Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:15 PM

I never intended to be a warblogger, but I keep finding such interesting stories. I'll try to keep it brief this time and mostly focus this post on other news. Talking Points has more on Rumsfeld overruling military planners and what that might portend. A great quote that puts pithily what I spent an entire post explaining: "War is, by definition, unpredictable. But what we're seeing right now was predicted. The predictions were just ignored."

• As long as I've been praising the military commanders over their civilian colleagues, let me raise a cheer for former air force chief of staff General McPeak: "In my judgment, you can fight a war on terrorism and do it legitimately (and) do it without sacrificing civil liberties in the United States, but it requires a certain intelligence and sophistication be brought to the table." He's got some other great quotes and is quite worth reading. [via Hesiod]
• Although this is making the rounds of the blogosphere, I'm not sure how much coverage this is getting in the mainstream press.
  The White House rejected funding for the committee investigating the September 11 attacks. With all the roadblocks this administration has been putting up, I'm really starting to wonder what they're afraid will come out.
• I suppose I can post my final update on the yesterday's oral arguments in Lawrence vs. Texas. SCOTUSBlog links to dozens of articles here, here and here. The most colorful and insightful of these new articles are Tony Mauro's and particularly E.J. Graff's, who gets in some great quotes.
• The Labor Department is proposing new rules that will change who qualifies for overtime pay. By these new guidelines, anyone earning under $22,100 must receive overtime pay, even if they manage others. On the other hand, this could be bad news for IT and other computer professionals who currently are paid hourly, as they could be reclassified as exempt and lose their overtime. The Boston Globe has a decent summary of the changes. You can also check the Department of Labor's site, although I don't quite trust them since their overview of proposed changes says only "1.3 Million Additional Low-Wage Workers Gain Overtime Protections" without mentioning the approximately "640,000 workers now receiving overtime pay" who would lose that benefit (as estimated by AP)
• The Senate Judiciary Committee today voted on a party line, 10 to 9, to approve Texas Judge Priscilla Owen's Nomination to the Fifth Circuit. She still faces a confirmation hearing in the full Senate. [via TalkLeft which has lots more disturbing news about this her history of anti-abortion and pro-business rulings, and "unconscionable . . . judicial activism" (in the words of Bush's own White House Counsel)] There's still time to stop it on the Senate floor if folks let their Senators know that they care.
• Former Massachusetts governor Cellucci may be "expelled" from Canada. It seems people are flunking him for his recent blunt remarks. As Ian put it, "How do you screw up being Ambassador to Canada?" [via Hesiod]
• Several news stories on the religious front:
  • The House of Representatives passed a resolution today "Recognizing the public need for fasting and prayer in order to secure the blessings and protection of Providence for the people of the United States and our Armed Forces during the conflict in Iraq and under the threat of terrorism at home." No! Didn't these folks ever hear of separation of church and state?

    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the President should issue a proclamation--

    (1) designating a day for humility, prayer, and fasting for all people of the United States; and

    (2) calling on all people of the United States--

    (A) to observe the day as a time of prayer and fasting;

    (B) to seek guidance from God to achieve a greater understanding of our own failings and to learn how we can do better in our everyday activities; and

    (C) to gain resolve in meeting the challenges that confront our Nation.

    Apparently, this travesty passed by a vote of 346-49. I don't know whether my Rep voted for it, but I intend to find out. A number of people are already planning to eat, drink and be merry on that day, just out of spite. [Added slightly later: Dan Kimmel suggests celebrating in French restaurants as a double-whammy.]
    One of the better quotes about this:

    Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, a presidential hopeful and an opponent of the war in Iraq, said the resolution "may be seen by some as an attempt to inject religion into this war at a time when some of America's enemies abroad are asserting that this indeed is a war about religion."

  • In that vein, it looks like the Southern Baptists have decided to follow Ann Coulter's evil post 9/11 call to arms. Two days after the attack, she wrote "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. In today's news, "Christian missionary organizations said Tuesday that they have teams of workers poised to enter Iraq to address the physical and spiritual needs of a large Muslim population."
    We're having enough trouble with Muslims trying to turn this into a religious war. I hope somebody in charge tells them not to "share their Christian faith" with the Iraqi Muslims, and keeps them out of Iraq if they refuse to comply.
  • However, my beloved Ian makes some interesting and amusing points in the manner different religions handle miracles. Be sure to read my quip in the comments...

And, I'll close with this quiz result I received this afternoon:

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?
this quiz was made by the proper Victorian ladies at Spookbot

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:25 PM

I'm talking about this administration, which appears to have made some serious miscalculations in starting this war. I know, it's only one week in, so it's too early to call this a quagmire or make Vietnam comparisons. Still, it looks like the civilians running the show may have shown some stunning ignorance in planning this war. Just look at some of the blunders, both big and small, that our troops have to contend with:

Financial Times:

For an army fighting its way into a city, historical precedent suggests that a minimum ratio of nine attackers to each defender - if that defender is determined - represents a realistic planning figure.
...
Armour, air power and other sophisticated technologies lose their pre-eminence in both instances. "Grunts," in the US vernacular, 'PBI' - "poor bloody infantry" - to the British, become the vital commodity, and tens of thousands of them.
It is a sobering thought, and one that must be exercising Franks' mind increasingly as his forces draw nearer to Baghdad, that of the 270,000 allied personnel currently deployed in theatre, only around 20,000 are infantrymen.
The article notes that there are "reputed to be up to 100,000" members of the Republican Guard defending Baghdad, in addition to possibly hostile local civilians.

