I find this much cooler and definitely more endearing than Viking kittens singing The Immigrant Song or Superfriends wassuping: “Hey Ya, Charlie Brown”:http://www.venisproductions.com/movies/heyyacb.html. Be sure to check it out before somebody sends them a cease & desist order for blatant copyright infringement. I hadn’t even heard the song before — clearly I need to be listening to more Outkast. I resolve to emulate Linus’ dance style at the very next wedding reception I attend. Complete with blanket if I can swing it.

Hat tip to Scott Stegenga.

UPDATE: Down in the comments, Ryan King, one of the piece’s creators, provides a mirror link that works “here”:http://www.files.funfreepages.com/videos/heyyacb.mov.

Harper’s finally has a website worth speaking of—nothing to match The Atlantic’s just yet, but at least they’re putting some actual content up on the Web, and they have a good, elegant design. On their front page at the moment is an article from their archives: Seizing Arab Oil, by a guy writing under the pseudonym Miles Ignotus (Latin for ‘unknown soldier’). I read it with interest, never having heard of the article or the guy before—apologies if all of this is old news for people savvy to Cold War history and those who were politically aware in 1975, when it was first published.

Briefly, “Seizing Arab Oil” addresses the threat that OPEC posed to the world economy, especially after the oil embargo of 1973. After surveying the extent of the danger, the author discounts all possible responses other than direct military action, and then goes on to describe in considerable detail an operation to literally invade Saudi Arabia and take control of the Dharan oil fields. The remainder of the article addresses the geopolitical consequences of such an action and argues that if it was done with enough surprise, Russia wouldn’t be able to respond.

Wacky, wacky stuff. The whole while I thought that it sounded like something written by Henry Kissinger—it was well-articulated, sensible enough if you went along with some of its shakier premises, and displayed keen appreciation of global power politics without a single thought for loss of human life or other concerns of morality. But halfway through, Ignotus remarks disparagingly on Kissinger’s current solution for the OPEC problem.

Turns out, though, it was Kissinger who wrote it. Probably. All the info that follows is just a google search away; I’m sure there are historian bloggers out there who can flesh this all out, and I hope they do.

James Akins, then U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, criticized the article, saying in a television interview that whoever wrote it was “either a madman, a criminal, or an agent of the Soviet Union.” The basis for that last comment was the fact that Ignotus’ estimates for how long it would take to get the oil fields running again post-invasion were way off, and in the meantime (Akins argued) the European economy would certainly collapse, leaving it wide open to Russian aggression.

That’s not a critique that occurred to me while reading it; the most glaring weakness was the author’s blithe assumption that the rest of the world wouldn’t mind unbridled American aggression as long as it helped keep the price of oil down. (The world’s response to the Iraq invasion, which was not a surprise and even had a pretext, bears that out.) Also, Ignotus completly fails to consider the possible actions of the Arab populace, assuming them to be a passive mob safely under the thumb of the royal family who will adjust equally well to U.S. dominance. How’s that for naive? He also paints what is, in retrospect, a nonsensical view of the consequences if Saudi Arabia is not invaded:

For if we do not do it, [we’ll end up with] a somewhat impoverished America surrounded by a world turned in a slum. Almost everywhere, this would be an authoritarian slum, the product of utter hopelessness among the poor and mass unemployment among the former rich, all of us being forced to finance the executive jets of the sheiks and the fighter bombers of the dictators.

But back to Akins: he received a rude awakening when he discovered that it was Secretary of State Kissinger who had penned the article under the Ignotus pseudonym. This is the part I’d love to be able to confirm; it’s something that’s mentioned in a number of articles but nowhere absolutely definitive. At any rate, Akins was fired a month after he gave that interview.

According to some sources from the far left, “Seizing Arab Oil” is a foundational document of the neoconservative movement, and evidence that the Iraq War is something that’s been decades in the making. The most interesting and most-linked article on the subject is The Thirty-Year Itch, by Robert Dreyfuss, published in Mother Jones. All these articles, though, glide over the fact that “Seizing Arab Oil” argues that only by cutting into Saudi Arabia can OPEC be broken; in 1975, the author’s main concern about Iraq was that it would ally itself with the Soviets in response to America’s attack on its southern neighbor. (Oh, how times change . . .) The article is far too specific in both place and time to serve as a general blueprint for future Gulf aggression.

Anyway. It’s an interesting read, especially because a matter-of-fact policy argument that’s so brutally aggressive would never fly today. We’re left with the question of whether, in those smoke-filled back rooms, the architects of America’s current foreign policy look back on assessments like Ignotus’ with chagrin or with nostalgia.

One point on which “Seizing Arab Oil” is right and continues to be right even today: Saudi Arabia has us by the balls. There’s no solution to that problem that isn’t messy beyond measure.

UPDATE: Jim Henley offers another possible take on the article: it’s a bluff.

