:: Bluestarblog ::

:: Thursday, November 13, 2003 ::

I thought I knew album covers. I don't - not by a longshot. From Andrew Sullivan I found this wonderful collection: The Worst Album Covers Ever II (the first one is here).

And speaking of music, is White Stripes drummer Meg White a robot?

By way of the Gothamist I found this piece from last month's Guardian on their pick of The 40 greatest US bands today. I'm not going to get into the wisdom of their picks (though I have to say the inclusion of Marilyn Manson and Emmylou Harris is more than odd), but their points system is shameful. For a total score of a hundred, there are five categories worth 20 points each. Doesn't sound too dumb so far - until you see the categories: Sound, Songs, Gigs, Style, and Attitude. Style and attitude? You've got to be kidding. I understand the schtick aspect of music and how important the appeal package is, but designating categories for 'style' and 'attitude' and grading musicians on this out of a score of 20 has a way of stripping ya of that cool cred. For a music article in one of the world's most widely read newspapers, this is juvenile stuff.

Here's something a little more hip - The College Air Top 30.

On a sadder note, Glenn Reynolds laments the death of MP3.com.

A few more music pieces. Here's a site with a list of today's TV commercials and the songs they use and a site that has the lyrics and top songs from 1930-1999. A great resource for the pre-rock and roll eras of popular music.

And nice to see Pat Boone join the anti-idiotarian brigade.

:: Scot 3:46 PM [+] :: ::
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I've been reading some interesting geopolitical pieces lately - and yeah, some on our friends 'Old Europe' too.

James Pinkerton writes on the power blocs he sees happening in the near future:

...the American Bloc, led by, obviously, the United States...the Eurasian Bloc, led by France, Germany, and Russia...the East Asian Bloc, led by China.

It's a terrific read about the shifting political powers and alliances that are beginning to show (and beginning to crack). Game theorist James Miller optimistically disagrees by noting the long list of America's friends:

Pinkerton writes that if an alliance between France, Germany, and Russia "were ever to crystallize, the countries of 'New Europe,' sandwiched in between these far greater powers, would likely fall into line, as they always have in the past." I disagree, and believe an alliance among these three would cause Eastern Europe to seek U.S. protection. Napoleon, Hitler and the communist czars all used their periods of military dominance to conquer weaker European nations. After World War II, America, in contrast, forwent the opportunity to militarily subjugate Western Europe. Consequently, if forced to choose between a European and American power block, nations such as Poland would always prefer protection under America's nuclear umbrella to submission to Germany and Russia.

Trust of America is also a reason to doubt the rise of a China-led Asia. Pinkerton correctly points out that the decline of the Soviet Empire means that Europe has a lesser need for U.S. protection. Pinkerton fails to factor in, however, that an increase in Chinese power would cause Asia to have a greater need of U.S. assistance. Comparisons between America's military occupation of Japan and China's occupation of Tibet undoubtedly demonstrate to all Asians whom they can trust for military protection.

America's current supremacy is based on economic dominance as much as military might. Since New Europe is graying at a much faster rate than the U.S., demographics favor America's continued economic dominance over Western Europe. Indeed, when you combine Western Europe's aging workforce with her expansive social welfare policies, Western Europe appears to be at a permanent economic disadvantage compared to the U.S.

Although Pinkerton writes "The reality of China's economic surge is so obvious that one needn't spend time rehashing the data," I wouldn't trust any data coming from a country that would cover up the spread of infectious diseases such as AIDS and SARS. The epidemic of corruption in China will likely prevent her ever obtaining first-world status. In fact, China will become rich enough to challenge the U.S. only if she becomes a free enough society that she will no longer have any strategic interest in becoming an American rival.

Miller's piece is mainly a rebuttal and not as nuanced as Pinkerton's. It would be interesting to see a longer analysis from a game theorist. Mark Steyn has a less subtle look at the shape of things to come in his piece Europeans are worse than cockroaches. He, like Pinkerton, notes the Eurabia connection but doesn't see it going too far:

Europe is dying. As I’ve pointed out here before, it can’t square rising welfare costs, a collapsed birthrate and a manpower dependent on the world’s least skilled, least assimilable immigrants. In 20 years’ time, as those Dutch Muslim teenagers are entering the voting booths, European countries, unlike parts of Nigeria, will not be living under Sharia, but they will be reaching their accommodations with their radicalised Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the ‘tolerance’ of pluralist societies.

How happy what’s left of the ethnic Dutch or French or Danes will be about this remains to be seen. But the idea of a childless Europe rivalling America militarily or economically is laughable. Sometime this century there will be 500 million Americans, and what’s left in Europe will either be very old or very Muslim. That’s the Europe that Britain will be binding its fate to. Japan faces the same problem: in 2006, its population will begin an absolute decline, a death spiral it will be unlikely ever to climb out of. Will Japan be an economic powerhouse if it’s populated by Koreans and Filipinos? Possibly. Will Germany if it’s populated by Algerians? That’s a trickier proposition.

