Best 1980s cartoon bad guy names:
Lord Darkstorm - Visionaries
Blackthorne Shore - Inhumanoids
Starscream - Transformers
Storm Shadow - G.I. Joe
That is all.
Friday, August 31, 2007
In Senator Craig's Defense
Lew Rockwell quotes Paul Craig Roberts on Larry Craig. Good point. It is possible that Senator Craig was set up by someone who didn't like his politics.
That is all.
That is all.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Pat Boone a Brown-Tonguer
Pat Boone is apparently the latest victim of a malady known as Bush anilingus syndrome.
Apparently the President is just too good for us poor benighted peasants.
That is all.
Apparently the President is just too good for us poor benighted peasants.
That is all.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Good for the Democrats!
For fighting back against the earlier-and-earlier primary madness.
Stripping Florida of its delegates if it moves the primary up is just the sort of thing that needs to be done in this case.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to WorldNetDaily.
That is all.
Stripping Florida of its delegates if it moves the primary up is just the sort of thing that needs to be done in this case.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to WorldNetDaily.
That is all.
Rhetoric Over Reason, and Emotion Over Accountability
Do you want to know why people hate the Bush administration so much? It's not because of some stupid "Bush Derangement syndrome." It's because Bush and his entire administration seem hell-bent on making a "friends" and an "enemies" list, and on using rhetoric and emotional appeals to avoid actually discussing the issues that we need to face. It is also their attempt to avoid accountability for anything they have done.
No better example of this is recent days than the interview of former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleishcher by Mike Barnicle (sitting in for Chris Matthews) on the August 22 episode of Hardball. See the transcript of the episode here, and search for "FLEISCHER" with case sensitivity on.
Among the things that upset me are his desire to avoid acountability:
Mike, it is not about the 2002 decision to go into Iraq. It‘s about terrorism that exists in Iraq today... The 2002 debate is an old, stale debate about why we went into Iraq with Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction... Mike, you‘re stuck in the 2001-2002 timetable and debate. It is so far beyond that debate.
In other words, "do not hold us accountable for past mistakes, and do not judge our present predictions by our accuracy in the past." No one tries to elide over the past as irrelevant unless they did something wrong. Does anyone thinks that he would trotting out the irrelevance of 2001-2002 if we had found WMDs?
When asked how to repair the "broken military," Fleischer offers no solutions as to how to deal with the stresses, instead saying:
Mike, I don‘t remember anybody—I wasn‘t alive, but during World War II, saying, We can‘t fight unlimited amounts of time. There‘s no limit. I don‘t remember in the cold war people saying, Let‘s quit because who knows how long this will go.
So he doesn't actually offer a plan except to elide over the problem. Presumably he would perfectly okay then with simply extneding tours to 18 or 21 months and letting the soldiers work themselves to death as long as they were willing to sign up.
Then comes this doozy:
Mike Barnicle, clearly annoyed tha Fleischer won't actually offer plans on how to solve the overextended military problem, asks Mr. Fleischer:
Ari, do you remember reading about Franklin Delano Roosevelt asking the country to make sacrifices for World War Two? Do you remember that?
Fleischer, unbelievably, responds:
I think everybody in this country is making a sacrifice.
We all do every time a soldier loses his or her life.
When pressed, he continues:
No, Mike. You‘re missing the point about this military is all of our military, both the people who oppose the war and the people who are for winning this war. And every time a life is lost, we all lose. We all have made a sacrifice, some more than others.
WRONG. This is stupid rhetoric, along the lines of "no one is free when anyone is oppressed." All of the soldiers in Iraq could be tortured to death, and it would still not hurt me in any way that I would consider to be a sacrifice on my part. Sacrifice by proxy is a ridiculous concept, and all that Fleischer is trying to do is to make Bush into an FDR-like inspiring war-time leader by declaring things to be true by mere rhetorical turns of phrases.
Ari Fleischer is an a**hole.
That is all.
No better example of this is recent days than the interview of former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleishcher by Mike Barnicle (sitting in for Chris Matthews) on the August 22 episode of Hardball. See the transcript of the episode here, and search for "FLEISCHER" with case sensitivity on.
Among the things that upset me are his desire to avoid acountability:
Mike, it is not about the 2002 decision to go into Iraq. It‘s about terrorism that exists in Iraq today... The 2002 debate is an old, stale debate about why we went into Iraq with Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction... Mike, you‘re stuck in the 2001-2002 timetable and debate. It is so far beyond that debate.
In other words, "do not hold us accountable for past mistakes, and do not judge our present predictions by our accuracy in the past." No one tries to elide over the past as irrelevant unless they did something wrong. Does anyone thinks that he would trotting out the irrelevance of 2001-2002 if we had found WMDs?
