Ξ February 27th, 2011 | → Comments Off | ∇ Technology |
I got a new car, but the stock sound system kinda suck – everything sounds really muddled compared to my last deck. So I plan on upgrading it. Turns out, however, the subwoofer is intimately tied into the factory stereo, and replacing the deck means losing the sub. So I need to replace that at the same time. Which means installing an amp to power it.
Thank god for subaruforester.org, or else this would have caught me by complete surprise when I went to install the new deck. There’s even a guy on the forums that makes a mounting kit for the rear sub that will make it seamless and appear to be a factory install, so no loss of trunk space.
This is going to be a long, complicated upgrade.
Ξ February 21st, 2011 | → Comments Off | ∇ Intellectual |
Jefferson once described the policy problem posed by slavery in the United States as holding a wolf by it’s ears – it’s a frightful position to be in, but you dare not let go. Much the same might be said of the many Arab dictatorships with which the United States has worked – they are not pleasant to deal with, but the alternative of Islamist takeovers are real and frightening. This is not without merit – Iran is a template, the regime that replaced the corrupt and loathsome Shah was far worse than we could have imagined. More recently, the Gaza Strip elected, arguably freely, to be ruled by Hamas.
A few years ago, in 2005, there were similarly high expectations and anxieties regarding the situation in Lebanon – popular uprising forced the Syrians out for the first time in decades. But, without the Syrians keeping a lid on things, that would let Hezbollah free to try and take over the country. Such an event had many westerners, remembering the Beirut of the 1980′s, and Israel very worried. But, during this period of angst, Reuel Marc Gerecht, writing in The Weekly Standard, made a very insightful point – “[Y]ou don’t get to arrive at Thomas Jefferson unless you first pass through Martin Luther.”
Much praise can be and has been given to the Muslim Renaissance, the great rediscovering of pagan knowledge and the reintroduction of philosophy and science, all of which began before the European Renaissance. But, in Europe, it was followed by the Enlightenment, the great introspective period where science and philosophy move beyond the shadow of Rome and Greece, and into new areas of thought, and civilization moved forward into the age of Reason. But, for all it’s advancement, this was not a peaceful time. It was the time of the wars of religion, a period lasting centuries of nearly continuous, bloody conflict, often motivated by extreme religious fervor. But, out of this crucible, came new ways of thinking about governance and society. John Locke and Thomas Jefferson.
We are so far removed from this era of our civilization we take it for granted. But, for us, it was a necessary trial, and it very well may be as well for the Muslim world. All I know is that democracy is the first, crucial step in the right direction, and it’s inevitable. We might not like where the road takes us, but it’s the only way forward.
Ξ February 21st, 2011 | → Comments Off | ∇ Intellectual |
Foreign Policy has a really good post over at their Passport Blog entitled History imitates art in Lampedusa. In it, they discuss the revolutionary fervor that gripped Italy during it’s unification, disbanding the old, corrupt powers and ushering in a grand sense of the possibility of the future, free from the old corrupt regimes of the Italian city-states. It was a moment very similar to that of today, and that feeling swept south, into Sicily, where a young aristocrat, energized by the moment, rebelled against his class and joined the people in rebellion. “He knew the King well, or rather the one who had just died; the present one was only a seminarian dressed up as a General,” the prince ruminated. “And the old King had really not been worth much.” With that, the old guard was chased out.
But, the story isn’t one of those rare moments in history upon which the narrative changes. Rather, the story is a warning. The underlying culture of Sicily hasn’t changed – the Prince switched sides not to reform but to retain power. All the people had done was chase out a old, corrupt leadership, but they kept in place the same social structures that created it in the first place.
This appears to be what has happened in Egypt. The Army was always the power behind the throne there. As many of the journalists covering the events have begun to realize, the fall of the dictator is not the fall of the regime. Indeed, by siding with the people against the dictator (the dictator that they put and kept in power), they have usurped the legitimacy of the uprising. In this case, the Army plays the role of the Sicilian Prince.
But what if these revolutions were to bring about fundamental change? What would it look like?
Ξ February 21st, 2011 | → Comments Off | ∇ Intellectual |
I’ve decided to collect my thoughts on the wave of revolution sweeping the Middle East in a few posts, to better organize them.
First off, impressions of who is vulnerable and who isn’t. Aged dictatorships seem to be the ones most at risk – Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya are all headed by old regimes near the end of their life, and were equally corrupt and inept. Jordan, with a youthful, largely benign dictatorship/monarchy, weathered the storm.
Bahrain is a bit of a special case. There, a demographic minority, the Sunni monarchy, oppresses the Shiite majority. Not only do you have tribalism at work, but it’s also a political proxy battlefront between Shiite Iran (who, incidentally, claim the island as a province) and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations who are very wealthy and a significant portion of the population benefits from the status quo, unsurprisingly, appear immune.
Additionally, nations that are truly ruthless, Syria and Iran, have tight enough control that they can simply wipe out opposition.
So, apart from Bahrain, what this largely appears to be is a clearing out of the old guard. The question is, what will replace it?
Ξ February 13th, 2011 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
It’s been a common complaint from Mexico and some American politicians to claim that the majority of guns (some 90%) used in Mexico’s gang wars come from the US. Stratfor recently did an analysis of the claim and broke down the numbers:
According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.
This means that the 87 percent figure relates to the number of weapons submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by Mexican authorities or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing. In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States.
Stratfor goes on to note that Mexico doesn’t bother to submit to the ATF guns they are able to positively identify themselves, which include guns from other nations (they use the example of popular South Korean munitions used by the cartels) as well as arms coming from their own government stocks.
Ξ February 12th, 2011 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
He’s (relatively) quietly gathering the support of a number of movers and shakers in the Republican party. His political message is tight and coherent. He’s from a Midwestern state, an area dominated by swing states. He’s a successful governor without a lot of baggage. I suspect that he’s going to take rise as Romney falls once the primary season begins.
