by hilzoy
It has been down all day, and now it seems to have eaten Andrew’s and Charles’ last posts, along with their comments. — I had just noticed that the behind-the-scenes website seemed to have no record of their existence, and was contemplating cutting and pasting copies and then emailing Charles and Andrew to ask whether I or they should just repost them when they vanished from the front page.
Arrgh. Open thread.
This is a comment to Andrew’s post, eaten in its last rendition:
It is so difficult to feel any sympathy for your point of view, I am almost rudderless attempting to comment on your post. I frankly can understand it only through the knowledge that humans are quite prey to fantastic thought, meaning prey to their own fantasies. It is more than fashionable these days to say that any criticisms of the war in Iraq excludes all of the young persons engaged in that war and I can only think, but it is a volunteer army…what can they be thinking? Wouldn’t the world be better off if all soldiers died in combat? That ellusive obsession with danger and death should after all be fulfilled. Oh right, heroism and discipline and all that %#@!. Doesn’t it ever occur to them/ you that it is a terrible fantasy? In what life has military violence ever safeguarded any Americans or anybody else? Could it possibly be that they/you are one of the greatest problems of mankind not some exhalted solution?
Specifically as per your essay, how can it be that with a budget that is 45-50% of the total of all military budgets combined, the U.S. military might not have enough? Isn’t it patently obvious this is a terrible way to apportion resources in any society? God how I wish for the day when we can only afford the army of Canada or Italy. I could do without all of you, as an institution.
And you seem to be confused about MoDo again…
Charles, please don’t break all of Typepad like that again. It was very careless of you.
“In what life has military violence ever safeguarded any Americans or anybody else?”
Wow, but that’s stupid.
“Wouldn’t the world be better off if all soldiers died in combat?”
Also that. Add offensive, on top. And not very pacifistic, either.
Andrew, could you please explain to me why it is that on your home site, you link to sites such as Misha’s, IMAO, Den Beste, Neal Boortz, and Ace of Spades? Doesn’t it bother you to lend a patina of respectability to people such as this?
It bothers me that Hilzoy thought you’d make a good addition to this blog, frankly.
I wrote a comment to Andrew’s post as well, midday:
My mother was an Army brat, as were both her parents, and I was brought up with, and retain, great respect for the institution. I think this Iraq episode is going have very negative consequences, maybe worse than the 1970s, wrought primarily by civilians who think that war is too important to be left to the professionals. They also seem to think it’s a great game.
The baby killer thing is ignorant and offensive, but I know what is going, in my view, to seriously harm the Army, and it isn’t stupid remarks from powerless partisans.
Where do people get the idea that a blogroll is a list of endorsements?
And where do people get the idea that sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears, covering one’s eyes, and only reading that which is CorrectThink is a grand notion?
Which is not to say that everyone is going to, or should, make the same evaluations of the worth of various bloggers.
“It bothers me that Hilzoy thought you’d make a good addition to this blog, frankly.”
Who on the right would you prefer? What do you believe the purpose of this blog is? Does the name “Moe Lane” mean anything to you?
While I don’t agree with grackle, I think that the insistence to maintain a military in the form that we did after the cold war should be considered a big mistake. I link both the arguments over women and gays in the military to this. I remember George Will arguing against women in the military because it represented the sharp point of the spear, and we couldn’t afford to have it dulled. The military specificaly rejected calls to train for peacekeeping duties and instead focussed on increased lethality. We are really paying the price for that misfocus.
In defense of Hilzoy and the ObWi hive mind, I think that Charles is probably further to the right than Andrew, but because Andrew has a blog, it is easier (but unfair) to take issue. After all, the blog roll is something that most people do not regularly update, so I don’t think that the inclusion of someone who proposed hanging 5 Supreme Court judges should be taken as dispositive, though I hope that he would reconsider their inclusion. I do, contra Gary, take the blogroll as a list of recommendations, but not of specific viewpoints but rather, of people who you feel are on the same playing field as you.
Also, someone said that they weren’t going to read his blog, which I actually think is a fairer thing to do. Dredging thru someone’s blog to find statements that you can contend with is a sure way to derail most conversations.
I come back online, and the headline and very short body on My Yahoo is about Israelis rocketing the Beirut airport. Accompanying picture is of a bombed bridge.
I am starting to get a bad feeling about all this…
“I do, contra Gary, take the blogroll as a list of recommendations, but not of specific viewpoints but rather, of people who you feel are on the same playing field as you.”
What does that mean? I have no idea, I’m afraid.
I do not, incidentally, recommend all the blogs on my blogroll. At least one is by someone whom I think is a certifiable loon politically, but who is a friend, and another constantly posts stuff I also think is loony, but is also a friend. A number of others are by people whose POV I frequently or near constantly disagree with.
There’s no one on my blogroll whom I always agree with.
If you take everyone’s blogroll as a list of recommendations, you can be contra all you like, and also flat factually wrong. That is, some people do it that way, obviously, but yet many do not.
