What We Have In Common

Stand back far enough, and Hollywood and the Valley do something similar: We bring new things into the world, in the face of risk. The tech heavy Valley takes a bigger helping of execution risk, and trendy Hollywood worries more about the fickle tastes of the audience. But from a financier's point of view, it's all risk.

And at the first level, we mitigate the risk in a similar fashion: portfolio theory. Knowing that many of our bets are going to be losers, we make a lot of them, and hope that some degree of judgement of properties or ventures, plus an appeal to the power of averaging, will bring us through with an acceptable ROI. In Hollywood, the portfolio managers are studios. In the Valley, it's venture capitalists (and corporate R&D managers).

The Hollywood Game

"The classic Hollywood economic model is built around the existence of a few very large companies -- studios -- that dominate production, marketing, and distribution."

Of those functions, production and marketing are a bunch of hired guns. It's distribution that has allowed the studios to dominate the entertainment scene. It started with the movie houses, and then the big 3 networks, but it's long since ramified into a complex mash of foreign rights, DVDs, tie-ins, logo'ed merchandise, and on down to the plush Disney character toy that turns up a world away.

That kind of distribution has been a huge barrier to entry. It's a risk mitigation factor that Hollywood can apply to turn the hits into ROI blockbusters, and the mediocre properties into profits after they've left the theaters. It's an asset that the Valley does not command, though we've had some relevant experience.

Back in the day, those of us in startup mode worried about The Channel, which at the time (we're talking the '80s and early '90s here), was the only way we had to get our products out to end users. We're talking retail computer stores, VARs, and stocking distributors like Ingram. The Channel is still with us, but much reduced in its power since the coming of the net. It's in niches like console games where a tangible good is still involved that the influence of distribution, and a vestige of a studio model (think Electronic Arts) still lingers in the Valley.

So if the choke hold of distribution can be broken for software and most hardware, why not for the flix? It's just bits. There Marc names the game we have to play: development of new business models for entertainment media.

How We Are Different

Marc pointed out one salient difference between the models: In the Valley, the creative talent is usually a part owner of the venture. In Hollywood, they are hirelings, paid by those who control the means of distribution. (Just go read it if you haven't already.) There are other differences that are just as important in constructing new business models, and envisioning what type of content goes with them.

Hollywood mounts projects. The Valley builds companies.

In film, the continuing entity is the studio and its distribution channel. The particular 'title' is usually ephemeral, as is the team assembled to create it. The ownership Marc describes is possible here because we create a corporate entity inside which multiple generations and lines of products can be housed, building equity if there is a success. It's telling that the proximate cause of the Hollywood strike is a fight over 'residuals', in other words, giving the talent an ongoing stake in the success of the title. As the power of distribution breaks down, the model is shifting in our direction.

Hollywood takes its risk in one shot. The Valley stages risk.

Most film makers found out how they did on their opening weekend. A winner gets the whole power of the distribution network behind it. A turkey goes off to DVD and foreign markets, and the tie-in deals are quietly cancelled. A TV series dies a more lingering death, but still basically gets one shot at finding an audience. This is the anatomy of a hit-driven business, evolved to maximize the wins at the 'head of the Long Tail.'

The Valley has evolved models of risk stages. Whether you call them A round, B round and C round, or Dev, Alpha and Beta, we're all about wringing out the uncertainties in engineering and marketability as we go. There's still a hit-driven element to the win - everyone loves a Netscape or a Google - but we're a lot better at getting rid of our turkeys before we fund the next Water World.

Hollywood stages spectacles. The Valley builds assets.

OK, that's maybe a bit harsh. A long running series, or a popular character, can indeed become an asset and risk mitigator for the next project. (Or lead to a crummy sequel.) And again, it's that continuing value that's at the core of the current conflict in Hollywood.

But it's generally true that the movie project is a one-shot. The whole notion of how a title comes into existence and is produced is dramatically at odds with the Valley system. You don't find Hollywood building 'the one to throw away', or beta'ing a lower production value prototype with a friendly audience. This may be the nut of the problem to be faced in applying the Valley model to visual arts: How do you create a continuing asset in which to share ownership, and which can gain equity value over time?

• Bringing back 'serials' as a form
• Long term character development
• Cross-pollination with manga and anime
• Direct to DVD projects
• Faces and characters that emerge in the blogosphere

In short, anything that can start small, find a place somewhere down the Long Tail curve, and work its way upward, gaining audience and value as it goes. Low-rent and scrappy. The night of the living dead for the Hollywood studio execs.

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But having written a lot on my previous blog about Europe's demographic death spiral, I could not help but ponder whether United Methodism is in the same fix. The thrust of the convocation was that we UMs can reverse the decline if we return to Wesleyan basics. Now, I'm keen to return to Wesleyan basics and think we should do that anyway, but the idea that we can evangelize faster than the Grim Reaper reduces our numbers is a proposition that I find highly dubious.

Consider some actuarial facts. If indeed the median age is about the same as the average age, 60, that means that of the 8 million UMs living today, one-fourth, or 2 million, will be dead within 20 years, and another million dead about eight years later. So in less than 30 years, we will lose from death alone three-eighths of our present membership, leaving us at 5 million.

That decline does not include the hemorrhage of our youth who, when graduating from high school, graduate from the church as well (an issue affecting all denominations). I don't have the demographic breakdown for that age group as a percentage of the UM total, but the church admits that, relative to the general population, people under 35 are underrepresented.

So the decline due to death of our numbers will be amplified by dropouts, mostly, though not exclusively the under-35 cohort. There is only a small chance, IMO, that the number of people electing to leaved the denomination can be matched by those joining. But the idea that new members can offset losses from both dropouts and death is simply not supportable. If we could do that (or were willing to do it), we would already be doing it. And the losses from death in the coming years will only accelerate.

It goes without saying that with an average age of 60, United Methodists are generally no longer bearing children. Of course there are families in our churches, but there is a very large number of UM churches that have no children. The fertility rate among European-descended, American women is lower than the 2.1 replacement rate. The overall American fertility rate of 2.08 is that high only because non-white women are having more than two children each (on average, of course). See, "The vanishing American family."

This national trend is reflected in the UMC, so I think I stand on safe ground in saying that, on average, UM adults of childbearing age are not having enough children to replace themselves when they die, much less replace themselves and one or more older members.

But no one I know of in the Methodist church's hierarchy or think tanks is addressing this part of the issue.

We might also consider that the median age of UM elders (who serve as senior pastors of churches) is 52, which is my own age. The average age is almost 51. Of the 17,000-plus elders in the denomination, only about 840 are 35 or younger. As a rule, older clergy will not attract younger members, especially families. Furthermore, with a mandatory retirement age of 70.5, half of all elders will retire within 20 years (most clergy elect to retire before 70). So in addition to a shrinking membership, the UMC will be faced with a steadily graying clergy and an accelerating shortage to boot.