What if the article was the plan? That is, what if the point wasn’t to advocate seizing the Saudi oil fields, but to be seen to do so – to send a Kissingerian message about not pushing the US too far? If that were the case, you would want the Saudis to be able to figure out who the real author was, and you’d sacrifice Akins (who got fired about a month after the interview).

Jim’s theory is definitely supported by the excruciating logistical detail that dominates the middle part of the piece. Why get that specific unless you were trying to make a point? Of course, the plan requires the element of surprise, which is lost the minute the plan gets published. Then again, the fact that other versions of it appeared in several different publications again suggests that that may have been the point.

UPDATE: Then again, consider these links.

I don’t usually remember my dreams, but when I do . . . ho boy.

Last night, I dreamt that John Kerry and John Edwards paid me a visit in order to win my support in the primary. Which is to say, they were trying to convince me to vote for Kerry — Edwards confided that he knew he wasn’t going to win, but that Kerry had promised him the VP slot. I was quite flattered that they should give me such personal attention, but I had one important policy question before I gave them my response:

“What about the increase in bear hunting?”

Whoosh. The scene changed to a grizzled old guy in flannel talking about how hunters used to hunt all sorts of different animals, but now that the market for bear meat is so lucrative, they’re not hunting anything else. He expressed concern for the bear population, but when a living’s to be made hunting bear but not deer, what’s a family man to do?

Whoosh. I watched, as if from the top of a cliff, as the grizzled old guy shot down a brown bear and took it to the bear meat market, where there were dozens of wicker baskets filled with bear meat. Then suddenly at my elbow this guy appeared who had no individual identity but I instinctively knew was a Democratic Presidential Candidate.

“I can hunt bears too!” he exclaimed. “No!” I hollered, but he was already down there in the wilderness going after a _polar_ bear. I tried to shout out to him that polar bears are unusually dangerous and he should be careful, but of course he walked right up to a big dirty polar bear, who mauled him almost casually and then ambled away. The last part of the dream is the politician gushing blood in a way that’s so gory it wakes me up and I have trouble getting back to sleep.

Interpretation? I’m not even going to _touch_ it.

Man, I picked the wrong time to take a few days off of blogreading. There’s much good stuff out there on Iowa, post-Iowa, and the SOTU. Plus the normal chatter. Here’s a few links.

* Mary Kay of “Gallimaufry”:http://marykay.typepad.com/gallimaufry/ volunteered for Dean in Iowa and blogged the whole time. The most recent entry is “here”:http://marykay.typepad.com/gallimaufry/2004/01/iowa_part_the_f_1.html, and her sum-up is still forthcoming. Also (via “Calpundit”:http://www.calpundit.com/) there’s more Iowa reportage “here”:http://yin.blog-city.com/read/443926.htm from a blogger who participated in an actual caucus meeting.
* “Talking Points Memo”:http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ is hotter than usual these days, with Josh Marshall reporting directly from New Hampshire. For those who don’t read him regularly: the guy got enough donations to fund his trip there, so he’s doing all his reporting directly for his blog, as opposed to getting himself there on a press junket and giving the blog only the table scraps. He also has an interesting “interview with George Soros”:http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_01_18.html#002454.
* Dan of “Dislogue”:http://dislogue.dansch.net/, has returned after a long blogging hiatus, popping up here in Arlington, of all places. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Bush’s State of the Union address featured national security and the war on terror as one of his major topics, and he never mentioned Osama Bin Laden once. He has co-opted Iraq so successfully into the W on T that hardly anybody even calls him on it anymore.

If I didn’t have a personal stake in matters like, oh, say, the fate of our country, I might be able to step back and marvel at the way that he’s managed to bully the terms of the narrative to his liking and have the media and a good chunk of the electorate trot along behind. It’s a triumph of mass manipulation. As it is, though, I don’t marvel — I just grit my teeth and hope for the best in November.

A while back, I was worried about this sort of outcome: lots of Democratic contenders still in the field, sniping at each other’s heels and generally causing a ruckus. With Kerry’s victory in Iowa it now looks likely that a clear winner won’t emerge for several weeks — one commentator on NPR today even predicted that the fight for the nomination could go right up to the convention.

I _was_ worried, but it actually strikes me now as an advantage. Karl Rove can’t unleash the hounds on the winner until there _is_ a winner, and each week the race is still on is another week where there’s not just one person to attack. A close race also keeps the Democrats above the fold no matter what new attention-grabbing policy initiatives Bush unveils. Whoever finally emerges from the pack will have the aura of a victor, too.

So who do I want that to be? Back when I “decided to support Dean”:http://www.polytropos.org/archives/000080.html, I had already written off Kerry, which was clearly a mistake. One thing I’d love to know is whether his surge represents (at least in part) the fact that he actually does have a viable campaign, or whether he was just scoring off last-minute doubts about Dean. Kerry’s politics are actually a little closer to mine than Dean’s, but I’m concerned that he doesn’t have a campaign organization that can go toe to toe with Bush. As for that Dean-doubt issue . . . it bugs me. I find myself thinking “perhaps he’s too irate and brash to get elected,” but then must remind myself that this is just the media meme du jour, and may or may not have any grounding in reality. I wish I knew somebody closer to him who has a clearer idea of what he’s really like.

