Attachments we don't want

James Madison:

"For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects." (Federalist No. 46, 1 February 1788)

The Endgame in Iraq

General Jack Keane (USA, Ret.), Frederick W. Kagan, and Kimberly Kagan:

Reducing our troop strength solely on the basis of trends in violence also misses the critical point that the mission of American forces in Iraq is shifting rapidly from counterinsurgency to peace enforcement. The counter-insurgency fight that characterized 2007 continues mainly in areas of northern Iraq. The ability of organized enemy groups, either Sunni or Shia, to conduct large-scale military or terrorist operations and to threaten the existence of the Iraqi government is gone for now. No area of Iraq today requires the massive, violent, and dangerous military operations that American and Iraqi forces had to conduct over the last 18 months in order to pacify various places or restore them to government control. Although enemy networks and organizations have survived and are regrouping, they will likely need considerable time to rebuild their capabilities to levels that pose more than a local challenge--and intelligent political, economic, military, and police efforts can prevent them from rebuilding at all.

American troops continue to conduct counterterrorism operations against Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has not given up, and against Iranian-backed Special Groups, which are also reconstituting. U.S. forces support Iraqi forces conducting counterinsurgency operations in the handful of areas where any significant insurgent capability remains. But mostly our troops are enforcing the peace.

In ethnically mixed areas, American troops are seen as impartial arbiters and mediators. In predominantly Shia or Sunni areas, they are seen as guarantors of continued safety, destroying the justification for illegal militias. American brigades also play critical roles in economic reconstruction, not by spending American money but by helping Iraqis spend their own money. American staffs help local Iraqi leaders develop prioritized lists of their needs, budgets to match those priorities, and plans for executing those budgets. American troops support the Provincial Reconstruction Teams that mentor Iraqi provincial leaders and help local communities communicate their needs to the central government. American soldiers provide essential support to Iraqi soldiers and police working hard to develop their ability to function on their own.

Indeed, American combat brigades have become the principal enablers of economic and political development in Iraq. When an American brigade is withdrawn from an area, there is nothing to take its place--all of these functions go unperformed. Clearly, then, the number of brigades needed in Iraq should be tied not to the level of violence but to the roles the Americans perform and the importance of those roles to the further development of Iraq as a stable and peaceful state. [Emphasis added. --R]

Today's phischbits

SmartSleep "[A] preference pane that dynamically sets the sleep state of your machine. It’s a successor to Hibernate.prefPane." Tags: , , , , , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Raiding our piggy bank

Steve Chapman:

"Sometimes bipartisanship is grounds for celebration, but more often it is cause for tears. Last week, congressional leaders from both parties went into a room to hammer out a plan that would put taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion. But they assert that the investment is essential to the health of the economy. And they insist that if we make this investment, we'll get all or most of it back.

"This promise would be more believable if the federal government had a long record of using tax dollars responsibly. In fact, it's the equivalent of the guy who raids his kid's piggy bank to feed the slots. The most notable impulse of our leaders is spending money the Treasury doesn't have, piling up bills that future Americans will have to cover."

Today's phischbits

Brunton Vapor™ AF All Fuel Expedition Stove Runs on pretty much any liquid fuel there is: butane, diesel #1, kerosene, auto gasoline, aviation gas, white gas, and more. Tags: , , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Unfair

Joshua Trevino:

"I can think of nothing more unfair to an unborn child than to come into this world unwanted," declares the Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith, senior pastor of Advent United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. And that’s the difference between those of us who are pro-life, and those who aren’t: we, the former, can think of something much more unfair.

Today's phischbits

Fly tshirt Tshirt - PleaseDressMe I can think of several teenagers who would wear this shirt... Tags: , The New York Times > Opinion > Image > Op-Art "Statler & Waldorf come down from their balcony to agree to disagree about why watch the presidential debate." They accurately sum up my feelings on the matter. Tags: , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Today's phischbits

