May 03, 2007

Battle Royal

Memo to Republican candidates: here's one way to get Hillary's goat. Be polite. That was what Rick Lazio got wrong, when he did his famous "space invading" gesture during the 2000 NY senate race.

For more than two hours, France's presidential front-runner needled his challenger during a debate Wednesday, wrapping it in a veneer of chivalry and always addressing her as "Madame."

Finally, Segolene Royal snapped. The woman seeking to become France's first female president erupted in anger toward the end of the prime-time duel with conservative Nicolas Sarkozy.

It was surprising -- and potentially damaging -- that Royal, not Sarkozy, proved quick to anger. During their bitter election campaign, the Socialist has sought to portray her conservative rival as too unstable, too brutal, to lead the nuclear-armed nation.

In front of millions of television viewers, Sarkozy turned the tables. Royal got furious when he started talking about disabled children, saying he was "playing" with the issue. "I am very angry," she said.

"You become unhinged very easily, Madame," Sarkozy said. "To be president of the republic, one must be calm. . . . I don't know why Mrs. Royal, who's usually calm, has lost her calm."

Smooth move, Sarko!

Hey does anybody speak French? I think this is the video.

By the way, I know nothing about French politics, except that Royal is a hottie, and she's a socialist. Sarkozy, I remember, got in trouble during the recent "youth" riots for stating the obvious: that the rioters were thugs.

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May 02, 2007

Possibly The Last Fash-ism Post Ever

So I better make it good, huh?

I predicted the return of the peep-toe, I celebrated the year of the wedge heel, and I got completely blindsided by this season's gingham revival.

Combine all three fabulous trends and this is what you get.

savanna.jpg

For the girls, here's my recommendation for that upcoming Memorial Day barbecue or pool party, where you know you'll need to make an impression because he might be there.

Combine these wedges with some tailored shorts and sleeveless point collared blouse? I think so! To avoid the inevitable Mary-Ann comparisons, stay with solid colors. Re fabrics, linen adds class and you'll feel as cool as you look holding that fruity drink. Let your outfit do the flirting for you. I know you'll thank me when it's over.

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The Heatbreak Of Immigration


Immigration: The Human Cost


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Romney's Book

Does Romney want to be president or not? Because naming Battlefield Earth as his favorite novel was probably not the best choice he could have made. It's not enough that he has that "Mormon problem," now he's got to add a "Scientology problem" to it.

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Belgrano Anniversary

Today is the 25th anniversary of the sinking of ARA General Belgrano* by HMS Conqueror. more...

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May 01, 2007

Coolest Thing On The Internets Of The Day: The Met's Zoom Function

Here's something I hadn't seen before. It's a very cool zoom function at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website. I linked to Poussin's The Abduction of the Sabine Women, because there's a lot going on in there. But you can find and zoom in on pretty much everything they have at the Met. It's my favorite museum.

Also, while we're on the subject of art, click on the extended entry if you're interested in a tour of the National Gallery's Jasper Johns exhibition. I thought it was interesting. more...

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May Day Message

From an unexpected source. Check it out here.

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April 30, 2007

Nicole Ritchie Loose In Germany

Wer ist das? Sie ist Nicole Ritchie, ich glaube...

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Fire Melts Concrete

I don't know. It looks like a controlled demolition to me.

I'm just saying there are unanswered questions is all.

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Annika's Journal Farewell Tour, Part V: Just To Be Clear

I will not be coming back to do one hour specials on "owatism" and "dipression."

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April 29, 2007

Sunday Morning Jet Porn

Have you seen the History Channel's Dogfights on Randy Cunningham? That guy was bad-ass. Skill, too much balls and just enough luck. He and his RIO William Driscoll became the first and only US Navy aces of the Vietnam War.

Cunningham and Driscoll's May 10, 1972, sortie was one of the legendary dogfights of all time. Despite several tactical errors, and lacking a gun which would have been useful, they shot down three MiG-17s that day. The team became America's first "all-missile" aces.*

They flew the McDonnell Douglas F-4J Phantom. The navy plane in the video is not one of Cunningham's F4Js. The plane from the May 10 dogfight never made it back to the USS Constellation after Cunningham and Driscoll shot down their last MiG. They ejected over the ocean on the way back, after taking damage from an SA-2 ground-to-air missile.
_______________

* Trivia: of the four American aces from the Vietnam War, the top scorer (with 6) was a back-seater, USAF Capt. Charles DeBellevue.