Military historian John Keegan via Road to Surfdom:

Whatever the truth of differences of opinion in the Pentagon last year between supporters of a "light" and "heavy" war, and whether there is indeed a "Rumsfeld doctrine" versus a "Powell doctrine", the truth has to be faced that the allies are trying to capture a country the size of France with one heavy division, one airborne division, and a US marine force of roughly two light- divisions.
The British division is committed to subduing Basra.
In 1944 France was captured, admittedly from a far more formidable enemy, only by landing 50 divisions on two fronts.

Washington Post:

Overhanging all developments in the war this week is the unsettling realization that thousands of Iraqis are willing to fight vigorously. During planning for the invasion, worst-case scenarios sometimes predicated stiff resistance, but "no one took that very seriously," an officer said.
"The whole linchpin of this operation was the reaction of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi ground force," said retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a specialist in war planning. "If they don't turn, and so far they haven't, we have a very different strategic problem facing us than when we went in."

Washington Post via Dan Kennedy:

Intelligence analysts at the CIA and Pentagon warned the Bush administration that U.S. troops would face significant resistance from Iraqi irregular forces employing guerrilla tactics, but those views have not been adequately reflected in the administration's public predictions about how difficult a war might go, according to current and former intelligence officials.
"The intelligence we gathered before the war accurately reflected what the troops are seeing out there now," one military intelligence official said. "The question is whether the war planners and policymakers took adequate notice of it in preparing the plan."

Regarding the loyalty of the Iraqi people, Tom Tomorrow said it best: "We took a lot of lessons from 9/11, but it occurs to me that there's one we might have overlooked. When you attack a nation, people tend to rally around their leader --- even if they hate him." [via Digby]

We should also keep in mind a popular slogan among military planners: "Hope is not a plan!"
I only wish the folks running the show thought along those lines:

Knight-Ridder:

"This is the ground war that was not going to happen in (Rumsfeld's) plan," said a Pentagon official.
...
Knowledgeable defense and administration officials say Rumsfeld and his civilian aides at first wanted to commit no more than 60,000 American troops to the war on the assumption that the Iraqis would capitulate in two days.
Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of reports from the Iraqi opposition and from Israeli sources that predicted an immediate uprising against Saddam once the Americans attacked.

MahaBlog links to a telling interview with Richard Perle from last May:

Forget the 250,000 figure, Perle said: "The Army guys don't know anything. They said we needed 500,000 troops in 1991 [for the Gulf War]. Did we need that many to win? No."
What's the Perle Plan? I asked.
"Forty thousand troops." he said. To take Baghdad? Nah, he replied. To take control of the north and the south, particularly the north, where the oil fields are. Cut off Saddam's oil, make him a pauper, that should do the trick. "We don't need anyone else," he said, in a distinctly imperial fashion. This was illuminating, for here was a top Pentagon adviser, a comrade of the get-Saddam ideologues of the Defense Department, asserting the United States could de-Saddamize Iraq with a relatively small force and without asking any other nation for assistance.

There are many more articles I could quote, including several I posted on Tuesday, but I think this makes my point. Former commanders of the first Gulf War have criticized the current strategy, although Pentagon officials are dismissing them as "armchair generals." Then there are the more minor snafus, such as:

Slate.com:

Despite the desert conditions of the Iraqi campaign, many American soldiers are sporting deep-green combat fatigues. Why are some troops donning woodland camouflage? According to published reports, the Pentagon simply goofed by not anticipating the demand for sand-colored desert fatigues

If the stakes weren't so high, it'd almost be comical.

I really wish everything would work out perfectly as the "planners" in the administration hoped. Now that we're engaged, I wish that Iraq could be quickly "liberated" from Saddam Hussein with minimal bloodshed or resentment or humanitarian crises, and they get a friendly, peaceful democratic government. I support our troops and hope none of them suffers needlessly.

Anyway, this all got me thinking about the Powell Doctrine, which Colin Powell outlined after the first Gulf War in 1992. Quoting from a PBS lesson plan for students:

Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that

military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target;

the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy;

there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and

there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.

As Powell has said, "We owe it to the men and women who go in harm's way [...] that their lives are not squandered for unclear purposes." and "We must not, for example, send military forces into a crisis with an unclear mission they cannot accomplish." So, what is our exit strategy for this conflict? How will we know that we have won aside from our government telling us so? Can we declare "victory" if Saddam is still alive? What if Saddam is dead but the country still has WMDs?