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As al Qaeda has been beaten into retreat in Iraq, security conditions across the country have begun to improve. Iraqi civilian casualties are dramatically down. IED attacks have plummeted, while mortar and rocket attacks are at an unprecedented twenty-one month low. The number of U.S. soldiers killed in action has fallen for five straight months and is now at the lowest level in nearly two years. And as a result, U.S. commanders on the ground have begun a drawdown in the number of U.S. forces in Iraq.

According to the BBC just this weekend: ‘All across Baghdad... streets are springing back to life. Shops and restaurants which closed down are back in business. People walk in crowded streets in the evening, when just a few months ago they would have been huddled behind locked doors in their homes. Everybody agrees that things are much better.’

Unfortunately, congressional opponents of the war have responded to the growing evidence of progress in Iraq not with gratitude or relief, but with unrelenting opposition to a policy that is now clearly working.

Even as evidence has mounted that General Petraeus’ new counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, anti-war advocates in Congress have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of retreat and defeat in Iraq -- reluctant to acknowledge the reality of progress there.

Rather than supporting General Petraeus and our troops in the field, anti-war advocates in Congress are instead struggling to deny or disparage their achievements -- and are now acting, once again, to hold hostage the funding our troops desperately need and to order a retreat by a date certain and regardless of what is happening on the ground.

It bears emphasizing that none of the progress we see today in Iraq would have happened, had these same anti-war activists prevailed in their earlier attempts this year to derail General Petraeus' strategy.

In fact, throughout the past nine months, anti-war advocates in Congress have confidently and repeatedly predicted that General Petraeus' strategy would fail, and that the war in Iraq was ‘lost.’

It is now clear they were wrong.

Rather than another ill-advised, misguided attempt to cut off the funding for our troops in the field, it is time for anti-war forces to admit that the surge is working and stop their futile legislative harassments.

It is deeply irresponsible for anti-war forces in Congress to hold hostage the funds that our men and women in uniform need to continue their successful efforts. Congress should support our troops in Iraq, not undermine their heroic achievements by imposing a formula for failure.

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Rep. Murtha [D-PA], who narrowly avoided indictment during the 1980s for neither accepting nor refusing offered bribes from FBI ABSCAM investigators, topped both lists at $166 million in earmarks for 30 firms, and $113,050 in contributions from beneficiaries. Subcommittee chair Moran [D-VA] barely made the earmark top 10 with $41 million worth of earmarks to 27 firms, but he came second in political contributions from beneficiaries at $99,000. Rep. Visclosky [D-IN] received $95,000 from the 22 companies for whom he sponsored earmarks, to take third place.

Contrast with Rep. Jack Kingston [R-GA], who came in 5th for sponsored earmarks at $44 million for 12 companies, $3 million more than Rep. Moran. He received just $6,000 from those firms, their employees, and PACs affiliated with them. Rep. Nancy Kaptur [D-OH] also doled out $44 million in earmarks, but her 18 companies and their affiliates donated just $4,500 to her coffers.

Nor is the discrepancy just a matter of influence. Rep. David Obey [D-WI] is a very influential Washington figure, as head of the House Appropriations Committee, and he sponsored $50 million in defense-related earmarks. In return, his contributions from those beneficiaries and their affiliated sources amounted to just $2,000.

Read the full set of findings from the Sunlight Foundation.

The non-partisan Sunlight Foundation, in in collaboration with Taxpayers for Common Sense, recently gave people the ability to see earmark beneficiaries overlaid on a Google Earth map, linked to additional data concerning each one.

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The argument I originally made, to refresh your memory, was that the anti-Enlightment, anti-colonial progressive movements in the West influenced Islamic thought up to the 1950's and the foundation of modern Islamism and that their bastard child is the movement we today call 'Islamist'; the practitioners of the Islamist style know Fanon as well as Qut'b, speak the language of anti-colonial thought, and comfortably graft Chomsky onto a society that believes that woman can be best liberated by being kept in purdah.

The modern university, in which all forms of non-Western and anti-Western thought are given primacy, or at least lip service (the reality of the anti-Western and anti-Enlightment thought would be hard on the practitioners, as Arundhati Roy notes) is tolerant of these movements, romanticizes them, and - because much of the central arguments the critical-theory progressive movement (as opposed to the labor-union progressive movement I'd be happy to be a part of) have been coopted by Islamists, has no intellectual counter.

The authors discuss anti-Western values in their sample, and present three hypotheses as to why they were so powerful:

Furthermore, even before the Iraq war, radicals’ anger was not directed only against their national states of origin, but took a distinctive anti-Western colour. The focus of the radicalisation too therefore cannot be fully accounted for by relative deprivation per se. Three forces might have arguably intensified and shaped the direction of the frustration, among those with elite degrees. First, modern engineering and science curricula are a gigantic showcase of Western technological achievements, which put the backwardness of MENA societies in sharp relief (Moore 1994: 12f.; Hanafi 1997). Unlike those who pursue humanities or law degrees, engineers, doctors and scientists find it harder to ignore their thriving counterparts in the outside world (Hoffman 1995: 210). Unlike in the humanities, in the field of technology the West appears "monolithic and properly hegemonic" (Waltz 1986: 666), and students of these disciplines cannot as easily segregate their universe from the developed world. The contrast between Western achievements and their countries’ failures could have engendered a sense of collective frustration, which was felt more intensely by those with elite degrees.

Next, those who studied in the West, itself a sign of an even greater ambition and willingness to sacrifice than studying in Islamic countries, had reasons to feel even more deprived: there are at least 25 engineers in our sample who studied abroad, a ratio that strongly suggests that they are vastly over-represented among radical engineers (see fn. 15). At once attracted by Western achievements but disadvantaged in both home and Western countries’ labour markets, their cognitive dissonance was possibly aggravated by the direct exposure to an alien cultural environment. Those who studied in the West are more likely to have suffered not just from envy and resentment, emotions that derive from unfavourable comparisons experienced remotely, but also from anger and hatred, emotions aroused by cultural displacement (Wright 2006: 304) and direct humiliating interactions. These emotions are more likely to trigger action-responses (Elster 1999) - a desire to destroy the object of hatred, the West and its impure social mores, and a passionate embrace of traditional religious values. Mohamed Atta often bemoaned Western influence in Arab cities (Holmes 2005): according to Dittmar Machule, his thesis supervisor at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg in north Germany, Atta hated skyscrapers because in the city of Aleppo, on which he wrote his doctoral dissertation, tall buildings stole the privacy of the traditional Arab homes in whose courtyard women were once able to remove their veils unseen by strangers (Rose 2004).

