BLEATING AGAINST SHEEP: James Lileks takes on sanctimonious Europeans at the end of today's entry. A must-read.

MORE ON THE CHIMERA: In today's "Breakfast Table" in Slate, Anne Applebaum dismisses the Saudi plan:
As for the Saudi proposal—I find it ludicrous. There is no evidence that the Arab world is ready to recognize the Israeli right to exist, and certainly no evidence that the Arab world is ready to give up the Palestinian refugees' "right of return" to Israel. Since the Israelis will never accept the refugees—and their many millions of descendants—it is hard to imagine how we get around this one.
Applebaum has been a long-time skeptic of the efficacy of "peace processes," which she repeats here:
In these circumstances, the outside intervention—from President Clinton—was an utter disaster. He forced everyone to play their cards too soon, before either the Israeli or the Palestinian general public were ready to give up on violence. I can't see how Colin Powell or Javier Solana could, at the moment, do much better: Negotiations could perhaps calm the situation, but until one or both sides has come to the conclusion that talking will produce a better deal than fighting, negotiations have little chance of long-term success.
This critique is identical to the one Ari Fleischer cited, to much criticism. They're both wrong, though.
I have been as critical of Clinton as anyone, but the main problem wasn't that he forced the issue, for two reasons. First, the idea to convene Camp David with such an ambitious agenda was as much as I have previously argued at unconscionable length, the problem had more to do with the one-sided giving structure of the "peace process." With that pattern, the breakdown at Camp David over final-status issues would have occurred whether the discussions had taken place in 2000 or 2025. If anything, it was beneficial to force the issue, to see if the Palestinians would be ready to make compromises of their own before Israel had already given up all their chips. A better-designed peace process would have forced the Palestinians to make painful concessions as the Israelis did (indeed, that would have been the "even-handed" approach). Barak's forcing the issue at Camp David was as much an attempt to break out of the prior pattern which governed the peace process as it was an attempt to reach a final settlement. The problem wasn't as much that an outsider had tried to force peace before the parties were ready for it. The problem was that the pattern of dealings between the parties, encouraged by the outside mediators, had led one side to believe that it could have peace without giving up anything, as it was the other who bore all responsibility for making peace.
In fact, I think (as Barak did) that once that pattern had been established, it was necessary to force the issue so as to break out of it, even at the risk of causing conflict such as exists now.

ROLE MODELS: Another star-struck portrayal of Palestinian terrorists in the Washington Post.
Profiles such as this one usually gloss over certain inconvenient facts, and this article is no exception. Here's an example:

...Abu Wadya eventually became disillusioned. The breaking point was when the government of the previous prime minister, Ehud Barak, declined to implement withdrawal agreements signed by previous governments.
"I had a glimpse of hope, like everybody else, but lost it," Abu Wadya said.

One might consider it appropriate to note that instead of implementing limited withdrawals, Barak offered the Palestinains virtually all of what they supposedly wanted at Camp David - something that should have offered a "glimmer of hope," which was only lost when the Palestinians started a war as a counteroffer. But that context would be inconvenient, wouldn't it?

AGAIN: Another week, another outstanding Michael Kelly column.

COSMO'S OWNER STRIKES AGAIN: Jonah Goldberg's latest G-File has the appropriate reaction to the recent news that Arab countries and the U.S. do not have high opinions of each other.

WHY ONE SHOULD NEVER TAKE THE GUARDIAN SERIOUSLY: A targeted strike by Gary Farber on the clear thinking of one columnist for the British left-wing publication.

MOSTLY GETTING IT: A good column by Thomas Friedman about the roots of Muslim rage at Israel and the U.S., helping to explain why - if poverty is supposedly the root cause of terrorism - the perpetrators of the worst Muslim terrorism have been educated and from the middle-class. My only criticism is that, as he often does, Friedman overstates the impact of the West Bank & Gaza settlements on the conflict and the positive impact that would result from a settlement regarding them. But it's still a useful read.

TERRORISM, BRITISH STYLE: From Andrew Sullivan, an article from the Telegraph describing how left-wing publications in Britian ruthlessly stifle dissent from their anti-American views. Some views, you see, are too dangerous to publish.
Among th views deemed fit to print is a column from the New Statesman in which the columnist offers his earnings from the magazine to anyone who will kill President Bush. The Telegaph cites this column and has a devastating, only-in-England response to it:
[G]iven the notorious stinginess of the magazine's payments, that is unlikely to prove a tempting offer.

THE COMING WHIRLWIND: Unless a drastic improvement in the situation occurs, Ze'ev Schiff warns that Israel may have to move against the families of suicide bombers. Under the current situation, those who blow themselves up are taking out a grisly life insurance policies for their families, who receive payments from sources such as Saddam Hussein for the services of their murderous relative. While I can't imagine Israel ever physically harming the families of suicide bombers, I could easily see a policy of putting them in detention so as to prevent monies from reaching them and generally make the point that the families will not be taken care of. Schiff notes that:
it is already clear that damaging property is not enough, because those who would not build one house for their refugee brothers are willing to build a new house for the martyr's family after he kills Israelis.
Such a tactic would be reminiscent of those used by Jordan to destroy the Abu Nidal organization over a decade ago. As Seymour Hersch describes:
In an interview, two former operations officers cited the tactics used in the late nineteen-eighties by the Jordanian security service, in its successful effort to bring down Abu Nidal, the Palestinian who led what was at the time "the most dangerous terrorist organization in existence," according to the State Department. Abu Nidal's group was best known for its role in two bloody gun and grenade attacks on check-in desks for El Al, the Israeli airline, at the Rome and Vienna airports in December, 1985. At his peak, Abu Nidal threatened the life of King Hussein of Jordan—whom he called "the pygmy king"—and the King responded, according to the former intelligence officers, by telling his state security service, "Go get them."
The Jordanians did not move directly against suspected Abu Nidal followers but seized close family members instead—mothers and brothers. The Abu Nidal suspect would be approached, given a telephone, and told to call his mother, who would say, according to one C.I.A. man, "Son, they'll take care of me if you don't do what they ask." (To his knowledge, the official carefully added, all the suspects agreed to talk before any family members were actually harmed.) By the early nineteen-nineties, the group was crippled by internal dissent and was no longer a significant terrorist organization. (Abu Nidal, now in his sixties and in poor health, is believed to be living quietly in Egypt.) "Jordan is the one nation that totally succeeded in penetrating a group," the official added. "You have to get their families under control."
This would be a horrific development, but Israel may be forced in that direction if the current conflict continues.