When asked how to repair the "broken military," Fleischer offers no solutions as to how to deal with the stresses, instead saying:
Mike, I don‘t remember anybody—I wasn‘t alive, but during World War II, saying, We can‘t fight unlimited amounts of time. There‘s no limit. I don‘t remember in the cold war people saying, Let‘s quit because who knows how long this will go.
So he doesn't actually offer a plan except to elide over the problem. Presumably he would perfectly okay then with simply extneding tours to 18 or 21 months and letting the soldiers work themselves to death as long as they were willing to sign up.
Then comes this doozy:
Mike Barnicle, clearly annoyed tha Fleischer won't actually offer plans on how to solve the overextended military problem, asks Mr. Fleischer:
Ari, do you remember reading about Franklin Delano Roosevelt asking the country to make sacrifices for World War Two? Do you remember that?
Fleischer, unbelievably, responds:
I think everybody in this country is making a sacrifice.
We all do every time a soldier loses his or her life.
When pressed, he continues:
No, Mike. You‘re missing the point about this military is all of our military, both the people who oppose the war and the people who are for winning this war. And every time a life is lost, we all lose. We all have made a sacrifice, some more than others.
WRONG. This is stupid rhetoric, along the lines of "no one is free when anyone is oppressed." All of the soldiers in Iraq could be tortured to death, and it would still not hurt me in any way that I would consider to be a sacrifice on my part. Sacrifice by proxy is a ridiculous concept, and all that Fleischer is trying to do is to make Bush into an FDR-like inspiring war-time leader by declaring things to be true by mere rhetorical turns of phrases.
Ari Fleischer is an a**hole.
That is all.
Way to Go, Threebs (Warning: Link Contains Strong Language)
One thing that annouys me about the health Nazis (and I say this as a celibate, non-drinking, non-drug-using, non-smoker) is the hypocrisy and inconsistency. I did a quick Google search of a few terms to find something that illustrates this point, and I think I've found it.
Dan Savage, a gay sex columnist, wrote a diatribe about smoking helping to spread HIV by weakening the immune system (warning: language, particularly in the comments section).
What I like about this article is the 3rd comment, where a person known as "threebs" points out other risky behavior that one could criticize for spreading HIV. Naturally, Dan goes ballistic at the idea that the pleasures indigenous to his community should be put under the same scrutiny as those indigenous to the smoking community.
What happened to tolerance, Dan?
That is all.
Dan Savage, a gay sex columnist, wrote a diatribe about smoking helping to spread HIV by weakening the immune system (warning: language, particularly in the comments section).
What I like about this article is the 3rd comment, where a person known as "threebs" points out other risky behavior that one could criticize for spreading HIV. Naturally, Dan goes ballistic at the idea that the pleasures indigenous to his community should be put under the same scrutiny as those indigenous to the smoking community.
What happened to tolerance, Dan?
That is all.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Funding for Paul going Up this Quarter?
That's the case according to this article. This sounds like good news, although there are no numbers on funding there to back it up.
On the other hand, it does mention his large number (36,000) of meetup groups. It would be interesting to see a campaign that rises from the bottom up rather than coming from the top down.
That is all.
On the other hand, it does mention his large number (36,000) of meetup groups. It would be interesting to see a campaign that rises from the bottom up rather than coming from the top down.
That is all.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Brave New World Watch
This will soon be my new blog of the week this will be the first time in more than a year that I have a new one.
That is all.
That is all.
Immigration and Inequality
This post on TPMCafe and the New York times article it is based on both neatly manage to miss the likely most important cause of our growing income inequality and our lowered average incomes: the immigration of poor people to the U.S.
Between 2000 and 2005, lots of new immigrants came to the U.S., disproportionately those of lower incomes. This is going to skew the statistics on average income even if no one lost any income.
To do a study like this fairly, either everyone who immigrated to our emigrated from the U.S. during those time periods needs to be removed from the statistics, or their incomes in the other country need to be included.
That is all.
Between 2000 and 2005, lots of new immigrants came to the U.S., disproportionately those of lower incomes. This is going to skew the statistics on average income even if no one lost any income.
To do a study like this fairly, either everyone who immigrated to our emigrated from the U.S. during those time periods needs to be removed from the statistics, or their incomes in the other country need to be included.
That is all.
The Seven Soldiers
While these seven soldiers denying that the surge is working are an interesting case, I do not think it is wise to accept their statements at face value immediately, any more than I take the word of someone who says how smoothly the war is going and how much the Iraqis like us.
If I have a little more time, I'll try to write down some more thoughts and a deeper analysis.
That is all.
If I have a little more time, I'll try to write down some more thoughts and a deeper analysis.
That is all.
Monday, August 20, 2007
But We Trust Our Propaganda
Jonathan Finer's editorial on Iraq visits by officials (Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Daniel Larison) reminds me of the dismissive attitude taken by many pro-warriors when Sean Penn wanted "to investigate the war for himself" and went to Iraq.
Yet we are somehow supposed to believe that when our country is in Iraq and when our Iraqi friends are in the goverenment, somehow we will be getting the unvarnished truth, without the facts being manipulated to serve the goals of the administration.
That these same people are now chiding people such as James Webb for not knowing what is going on because he has not visited Iraq personally is too much to bear.
That is all.
Yet we are somehow supposed to believe that when our country is in Iraq and when our Iraqi friends are in the goverenment, somehow we will be getting the unvarnished truth, without the facts being manipulated to serve the goals of the administration.
That these same people are now chiding people such as James Webb for not knowing what is going on because he has not visited Iraq personally is too much to bear.
That is all.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
AntiWar.Com
While I disagree with Wendy mcElroy's anti-Ron Paul sentiment in this post (continuing a recent trend of my blogposts being defenses of Ron Paul), she is right about Antiwar.Com. It needs our help.
I've just donated $100.00, and I encourage all my readers to do the same.
That is all.
I've just donated $100.00, and I encourage all my readers to do the same.
That is all.
On Hiroshima
I do think that the information discussed in this post puts a much more positive light on Hiroshima.
On the other hand, this does not answer the question as to whether negotiating a surrender by the Japanese (rather than demanding an unconditional surrender) would have allowed Hiroshima to be avoided, which in the end is I think the great moral question and the one that has the most relevance to how we should conduct future foreign policy. (This is really the big question of Hiroshima, after all, not so much whether or not to beat our chests and wail over the Japanese civilians we killed, but to question what lessons we should learn for the future).
That is all.
On the other hand, this does not answer the question as to whether negotiating a surrender by the Japanese (rather than demanding an unconditional surrender) would have allowed Hiroshima to be avoided, which in the end is I think the great moral question and the one that has the most relevance to how we should conduct future foreign policy. (This is really the big question of Hiroshima, after all, not so much whether or not to beat our chests and wail over the Japanese civilians we killed, but to question what lessons we should learn for the future).
That is all.
Friday, August 17, 2007
The Draft
This is an interesting article detailing the draft issue(Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Antiwar.com).
All assurances about how much more effecdtive an all-volunteer military is are really moot if we need a bigger military than we can obtain voluntarily. No one who thinks a draft is coming thinks so because Bush or military has given indications of wanting a draft, they think it because of the enormous pressures that are currently being put on our military.
Stories of meeting recruitment quotas are also meaningless, because with 15-month deployments and 12-month rests, it is obvious that if we are meeting the quotas, they are much too small for the current demands that we are putting on our military.
We need to either expand the military or else reduce its duties. Do't get me wrong, I am not calling for an increase in the size of the military; however, I do think that those who support the war ought to be pushing for such an increase; because I think that they need to confront the public with the true costs of our current policy.
That is all.
All assurances about how much more effecdtive an all-volunteer military is are really moot if we need a bigger military than we can obtain voluntarily. No one who thinks a draft is coming thinks so because Bush or military has given indications of wanting a draft, they think it because of the enormous pressures that are currently being put on our military.
Stories of meeting recruitment quotas are also meaningless, because with 15-month deployments and 12-month rests, it is obvious that if we are meeting the quotas, they are much too small for the current demands that we are putting on our military.
We need to either expand the military or else reduce its duties. Do't get me wrong, I am not calling for an increase in the size of the military; however, I do think that those who support the war ought to be pushing for such an increase; because I think that they need to confront the public with the true costs of our current policy.
That is all.
Desperation
The traditional pro-war storyline to put out after incidents like these is that the terrorists are trying to make a disruption before the big report on Iraq (this time, the Petraeus Report), with the implication that we are winning but that they are going to get enough propaganda to offset it.
The implication is always that the terroorists are losing, but that they can make one last show of might in order to discourage us.
The problem with this storyline is that they have done this several times. Eventually, one has to admit that if they still have the ability to pull these things off, then pehaps they are not losing. This can't just be a lucky break or a last-ditch effort every time.
That is all.
The implication is always that the terroorists are losing, but that they can make one last show of might in order to discourage us.
The problem with this storyline is that they have done this several times. Eventually, one has to admit that if they still have the ability to pull these things off, then pehaps they are not losing. This can't just be a lucky break or a last-ditch effort every time.
That is all.
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