Third, even those who did not go abroad found reasons to feel frustrated by Western technological dominance at home: resentment appears to have been fuelled by the competition of foreign firms, especially in public constructions funded by MENA states and international aid organisations. In Egypt in 1993 there were 60.000 foreign experts, 12.000 of whom were Americans, whose income often for the same job was manifold greater than that of local engineers - there are several testimonies of how much bitterness this caused not just towards foreigners but also towards the state guilty of privileging the latter over local resources (Moore 1994: 98; Hanafi 1997: 212).

To this, I'd add another; a lack of any legitimizing philosophy that they may have been exposed to that supports the West as any kind of learning model; for students who studied in Western universities (who were, interestingly even more over-represented), exposure to philosophies and values which legitimized their growing rage and helped direct it at the West, while offering little balancing criticism of Islamist radical thought.

From the paper, an interesting footnote on the place of radical values:

There is anecdotal evidence pointing to some degree of ‘continuity of style' [in Egypt - AL] between Marxist groups and Islamists. In the episode we mentioned at the beginning, when Zawahiri boasted to Schleifer about the medical and engineering students in his group

Schleifer replied that in the sixties those same faculties had been strongholds of the Marxist youth. The Islamist movement, he observed, was merely the latest trend in student rebellions. "I patronized him," Schleifer remembers. "I said, 'Listen, Ayman, I'm an ex-Marxist. When you talk, I feel like I'm back in the Party. I don't feel as if I'm with a traditional Muslim.'" He was well bred and polite, and we parted on a friendly note. But I think he was puzzled. (Wright 2002)

That university culture of contentless radicalism is what I'm happy to criticize. I don't suggest (and never have) that political theory professors attempt to get their students to join radical movements (mine just tried to get me to go to grad school and get a PhD). But I will suggest that the cheap coffee-house political philosophy of my youth - in which Huey Newton was idolized at my alma mater - is strikingly close to the contemporary philosophy in which the articulate thug of the day is the current idol.

What does it say for our current political philosophy that it has so few answers to this?

And I guess the interesting question to me - right after the one raised in the paper that you ought to read - why it is that someone would study political philosophy if they didn't think it had an impact?

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• Aggregators: directories, topical specialists, horizontal blog portals, branded content networks, audio and video
• Tool vendors, from basic text blogs to sound and video and DIY blog-to-book
• Far too many blog advertising networks and gimmicks
• Far too many 'feature level' technologies
• Platform providers: Yahoo, Windows Live, AOL
• Old media about new media: books, magazines, movies
• Consultancies
• Corporate and other PR presences

But that cacophony is normal at this stage. What matters is whether the underlying market is viable, and whether the show turns out to be a nexus bringing together potential partners and customers and vendors. That's a more relevant measure than the fact the show took up no more than one third of one of Vegas' exhibit halls, and the attendees at the sessions rattled around in the large meeting rooms. I had only a limited sample, but at least some attendees thought there was value in the connections made on the floor, in the hallways, and at the parties.

And yet, there's a difference between this show and many of the other first-timers. If you compare the still-minimalist 'large' BlogWorld presences to what you'd find at even a specialty technology show (e.g., RSA), you'd be ignoring the reality: This is an upstart sector that has discomfited the traditional media - stolen audience, discredited stories and brands, and credibly threatens to build completely new distribution networks. It has meaningfully affected everything from the value of major corporate brands to national military strategies and political campaigns. How many wannabe shows draw official representation from both the White House and Dept. of Defense communications staffs?

So, lesson one: This is a crowd that punches way above its weight. You can't judge it by the metrics of an established or even emergent technology market.

Perhaps a better comparison would be a Cable Show. There you get juxtapositions like the Playboy Channel (displaying its wares, shall we say), located right across from hard core tech vendors of video servers and optical fiber. BlogWorld was a small, low rent version of that melange of everything from content to infrastructure. You had your cheese cake, your celebrities, your live shows from the floor, as well as the techie bits. (Credit for first two images: Glenn Reynolds)

So here's my second lesson: I have seen the future of media, and it is low rent. Those big booths at the Cable Show and other mass media conclaves are made possible by high margins, which are in turn enabled by a stranglehold over distribution. What I saw in Vegas is competing effectively for part of that audience, distribution and hence margins. BlogWorld will never really look like a Cable Show, and the latter will never go away. But everything about the old media, from brands to margins and audience is at threat of being corroded by the participants in this little show.

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Patriotism is, in its best sense, a matter of honoring debts. I'll go back to Schaar's "The Case For Patriotism":

To be a patriot is to have a patrimony; or, perhaps more accurately, the patriot is one who is grateful for a legacy and recognizes that the legacy makes him a debtor. There is a whole way of being in the world, captured best by the word reverence, which defines life by its debts; one is what one owes, what one acknowledges as a rightful debt or obligation. The patriot moves within that mentality. The gift of land, people, language, gods, memories, and customs, which is the patrimony of the patriot, defines what he or she is. Patrimony is mixed with person; the two are barely separable. The very tone and rhythm of a life, the shapes of perception, the texture of its homes and fears come from membership in a territorially rooted group. The conscious patriot is one who feels deeply indebted for these gifts, grateful to the people and places through which they come, and determined to defend the legacy against enemies and pass it unspoiled to those who will come after.

It seems silly that we have to make the point that none of us could see very far except that we all stand on the shoulders of others. This is true in ideas, in culture, in the economy, everywhere we look.

What we enjoy today was earned in no small part by others who came before us. The debt we are born into we repay by leaving something better for those who will come after us.

People fought and bled so that women and minorities could vote. They fought and bled so that working men and women would have some power to balance that of their employers.

And people have fought and bled to defend this country and our allies.

In my post about torture, I pointed out that through a happy accident, this country was one where the legitimacy of the government was not based on physical fear.

In no small part, this is because of those who served wearing our nation's uniform.

They helped pay their debt by serving; we can (and must) pay our debt to them in many ways; it starts by understanding that we are all part of this debt 'economy' - that we benefit from what has been and can be expected to contribute to what will be.

It starts with a recognition that we are a part of something. It's interesting that this gets rejected both on the right and on the left; by conservatives who believe in Howard Roark, and by liberals who believe that the only community that matters is the community of man. They can't acknowledge the value of the community which they share, and which we all share - that community which is a part of the larger community of man and which includes all of us individuals but which exists apart from both. Because of that, they are both uncomfortable acknowledging it. But then again, debtors are usually uncomfortable acknowledging those whom they are indebted to.

The people who believe both of those things are in turn protected by young men and women wearing uniforms and carrying weapons, who are willing to put themselves between - this thing which can't be acknowledged - and those who would if they could rule us by fear and blood.

That thing which can't be acknowledged is our polity, our political community, America. And our young men and women have protected it, protect it, and will go on protecting it.

And that is the most fundamental debt of all.

I don't claim that we should all agree about much; I see vocal disagreement as a feature, not a bug, in our society. But we ought to agree that we owe.

And we all should be thinking hard about what we're doing to pay that debt back.