A WORLDVIEW EXPLAINED: This good article by James Poniewozik has the following nugget that can be extended to other contexts. The controversy over the proposed cancellation of "Nightline:"
is less about that one show than about journalists' eternal belief that the golden age of their profession is always twenty years before whatever the present time happens to be.
Substitute "baseball" for "their profession," and you have a perfect expression of the worldview of most sportswriters. In both editions of his Historical Baseball Abstract and in his other writings, Bill James had a funny feature called "Old Ballplayers Never Die," which would cite quotes from old baseball figures regarding the no-good players of the day, the decline of the game and of competitive balance, etc. Most of those quotes could pass for ones uttered today, and were as foolish then as their successors are now.

NOSTALGIA AWARD: In honor of today's screed, look to this 1998 Slate piece regarding arguments for and against the government's anti-Microsoft case. I chose the later piece because it contains a reminder of when Krugman criticized Democrats for sloppy economic thinking as well as Republicans.
Krugman is absolutely right about the transition costs involved with transitioning to a system of partially-privatized Social Security system. But why is a Presidential speech regarding a long-collapsed proposal worthy of vicious criticism (for the umpteenth time), while a viable Democratic proposal that could destroy the 401(k) system in order to "save" it unworthy of comment?

LESSON FROM THE PROFESSOR: InstaPundit has the following observation:
The big danger in the next few months isn't being too violent, and inflaming the "Arab street" with a desire for revenge. It's not being violent enough, and inflaming the "Arab street" with the belief that victory is possible.
I think one measure of success on the war on terrorism will be if, by the next State of the Union address, there are new, pro-Western governments in both Iran and Iraq. I think it's entirely possible (one by internal revolution, which we should be encouraging, and one by invasion). Those who protest that those two countries have not been definitively linked to 9/11 are usually the same ones who say, in their next breath, that only attacking the "conditions which lead" to terrorism(usually meaning Israel) will succeed. They have it wrong, as usual: The disappearance of the undisputed leader of Islamic fundamentalism (Shi'ite division) and the regime which has defied the U.S. most conspicuously for the longest, and the rise of pro-Western governments in their stead, will do more to show the bankruptcy of the Islamo-facist approach than any measure of diplomatic niceties.
Thomas Friedman has often written about the need for Arab societies to open up and reconstitute themselves. The external shock to the region from regime changes in Iran and Iraq should help matters.

TOXIC OIL DUMP: More great stuff from Mark Steyn. Samples include:

There are only two convincing positions on the House of Saud and 9/11: a) They're indirectly responsible for it; b) They're directly responsible for it. There's a lot of evidence for the former -- the Saudi funding of extreme Islamist madrassahs, etc. -- and a certain amount of not yet totally compelling evidence for the latter -- a Saudi "humanitarian aid" office in the Balkans set up by a member of the Royal Family which appears to be a front for terrorism. Reasonable people can disagree whether it's (a) or (b) but for Americans to argue that the Saudis are our allies in the war on terrorism is like Ron Goldman joining O.J. in his search for the real killers.
Borders are not sacrosanct. The House of Saud is not Royal, merely nomads who found a sugar daddy. There's no good reason why every time you fill your SUV you should be helping fund some toxic madrassah. In this instance, destabilization is our friend.

NOW THAT THE GENTLEMAN HAS ASKED: Rob Neyer takes up the issue of whether the long-standing practice of baseball players' editing their birthdays would have a major impact on our view of players' value patterns. Here's what he has to say:

As a postscript, I'd like to address an issue raised by a number of readers, who wondered if all of these bonkers birthdays might have a significant effect on the aging patterns that have been previously discovered by sabermetricians. As you know, it's now generally held that players tend to enjoy their best seasons between the ages of 26 and 28, and that baseball players, as a group, decline after they turn 30. So what does all the new math mean?

Which is what I figured. When we conduct studies of aging patterns, we're generally dealing with retired players, and the correct birthdays for the great majority of those players are now known.

THEOLOGY 101: The Muslim Pundit strikes again, with an extended discussion of the illogic of Islamist anti-democracy polemics.

MAN BITES DOG: In Salon, Anthony York rips the Democrats' proposed caps on the amount of company stock an employee may hold in a 401(k) plan, saying:
The proposed Boxer-Corzine reforms represent the worst part of left-wing political orthodoxy -- that individuals aren't smart enough to live their own lives. Keep in mind, we are not talking about Social Security, the safety net for American retirement. Boxer and Corzine are essentially trying to place limits on the gifts and incentives a company can offer its employees.
As York points out, the stock that Enron employees were prevented from selling for a few weeks in the fall was stock that Enron had given them as matching contributions in the first place.

THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS: Saul Singer makes a few good points in his latest column regarding the different standards that Middle East dictators are held to.
As an aside, he also tosses off the following observation:
For their whole lives, Israelis have dreamed of being in a simple, solvable border conflict. The entire peace process - from Resolution 242, to Camp David I, to Oslo and back to Camp David - has been built on the assumption that the conflict is over borders, because if it is not, there is no basis for negotiating peace.
This is the type of blinding-flash-of-the-obvious observation that so much of the coverage of the current conflict is predicated on ignoring. What ability would a Taba accord have had to transform an existential rejection?
UPDATE: Instead of my harping on the differences between a "peace process" and actual piece, see this Anne Applebaum piece instead. She describes a consistent temptation among diplomats to fall victim to "peace process syndrome:"
This is what happens when politicians on one side or another of a sectarian conflict start to confuse the "process" with "peace," and think that because they are engaged in the former, they have achieved the latter. In fact, in a war or a long-running feud like the one in Northern Ireland, peace—real peace, which doesn't contain the seeds of a new war—comes about only when one side or the other has effectively agreed to give up.
It appears that the Palestinians may have believed that the Israelis had given up, a delusion fostered by the pattern of the "peace process" (as described at unconscionable length in last night's post), and the contrary recognition helped bring on the current fighting.

I'M NOT SURE IF THIS IS A JOKE: A major controversy has broken out regarding the Yankees.

CLIFF NOTES FOR EUROTRASHING: Charles Krauthammer elegantly dissects the Eurocrats' objections to the U.S.' recent actions.

FOR THE SPORTS FANS AND LIBERTARIANS AMONG US: A front-page story in the NY Daily News regarding the number of professional athletes who own guns. I don't think the article is that horribly biased (it does acknowledge that athletes could use the protection, though perhaps it only seems objective in relation to other NY-based press coverage of gun-related issues), but you can tell that it's a NY-based story from the assumption of surprise at the proportion and specific athletes cited (I know I was surprised).

