January 31, 2006
Did I ever tell you that my guardian angel always appears to me in the form of Colonel Klink? It's true. So if you're going to be compared to a Nazi prison guard, you could do no worse than Klink. Okay, maybe Schultz would be better. But Klink is a close second.
Colonel Klink, why hast thou forsaken me!
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UPDATE: I'm registering Independent tomorrow. You're welcome to join me.
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January 27, 2006
My life as the son of a sharecropper was no picnic. In town there was always the worry that Boss Hogg and the powers that be would take some offense and confiscate what little we had to themselves under the perversity that was Jim Crow.Is it true? Does it really matter? It sounds true.And home was no better. Emasculated by a system that drained by father of all that was manly dignity, he found his only solace was the bottle. And when my father drank, he was mean. Real mean.
And if Timothy P. Barrus, a white guy from Lansing, Michigan, can win awards for writing about growing up on the Navajo Reservation, why can't I shoot for the same? He's pretty much my new hero, anyhow. Except for the gay porn thing. Can't say that I know enough about that to make up a true sounding story.
Hat tip to Confederate Yankee for the e-mail.
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He said police had heard for some time that Williams had been selling drugs in the area. “Then we heard that he was handing out business cards,” the officer said. “In the course of our investigation we were fortunate to come up with one, and we gave him a call.”More here.Kitchens said the business card had an image of what appeared to be an alarm clock being hit by a boxing glove and said: “For a quick hit on time call the boss.”
“When he answered, we agreed to buy some crack from him, we went up there, and we arrested him,” Kitchens said.
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January 24, 2006
A1: In their sleavies
A2: No, you dimwit, in our sleavies. In addition to constantly violating the border, it looks like they are helping smuggle drugs in too.
UPDATE BY SEE-DUBYA: Much more info in this Ontario (CA) Daily Bulletin article that made the rounds last week. There have been 216 documented incursions by the Mexican military since 1996.
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January 19, 2006
1. The US effort in Iraq is a "disaster" for the US, and only serves to antagonize the locals.
2. US troop morale is terrible, as exemplified by idiosyncratic and out-of-context evidence that runs counter to what the troops actually say in milblogs, during interviews, and in polls of military personnel. We (Al Qaeda) get stronger as you (the US and pro-democracy Arabs) get weaker. [Actually the evidence says the opposite, and the primary negative influence on troop morale appears to be the defeatist attitude and rhetoric of our own fifth column left.]
3. If the US leaves, abandoning its imperialistic ways, the turmoil in the Islamic world will eventually resolve itself. It's only our intervention that keeps things stirred up.
4. The Bush administration is lying to Americans, both about the condition of the war and about their own intentions. The majority of Americans now agree with this assessment and want to skedaddle. [Note: Since the polls no longer suggest this, the tape may well have been produced some time ago, as Howie, Rusty and a number of others suggest.]
5. The US has split its resources, allowing Al Qaeda to become stronger in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
6. The primary beneficiaries of the US war in the Middle East are the Halliburtonesque war profiteers and the oil capitalists.
Even though he makes all these points without attribution to Moore, Galloway, or Zuniga the effect cannot be viewed as beneficial to the cause of our domestic masochists, because it makes the task of distinguishing their positions from those of the Islamofascists nearly impossible. The association delegitimizes them in ways that none of their political opponents could possibly manage on their own. This makes the following offer startlingly ironic:
We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war.
Without realizing it Dr. Demento has thrust a knife in back of his ally, making the idiotarians less, rather than more useful to him. Bad move. Not that he had any good moves left, mind you.
(Cross-posted to Demosophia)
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January 18, 2006
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January 13, 2006
Seriously*. Kevin McCullogh gets censored for suggesting Kennedy deserves a beating. Buckley F. Williams has the top nine statements that would make Ted cry.
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January 12, 2006
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January 08, 2006
I've been on vacation for a few weeks, so the only news I've been paying attention to is a bit here and there from TV and radio. Because of this, I'm assuming that I'm about as informed as the average American on the Abramoff scandal right now. That is, I know that there is this guy named Jack Abramoff, that he has been indicted for some reason or another, that he has admitted to guilt, and that he has been a major contributor to the Republican party and a minor contributor to the Democratic party.
From this, the MSM has been running story after story raising 'questions' about those associated with Abramoff. The 'questions' mainly revolve around those who received campaign contributions from Abramoff and his Native American backers. The stories seem to focus on the 'fall out' from the Abramoff scandal rather than the scandal itself. In fact, I know next to nothing about the scandal itself, but I know an awful lot about the 'fall out' from it.
Can somebody please refer me to a good story that will explain the actual crimes committed rather than the 'fall out' from the crimes? I've been way out of the loop, so an MSM story or a blog post would be good. Seriously, I haven't seen a single news story on TV or heard one on the radio that actually explains what crimes Abramoff committed. None.