Road to Surfdom quotes Tom Friedman, who suggested six ways to tell whether we are winning in Iraq. Worth reading. However, if anybody can point me towards official government statements regarding our objectives and victory conditions, I'd appreciate having the documentation for the future.

Like I said, I hope everything turns out for the best, but I've done enough design and QE to know how to evaluate plans before implementation, and this does not look like a well-thought-out one.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:20 AM

Okay, if you follow no other links I posted, if you read nothing else, read this article by Joshua Micah Marshall. The Bush administration is purposely provoking World War III -- or at least trying to trigger political upheaval in all the Arab nations with the end goal of overthrowing all the current governments, democratizing the region and bringing about world peace. The thought of destabilizing the entire Middle East may not involve Soviet nukes, but sounds just as scary.

Marshall explains their POV as follows: "A full-scale confrontation between the United States and political Islam, they believe, is inevitable, so why not have it now, on our terms, rather than later, on theirs? Actually, there are plenty of good reasons not to purposely provoke a series of crises in the Middle East. But that's what the hawks are setting in motion, partly on the theory that the worse things get, the more their approach becomes the only plausible solution."

This isn't alarmist rhetoric or speculation; Marshall's got the evidence and quotes from those in charge and planning this thing. Even if you approve of war with Iraq, is this what you agreed to?

If any of this sounds familiar, Ian wrote something similar last week, before the fighting began. However, Marshall's better known and more widely read and this article will be a cover story, so maybe the rest of the country will wake up to what's really going on. I had a dream a few months back that the rest of the world was giving us Iraq, just as Czechoslavakia was sacrificed to Hitler. But, just as in WW2, the rest of the world was also mobilizing their forces to prevent us from any further military aggression. Somebody's got to stop this administration's offensive actions. I don't want the world to get worse in the hopes of making it better. That still means the world gets worse.

Mr. Rogers wrote: When I was a child and would see scary things on the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." I'm looking. I'm offering. But right now I'm not seeing a solution. Will somebody please point me in the right direction?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:59 PM

Continuing my Supreme Court obsession, Dahlia Lithwick has weighed in with her account of the Lawrence vs. Texas arguments, and they are laugh-out-loud funny!
Linda Greenhouse writes a much more sedate, analytical piece, as befitting The New York Times, though even she suggests in her opening paragraph that the "majority of the Supreme Court appeared ready today to overturn" the sodomy law. I'm quite amused by the stylistic differences in the coverage, though. For example, SCOTUSBlog writes "Today's oral argument in Lawrence v. Texas was presented by Paul Smith of Jenner & Block, who did an excellent job, and by Harris County, TX, District Attorney Charles Rosenthal, who gave what may have been the worst oral argument in a truly important case in the past decade." whereas the Times report makes use of more understated language: "The argument proved to be a mismatch of advocates to a degree rarely seen at the court." Doesn't that sound so genteel?

The Supreme Court does not allow reporters to use recording devices and won't release the transcripts for at least a month. So finding out about Supreme Court oral arguments is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, gradually building a picture of the entire hour through the snips and fragments provided by each article. The AP provides some excerpted quotes, most of which are in at least one of the other articles. Added slightly later: The New York Times also provides excerpts, which are longer and include some quotes other news stories only alluded to (such as how the court can overturn this yet still preserve laws against bigamy). [OMG! The lawyer for Texas really was that pitiful! Read his exchange with Scalia in the NYT excerpts! Scalia did everything but hop down off the bench and shove him aside! LOL!] I'm still waiting to hear from Joan Biskupic of USA Today (formerly from the Washington Post), whose articles I also enjoy, but the links I've provided so far are probably sufficient

In other news, Michael Tomasky has discovered that the creator of the Shock and Awe policy -- someone who mentioned Hiroshima and Nagasaki favorably -- has come out against the Iraq war as it's currently being fought. While I really recommend you read the article in its entirety, here's an important section I wish to quote from, especially for those of my friends who are against the war but aren't sure what to do now that fighting has started:

[This] makes clear something that ultra-hawks have turned somersaults trying to obscure or discredit: There is -- or was -- a diplomatic and political process on the one hand, and there's a fighting war on the other; and deploring the Bush administration's conduct of the former while supporting the speedy success of the latter now that it's under way is an entirely respectable and consistent position. Not only that, it's an important position to hold on to over the coming weeks.

The shooting will presumably be over soon enough, but diplomacy never ends, despite this administration's most energetic intentions to the contrary. It's on these shoals that the Bush gang's ship will finally splinter, and therefore it's also where the opposition should concentrate its arguments.

I found this article courtesy of Altercation, which also includes a historian's "semi-scholarly" approach to defining what makes a president bad and whether Bush qualifies (though he makes no reference to Andrew Jackson). And there's also ENLARGE YOUR COALITION! GUARANTEED!! which is a real hoot. Alterman's blog is generally worth reading. Unfortunately, it doesn't save archives beyond a couple days, but he's got a lot of good stuff. I particularly like this reader's comment: "[D]on?t you think if the anti-war crowd started setting up voter registration booths at every event, that might get Bush?s attention?