REASSURANCE 101: In this frightening article about the lieklihood of a future terrorist attack, TIME has the following quote: "It's going to be worse, and a lot of people are going to die," warns a U.S. counterterrorism official. "I don't think there's a damn thing we're going to be able to do about it."

ARI FLEISCHER WAS RIGHT: In a way, his quickly-retracted blaming of Bill Clinton for the present violence in Israel deserved more credit than it received. Not for the reasons he cited ("as a result of an attempt to push the parties beyond where they were willing to go, that it led to expectations that were raised to such a high level that it turned into violence."); Clinton did not push further than Barak was willing to go at Camp David and Taba. Rather, the conduct of the peace process through 2000 was, in retrospect, perfectly designed to encourage Palestinian maximalism, and Clinton deserves some of the blame for it.
After Arafat signed the Oslo accords, all of the giving was on the Israeli side; at no time before Camp David in 2000 were the Palestinians called upon to give anything other than promises of non-violence (which were duly broken when convenient). For those who argue that the recognition of Israel's right to exist was an appropriate compromise, I would refer to P.J. O'Rourke's line from Parliament of Whores about how being bitten in half by a shark is a compromise with being swallowed whole.
At every interim juncture, whenever the Palestinians raised a violent stink, Israel was pressured to keep the peace process moving along by making compromises. Binaymin Netanyahu attempted to change the paradigm, and was treated as a virtual pariah by the U.S. and the rest of the world for doing so. (Incidentally, those who point to U.S. support for Israel as being the key factor as to why the Arab world hates us skip over the fact that in 1998, when the U.S. forced Netanyahu into the Wye accords at diplomatic gunpoint, the U.S.' standing in the Arab world did not dramatically increase, and the attack on our embassies in Africa took place around that time.)
The result was, as Michael Kelly put it, that a "particularly dangerous delusion [was] held by a surprising number of people in the Middle East... that Israel will one day be forced to its knees -- and that America will let that happen."
When the Camp David proposals came in under the maximum Palestinian demands, it was in keeping with the history of the "peace process" that the Palestinians would start violence in an attempt to force the Israelis to sweeten the pot or surrender. Even The Economist, for whom Israel is always wrong as a matter of first principles, recognized that "the violence is not one-sided. It has, in point of fact, been initiated by the Palestinians ... to drive Israel from the territories by force."
The pattern of the peace process set the stage for the violence that began in October 2000, and Bill Clinton bears some responsibility for it.
P.S. The question that provoked Fleicher's response, as described in the NY Times, was even more inaccurate than his response. The questioner supposedly asked "Mr. Fleischer if he agreed that Middle East violence in the last months of the Clinton administration had been quelled when both Israelis and Palestinians were at the negotiating table, and if it had not increased during the Bush administration, when the United States has not been deeply involved in peace talks."
The violence may be worse now, but any suggestion that "Middle East violence in the last months of the Clinton administration had been quelled when both Israelis and Palestinians were at the negotiating table" is an ambitious piece of revisionist history. The Taba talks - the closest the two sides have come to a final agreement - was among the most surreal events in diplomatic history, as attacks on Israelis were continuing apace and Barak was negotiating knowing he had no chance of being returned to office in the next month's elections. And the questioner's assumption that the increase in violence is due to a lack of American involvement is equally fallacious, but this post is already too long.

AND HOW WAS YOUR DAY? (THE TRUE HORROR): Here is a description of the latest 24-hour stretch in Israel. Among the dead in the Jerusalem bombing were seven members of one family. And this outstanding achievement was described as, according to the Jerusalem Post, "an operation of heroic martyrdom." That statement is even more indicative of the likelihood of peace than the actions which it describes. For further proof, see the picture accompanying this article.

HORRORS! I know I'm beating this Saudi "peace plan" into the ground, but here's another angle. From a review of the reactions to the plan from Middle East papers, Jefferson Morley unearths this gem from "Al-Quds al-Arabi, the Saudi-owned, London-based Arab nationalist paper that is critical of the Saudi royal family and the United States." (Unfortunately, I cannot find an English version of the site.) The editor:

worried that the peace overture might lead, among other things, to Jewish tourists in Saudi Arabia. Did it cross Abdullah's mind, Atwan asks,
"that normalization of tourist ties could mean that swarms of Israeli tourists would want to visit Medina to look for traces of their forefathers, and to hold religious festivals on their holidays to commemorate anniversaries of the Bani Quraydhah and Bani Qinqa (Pre-Islam Jewish tribes that dwelt in southwest the Arabian Peninsula), exactly as they visit Jarbah in Tunisia and the Abu-Hasirah grave in Egypt."
I can reassure the editor that not many Israelis will be holding the specific "religious festivals" he refers to. But imagine the horrors of Israelis visiting Medina!

THERE'S A SHOCK: About 18 hours after closing on their purchase of the Boston Red Sox, the new ownership group fired general manager Dan Duquette.
If Duquette had stepped down before the 2000 season, he would have been recognized as one of the best GMs in baseball. At that point, he had led the Sox to a division title in 1995 and consecutive wild-card berths in 1998 and 1999 and built the foundation for a great team with Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra. The farm system looked at least OK, and he had shown that he knew the value of the waiver wire, acquiring good complementary players like Brian Daubach, Troy O'Leary and Tim Wakefield for nothing. And he had just traded for what looked like an outstanding complementary bat in Carl Everett. People did not laugh when Sports Illustrated picked them to win the 2000 World Series.
What happened? With the Red Sox on the brink of a championship, he did what other teams have done (such as the Yankees in the 1980s): he made moves designed to put them over the top which only pushed them further away. He forgot what he had learned about the waiver wire: you can find complementary players for nothing, so it makes no sense to: a) trade good prospects for expensive veterans when you can find cheaper players who will do the same thing at little cost, and b) give long-term contracts to your waiver-wire finds, because you can find cheap replacements where the originals came from. He did both those things; trading Dennis Tankersley for Ed Sprague, Chris Retisima for Dante Bichette, giving a long-term deal to Troy O'Leary, getting suckered into taking the contract of Mike Lansing.... Trades like those depleted the farm system, which is now one of the worst in baseball.
The Boston Globe has chronicled Duquette's personality flaws at great length, and I won't reiterate them here. But if Duquette had stuck to what had worked well through 1999, those flaws would not have been enough to cause him to lose his job.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: From Andrew Sullivan, another great item from Mark Steyn regarding the murder of Daniel Pearl. Referring to a recent column by Robert Fisk, the British columnist famous for his pathological anti-America and anti-Israeli views, Steyn notes:
In Saturday's Independent, Fisk reflected on the death of the man described as his friend: "But why was he killed? Because he was a Westerner, a 'Kaffir'? Because he was an American? Or because he was a journalist?" Anyone spot the missing category? It's the one Omar Sheikh used, and the one acknowledged by Daniel Pearl in his last words: "Yes, I am a Jew ..."
Also, Steyn takes accurate aim at those who persist in the misconception that conflicts are inevitably caused by "misconceptions":
George Jonas wrote a brilliant column the other day on the delusions of those who think they can "establish a 'dialogue' with fanatics" or, as some of Pearl's friends put it, "bridge the misconceptions." The "misconception", presumably, is that these men are ruthless, violent, depraved. As surely we know by now, the only misconception is that that's a misconception.