Canon Digital Learning Center - Sample Video: EOS 5D Mark II "REVERIE, an independently-produced video by Explorer of Light Vincent Laforet. This video was shot with a pre-production Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR. The files used to create this video were not manipulated in any way, only re-compressed for ¼ resolution display on our website." Pretty amazing for a $2,700 camera with the primary purpose of shooting photographs. Tags: , , , , Vincent Laforet : photos : Reverie - Behind The Scenes- powered by SmugMug "Behind the scenes footage of Reverie the film by Vincent Laforet." Tags: , , , , Helvetica and Alternatives to Helvetica | The FontFeed You can certainly skip this one if you're not a type nerd. My favorite of the alternative bunch is FF Schulbuch. Tags: , , , Leslie Carbone: Ten Conservative Concerns with the Treasury Bailout The House Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative Representatives, yesterday issued a list of "Ten Conservative Concerns" with the Bush bail-out. Tags: , , , , PhotoBook - Caffeinated Cocoa "PhotoBook is a Facebook photo browser for Mac. It makes it easy and fun to manage, share, and view your friends' Facebook photos in one intuitive interface." You can also import single photos or entire albums into iPhoto with one click. Handy for capturing those images of yourself others have taken. Tags: , , , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Be awesome

Kathy Sierra:

"[I] [w]ish more startups focused on what can we be AWESOME at rather than what can we be FIRST at. "First-mover advantage" can be a trap." (Of course, being first AND being awesome is the ideal...)

Today's phischbits

Subterranean Press » Blog Archive » A Brand New Short Story by John Scalzi What might it look like if super heroes really existed in our publicity-minded, sue-happy society? This short story by John Scalzi nails it pretty well. Tags: , , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Test drive

Our son, Samuel, tries out his crib and mobile for the first time.


Today's phischbits

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | New Hitchhiker's author announced "Children's author Eoin Colfer is commissioned to write a sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series." Tags: , , , , PMSBuddy.com - The free online PMS reminder "PMSBuddy.com is a free service created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter, or any other women in your life are closing in on 'that time of the month' - when things can get intense for what may seem to be no reason at all." Tags: View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Happy Constitution Day

"[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes -- rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments." -- Alexander Hamilton (letter to James Bayard, April 1802)

Reference: Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton, Frisch, ed. (511) Oh, how far we have fallen...

Today's phischbits

Andy Ihnatko's Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA) » 1933-2008 Mac pundit Andy Ihnatko eulogies his mother on her recent passing after a nearly year-long battle with cancer. Grab some tissues. Tags: , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Today's phischbits

Ironic Sans: In a political campaign far, far away... Love the "A New Hope" poster. I would've already bought one if not for the fact that Lucasfilm is such a corporate copyright nazi that they don't let fans make a few bucks off of brilliant stuff like this. Tags: , , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Today's phischbits

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet? Um....yeah. Like we'd ever see any other answer. Tags: , .- THE CHANGERING Obama 2008 - Home -. My friend Tiffany accurately summed this up in her tweet where I saw this link: "I bet this idea made a lot more sense while the pot was still being smoked." Tags: , , MoreCowbell.dj Upload a MP3. Add more cowbell to the song. Oh dear God. Tags: , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Worth repeating

From my good friend, Brent:

"[T]he only people who bring up the supposed value of IBM/Windows over Mac are people whose livelihoods depend on it. Those PC vs. Mac commercials are correct, and Jerry Seinfeld can't fix it." (It's worth noting Brent's livelihood does not, in fact, depend on the Mac. He's just a satisfied user of one at home, whereas his work computer is Windows-based.)

Today's phischbits

Diamond Insider: A Mervis Blog » Tell Us Your Stories » We Interview Tom Bridge of WeLoveDC. Because We Also Love DC. My friend Tom is interviewed about his relationship, proposal, and marriage to my friend Tiffany. I'm still pleased to have been somewhat on the inside track regarding Tom's purchasing the ring, planning the proposal, etc. Politely ignore that the last two paragraphs of the post are a none-too-thinly veiled advertisement for the blog's corporate parent. Tags: , , DiscCloud - Home "With DiscCloud, you can transform a PC, Workstation, or other x86 based machine into a powerful Leopard Desktop Server. Once your desktop is in the DiscCloud, you can scale and manage it with VMware on standard x86 servers." Not that I plan on doing anything like this, I just found it intriguing. Tags: , , , Police Get Geeky with Twitter | PSFK - Trends, Ideas & Inspiration "Police in Scottsdale, Arizona are using the micro blogging service to send out alerts on pertinent town information such as road closings, traffic problems, power outages and severe weather warnings." Tags: , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Today's phischbits

(New) HD TiVo Coming to DirecTV! Pretty excited, technology-wise. I believe this answers our question of whether to stay with DirecTV or move to Verizon FiOS TV when we're ready to step up to HD. We love our TiVo... Tags: , , , , View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia