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Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain

There is no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress.
Mark Twain

A Rebellion In The House

    Dan Tague

I finally figured out what the Republicans are up to with the debt showdown.  Republican Senator Tom Coburn said last week: “I would dispel the rumor that is going around that you hear on every newscast, that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we will default on our debt. We won’t. We’ll continue to pay our interest.”  The Government will be able to do that with their tax revenues, so the story goes.

By refusing to let the US Government borrow any more money, the Tea Party faction can force Obama to shut down everything except the military, social security, and interest payments on the debt.  No money for things they don't like, especially Obamacare.  When everyone wakes up on Friday to realize the world didn't end, Obama will have to negotiate, and the GOP can raise the debt ceiling for 90 days on Monday morning.  Crisis over.  The Tea Party faction will have pulled off a political masterstroke and finished the Reagan revolution.

Or so I am guessing.  Its taking brinksmanship into previously unknown territory, but its brinkmanship all the same.

If my guess is right, then the tea party types will do their damnedest to prevent any vote at all until they get what they want.  If they don't allow a vote, then Boehner can't fold and compromise with the Democrats.  With party discipline, nobody, not Obama, not the Senate, not the Courts, can stop them.  The House GOP will effectively run the country until at least January 2015.

For their ploy to work, Obama has to be able to pay for at least Social Security the military and interest on the national debt out of taxes and not be able to use any executive tricks to keep borrowing.  If the Tea Party faction are wrong about this, there will be an economic meltdown and a political showdown.  Nobody can say what would happen, but it wouldn't be good.

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6 King Street East, Toronto

All my photos are on Flickr

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Never march by flank in front of an army in position. This principle is absolute.
Napoleon Bonaparte 

The only exception to this rule is well known for being an exception to this rule.  Lee had Stonewall Jackson do this at Chancellorsville.  Knowing his enemy, Joesph Hooker, Lee knew he would get away with it.  And he did.

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Climbing the zipline ride at the CNE, 2013

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I hope Putin has taken adequate protections. Now that he is a Russian journalist his life may be in grave danger!
Gary Kasparov on Putin's NYT op-ed

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Stars And Stripes, Harrisburg

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Sherfy Barn, Emmitsburg Pike, Gettysburg

Insanity Wolf Nails It

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It's when the 'international community' expresses 'concern' about your 'situation' that your situation is well and truly fucked. 
Michael D. Weiss

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The Devil's Den, Gettysburg

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Headstones, Evergreen Cemetery, Getttysburg

Meme Watch

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Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.
Ulysses S. Grant- the only time he ever lost his temper on the battlefield, after hearing once too often about Lee's ability.

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Names of Pennsylvania Civil War soldiers, Pennsylvania Monument, Cemetery Ridge, Gettysburg

Meme Watch

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Pennsylvania Monument and mist on Cemetery Ridge, viewed from the Emmitsburg Pike just south of Gettysburg.  The Southerners briefly captured this part of the ridge late on the 2nd day.  Click on the image for big. 

A Red Line in Syria

     Photo: Al Jazeera

It was beginning to look like the Syrian civil war would end in a permanent stalemate.  The Economist predicted the country would be functionally be divided in 3.  The Alawites taking the belt from Damascus to Aleppo and west to the coast.  The rebels controlling the Euphrates valley, and the Kurds their North East portion.  Such a result might be viable as the many 3rd parties to the affair could maintain their interests at a relatively low price.  Nobody would win, but nobody would lose either. 

However, that assumes no game changers.  The apparent chemical attacks this week near Damascus could be such a game changer.  Somewhere there is a red line, and Assad may have just crossed it.

Chemical weapons have not been used widely since they were banned after WW1.  Expensive, finicky, subject to wild swings in efficacy due to weather, and just as dangerous to the attackers as the defenders, chemical weapons have been more trouble than they were worth.  It's simply too difficult to get a reliable tactical advantage on the battlefield sufficient to outweigh the political costs.  Those political costs are based on the terror chemical weapons inspire in civilians.

Assad seems to have found a way to use them as a poor man's nuke.  Lobbing chemical weapons into opposition neighborhoods overcomes the tactical disadvantages.  If they are ineffective due to weather, its no loss.  The distance between your forces and the targets will be sufficient to avoid exposure if the wind blows the wrong way.  There is no effective counter-measure for the rebels.  Though their usefulness is limited to terrorizing civilians.