In good news, Dwight Meredith suggests that Bush's magic may be waning, what with his recent "string of legislative defeats"

And, though we didn't really need it, Mark Kleiman provides yet another sign that this is turning into a worldwide religious war: "Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, grand sheikh of Al-Azhar University, regarded by some as the pre-eminent living Sunni religious scholar, who had denounced the 9-11 attack as unIslamic and called Osama bin Laden's claims to spiritual authority "fraudulent," has called all Muslims to a jihad in defense of Iraq.

More bad economic news courtesy of Late Night Thoughts. A "non-profit non-partisan" think tank just released a report titled Exploding Deficits, Declining Growth: The Federal Budget and the Aging of America in which they state "the fiscal outlook is worse than official projections indicate." They provide recommendations for turning things around, but I doubt this administration is interested in implementing any of them -- in fact, current policy seems to be about 180 degrees removed from prudent long-term planning.

Finally, in local news, Governor Romney has decided the new Central Artery Tunnel will be officially named "The Liberty Tunnel." I've decided to merely call it "France."

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:25 PM

Regarding the Supreme Court oral arguments in Lawrence v. Texas (on the legality of laws barring same-sex consensual sodomy). If you're somewhere you can listen to streaming audio, I recommend Nina Totenberg's coverage on NPR. The folks on SCOTUSBlog do a great job too. Although their coverage overlaps, I suggest following both links. They provide different quotes from the justices and it's both fascinating and funny. The oral arguments included questions about dinner table manners, teaching German, and some Seussian poetry from the bench.

Oh, I want to study constitutional law. I know it's not practical -- I'm about to finish one degree in two months, I really need to find a full-time job, and I'm sure constitutional law is much less lucrative than other areas of law such as criminal, corporate or divorce, but it just sounds sooooo fascinating. Ah well...

By the way, there's a rather disturbing story of an Iraqi family in Michigan gone missing posted to LiveJournal that's been making the rounds. You can read it here with the author's followup here. Not everyone is buying the veracity of this account, since the author didn't provide many verifiable details. I suspect she's telling the truth as she sees it, and it is known that the government has been questioning tens of thousands of Iraqi nationals living in the United States, but that still leaves many possible outcomes for this family.

Speaking about LiveJournal, I want to provide some closure to yesterday's flamefest. Last night I actually had a productive, positive conversation with the woman who started the thread wherein I explained the difference between opinions and factual claims and, although everyone may be entitled to their opinion, that shouldn't prevent others from correcting factual errors.

BTW I just saw the latest economic news at Ruminate This. Need I say, it's not looking good. Mortgage forclosures are up and "Manpower Inc., the employment agency, says fewer companies plan to hire people in the second quarter and the hiring trend was the weakest in the Northeast." I'd ask Lisa's question -- given all this, why are Bush's poll numbers so high? -- but the truth is he's distracting the voters with war and terrorism to keep the economic news off the front page. At the start of the month, I quoted an Austin Chronicle article which said so explicitly: "If the economy was getting the kind of media attention that war now hogs, what do you think Bush's approval rating would be? Which is a prime reason why Bush won't back down from his war on Iraq."

By the way, although I'm not following the war coverage that closely, others of you may be. And since I posted this link elsewhere today, I'll also share it with y'all. It's a bit of a guide to understanding breaking news. To quote:

For any of the following reports, allow at least six hours before you even begin to take them seriously:
     Any report of a Scud
     The first three reports of mass casualties by anyone
For these, wait 12 hours:
     Any report of an attack against a city outside of Iraq
     Any report of use of chemical weapons
     The first two reports of mass surrenders
     The first two reports of use by the US of "wizard weapons"
For these, wait 24 hours if not even more:
     Any report that a "name" in Iraq has been killed, captured or has defected
     Any claim by the government of Iraq which looks good for them or bad for us
     Any report of atrocities
     Any report of Iraqi "scorched earth" destruction, especially oil well fires
     Any report of mass Iraqi civilian casualties
For all of these, the proper response is to go take a nap. I know it's tough, but that's the best thing you can do.
...
Update: Oh, another thing: At least 24 hours for any claim of a terrorist attack elsewhere in the world which is initially claimed by anyone as being a retaliation because of our war in Iraq.

Hope this helps! [As seen on CalPundit]

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:40 PM

As some people suggested in my comments, I created a preliminary Links page off my main site. Right now, it only includes the content that I was planning to put in a blogroll. To my way of thinking, a permanent links page is slightly different than a blogroll, in that a blogroll primarily points to other blogs and news sources, whereas a generic links page should link to permanent or substantial resources. I don't know. I'm still toying with it in my mind.

At any rate, use these links to supplement your regular newsgathering habits. Alex Beam of the Boston Globe already wrote about the growing trend of do-it-yourself war coverage. A more damning comment comes from a BBC World News commentator (via Atrios), who said "One of the Iraq war's major casualties is the credibility of the American media. Nobody takes it seriously." Yeowch!