Gary,
the same playing field means someone who you feel would play by the same rules, which, for me, would be someone who treats others with some basic respect and dignity and that’s how I take a blogroll of someone I respect. (people I don’t respect, well, I don’t really pay much attention to their blogrolls cause I pay little attention to them) As you note, some people’s blogrolls are ‘here are people who agree with my basic principles’, so it is up to Andrew to explain what is the root of his blogroll. I realize that everyone has their areas where they get a little crazy, but for me, I don’t think a ‘recommendation’ implies that one agrees with the totality of what someone says and I’m sorry you think I implied that.
Andrew’s a fantastic addition and I’m glad hilzoy invited him in.
Blogs, even my favorites, are starting to bore me. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing (Summer’s here/And the time is right/For – doing anything but staring at a screen for hours) or maybe the political conversations have simply gotten too predictable. ObiWi is about the only one left where people of differing points of view actually talk to (rather than at, or around) one another.
And Andrew, as someone with actual, ongoing, military experience, is a wonderful addition. Who he has on his blogroll, and why, is his own business.
“…I don’t think a ‘recommendation’ implies that one agrees with the totality of what someone says and I’m sorry you think I implied that.”
I emphasized, by stating first, that I have at least one blog on my blogroll that I only relatively rarely agree with and find quite regularly lunatic, and another that I find frequently lunatic. Yet others I constantly or overwhelmingly disagree with, but keep on the roll for one reason or another. It’s not hardly just a matter of never completely agreeing. Some of it is a matter of taking an interest in what people I wildly disagree with think. Even, y’know, people whose political thinking I don’t have any respect for, in some instances.
But, as well, I think the idea of attempting to enforce any sort of orthodoxy on people by leaping to conclusions about them based on their blogroll is deeply moronic and offensive.
Not to mention that lots of people are just awful about changing or updating their blogrolls, as well.
Of course, I’m biased about Andrew because while, as he would tell you, or a check of his old posts would inform, I’ve disagreed with him, or nitpicked him (who, me?) a gazillion times, and also got really offended at him a year and a half or so ago (and stopped commenting, because it seemed that I was doing nothing but annoying him, and that didn’t seem useful), I do have nothing but respect for his integrity, and he wouldn’t be here if I’d not recommended him to Hilzoy, who had never heard of him, in e-mail and in later comments.
But setting Andrew aside for a moment (here, this alcove will do nicely; I’ll try to remember to dust you while you’re there), this notion that people should be judged by the Correctness of the views of their blogroll just makes my eyes bulge out of their sockets, it’s so effing stupid. It also drives me crazy because it’s so McCarthyite and such a furiously evil thing, it seems to me, to try to bully people into only linking into Approved Bloggers By Our GroupThink, for any value of “our group.”
And lastly, implying that all the bloggers at ObWi, of all places, should all adhere to the same POV is to completely miss the point of the blog. How stupid is that?
People who think that’s appropriate here should probably bugger off to DailyKos or RedState, or whatever blog one cares to name whose emphasis is on fervent and single-minded partisanship and enjoying the pleasures of the echo chamber.
I emphasized, by stating first, that I have at least one blog on my blogroll that I only relatively rarely agree with and find quite regularly lunatic, and another that I find frequently lunatic. Yet others I constantly or overwhelmingly disagree with, but keep on the roll for one reason or another. It’s not hardly just a matter of never completely agreeing. Some of it is a matter of taking an interest in what people I wildly disagree with think. Even, y’know, people whose political thinking I don’t have any respect for, in some instances.
I’m not sure how this is different from what I said. That someone would be willing to not, say, mistate your premise, or selectively edit to make a point hopefully has nothing to do with their political thinking.
And lastly, implying that all the bloggers at ObWi, of all places, should all adhere to the same POV is to completely miss the point of the blog. How stupid is that?
I’m not sure where in my comment you are getting this from, but hey, it’s a nice rant. Since I don’t see how I implied any of this though, so I’m going to assume that the notion of buggering off doesn’t apply to me, though I would be a little more careful about juxtaposition. Big of me, I know, but that’s just my nature.
Look, there are the bombings in Bombay, missle launches in North Korea, Hamas and Hiaballah simultaneously attacking Israel, the plots against the tunnels in New York and the Sears Tower in Chicago, call me paranoid or something, but I think that there are lot of threats going on that are really kind of existential threats to our global way of life. My 2 cents but no one take me seriously.
especially with typing mistakes.
And in the wrong thread. This is the thread where Gary is telling us that we need to have every sort of opinion so as to avoid single minded partisanship. The thread where Gary is telling you that you are either lying or delusional is here
“I’m not sure where in my comment you are getting this from,”
You may not have noticed that you’ve not written this entire comment thread, nor noticed the comment by grackel, and where there’s a rule written that says that all comments are addressed to, or are about, one person, I dunno.
“I think that there are lot of threats going on that are really kind of existential threats to our global way of life.”
“Existential”? How? More than, say, during the Cold War, or WWII, or the Civil War?
How is this past six months in the world more violent or threatening than, say, 1914, or 1956, or 1963, or 1968, DaveC, exactly? And how, precisely, is “our global way of life” threatened?
bob m:
As am I.
Brian Ulrich of American Footprints speculates that Syria may have a hand in the recent escalation of tension between Israel, Palestine and now Lebanon:
More comfort and joy – over at Tapped, Matthew Yglesias passes along this lovely tidbit from TNR Online:
And where have US officials been during all this?