And if the Euros think this scolding from Herbert London is rough:

The Big Lie is as prevalent in public life today as it was in Hitler’s Germany. So rash and irresponsible is European reporting about the Middle East that in a recent European Union poll Israel was regarded as the number one threat to world peace, ahead of Iran and North Korea.

This view so strains credulity, that it appears as if a kind of brainwashing that afflicted Germans during World War II has occurred in Europe today. Moreover, it confirms a deeply held suspicion among many Jews that anti-semitism has raised its ugly head in Europe yet again.

A European Union poll of 7500 found that 59 percent deemed Israel “a threat to peace in the world,” with figures rising to 60 percent in Britain, 65 in Germany, 69 in Austria and 74 in Holland.

...

Europe is playing with fire when it treats Israel as the villain. Yet it appears as if this is the direction adopted by media elites. Hence, it is hardly surprising that this European Gallup poll resulted in widespread anti-Israeli sentiment. Israel has been painted as the “bully” and many Europeans believe it.

One can only hope Europe comes to its senses before a 21st century Kristalnacht is ushered on to the world stage. We have been there before and the sight is too ugly to reconsider. “Never again” is taking on new poignancy with a European public apparently suffering from amnesia and the press corps fanning the flames of bigotry.

Then they should think twice before reading what Alan Dershowitz writes:

But there is more at issue here than primitive anti-Semitism, though that surely plays a role in some of the polling results. A generation of Europeans has been miseducated by its own media and leaders about Israel. The United Nations has contributed to this miseducation by condemning Israel more frequently than any other nation, well out of proportion to its faults.

Criticism of Israeli policies is certainly fair game, but throughout Europe, criticism of Israel is rarely comparative, contextual or constructive. Instead, Israel is singled out for demonization and delegitimization.

This is all part of a systematic Palestinian effort to supplement a terrorist campaign with a propaganda war. The poll shows it is succeeding. This very success contributes to a lack of progress toward peace.

The Palestinian leadership will not take the difficult steps needed to achieve peace so long as it continues to win the propaganda war while encouraging terrorism.

Among the greatest threats to world peace, therefore, is not Israel itself but European bigotry against the Jewish nation.

It's sad to see so much of Europe being duped like this. Anti-semitism, along with its virulent anti-Americanism, is a European problem that will need to be settled if nations like the U.K., Italy, and Poland are to co-exist in the EU with weasels like France, Belgium, and Germany. The first three lean toward modernity, the latter three socialism. Something has to give.

And speaking of Old Europe, Josh Chavetz remarks on an interesting coincidence:

Three of the most widely read American magazines have recently run stories on how the occupation is going, and the verdict is unanimous. "Americans are Losing the Victory" screams one. "How We Botched the Occupation" is on the cover of another. "Blueprint for a Mess" is the verdict of the third.

Actually, I've taken some liberties with two of those headlines, so let me start over. "Blueprint for a Mess" is indeed the cover article in this week's New York Times Magazine. But "Americans Are Losing the Victory" is from the January 7, 1945 issue of Life magazine, and the full headline is "Americans are Losing the Victory in Europe." The Saturday Evening Post on January 26, 1946 ran "How We Botched the German Occupation."

The Life article solemnly declared that, "Never has American prestige in Europe been lower" and that "we've lost the peace." It cites the prevalence of looting, the disorganization of the reconstruction authorities, the prevalence of disease, the continuing disorder. "We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease," it intoned.

The Counter Revolutionary has more post-WWII articles.

Not done with Old Europe yet - Oliver Kamm gives it to the French:

After the War, France managed only a single principal achievement in foreign affairs, and that was the negative one of extricating herself from Algeria. Elsewhere she exercised treacherous and sometimes brutal conduct in attempting to shore up colonialism in Indochina, and North and West Africa. Her malign and amoral international dealings were exemplified in assisting Iraq to build a nuclear reactor (which, fortunately for all of us, Israel destroyed before it could be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons). Her declining fortunes were sealed by the reunification of Germany, which thereby prevented France's becoming the acknowledged diplomatic leader of continental Europe.

This is a story of fecklessness and almost unalloyed failure. France is a loser among nations. Her attempted counterpoint to the power of the United States is merely chauvinism with an inferiority complex. The war in Iraq might have been avoided if France had insisted on the integrity of international law and on upholding the requirement for Iraqi disarmament. President Chirac is a corrupt and unprincipled political leader whose cultivation of Saddam Hussein stands as one of the vilest alignments even in France’s inglorious diplomatic record in the past century. It is a terrible thing to say, but he is the President France deserves - and the national leader the rest of the democratic world should most scrupulously ignore.

... while Spartacus here and here is keeping an eye on German anti-Americanism.

:: Scot 7:38 PM [+] :: ::
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