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Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

O Lord of hosts, to you we turn
To give us grace we cannot earn.
Our soldiers guard our way of life;
Be with them all in times of strife.
Let courage flow from your command;
We pray for those who fight on land.

Eternal Father, grant, we pray,
To all Marines, both night and day,
The courage, honor, strength, and skill
Their land to serve, thy law fulfill;
Be thou the shield forevermore
From every peril to the Corps

Lord, guard and guide all those who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!

Almighty God, whose arm is strong,
protect us e'er from doing wrong.
We pray to always do what’s right,
for justice only be our fight.
Let peace now reign across our land,
brought to us by your gracious hand.

Of the verses above, authorship is as follows:

Verse 1 - William Whiting, the original first verse.
Verse 2 - me, composed for this day as a prayer for the Army
Verse 3 - J. E. Seim, 1966
Verse 4 - Mary C. D. Hamilton, 1915
Verse 5 - me again

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This is such a sensible reform that I can hardly believe it has any chance of passing through Congress, let alone getting signed by the President. It would reamortize the secured amount of a home loan at the appraised value of the home, permitting homeowners to treat oversecured mortgages as unsecured, the same way owners of vacation homes and rental properties, of commercial real property, and family farmers can under the current law. It would also permit repayment plans that exceed the current five-year limit, and end the worthless requirement that debtors seek credit counseling as a precondition to filing a bankruptcy.

To those reforms I would add three others: raising the debt limit on Chapter 13 filings; eliminating the barrier that prevents homeowners from receiving discharges in Chapter 13 when they have filed a Chapter 7 within the last four years; and ending the presumption of abuse element. The current limits (just over a million dollars in secured debt, and just under $337,000 for unsecured debt) are particularly arbitrary for middle class homeowners, many of whom made the mistake of borrowing against the artificial rise in the value of their homes just before they needed hospitalization, or had a high judgment imposed against them or their business. The elimination of the 4-year barrier on Chapter 13 filings should be self-evident in this economy; many of the people who filed bankruptcies on the eve of YBK in October, 2005 also own homes, and not allowing them to save their homes would be unfair. And the presumption of abuse element, always the most controversial aspect of the 2005 law, forces many homeowners who simply wish to walk away from their property, into Chapter 13 (or its very expensive cousin, Chapter 11), benefiting no one, least of all the banks that are prevented from foreclosing by the automatic stay.*

But as I said, its chances for passage are dim, at least until after the 2008 election. Few Republicans in either house of Congress back the measure, and even if it gets out of the House, the likelihood that the Democrats could invoke cloture in the Senate, or even get a majority to support such reforms, is bleak. And by the time another session of Congress decides to act, the devastation to the economy that will no doubt be caused by the upcoming landslide of foreclosure sales will have already occurred.

*Its stated purpose, to discourage filings by middle and upper class debtors, has failed miserably; in the Central District of California, less than one percent of all affected cases get dismissed, in spite of all the time and paperwork the statute imposes.

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[ ] Rivera’s "shocking" blown save in Game 4, 2004

[ ] Rivera’s "shocking" blown save in Game 5, 2004

[ ] The awesome wild card clincher celebration

[ ] Wang getting hammered in Game 1

[ ] Wang getting hammered in Game 2

[ ] Jeter’s first GIDP

[ ] Jeter’s second GIDP

[ ] Jeter’s third GIDP
 

3.. Please indicate the last book you read:

[ ] Someday, in my lifetime, the Yankees will get to the LCS

[ ] Suicide Hotline - It’s not just for Cubs’ fans anymore

[ ] The Heimlich Maneuver - What to do when choking
 

4. Which recent Yankees personnel move did you enjoy most:

[ ] Not winning the posting for Matsuzaka

[ ] Winning the posting for Kei Igawa
 

5. Which following designation best describes Derek Jeter’s performance in this year’s ALDS

[ ] Captain Intangibles

[ ] Captain GIDP

[ ] Captain & Tenille
 

6. Please choose your favorite movie:

[ ] Anger Management

[ ] Hunt for Red October

[ ] Damned Yankees

[ ] Still We Believe
 

7. Finish this sentence: “Alex Rodriquez is

a. overrated

b. overpaid

c. overdue

d. overly prissy

e. over
 

8. . Select the most vociferous, stupid, and annoying Yankee fan:

[ ] Washed up “comic” hack and Yanks personal ballwasher Billy Crystal

[ ] Front-running celebrity phony Jack Nicholson

[ ] Tim McCarver
 

9 . Are you ready to admit that :

a. Ted Williams was better than Joe DiMaggio?

b. Carlton Fisk was better than Thurman Munson?

c. Even Manny Ramirez is faster than Bernie Williams?

d. Reggie Jackson was a better outfielder than Matsui?

e. Derek Jeter has less range than a kumquat

f. No self-respecting parasite would invade Jason Giambi?
 

10. Please indicate your favorite moments in Yankee history: (Check all that apply):

[ ] Alex Rodriquez is traded to the Yankees

[ ] Don Mattingly never wins a World Series

[ ] The Yankees let Clemens get away

[ ] The Yankees get Clemens back

[ ] Giambi’s steroid abuse causes his body to collapse like a screen door in a hurricane.

[ ] The bugs eat Joba
 

11 . Have you experienced any of the following after the embarrassing four game collapse? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Headache

[ ] Uncontrolled Anger

[ ] Heartache

[ ] Holes punched in doors or walls

[ ] Nausea

[ ] Smashed TV screens

[ ] Depression and Broken Dreams

[ ] Avoided Red Sox fans for days or weeks
 

Once you have completed this form, please forward it to Fenway Park. Then burn all your remaining Yankee clothing, memorabilia, and associated reminders. After reviewing your request, the Red Sox Fan Club will contact you with notification of acceptance or rejection.

I hereby acknowledge that the real "curse" is being a Yankee Fan.

I hereby renounce the New York Yankees for all eternity on this the ______
day of ________________, 200__"

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Khaled was very candid about the difference of the lives of Palestinians living under the PA (to say nothing of those living under Hamas in Gaza) and the lives of Israeli Arabs. He did point out that Arabs are a minority in Israel, and they know it. Israel is a Jewish state, and all its Arab citiziens, whether the 70 percent who are Muslim or the 30 percent who are Christian, are not merely ethnic minorities, but religious minorities.

But Khaled also pointed out that despite the mild oppression that Israeli Arabs generally feel, they know they are the freest Arabs anywhere in the Middle East. That's why the reverse of yNet's headline is never printed: Israeli Arabs are neither crazy nor stupid enought to migrate into the West Bank or Gaza, where they would live under the mere facsimile of democracy in the former and outright tyranny in the latter.

In the months leading up to the upcoming Annapolis peace conference talk of a future division of the city has prompted a staggering increase in nationalization requests by Palestinians seeking to escape life under the Palestinian Authority.