Editors at MSM outlets have been derelict in their duties--or worse. Imagine if CNN had done weeks and weeks of stories on the "fall out" from the 9/11 attacks, but ran nothing on the attacks themselves. Tonight on Anderson Cooper 360, a roundtable discussion on the Bush Administration's reaction to the al Qaeda attacks. What does this mean to the electoral prospects of the Republican Party?
The only thing I know about the Abramoff case is that he seems to have pled guilty to crimes that are in no way connected with illegal campaign contributions. I only know that because the only substantive discussion of the actual crimes came in a 15 second blurb by Tom DeLay in which he mentioned this. Of course, the news story on Fox in which I saw the bulrb wasn't about the substance of what DeLay mentioned, but about whether or not DeLay would be forced to step down because he had taken free trips paid by Abramoff. DeLay claimed that Abramoff had pled guilty to some scam completely unrelated to campaign finance. Is this tru?
If Abramoff's crimes were unrelated to illegal campaign finance contributions, then what, exactly, is the scandal? Seriously? Is this a simple guilt-by-association type of scandal? So large campaign-donors that turns out to be fellons taints all of those who they give money to? If so, I wonder if Martha Stewart gave money to any politician?
There seems to be some kind of 'scandal' going on here, but for the likes of me I don't seem to see one. The only scandal I see here is poor reporting, coupled with overblown headlines, poured on top of shallow interviews with politicians masquerading as 'tough questions'. I don't get it.
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I'm going to spend the afternoon going through e-mail and checking out recent blog posts here and elsewhere. I'll addend this post as I find interersting or relevant articles/posts.
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A year ago I would have said that the Democrats were on the verge of extinction as a party, and that by 2008 the future would involve a single-party "unity" government that would eventually spilt into two competing factions, both of Republican origin. Moreover, I don't regard the failure of the Republicans as a misreading of history. They have failed. As far as the economy is concerned they've simply demurred, barely even bothering to pay lip service to some good ideas (originally introduced by a Democrat, Patrick Moynihan). There really is no such thing as the "ownership society" you know, nor is there likely to be within our lifetime. And not only have they done nothing to diminish the deficit, they've done nothing to so much as recognize the primary challenge. For all the good they've done, they might as well have been Democrats.
While it's true that most of the new ideas in governance have come from Republican think tanks, they haven't even addressed the central issue: the comparative nonproductivity of US labor compared to a combination of technological capital and offshore labor. So we now have a situation, in the midst of what appears to be a genuine war (and not, as Michael Moore would have us believe, a "war mirage") where we'll be compelled to switch from one barely competent party, to another decidedly incompetent party, simply because we have no other options. The "engine of competitiveness" has simply not worked and both parties are out-to-lunch. We are sorely bereft of leaders, and of ideas... with an implacable enemy looking down our throats, cocked and ready. Anyone inclined to rejoice had better think again. And there's really no reason to believe we're at the bottom of the curve, either. While the Chinese are scaling up their human potential, we're scaling down. While they're investing we're divesting.
I, for one, am unsure. It's hard for me to even imagine a place for myself, let alone a bright future. I have some ideas, but haven't sold any, let alone myself. Like many in my generation I'm grievously underemployed, and my impression of the thirty-something generation that's currently ready to assume power is that they're impressed by superficial appearance but have not a clue what "substance" means. They're even more vain and distracted than my own generation, if that's possible. They amount to the equivalent of what R.B. Fuller once described as "Industrial Designers" who, if they were tasked with building a ship, would produce a sinking raft of toilet plumbing and wallpaper designs floating down the Hudson to the sea. For the most part they're rather mean-spirited and ignorant brats who will be compelled to learn 40 years of life in 10 just to survive, and who have been handicapped with an unserious attitude about serious things. They'll end up killing most of us before our time.
But you know, I don't really mean that... I'm just saying it for dramatic effect.
Sure I am.
(Cross-posted to Demosophia)
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January 03, 2006
Risen's chief target is the CIA, where, he argues, institutional dysfunction and feckless leadership after 9/11 led to intelligence breakdowns that continue to haunt the U.S. Though much of State of War covers ground that is broadly familiar, the book is punctuated with a wealth of previously unreported tidbits about covert meetings, aborted CIA operations and Oval Office outbursts. The result is a brisk, if dispiriting, chronicle of how, since 9/11, the "most covert tools of national-security policy have been misused."Here's a newflash for Risen, who shouldn't need to have it pointed out: there have been no, zero, nada, zilch attacks on the US since 9/11. That, in and of itself, invalidates the thesis of Risen's potboiler.
It's almost possible to respect a person who betrays this country because he is motivated by ideology. At least that can indicate noble intent, if flawed reasoning. But who can have any respect for someone who puts his countrymen at risk for the sake of personal enrichment?
Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto.
