The American Dream Film

Check out the entertaining, slickly crafted, very libertarian cartoon polemic The American Dream Film about the financial collapse. The film weaves in pop references as skillfully as South Park and educates on the libertarian view of current events. It exalts Thomas Jefferson while excoriating Alexander Hamilton.



Eric

Apollo: This is it man!

Farewell to a likeable Knicks team

In a trade at the 2010-11 NBA trade deadline, SF Carmelo Anthony is a Knick along with PG Chauncey Billups and a few spare parts. In return, the Knicks gave Denver F Danilo Gallinari, G/F Wilson Chandler, C Timofey Mozgov, and PG Raymond Felton, plus draft picks.

It's sad. True, the Knicks were barely above .500 at 28-26 and were losing to too many bad teams, but this year's Knicks were a likeable team with solid team chemistry. They were cohesive and had D'Antoni's offensive system figured out. When the system was working, the Knicks kept the ball and bodies moving with quick-hitting triple-threat players sharing the floor. It was fun to watch the improving Knicks. I would have liked to follow the team as it was into the play-offs where they had a decent chance of pulling an upset. Now they're a new team.

Gallinari and Chandler were having their best seasons and fit the system. They were triple threats who moved the ball. They will be missed, but they also played the same position as Anthony. Mozgov had intriguing potential as an improving, fluidly athletic 7-footer with some skills, albeit with poor hands.

The toughest loss is Raymond Felton. The most important cog in Mike D'Antoni's system is a skilled floor general and orchestrator, which has been missing from the team since D'Antoni came to New York. Felton filled the role admirably and endeared himself to New York as a tough, professional leader with unexpected athleticism and advanced point guard skills. Felton was as responsible for the Knicks' improvement as Amare Stoudemire. His steady personality had a lot to do with the solid character of the team. Most importantly, he proved he had the point guard chops to run D'Antoni's system. It remains to be seen whether Billups will be able to pick it up.

The season is essentially starting over with two stars rather than one star and complementary players who fit the coach's system. The Knicks traded three solid team players in Felton, Gallinari, and Chandler for a prima donna in Anthony. If the team hadn't lost too many games against losing teams, maybe the Knicks would have kept the team together for the rest of the season. The Knicks have more star power with the Stoudemire-Anthony pairing but seem like a less likeable team now. D'Antoni's quick-hitting flowing offensive system takes time to pick up so it'll be uneven going for a while. Hopefully, Chauncey Billups is up to making the system work from the PG position.

Eric

The Egyptian protests and the Egyptian military

Delayed effect of President Bush's Freedom Agenda?

On Feb 1, Andrew Exum said:

One of the things that has come up in several conversations today has been the professionalism of the Egyptian military. It is worth noting, too, that even though the United States is getting a lot of blame from protesters on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria for our support for the Mubarak Regime through the years, the United States will likely be able to retain a great deal of influence in Egypt even in a post-Mubarak political landscape because of the way in which the U.S. military has kept up such close relations with its Egyptian counterparts. Egyptian officers have been coming to the United States for training for three decades now, so most high-ranking Egyptian officers have close friends in the U.S. military with whom they went to the War College or CGSC. (We Americans would also like to think we have played a role in the professionalization of the Egyptian officer corps, but that may be giving us too much credit.)

What a different situation we have in Pakistan, where an entire generation of the Pakistani officer corps was "lost" to the U.S. military because of the Pressler Ammendment and the way in which it halted cooperation and exchanges between our two militaries. In that way, one thing Egypt and Pakistan have in common is the way in which each, in different ways, highlight the very real benefits of mil-mil cooperation, officer exchanges, and security force assistance.

UPDATE: President Obama just spoke on Egypt. His first words were words of praise for the Egyptian Army. That is no accident.

Eric

Stephen Macht looks like Fred Ward

When I watched Graveyard Shift, I thought Stephen Macht, who plays Maine-accented hard-bastard boss Warwick, was Fred Ward of Tremors fame. Both actors were born in 1942, and Graveyard Shift and Tremors both came out in 1990.



Eric