Some 250,000 Palestinians currently reside in Jerusalem. Only 12,000 of them have sought to obtain an Israeli citizenship since 1967, an average of about 300 new citizens a year.

But over the past four months the Interior Ministry has registered an unprecedented 3,000 applications, primarily residents of the Arab neighborhoods unlikely to remain under Israeli sovereignty according to the political initiative currently on the agenda.

Regardless, the fact is that people vote with their feet when there is no other effective recourse. As the Annapolis Conference, now scheduled for next month, draws nearer, expect increasing number of requests by Palestinians for Israeli citizenship, or at least asylum.

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I just read 'Savage Century: Back to Barbarism' by Therese Delpech, a French policy wonk and public intellectual. It's an interesting, depressing book, written in the dense yet breezy style of the French public intellectual - think Ellul - and it is about how thin the veneer of civilization is, and how mistaken we all are for assuming it to be solid, and how at risk we are in the coming decades of that veneer wearing through.

The history of the last century showed the ease with which historical transformations of unprecedented violence could follow without warning on the heels of the best of times. As in Greek tragedy, crime engendered crime in the house of Europe, which twice set the rest of the world ablaze. From the experience, lessons were drawn for the reconciliation of the European nations. But what is now at stake is Europe's capacity to assume international responsibilities in a deeply troubled world. And from that point of view, the internal lessons just mentioned are insufficient. The unprecedented historical eruption from which the entire twentieth century arose does not speak only for the madness of Europe and of national passions. It is evidence of a wider adventure concerning humanity as a whole: the sudden appearance of storms whose warning signs on the horizon we Europeans have too long pretended to ignore, storms no one can control once they have been unleashed. When such sudden acceleration of history occurs, it signals the defeat of political action, which can do nothing but run after events until it is swallowed up by them. If Europe has any message to transmit to the world, it is truly this one.

In passing, she recounts the brutality of the Nazis, the Soviets, Mao's China, and North Korea.

In some cases, as in China, examination of the past remains taboo. How much attention, for example, has been given to the scenes of cannibalism that took place in the midst of the Cultural Revolution in Guanxi in 1968? A terrifying account of them, barely repeatable stories of horrors, can be found in ‘Steles rouges’ by Zheng Yi. We learn that students sometimes ate their teachers, not in the course of a famine like the one that ravaged Ukraine and the rest of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, but because years of daily brutality had brought about the resurgence of cannibalism as an act of supreme cruelty. The author of the book barely believed the rumors circulating about the villages where instances of cannibalism had occurred. But after collecting many accounts of practices even more terrible than those that had been reported to him - in paroxysmic scenes, some victims were eaten alive - Zheng reached a despairing conclusion: "A people that has incited its children to eat human flesh like savages had no hope for the future!" Worse, the collective madness was not completely devoid of "rationality." Many bureaucrats climbed the ladder of power by means of such demonstrations of revolutionary faith:

In the modern period, when progressive Chinese men of letters inveighed against of the misdeeds of cruel officials who built their careers on assassinations, they often used this expression: "he does not hesitate to stain the feather in his cap with human blood." But this expression is not suitable in the case of Wang Wenliu and other cadres in Wuxuan. In fact, to guarantee their success, they were not satisfied with merely killing human beings, they also ate them.

None of those acts would have been possible had it not been for the years of public confessions and public executions in China that twisted moral sense and the concept of justice. Nor would these acts have been possible in the absence of terrible mass pressure, which tolerates no resistance whatsoever.

She is using them as examples of what can happen - of the beast outside the circle of firelight that represents modern civilization - but I realized something else in reading this.

Those societies could not operate without the level of - to us - insane violence - which maintained and even today in China and North Korea maintains public order. The camps were not an aberration in Nazi policy; they <were the core of Nazi policy. Nazi society and the Nazi state could not have existed without them. The same truth applies to the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. The state is the Camp; some just live inside and some outside the wire.

So there are societies who exist only because of torture. Torture and the fear of torture - and death, and vanishing into 'nonperson-ness' in a distant camp - form the sole legitimizing principles of the society. And the relationship between the citizen whose person is secure from the state is fundamentally different from the relationship of the subject whose person is not.

We aren't one of those societies. We never have been, due to the happy accident of English Common Law and the freedom provided by the wilderness.

And what that means is that we also know what we have to resist becoming. And pushing back on the issue of torture - being sure that we are on the right side of that line - is a damn good way to resist this.

This isn't just happy moral talk over a pitcher at the campus pub. While I have no qualms with having our enemies fear us - the reality is that the manner in which we deal with them is watched by those not (yet) our enemies. Who have to decide on whose side to stand.

And here, I'll go back to Boyd.

Observations Related To Moral Conflict

No fixed recipes for organization, communications, tactics, leadership, etc.

Wide freedom for subordinates to exercise imagination and initiative - yet harmonize within intent of superior commanders.

Heavy reliance upon moral (human values) instead of material superiority as basis for cohesion and ultimate success.

Commanders must create a bond and breadth of experience based upon trust - not mistrust - for cohesion.

and

Action:

Undermine guerilla cause and destroy their cohesion by demonstrating integrity and competence of government to represent and serve needs of the people - rather than exploit and impoverish them for the benefit of a greedy elite.*

Take political initiative to root out and visibly punish corruption. Select new leaders with recognized competence as well as popular appeal. Ensure that they deliver justice, eliminate grievances and connect government with grass roots.*

...
*If you cannot realize such a political program, you might consider changing sides.

As I finished this up tonight, I noticed a post in Memorandum that I think ties to this and is well worth reading.

It's a post about Guy Fawkes at Harpers, which has gone kind of moonbatty in the last five years. But it's a definite should-read. The author's principles are sound, even if he's somewhat blinded by BDS - and the failure of the Administration is to have left themselves open to this kind of criticism.

And it lets me cite a wonderful line from the movie 'V for Vendetta', which Littlest Guy wanted to see again 'because it's making me think'.

People should not fear their government, their government should fear the people.

More on this in a bit; I'll piss many of you off by disputing what exactly constitutes 'torture'.

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The Tale of the Logos

This leads to the other superficial similarity to NASCAR: The proliferation of corporate logos on the vehicles.

As you'll note, they are the very same logos. It was the automotive industry, both consumer and industrial, that was all over the place. Caterpillar sponsored three teams and there were CAT hats, T-shirts and logos wherever you looked. I'm sure the General Motors PR folks are exchanging high fives today - the GM logo covered about half the side of the winning Boss robot.

Your usual defense industry vendors were in evidence. LockMart, Honeywell, Teledyne - to name a few - have made contributions of subsystems and presumably people and cash. But their logos were small and their presence quiet.

Admittedly the automotives value brand equity, while defense is the ultimate inside selling business. But the real tale is in the composition of the teams. Here's an algorithm I tested at the event: Find someone wearing a T-shirt from a team that finished the Challenge, who appears to be over 30, and chat them up. If they aren't a university professor or staffer, then you've likely just located someone seconded from Volkswagen, GM, Cat or the like.