Bloomberg:
Does the name “Moe Lane” mean anything to you?
Not quite what it used to, sadly. And as a result, bringing him up in this context is particulary bitter irony.
“Not quite what it used to, sadly.”
My point was that anyone who thinks this is supposed to be a site that’s only for Approved Liberal Bloggers doesn’t have a clue.
You may not have noticed that you’ve not written this entire comment thread, nor noticed the comment by grackel, and where there’s a rule written that says that all comments are addressed to, or are about, one person, I dunno.
Look, Gary, if you got in a fight with someone on another blog, please don’t take it out on me. If you want to address grackle or someone else, have the common sense (and perhaps the decency?) to quote or name them rather than quoting me and leaping into a riff on someone else.
“Not to mention that lots of people are just awful about changing or updating their blogrolls, as well.”
Well, since I noted that before you when I said “After all, the blog roll is something that most people do not regularly update”, I guess I should note that. But not reading the comments, well, hey everyone does that.
Typepad also ate my lengthy comment in my North Korea post. Crap. No loss for my substance-less post, but too bad for Andrew’s.
BTW, late in coming, but welcome Andrew and thanks for taking up the slack left by us under-posting right-of-center types.
Amazing projection you’ve got there, Gary, and an incredible bit of passive-aggressiveness. Maybe you could go back and read the comments, and think what was actually written?
Looking at what Winslow actually wrote: “…you link to sites such as Misha’s, IMAO, Den Beste, Neal Boortz, and Ace of Spades?’ The only name of those that I actually have read their site at all is Misha, exposure to which does make me question the person of anybody who would recommend it. Perhaps Winslow has a similar belief about all of those names.
It’s not the sort of thing I’d necessarily go chiding somebody over, any more than discovering that an acquaintance had some unpleasant kink, or undertips waiters, or reads bad novels; but it’s evidence that can be used toward judging somebody’s judgment and character.
(Me, I look mostly on Obsidian Wings to whether a person can write rational, focused arguments, with adequate linking or explanation to justify their arguments; so I would not start skipping over Andrew’s posts simply because of who he thinks to read or recommend on his blog).
Speaking of blogrolls: might Someone In Authority speak to the kitten about adding a link to Andrew’s blog (and, ideally, HIS preferred links) to our own (marvellously-diverse-but-sadly-in-need-of-updating) LH column?
Oh, and when I saw this:
“I had just noticed that the behind-the-scenes website seemed to have no record of their existence”
My first thought was: “Charles and Andrew really don’t exist?” Say it ain’t so!
JayC: My first thought was: “Charles and Andrew really don’t exist?” Say it ain’t so!
We have a truly incredible collective imagination, then.
DaveC, if you’re thinking the Sears Tower plot threatens your way of life, you’re going to have a mighty frightening time of it.
That said, there are real dangers out there. I wish the government wasn’t making them worse for its own short-term political gain.
Wouldn’t the world be better off if all soldiers died in combat?
Wow.
Just Wow.
There is no response I could make that would not violate the rules here.
Ugh and double-ugh on the eaten posts. If you guys ever feel like moving to your own server or somesuch, I’d be happy to set things up for you.
Ack. Would that I had saved a copy of that post. Oh, well.
Grackel, I’m not sure how to respond to that. The idea that military violence (or non-military, for that matter) has never protected American lives is so beyond the scope of history that it’s difficult for me for believe that you can seriously believe it. You also seem to think that I, and soldiers in general, revel in the opportunity to perform acts of violence, which suggests to me you don’t know many, if any, soldiers. There is a war on now, so all things being equal, I would prefer to be there because it’s what I’ve trained to do, but if I could wave a magic wand and make it end, I would do so in a heartbeat. War scares the heck out of me. I happen to like my body the way it is (generally) without any holes or missing parts. But, contrary to what you seem to believe, there are people in the world who would love to do us harm, and so armies are required. If humanity were to decide, as a group, not to study war no more, then we could happily disband. But we have several thousand years of human history that suggest that humanity likes to fight. So even if you get your wish and kill off all the soldiers currently in existence, there’s no evidence to suggest humanity would stop fighting.
As for my blogroll, since it appears that upsets some people, I’ll address the question. When I started blogging, my blogroll was just sites I thought were interesting. The list got longer and longer, and maintaining it became a nuisance. I shifted to blogrolling for a while, but loading that slowed the page loading, so I got rid of it. Then I got lazy and copied Instapundit’s blogroll rather than trying to reformat my Blogrolling blogroll into HTML. But there’s lots of blogs on there I don’t visit, so I ended up breaking the list in two: The Usual Suspects, which are blogs I try to read regularly, and Other Likely Perps, which is all the other stuff that I rarely, if ever, visit. So, the top list includes sites that I endorse insofaras I like to visit them. The rest is just a project I haven’t taken the time to address, which is going through and deciding which to keep (for reciprocal reasons, if nothing else) and which to dump. If it offends you that there is a link to Misha’s site on mine, I’m sorry. But even were I to remove it (which I probably will if I ever get time to rework the blogroll, since I don’t read him and was unaware of his latest screed until I read about it over and QandO), he’d still be out there. And one of the things I think makes us strong as a country is that when people like that say something, it gets around so everyone can hear it and draw their own conclusions. I think we’re a lot worse off when people are off whispering in small groups, careful to make their public pronouncements sound reasonable and moderate while their private discussions are advocating far more nasty ideas. Your mileage may vary.
Where do people get the idea that a blogroll is a list of endorsements? And where do people get the idea that sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears, covering one’s eyes, and only reading that which is CorrectThink is a grand notion?
I’m curious, Gary: Would you blogroll an out-and-out Neo-Nazi? Someone who, just to pick a particular hot-button topic, advocated the destruction of the nation of Israel? And would you continue to describe attempts to get them removed from your blogroll as “so McCarthyite and such a furiously evil thing”?
Andrew, when the site went *poof* I saved the version of the post from my cache. If you’d like, I can email or post a copy of it. It was too good to vanish.
And one of the things I think makes us strong as a country is that when people like that say something, it gets around so everyone can hear it and draw their own conclusions
i admire the ideal, but it’s not one i follow.
when i put something on my List it’s because i like to read it myself and i think other people would (and should!) like to read it too: an endorsement, definitely.
i know where i can find links to psychopaths like Misha, and i assume other people can too, if they want to read him. but i’m not going to endorse him.
RE: Israel. Is it just me or does their response seem a bit, unhinged? I mean, rocketing the Beirut airport and imposing a naval blockade on Lebanon?
“We have a truly incredible collective imagination, then.”
I prefer: I have a rich fantasy life.
Ugh,
They’re trying to prevent the captured soldiers from being moved easily.
Is it just me or does their response seem a bit, unhinged?
at the risk of being labeled an anti-Semitic, Israel-hating, terrorist-loving, appeaser, i’ll say: no, it’s not just you.
They’re trying to prevent the captured soldiers from being moved easily.
Well, OK, but throwing them in a trunk and driving them over the border doesn’t seem to be too hard, even given the current Israeli campaign, though I suppose that accounts for bombing bridges.
The whole thing just smacks of collective punishment.
Jeff,
I’d appreciate you sending me a copy. I can be reached at andrew at andrewolmsted.com. Thank you.
I’ll chime in with Jeff and offer to lend a hand if you ever want to do your own WordPress blog or something similar.
The idea is to cordon off the area where the soldiers might be in order to minimize the area to be searched. It is an unpleasant task, and its chances of success are not great, but it’s the only way Israel can have some chance of rescuing the soldiers via a military solution. So, from a military perspective, it’s not unhinged, it’s smart tactics. (Please note that caveat; I’m not saying I endorse the Israeli action, I’m only seeking to explain the thinking behind it.)
Grackel: what Andrew said. And Jeff: that’s great that you’ve got a copy. — I had been checking on Six Apart (which runs TypePad, and had status updates) every 3-4 hours, and happened to check at more or less the instant that TypePad went back up. There were about ten minutes when I was trying to figure out why my comment on Charles’ post wouldn’t go up during which the front page had all its posts, but just as I realized what was going on and thought: please let this be one of the times that I have maybe eight ObWI tabs open at various places, they vanished. (I suppose they republished an archived version.) And I didn’t have any old ObWi window, and so couldn’t do anything about it.
To everyone else: I did not pick Andrew. We did.
And as someone who is perhaps the laziest person ever about blogrolls: it would be nice if they automatically updated themselves to reflect exactly what I wanted them to reflect. But they don’t. Taking them to show anything, even supposing you knew what they were supposed to show in the first place (the person’s friends? who the person thinks is worth reading? worth reading because good, because unintentionally funny, because an object lesson of some sort?), makes about as much sense as thinking the same thing about, say, the papers that pile up behind one’s desk. In a world in which we all had infinite time things would be different, but there we are.
I may have figured out how to republish the lost posts. Either they will be back within ten minutes, or I didn’t figure it out after all. I have no idea whether their comments will come with them.
Nope; I can cut and paste them back in, but I can’t just republish them quickly. Hmm. Shall I proceed? If so, shall I try to report the comments too (this would probably end up with my making a lot of comments with the commenter’s name in the body of the comment).
‘repost’, not ‘report’…
The idea is to cordon off the area where the soldiers might be in order to minimize the area to be searched
so why are they blowing up TV stations and Foreign Ministry buildings ?
Those I can’t explain. I could guess, but right now any guesses I have would be of the SWAG variety, so I’ll refrain. I suspect they have a reason that seems logical to them, but this could fall into the ‘a bit unhinged’ category discussed earlier.
so why are they blowing up TV stations and Foreign Ministry buildings ?
and it doesn’t help that they are issuing statements that they intend to cause “pain,” and “mean business,” and that this will be a “long offensive.”
I take back the word “smacks” in my 9:59.
Ditto. This is where I don the chapeau de tin and start thinking that the bumbling Bush is just the first act of the New American Century as we rip up the map that Versailles got so wrong.
I suspect they have a reason that seems logical to them, but this could fall into the ‘a bit unhinged’ category discussed earlier.