But there is a political cost.  At some point, after some red line, the International Community will put aside their differences and squash the Assad regime as a common threat.  Last year, the Russians let it be known that they strongly opposed the use of chemical weapons in Syria.  Their current rhetoric insists not that its OK to use the weapons, but absent conclusive proof, they have not been used at all.  Widespread and blatant use by Assad would render that position untenible.  In the big picture, Assad is not an essential asset to the Russians.  They will throw him to the wolves if it suits them.  Iran will still be there, but Iran cannot stop the Western powers if they decide to intervene.

All this means that Assad can go too far and lose everything.  As of today, it looks like the red line has been found.

Gettysburg Gate

This is the gate of the Evergreen Cemetery, which gives Cemetery hill its name.  It looks much the same as it did in July 1863, apart from the paved road and the nice landscaping.  On the second day, the Southerners took the crest of this hill, along with the gate.  But they were unsupported, and were driven off by Union re-reinforcements.  Lee's best chance to win the battle slipped away due to poor generalship by Ewell, who turned out to be a disappointing replacement for the dead Stonewall Jackson.

Gettysburg: Stars & Bars

I've just come back from a few days at Gettysburg.  More photos will be forthcoming.

To start, I was surprised at the number of Confederate flags on the battlefield and at the trinkets and trash stores around town.  The almost equal time given to this symbol creates the impression that this was all a civilized discussion that got tragically out of hand.  I wonder how Americans would feel about the Germans putting swastikas all over Omaha beach?  To me its almost the same thing.  This is a symbol of slavery, discrimination and the ruthless exploitation of people for profit. 

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The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something.
Gamal Abdel Nasser

On further reflection, I have to admit that Nasser thought glib sound bites were the same as practical solutions.  

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The uprising in Egypt was initiated by the young generation. The uprising achieved two things. One is it made the lives of dictators impossible. Today, if you are looking for a safe job, don't become a dictator.
Shimon Peres

Why Morsi Had To Go

Debate over the legitimacy of Mohammed Morsi's defenestration continues, with John McCain calling the action a coup. "Coup" is a loaded word because political activity by the Egyptian Military would stop American military aid.  However, this was not a coup.  It was not an abrogation of democracy.  For the future of democracy in Egypt, Morsi had to go.

The Morsi government was a disaster by any measure.  The economy was a shambles and getting worse.  Foreign Policy was incoherent and sporadic.  The security situation in Sinai is a shit show.  Morsi pissed off everyone, the Army, the Police, the Media, the Judiciary, the Copts, the Shia, Islamic clerics, and even other Islamic political parties.  While the country fell apart around their ears, the Morsi government proved interested in only one issue, institutionalizing the Muslim Brotherhood's grasp on power.  At the same time, they frightened just about everyone who did not vote for Morsi by pushing Islamization when he had no mandate to do so.  Indeed after promising they would not.

In the days before Morsi was deposed, 15 million Egyptians came out in the streets to demand his ouster.  Egypt is 3x the size of Canada.  Imagine if 5 million people came out here to demand a change of government.  There would be a change of government. 

The key point is that while elections are the lungs of democracy, political accountability is its heart.  Do a bad job and lose your job.  Morsi and his party were building a system where the Muslim Brotherhood could not be held accountable.  In this way, Morsi was subverting democratic institutions on a permanent basis. For all these reasons, Morsi had to go.

UPDATE Aug 20:
It's important to say that because Morsi had to go does not mean the suppression and murder of his supporters by the military is justified in any way whatsoever.  Morsi's mistakes were political, and subject to political accountability, not criminal prosecution.   The Army is massacring protesters on the streets. 

The Secret Coup

In a secret coup, US security agencies have apparently taken over the United States Government.  With key members of Congress, the Executive has given itself secret powers, authorized by secret laws, interpreted by secret courts.  There is no accountability at all.

To facilitate this takeover, the President, his Administration, its agencies and House and Senate leaders have conspired to conceal the nature and scope of these activities from Congressional and Judicial oversight.  They have subverted the Constitution and broken both the law and their oaths of office, an impeachable offense.

These are crimes under US law.  You can argue all you want, but from Obama on down, the defense of these programs amounts to "If the President does it, its not illegal", to quote Richard Nixon.  He was wrong about that.  And what we are talking about here is 10x worse than anything Nixon did.  Watergate was a personal scandal.  Here, the Administration has declared a permanent state of war, and is permanently suppressing Constitutional rights.

This is not an abstract issue.  Reuters has uncovered that the DEA was getting information from these illegal programs and concealed the source of their evidence from Federal Judges in criminal cases.  That is a major crime and people should go to jail.  Another impeachable offense.

Note I am not just specifically accusing Democrats.  The Republicans are in this up to their necks as well.

Its all going to lead to a political crisis.  At least it better. 

