Mission Accomplished - Tracking polls in Iowa and New Hampshire show tightening races, but the more important poll is the one they don't need to take - the one for the Republican candidates. That's because there's only one, and that, loyal readers is probably the major reason we put the exclamation point on twelve years of low-level war in Iraq. The Imperial wing of the Republican Party made it known beginning in Fall 2001 that they would revolt if Saddam Hussein were still ruling Iraq. "If the President retreats from that stance, he'll be correctly judged a failure and won't even deserve renomination in the 2004 presidential contest," wrote Russ Smith of the New York Press. Don't think that I imagine that Russ Smith is himself the Kingmaker of the Republican Party, but he stands for people who are. The threat, always quiet, sometimes couched in "Don't worry, we know the President is committed" terms, was real and, I think, heeded at the Karl Rove-Andrew Card level.

And everyone went home happy. The benevolent hegemonists got their war and the President got the trouble-free primary neither Bush pere nor Bob Dole got to enjoy. If there's a significant third-party candidacy, it will be for disaffected liberals rather than disaffected conservatives.

Back in November, the Talking Dog sent the following e-mail (Yes, this is all about cleaning out my in-box!):

I had an interesting discussion with a friend yesterday concerning conversations he had with an unnamed member of the Defense Policy Board (unnamed only because I forgot who it is and am too lazy to look it up-- but its not Perle or Kissinger or one of the usual well-known cabal members). My friend told me last November/December that I could expect this war no matter what, no matter how vociferous protests were-- because the insiders, like the DPB guy, believed that Saddam was just this side of having a nuke, and had to be stopped.

I told him I thought that was preposterous or at least very unlikely, but that we were going to have the war anyway, based on the fact that we'd shipped between 1/3 and 1/2 of our active military to the Persian Gulf or forward deployment FOR the Gulf, i.e., the decision was already made-- justification to come later. And the rest is history...

Now, of course, my friend asked me my opinion, and I said I thought the DPB and company were smart enough to know that the "Saddam having nukes" bullshit was already bullshit at the time, but in order to sell it, had to tell everybody they knew that Saddam was getting a nuke, Saddam was getting a nuke, Saddam was getting a nuke, while actually being privy to the truth. Part of this was my own theory that if they really believed it, they wouldn't have waited so damned long (for political benefit) when the risk of waiting was so potentially catastrophic.

My friend disagreed-- and said he might be more comfortable if, in fact, it were a simple matter of our national governing cabal being that EVIL; he is more worried that, in fact, they DIDN'T know they were full of shit, and that, in fact, our national govering cabal is actually as stupid as it is behaving. So-- I'm not sure. If the cabal really IS that stupid, then it would certainly explain an awful lot of other policies. Like... our entire war and occupation...

Well, I guess that's the answer: would we prefer our national governance to be manned by the evil, or the stupid? Right now, we seem to have a lot of both...

From the Is This a Great Country or What? Files - The Columbus Sixman Gay Football League.

I always liked the idea of six-man football. The six-man football scenes in Starship Troopers were the only parts of that movie I enjoyed. I still want to see a seven-man game, with three ineligible receivers on the line, a quarterback and three eligible receivers in the backfield. Free motion for the backfield like in the Canadian game. Play it either on an 80-yard six-man outdoor field or a 50-yard Arena League field.

A Fanboy's Metric System - Retailer Brian Hibbs does an impressive job of making the case against Marvel's "no reprints" policy using their own sales figures in his first new Tilting at Windmills column. He gets around the limitations of the Diamond and iCV2 lists by going straight to the Statement of Ownership boxes in Marvel comics from 2000 and 2004. The numbers seem to indicate that Marvel's per-issue sales at the tale end of a bust were higher than during the current recovery. Now he's not able to control for a lot of variables - editorial changes etc. - but the numbers sure mean something. Three of the four titles that posted per-issue sales gains had obvious movie help. (The fourth is Captain America, about which more anon.) Despite two movies, both Uncanny X-men and New X-men have suffered 20% readership declines over the last four years.

Something ain't working. By themselves, the figures can't tell us whether it's No Reprints, writing for the trade, the focus on producing stories for readers like, well, me, or simply the decline in outlets (the shrinking number of direct-market retailers). Of course, the decline in outlets may itself be an outcome of the other factors. On quick falsification test would be to put together a comparable table for DC titles from 2000-2004, since DC has made many of the same editorial choices but does reprint, aggressively. Hibbs' column looks like it will provoke a lot of thought and discussion, though. I look forward to future installments.