AT LEAST ONE THING IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD: Exhibition games have started. Just over a month until Opening Day.
IT HAS ARRIVED: Baseball Prospectus 2002 has arrived. I'm devouring it and will post on it over the weekend.

DOES THE STATE DEPARTMENT KNOW ABOUT THIS? Not everything in the New York Times is bad. Today's edition had an interview with Secretary Powell regarding the Middle East - i.e., the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - where the Secretary comitted a "gaffe," famously defined by Michael Kinsley as when "a politician tells the truth."
"What that usually means is, `Go and force the Israelis to do something.' That's what many people think when they say, `Get more engaged,' or: `You're standing on the sidelines. You haven't made Israel blink in the face of this violence.' "

DON'T YOU KNOW THIS ISN'T ALLOWED TO HAPPEN? From Best of the Web, more evidence that the Saudis may not be playing the role assigned them by the NYT. More damningly, the NYT somehow deemed news of this speech not fit to print.

RUBBER GLOVES AND SHARP STICKS: I highly recommend a blog from the Muslim Pundit, a Brit who delights in skewering the logical pretensions and the bigotry of certain of his co-religionists. The most recent entry on his site recounts in detail a campus clash between Jewish and Muslim organizations. Here's an excerpt, where he quotes and comments upon an e-mail from the university's Islamic Society:

"Today was cold and wet and windy, and yet the brothers and sisters stood strong and did not move... even if the heavens opened up form above we would stand strong Insha Allah."
Next time, I would suggest to God that he should try harder in giving these Muslims a hint. But then, of course, I still can't be certain that hint, however forceful, would ever register to these idiots down here.

It only gets better.
Of course, the insults have a certain poignancy, as they stem from love for what he sees as a more accurate rendition of his religion and pain at seeing it perverted.
In any case, I have enjoyed the blog for a while and will place a link on the "Links" sidebar as soon as I an get around to updating it.

YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE, BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE: Despite describing himself as a "lapsed historian," Joshua Marshall returns to his roots in a brief review of the book Moorish Spain by Richard Fletcher. Marshall notes that:

This isn't the sort of thought one is supposed to allow oneself in a book review - even a casual one. But what I find so captivating about this topic is how striking it is that this part of Europe - deeply Christian, speaking a Romance language, part of the western fringe of the Roman Empire - was Muslim for more than half a millenium. Mosques ruled over churches. The Christian population slowly converted to Islam. Arabic became the lingua franca - at least for the more refined and cultured portion of the population, and at least in the great cities. It's all very alien and weird - an alternative possibility for how Europe might have developed - and thus fascinating.

I don't see what's wrong with that thought - why isn't it appropriate to see the "alternative possibilities?"
UPDATE: Mr. Marshall has clarified that the thought one isn't "supposed to allow oneself in a book review" was the personal reaction of finding something "captivating," not the substance of the thought itself. Either way, I don't see a problem (and apparently he doesn't either.)

YOU SCRATCH MY BACK, I'LL... Thanks to Megan McArdle for being the first well-known "blogger" to mention this site. Pay her site a visit (you can use the "Live from the WTC" link on the right sidebar) and wish her luck in her job search.

THE GENIUS WITHOUT QUALITIES: I've touted Robert Musil before, and he currently has a viciously original piece on the resume of Al Gore.

THE VIEW ACROSS THE POND: From Instapundit, a wonderful satire of Eurosnobbery from James Lileks. It defies description, but is the subject of this prescription from Professor Reynolds:
[F]ace the Twin Cities, bow down, and repeat: "We are not worthy. We are not worthy." Say this especially if you are a journalist, and double-especially if you are an American correspondent from a British or Continental newspaper phoning in tripe like the piece that Lileks dissects.

ON A SNARKY ROLL: Michael Kelly's latest strikes gold again, with nasty comments that have the added virtue of being true. A twofer! Among the gems are:

In the opinion of the man who presided over 400-plus days of "America Held Hostage," George W. Bush's description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil" was "overly simplistic and counterproductive." Added the man who was once attacked by a rabbit, "I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement."
It is tempting to accept Carter's verdict as all the proof needed that Bush is solidly on the right track. But the argument needs to be addressed, not because it is not foolish but because it is the fashion among fools. And, as the great political novelist Ross Thomas once pointed out, when you've got all the fools in town on your side, you've practically won.
The reviews are in, and they are bad," recently declared Mark Lilla, who is a professor of something called social thought (presumably, there are professors of antisocial thought too, but no one knows who they are since they won't answer the phone). "President Bush's characterization of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an 'axis of evil' has been met by our allies' puzzled annoyance and by massive rallies in Iran that only strengthened hard-line elements there."
This is a fair summation of the fools' position, and it is almost entirely wrong.
And as a final jab:
Finally, there is the notion, voiced by both the former president and the professor of social thought, that Bush's rhetoric somehow served to give succor to "the hard-liners" and to set back the cause of peace. It may be generally noted that this has served as Trope Number One for the appeasement-minded since young Jimmy was studying at Uncle Neville's knee, and it has always been proved wrong, usually after the death of a very large number of people. Specifically, it may be added that anyone who takes "massive rallies" in the ayatollahs' Iran as a face-value manifestation of spontaneous popular sentiment is a hopeless naif. Or possibly a professor of social thought. Or possibly a former president.