The clear lesson that comes out talking to these folks is that they see their Urban Challenge spinoffs reaching market well before there are convoys of autonomous logistics vehicles on the battlefield. Fully robotic cars are still a ways off, but semi-autonomous safety and convenience features - the next generation of self-parking - are already on the roadmap. Having participated in a few 70 to 80 mph 'freight trains' on I-5 while driving home, I'm all for that. One can easily foresee a not-so-distant future in which teenage and elderly drivers are required to engage autonomous safety features when at the wheel.

Fully autonomous systems will have an earlier home in industrial applications. Mining, maintenance and other 'dull, dirty and dangerous' (and often remote) jobs are square in Caterpillar's sights, and are a major part of the rhetoric coming from the winning Team Tartan. (Disclosure: I have an investment in this sector.)

The Urban Challenge may herald a transformation in both consumer and industrial automotive that's as profound as any defense meaning of the word.

A Convergence Of Platforms

For those of us in Silicon Valley and in hi-tech generally, a 'platform' is something largely built out of software. Think Linux, Google Web services, Windows or OS X. Microsoft's recent habits aside, we're accustomed to having the platform's functionality updated and augmented once or twice a year at least. Platforms have more or less well described functional interfaces that allow third parties to access their capabilities.

High tech investors pay a lot of attention to the creation and augmentation of these platforms. Their appearance and success is a sign that a market is reaching consensus on a set of sufficient functions to address its needs. Because it allows outsiders to tap and augment this functionality, the advent of a software platform means that the capital costs and other entry barriers of building a salable end-user product are ready to fall again. That can spell opportunity for startups. Innovations they spawn are often acquired, integrated and made generally available to platform users.

Having grown up in a GM family, I'm well aware that 'platform' has meant something very different in the automotive industry. It's a collection of structural, motive and control systems that will be the underlying basis for a number of superficially different vehicles. Rather than cycling in months, an automotive platform might turn over once every five years. Any 'interfaces' have historically been mechanical, always highly idiosyncratic, and generally unavailable to those outside the automotive OEM's supply and maintenance chains. The gulf between OEM and 'after market' components markets has been huge. Lacking the ability to wait out the lengthy platform cycle, and considering the risks of selling to a highly concentrated OEM market, private investors and consequent innovation have generally avoided this area.

The Urban Challenge represents one of two revolutions that will force the automotive market closer to the Silicon Valley notion of 'platform'. The other driver is the change in motive systems, and it's worth a quick detour. Hybrids are the first step toward what's likely to become all-electric motive power in many vehicles. Once the step to electric motors with 100% capability is taken, the source of the electricity is literally decoupled - the old fashioned drive shaft vanishes. Batteries, fuel cells, or hydrocarbon driven generation can be mixed and matched. The phrase for this in software architecture is "separation of concerns", and it's important not only for modularity, but to allow the modularized functions to innovate separately and usually more rapidly.

The Urban Challenge fits squarely into the second transforming theme, drive by wire. Accelerator linkages, shifters, brake master cylinders and even steering columns are slowly disappearing, replaced by electronic interfaces to distributed actuators. Which are in turn the perfect plug-in spots for the capabilities pioneered in the DARPA events. Add a similar data stream for sensor data, and the road for continuous improvement of safety and other autonomous functions is open.

We're probably never going to want to download new functions from the Internet into the family car. But if the military and government in general exercise some wisdom in mandating open interfaces when they begin to procure autonomous systems, we can avoid the era of 'fork lift upgrades' that occurred in avionics and allow flexible upgrades on fielded equipment. A separation of concerns of sensor array, actuators, and supervisory software will allow more independent innovation in both the civilian and military markets.

What's The Next Challenge?

DARPA's boss Tony Tether unsurprisingly dodged that question at the press conference following the Urban Challenge. If nothing else, his team now has weeks and months of pouring over captured data to find out what really happened from a systems point of view. How much of the outcome was robustness, and how much good luck? Until that's known, the real state of the research front is not. One can expect that the Boss, Junior and Odin may meet again, somewhere out of the public eye.

A fast redirect of the question to the heads of the three leading teams produced interesting answers that may shed some light, however. Red Whittaker of Tartan Racing is ready for an 'enduro', a long range road race forcing the bots to cope with darkness, rain, snow and dust - a test of the robustness needed for real deployment. Sebastian Thrun of Stanford's more car oriented team would like to push speed and cornering, moving beyond the limits imposed by the human senses and muscles. He mentioned an idea to mix bots and humans at a future Long Beach Grand Prix event. The Virginia Tech team would like to see collaboration between multiple vehicles, in convoying or other 'flocking' maneuvers. To the extent that the winner's ideas reflect the cutting edge of engineering, they may give some clue of what to expect if there's a fourth robotic DARPA Challenge in store.

DARPA's other major goal for the competition was to spur interest in robotics generally, particularly in hopes of attracting talent into a field that will become strategically important in a sense beyond the direct defense implications. Based on comments from Stanford and other schools, they are seeing increased interest, and the Challenges have stimulated growth of a larger robotics community.

We, Robot

"I guess the thing that's difficult for passers-by to realize is that these cars lack the ability to learn: they only know exactly what they've been programmed. If one of these cars changes lanes or makes a turn smoothly, it's because some dedicated zealot stayed up late one night tuning the crazy thing until it looked just so."

It's an easy trap to fall into, though. Even Dr. Tether admitted that he ended up attributing personality to the bots, as did their attendant human chase drivers, and my own post on their body language. Personality and intelligence are the only mental models and language that humans have for that degree of autonomous behavior.

That straightjacket of language hides a major change in the direction of robotics development. Historically, the image of the robot in both fiction and research has been what the classic movie Blade Runner called replicants. Substitute humans, in other words. That makes for better stories, and an endlessly challenging - perhaps impossible - research agenda.

Boss, Junior, Odin and the rest, along with Roomba's, Japanese eldercare bots and many others are something else. They are symbionts, creations we have made to live alongside us and extend our capabilities. They do not substitute for the human. It remains our judgement on what medical treatment is required, how often to mow the lawn, or what the rules of engagement require on the battlefield.

The inescapable physical presence of a bot like the TerraMax hides something else: Many of the symbiots that are beginning to surround us are out of sight, either virtual or just thought of as useful features of a product or service. TiVos, Amazon recommendations, a car's skid control system, all act on our explicit or inferred command. We're all becoming part of robotic systems, just as much as any future commander of a convoy of DARPA-derived logistics bots.

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Processions

But first, perhaps to remind the assembled technology and automotive junkies that there is a serious mission underlying this effort, there was ceremony. The armed forces' oldest form of autonomous transportation met the newest.

A fleet of dozens of human-driven Ford Tauruses paraded through the start area and populated the streets of 'DARPA Town', in reality an abandoned housing area in the former George Air Force Base.