In other blog-related news, I've begun contributing content to the Political State Report

Meanwhile, in the world outside my computer, here's a weird piece of news. Apparently the Moroccan government is providing U.S. troops in Iraq "2,000 monkeys trained in detonating land mines. Well, Bush Jr.'s coalition may be much smaller than his father's, but I don't think Bush Sr. ever had minesweeping monkeys from Morocco! Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
[Okay, that exposed an odd bit of my psyche. Every single time I've tried to type monkeys, it's come out as monkees, and I've had to backspace to correct it. I guess you can tell which word I use more often...]

In other news, Senate Majority Leader Frist is trying once again to sneak in a bill protecting vaccine manufacturers from liability in cases of injuries caused by the vaccines. This is being reported in several blogs, but Wampum has got the most detail on what the legislation means and things we/you can do to stop it.

The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today on the validity of sodomy laws. Now, as I understand it, it's possible the Supreme Court could void this law yet still uphold the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick. What I mean is that this Texas law applies only to same-sex relations -- the same activities among heterosexuals would be legal. Thus, the Supreme Court could overturn these laws for violating equal protection rights, but agree with Bowers that there is no privacy right to certain sex acts. I don't know how it will go; the world, and its acceptance of homosexuality, has changed a lot since 1986. For further details on this case, see this Christian Science Monitor article with a history of sodomy laws on Slate. SCOTUSBlog, though it's down at the moment, is an excellent source for up-to-date links to the latest in Supreme Court reporting. I may post more on this later after I hear what the Court reporters have to say about oral arguments.

And speaking of the Supreme Court, I'm going to close with this extraordinary petition to the Court by Lawrence Lessig. In Eldred vs. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Lessig filed this petition requesting a rehearing, which the Court rejected. But I marvel at the language:

The currency of this Court is principle. While it is plainly appropriate for individual justices to differ on matters of principle, the credibility of the institution depends upon the consistent articulation of majority principles across cases. If the rule of law is a law of rules, then those rules constrain this Court as they do every other branch of government.

and

The Court has decided this case based upon an approach that while perfectly consistent with the longstanding view of the author of the Court's opinion [Justice Ginsburg] -- that this Court has no role checking the reach of enumerated powers -- is in fundamental conflict with the principle outlined in Lopez and reaffirmed in Morrison. This unaddressed conflict should not stand. If the principle of enumeration that Judge Sentelle believed governs this case does not, then this Court should explain why. If there is a reason why this Court's review is appropriate to support the Framers' views protecting States, then this Court should at least explain why it would be inappropriate to support the Framers' views about the public domain. There is no meaningful difference in principle between the limits. Indeed, any difference between them would support stronger judicial review of the Copyright and Patent Clause, as the longstanding history of this Court confirms, but as the opinion in this case ignores.

Again, Yeowch! In his blog, Lessig says he believes that five of the justices "were acting without principle" in the Eldred decision. But to write that in an official court brief!? I wonder whether he's ever going to argue before the Court again, and if so, whether or how this will color the justices attitude towards his arguments. [As seen on SCOTUSBlog]

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 PM

Well, whaddayaknow! "The Senate unexpectedly reversed itself today and voted to slash more than half of" President Bush's tax cut proposal, according to this evening's Washington Post. Better late than never. I would love to read the story behind this reversal: "Four days after rejecting a similar proposal by a 62-38 vote, the Republican-run Senate voted 51-48 to reduce the size of the tax cut" That means that nine Senators switched sides in four days. Wow.

Regarding my technical question at the end of the previous post, a blogroll is a list of links along the side margin. For a good example of this, take a look at the right columns of Sideshow or The Agonist. I'm thinking of providing a similar list of links to sites I find useful. Since part of my purpose in keeping this journal is to share information with others, giving y'all a link to the sources I use means that even in times when I can't post, you can still check things out and stay informed. So, anybody interested?

As long as we've got this quiet time while the news isn't raging in my head, a few less serious tidbits to share. Evelyn Leeper just posted her con report on Boskone 40. Very detailed; well worth reading. For example, she devotes two-and-a-half screens of text to describing the Alternate MediaWorld panel (what if Star Trek & Star Wars never existed). And other panels get equally detailed reviews. [My review of Boskone can be found here.]

My readings on Stuart England have slowed a bit since getting back from vacation. I'm not sure whether I'll actually get the chance to finish Unnatural murder before I have to return it to the library. The other night, as I was describing the players to Ian, I started to refer to somebody as an "unsavory character." Then I stopped myself and realized that I really couldn't think of anybody in these courts who could actually be called savory. Maybe Mary Modena, James II's wife, but she wasn't described in too much detail, so she may have a shadowy side I haven't seen.

FWIW (and if you can't tell), I really enjoyed Ungrateful daughters. If you're at all curious, I found several very good reviews of the book here, here, and here

And speaking of the Jacobites (those who thought that James II's eldest son and his heirs should've inherited the British crown -- which is the proper order of inheritance -- over William & Mary and those who followed that line), I've found a website for modern Jacobites. According to this site, the current monarch of the British Isles is King Francis II (a.k.a. Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria von Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria). He inherited the crown in 1996 at the death of his father, King Albert I.