UPDATE: Brian Hibbs informs me that DC does not send subscription copies second-class mail and thus doesn't have to file Statements of Ownership. So we're left with data that clearly indicates that Marvel has a problem, but doesn't establish the cause of that problem. The no-reprint policy is a plausible explanation but not a definitive one.

Technical Bulletin - Playing with "under the hood" aspects of the style sheet this weekend. As of now and going forward, the site is no longer Netscape 4.x-friendly. There are a number of fine non-IE alternatives to NS4.x.

UO will probably have some strange visual aspects from time to time this weekend while I tinker, but the end result should look the same as always.

Product Placement - Gene Weingarten in the Sunday Post Magazine, brought to you a day early because I care about you as a person:

As you know, I have in the past unfairly poked fun at marketing people, merely because so many of them are opportunistic, lying hacks. So I thought for a change I would make amends today by helping them publicly celebrate their great good fortune.

That’s why I am talking to Steve Peckham, marketing spokesperson for S.C. Johnson & Son, which makes Raid bug spray.

Me: As you know, a can of Raid was one of the many fine products found in Saddam Hussein’s hideout. I was wondering if you guys are planning a marketing campaign around that. You know, maybe, “Raid: The REAL Weapon of Mass Destruction!” Or, “Whether you are vermin, or are just plagued by them . . .”

Steve: We cannot confirm it was our product.

Me: I beg your pardon?

Steve: We are unable to confirm it was our product, so we don’t want to discuss the situation.

Me: I’m looking at a photograph of the products, as they were found in Saddam’s rat hole. Here it is.

Steve: Without having the can in hand, we cannot confirm it was ours.

Me: Try this view.

Steve: We’re not going to talk about the situation.

Me: But . . .

Steve: I’m trying to get ready for a big, huge meeting here.

And there's more, including conversations with reps from Palmolive, Mars Candy and Lipton.

It's a Crazy Idea, but It Just Might Work - Modest proposals dept.:

But what comics and music don't see is that a form of salvation lies before them in the guise of a very simple trade: a trade of business models.

from Marc at the Comics Waiting Room. His argument is detailed and substantial and seems pretty sensible. For music buffs and comics geeks both, plus anyone with an interest in adaptive business models.

What's That Down Among the Details, Jim? - That would be the Devil, loyal reader, right where you'd expect to find him.

If I had to nominate one single "most significant number" from the Saban Center's Iraq Index, it would be this one:

Iraqi Security Forces on Duty: Army: Stated Goal: 40,000.

We also state a goal for a 25,700-person border patrol.

Now, we may indeed reconstruct Iraq, but we won't be able to move it. It will still be next to Iran, its enemy since before Herodotus began earnestly copying down tall tales; Syria, an authoritarian state with whom Iraqi relations have blown hot and cold; and Turkey, which keeps asserting a right to barge in should Iraq's Kurds get too uppity, as defined by Turkey. Iran and Syria have a half million and 300,000 men under arms, respectively. Turkey has another half-million-strong army.

How is Iraq supposed to defend itself in that neighborhood with 40,000 soldiers and a bunch of guys with binoculars and jeeps? It's not. The numbers indicate the plan, and the plan is for Iraq to remain a ward of the United States for the foreseeable future. Alternatively, the plan is to similarly demilitarize Iran and Syria by force and trust the better angels of the Turkish nature. When you hear people learnedly assuring that the national greatness folks have lost favor, you have 40,000 reasons to believe otherwise.

This is Sports Center with Unqualified Offerings - Wow. The NFL has actually hired two black guys out of six coaches this offseason. Only one of them - Dennis Green - is a retread and therefore "safe." And a chance for a third depending on what Oakland does. Right now the league's count of black coaches stands at an all-time high of five, and could hit six.

No doubt the NFL's minor affirmative action provisions play a role. (It being a voluntary program adopted by the organization itself I have no problem with that.) Even more than that, though, NFL owners are notorious copycats. The Bengals hired Marvin Lewis and it paid off. So the aging white men who run franchises get to thinking, Hey! Maybe we should try one of those black coaches too! (Because only the absolute creme de la creme of black coordinators have been able to get a sniff at a head coaching job up til now, black coaches as a group outperform white coaches as a group.) By such fits and starts do any durable revolutions happen. About time.

Poetry Thursday - My friend Frederick Pollack brought out a poem tonight that was remarkably appropriate to recent discussion here. I immediately asked to "publish" it, and he agreed. Here is hiis poem:

To a Liberal Who Addressed a Panel of Neocons

You shouldn't fret because they didn't listen,
replied to your points by repeating theirs, packed
the room with their own, the moderator
particularly hostile. The point of
debate is truth, that of truth, power;
if one has power one can skip the rest.
And power must manifest itself
at every point, otherwise it is less;
the point especially holds if one has little.

