Critic Dept. - In which Unqualified Offerings is not universally beloved!

Selenously pseudonymous Diana Moon of Letter from Gotham says that UO seems "to have joined the anti-aircraft battery-on-the-roof-crowd," which you'll know, if you follow Diana's blog as religiously as UO does, is supposed to be a bad thing. To UO's contention that Iraq is more properly Israel's problem than America's, and that Israel, with a whole government and military of its own to look after its affairs, Diana replies:

Meaning that's not terribly realistic, is it? After pretty much shackling Israel's hands behind its back for the past few years, to then unleash them to do the dirty work we can't be bothered to do would seem a mite, well, expedient? Phony? Conduct unbefitting a great power with a reputation for honor? Cowardly?

It's an interesting picture, really, the US "shackling" Israel's hands. UO wonders if Katherine Gear might not be able to profitably work it into her map of fetishes: the bondage games of nations. What does it say about the US that we're paying for it?

On a more serious note, Diana has hit on a real issue: it sucks to be a client state sometimes. That's the strategy Israel's leaders chose to pursue, though. UO likes to think they soberly considered whether 'twas better to be the largest recipient of US aid on the planet, and the proximate cause of the second-largest amount of aid the US dishes out (to Egypt), along with a certain amount of "shackling," versus the free, manly life of a true regional power beholden to no overlord, however fitfully. UO happens to think they chose wrong and would have things otherwise. It invites Ariel Sharon to join it on this path.

Newish blogger D.S. Monoclonius turns out to be someone else who took exception to "It's So Easy II," on September 13. (It just showed up in UO's referrer logs yesterday.) He explains our Japanese triumph as follows:

Well, he is utterly wrong of course. What we did was take an expansionist, murderous, and extremely dangerous, anti-modern Japan and make it into a very junior partner in our much broader hegemonic project. We fought wars in Asia (Korea, Vietnam, a coming conflict with China perhaps) exactly so Japan would keep to its own business and not lift its head up from its designated task at all. While that country is stagnant economically and somewhat infantile politically and socially, it has proven itself to be an excellent partner in a wide variety of ways, for example, supplying our economy with a phenomenal array of high technology products, buying ours, and forcing our flabby car industry to actually build decent cars. Don't get me wrong, I am no fan of the trade imbalance we have with Japan, nor of our dependence on them (I still a remember "A Japan That Can Say No"), nor of our lack of maneuverability in Asia. But this was the Acheson-MacArthur vision, no doubt about it. It worked well for all involved (except for the American working class).

All of this is supposed to be a good thing. UO finds him on surer ground in some of his passages on Germany, though there is also this curious parenthetical:

(The EU may be corporatist, but fascist? What definition are you using?)

Answer: Pretty much the same one that UO's friends at Samizdata use, it supposes. More seriously, this website's thinking about the term "fascism" has been heavily influenced by the work of Stanley G. Payne, and A. James Gregor's remark that fascism is "a marxist heresy." (See also this superb article by David Ramsey Steele, "The Mystery of Fascism.") Corporatism is certainly a big part of it.

Leninism aimed to forge a militant class consciousness. Italian fascism aimed to forge a militant national consciousness. German national socialism aimed to forge a militant racial consciousness (not the same thing as "national consciousness"). Islamism aims to form a militant religious consciousness. (UO endorsed the term "islamofascism" - and there was much rejoicing - way back here.)

Clearly the EU is trying to aggressively forge a new group consciousness, whether one call it "supranational" or "continental" or whatever. How militant is that consciousness intended to be? That's open to discussion. (Start by asking these people.) Clearly, the EU as it stands is not aggressively militarist. (Except, perhaps, toward its own subjects...)

That certainly makes the EU an attempted evolution of the corporatist regime. The EU is also very much a work in progress. This is not separable from the other signal characteristic of revolutionary marxism and fascism - the identification of an enemy other - Capital (Marx); Finance(Ezra Pound); the industrial powers of the day (Mussolini); International Jewry (Hitler); the "Jew-Crusaders" (Bin Laden).

A live question regarding the EU is, since it has embarked on a fascist project, will it have to resort to classically fascist means to further it? That is, will circumstance require its shepherds to lead the flock down an increasingly militarized, oppositional path? And who will be the bogeymen. So far, the EU bogeyman is the resident "xenophobe" - that is, pretty much anyone within the member states who opposes the EU's aggrandizement in any aspect whatsoever - and they've gotten some good mileage out of this. If the present, internal bogeyman ceases to suffice, what external candidate looks especially suitable?