DID THE NEW YORK TIMES GIVE PERMISSION FOR THIS TO HAPPEN? Despite the NY Times' best efforts, not everyone is cooperating in the rush to embrace the Saudi "peace plan" - specifically, the Saudis themselves, according to this article in Ha'aretz (the third item).
Also, in The American Prospect, Richard Just points out some problems with the proposal:
Israel's pre-1967 borders are militarily indefensible. It is possible not to care about this particular fact (Israel's detractors in the Arab world seem not to) but it is not possible to deny it. No country that has been invaded three times in 50 years should -- or will -- accept indefensible borders. At the same time, most Israelis understand that their country must -- for reasons moral as well as practical -- allow the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Most Israelis know that, broadly speaking, this means an approximate return to pre-1967 borders.
The key word, though, is approximate. It has long been understood that the pre-1967 borders will provide the rough outlines of a final settlement. The key to resolving the entire conflict rests in how to tweak the pre-1967 borders to make them defensible. (Measures such as the creation of an Israeli security strip along the Jordan River, the setting up of Israeli listening posts in the West Bank, and Israeli control over Palestinian airspace could accomplish this -- without undue infringements on Palestinian sovereignty.) The moderate Israeli belief -- epitomized by the views of Yitzhak Rabin -- that Israel could be both reasonably secure and allow the creation of a Palestinian state for years sustained the faith of the crucial Israeli center in the peace process. And that is exactly what seven years of negotiations were supposed to deliver: a compromise that recognized the Palestinians' right to a state on the vast majority of the West Bank and Gaza while also accommodating Israel's legitimate need for security. By throwing down what sounds like an all-or-nothing proposal, Saudi Arabia demonstrates that it still doesn't understand why negotiations have always been necessary -- and still are.
Also, Just makes the following welcome distinction:
The Saudi Arabian proposal also appears to dangerously conflate Israel's need for a Palestinian endgame with its need for a settlement with Syria. The two issues could not be more different: Settling with the Palestinians is both a moral and strategic imperative for Israel; settling with a Syrian dictator who has given every indication of being a dangerous anti-Semite is not. Unlike the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the occupation of the Golan Heights has never been a morally dubious enterprise, and it continues to be necessary. Here again, Prince Abdullah's proposal oversimplifies: He assumes that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will also resolve the Israeli-Syrian conflict. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Just's specific points are valid, but his stressing the need for negotiations only hints at the real issue: Even if a peace agreement is reached, the result will not necessarily be peace. The second intifada has destroyed, for most Israelis, the belief that a peace agreement will put an end to conflict with the Palestinians. By turning down the offer at Camp David and starting the intifada as a counteroffer, the Palestinians showed that even the most unrealizable grievance - i.e., the "right of return" - could be a pretext for resorting to armed conflict, in violation of every agreement made in connection with the Oslo process. No realistic peace agreement could be expected to satisfy all Palestinian grievances, and the present intifada has shown that the Palestinians prefer violence to an imperfect peace.
Accordingly, those who look at the Camp David and Taba meetings and think that true peace was almost at hand - such as Yossi Beilin and the New York Times - are missing the point; they are confusing the appearance of peace with the thing itself.
As one last aside, Smarter Times skewers the NYT's proprietary hyping ot the Saudi plan, with the following point which Thomas Friedman knows but his editors have forgotten:
[M]ost of the Arab tyrants are not interested in normalizing relations with Israel. They are interesting in "talking" about it, because it reaps them the public relations benefit of changing the subject away from their own repressive human rights practices and their support for terrorist attacks against Americans.

A TRUE GENTLEMAN NEVER ASKS: Rob Neyer has an informative piece on the history of baseball players shaving years off their ages. Neyer shows that almost 25% of players in the major leagues in 1952 had what used to be called "baseball ages."
In his review of the 1952 players, Neyer has the following observation regarding Latin American and black players of the time, who were the groups most likely to reduce their ages by more than one year :

Historically, most players who've invented birthdays simply shaved one year. But most of the Spanish speakers and the American blacks figured if they were going to fib, they might as well get their money's worth.

And of course, the Yankees' "El Duque" Hernandez continues that tradition, shaving four years of his age in a fiction that receives lip service from the Yankees' front office and from no one else.
With the phenomenon being this widespread, we may have to adjust our expectations of players' career paths. Analysts have long pinpointed age 27 as being the peak time period for hitters (isolating an expected peak is much more difficult and inexact for pitchers, for reasons which I won't get into here). Is it possible that much of the data we've relied upon in reaching that conclusion has been false?
One other aside. According to Robert Creamer's biography Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, Babe Ruth did the reverse: he added a year onto his age in his youth due to some confusion (I don't have the book with me and don't remember the details), and according to creamer, never bothered to correct it even after the mistake was demonstrated to him during his career. Babe Ruth was always an original.

GROW UP: Via Instapundit, this piece from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung discusse neutrality in Europe and the intersection of pragmatism and idealism. Some excerpts:
None of the four states, who have long since stopped speaking of neutrality and have chosen instead the clever euphemism "freedom from alliances" to describe their partiality, ever left any doubt in past decades about where they really belonged. Finland alone was forced to accept the shadow of the Soviet Union as a constant reality. Geography was kinder to Austria. For although "permanent neutrality" was, for similar reasons, a condition of its sovereignty, it used the freedom this offered -- as did Ireland and Sweden -- to cultivate a noble image as the world's conscience, thus diverting attention from the fact that others were taking care of its security.
The end of this supposed superiority, which turned a pragmatically motivated decision in favor of a life between the fronts into a moral right to hover above the fronts, is today proving to be painful. Up above, the neutral states had an easy time, laying claim worldwide to issues like development aid, environmental protection, confidence-building and pacifism. Down below, meanwhile, alliances armed to the teeth thrashed about trying to achieve equilibrium in a bipolar world. Although no one seriously believed that the neutral states would be able to retreat completely from this world, least of all the states themselves, no one was allowed to say so out loud: for neutrality exists only in the eye of the beholder.
Yet these days, Europe is more of a dithering, neutral bloc than ever before in its history. In the war against terror, too, the Europeans are once again trying to avoid getting their hands dirty -- even in the course of defending their own interests. This in turn points to a deep-seated yearning for the kind of moral impeccability that the neutral states for so long indulged. Let no one claim there is no longer any place for them in Europe.

Isn't the moralism of the European elites like that of a college student who is takes for granted that Mommy & Daddy will pay the tuition and credit card bills?

TRUTH AND POWER: Matt Welch has an excellent article analyzing the true effect of sanctions on Iraq over the last decade.

THE TIDE TURNS: Via Andrew Sullivan, a pungent column by Michael Lewis on why Enron workers mostly are not the blameless innocents the media makes them out to be. I didn't realize that the lock-down in Enron shares encompassed such a small part of the collapse of the stock.
On a related topic, some of the best commentary on the Enron debacle has come from Robert Musil, a.k.a. the Man Without Qualities.