Look at it from their point of view, and feel
compassion, which for you
is the point: they must sit in conclaves
with grown men who weep
for fetuses, wish to expand Israel
to bring the Second Coming, and pray before deals.
Large doglike men, rich as setters,
sad-eyed as beagles, volatile as pitbulls,
who sometimes pat them clumsily on the head.

Think nothing of it; mould your dismay
(one can't say anger) into a brightly-colored
rhombus, like an educational toy.
The fighters overflying
the city are beautiful, their pilots civilized
enough. Remember: it isn't the tail, but
the mind that wags the dog
from its well-informed though awkward

position above the shit.

© 2004 by Frederick Pollack

The Other Casualties, Again - Kevin Maroney e-mails an All Things Considered link that pegs the "wounded or sickened so badly that they had to be shipped home for medical treatment" figure at 9,000.

UPDATE: In Iraq, I mean. You know.

Winter Wonderland - The Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy hosts a half-day conference on "The American Imperium" at Swarthmore College, Monday January 26.Quondam UOadjunct scholar Leon Hadar is one of the panelists. I just might take a day off from work and go.

Dog Bites Man - Human Events defends Rush Limbaugh against the media. The author's promotional e-mail informs me that "Over the weekend, Rush's site praised the article as "superb" and "great" . . .

FWIW, to coin a phrase.

No Surprise There - There's considerable doubt about just how advanced a nuclear-weapons program Libya had. As I suggested last month, this looks like the mother of all win-win situations - Libya got to trade a bird in the bush (not even two birds in the bush) for an end to sanctions. The US and UK got to declare a victory on the non-proliferation front. Everyone goes home happy.

The Real Issue Was Never WMD - It's whether Billy the Kid faked his own death with the help of Sherrif Pat Garrett. They're going to do some DNA testing of a man who died in the 1950s claiming to be Billy. If the Florida legislature doesn't stop them, I suppose.

Best Non-Libertarians in a Libertarian Role, 2005: Early Nominations

Matthew Yglesias on federal marriage promotion and his proposed alternative, the Federal Dating Service. ("There should be bipartisan appeal since funding and implementing the program would involve putting the government in your bedroom and your pocketbook - what's not to like?")

Dave Intermittent on the Moon/Mars mission: "the question remains: why do we need a national rallying point? Why is it the job of the government to give us one?" Money quote:

I supported Bush in 2000 because I thought that Gore had the greater messianic tendencies. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

Katherine at Obsidian Wings for her multipart series on Maher Arar's all-expenses-paid trip to Syria.

Picking up from Katherine's series, Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber on "Transgovernmental networks":

Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a highly relevant paper on the problems that they pose for democratic legitimacy. They've grown vastly more important - and more troubling in their implications - since then. Accountability disappears into a maze of shadowy relations between states - it becomes impossible to figure out who is to blame for any particular decision, and whom to hold responsible.

And NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof in defense of sweatshops. (Via the Agitator.)

Lit'ry Corner - Aaron Haspel on - surprise! - Yvor Winters. Very good piece of work, even if one remains unpersuaded that Winters was the ne plus ultra of 20th century poet/critics.

Focus Like a Laser Beam on a Single Flit Item is what you should do. It has several important links.

Newish Conservatives - Diana Moon has more on neocons, Earl Shorris and such, including the bracing line, "Jim is right about one thing." (Some readers surely reckon that as an improvement over my usual hit rate.) I'm mulling over a "How and When Neoconservatism Went Bad" item. Diana's piece is useful reading in the meantime.

Elsewhere, she comments on Iraq's newest sign of progress - Sharia law, discussed last night:

I wonder if this will open up cracks in the ranks of the faithful, one of whom still thinks (last I read her) that Baghdad is rapidly transforming into the Prague of the Middle East. Pardon me, but I don't think that Prague ever had Shari'a.

Marbury vs. Diamond Distribution - Glen Engel-Cox judiciously reviews the Comic Book Reader's Bill of Rights version 1.0.

A Plague on Both Our Houses, Kind Of - Doves like me said there was no evidence of operational cooperation between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda, but that a US invasion of Iraq might provide the impetus for such cooperation to start. Silly, paranoid doves. Apparently, even after the resistance phase of the war began,

Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle American troops, according to a document found with the former Iraqi leader when he was captured, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.

writes James Risen in the Washington Post. Well, what's up with that?

Officials said Mr. Hussein apparently believed that the foreign Arabs, eager for a holy war against the West, had a different agenda from the Baathists, who were eager for their own return to power in Baghdad. As a result, he wanted his supporters to be careful about becoming close allies with the jihadists, officials familiar with the document said.

