self similar

ok ok what's all this then

2007-12-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

I am lazy and I suck at blogging. And sometimes, there's just too much going wrong for me to even get angry and rant about it. Oh well...so I just read over my last few posts, some interesting things have happened since. FISA - today's actually the day for Dodd to attempt the filibuster. Harry Reid has once again played the weakest strategy possible, and put the worst of all available bills up for debate, while shooting down one which had been vetted by the Justice Dept. Brilliant. God I hate him. Here's what an actual Democrat has to say about the situation, should you want to read.

The Iran thing - luckily, what I was hoping would happen on this issue is pretty much exactly what did happen, a few posts ago when I pleaded out loud to myself that prominent people would start calling the bogus info out without hiding anonymously in a way that would make them easy to immediately dismiss. The U.S. of course had exactly NO dirt on Iran, and in the face of the latest NIE, the bloodthirsty among our leaders and Presidential candidates had to shut the fuck up with their nonsense about this 4th-rate "power" being a threat to us. This is a fun link in relation to all that blather.

Also, it used to be the case that I simply accused the Dems in the House and Senate of colluding with the Repbulicans on issues such as torture and domestic spying with no proof other than the obvious appearance that this was what had happened. Well, now we know that is exactly what happened, and that explains why it all looked like that was what had happened. Even Nancy Freakin' Pelosi was briefed about waterboarding and more extreme techniques. Nobody objected. Nobody questioned it. One anonymous fucktard had the gaul to ask simply if we were being "hard enough" on those we interrogated. And completely lost in this whole argument is the fact that no matter how many times the more mentally ill among us try to bring up the whole 'Jack Bauer and the ticking time bomb' scenario to justify their crimes - 9 times out of 10 the person we've captured and are torturing /sexually humiliating is a random, innocent person we rounded up for the sake of increasing the numbers attached to our casualty counts. As if we just landed in Afghanistan or Iraq and knew right off the bat who was who. We grabbed people, stuffed them into cages, and had to torture them in the first place to even figure out if they were important enough to torture further! It would take too long to describe how wrong it all is, but bottom line - the Democratic party has failed in the most grave manner I've been around to witness, ever in my lifetime, on this issue. Nobody who was actually briefed about this should be keeping their job. They should all go home and tell their mothers that they have failed at life.

Hm, what else?? Here is a link to the one and only Daily Kos diary I've written. And here is a link to a diary written about that diary (thanks Pontificator!). I've been barely writing about the Presidential campaign, other than to praise Dodd a while back for actually doing something useful. Well, he proceeded to lose my support by being nearly xenophobic about immigration and surrounding issues. Plus his stance against youth voters caucusing in Iowa was weird and troubling as well. Funniest thing I've learned about any of the candidates in the past week - in college people knew Barack Obama as "Barry" - according to Eugene Washington of the WPost. Hehe, Barry. Yeah...maybe now that I've summarized all of this crap I'll actually feel like posting regularly again. Weee!

Shut the Fuck Up!

2007-11-06T02:31:00.000-05:00

Charles Schumer, New York's Senior Senator, has a shameful, doo-doo-riddled Op-Ed in the NYTimes today. For the counterpoint to Schumer's idiocy, see here. Atrios' description of Schumer, et al's logic being overly simplified in the sense that "...it's as if they thought they were playing tic tac toe instead of chess" is absolutely correct. Schumer "hopes" that a law will be passed declaring waterboarding to be illegal. Well, guess what? It won't. Why? Because half of you IDIOTS who were around in 2002-2003 AGREED to this shit and simply can't come out against it now without being trashed by Bush & his sycophants who have the dirt on you. There is NO OTHER valid explanation for this offense. Great, I now want to see Charles Schumer primaried. How stupid does he think his constituents are? Mukasey's refusal to categorize waterboarding as 'torture' by definition is "unsatisfactory" to Schumer, but he thinks that we are worse off now because -

There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around. My colleagues who oppose his confirmation have gone out of their way to praise his character and qualifications. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, for one, commended Judge Mukasey as “a brilliant lawyer, a distinguished jurist and by all accounts a good man.

This is the best he can come up with? That Sheldon (and think about the name Sheldon, for a minute...) Whitehouse (and think about the last name Whitehouse, for a minute...) says he's a "brilliant lawyer", and - ??? Great. What the fuck does it matter how "brilliant" he is if all that's going to happen is that he is going to put his brilliance to work in the service of the wants and perceived needs of George Bush? If this guy won't go on record stating that he knows what the technique involves, and that it is most certainly a method of torture, then stick a fucking fork in him already. Do we really want a "brilliant lawyer" who refuses to set a legal definition of torture for himself and thus the Justice Department he would control, out there doing everything they can on behalf of George Bush? I hope that Schumer and Diane Feinstein pay a serious price for this strategic error. This issue exemplifies why the country hates the current Congress. They act like they're in the minority and simply can't stand up to the President. Bull fucking shit. There are simply too many of them who were briefed on this and said "OK" for them to stand up to it all, EVEN NOW. And, as soon as we find out exactly who they are, present topical company included, real progressives must do what they can to exact some revenge. Support for giving George Bush the OK to torture is not OK.