3-2-1...

And then they were off. After the problems caused yesterday by lining up all eleven bots at once, no more than three were staged in the chutes at any one time. 'Odin' from Virginia Tech led off the launch.

Followed by all ten of the other bots, from the smallest, Pennsylvania's 'Little Ben' Prius...

To Oshkosh Truck's 12-ton Terramax, the monster truck of the bot world and a crowd favorite...

Mission One

The day's course for the robots was divided into three missions, each consisting of 6 or 7 subtasks. After each complete mission, the bots would return to the start area to have a new mission file loaded and its sensors cleaned off by the team's pit crew.

The first mission quickly began to take a toll on the bots. I headed from the start area towards a press zone that overlooked a four-way stop which was going to force the bots to interact with one another. By the time I reached it, the DARPA staff's radios were already reporting that the vehicles from Team Annieway and IVS, the two most tentative in their movements in yesterday's practice runs, had already been removed from the course for going too slow and impeding traffic.

At the intersection, Boss soon appeared around a curve, with its chase vehicle behind.

The old housing in the background is in bad shape even for a ghost town. It's been used for urban warfare training that may have featured live demolition charges and flash-bangs, judging from the many blown out windows and walls. The heavy equipment is waiting to take it down as soon as the DARPA show departs.

Bot Jams

Sure enough, the four-way forced the bots to intersect on their courses. Several of them dealt with the traffic correctly, but then the UCF entry froze at one of the stop signs, with its chase car parked close behind. The Cornell bot approached the stopped vehicles from the rear, paused, probably decided they were just obstacles, and pulled out to pass. Then it froze as well.

With one road into the intersection choked, the MIT bot rounded a curve and headed for the opposing stop sign. At the same time, Little Ben rolled up from the right, and the press and DARPA staffers watched in anticipation, with no idea where the bots were supposed to go, or what was about to happen. (Little Ben in the foreground, UCF stuck in the center, Cornell barely visible over Little Ben's roof, MIT out of view left.)

MIT's Talos paused, successfully turned right away from the jam (and then seemed to stop for a bit to think about what had happened.) Little Ben had apparently also been tasked with a right turn, which would take it right into the jam of bots and chase cars. It began to roll, turned... (MIT turning, Little Ben beginning to roll).

...and threaded perfectly through the stopped bots and chase cars, and disappeared up the street. A cheer went up from the humans.

Then everything stopped. The race control had called an 'all pause', which froze all the bots and the human driven vehicles in their places. Word came down that the Terramax vehicle had appeared to go catatonic for twenty minutes while attempting a parking task, then suddenly accelerated, jumped a curb, and headed straight for the old post exchange building. It was apparently shut down before beginning demolition work, but Terramax's confident appearence yesterday did not hold up under stress, and its humans arrived and drove it away.

Pauses struck several more times during the first mission, and after too many inappropriate movements or blockages were caused, the bots from both UCF and Team CarOLO were removed from the course as well. By then the faster bots were returning to the start for their new mission assignments. But with five down and six left, the rate of attrition might end the race early.

Cranking It Up

With the weaker bots out of the way, and with confidence growing in their own performance, several teams appeared to be turning up the maximum speed of their vehicles during their second missions. The number of problematic interactions also dropped dramatically, and there were no further disqualifications during the second mission.

Here MIT's Talos gets a bit of body lean rounding the traffic circle.

By the start of the third mission CMU, Stanford and VT were building up a lead. Cornell and Little Ben had never turned up the speed, and MIT's increase seemed to be getting its bot into troubles. I overheard one CMU team member on the radio saying something to the effect of 'let them hit us for aggressiveness, just turn it up.' The top three were now running close to the posted limit of 25 (which doesn't seem like much until you've had a driverless car doing 25 zip past you ten feet away - on the other side of a K rail, fortunately). Stanford's Junior is pursued by Virginia Tech's Odin down the back straightaway of the traffic circle, with Tauruses chasing.

Making History

Then one of the slower bots, Cornell, pulled onto the traffic circle and stalled (due to a bug in a throttle controller, a team member told me later). MIT's Talos approached from the rear, regarded the stopped bot and chase car, and pulled out to pass the obstacles. As it cut back into the right lane, the Cornell vehicle suddenly moved forward, and the first bot-to-bot contact of the event occurred as bumpers met. This could have been disastrous, as the Cornell team had mounted many of their sensors inside the bumper of their Tahoe. Fortunately, neither vehicle suffered critical damage and they were backed off and restarted. The scuff on the bumper below is one half of the world's first bot-on-bot body shop work.

While Junior had been paused to allow the accident to be cleared, the other bots continued to run, and from that point on none of the three leaders appeared to have substantial delays in completing their tasks. Watching them round the circle to start the next part of the mission started to seem almost routine, and soon the announcer said that all three were on their final laps, and the viewing stands refilled. A cheer went up as Stanford's Junior appeared on the circle first, turned into the finish chute, and took the checkered flag, wielded by Dr. Tether.

Team Tartan's Boss was not far behind.

All four of the other bots still in the running also finished the course, a remarkable achievement for the world's first attempt at such an event. Note again that Stanford's crossing the finish line first does NOT make it the winner. Times will be adjusted for the staggered start, stoppages not the fault of the bot, and for 'moving violations' recorded by the judges on the course. We'll find out the actual winner tomorrow (Sunday) morning.

Update: The results are here.

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The war is 'the genocide in Iraq'; 'Most Americans don't care about the destruction of liberty here at home...' (I noted in my earlier response to him that if that were true, dissent like his wouldn't be written on the Internet or in agate type on page A3 of the New York Times, it would be spoken in broken voices in the courtyards of Pelican Bay); he cites with approval an essay that describes the totality of American history thus:

No one should be surprised by the cultural proclivity for violence, of course, because Americans have always been a violent people in a violent land. Once the Europeans had committed themselves to reside on this continent, they undertook to slaughter the Indians and steal their land, and to bullwhip African slaves into submission and live off their labor - endeavors they pursued with considerable success over the next two and a half centuries. Absent other convenient victims, they have battered and killed one another on the slightest pretext, or for the simple pleasure of doing so, with guns, knives, and bare hands. If you take them to be a "peace-loving people," you haven't been paying attention. Such violent people are easily led to war.

Here is Silber in full throat:

To return to intervention and its lethally destructive and uncontrollable effects: although an attack on Iran represents the gravest threat facing us in the immediate future, it is a serious error to think that the U.S. and Iran exhaust the list of significant actors in this deadly drama. That list is now much longer than you might think. For this is one of the disastrous consequences of intervention over a period of many decades -- and in fact, the Western powers' interventions in the Middle East have gone on for more than a century: the possibilities for catastrophe multiply in every direction, and the routes to what may literally and finally be a war to end all wars can barely be counted. More than one hundred years of unjustified, unnecessary and uniformly disastrous interventions have brought us one hundred routes to hell.