Ah. Disparate interests. Natural antagonists. Got it.

Of course, if doves look silly and paranoid because war didn't push Al Qaeda and Saddam together, hawks look even sillier for arguing that they were bosom buddies beforehand. (James Woolsey, I am looking at you.)

Non-Hostile Gunshot Wounds is a phrase that comes up over and over in the list of US war dead in Iraq. ABC News explains:

Suicide has become such a pressing issue that the Army sent an assessment team to Iraq late last year to see if anything more could be done to prevent troops from killing themselves. The Army also began offering more counseling to returning troops after several soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., killed their wives and themselves after returning home from the war.

I must say, though, that to this layman's eyes the rate doesn't look vastly higher compared to army life normally.

That's a suicide rate for soldiers in Iraq of about 13.5 per 100,000, Winkenwerder said. In 2002, the Army reported an overall suicide rate of 11.1 per 100,000.

The overall suicide rate nationwide during 2001 was 10.7 per 100,000, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Okay, it's 20% over the Army norm. That's not good, but I expected it to be higher.

On the other hand, the same article notes

Meanwhile, about 2,500 soldiers who have returned from the war on terrorism are having to wait for medical care at bases in the United States, said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. The problem of troops on "medical extension" is likely to get worse as the Pentagon rotates hundreds of thousands of troops into and out of Iraq this spring, he said.

That doesn't sound so good.

I wonder if the most significant casualty number is really the wounded figure. Counted various ways to various totals, the number is approaching 10,000, if you toss in the illnesses and accidents that, historically, do get reckoned among an Army's losses. 500 dead is not a significant portion of a 125,000-strong force. But 10,000 may be on the edge of putting a bite in operations.

The Bright Side of the Metric System - Last month I said that the new Iraqi currency would provide an important political test of the reconstruction. A lot of libertarians don't like fiat money, but say this for it: because it's based entirely on the say-so of the issuing government, its value provides a handy referendum on that government.

So it's worth noting that the new dinar is doing very well against the dollar, as both Salam and Raed note. I can't think of any reason why this would be considered bad news for the CPA or IGC. Salam in particular has newsy links on the matter.

That Was Fast - AFP has the family law change and protest story in English. Via Salam Pax, who comments:

So first they slip in the bit about turning Iraq into a federal state without asking the Iraqis and now this. Me thinks the GC is taking on more than what it is supposed to do.

PDQ we should start hearing from the hawks that "this war was never really about women's rights in the Arab world." On the bright side, they'll be right.

Dept. of Developing . . . - Juan Cole, who reads Arabic, writes that the Baghdad-London paper az-Zaman reports that the IGC has scrapped the Iraqi civil code in favor of religious law for each faith community in the country. That occasioned demonstrations by Iraqi women's groups:

Women activists representing 80 women's organizations (including the female Interim Minister of Public Works!) gathered at Firdaws Square in downtown Baghdad to protest the IGC decree, issued three days ago. Minister of Public Works Nasreen Barwari complained to az-Zaman about the lack of "transparency" and of "democratic consultation" in the promulgation of the decree by the IGC. Protesters carried placards with phrases like "No to discrimination, No to differentiating women and men in our New Iraq." and "We reject Decree 137, which sanctifies religious communalism." Activist Zakiyah Khalifah complained that the law would weaken Iraqi families.

There appears to be nothing on this in the English-language media. If the story checks out, it augurs a disaster for Iraq's women and will give the lie to much hawkish rhetoric, which has stressed our need to wage an expansive war in the Arab/Muslim world for, among other reasons, the sake of women's freedom.

If it doesn't check out, as you were. For what it's worth, Sgt. Stryker's Iraq Newspaper Stories blogroll lists az-Zaman in the "unbiased" section. Keep an eye out.

The Downside of Blogging is that now and then you have to put enormous effort into re-establishing perfectly obvious truths. Take this Atrios post about the argument that, by running as an "outsider" taking on the establishment, Howard Dean is somehow "running against his own party." What's bizarre about this argument is that, according to Atrios, it's being made by James Carville and Paul Begala. That's right, the guys who got Bill Clinton into the White House in 1992 by running him as an outsider taking on the Democratic Party establishment.

So Atrios pulls numerous citations together documenting what everyone with a lick of sense and a functioning long-term memory should already know. The hell of it is, he had to - or someone had to. But, in the words of kids in classrooms everywhere, why do we gotta waste time with this stuff?

Index of Something or Other - The other day, I mentioned the 2004 Index of Economic Freedom, and promised to come back to the subject after I'd had a chance to study it. I still haven't had that chance, but at Halfway Down the Danube, blogger Douglas gives its Romania coverage what-for. HDTD is a pretty liberal outfit, but Douglas' criticisms touch much less on ideology than method. He finds the reporting on Romania technically sloppy, and wonders what that portends for the other 180-odd countries included.