UPDATE Aug. 8
Reuters is reporting that the IRS also participated in concealing the source of evidence gained from NSA intercepts.

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People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
Otto von Bismarck 

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Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H. L. Mencken

From The Campaign Trail

 Peter Milczyn interviewed at his campaign headquarters, July 29, 2013. Only the cameraman showed up.  The reporter asked questions on speaker phone. 

No posts in the last few weeks because I was working on Peter Milczyn's campaign in the Provincial by-election.   It was a great experience.  The best part was scrutineering.  I got to watch the votes counted on my poll and was responsible for checking the count and challenging any ballots I saw as invalid.  None were.  We won my poll, but lost the election.  From my lowly viewpoint as a volunteer (volunteers get the mushroom treatment), the vote was decided by Liberal voters who elected to punish us by staying home.  I managed to turn out less than half the Liberal voters in my poll.  On the other hand, Conservatives came out in droves. 

Yet it was a respectable loss; 46.6% for Holyday, 40% for Milczyn.  Turnout was a bit above average for a by-election: ~35%.  I made a complete fool of myself by saying we would win despite the polls.  I could see we had the votes, and thought we could turn them out with our superior ground game.  That was spectacularly wrong.  I had slipped into magical thinking. 

There were many funny and interesting things that happened.  Like the man who wouldn't vote for Peter because he didn't like his neigbours's fence.  Or the woman who screamed that I'm an asshole, just like her son.  One man called me a dictator for knocking on his door.  The best conversation was with a voter who wanted me to tell him if it was OK to put diesel in his gas car.  I thought not, but he advised that you could get away with 20% and wanted my views about going to 30%. 

Here are a few pictures:

An apartment door in Maybelle.  Pat's in deep shit.

Toronto Hydro's attitude to danger.

NSA Scandal: The Bolivian Plane Incident

Welcome to Vienna Mr. President!

Photo: Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters

The shenanigans surrounding the blocking and subsequent search of Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane last week will probably never be publicly explained.  That is the way of these things.  Fear not, I have an expansive conspiracy theory that reveals everything.  Like most good conspiracy theories, this one hasn't a shred of proof.  100% unadulterated speculation. 

For those not following the story breathlessly, here is a write up from The Guardian.  The brief version is that Morales was flying home to Bolivia after meetings in Moscow.  France, Italy, Spain and Portugal denied passage to the plane which ended up in Vienna.  There it was searched by the Austrians to determine if Edward Snowden was on board.  He was not.  These airspace closures were, as has been admitted, requested by the Americans who were apparently convinced Snowden was on the plane.  Just about everyone in South America is up in arms over the incident. The European governments in question are running for cover.  So what happened?

Here is my guess.  The Americans got information that Snowden was on the plane, and they panicked.  Remember that they are still extremely freaked out over Snowden's ongoing leaks.  They don't simply want to get him for what he has done, but for what he might do yet.  So they asked these five European governments to act (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Austria). But Snowden wasn't on the plane.  And all five governments, plus the Americans, are now humiliated. 

Why were the Americans so certain he was on the plane?  The information must have come, one way or another, from Moscow.  American agents could not have seen Snowden get on the plane.  He is at a different airport, and was nowhere near the Bolivian plane.  So the information must have come from from sources in Moscow, or from an intercept.  So that brings us to the crux of the conspiracy theory.  I think the Russians deliberately gave the information to the Americans as a nice "Fuck You", anticipating the panic and embarrassment that would ensue.  Further, to get the Americans to bite on the bait, it must have come from a source the Americans believed in.  Like an intercept.  An intercept like the ones Snowden is in trouble for revealing.  Wouldn't it be delightful if the Russians communicated the false story among themselves through a channel they knew the Americans were listening to?  One that the Americans thought the Russians did not know was compromised?  

If they did pass false information, the payoff was immense.  The incident might be forgotten soon among the general public and media, but institutions have a longer memory.  Trust has been broken.  Politicians are embarrassed.  Careers could be derailed.  And Snowden is still in Moscow.  So it was all for nothing.  Somehow I think the next urgent request from Washington will get a frosty reception in Europe.  Whether they are behind this or not, the Russians must be delighted. 

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“Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value.”
National Research Council president John MacDougall
This is apparently the Canadian Government's new position on publicly funded scientific research. Galileo and Einstein?  Pasteur?  Darwin?  No work of any value there. 