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April 27, 2007

There Must Be Some Mistake

It's simply not possible for a guy to hit fourteen home runs when the season is only 20 games old — and his team still be in last place?!?!

And how is it A-Rod only has 8 walks? Where's the respect?

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Annika's Journal Farewell Tour, Part IV: Searches, We Got Searches

I've seen lots of bloggers post their search terms for a laugh, but I've never done it. Until now.

Here are some of the most recent Google searches that brought people here, according to my Sitemeter.

  • hot tub girl

  • jessica alba feet (from Italian Google)

  • imus & andy joke

  • nancy sun, naked

  • cher 2007

  • crazy subaru

  • strappy shoes (from British Google)

  • fortune cookie

  • favorite flowers of marie antoinette

  • brittany goes

  • hot nude blondes videos (which took them here, to a post I called "Hardball Hardon")

  • sexy naked (which took them, coincidentally, to the same post)

  • hot naked stuff (you guessed it, same post)

  • brad p (which yielded this bit of comedy)

  • rosie o'donald coors beer (ha! they misspelled it like I do!)

  • ugly bird (which led hilariously, to this picture)

  • lindsay lohan's email- address (lol, I'll never be rid of 'em)

  • ugly fucking bird (haha! love the emphasis)

  • how to make a dna model

  • pregnant babes (an image search, which led to who else? Brittany)

  • kirsten dunst being beheaded in marie antoinette

  • sarah james is a fashion designer even though shes a poet and she dont know cuz her toes show it cuz theyre longfellows:-
That last one is inexplicably strange, but true.

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Lessons From The Iraq Experience

Allow me to recommend two essential articles from Armed Forces Journal that I think are necessary reading for those of us not on the fringes, who strive to understand rather than shout slogans back and forth. I find little to disagree with in either piece.

The first is "A Failure In Generalship," by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling. Colonel Yingling places blame squarely on Rumsfeld and his generals, for the failure to achieve our goals in Iraq.

The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions. To understand how the U.S. could face defeat at the hands of a weaker insurgent enemy for the second time in a generation, we must look at the structural influences that produce our general officer corps.
My only criticism of Yingling's article would be against his proposal that Congress assert more control over the selection and promotion of general officers. On the contrary, while Congress has a role, it's the executive's job to select military leaders who can get the job done. I believe Yingling is correct to criticize the culture of conformity that produced sub-par generals at the war's outset. But that's common in every major conflict. War is a results-oriented game, and typically the dross is burned away after the first few months of battle.

In the case of Iraq, we had an unusual tendency towards inertia that can only be blamed on Bush and Rumsfeld's management styles. Whether you want to call it admirable loyalty or excessive stubbornness, neither Bush nor the SecDef were willing to change horses when necessary to get results. Of what other successful wartime administration can this be said? Not Lincoln's, not FDR's, not Truman's.

To be fair, one reason for this President's inertia was the withering and omnipresent criticism from the left, whether by Democrats or internationally. Bush, rightly or wrongly, made the decision that sticking to his original plan and personnel was better than adapting midstream to the changing situation on the battlefield. His enemies so vehemently accused him of being wrong, that he overcompensated in an effort to prove that he was right.

I don't give Bush a pass on this. It's no excuse to say that he did what he did because the left made him do it. It's the commander-in-chief's job to husband the souls of those men and women serving our country as wisely as possible. I'll grant him the best of intentions; I know the President feels every loss of life personally and deeply. But, good intentions are not enough. As I've said many times before, what we need is results, and the responsibility for getting results lies ultimately with the president. If Franks, Casey and Abizaid were not getting the job done — and I don't think they were — Bush should have been quick with the hook. (Bush knows baseball; he should have taken a lesson from old Sparky Anderson.)

The essential constraint that the entire war team missed is the constraint of time and patience. In a democracy, this constraint is strict and onerous, especially now in our hyper-political environment where the opposing party turns every issue into a power-play. Time and patience are part of the battlefield, and Bush's advisors were negligent in failing to stress that fact. Success in Iraq, if it was/is to be had, must be had quickly, with sufficient force and resources to get it quickly. Unfortunately, Bush and Company acted like they had all day long. Instead, time has now nearly run out.

The second article, by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (ret.), is called "Wanted: Occupation Doctrine." His point of view is decidedly Machiavellian, but in a good way. Peters catalogues some lessons we should take heed of when planning for the next counterinsurgency campaign.

Consider just a few essential rules for successful occupations — all of which we violated in Iraq:

• Plan for the worst case. Pleasant surprises are better than ugly ones.