By the way, I can't recall whether I posted this already, but somebody in the LiveJournal "weird jews" community asked whether life on other planets might keep kosher. Ian wrote a 700 word answer, going into both halacha (Jewish law) and evolutionary science. I love my husband!

That's about it for now. I spent this evening (from Buffy on (great episode, hunh!?)) sorting through the mail and organizing my financial papers both to get stuff together for taxes and just because my desk has gotten too messy to bear. Right now, half the bed is still covered in paper, so if I want to get any sleep tonight, I'd really ought to finish that task. 'Night!

Postscript (added later): Regarding the comment that "sometimes the osmond-riba domain doesn´t seem to work when I´m following links" I'm not entirely sure what might be happening, but I do know that (for whatever reason) my site only works if the "www" is explicitly entered. http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/journal/ works, but http://osmond-riba.org/lis/journal/ doesn't. Also, Blogger is sometimes a little hesitant about putting links on the archive pages, so the direct link to the most recent post may not work, because although the article is posted on the default page, it hasn't yet been added to the appropriate archive page. If you're having some other problem, I'd love to hear about it in more detail -- maybe send me the URL and the error message (if any) and I'll see if I can't sort this out. Thanks for letting me know.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:20 PM

Well, I've caught up to a certain extent with the news and the rest of the world since my trip.

Did you know that President Bush is getting his massive tax cut pretty much as-is? The House and Senate voted for it last Friday while everybody and the news media were preoccupied with this whole Iraq business. Okay, the Senate did trim a little bit off, but that's expected to be restored in committee. David Broder had a brilliant quote:

[Y]oungsters yet to be born will see their choices limited and their prospects blighted by the decision of today's politicians to press ahead with an unaffordable tax cut even while the costs of war and reconstruction make earlier spending estimates wildly unrealistic.

I wrote about this before: Conservatives have explicitly written that the tax cuts are "Mr. Bush's stealth initiative to curb future spending" while strategists noted in advance that the Bush administration would use the distraction of "Iraq to push through this radical agenda." And so they have.

I'll confess, I'm not following the war news too closely. I wish our troops the best, but battle-by-battle updates never interested me. [Read here for the rich history of "supporting the troops" but not their orders. Examples of Republican hypocrisy in how they bashed Clinton during wars in his administration are left as an exercise to the reader, but it should be easy since it's being widely reported.]

But I'm seeing some disturbing policy analysis which says that the administration may have blundered this bigtime by ignoring the military experts. Take for example:

• Talking Points links to several articles with comments by commanders in the first Gulf War -- and they aren't terribly complimentary to the civilians running the current show.
• Digby's got much more on this, including the fact that the most military experience many of these civilian planners have is being Civil War buffs. Which presents us with problems like our troops lacking backup because some divisions weren't yet in place ["The 4th Infantry Division was in ships off the coast of Turkey. The 1st Armor Division was still in Germany. The First Cavalry was still at Fort Hood."] and fears that supply lines are stretched too thin and too thinly protected.
• Talking Points reports that the American Enterprise Institute was giving a definite "sense that things weren't going as well as had been expected"
• And, after I began this post, Joe Conanson provides more examples of military intelligence "I told you so"s to the civilian suits in charge.

  Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of reports from the Iraqi opposition and from Israeli sources that predicted an immediate uprising against Saddam once the Americans attacked.

  If I ever hold high office, I do not want to be surrounded by Yes-Men. I want intelligent people who disagree with me who can point out the flaws in my thinking so we can correct them before implementation. Debug the State!

In other war-related news:

• Although it's several days old, I've been quite amused by this quote from Jordan Kare:

  When I heard Colin Powell say that there were 15 nations that were offering support but preferred not to be identified, I realized that the U.S. Government has been reduced to claiming that "the lurkers support us in email."

• Today's Washington Post has a good article on why the "coalition of the willing" is such a farce.

  Therein lies the peculiarity of the coalition of the willing. Some on the White House list, such as Turkey, have been critical of the war and uncooperative. Many of those on the list, such as the unarmed nations above, will do far less than countries such as Germany, which adamantly opposed the war but is defending Turkey from Iraqi missiles. To join the coalition of the willing, a nation need do nothing more than offer "political support" -- essentially, allow its name to be put on the list.
  
  Administration officials have furnished the list to demonstrate, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued, that the current coalition "is larger than the coalition that existed during the Gulf War in 1991." But that 34-member group was an actual military coalition, with all members providing troops, aircraft, ships or medics.
  
  By that standard, there are only about a half dozen members of the coalition in the current war. In addition to the 250,000 or so U.S. troops, there are 45,000 from Britain and about 2,000 from Australia. Denmark and Spain have sent a small number of troops, though not, apparently, for ground combat.

• Oh, and have I mentioned recently how much I love my husband? He's so erudite; I wish he'd write more. Did you read his analysis from before the war? More support is emerging for the spiritual warfare (a.k.a. Christian holy war) notion.
  Some are calling this expanded Christian vs. Muslim conflict Bin Laden's victory:

Osama bin Laden, in his wildest dreams, could hardly have hoped for this. A mere 18 months after he boosted the US to a peak of worldwide sympathy unprecedented since Pearl Harbor, that international goodwill has been squandered to near zero. Bin Laden must be beside himself with glee. And the infidels are now walking right into the Iraq trap.