YOU TALKIN' TO ME? Fantastic piece by the fantastic Victor Davis Hanson regarding U.S. - Europe relations. I do think that the talk about the end of the U.S. - Europe alliance is overblown, but the Europeans do need to understand that the post 9/11 world is truly different; the P.R. indulgences of the past now reside there.

HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES: Rany Jazayerli has resumed his regular look at the Kansas City Royals. This entry shows how the current GM may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater when he took over.
Along with Andrew Sullivan's site, one the foremost influences for this site was the work of Rany and Rob Neyer on the Royals. Their efforts, and Rany's subsequent project, have provided a model of an analytical approach fused with a weblog-style beat report on your favorite team. Check out Rany's reports at Baseball Prospectus.

ASIDE ALERT: My copy of Baseball Prospectus should finally arrive any day. As soon as it does, regular reports will appear here. You have been warned.

"I KNOW I'M RIGHT," HE EXPLAINED: Enjoy the last paragraph of Paul Krugman's latest.

BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS: Richard Cohen reminds us that the vile anti-Semitism spouted throughout the Arab world, with the encouragement and support of the relevant governments, has consequences.

THE MAESTRO SPEAKS: Andrew Sullivan describes the evolution and ramifications of "blogging," as comprehensively as anyone can. Sullivan's site has become a real sensation in journalism in the last year or so. Having been a fan since virtually the moment he set it up, it's been fun watching and drawing inspiration from it.

HAPPY PURIM: The Gulf War cease-fire was declared right around the holiday of Purim in 1991 (whether it was the exact day, I don't recall). On that note, I'm off to synagogue, hoping for similar events (but with a more solid achievement to justify the joy). Happy Purim to everyone.

THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR A MASSIVE INCREASE IN THE DEFENSE BUDGET: According to this article in the Washington Post, the military is short of much necessary materiel needed for further attacks on places such as Iraq.
I remember when Bill Clinton became President, a potent political argument for his tax increases was that we had enjoyed the propserity of the 80s without paying for it, and the bill was now coming due.
It now appears that we enjoyed the peace and prosperity of the 90s without paying for a large part of them, and the bill is now coming due.

IRAN TO IRAQ: An excellent piece by Kenneth Pollack in the latest Foreign Affairs on why we should overthrow Saddam ASAP, and why it will require a U.S. invasion.
The best argument against doing so is, as set out by people such as Steve Chapman, is that:
a) Saddam has been deterred up to this point from using unconventional weapons by our (and Israel's, in the context of the Gulf War) broad hints at nuclear retaliation if he were to use such weapons, and
b) that deterrence would likely not work if Saddam knew we were coming to finish him off; he'd have no incentive not to fire everything he has (i.e., tons of chemical weapons, whatever rudiments of a nuclear weapon he has, etc.)
The problem with this argument is that it underestimates the likelihood (which, absent an act of God, is close to a certainty given Saddam's track record) that we will have to run the risk of nuclear confrontation with Saddam anyway, and it will be on his timetable if the U.S. does not act. Think a re-run of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, only this time with a promise by Saddam that he will use nuclear weapons against us if we try to replay the Gulf War.
As people should have learned from the 1990s, sanctions do not work for the same reasons that cartels do not work; it depends on cooperation of many actors, every one of which has a tremendous incentive to cheat. Only "regime change" will be able to prevent Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons, and, as seen by the rationalizations of those such as Leon Fuerth and Jacob Weisberg, there will be no shortage of statesman-sounding reasons not to attack Saddam until we are forced with the risk of letting Saddam run free in the world or facing nuclear attack.

AND AS LONG AS WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT: William Safire has a much more realistic and pungent view of the recent Saudi "offer:" "warmed-over whining in new bottles."

WAKE UP: Jim Hoagland has a deeply cynical view of Pakistan and Pervez Musharraf, strikingly at odds with much of the positive press he has received since 9/11. There is no doubt that Musharraf has done many good things since that date - his moves against the terror-supporting elements of his country go much further than anything Yasser Arafat has dreamed of doing - but it if Hoagland is correct, it is important to face up to the flaws that remain.
Contra the NYT's constant bleating, the disintegration in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" is not because the Bush administration disengaged from the region. Far more responsible was the Israeli and American years-long refusal to face the ramifications of the skin-deep commitment of the Palestinians to a peaceful compromise - the refusal to admit that the massive arming of the innumerable Palestinian "security" forces or the constant hatred taught by the Palestinian schools and media meant anything. If Musharraf's efforts are similarly flawed (even through no fault of his own), the worst thing the U.S. can do is to wish those flaws away as it did with the Palestinians.

FROM THE LION'S DEN: I've been meaning to write about this piece for a while. While I haven't been on Columbia's campus for a while, I did spend much of the 90's there getting undergraduate and law degrees, and I loved the place despite itself. The description in the article sounds all too plausible.
What irritates me most about the prevalence of shallow anti-Americanism on Columbia and other campuses is not even the substance itself (though that's bad enough) or the atrocious quality of thought that goes into much of what passes for argument from those quarters. It's the conviction that they are being non-conformists, bravely rebelling against conventional thought. Campuses - and Columbia is no exception, which I know from first hand experience - are among the most suffocatingly conformist, and homogenous in thought, places in the U.S. today. Here's a tip: You aren't being non-conformist when everyone around you thinks exactly the way you do.
I would appreciate hearing from people with recent first-hand exposure to the Columbia campus as to whether the attitude described above reflects their experience. Click on my "name."
There are too many links to choose from to help illustrate the atmosphere on Columbia campus. Try this article. He's overstating the case to compare Columbia's atmosphere to North Korea, but it's irritating enough.

NOSTALGIA ALERT: I was going to give Paul Krugman a pass for today's column, which doesn't have the usual overt snideness we've grown used to (and even has a touch of humilty at the end, a drink which the Professor needs to imbibe freely). I did think something was funny about his characterization of the $300/$600 tax rebate as an advance on future tax cuts, though - and then saw this letter cited by Andrew Sullivan, worth reproducing in detail:
It might be worth pointing to today's Krugman column as an example of how intellectually slack this once able economist has become. He completely mischaracterizes "line 47" (the rate reduction credit on the 2001 Form 1040) as some sort of snatching away of the $300/$600 tax credit we all received last fall. In fact, it is an opportunity for those who did not receive a check they should have received to claim the credit. And the $300 was not, in any case, an "advance on future tax cuts", it was the immediate implementation of the 2001 tax cut retroactive to the beginning of 2001. Doesn't this guy check his facts anymore?
So, here's today's corrective: This 1999 Slate piece discusses the good and bad -actually, just the bad - of recessions.