• All else flows from security. Martial law, even if imposed under a less-provocative name, must be declared immediately — it's far easier to loosen restrictions later on than to tighten them in the wake of anarchy. This is one aspect of a general principle: Take the pain up front.

• Unity of command is essential.

• The occupier's troop strength should be perceived as overwhelming and his forces ever-present.

• Key military leaders, staff officers, intelligence personnel and vital civilian advisers must be committed to initial tours of duty of not less than two years for the sake of continuity.

• Control external borders immediately.

• Don't isolate troops and their leaders from the local population.

• Whenever possible, existing host-country institutions should be retained and co-opted. After formal warfare ends, don't disband organizations you can use to your advantage.

• Give local opinion-makers a stake in your success, avoid penalizing midlevel and low-level officials (except war criminals), and get young men off the streets and into jobs.

• Don't make development promises you can't keep, and war-game reconstruction efforts to test their necessity, viability and indirect costs (an occupation must not turn into a looting orgy for U.S. or allied contractors).

• Devolve responsibility onto local leaders as quickly as possible — while retaining ultimate authority.

• Do not empower returned expatriates until you are certain they have robust local support.

• The purpose of cultural understanding is to facilitate the mission, not to paralyze our operations. Establish immediately that violent actors and seditious demagogues will not be permitted to hide behind cultural or religious symbols.

• Establish flexible guidelines for the expenditure of funds by tactical commanders and for issuing local reconstruction contracts. Peacetime accountability requirements do not work under occupation conditions and attempts to satisfy them only play into the hands of the domestic political opposition in the U.S. while crippling our efforts in the zone of occupation.

• Rigorously control private security forces, domestic or foreign. In lieu of a functioning state, we must have a monopoly on violence.

Many of the above precepts have been adopted by Gen. Petraeus and his staff, now in charge of the war effort. For that reason, I'm hopeful that success is not yet beyond our grasp.

In the article, Peters uses the word "occupation," but he doesn't apologize for it.

The first step in formulating usable doctrine is to sweep aside the politically correct myths that have appeared about occupations. Occupations are military activities. Period. An Army general must be in charge, at least until the security environment can be declared benign with full confidence. Historically, the occupations that worked — often brilliantly, as in the Philippines, Germany and Japan — were run by generals, not diplomats. This is another mission the Army doesn't want, but no other organization has the wherewithal to do it.
It's obvious that Colonel Peters has a distinct pro-military, anti-Foggy Bottom bias. I share that bias.
Consider the prevailing claim that an occupation is a team effort involving all relevant branches of government: The problem is that the rest of the team doesn't show up. The State Department, as ambitious for power as it is incompetent to wield it, insists that it should have the lead in any occupation, yet has neither the leadership and management expertise, the institutional resources nor the personnel required (among the many State-induced debacles in Iraq, look at its appetite for developing Iraqi police forces and its total failure to deliver).

The military is the default occupier, since its personnel can be ordered into hostile environments for unlimited periods; State and other agencies rely on volunteers and, in Iraq, the volunteers have not been forthcoming — even when the tours for junior diplomats were limited to a useless 90 days and dire warnings were issued about the importance of Iraq duty to careers.

These two articles deserve wide readership. Print them out and read them on your lunch hour.

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April 26, 2007

Annika's Journal Farewell Tour, Part III: My Favorite E-Mail

I treasure all the correspondence I've had with y'all over the last four years, and I really mean it. I know not all readers participate in the comments section and it's nice to get e-mails from those whom we bloggers affectionately call "lurkers." You're like Nixon's "silent majority." I know you're there, and I'm glad.

I often suspect there are some famous lurkers who occasionally cruise my blog. At the beginning, before his Townhall re-design, Hugh Hewitt had me on his blogroll. That was an honor which I knew I did not deserve, but which gave me a lot of pride while it lasted. Anyways, even if Professor Hewitt didn't read me regularly, I'm pretty sure Duane did, which still qualifies as a "brush-with-fame" in my book.

Another big name who came here once, after reading my most infamous blog entry, was New York Post columnist John Podhoretz. He wrote me a very short e-mail that said simply "You crack me up." That was way cool.

Casca once told me he thinks Laura Ingraham reads me, but I'm not yet convinced. Michelle Malkin routinely ignores me, and has never deigned to put me on her blogroll (which for the life of me I can't understand, since that freak Schlussel is on there), but that's okay. I love Malkin anyway.

And to this day, I suspect that Wonkette stole one of my rubrics.