Sometimes a Belly Laugh is Worth a Thousand Syllogisms, the Continuing Series - Dave Intermittent on a current pseudo-controversy:

Presumably, Glenn intends to suggest that this shows desperation on the part of Clark; or that the "natural" Clark is not what the candidates want. And one or the both of these might be in fact correct. But let's not kid ourselves: Clark is not the only politician to worry about PR, or to alter themselves or their message in response to PR concerns. Are we really to think that President Bush doesn't worry about the way people see him? Are we really sure that his appearance isn't stage managed? Really? The RNC employs all those pollsters and spindoctors just to keep them off the streets? It's the Republican version of midnight basketball?

There's more.

And speaking of pseudo-controversies, Cathy Young gives the furor (get it? ha ha!) over comparisons to Hitler way more attention than it's worth at Reason Online.

How about a belated New Year's resolution for 2004? No more Nazi or Hitler analogies to describe policies or politicians you dislike.

Oh, that'll happen.

Gene Healy Can Relax - I'm not a cornerstone of the comics blogosphere. That's fair, actually. The people actually cited blog about comics far more regularly and comprehensively than I do. In the course of very little time over the fall, said blogosphere exploded, Stephen J. Gouldlike, into a profusion of excellent sites. They set a standard we mere dilettantes of comics blogging can't match.

Fight the Power!- So what is it with the petit bourgeois particularism about how "As a comic book reader, you have the right to expect that the people who create the comics you read will be treated ethically and compensated properly for their effort by their publishers" in the so-called Comic Book Reader's Bill of Rights? What about the workers? The tradesmen at the printer? The women in the ink plant? The truckers who make the deliveries? The cleaning crews in the buildings of the comics companies? What about the interns? Surely fans have a "right to expect" that all of these people are getting a living wage, health insurance and two weeks vacation a year.

Smash the comic book oligarchs! All power to the soviets!

I note that the current CBRBOR is officially "version 1.0." The next version damn well better include our right to have our comics produced in an environmentally sound manner. Also, we should get hugs. Hugs are nice. So are blow jobs! And for the female reader - more hugs!

Speaking of Former Ex-Bloggers Kelly Jane Torrance, once the butt of jokes throughout - well, Colby Cosh's site for her seasonal posting rate, is blogging rather more frequently these days. Check out the item that launches from TV ads for a "Queens of Country" compilation into a meditation on how the "tyranny of the beautiful is even spreading to fields in which you barely see the artist." Then just go up and down from there.

Mac Daddies and Mommies - More on the Great Mac iThis and iThat controversy from former ex-blogger Jeremy Scharlack and Ginger Stampley. Ginger refuses to call anyone a Nazi over this. Dammit, someone has to.

Go Phish - Anent the post below, an entire website keeps track of "Phishing attacks" -

the mass distribution of 'spoofed' e-mail messages with return addresses, links, and branding which appear to come from banks, insurance agencies, retailers or credit card companies. These fraudulent messages are designed to fool the recipients into divulging personal authentication data such as account usernames and passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. Because these emails look "official", up to 20% of recipients may respond to them, resulting in financial losses, identity theft, and other fraudulent activity.

Via the Modulator.

Fraud Alert - There's an e-mail going around, purportedly from Paypal, that looks transparently bogus. The sender's address shows as "donotreply@paypal.com", but the full header indicates that this supposedly official communication comes from a hotmail account ("o9e237l9@hotmail.com"). Supposedly "Paypal" wants you to install software from an attachment and run it. As if. Here's the full text with headers. Don't be fooled:

-------- Original Message --------
From: - Tue Jan 13 07:36:25 2004
X-UIDL: 65f7adc0cccfc460e4e42fc789b9ed98
X-Mozilla-Status: 1201
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Return-path:
Envelope-to: supplanter@highclearing.com
Delivery-date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 02:56:02 -0500
Received: from [211.189.202.76] (helo=211.189.202.76) by
medea.hmdnsgroup.com with smtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AgJP6-0007ab-3n for
supplanter@highclearing.com; Tue, 13 Jan 2004 02:56:00 -0500
From: do_not_reply@paypal.com
To: supplanter@highclearing.com
Subject: PAYPAL.COM NEW YEAR OFFER
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:00:34 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0007_01C3D8E9.8B4C9F60"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165
Message-Id:

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I already sent a copy to spoof@paypal.com and abuse@hotmail.com, but since I've had friends fall for these before, I wanted to warn people.