Ultimately either one of them is going to have a hard time beating Bush, but I wouldn’t be unhappy with either of them as President. So for now, _viva la campaña_!

UPDATE: Alert reader Ana has very kindly corrected my Spanish.

Here we are, nigh on six months’ worth of blogging, and I’ve yet to so much as mention my enthusiasm for German-style board games. That ain’t right! It’s true that I don’t get a chance to play a fine board game as often as I’d like, but the holidays are always a good time to try out some new ones. I picked up three newish games over the past few months; here are some capsule reviews.

New England won the GAMES magazine Game of the Year award last year. Its big design gimmick is in the bidding: the amount you bid each turn determines both your placement in the turn order and the amount you must pay for each of your two actions. This creates a very steep curve and a high price for going first, and as you might expect, going first can be very, very important. Players develop three different types of land (settlement, pasture, farmland) on a grid, so a la Lowenherz, there’s quite a bit of strategy in initial placement and in boxing out other players with your own real estate. Turns go fast and all the games I’ve played ended quite closely. The worst thing to be said about New England is that there’s not much new or groundbreaking about it—it’s another solid, B-level German game.

Alhambra won last year’s Spiel des Jahres prize, the German award that tends to favor games with broader appeal, unlike the more highbrow Deutscher Spiele Pries. The game is very simple: you have a hand of cards in four different currencies with which to buy and place buildings in your own Alhambra structure such that all the walls and roads line up. You only take one action each turn, so things move very fast. It has that “everybody’s working on their own project” dynamic of Princes of Florence and Puerto Rico, and at first glance it seemed like there wasn’t enough basis for interaction among players. Turns out there is, of course, and the game works rather well. Good beer & pretzels fare for the ubergeek set.

Carcassonne is old news to the savvy boardgamer, and a perennial favorite. At the game store I noticed they had a new edition that boxed the original game right in with both the expansions, neither of which I had ever got around to picking up. Even these are a year or two old, but nobody in Michigan had played with them either, so this game ended up getting the most play of all over the holidays. Mondo Carcassonne is a longer, more involved game than the bare original—not much more complicated, really, but something that’ll take 60-90 minutes instead of a quick half-hour. If the original game had a weakness, it was that drawing a tile of limited usefulness (like the dreaded elbow road) basically wasted your turn. The expansions add some more options, and pieces (like the builder) that can make that boring road piece an actual joy to draw.

That’s it for recent finds. Games on my wish list for the future: Pirate’s Cove, Traumfabrik, and of course a good Crokinole board.

I want to be more excited about the new agenda for space exploration than I am. My enthusiasm is undercut for obvious reasons: the crass political timing of the announcement, and the fact that Bush deferred all the real funding challenges to his successors. Like all grand schemes, it’s as likely that it will fizzle as that it will get off the ground. But I hope it happens. I hope we make a moon base, and eventually get people to Mars. Not just because it will inspire the kiddies to study math and science, but because it will inspire _us_ — it will give the country a unified goal to work toward, or at least to watch eagerly. We live in a bifurcated society, the hope of a post-9/11 movement toward national unity long-since lost. We could do with a big goal to bring us together. While the funding of it might get politicized, the goal itself — sending men and women to the stars — remains refreshingly aloof from partisan debate.

If you had asked me twenty years ago — or any of us, for that matter — how far Out There humanity would reach by 2004, we’d have assumed a Mars base and some asteroid mining projects, _at least_. We’d have been bitterly disappointed to learn how little would actually be accomplished in that time. We’ve been spinning our wheels for too long. The expectations of the popular imagination might have been optimistic, but they weren’t unrealistic. It’s high time we sought to put ourselves where we should already be.

Having a cold is bad enough, but it’s way worse when you’re worried about passing it on to your six-week-old daughter. Fortunately she shows no signs of getting sick. Her take on life is still very much in the eat/sleep/poop mode, though she’s beginning to find certain things in life mildly amusing, which is fun.

Anyway, in a continuation of yesterday’s diversionary tactics, have a look at:

* Teresa Nielsen Hayden on “geek knitting”:http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004347.html#004347.
* Chad Orzel on “going into space”:http://www.steelypips.org/principles/2004_01_11_principlearchive.php#107390976828382546 (make sure to read all three parts).
* And finally, “Belle”:http://examinedlife.typepad.com/johnbelle/2004/01/dem_bones_dem_b.html wins the award for best opening line of a blog entry in this century:

John’s recent musings on plastinated corpses reminded me that we have a suspicious amount of human remains here at my mom’s house.

“Nice card”:http://www.polytropos.org/mt-static/misc/george.jpg, Mr. President. Ella will appreciate it someday.

I’m still not voting for you, though.