IIRC, Israel said the latest kidnappings amount to “acts of war” (or similar). maybe they’ve decided they really are at war with Lebanon (and Palestine too?). .. ?
IIRC, Israel said the latest kidnappings amount to “acts of war” (or similar). maybe they’ve decided they really are at war with Lebanon (and Palestine too?). .. ?
That is a plausible explanation. I’m curious what Israel thinks it can accomplish by going to war with Lebanon, however.
Oil hits all time high, above $76 a barrel, up a $1.20 for spot delivery in August. $78.90 for spot deliver in December, up $1.43. I think this might be an all-time high even adjusted for inflation.
“so why are they blowing up TV stations and Foreign Ministry buildings ?”
You’ve jumped from questions and answers about Lebanon to the Gaza Strip, without noticing.
Probably at this point arguments about the whole thing, and the inevitable same old same old arguments about Israel/Palestine are inevitable, and equally inevitable is that if I don’t quit reading such threads then I’ll regret it, because I’ll lose my temper, as I already did elsewhere recently, and have little or no patience with the same old same old. (Which, of course, I already see on other blog posts and comments.)
re: Israel.
let’s say that the nativist wing of the republicans win big in 2008, and the president orders BICE to deport every single illegal alien. let’s say that mexico, faced with a sudden influx of 10 MILLION people or so, some of them american children of deported parents, builds massive refugee camps on the border. let’s say that mexico then elects a conservative president who pens in the refugees.
how long before we would have a terrible terrorism problem? once we create all that hate, how could we possibly solve the problem?
so israel invades Syria. then what? they would always be seen as an invader, and any govt they put in place would be a Vichy govt. it doesn’t sound like a long-term solution.
I would also note that Israel’s recent actions, plus their buzzing of Assad’s house a few days ago, puts the lie to the notion that their existence is somehow threatened by their neighbors.
We’d have a serious problem, but I’m not convinced it would yet erupt into terrorism. The refugee issues in Israel/Palestine are serious, but they are only one facet of a big, messy conflict that ALSO has a history of ‘hot’ wars. It’s been a long time since we were actually at war with Mexico. For Israel and its neighbors? A couple decades.
“IIRC, Israel said the latest kidnappings amount to “acts of war” (or similar). maybe they’ve decided they really are at war with Lebanon (and Palestine too?). .. ?”
I recommend following along here, among other sources.
It’s also not a war started by Israel, nor one-sided.
Also:
You’ve jumped from questions and answers about Lebanon to the Gaza Strip, without noticing.
if we’re going to be pedantic, i’ll go right ahead and point out that you don’t know a thing about what i “noticed”.
“I’m curious what Israel thinks it can accomplish by going to war with Lebanon, however.”
Israel was attacked; it didn’t choose that. And not responding in recent times hasn’t been working out well. But it’s Hezbollah and Lebanon that attacked Israel, not vice versa.
It would be hardly reasonable to suggest that while Israel is attacked from the south, and Qassam missiles have been raining down from the south for months, and then Israel is attacked from the north, and Katyushas are raining down from the north, that Israel should sit quietly and only send a note of protest.
Getting the rest of the world to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1559 would be a good thing.
Particularly this parts:
More.
Hah! The missing posts are now back, with their comments.
Not good, “breaking news on MSNBC”
AP: Israel says guerrillas trying to transfer captured soldiers to Iran.
Hah! The missing posts are now back, with their comments.
But still with the formatting screwed up and missing links/comments on the right. I think it was Charles’ Chuck Norris post that did this.
Thanks, hilzoy. Great work.
Anyone have any idea how to fix the formatting?
Because my relation to html is need-to-know, which means that I am great with italics tags, and have even acquired a passing acquaintance with lists, but I have no clue what missing tag has caused this to get all screwed up.
I’m trying, see the comments on the Chuck thread.
Thanks, Seb.
I picture us all logged on as the administrator making changes on top of each other. 🙂
It might go some way towards solving the problem of the nature of the trinity: Moe Lane is one and three at once.
When is the history of ObWings to be written, so latecomers like me can learn about things like Moe Lane? I’ve noticed a lot of references to him in the comments. I seem to recall him posting here, and I know he’s over at Red State now, but clearly there’s a lot of backstory I’m missing.
How about an A&E biography on ObWings?
IIRC, Moe started ObWi, before his descent into the general madness that is redstate.
Moe was the primary founder of the site, as a Republican, along with Edward (now departed, though never acknowledged; he just kinda snuck out the back door and disappeared) and Katherine on the left, and Von on the mild-Right.
Moe, whom I always liked in the old days, among other things for being a gamer and comics/sf fan, was always fairly touchy in his temper, though, and particularly about perceived slights to Republicans or rightwingers; eventually he left; he’s been on Redstate in the past year or so, being apparently far more, um, well, different people would use different adjectives, perhaps, but anyway, more so by far than he ever was around here. (An unkind adjective might be “rabid.”)
Katherine ostentatiously left, which I said was silly, all she needed to do was post less, and I predicted she’d be back. She eventually came back, and then eventually said she’d just not gotten around to getting a password again and would momentarily, but still hasn’t.