I'm really growing to appreciate the sentiment attributed to Harlan Ellison that

Dot Cattiness is a LiveJournal community where people are free to be catty. There's one ignorant snip who's writing stupid things like the war is "a great idea because it's all about Osama. Eeediot!

The war with Iraq has nothing to do with Osama, and if you believe it has, then you've bought into a shell game. Good debunkings are available through Spinsanity and Road to Surfdom.

If you're interested, here are her post which instigated this thread (with many responses from me) and followup posts to dot cattiness by me, and Ian. And much snarkiness was enjoyed by all.
Added slightly later: Oh, look, she's posted again and still doesn't get it!
And still later: %$@#^&! She deleted the entire post! Which made all the responses to it, including mine, vanish! I actually conducted research to rebut some of those arguments and wrote some things I'm really proud of! And now she single-handedly can wipe out all my writing because she's ashamed of what she did!? %$@#^&!

About this blog: a question for readers

I've been considering adding a blogroll to the side of my journal. The problem is, even a 150 pixel wide list makes any printouts pages longer. And, because there's no way in HTML for a sidebar to only display for as long as it has data, that means most pages have 150 pixels of empty wasted space. Not pretty; not efficient. However, there are many times, especially when I'm not posting as frequently, where I'd like to point folks to other sources of good information.

I don't know. Do you think I should add a blogroll to the side margin? Would you use it?

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:55 PM

An excellent vacation. I had fun; I feel relaxed; I saw Jeff again. It was great. Rather than just rave about the highlights in any old order, I'm going to try to describe things chronologically.

I spent most of Thursday in the air. Left Manchester, NH at 1:45pm Eastern time, and got into Seattle somewhere around 9pm Pacific time. Three flight segments and one plane change. The middle segment I sat next to somebody who forgot his reading glasses and wanted to be garrulous. The last flight segment, I chose a seat right up front that was next to a mother and her three month old. For a moment I was nervous -- I dreaded having to endure a screaming baby for hours on end (and almost would've switched seats if it wouldn't've seemed so rude) -- but the infant was an angel; slept through most of the flight and didn't cry at all. The last hour he kept staring at me with these big black eyes... Really cute.

During these flights, I started and completely finished all 400+ pages of Ungrateful daughters: the Stuart princesses who stole their father's crown by Maureen Waller. Excellent book. This book covers the lives and reigns of James II, William & Mary and Queen Anne -- the last of the Stuart dynasty. It explains so much that I never fully understood in high school history classes, including who Bonnie Prince Charlie was, why he believed he had a valid claim to the throne, and how the Hanovers from Germany came into succession. I now need to find a good book on Charles II to fill that gap in my knowledge.

I really love reading British history, particularly court histories, which are so much fun. Among other treats, I keep seeing the same names over and over again -- for example, at one point mention was made of Robert Spencer and his "beloved Althorp" estates. Well, 400 years later, the Spencers are still at Althorp. And there are many other family names providing continuity over the centuries, so after a while, everybody feels familiar. Ungrateful daughters covers from the mid-1600s through 1714. And I learned all kinds of fascinating tidbits, including:

• New Amsterdam was purchased from the Dutch in this period and renamed to honor Charles II's younger brother James, the Duke of York (who later became James II)
• James and his wife introduced the practice of drinking tea to Great Britain
• One of the early meanings of the word cabal comes from "five ministers of Charles II, who signed the Treaty of Alliance with France for war against Holland in 1672: these were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury), and Lauderdale, the initials of whose names thus arranged chanced to spell the word cabal."
• The song "Rock-a-bye baby" was originally propoganda against James II's infant son, who was believed to be an imposter.

Like I said, lots of fascinating stuff. But I digress...

Anyway, after some delays, I landed in Seattle and was met by Jeff. Gd it's good to see him again. As he drove me home, and we caught each other up on the whereabouts and wellbeing of other of our college friends. He drove me onto the Microsoft campus and showed me the various buildings -- geez that place is big! And then we got to his apartment, where I met his husband, Greg, and their cat, Onyx. I called Ian to let him know I arrived safely, we chatted for a while and then went to sleep. I had no problems with jet-lag whatsoever on this trip, which somewhat surprised me, as I'm usually not much of a late night person. I guess my strategy of staying up extra late the night before may have helped.

Jeff took Friday off of work to show me around the area. We rode the bus into downtown Seattle over the pontoon bridge on Lake Washington. Very pretty lake; lots of gorgeous houses in historic neighborhoods. Once in downtown Seattle, we rode the monorail (yes! Seattle has a monorail! The Simpsons "Monorail Song" kept going thru my head) to the Space Needle.