That's the Way You Do It - Avedon Carol has a hard-hitting critique of Colin Powell and "the craven loyalties that have exemplified his entire career." My instinct is to say "he's not that bad," but in the last dozen years on what has he been willing to defy his boss besides gays in the military? Powell was willing to resign over that, but not over a reckless and by no means forthright war policy pushed by people who repeatedly humiliated him. What defense can there be?

Unqualified Offerings Gets Results From The Washington Post - As if! But I do commend the Post for providing a link to the SSI's original "Bounding the War on Terrorism" report from the same page as their article on it. After my complaints of last night, that's a refreshing change. Way to go, Post!

Meanwhile, Julian Sanchez has a theory about why major-media news sites are so lame about linking to original sources:

So what gives? I'm guessing that it's an attempt to hold onto (what's left of) the prestige of print. You're not reading one more web piece, dammit (anyone can post those, after all), but a gen-u-ine published article that just happens to be archived online too. It's time to get over it, guys.

Department of Not Resisting Temptation - Jeffrey Record is not one of my pseudonyms. I have not secretly been commissioned to write analyses for the US Army War College.

It just seems that way. (Temptation not resisted? To link this story, of course. You can get the full report in pdf.)

Meanwhile Diana Moon found a fascinating review of Norman Podhoretz' memoir, Absent Friends, by Professor Albert Lindemann. The review dates from 1999, when it was possible - just - to have a rational discussion of neoconservatism and neoconservatives. Maybe the most interesting passage in the review was this "sauce for the gander" passage:

This kind of graphic, hard-hitting language, the use of such concepts of leftist filth, decadence, and depravity, cannot help but set off certain alarms. Antisemites write like that. Historically, extreme right-wingers have seen Jews as particularly dangerous to a Christian moral order and to social peace; Jews were believed to be destructively dissident, unpatriotic, and unusually prone to sympathy for Communism. Jews were also believed to be heavily involved in such morally damaging activities as the liquor trade, pornography, and prostitution.

In other words, if you squinted, a lot of the early writing of neoconservative intellectuals could look like it was employing antisemitic code. And as Lindemann makes clear, first-generation neocons faced accusations by Jewish leftists of being "bad Jews." Earl Shorris' book about the neoconservatives was called Jews Without Mercy. Jewish leftists accused the neocons of betraying Judaism's progressive tradition.

This was every bit as outrageous as certain second-generation neocons and neocon symps imputing antisemitism to all their critics. The first generation neoconservatives came to reject liberalism for serious reasons. They may have been right, or may have been wrong, but accusing them of letting down the side was shifty and wrongheaded.

Me, I was a neocon symp during the Cold War. My regular reading ran to The New Criterion, Commentary and The American Scholar. I still feel that Cold War-era neoconservatism provided a useful critique of the Soviet Union and its apologists, and was right to highlight some of the hypocrisies among apologists for Israel's less savory enemies. As I've said before, "isolationism" was the last libertarian tenet I adopted. Ten years ago, my foreign policy views would have been indistinguishable from Glenn Reynolds - if Glenn Reynolds had had foreign policy views back then.

In Diana's own commentary, she reminds that "the neoconservative phenomenon wasn't solely concerned with foreign policy issues; important though they may be. Domestic issues, such as crime and deregulation, were very important." That seems to be less true for the second-generation neocons clustered around the Weekly Standard and National Review Online. As David Brooks, Fred Barnes and others have made all too clear, neocons no longer believe that the proper business of conservatives is to restrain the power of the federal government - "big government conservatism" is the order of the day. There is near-uniformity among neocons on some hot-button social issues (cloning, gay marriage, the drug war), but it's in domestic affairs that any of the diversity of views Brooks claims exists among neoconservatives will appear. (Brooks now favors some version of gay marriage.) But a neoconservative who opposes the war in Iraq or Likud dominance of Israeli politics, favors rapprochement with China or a larger role for the UN in international affairs, doubts the wisdom or feasibility of exporting American political culture by force of arms? The mind boggles at the thought. No person who held such views, Gentile or Jew or Phlebas the Phoenician, could get anyone in or outside the movement to agree he was a member. The sole litmus test of neoconservatism has become "benevolent hegemony." Opposition to that is the one impermissible deviationism.

Somewhere in the above is buried the answer to why I never thought of Jewish New Yorker and "Reagan Democrat for all those years" Diana Moon as a neoconservative, even in her hawkish-on-Iraq phase. It has something to do with a sense that, even when she favored the war, she wasn't looking for a project. She wasn't playing a game of Jeopardy where the answer is always "war" and it's just a matter of finding a question to go with it.