THIS WEEK'S SIGN THAT THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US: I'm listening to the "Mike and the Mad Dog" radio show (sports talk, with hosts who in many respects haven't entered the 1990s yet) as I work, and the sole topic of conversation is the figure skating competition last night.

IF IT'S IN OUR PAGES, IT MUST BE TRUE: The NYT gets carried away with the "story" that Thomas Friedman broke in his previous column regarding the Saudis' supposed willingness to spearhead an offer of full recognition and normal relation with Israel in return for a withdrawal to the 1967 lines. Friedman was far more skeptical than his own editors, and appropriately so. Let's wait until this proposal is actually made before getting excited about it, OK? I suppose the editorial page couldn't resist the temptation to appear above the fray.

IF YOU RUN SOMEONE OVER, YOU DON'T UNDO YOUR MISTAKE BY BACKING THE CAR UP: Another outstanding piece by Yossi Klein Halevi in The Jewish Week regarding the attempts by "the very people who once assured us that the terrorists had transformed themselves into peacemakers" to recycle their ideas which didn't work in the past. For those who aren't familiar with Halevi's work, try this article regarding the "cycle of violence" and this interview with Salon.

WRIGHT IS WRONG: In Slate, Robert Wright has been a persistent critic of just about every move the Bush Administration has made in the war on terrorism. His latest effort shows how even razor-shrp logic will lead you astray if it starts from the wrong premises.
The flaws in Wright's approach can be summed up in one sentence: he hasn't read his Bernard Lewis. Fundamental to Wright's critiques is the belief that if the U.S. acts wisely (i.e., in accordance with Wright's prescriptions), it can drastically reduce the number of Muslims who hate the U.S. and thus reduce the pool of future terrorists. The corollary to that argument is that if the U.S. acts unwisely (i.e., everything the Bush administration has done), it will expand the ranks of those Muslims who hate us and accordingly expand the pool of future terrorists. As such, Wright's critiques are merely a higher-class version of the familiar voices who seek to blame certain American policies for "why they hate us;" he merely substitutes game theory for a general animus towards Israel or U.S. policy during the Cold War.
The problem with Wright's (and his cohorts') approach is that, as elegantly explained by Lewis in this November article in The New Yorker and in this prophetic 1990 piece from the Atlantic Monthly, "they hate us" for what we are and what we represent (the "House of War," to use Lewis' phrase), and that our actions directed at the Muslim countries are of secondary importance in influencing Muslim attitudes - and when such actions are important, they often don't cut the way people assume Wright and his ilk assume they do. (See Lewis' New Yorker piece regarding the U.S.' relations with Sharon and the Shah.)

THE WORST FEARS: Apparently Daniel Pearl has been murdered by his captors. We should all pray for his family, and for the destruction of his murderers and those who supported them.

MORE FROM THE SPECTATOR: Matt Ridley praises Bjorn Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist and bashes its critics.
I have not read the book - and would appreciate hearing from anyone who has (click my name at the bottom of the post) - but the controversy surrounding it sounds eerily like that which surrounded Gregg Easterbrook's A Moment on the Earth (one of my favorite books) when it was published in 1995.

THE ULTIMATE QUESTION OF OUR TIME: Bill Simmons considers it, in the final question of his regular "Mailbag" segment.

I'M BACK: No more posts lost by Blogger after hours of work. From InstaPundit, this Mark Steyn article is an absolute riot - and spot-on, too! (As they say in the UK.) For another must-read from Steyn, try this classic about the U.S., Europe and the Palestinians.

SOME BRAINS NEED A GOOD WASHING: OpinionJournal's "Best of the Web" is always a must-read, and today's entry has, among other jewels, the following priceless entry:

The Des Moines Register offers a revealing view on the militant Muslim mind from David Baugh, a civil-liberties lawyer who's represented al Qaeda members in court: "When the American press talks about suicide bombers, Muslims become upset for the same reason you would be upset if your son died trying to save a drowning child. Your son sacrificed his life for another. If someone walked up to you and said, 'I'm sorry about your son committing suicide,' you'd probably want to punch them." Murdering Jews, saving a drowning child--what's the difference, really?

INTOLERANCE: Saul Singer often has interesting pieces in the Jerusalem Post, and this article is no exception.

WE'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN WE SEE IT: Thomas Friedman is appropriately skeptical about the supposed willingness of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to offer a full peace to Israel in return for a withdrawal to the 1967 lines. The dog has eaten these proposed peace offers too many times. But it's better than refusing to make the offer even in theory, I guess.

THE MEN WITH THE GOLDEN ARMS: Great piece by Michael Wolverton at Baseball Prospectus regarding the correlation of runners cought stealing by catchers from year to year. This earlier piece demonstrated just how much a catcher's throwing arm can make up for a relative offensive deficiency. For another example, see this ESPN.com piece comparing Ivan Rodriguez and Mike Piazza. In sabermetrics, much of the action over the last few years has been in measuring aspects of defensive performance. The best part of Bill James' New Historica Baseball Abstract was the defensive component of James' Win shares method, which extends his offensive formulas to measuring defensive performance.
In the current Wolverton piece, he notes that a further column will examine the deterrent effects of a catcher's arm (i.e., how runners may stop trying to steal on a catcher) and how to measure such effects. In the New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James states that teams steal more often when they are ahead than when behind, meaning that bad teams face more stolen base attempts than good teams. It thus appears that a true measurement of a catcher's arm would have to take into account not only the deterrrent effects of a catcher's arm, but also the team's won-lost record. Perhaps James has a formula for adjusting expected stolen-base attempts based on a team's won-lost record. We await publication of his Win Shares book for the answer.

NOSTALGIA INTRO: As feared, Paul Krugman has gone over the edge again. Accordingly, for the benefit of those of us who were big Krugman fans before he got the NYT job and devolved into the equivalent of a tape-recorded screech on continuous play, I am inaugurating a new feature. For each monotonous Krugman screed that graces the NYT Op-Ed page, I will link to a better, more substantive example of Krugman's writing from his previous incarnations. Most of the links will come from Slate, but not all. Today's entry was originally published on May 16, 1997 in Slate regarding rational choice theory as an explanation for political corruption. This may have been one of Krugman's weaker Slate pieces, which gives you an idea of how far he has descended with his NYT efforts.