Oh well

2007-11-05T23:02:00.000-05:00

Stephen Colbert's run for the Presidency of South Carolina has ended, with a shameful 13-3 vote against him by the people who decide stuff like that there. The S.C. Democratic party, to name names. Wusses couldn't handle the sheer heroism / hubris. The article describes this historic campaign as merely a promotion to sell more copies of "I Am America; And So Can You", but it was far more diabolical in nature. The whole point for Colbert was to win at least one delegate in the state so that he could lord this technicality over the Democratic convention in Boulder. Which would, of course, have been awesome. He could have told them to eat it the way he did to the D.C. press corps back in '06. Sigh.

Iran isn't trying to make nuclear weapons fever - catch it!

2007-11-05T15:35:00.000-05:00

Good. Jeez, this really is scary. Prominent experts who know that Iran is not engaged in an attempt to make nukes feel the need to remain anonymous when discussing the subject. Here we go again. That means that people's livelihoods are being threatened again if they dare speak out against Bush and Cheney. At least they are doing so in some capacity, but this is not going to be nearly enough to stop the war machine. Real people with recognizable names HAVE to step forward and call the White House out on being a bunch of crazy people. Only real humans can stop this, anonymous quotes, no matter how accurate, cannot do what needs to be done.

What a guy!

2007-11-05T13:10:00.000-05:00

Jon Stewart will pay his writers' salaries (and those of the Colbert Report) while they are on strike. That way they can lobby for more pay, work and make money, and absolutely bury everyone else ratings-wise since they will be pretty much alone in producing new material - all in one go. Brilliant move on Stewart's part!

Chris Dodd YAY! Harry Reid BOOOO. BOO HISS.

2007-10-19T11:22:00.000-05:00

This could be very exciting, if you're into this type of thing...which I am, so shut up, okay? With this 'hold' on the FISA "reform" bill that's sliming its way through the Senate, Dodd has become my official favorite Presidential candidate. Except for Colbert, of course. Favorite of the Dems. I had been into Barack, and I do still like the guy. Tavis Smiley did a great interview with him last night that I was quite happy to watch. But he's done a few things I can't get over. 1) He refused to pledge that we'd be out of Iraq by the end of his first term, if he were President. WHY did he say this? Dear God, what a stupid thing to say. 2) He wants to leave troops in Iraq, to do...um, something. Stupid. Don't leave a few thousand people in a hostile, seething Iraq set to explode like a powder keg on steroid-laced crack. That is the most sure-fire way to get us re-involved in the war after we've pulled out. Dodd this whole time has kind of been in the background as the sort of candidate who doesn't really stand out right away. He's funny looking, serious, kinda old, etc. But his every vote and action in the Senate during this campaign has been dead right, and he is taking that to another level by personally putting himself on the line to prevent a bill passing into law which would immunize Telecoms which colluded with the fascists in the Bush administration to spy on American citizens without a warrant or proper legal authorization. OF COURSE these bastards should be punished with mammoth fines, and crashing stock prices. As should anyone and everyone in the Bush admin who furthered this idiotic, unnecessary venture into big-brotherhood.

And, if you read the link above, you'll notice that Harry Reid seems intent on trying to break Dodd's hold on the bill so that it can move forward. IDIOT!! I want to punch his old face. Seriously, I read some SHIT like that and it makes me just plain straight up hate the guy. What a useless old sack. I hate him. But, Dodd has also pledged to filibuster, should Reid break the hold. Dodd is becoming my political hero really quickly here. He seems to be the only candidate aware that people HATE George Bush, and only HATE Congress as much as they do because they are so craven and cowardly, basically refusing to stop or stand up to him. Dodd is leading by example, so he gets my support.

Just to continue with the Iran theme

2007-10-10T02:13:00.000-05:00

I linky now to Maureen Dowd for the first time in like, forever omygod. She's particularly and notoriously dangerous in presidential elections and as much as I find about 90% of what she writes to be superficial crap with a slightly late-to-the-party flavor, this column about the folly of Hillary Clinton's 'yes' vote on the Kyl-Lieberman bill to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist organization", and more importantly, linking them with attacks against US soldiers/interests in Iraq, is spot-on. Remarkably few media figures have been willing to go after Hillary for this, simply noting Edwards' and Obama's criticisms of her.

Of course, the bill is ridiculous on its face, but not nearly so much as Hillary's pathetic excuse that "labeling them a terrorist organization gives us the authority to impose sanctions on their leadership. ...I consider that part of a very robust diplomatic effort.” Diplomatic. Yeah, you freakin' idiot, that's diplomacy Bush/Cheney-style. Glad to know you plan to continue down this blind alley towards more violence and war. And for once, I applaud Dowd's stereotyping in calling Hillary out on trying to be "manly" with her votes and rhetoric. She thinks supporting Jim Webb's amendment which would demand Congressional authorization for any and all attacks on Iran will save her from this terrible decision, but it won't. In Bush and Cheney's minds, they already had justification based on the original Iraq war authorization. The language they constantly employ about Iran directly attacking US troops is no joke. Well its a joke in a sense, but they are not joking and they use this terminology very specifically for real reasons. For Hillary to vote for a bill not only declaring Iran's military to be "terrorists" but which ties an officially commissioned part of the Iranian government to our list of "enemies" in Iraq was absolutely deplorable. An unqualified abomination.

Considering the rationale she gives now for her vote in favor of war with Iraq; "If I had only known..." blah di blah, Dowd rightly brings in John Edwards stating, "...six months from now if [Bush] goes to war in Iran, are we going to hear her once again say if only I had known then what I know now?”

Unfortunately, it turns out that Barack Obama sponsored a bill labeling the RG as "terrorists" back in April. Now this is sketchy to me, because I've been following the guy's campaign pretty closely and never even heard of this. HOWEVER, it leaves out the language tying the RG to attacks in Iraq, which is significant because those are specifically the grounds that Bush and Cheney will cite as their justification for a new war, should they possess the required level of mania to actually go that route. So, while this was an unfortunate attempt to out-maneuver the Republicans on Obama's part, he wouldn't have done quite as much damage. But still, not a good sign. Obama was right in his statements about Afghanistan and Pakistan as they relate to Al Qaeda in the past, but trying to mimic the Repugs here was a big mistake. The Iran issue is just as manufactured as the Iraq issue was back in late 2002 and early 2003. Plain and simple, its bullshit.

By now, there is not a Dem. candidate for President that I'm not annoyed with. I had higher hopes for Obama, and I'm still watching, but I don't want to support someone who is making more of an effort in this day and age to be a reconciler than they are at stringing these bastards up in the public square. And no one is doing that. I don't believe in letting the past be the past. The past as its interpreted affects the future in innumerable ways. I want George Bush and Dick Cheney and EVERY SINGLE PERSON who helped them do what they have done to all of us to stand trial and hopefully, go to jail. I'm sick of this shit. Sick to death.

And as things stand now, it looks like Mrs. Clinton will be the next president. I hope there is someone who wants it bad enough to get in her way. And as long as its not Joe Biden, I'm cool with it.

Idiocy abounds on Iran

2007-09-24T14:42:00.000-05:00

It really feels as though the 'product roll-out' of conflict with Iran is reaching a crescendo, becoming increasingly fevered and irrational as a consequence, or more likely, by design. First of all, the idea that Ahmadinejad should be barred from speaking here, that Universities should feel morally ashamed to have him speak, is the most collectively childish position the US media and body politic have offered up with such force in quite a while. As Josh Marshall said, "Grow Up." This 'debate' is just plain embarrassing.

We are about to, possibly, declare war on Iran, with somehow even less evidence of wrongdoing on Iran's part or justification for our position than there was with Iraq! Escalation of tensions with Iran has been a predictable, self-fulfilling prophecy as a consequence of the invasion of occupation of Iraq. To my mind, this is most blatantly evidenced by the fact that anyone who didn't want such a thing to happen, and who had their mind set on invading Iraq, would have been simply nuts to fail to initiate immediate, improved relations and increased aid with a neighboring government which would inevitably become the ally of Iraq's new government once the Shia majority voted. The only reason not to take action to secure improved relations with Iran, regardless of who was in charge of what there was the lunatic hope of the NeoCons, based on their wholesale misunderstanding of Islamic culture and regional political, social and ethnic matters, that a US - friendly Iraq would immediately destabilize Iran. It should be noted that Ahmadinejad is not in charge of Iran's military forces, and despite Columbia University President Lee Bollinger referring to him as having "...all the signs of being a petty and cruel dictator" (certainly true at times, but so does our President), he is the democratically elected President of Iran - his political rule is not questionable in the sense that Saddam Hussein's was. Or any of the (Sunni) Saudi government, for that matter. I just mention them since there is actual proof that Saudis [1] support the (Sunni) insurgents in Iraq with money and weaponry. As opposed to (Shia) Iran who have relations with some (Shia) groups in Iraq including Muqtada Al-Sadr's Madhi Army - who are not as easily classified as "the enemy" (since they are friendly with the government we support and prop up there!) as the insurgents - who are not Al-Qaeda but rather the remnants of the disbanded Iraqi army and a large range of Sunnis sympathetic to the Baath party which the US removed from power.

That's all kind of jumbled, but I'll summarize: we're accusing Iran of assisting the Iraqi "terrorists" in attacking US troops. We have no tangible evidence of this, every so-called 'smoking gun' in this vein of reporting has turned out to be crap. We know that the government of Iran is not allied with Iraq's Sunni insurgency, while we also know that they have received at least some amount of aid by individuals from Saudi Arabia who are not, as far as I can tell, being rounded up by their own government and prosecuted. What am I missing here? Other than the creepily cozy relationship between the Bush royal family and the Saudi royal family? Wait, nothing? Oh, ok. Not to say that certain Iranians haven't ever done anything nasty in Iraq, I'm sure there have been isolated incidents, as there have been with individuals from many different nations. Iraq has truly drawn in a lot of foreign fighters, but analysis consistently shows they are a majority of Saudis. But we never hear an ominous word about them on the nightly news. We're worried about Iran befriending the new Iraqi government on the one hand, while we want to turn around and also claim that increasingly normalized relations between the two are progress and a sign that things are going better. Amazing.

As far as the argument that Iran is seeking to make nuclear weapons, I covered that largely in my last post, but since I've heard this repeated today, at least 500 times while watching coverage of Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia on MSNBC, there's simply no evidence, again. "Experts" on the news keep claiming, year after year, that Iran is several years off from being able to make a weapon, but that they are a dire threat now who must be confronted. Nonsense! Ridiculous. As far as the data at this link from my post below shows, Iran has for around a year now, had the capacity to produce weapons, but according to IAEA inspections, has done no such thing. It is complete nonsense when some "expert" goes on TV and says that Iran can't yet make nukes but has shown intention to develop and use them. They could have already, but haven't - bottom line.

This leaves us on the brink of war with a country because of Iran's sponsorship of "terrorism", and because one of their more significant public spokesmen has made confusing and ill-advised comments about the holocaust in combination with his attempts to discuss the Israel / Palestine conflict. It is alleged that Ahmadinejad has said that Israel should by "...wiped off the map", but this turns out to be a case of selective translation and confusion of metaphors. Obviously, Ahmadinejad is not an ally of the right-wing Israeli government and its policies regarding the occupied territories. Few in the Muslim world are, no matter what sect or ethnicity. Then there is the allegation that Ahmadinejad has denied that the holocaust took place. Whether he has said exactly that or things which imply it or rely on the truth thereof to reinforce subsequent points, it is true that he does seem genuinely sympathetic to the point of view that the holocaust has been greatly historically exaggerated, at least. And this is certainly a contemptible, awful view for such a powerful person to hold. Today at Columbia, he stated that "given that" the holocaust happened, it happened in Europe, so why are Palestinians paying for Europeans' slaughter of the Jewish people? Which is subsequently quite a difficult point to argue, regardless of what ignorant, ahistorical views he might hold.

As far as terrorism, it is difficult to truly analyze. The global weapons trade on the whole is a strange example of the entire world, pretty much, coming together; democracy or dictatorship, rich or poor, and terrorizing ourselves and each other for the profit of a very small few, at the expense of millions of lives per year all across the globe. There are no glass houses here, and no perfect throwers of righteous stones. I'm sure Iran does business of all kinds with Hezbullah for various purposes, some nefarious and some not at all. I'm sure they fund terrorists in the occupied territories, and do all kinds of shady stuff. Most of the local governments do. But Iran has never invaded another country, and has at least 20,000 Jewish citizens who are represented in the government. The idea that an Iranian-led slaughter of Jews is at hand is insanely hyperbolic. No such thing is happening or is about to happen.

A large part of the US media narrative about why Ahmadinejad, and subsequently Iran, is so dangerous is the conflation of the two above-mentioned points of view, with alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. One of these claims (that Iran wants to "wipe Israel off the map") is demonstrably untrue ('wiped off the map' is simply not an operative metaphor in Persian), and that the holocaust is "a myth" which he has actually suggested. The argument is that he is developing nuclear weapons (which Iran is demonstrably not currently doing, despite their capacity to do so) in order to "wipe Israel off the map" (which he never said) because their country was placed over top of Palestine as a result of the "mythical" holocaust. It adds up to a terrifying scenario if you take each point and simply believe it in the most non-analytical manner possible, but it doesn't hold up as a cohesive whole under scrutiny.

So the argument for war with Iran boils down to - they support Hezbullah, and their President, who isn't in charge of their military, takes seriously the idea that the holocaust either didn't take place or has been exaggerated. Do we strategically think Iran is worse for supporting Hezbullah and being friends with their natural allies in now Shia-ruled Iraq than we think Saudi Arabia is for at least their passive support of the Sunni insurgents who are the actual "enemy" in Iraq? Why? What the hell does Hezbullah have to do with the war in Iraq? As far as Iran supplying weapons to the Madhi army - well that's the fucking free market at work, isn't it? Entirely predictable. Free trade, motherfuckers. Besides, however many weapons Iran has sold to various Shia militias, it still can't be nearly as many as we've simply lost or failed to secure in the first place. We have a larger role (just one example) in supplying the insurgency with the ability to kill our troops than Iran has had. The US seems to not understand that we have no business being in Iraq, let alone threatening Iran or others for their handling of the disastrous outgrowths of our bad foreign policy decisions.

[1] So far limited to "private citizens" - and while this CS Monitor article doesn't apparently research whether any of those citizens have significant ties to either the government or terrorist networks, it does restate Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal's pledge to intervene in Iraq on behalf of the Sunnis should the US withdraw and ethnic cleansing begin

France talking war with Iran???

2007-09-16T22:59:00.000-05:00

Ugh, how annoying it is to have a genuine right wing government in France now! A French foreign minister is warning the world at large, one can only assume at the behest of Nicolas Sarkozy, to "prepare for the worst, and the worst is war."

Come on, y'all. The whole 'starting senseless wars in the middle east' thing has worked out unbelievably well for US, true, but don't be caught out trying so hard to be like us. Its very unbecoming. Let's see what countries, exactly, despite this guy's mentioning of "Our good friends, the Germans..." are on board for a war with Iran. Even with US Naval and Air Force support. What the hell are they hoping to accomplish? You could pay them off for so much less! Don't be like Joe Lieberman.

This article is very optimistic, from Iran's point of view, about how long it would take Iran to create a viable nuclear weapon, and how many they could make with what they already have. And while the info within seems alarming, they have apparently had the ability to build several bombs per year for about a year now but have not in fact done so. Why all the alarm now? They are signatories of the Nonproliferation Treaty, if they were serious about a program that they knew couldn't avoid detection, which almost no effective program really can, they would publicly withdraw. And as loony as he may be, the president of Iran was democratically elected. You can't even pretend to make the 'spreading Democracy' argument here. Do France and Germany know something the rest of the world doesn't know?

War with Iran would be all about preventing them, through increasingly restrictive measures, from doing something they've had the ability to do for a while now but haven't, with nothing in particular offered in return. NeoCons simply do not know how to haggle. I can't wait until smirking, playground-bully antagonism is no longer an accurate description of anyone's foreign policy views about legitimate problems of security and diplomacy.

important

2007-08-04T22:13:00.000-05:00

now this is news. i h a d n o i d e a h e w a s i n d e e p p u r p l e . ngh, nnnnggggguuuhhhh.

what were they waiting for?

2007-07-31T20:58:00.000-05:00

Finally, the UN authorizes a peacekeeping force for Darfur. It's only been, what, 5 years? More? Eeek!!! It shouldn't take that long to make a decision like this. A small force (it's est. that about 26,000 will be sent) is all that was ever needed, and thousands upon thousands of lives could have been saved. But too late is better than never, and here's to the lives that are going to be spared as a result.

what the?

2007-07-30T11:10:00.000-05:00

This is a pretty scary article about Lake Superior. Something strange seems to be happening to it - water level has dropped a foot (!!!) in the past year (!), it's warming at an alarming rate; faster than the area in general has warmed in the past 30 years...

I guess I really didn't know how large the Great Lakes are - Lake Superior is said to be about the size of South Carolina. That's a big lake! How could such a large body of water be changing so quickly, at much faster rates than even the least conservative estimates that global warming would specify? I'm guessing some sort of strange geothermal development. Maybe the water is being warmed from below, and some has drained out of the bottom, rather than evaporating off on top. But really, I don't know jack sh#t about any of this, that just seems like a fun guess to me. Either way its pretty sketchy though...

Feel safer

2007-07-12T14:14:00.000-05:00

Oh my god, this is just insane! What the hellllllll?

He's not as big in Britain...

2007-07-12T01:29:00.001-05:00

Well at least the story of New York City firefighters leveling serious criticisms which cut to the heart of Rudolph Giuliani's supposed 'strength' - leadership, is front page news in some country (at the time of the writing of the post it was the main story on the BBC News website). I just looked at the New York Times website front page as it will appear tomorrow morning, barring some emergency or whatever, and the headline is "Bush to Declare Progress in Iraq on Some Benchmarks". Don't bother reading the article unless you want to bore yourself. While not a complete suckjob, it doesn't simply convey the President's point of view and then immediately trash him, which is the only form I could imaging proper coverage of this issue assuming. I mean, wasn't it just two days or so ago that it was announced that Iraq had in fact, officially achieved exactly none of the benchmarks which were supposed to have been met by now? (hint - yes, yes it was) And the picture on the front page is some baseball crap. Yup.

I worry greatly about Giuliani's candidacy, and I think he will end up the Republican nominee. He has already weathered scandals which would have ended many candidacies. Polls this far out don't really mean much other than name recognition, but that means a lot more on the R side than it does on the D side of things. Giuliani is banking on the idea that enough people out there want to hear someone talk like George Bush, without being George Bush, to get him elected. And he really may be right about that. Even when part of the mythology of Rudy & the Firefighters! is effectively neutralized, the US media pays scant attention to the matter. "These must be liberal, extremist firefighters", I'm sure we'll eventually hear. If this guy can retain support despite the divorces (one with his third cousin), his affair which got him kicked out of Gracie Mansion, the subsequent public humiliation of his former wife and children, his own children's refusal to support him, his support of limited gay rights, his 'support' of abortion rights (don't forget his pledge to nominate Supreme Court justices along the lines of Roberts and Alito - the guy is actually trying to win both sides of the abortion debate here), being directly associated with Bernie Kerik, Thomas Ravenel and David Vitter, and complete lack of any real foreign policy or national security experience (including his being caught having no idea what the difference is between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam and repeated referencing of Al-Qaeda / government ties in Iran!), then you've got to start to believe that this guy is politically indestructible. Will all of this crap eventually catch up with him?

It may, but then who? Romney? His support is a shell. He has lots of money, and very few actual supporters. And he strapped his dog to the roof of his car for a 12 hour drive! I'm sure you all know about that one by now though. Thompson? Somehow I just don't see it happening. The Republicans have an almost cute sort of desperate hope that he will swoop them all away into the rapture with a stunning display of Reaganesque charisma. However, with his disquieting looks (he resembles a reanimated corpse even more than McCain does), dreadful public speaking abilities, abysmal record as a Senator and lobbying work for various causes unpopular with the conservative base, he has a lot of baggage to overcome. And let's face it, he just doesn't have that "I'm a f*ck$ng hero and I will SCREAM IT IN YOUR FACE OVER AND OVER!" quality that Rudy has. As Richard Nixon said of Thompson while he was effectively working, on Nixon's side, as a mole during Watergate, he is "...dumb as hell," as opposed to being deliberately insane in the way Rudy and Romney are. McCain is right out. Its going to be Rudy. And he will be really tough to beat. And he could, very realistically, be even more dangerous than George Bush & Co.

Conservatives re-assert themselves, with QGusto!!!

2007-06-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

I was just watching the Daily Show, and Lewis Black did his 'Back in Black' segment the topic of which was; conservative takes on the 'new media'. He cited 'Conservapedia'...pretty much describes itself. The next one was the new conservative YouTube, which is called QubeTV. And the logo of the company, well just look at it...

Somehow, I suspect there's a mole somewhere in this operation!

I mean really...

While the whole point of the segment was that nearly all of the vids on QubeTV were simply links directly to YouTube, I think he missed the real story. Although that is pretty funny too.

what is it?

2007-05-27T14:44:00.000-05:00

seriously, what is the problem that men around the world have with men who like men? things are bad in the US sure, but read this article about gay activists in Russia. what the fuck? holding a rally to ask permission to have a gay pride parade is still enough to cause riots in most countries. and instead of having laws, politicians and police to keep order, gays in Russia have all of those elements working directly against them. much like things were once here (and still are in too many places), but in a society with even more of a tolerance for violence than ours. its truly sad, and hey, isn't Russia a country where these silly clowns are famous? what is it about men who love other men that makes people use words like "pervert", "satanic", etc? why?

oddest part of the article:

Richard Fairbrass, a gay singer with the British pop group Right Said Fred, was punched in the face and kicked by anti-gay activists while speaking to Reuters in an interview.
"We understand this is a gay event and so we came down here today," Fairbrass said before being hit. Blood dripped from his face after the attack.

i think i remember those guys being pretty buff, hopefully he got in a couple good punches of his own. i mean, shit man, he's getting punched and kicked - while being interviewed by Reuters! what is wrong with people?

sad vindication

2007-05-23T21:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I had to shut the fuck up for a while. But now its time to blah blah again, because there are things afoot I need to scream about some, in whatever way would prevent complaints from the neighbors. A little while ago, back in, ummm, December, I was ranting about the need to remove Harry Reid from the leadership role, as I have been prone to do ever since Harry Reid became the Dem. Senate leader. I wish this was a longer video clip, but Keith Olbermann gives all the necessary vitriol the Dems have coming and more here.

Again on display in this episode, if this happens as it is set to play out, is Harry Reid's magical ability to give away teh farm for free, before anyone's even offered to buy. What, what...how is this happening? Stephen Colbert was being too generous when he described Reid one night as being "...hung like an aphid." The clip linked above doesn't have a lot of the money quotes from Keith's rant, but among other things he called for the removal of Reid, Hoyer and Pelosi from their positions "if this is the best they can do."

Amazing. Somehow the whole dialog is now about 'what's going to happen in September?' Ooooooh, September! The special pixie faerie month when magical things will happen...somehow, in some way different than they are right now! IDIOTS! How many elections are there between now and September? None. How many seats will change between now and then? Depends how many sitting officeholders die over the summer! Weee. September will come, things will be the same, and the same god damned thing will happen again.

Ooohh, this went up during the time I spent writing this post. There's a bit more here, full video segment in the comments, and hopefully some of the more candid Dkos discussion than has been on display recently. Sometimes you do have to get mad at your own. I know its important to elect a Dem in '08, but these are the kind of decisions that will characterize a politician from their happening on out. Right now the only candidates using at least the correct analytical framework about the current Iraq situation are Dodd and Edwards. Tonight was too long for Hillary and Obama to make people wait for a forceful statement about the need to cease giving the accursed George W. Bush what he wants every time he throws a tantrum. The Dems have myriad tools as their disposal to undercut the Republicans, cut the funding by a date specific - via refusal to vote on any appropriations bill which doesn't either include mandatory withdrawal timelines or reinforcement of timelines which have already been made law. While the latter is unlikely to occur, there is no excuse for not attempting the former, time and time again, until the clock runs out, or Bush caves. What about this isn't completely obvious to our elected officials?

Finally!

2006-12-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

There will be a Second Ave. Subway! And all along I just thought it was a BS rumor that wouldn't die, oh me of little faith! I'll probably be old and grey by the time its opening but whatever. Now, if someone could just fix the Brooklyn subway system in general so that you can actually get from place to place in a useful manner. There needs to be an Astoria - LIC - Greenpoint - Williamsburg - Park Slope line. Scrap the G if need be and make something better. It sucks as is.

Arrrghhh, why???

2006-12-17T11:28:00.000-05:00

Why, why why did Harry Reid remain the Senate Minority Leader after the awful job he did corralling the Dems on the Military Commissions Act? Everyone got all warm and fuzzy after the elections and forgot that this guy is basically a clown who gets something right every once in a while. Similarly to how he bargained away the Dems' right to a fillibuster during voting on the MCA, he is now, arrrggghhhh!!! saying that he is open to the idea of a "surge" of troops in Iraq. IDIOT!!! There is NO, none, not any public support for this. There is no bargaining chip on the other side being played to draw out such a concession. And there is no, zero, none, not any anticipated benefit from doing so, just increased casualties on both sides. What is with giving into incredibly unpopular points of view, which also happen to be incredibly bad ideas, out of some sense of a need to "play nice" with the fucking ignominious Republicans? Reid says that the surge would be backed with plans to begin troop withdrawals by early 2008. Yeah, that's what always happens. Escalating in the hopes that if you escalate enough, it will create "order". Not going to happen in Iraq, and last time I checked, George W. Bush will still be President in early 2008, meaning there will be no withdrawing of jack shit until early 2009 when someone else takes over. Provided that person hasn't promised to stay forever and fight as some sort of romantic gesture to appease John McCain. And by that I mean to say, I believe that John McCain has no chance in '08 as long as he advocates this ridiculous and incredibly harmful idea that we need more troops in Iraq in order to keep people around the world from knowing that we've "lost". Everyone knows it already, and the public won't support it. Lucky for him though, the Dems are almost always ready to just give in before a real fight even occurs, no matter what the voting public wants.

Increasing the size of US forces in Iraq will simply lead to more troops there. It will not precipitate a drop in violence that will result in a grand withdrawal and "victory". It just means we get that much closer in terms of Vietnam analogies. And again, Reid, who is about to assume the role of Senate Majority Leader, is just giving this point away to the Republicans for NO strategic reason.

ahhh Ken Starr

2006-12-04T10:51:00.001-05:00

Faithfully protecting us unwashed Americans from the blowjobs and bong-hits that we are unable to protect ourselves from. Thanks, Ken!

hope it was fun while it lasted

2006-11-28T19:44:00.000-05:00

How am I supposed to not comment on this? I know the dudes from Queens who got way shot up in a strip club parking lot are grabbing all the headlines right now, but whenever something scandalous happens in Minnesota, its usually weird enough to pay attention to. I take a certain amount of comfort in the fact that a scandal like this can even occur these days. Take their weird poll too; I answered 'not sure' to both questions. It was very rewarding.

They have only begun to annoy us

2006-11-22T09:46:00.000-05:00

Oh dear God, I can already feel a thousand retarded sound bites and sour, self-serving "woe is me" slogans coming on. Its always been obvious that Marshall Wittmann has a man-crush the size of a red dwarf star on Joe Lieberman, but now he's officially managed to climb into bed with Droopy as his new spokesman. Its a thought almost too horrible to contemplate. The Times goes out of their way to praise Wittmann, while also, perhaps unintentionally, illustrating what a logically-challenged, anchorless sucker he is for anyone who can properly use the word "independent" in a sentence.

To say that Mr. Wittmann defies classification is like saying Paris Hilton defies modesty. But in his peripatetic soul, he is a Washington Original, a man without a political country going to work for a senator without a political party...a Trotskyite turned Zionist turned Reaganite turned bipartisan irritant turned pretty much everything in between — including chief lobbyist for the Christian Coalition, the only Jew who has ever held that position.

Yeah, try to make sense of that. Wait, don't, thinking too much about it may cause your brain to dribble slowly out of your eye sockets. He "defies classification"? I don't know. I would classify him simply as a gross opportunist with no core beliefs who's main goal in life seems to be to demonstrate that he is capable of supporting and advocating nearly anything at any given time. Or is he an overgrown baby, as evidenced by his need to refer to himself in the third person as "the Bull Moose", with so feeble an intellect that he can't actually forumlate a core belief system? Maybe it is harder than I thought. Either way, its no surprise that he's ended up working for Lieberman. I've mined this territory before, but I can't resist referring to Matt Taibbi's letter to Wittmann (who was threatening to run for head of the DNC to stave off the candidacy of Howard Dean) from early last year which opens thusly -

Dear Fuckhead,
No, I don't think you should run for the chair of the Democratic Party. I think you should get into your car, check into the nearest dingy motel, eat one last cheeseburger and blow your brains out.

Come on, Mr. Moose! Taibbi is an independent, can't you get behind this one?

He will also be forced to suspend [his website] the Bull Moose. “The Moose is now in hibernation,” Mr. Wittmann said, adding that he is not certain if moose in fact hibernate. (They do not.)

Marshall Wittmann; the hibernating moose of American politics. Would Dick Cheney please take this guy on a hunting trip?

Greatness

2006-11-14T12:40:00.000-05:00

How cool, Eric Alterman gives some recognition to this article about Eqbal Ahmad, one of my intellectual heroes under whom I was lucky enough to study briefly at school. For the four or five people who read this silly blog, if you haven't already, read Eqbal's 'Terrorism: Theirs and Ours' article, its prescient to a degree that few other, if any, scholars would have been able to achieve. It always surprises me how relatively unknown Ahmad has remained, considering how many things he was dead right about, which was, as far as I can tell, nearly everything he bothered to spend time talking about.

Near the end of the Nation article, one of Eqbal's former students recalls his story about visiting the site of the Haymarket Riot - she may have been in the class that I was in I don't remember, but I do remember that story well. What a great in-person storyteller he was...

I found this part of the article somewhat incoherent though -

Islamic fundamentalists, although they had little trouble raising their voices, only spoke for a minority; the majority of Muslims, Ahmad believed, had their faces turned to the future even as they remained rooted in the past. As he pointed out, the political heroes of the Muslim world in the twentieth century had been "secular, generally Westernized individuals": Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Pakistan, Sukarno in Indonesia, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Habib Bourguiba in Tunisia and the nine "historic chiefs" of the Algerian Revolution. Even the PLO, he added, claimed to represent a "secular and democratic" polity, and "two of its three most prominent leaders [Marxist leaders George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh] are Christian."

Accurate as this analysis was for much of the twentieth century, it seems incongruous today when much of the region that so concerned Ahmad seethes with a passion that is defiantly unsecular. Muslim anger has, of course, been stoked by America's war in Iraq and by Israel's brutal policies toward Palestine and Lebanon. Still, this cannot explain why radical Islam (with its various branches, tendencies and strategies) has managed to co-opt the anti-imperial struggle in the Muslim world--and why, by contrast, the Third World Marxism that Ahmad embodied so brilliantly has been unable to offer existential comfort or a successful political program to the masses.

I think that the history of all of this bears out Ahmad's view in the first place. Most of the writings of secular Muslim scholars still proclaim that violent jihadists are a loud and deadly minority, and I think that there should be much more effort within the US media to echo the truth of this. Guns and bombs and anti-"evildoers" slogans are not going to be what silences the violence. Political solutions to genuine problems such as poverty, unemployment, class disparity and totalitarian rule engineered by secular Muslims will be. It should come as little surprise to anyone that Third World Marxism hasn't swept through the Middle East and magically, nonviolently solved these deeply embedded problems through rhetorical force alone. The author's problem here is that their view of the Muslim world seems largely informed by the US media. Come on, this is a big no-no here! The US media only covers those who are "seething", and only discusses violence in an after-the-fact "oh my God look at the carnage!" manner. Americans don't know or understand jack crap about this part of the world on the whole, as evidenced most grossly by originally fairly high levels of support for the invasion of Iraq based on the idea that we would be welcomed there. And really, to believe such a thing, you had to know just about nothing about Iraq, US Foreign Policy history, and the Islamic World all at once. It will be a great step in the direction of peace and understanding for our country when the US media starts giving real air time to the views of informed, educated Muslims. Not to say there haven't been well educated terrorists, there have, such as Mohammed Atta. But the author notes Eqbal Ahmad's educational credentials without noting the lack of access to education the most poor - and therefore violent - segments of the Muslim world experience. A whole generation of Iraqis will feel this in an especially painful manner despite all of the manufactured "look at all the schools we're building" stories that were bouncing around for a while. Intellectuals are fleeing the country in great numbers, the infrastructure is way messed up, and the ongoing violence makes the learning of anything short of immediate survival techniques nearly impossible. That's why these problems aren't getting visibly better despite increased attention - we are actively making them worse through bad policy and willful ignorance.

Defense Poodle

2006-11-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

So if anyone wonders if there will be any real change what with the resignation of crazy Don Rumsfeld, don't hold your breath for too long. You can hold it a little. As that will be the extent to which BushCo. will change with this. Robert Gates isn't a NeoCon per se, but he's not that far from being one. The Iran-Contra scandal; he was apparently about shoulder-deep. At least. Tristero over at Hullabaloo gives just about all the inf o you really need to know about the guy though as an appointee. Regardless of whatever work he did for the CIA, he hasn't been involved with the US Military since the 60's in any employed capacity. Which makes me worry that he shares one of Rumsfeld's worst characteristics - complete unfamiliarity with the inner-workings of and political forces within the military. At least he wouldn't share crazy Don's hatred of the CIA (& vice versa) which is important right now. The Defense Department headed by Rummy has been nothing but antagonistic towards the CIA, and this makes for extra-bad government all around.

He hasn't been appointed due to his qualifications, surprise surprise. Bush is flailing around these days, looking for anything to grasp onto. His attention has turned to his father's allies which makes a lot of sense. They were in this territory before, and managed to keep from impaling themselves on a guerilla war through hubris and misplaced confidence. The NeoCons always cited as a flaw of Bush Sr.'s Iraq policy that he and his advisors encouraged a Shia uprising against Saddam and then abandoned them to be slaughtered in the aftermath of the Gulf War. They thought via their alliance with Ahmad Chalabi, that they could right this wrong. But by now, Bush is asking around, saying "...anyone remember exactly how we did that the first time? Could you go over there and do it again, purdy please?" When he learns (and he really does appear to still not understand this) that the 'Insurgents' are the Sunni who had ruled the country previously under Saddam, and that this time they would be left to be crushed by the Shia government which will precipitate when we leave, along with whatever influence Iran brings to bear in the interest of having a Shia ally next door, it will reaffirm his faith in himself as a strategic genius. He will have "balanced out" his father's screwups, rather than potentially fomenting the ascension of an extreme totalitarian state allied with, rather than a counter-balance to, Iran.

Death of a nursery rhyme

2006-11-10T10:16:00.000-05:00

Holy crap! How long before we get to see Rush Limbaugh's exaggerated Stevie Wonder impersonation?