That would be us. (Also Israel. Which could put the EU, too, in opposition to the "Jew-Crusaders.")

Man, this is way more than Unqualified Offerings intended to write on the subject. Anyway, this site's more hawkish readers should consider adding D.S. Monoclonious' blog, Unsullied and Undismayed, to their rotations. They will find much to enjoy there, such as this lengthy series on "Terrorism, Globalism and American Empire." (Start at the link and work down.)

Finally, UO's writing has been compared to "the ramblings of a mad man on LSD" on - wait for it! - Free Republic.com. (I'd like to thank the members of the Academy...)

And no, they weren't talking about the post you are currently reading! The thread in question was devoted to UO's meditation on Amersand's Green critique of the Democrats. Sadly, since the re-post wasn't properly formatted, it wasn't even a fair test. (The FREEP version loses all formatting, so you can't tell where UO is blockquoting someone and where it is speaking in its own voice.)

The undignified part? One lousy hit from the whole thirty-message thread!

Future History from Flit:

Fifty years of scores to settle. A nation ruled for centuries by a Sunni minority, but largely composed of rebellious Kurds and Shiites. No history of democracy. And an American nation, satiated by its short-term success, as in 1991, as in Afghanistan, content to leave the scene to some pathetic peacekeeping force (less the bases it carves out for itself as the modern equivalent of Danegild, as they did at Kandahar and Bagram), because after all they're really not into nation-building. By hook or by crook, an American-supported strongman will take over, like Musharraf, like Mubarak. And Iraq will become just like Egypt. America's best Arab ally. And the oppressive, soul-destroying home of Mohammed Atta and Ayman al-Zuwahiri. And a decade or two from now, their successors will blow up something else dear to (the by then even more widely hated than now) America. And thousands more will die, and we'll look again to the "roots of Muslim rage." That's the most likely scenario. And I think everybody with sense knows it...

UPDATE: Bruce left out what comes next. In the face of the next terrorist atrocity, hawks argue vociferously that the key to our future security is going to war against whatever country we didn't get around to fighting last time. In no way does the new attack mean that their previous achievement - pushing the US into the conquest of Iraq (et al) - was, in retrospect, kind of dumb. They remind us that their skeptics are "appeasers" who "hate the United States."

Yes, Unqualified Offerings is feeling cranky this weekend. Why do you ask?

FURTHER UPDATE: Forgot the link! God that's rude. UO apologizes.

In Case You Were Wondering - Ampersand answers the musical question:

Okay, for all you Democrats who have no idea why we Greens don't support your party: have you been watching the news?

Yes, John Kerry has said a couple of good things. So (surprisingly) has Al Gore. But, overwhelmingly, the "debate" over invading Iraq has been between Republicans (Powell et al) and other Republicans (Cheney et al).

Where have leading Democrats been in this debate?

I don't know, but I can tell you where they have not been.

And then he does. For no reason Unqualified Offerings understands, Ampersand, which kindly maintains a link to this site, lists UO among the "Fellow Travelers" rather than in its "Alas, Some Righties" sections, but here's a right-wing explanation for the Democratic Party's abdication: they love power. First, they are deathly afraid of losing seats in Congress, and what are a certain number of foreign lives compared to that? Second, whatever else it is, war is a massive government program. It hits them in their weak spot. That chimera, nation-building, especially is a massive government program.

Tony Adragna stated the matter with exasperating accuracy yesterday:

In truth, the Dems have been very clear about what they oppose — "unilateralism" — and have been telling Mr. Bush that their support only requires a dropping the "screw multilateralism" rhetoric and making a strong case (rather than the nebulous al Qaeda linkage): Mr. Bush did, and the Dems do.

The party that took us to war on behalf of the al Qaeda-connected Kosovo Liberation Army is simply not the timber from which one can build an antiwar house.

Both the Democrats and Republicans are fundamentally government parties. That always puts each at the disadvantage of the other in sphere's where the other energetically pushes for the use of government power. That leaves Democrats reduced to ineffectual carping when Republicans push foreign interventions and limits Republicans to mere halting (and frequently disingenuous) obstructionism when Democrats push domestic interventions. The Democrats don't have the genotype to argue persuasively that what is needed in the Middle East, including Iraq, is way less intervention than we've had, because that means arguing that the government should do less.

Literary Corner - Interesting interview with a UO favorite, historical espionage author Alan Furst, here