But Try Telling That to an Angry Mob - Matthew Barganier wants to get David Brooks fired from the New York Times, or, as he puts it, sent back to the minors. I won't myself be writing the Times, but I won't be lifting a finger to stop anyone else, either.

Equal Time - Peter David tries to clear the air after the recent unpleasantness about comics buyers who "wait for the trade" rather than buying the monthly. I think it's worth noting some of the virtues of David and his new Fallen Angel series: It is, in his terms, "unaligned" - not a Batman book, or Spider-man book, or X-book; it's a new, original character, not a revamp or retread; it's a female lead; it's a female lead with very little cheesecake factor - the chick dresses like Little Red Riding Hood. The issues I've read were entertaining, but even if they weren't, the represent an attempt to offer the superhero comics readership something other than what they're already getting. You gotta respect that. I actually recommend that anyone with even the least curiousity give the series a try.

This doesn't change my opinions on the general topic. From my perspective, the more egregious arguments against the people I've called "waiters" were made not by Peter David himself but by non-pros (or, in the case of John Byrne, unprofessional pros), anyway. David's coinage "Trader Vics" was needlessly inflammatory, and not even funny enough to be worth the inflammation, and fellow pro Nat Gertler had the better arguments as far as how the business can adapt to the new environment. But peace on Peter David, who is clearly trying to provide honest goods for his dollar.

Weekly Fitness Blog Item - 162 pounds. Waist has ballooned to 33.5". Resting pulse: 70. The waistline and pulse are clear evidence of decline from early fall fitness levels. I blame winter, which sends one running to comfort foods.

Policy change: beginning with next week's fitness blog item, personal data will conclude the weekly posts rather than introducing them. Fitness issues - including politics and public health - will come first, followed by workout reports.

Much to talk about this week, including a Tech Central Station article by Sandy Szwarc that questions the value of exercise in weight management. Szwarc cites five different studies, including a meta-analysis and intervention studies that put subjects on various aerobic exercise programs. I won't say there's nothing to her conclusions, because I think we are a long way from anything that could justly be called a science of weight management or even a science of nutrition, but in citing interventions in which people who exercised intensely did not lose appreciable weight, she misses an important point: Americans aren't fat. Americans are fat and getting fatter. We tend to gain weight as we age. If we are fit, we tend to become overweight at the rate of a couple of pounds a year. If we are overweight we tend to become more overweight at the rate of a couple of pounds a year. So someone who exercises, makes no effort to control their eating and loses no weight may well be staying thinner than someone who doesn't exercise and makes no effort to control their eating.

And indeed, if you follow the link to the Midwest Exercise Trial, which unlike other studies Szwarc cites used a control group or at least mentions its results prominently, that's what you see. Szwarc writes of the Midwest Exercise Trial that

While men lost about 5 kg and 3.7% body fat, women gained 0.6 kg of body weight while losing a mere 0.2 kg body fat. It makes for some rather interesting math, noted Gaesser. The women each burned about 138,000 total kcal during those 69 weeks, or about 313,636 kcal per pound of fat!

over the sixteen months of the study. But the authors themselves write

Exercise prevented weight gain in women and produced weight loss in men. Men in the exercise group had significant mean ± SD decreases in weight (5.2 ± 4.7 kg), body mass index (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) (1.6 ± 1.4), and fat mass (4.9 ± 4.4 kg) compared with controls. Women in the exercise group maintained baseline weight, body mass index, and fat mass, and controls showed significant mean ± SD increases in body mass index (1.1 ± 2.0), weight (2.9 ± 5.5 kg), and fat mass (2.1 ± 4.8 kg) at 16 months. No significant changes occurred in fat-free mass in either men or women; however, both had significantly reduced visceral fat.

We've discussed the special yuckiness of visceral fat before, but the big thing is the comparison between female exercisers and female controls. While results were highly variable, the female controls gained an average of 6.5# over 16 months, about two thirds of it fat. (Szwarc's somewhat whimsical calculation of "313,636 kcal [of exercise] per pound of fat" is specious. Since calorie intake wasn't controlled for either group, we simply can't make a meaningful calculation.)

Now, I'm being hard on Szwarc here. Let me say right out that I believe exercise in the absence of diet is less effective at reducing weight than the popular imagination holds, and that some of the real benefits of exercise have nothing to do with your body size. Weight training advocates especially argue that diet is more important than exercise in determining weight. Szwarc skips right past diet toward talk of "a genetic component for weight," and concludes by linking to a fat acceptance site. She promises a part two with "other myths about exercise and who's really exercising in our country and who's not." So tune in next week, when I'll probably give part one a more thorough reaction than I've managed so far.