Edward came in to substitute for Katherine, meanwhile. Around then or so Sebastian and Charles were added. And then Hilzoy, or maybe I have the order wrong; I have a crap time sense, as I always point out. Then Slart. Slart recently quit as a poster, but still comments. Quite long ago von cut back to only an occasional open/joke thread. Charles cross-posts sporadically with RedState, and consistently earns the most ire, for a variety of reasons. Sebastian posts on very sporadic occasion, from his own middling libertarian/right perspective.
Everyone opposes torture.
The point of the site, which was an off-shoot from tacitus.org originally, was to have posters and commenters from various political flavors arguing and looking for common ground, more or less. Given that the breeding ground was tacitus.org, and the primary founder Moe, that the blog has become somewhat overwhelmingly liberal-dominated is a tad ironic. That people would show up complaining that non-liberals have dared to post is triply so.
“…before his descent into the general madness that is redstate.”
There are innumerable mad RedState posts that one could link to, but that doesn’t seem to be one of them.
To add to Gary’s chronology: the reference to all of us being Moe is that the superuser account on this site, which one has to access to do things like mess with the html, is Moe’s, and so one has to log on as Moe. Whenever I do this, TypePad says: Welcome, Moe!, which is a bit disquieting.
Gary: I was K’s replacement, insofar as it’s possible to replace her. I definitely antedate Charles; I thought Seb was already part of ObWi when I came, but at some point there was some decision about whether he should be given some sort of upgraded status, which I assumed he already had; if memory serves, everyone else assumed this too, and I don’t think it violates Hivemind confidentiality protocols to say that the response to this question ranged from ‘Duh!’ to ‘Duh!!’.
Thus, the chronology.
As far as the degree to which blogrolls can be taken as reflective of the owner, all I have to say is this: ObWi’s blogroll still contains Slouching Donkey, Lying Elephant, my old blog in which I have not posted for two years. :>
I think my blogroll once contained Amygdala, which should show you how that works. And the “Multiples” above still link the dreaded Instapundit.
More shockingly, hilzoy links Atrios, which I consider to be a midden-heap at best. This has only diminished hilzoy in my estimation by a few tenths of a percent, max, because of her many positive qualities. She also links a several others that I don’t care for, which I’m similarly unconcerned about.
More breaking news, on CNN and BBC. Hezbollah rockets have hit Haifa. If you think this was getting out of control before…
“Gary: I was K’s replacement, insofar as it’s possible to replace her.”
Yeah, I actually meant to write that, and somehow got confused; I have no idea why I wrote that Edward was K’s replacement, as I’d already written, and knew, that Edward was part of the original package with Moe, Katherine, and Von.
I think different parts of my brain/mind sometimes just don’t communicate as well with each other as they should.
Gary: we know that they don’t. but we love you anyway.
“Gary: we know that they don’t.”
One of my Favorite Medical Diagnoses Evah was when I was ghastly ill in 1986 (and subsequently went through a lot of false diagnoses, including a couple that had fatal prognoses); among many other symptoms, and after many tests, I was diagnosed as Seriously Confused.
But you already knew that.
[small voice] But I got bettah! No, you didn’t! Yes, I did! Didn’t! Did! Look at the pretty colors! Oooh, colors…. {/small voices]
Edward was part of the original package with Moe, Katherine, and Von.
Actually Edward was a later addition (and my recollection is that his fast and furious posting was what began the leftward tilt — at some point he realized this and backed off in both frequency and stridency, but the shift in the center of gravity remained).
ObWi history. I might have mentioned that Slart has been posting here from the Beginning, and also Jes, among others; Rilkefan also pre-dates me by a few days, as do a smattering of others, mostly folks who carried over from tacitus (a blog I never commented at or took much interest in, myself).
I’m not 100% sure, but I think think this was my first comment here, after Katherine linked to me with a “Blog Post Of The Week” award. ObWi was about a month old. That was only two-and-a-half years ago; practically yesterday.
When I read a comment like grackel’s, I’m always grateful that there are liberals out there like hilzoy and Gary Farber (Seriously Confused though he may be) willing and able to refute that stuff.
Does anyone have any suppositions as to why Hezbollah chose this moment to renew its attacks on Israel? Is this about the Shaba Farms, or do you think it was done at the request of Iran? Or maybe they just want the rest of Lebanon to feel threatened enough by Israel that they will be hesitant about asking Hezbollah to disarm.
“I might have mentioned that Slart has been posting here from the Beginning, and also Jes….”
Commenting, that is.
“Does anyone have any suppositions as to why Hezbollah chose this moment to renew its attacks on Israel?”
The attack was planned, they announced, for months. And the Hamas-dug tunnel from Gaza also took months. It’s unlikely there wasn’t joint planning; Hezbollah has been trying to make as many connections as possible with Hamas for years now, and many in Hamas have been seeking and welcoming such connections and training and learning from their (admittedly skilled) tactics.
There’s absolutely no doubt, I think, that the Hezbollah action was meant to take advantage of Israel’s pre-occupation with Gaza, and to gain additional publicity/credit/strength by synergistically adding pressure. Even as perfectly anodyne and source of conventional wisdom as Steven Erlanger and the NY Times will confirm this.