IMPRACTICAL IDEALISM: Michael Nauman, the editor of the German weekly "Die Zeit," has a piece in the NYT that wastes no time becoming disjointed:

In June 1981, Israel's prime minister, Menachem Begin, ordered a posse of F-16 jets to take out Saddam Hussein's two nuclear reactors. With vast petroleum reserves, Iraq had no imaginable need for nuclear energy — except to make bombs. And Mr. Hussein had openly declared his intention to attack Israel.
Publicly, Begin was scorned for his outrageous breach of international law. Privately, however, many politicians agreed: Why not destroy Iraq's potentially murderous nuclear toys? Mr. Hussein did go on to start two wars. But he lost both, and if he had been armed with nuclear bombs world history could have taken a very ugly turn.
However, while the man is dangerous and crazy, we do not know that he has weapons of mass destruction. He seems to have had precious little connection to Sept. 11. His army has been destroyed. Therefore, two decades after Begin's attack, America's European allies would deplore a repetition of the Persian Gulf war. Their doubts are born from an ingrained sense of realpolitik. Europe learned a lesson in World War I: slipping into a conflict, with no clear moral sense of one's mission or of the likely military outcome, became a basic fear. Europeans' great source of anxiety was the prospect of being caught in an uncontrollable military escalation.

So: 1) Israel's actions in 1981 were appropriate and helped save the world from a nuclear-armed Saddam, 2) Saddam remains "dangerous and crazy" (and is indisputably subordinating his country's welfare to the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction), and 3) therefore, we should not move against him now. Did I miss something?
More importantly, Nauman's explanation for European reluctance is, in my opinion, completely off-base. The reluctance to move against Saddam is not grounded in realpolitik. It is grounded in a peculiar, legalistic form of idealism - alluded to in Nauman's comment that Saddam appears to have little connection to September 11. The argument for removing Saddam now is a prophylactic one - grounded solely in arguments of national self-interest. The Europeans (and U.S. Democrats, for that matter) approach the question of removing Saddam from a legalistic perspective - i.e., has he committed a specific wrong against the U.S. which gives it the right to oust him? The founders of realpolitik no longer recognize the rationale of raison d'etat.

STILL WORKING AT IT: I will have some of these formatting issues fixed soon.
UPDATE - TOLD YOU SO: I have now figured out how to add links, and the e-mail link to my name should be working.

MORE ON WHY SOME TEAMS STAY BAD: In an otherwise unremarkable dispatch from the Yankees' spring training camp in Tampa, Joel Sherman has this note on the neighboring Devil Rays:

Yesterday's Tampa Tribune had a headline that read, "Few Jobs Open as Rays Open Camp." That is interesting since here in Year 5 of their existence, the Devil Rays have never won 70 games and lost 100 last season.
For Tampa to have few jobs open, then its leadership is either delusional or the players' abilities are being scored on a curve even outrageous for French pairs figure skating judges.

KRUGMAN'S END: Jonathan Rauch is always worth reading, and this piece on Paul Krugman and his Enron money is wonderfully nasty. I personally don't object to his Enron fees as Andrew Sullivan and others have; his problem is his recycling the same half-baked political screed over and over again, as Rauch wonderfully shows.
Krugman's column today is actually slightly better than some of his other efforts, so I will wait to inaugurate my planned Krugman feature. Hopefully it will be irregular. More on it as events develop.

BUD SELIG'S WORST NIGHTMARE: Check out this preview of the Minnesota Twins for a look at how good the Twins can be in the upcoming years. Even allowing for the fact that Sickels is a Twins fan, you can see how much young talent they have stockpiled.
Here's a handy way to show why you should never believe Bud Selig. How often have you heard the Commisioner say a variation of the following: "At the start of spring training, there no longer exists hope and faith for the fans of more than half our 30 clubs."
Now take out a copy of last year's standings, and compile a list of teams which, as spring training begins again, have "hope and faith" of making the playoffs if things go right. As Peter Gammons points out, your list will probably include between 16-22 teams. If anything, I'd say he's being too pessimistic about the Padres. Even Detroit has a chance to be good in the near future, now that they have a real GM. In any case, even if your criteria are stricter than Gammons', there is no way your list can exclude half the teams in the game. (And historically, if your criteria are much stricter than Gammons, you stand a good chance of being shocked on a regular basis. More on that another time.)
There is a lot to say on the subject of competitive balance in baseball, and this site will hopefully say some of it. But as an introductory principle, you can't go wrong with this: Don't believe Bud Selig.
UPDATE: This David Schoenfeld piece elaborates on Gammons' list, and shows another point about which much more could be said: many of the teams that have "no hope and faith" cannot use the lack of resources as their excuse.

AND, IN HONOR OF THE ACADEMY AWARDS, WE PRESENT THE HEIR TO PAULINE KAEL: Bill Simmons strikes again with this review of "Rollerball." I have never seen the original and certainly won't see the remake, but Simmons' movie writing is always good for laughs (most of which are meant to be intentional). Yankee fans can torture Red Sox fans who are still giddy over the Patriots' victory with this homage to "The Godfather."

THIS ARTICLE IS VERY GOOD NEWS: For those of us who look at eight hours' sleep as 2-3 days' worth.

OCCAM'S RAZOR MEETS THE STATE OF THE UNION: An irresistible Michael Kelly column gets this off to a good start. Two selections from a column full of them, on common predictions of disaster if the U.S. moves against Iraq:

It is "simplisme." It is simplistic, or simple-minded, as the French foreign minister, whose name is Petain or Maginot or something, sniffed last week. C'est vrai. It is indeed "simplisme" to pick fights with evil regimes just because those regimes want to kill you or enslave you or at least force you to knuckle under and collaborate in their evil, when one might choose the far safer and far more profitable path of shrugging one's shoulders in a fetchingly Gallic fashion and sending one's Jews off to the camps, as one's new masters in government request.

And,

The Arab Street will rise in flames. The "street" in any given Arab country consists of 278 state-sanctioned mullahs already preaching death to the Americans and the Jews, five state-controlled newspaper opinion columnists preaching ditto, 577,000 state security officers making sure nobody says anything to the contrary and 73 million people who would very much like to be living in New Jersey. In Kabul, they cheered and kissed our soldiers. In Baghdad, they'd love to have the chance.

The power of inertia over critical thinking is always stunning. Don't people remember the Iraqis trying to surrender to anything that moved in 1991? And about the French...well, there's nothing like Mr. Kelly sticking the knife and giving it a good twist. The media needs to be more cynical towards Europe in examining their motives for criticizing everything the U.S. does, rather than accepting it at face value and using it to validate their own impulses.