Thanks to reader Dave Lull for tipping me to the article. And see Bill Sherman's take.

Marathon Man. Preparations for my declared goal of running a marathon this year for the week:

Walked three miles. (It's a joke, son! But it's three more miles than I managed over the holidays.)

Read this e-mail from reader Dave Weeden:

I admire your courage in thinking about the Marine Corps Marathon, but your ideas about training are, if I may say so, totally nuts.You don't want to start out by walking anywhere for nine hours. You'll probably give yourself blisters that you mean you can't wear shoes for a fortnight.

Buy some decent running shoes, from a running store if there's one anywhere near you, and run a little.

Start modestly, that is, realistically. You probably know what you can do from the training you have been doing. Running a marathon means running a very long way, for a very long time, longer than any training session, so the actual day will hurt. Know this when you start, because knowing this will keep you going when ten minutes is all you can do and you want to force yourself through to twelve or fifteen. Your body adapts to running. In the first few months of proper training, which means doing an amount which tests, but doesn't kill, you, your stamina will shoot up.

For a marathon, try to run whatever you can at least three times a week. Try to enjoy it, and refuse to let it become a chore. Take it as time to think what you will write next, and private, free time away from work and domestic duties.

There are some half-decent books out there, but publishers tend to churn them out, and I've been running too long to have looked at one for years, so I doubt any I know are still in print. Magazines have ideas which you ought to take with a grain of salt, the way you would anything in print. If you buy any, don't take them as gospel -- keep them in the toilet and use them as inspiration.

One final word, because I've yada-ed too much already, don't blog too much about it until you're sure that it's for you. Climbing down looks really stupid, and most people hate running. I'm one of the odd ones, good luck and so forth.

Too late on the last part! Besides, any man who publishes weekly fitness items on his website is way past being able to avoid looking really stupid. And if I end up bailing, that's just more blog fodder. But some very useful stuff in this e-mail, especially the part about the blisters.

More next week.

How Come Major Media Websites STILL Don't Get the Internet? The Washington Times runs a not-terribly-informative story on the 2004 Index of Economic Freedom put out by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. What's missing? Only a link to the actual goddam study, as usual. This always happens - news sites never bother giving you an easy link to the studies they write about. It's past time for major publications to not only include links to the the original documents in their internet articles, but to print the URL in their dead tree editions. Years past time.

A special shame in this case since the little the WashTimes does reproduce from the study - "The administration of George W. Bush has taken a leadership role in [...] free trade" - is pure comedy gold.

More on the study itself after I give it the once-over.

This Just In - Communism still sucks.

I Hate You and I Wish You Were Dead - Ginger Stampley says Mike Koslowski is a "silly idiot" for his criticism of Apple's new digital media products that I cited Friday.

UPDATE: Patrick Nielsen Hayden is more charitable personally but no less critical. And Koslowski responds to his critics. I won't be happy until somebody compares someone to Hitler.

A Fanboy's Further Ado - In correspondence with Sean Collins about the Marvel Age imprint reworkings of classic Lee/Kirby/Ditko material, I was able to articulate a couple of further thoughts I'd been trying to have. (At least, Sean thought I was able, and he encouraged me to put them on the blog.)

Some of the loudest complainers are people who disdain superhero fanboyism, but by their complaints about messing with the purity of the Silver Age Marvels they sound like nothing so much as their nemeses (superhero fanboys) bitching about some flouting of The Way Things Used to Be. Why, they sound oddly like John Byrne Message Board posters.

Me, I figure if Marvel keeps the Masterworks and the Essentials in print, and credits the original creators in the reworkings, they have nothing to apologize for. And I think you can say more than "if the Marvel Age books attract new readers, they might even seek out the originals," as Sean did. If the Marvel Age books attract new readers, Marvel will eventually try to sell them the originals.

The highlights of comics' Silver Age were a magnificent achievement, but let's not forget they were a magnificent achievement in a commercial medium. Ask yourself, if the Julius Schwartz or Stan Lee of old were calling the shots now, and thought their companies stood a chance to make a buck re-doing their older work, would they make that call? In, to coin a phrase, a New York Minute.

Wow - We haven't gotten to see much professional football in the Washington area the last three years, so it's always a treat when the playoffs come around. Two amazing games, and my teams were 2-0 today. The Carolina-St. Louis game surely proves out the TMQ maxim that "Fortune favors the bold." Mike Martz wimps out at the end of regulation and his team ends up paying the price. He's Norv Turner with better talent to work with. Meanwhile, Bill Belichik solved a tricky little clock management problem at the end of the late game. Do not expect much blogging tomorrow either, when the official UO teams will be Indianapolis and Green Bay.