But of all the lurkers and quasi-lurkers that have come here to read my nonsense, there is one whose email makes me most proud.

To set the scene. It's the afternoon of November 2nd, 2004. Faulty (and I believe fraudulent) exit polls have just been leaked and posted by Drudge, which show John Kerry leading George W. Bush in several must-win states. For weeks, the MSM has been predicting a Kerry victory. Now it seems true and conservatives are panicked. It looks like that jackass is going to be president.

In that atmosphere, I wrote this post.

A week later I got the following e-mail:

you and hugh hewitt are the only two who helped keep my anxiety in check during pre election days. i'm embarrassed at my lack of confidence. the urge to find drudge and bitch slap him still burns in me. thenks for the encouraging words. . . . there's enough smart pretty cynical woman pundits, your writing is honest and funny w/out trying to sound clever or too sarcastic. keep it nice and real
best,
Mike
That's the best e-mail I've ever gotten. I'm so gratified that I could have contributed in some small way on that fateful day, when we all needed to keep our wits about us. Despite the post election disappointments, and there have been many, I'm still proud of that post and happy that we all showed up and won.

So as I prepare to join the ranks of lurkers in about 24 days, may I say to all the lurkers at this blog, thank you for visiting!

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Calling All Smartypantses

That means you, Will.

Due to the intense boredom initiated by "a very special American Idol," I began channel flipping and became transfixed by the excellent PBS documentary called ENRON: The Smartest Guys In The Room.

[Aside: Let me note for the record that chief Enron assholes Lay, Skilling and Fastow were all baby boomers.]

Anyways they mentioned that Enron was a major promoter of the early "weather futures" market. When I heard that, I thought, weather futures? wtf? now I've seen everything.

But it's a real thing, and apparently weather futures have exploded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In fact, volume on the CME jumped 64% in the last year alone. It's now a 45 billion dollar market.

But what is it? How do you trade weather? According to CME's website:

CME created a weather derivative market which enables those businesses that could be adversely affected by unanticipated temperature swing or unusually high snowfall, to transfer this risk. It is estimated that nearly 30 percent of the U.S. economy is directly affected by the weather. As a result, the earnings of businesses can be adversely impacted by summers that are hotter than normal or winters that are much colder than anticipated. Just as professionals regularly use futures and options to hedge their risk in interest rates, equities and foreign exchange, now there are tools available for the management of risk from extreme movements of temperature. This sector of hedging and risk management products represents today's fastest growing derivative market.
A reasonably concise primer can be found here.

I guess the deal is that you can buy insurance to protect against catastrophic things that have a low probablility of occurring. But you can't easily insure against high probablility, low risk events like variations in the weather. Playing this market is a way for businesses to offset weather related losses. For example:

A ski resort depends on cold weather to stay in
business. To protect against the possibility of a warm winter, the resort can sell (go short) CME HDD contracts at a level they decide upon with assistance from a
weather-analysis company. A warm winter will result in a low HDD index, and the resort will hope to buy back its contracts at a lower price and use the profit to offset losses in the business.
I still don't get how it works though. I confess I don't understand futures trading as well as Hillary Clinton, but is this all smoke and mirrors bullcrap, or is it the wave of the future? And how, if at all, can this market be used to mitigate the effects of global warming?

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Random Thought

Fucken-a, why is Yahoo being so slow all the time? Holy crap.

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Three Thoughts On AI

Would it be heartless of me to say, "please no more telethons?"

Speaking of heartless, I'd like to "Imagine" there's no John Lennon. Oh that's right, there isn't!

And finally, ain't no way you're going to eradicate malaria with mosquito nets. Sorry.

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April 25, 2007

Skadefryd Part 2: Rosie O'Donald Is Out

According to TMZ. Good news, I guess, but why don't they just cancel The View? While she was there it was easy to blame Rosie, but the show sucked long before she arrived.

Rosie hasn't announced yet, but how much you wanna bet she's going to spin it as "her decision," to "pursue other interests," blah blah blah. It won't be the fact that nobody likes a bully and she's a bully.

Rosie is the left's equivalent of Michael Savage — a loud, bigoted, egotistical, ignorant clown. The only reason Rosie gets away with it on tv and Savage is relegated to after-hours radio is that tv execs agree with Rosie's bullshit.

via Hot Air

Update: Rosie said, "my needs for the future just didn't dovetail with what ABC was able to offer me."

I was close. She just left out the "blah blah blah" part.

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April 24, 2007

Hey Sheryl Crow

Take a look at these guys!

ROTFL that was awesome!

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