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"This is not a military coup.  Coups happen early in the morning when everyone is asleep, not in the afternoon with 15 million people on the streets supporting them. 
Commentator on Al Jazeera

NSA Scandal, The Other Shoe

As the NSA details continue to leak, I'm looking for one in particular.  In most Western countries, the intelligence services are forbidden from spying on their own citizens.  I'm guessing, and its only a guess, that one of the many functions such services carry out is to spy on each other's citizens and exchange the information, thus avoiding the prohibition on domestic spying.  Again this is only speculation, but it would explain some of the bizarre behavior around Edward Snowden.  European governments are condemning US spying on the one hand, but embarrassingly intervened with the Bolivian President's flight home on the other.  Spain, Portugal and France covered themselves in shame over this incident.  If they are so pissed off about US spying, why would they risk serious international embarrassment over this flight?  Because there is a lot more to this story than we know now. Being seen as American lapdogs is a very poor political position, especially in France.  Possibly the incident was a result of American diplomatic pressure, but I doubt it.  Something more fundamental is going on.  Given the leaks of the last month, I think that something will come out.

Gettysburg and Stalingrad

     The Sharpshooter's Den, Alexander Gardiner, 1863

    Stalingrad Attack, Georgie Zelma, 1942

    The most iconic images of the two battles.  Both staged.


Though vastly different in time, place and circumstance, the battles of Gettysburg and Stalingrad share some interesting similarities.

Both were the culmination of invasions gone wrong.  Both marked the strategic high water mark for their respective nations.  Both were attacks by smaller, more powerful forces against larger armies, more poorly organized and led.

Although neither battle was decisive, in the sense of deciding the war, both represented a change in momentum that lasted the duration of the contest.

The preceding campaigns had ended in disaster for the battle's defenders, Case Blue in summer 1942 had cleared Southern Russia and cleared the way to the Caucasus, Chancellorsville in May 1863 was the Army of the Potomac's worst defeat.

These previous defeats set the psychological tone for the battles, leading to fatal overconfidence in the invaders.  Lee had come to feel (IMHO), that his boys could defeat the North on any field at any time.  The German high command, from Hitler on down, were certain the Red Army was on their last legs.  Both were looking for a chance to pin the enemy in order to crush them.  As a result, neither battle was planned in advance by either side.

The other notable psychological issue was that the attacker's overconfidence led them to discount the ability of the defending soldiers to withstand their assaults. They became contests between the high commands of one side, and the regular soldiers of the other.  In both cases, the soldiers stood their ground and won.

On a tactical level, both attacking armies gave up inherent tactical advantages to press the assaults.  This changed the nature of the combat, allowing the defenders to at least partially offset the attacker's superior mobility and firepower.  The assaults themselves were numerous, and the failure of each to finish off the defenders was taken by commanders to indicate the defenders were weakened enough for the next assault to work.  In neither case did the attacking commanders take a step back and contemplate alternative approaches despite the stated objections of their colleagues (most notably Longstreet,  and von Richthofen).

But these parallels only go so far. Gettysburg was all Lee, Stalingrad was all Hitler.  At Stalingrad, the German side had better equipment and an air force.  At Gettysburg, the Army of the Potomac was better equipped, and had a cavalry.  Lee's object was to capture Washington destroy the Army of the Potomac and force a political collapse, ending the war.  Hitler's object was to acquire the Soviet Union's main oil reserves to prolong the war.

Meade was unsuited and unable to deliver a strategic counter-stroke.  Had I Lee's army on the run, I would have been careful too.  The Soviets, on the other hand, delivered a devastating counter-stroke, led by Vasilievsky.  The Army of Northern Virginia got away.  The German Sixth Army was destroyed. 

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Some photos of the battlefield at Gettysburg, 1996.

The Defense of Marrage Act

    Bill Clinton signs the Defense of Marrage Act into law, September 21, 1996.

The Defense of Marriage Act, just overturned by the US Supreme Court, was as cynical and opportunistic a political ploy as I've ever seen.  That opportunism was exemplified by Bill Clinton, who signed the Act into law in order to clear the playing field for the 1996 election and yesterday cheered its reversal.

The only thing the Act was intended to defend was the Republican Congressional majority.  By creating a controversy, the Republicans hoped to stimulate turnout among their base.  That it fostered discrimination and persecution was irrelevant.

Everyone at the time thought it would be swiftly overturned by the courts, because it was so obviously discriminatory.   Due to the Bush Presidency, that didn't happen. Had it been overturned early, there would have been few political implications.  However, things have changed.  As a result, the overtuning of the Act will lead to full recognition of same-sex marraiage at the Federal level.  In a sense, the opportunistic effort to win the 1996 elections has led to de-facto approval of Gay marriage by the US Government.  And Bill Clinton comes out a winner. 

Meme Watch

My Pix

    Swan at High Park, Toronto, May 2013