Wow. It was a windy day (causing some problems with my cloak) but we walked all the way around the outside of the observation deck, and then walked along the inside reading about its history and engineering challenges. I had hoped the gift shop would have a book about the history, but the one they had for sale didn't go into as much detail on some of the technical issues as the posters, so I decided not to bother.

We then rode the monorail back to downtown, and Jeff showed me around. I asked him what local delicacies Seattle was known for -- the equivalent to Philly cheese steaks or New England clam chowder. In response, he took me to the Bon Marché department store for their Frango mints. Oh! I love Jeff! Because half my family comes from Chicago, I grew up on Frangos from Marshall Fields and adore them. Of course, I now know they're actually from Seattle, but that doesn't diminish my glee in finding them one iota. [And now I have another source... heh, heh, heh.]

Jeff showed me around downtown, we stopped at Pike Place Market, which (for those who haven't been to Seattle before) is somewhat like Faniuel Hall in Boston or Reading Terminal Market in Philly. A bit like a farmers' market with produce and fish vendors. One booth was selling freshly made mini-donuts, and Jeff picked up a bag of a dozen for us to split. Mmm... We also gawked at the fish throwers of the Pike Place Fish Market. Jeff very sweetly bought me some smoked salmon to share with the denizens of Mystery House (our college friends) on their next gaming night. Looks delicious.

And then, after a bit more wandering around, we took the bus back to Jeff's apartment. Seattle is a very beautiful city; it's hard to describe it. Lots hundred-year-old building like parts of downtown Boston or New York City, but they feel somehow brighter and fresher. Although I brought my camera and two extra rolls of film, I took maybe a half-dozen photos in all, and all of those at the Space Needle. I think I was just too much in the moment and didn't want to spoil things by stopping everything so self-consciously. Does that make sense?

So, Friday afternoon we took it easy. We both caught naps (Jeff was/is still recovering from a cold, and we wanted him to be at his best for his performance) and I read his manga paperbacks of Marmalade boy (since so many of my friends have raved about it, I wanted to read it for myself).

There are some friends with whom when you spend time, you feel obligated to constantly be doing things, talking about things. There has to be something keeping the two of you occupied together or the time feels wasted. Not with Jeff. I didn't feel that desperate need to be doing things together -- we were each doing things, we were together, and that was sufficient. And very comfortable. We didn't have to do, we could just be. Maybe that comes out of two years of being college suitemates. But this whole trip, even when we weren't doing anything it was still simply wonderful just being in Jeff's presence.

Anyway, Jeff made tacos for dinner (when I told Ian this, he said that he was having strange cravings for Mexican food at about the same time) and then came the official excuse for this visit. Jeff had the title role in You're a good man, Charlie Brown. He was excellent. Charlie Brown can be such a pitiful character, and with just a look in his eye or a quiver in his lower lip had the entire audience going "awww" for him. And, of course, his singing was superb. The rest of the cast was superb as well; I noticed somebody was videotaping the performace and I wish I'd thought to ask him for a copy. Also before the show, I met several of Jeff's friends. We sat together during the performance, and I think we really hit it off.

Later in the evening, I taught Jeff how to play Munchkin, and we enjoyed a rather sedate game. Didn't have much time to do much on Saturday. I flipped thru some of Jeff's Doctor Who books, and we headed back to the airport. My flights back were smooth and actually arrived ahead of schedule. The only downside of the day was that almost all the restaurants in the Nashville airport closed by 7pm (when I had an hour layover), so my cravings for non-airline food went unsatisfied (I was particularly in the mood for a salad or something with fresh veggies, and the only places open served barbecue pork or other greasy-type unwholesome foods I didn't want). Oh well. I read Unnatural murder: poison at the court of James I on the flights, but haven't yet finished it.

And now I'm home again with Ian and Boopsie. Taking a vacation -- a break from jobhunting, school and the news -- was peaceful. Seeing Jeff was wonderful. I had a marvelous time, and definitely need to see Jeff more often. Maybe I can convince one of the local cons to invite him as filk guest of honor...

By the way, you may have noticed the book titles are now active links. Although I generally prefer people support their libraries or local bookstores to the big megachains, but Amazon associates offers 4.5% of any book sales generated from these links, so I figured, why not! If you're not interested in any of those books (and, to be honest, who besides me and scholars are?) you can also just follow this link to shop at Amazon.com for whatever it is you are interested in. I've also created a tip jar on Amazon.com, but it's not quite ready for prime-time yet. I'm considering also using PayPal, but between eBay's willingness to spread their legs for any cop that comes asking and this story of PayPal closing an anti-war site and holding its funds, I'm not entirely sure I want to be affiliated with PayPal.

Speaking of the tech side of this blog, I've added Riba Rambles to roll your own me-zine. If you follow a lot of blogs, checking for updates on all the sites can be a pain. An RSS feed an aggregator can be useful, but this is another solution for the problem. Somewhat like a LiveJournal friends page, this creates an aggregate view of the most recent posts of blogs that you select. Pretty nifty. Just in case anybody's interested.

Anyway, that's about it. I know many of my friends are at Lunacon this weekend. Hope y'all have as much fun on your vacation as I did.