The West intervenes on the passive objects that make up the populace of the Middle East; history begins a hundred years ago with the Western dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire (I'm assuming); it's enough to make a fella swoon.

You have to read this. And you have to wonder how it is that ideas like this are so firmly rooted in so many people's minds who ought to know better.

The sad reality is that - as I've said before - thinking like this empowers the 'nuke Iran now' crowd, because it drives out sensible thinking about what we might do that is neither insanely self-hating nor insanely belligerent.

fixed typos

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The first off the mark, 'Little Ben' moved out nicely, turned smoothly onto the test traffic circle, did most of its lap with a chase car tagging along, but then stopped abruptly and needed a human to bring it back.

But the next two bots to launch moved just a few feet and 'paused', as they say here - meaning they stopped themselves, or were stopped dead by a human overseer. Then the pride of Silicon Valley, Stanford's 'Junior' moved out, made a quick left 120 degree turn, and nearly impacted the bot three stalls over. Oops!

• Sitting on the line for so long without launching might cause any system with a memory leak to fail.
• Purely by coincidence, the vendor of the differential GPS systems used on many of the vehicles had staged a new firmware download within the last 24 hours. That shouldn't make a difference, but....
• The rotating laser sensors used on many of the vehicles were interfering with each other.
• Some of the data files passed out to the teams might be corrupted.

DARPA had everyone reload their route files, and then restarted the test with no more three bots on the line at a time, and everything worked fine. Each of the vehicles rolled out, did its appointed lap and recovered at the appointed spot.

Watching from the bleachers, even such a small run shows the range of personalities of the bots. Just as a human driven vehicle has its own sort of 'body language', so each of the Urban Challenge bots gives an impression. Team Annieway's VW feels like a student driver: over-steering at slow speeds, moving tentatively onto and around the circle.

A CMU Team Tartan member commented that their 'Boss' has attitude, and indeed it moved out through the start area at a good clip, and was one of the fastest bots around the circle.

The 25,000 pound Terramax from Oshkosh Trucks has a presence due to its sheer size, starting out with a hiss of air brakes and motoring confidently along.

This qualitative feel is at least loosely related to the systems' characteristics. Are the various physical control systems well synchronized? Can the planner keep up with actual motion? Is the team confident enough to let its bot travel at a good clip? It will be interesting to see if my notes on 'body language' correlate to success or failure in tomorrow's big event.

(Update: Here's another view of the morning's events from a member of Team Cornell. I'm one of the guys who asked to meet him become of 'this little blog segment' of his. He's done a great job of capturing the atmospherics of the place. You've got to see the 'evil army of synchronized Ford Tauruses' in action to understand.)

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Ordinarily, these rifles are always in demand in the tribal areas as no self-respecting adult Pashtun tribesman dare be seen in public without one. But demand, it turns out, is shooting through the roof. Prices for new rifles has doubled, to Rs 50,000 now. Used Kalashnikovs fetch Rs 35,000. Thanks to the escalation of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, supply of second-hand rifles has petered out and while demand has taken off. Prices of complementary goods have also risen: ammunition, rocket launchers and military apparel have become more expensive.

Americans and insurgencies are good news for Darra. It was, after all, America's first war in Afghanistan helped modernise its arms industry with capital and technology.

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The short answer: it's worth something, but not much. If this is the best level of help Europe can offer in a crystal-clear case like Afghanistan, then the truth is that they are not dependable, or even very useful, allies.

Which does not make them totally useless - but does need to inform our calculations.

NATO troops deployed in less volatile areas of Afghanistan (mostly in the north) relieve the USA of the need to deploy an equivalent number of troops to low-priority areas. That's something.

The NATO Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), meanwhile, have provided a future model that moves us closer to a successful Cuban-style strategy that combines armed soldiers and international aid in a single, deployable package. That's worth something, and very necessary in a world where NGOs aren't willing to have a presence in the kinds of places they're most needed - and/or become the "Toyota Taliban" where they are present. NGOs do bring some value, and they should be used when possible, but a backup needs to be available as a 'Plan B' or even a 'Plan A' in some cases.

The PRT-type model then needs to be expanded in the US military, and also encouraged abroad by constantly and publicly grinding Europe's (fake) professed ideals against the need to do more along these lines. When they do pony up, the USA should praise them and then learn from them, as well as from American experiences.

NATO training forces can be useful, though in truth similar results can be had from paying firms like DynCorp and cultivating a set of arrangements with INTERPOL. Still, if some of this can be had by pressuring Europeans rather than spending tax dollars, great.

In southern Afghanistan, the British, Australians, Canadians, and Dutch have fought well, and that whole area has become a sort of "commando's olympics" for forces from across NATO and beyond. That combat has improved all of the armies taking part in terms of training and equipment, which is a plus, and highlighted the weakness of certain popular equipment types. The Special Forces in particular have an impact unrelated to their size, and need to be meshed in with PRTs at a doctrinal level in NATO.

On the geopolitical front, these countries' presence in Afghanistan also gives them a direct stake in Pakistan's ongoing descent into its status as Taliban Afghanistan II in its western regions, and eventual failed state status. Since people (and hence, the earnings they send back) are Pakistan's #1 economic export, a direct irritant in their relationship with other countries besides the USA has potential value because other complainers have a handy lever. Still, that value is only realized if it results in concrete pressure on Pakistan; until it pays off, it's just a type of bet.

On the minus side of the ledger, besides the low level of actual equipment, money, and troop commitments, we have the recent Dutch experience. Their forces fought well, and hammered the Taliban militarily over several hard-fought days. Only to see a weak ministry at home revert to 'Srebrenica mode' and instantly reverse every gain.

It's a familiar scenario, and the reasonable bet is to expect similar weakness from most NATO countries in similar situations. The suicide complex runs deep there, and civilizational confidence is vanishingly low. That's reality.

Given this ledger of plusses and minuses, the reasonable expectation for Europe & NATO is that they can be depended on only to send very limited numbers of peacekeeping forces in relatively quiet areas. Challenging them to do more, engaging their navies to participate in ocean policing and counter-piracy, and making US commitments dependent on their performance not their alliance, is worth some forbearance, and even some sacrifices. But only in proportion to the (fairly low) actual upside they represent.

Looking for other sources of help, on the other hand, is pretty obviously an imperative. While working to stiffen whatever spine NATO has left and make them as useful as possible for as long as possible, the limits must be acknowledged and real help sought. It's pretty clear that real force multipliers will be found beyond Europe - either via Asian and Middle Eastern partnerships based on hard-edged goals and driven by true realism (as opposed to the wishful pap currently peddled in its name), or via organized recruitment of auxiliary forces like a Foreign Legion who can assume many "European duties" more reliably, while broadening the local cultural and linguistic expertise available to commanders.

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