Also, both the Hamas and Hezbollah moves are wildly popular, overall, among Palestinians and Arabs; innumerable accounts testify to wide-spread joy and celebrations, handing out of sweets in the street, etc., at the news of the strikes against Israel and taking of Israeli prisoners, in Lebanon, Palestinian territory, and elsewhere.
Hamas has officially declared Gilad Shalit a “prisoner of war,” incidentally; I’m sure that means there will be visits allowed from the International Red Cross, tv rights, visits by relatives, and so on, any minute now. Who could doubt?
“Hamas has officially declared Gilad Shalit a “prisoner of war,” incidentally; I’m sure that means there will be visits allowed from the International Red Cross, tv rights, visits by relatives, and so on, any minute now. Who could doubt?”
I know that Reynolds has almost discredited this response, but, Heh!
Well, as everyone points out, Hamas is now the Palestinian government. Thus: Geneva Conventions.
I’m entirely unwilling to surrender “heh” to Glenn, myself; although it should be used in limited fashion, like any expression, endlessly numbers of people used it appropriately long before he ever started blogging; he doesn’t get to claim rights to it or spoil it through extreme over-use.
Incidentally, as regards the current state of who wants and will settle for what (AP story):
Prior to all this, Abbas and Olmert met two weeks ago and hugged and kissed and Olmert agreed to a major release of Palestinian prisoners. The Gaza attack prevented that.
Israel is still willing to make the prisoner release, so long as it’s not a formal trade, which would guarantee endless more kidnappings to seek endless more trades.
Hamas won’t settle for it until Israel publically cries uncle.
This is all as much about “face” as it is about prisoners. Hamas and Hezbollah want to collect their credit and heighten their reputations and political strength.
Interesting that a Hamas official in Syria seems to now publically be more in control of Hamas in the disputed territories than the ‘duly elected’ officials.
And it is the ‘public’ part that is interesting. Anyone who has been paying attention would have known about the ties in Syria.
Actually I was predated in comments by many (including Jesurgislac and rilkefan…never forget rilkefan). Not that that means anything.
I’d been previously commenting at tacitus, but under a different name, mostly. Don’t recall when Slarti came along, as an identity; the tac archives are toast as far as I can tell.
“Anyone who has been paying attention would have known about the ties in Syria.”
Indeed; Khaled Mashal has always been more in charge than Ismail Haniya; it became even more obvious after Haniya was proven unable to even demonstrate the slightest influence over the group that attacked the outpost, killed the Israeli soldiers, and took Shalit. But, then, Mashal isn’t all that in charge, anyway. A primary problem is that no one is particularly in charge of the Palestinians, or the West Bank, or Gaza. It’s gangland. With an overlay that can’t do much more than chat.
I have no idea what the solution to that problem is. Pretending there is a working government doesn’t seem to take one very far.
the tac archives are toast as far as I can tell
i can tell you how each thread ends… the last 1/2 of every thread was devoted to refighting the Vietnam war.
Cleek, iirc, it was the fault of liberals and newspapers forcing the govt not to provide air support to ARVN forces once the US withdrew.
[ahem] any comparison between the US training of ARVN forces and the utter lack of any plans to fund the creation of a viable Iraqi airforce would be … unfair.
Aha! The whole Israel/Hamas/Hizbollah thing was a planned diversion from the fact that Valerie Wilson filed a lawsuit againt Cheney, Libby and Rove today.
I will comment on Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah In Due Course… it’s just taking a while.
Slart: “never forget rilkefan”
Never forgive, either.
I remember a discussion we had about missile defense back on the original tacitus.org – that was the kind of thing I was reading the blog for, and came to read this one for.
I think saying “Moe left” passes over some relevant history – but maybe that’s spilt milk under the bridge. I hope he finds his way back to a stance where he would want to participate in this community again.
I would think the first comment above deserves a posting rules warning.
“at the risk of being labeled an anti-Semitic, Israel-hating, terrorist-loving, appeaser”
I think this is demagogic rhetoric, esp. in the context of this community.
“The idea is to cordon off the area where the soldiers might be in order to minimize the area to be searched.” …Andrew, 6:02
I have heard that the cordoning, blockade, bombing of the airport was to keep the captives from being moved, being moved specifically to Iran. Along with the problem that some states don’t seem to be able or willing to achieve the monopoly on violence that defines a state, I would include Iraq in that category, and the “War on Lebanon” (and Gaza) is a reminder by Israel that that is what states are.
Gary says this has been planned for months by Hezbollah. He was asked if it was connected to Iran, but didn’t answer. I don’t know, but if Hezbollah is trying to grab some hostages for their sponsors, or distract Israel, or create a multi-front war, perhaps they know more than we do about how the nuclear diplomacy with Iran is going, and when the diplomatic effort will be abandoned. Like soon.
I think this is demagogic rhetoric, esp. in the context of this community
maybe i exaggerated a bit. but IIRC, i was recently chased around the block a few times by a commentor here who was apparently convinced i was anti-Israel because i wasn’t explicit enough in my uspport of Israel.
if ObWi search would work for me, i’d give you a link.
I have heard that the cordoning, blockade, bombing of the airport was to keep the captives from being moved, being moved specifically to Iran.
An NBC analyst sez that Iran supplies Hezbollah via a 747 that lands at Beirut’s airport, the only one with a runway capable of handling the 747.
cleek: “if ObWi search would work for me, i’d give you a link.”
Try google using e.g. “cleek israel site:obsidainwings.blogs.com” (no quotes, and you’ll need to add more terms to narrow it down).
And since I’m not managing to keep up here, if you’ve gotten hassled here then apologies to the extent I was overly harsh.
cleek israel site:obsidianwings.blogs.com
ah yeah. thanks.
if you’ve gotten hassled here then apologies to the extent I was overly harsh.
well, i wouldn’t say ‘hassled’ – it wasn’t all that bad. pretty much a normal day here at ObWi. but, i’m going to be careful about what i say about Israel from now on – or at least cover it with so much goofiness that you can’t take it seriously.
fundamentally unserious. that’s me.
“Cleek, iirc, it was the fault of liberals and newspapers forcing the govt not to provide air support to ARVN forces once the US withdrew.”
I prefer to harp on the abandonment of the Montagnards; it’s a substantially less rumpled line of patter.
This ought to get things stirred up:
I see OJ Simpson connections, here.
That people would show up complaining that non-liberals have dared to post is triply so.
Want to actually back any of this up, Gary? I thought you were one of those pedants about the written word…
“Gary says this has been planned for months by Hezbollah. He was asked if it was connected to Iran, but didn’t answer.”
I didn’t notice that, but given the close coordination and contacts between Hezbollah and both Iran and Syria — it’s more or less a creation of and creature of both, after all, and spokespeople for it frequently openly declare that they follow its leaders as their leaders — certainly the action must have been taken in coordination with and the approval of the leaders of both nations. Precisely how closely the coordination was, and where the initiative might lie, I couldn’t say.
“Wouldn’t the world be better off if all soldiers died in combat? […] I could do without all of you, as an institution.
Posted by: grackel | July 12, 2006 at 11:10 PM”
“It bothers me that Hilzoy thought you’d make a good addition to this blog, frankly.
Posted by: Winslow Mortimer | July 12, 2006 at 11:50 PM”
I paraphrased, to be sure. But it’s hard to post to a blog if you’re a) dead; or b) not added to it as a poster.
Great, fun non sequitur time, Gary. Your final sentence doesn’t seem have to have a single thing to do with what I asked or the first part of your answer.
I don’t want to speak for Winslow. But I’ll continue driving this point, because your arguments are being nonsensical and your snideness is deeply aggravating. Misha happens to be a conservative. Misha is a bloodthirsty idiot (accept for the purposes of this argument). Andrew seemed to endorse Misha.
Now, which of these would be the most likely reasons for a commenter on ObWi to question Andrew’s judgement: he, as a right-leaning poster, likes conservatives. Or he, as a right-leaning poster, likes bloodthirsty idiots?
As for Grackel’s views: what does that have to do with the price of the rice in China? Grackel seems to be complaining about military people in general, not about a military-leaning poster having the temerity to post on ObWi. (There are left-leaning military people as well, just shockingly, and right-leaning anti-military people).
Are you going to continue pretending that you’re the only one reading ObWi who is tolerant and open-minded? Or would you rather continue to pretend that other commenters said things they didn’t?
In defense of Gary, I dredge up a quote from Arletty in Les Enfants du Paradis, where she says: ‘Je suis comme je suis, je suis fait comme ca’ Gary’s personality and writing style are pretty much a given, so you might as well get used to it. Everyone else pretty much has.
LJ: Alternately, I can’t remember which song it is in which Marlene Dietrich, in that voice that’s sort of (world-weary and husky) squared, sighs: “I was made that way; I can’t help it…”
“I’m not bad…I’m just drawn that way.”
Jessica Rabbit, Who Framed Roger Rabbit
“Are you going to continue pretending that you’re the only one reading ObWi who is tolerant and open-minded?”
I don’t know what you’re talking about, but rest assured that by now I don’t care.
Brian Palmer: “Andrew seemed to endorse Misha.”
Note that Gary explicitly states above that he does not see blogrolling as endorsement. And note that Andrew implicitly says something like that above while noting he’d probably remove the link in question if he happened to revise his roll.
Consider that I like to read Frost and Eliot and don’t mind saying so publicly, despite their personal failings and awful views.
Plus what lj said – Gary has a great deal to contribute, even if he sometimes does so gratingly.
Rilkefan, that’s fair… I removed an aside about Andrew’s disclaimer, and thought the “appeared” would suffice. (My personal belief would be that blogrolls are recommendations, absent the blogroll creator coming in and disclaiming that, as Andrew did).
As for Gary, I often read his comments with interest. But I’ve seen him quibble at great length with people over pedantic literal readings, and he’s being an obdurate hypocrite here.
Ah, Andrew – babylon5, RoberRabbit ; we may find common ground yet 🙂
I second LJ’s comment about Gary and feel inclined to quote the prayer “Give me the strength to change what I ought to change. Give me the courage to accept what I cannot change and Give me the wisdom to know the difference”
I also peg Andrew more at Von’s level by the way, politically.