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December 31, 2005
I've always been a bit suspicious of the argument that "torture doesn't work," mainly because it's the kind of thing we'd like to believe so it'd be understandable if we applied an empirical filter that gives us that result. It's the sort of thing that happens all the time with methodoligally flawed scholarship. I'm guessing it does work, as does the occasional credible threat of torture. The question is whether there are alternatives that always work as well. If it genuinely didn't work then we wouldn't need a ban on it, we could just apply principles of professionalism to keep sadists out of the ranks of interrogators, and that'd be that.
Moreover, to some people practicing their piano lessons or studying calculus constitutes "torture." Yes, that's not what we're talking about here... but who can doubt that we would be talking about that eventually given the sort of wishful thinking one-sided "virtue" that dominates left-talk nowadays.
There's an argument for regime change in Uzbekistan, of course. Unfortunately most of those on the left can't bring themselves to use it, because it's the same one that justifies intervention in Iraq. But ultimately the paradigm is pretty simple, and it lies behind both the arguments against state torture and the arguments favoring the displacement of tyrants: respressive regimes breed group social pathologies, including terrorism. And there's also no doubt that the credible threat of a military intervention might serve to soften or replace a tyrannical regime once in awhile.
Actually the resolution I've proposed at various times would probably result in fewer instances of torture, or even near-torture, than would bans like those McCain supports. If the situation is sufficiently grave that you can obtain an uncoerced volunteer from your own service to undergo exactly the same treatment then "torture" is justified by the circumstances and odds of success. If you can't, then the situation isn't grave enough to justify it. That leaves the option open in extreme circumstances, reduces the overall instance of torture and cruel and unusual treatment, and gives us the moral high ground. But it would also evoke a lot of complaints from the morally bankrupt left who are less interested in results than in the appearance of superficial virtue.
For what it's worth it was none other than Cleveland Amory, animal rights activist and darling of the left, who first proposed something like the above. He suggested that the triggering codes that allowed a global thermonuclear launch be implanted next to the heart of an innocent person who would accompany the President at all times. Then, if the President were compelled by circumntances to order the use of our nuclear arsenal the only way he could do so would be by using a very sharp knife to "surgically remove the codes" himself, from the chest of a living victim (with no "help" from other service personnel). It's completely "barbaric" of course, but it reflects the barbarism of the choice and it therefore seemed entirely ethical. Score one for Cleveland. Today's "left" is just not made of the same stuff.
(Cross-posted to Demosophia)
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December 22, 2005
"We are collecting all the way up through the very end of the year and then our board has set aside a committee who is going to administer the funds," Patty Rice, spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday.This seems like a particularly lackadaisical attitude for an organization whose members have repeatedly gone over-the-top in condemning government response to the catastrophe: more...
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November 25, 2005
So, knowing that the plan was to redeploy troops beginning next year, the Democrats decided to get in front of the wave: Demand the troops be sent home NOW and then when the Pentagon announces the plan to redeploy, take credit for it.The two prongs of the attack serve two purposes. The "Bush lied us into war" wing satisfies the huge numbers of the party's base suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. The "declare victory and go home" attack preserves, however weakly, the party's appeal to traditionally patriotic Democratic voters, of which there are also huge numbers. Doubtless the Dem leadership sees the attacks as a two-fer.
The appeals to both wings are intended to garner huge dividends in November 2006.
With any president but George W. Bush, they'd be wrong. But GWB is the easiest president to blind side that I have seen in my life.
The lynchpin of Rev. Sensing's theory is the observation (accurate in my view) that the Bush administration is composed of politically inept strategists and tacticians (more the latter than the former). So, if that's all it takes to give substance to his theory then he's home free. But there are a couple of nagging doubts:
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November 19, 2005
Why the shock? Why the outrage?
No one saw this coming? Democrats wanting to cut and run?
Bill Clinton, Mogadishu, October 1993.
When I get home people 'll ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do ya do it man? Why? Just some war junkie?" Ya know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.
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November 17, 2005
There's one point that's important to remember about the White House's pushback to cover up its collective dishonesty about Iraq. We've noted before that in scandals or political nominations the decisive issue is not the number of opponents, the intensity of their opposition or even the quality of their arguments. The decisive issue is most often whether the scandalee or the nominee has some committed base of support, even if it only amounts to a distinct minority.
So, if you were thinking some semblance of objective truth has any relevance, well just grow the heck up you impossible romantic. Because even though Joe Wilson's CIA debrief said the opposite of his NYT piece, we know what he meant, right? Because within the boundaries of the hermeneutic circle the phrase "the Iraqis were seeking uranium in Niger" means the same as "the Iraqis were not seeking uranium in Niger." Nobody's counting anyway. Do you see anybody counting? I don't see anybody counting. Relatively speaking...
A parallel dynamic is in play with respect to what the White House is trying to accomplish with this current pushback.
Isn't this a misuse of the term "parallel?" I mean, isn't he saying that the decisive issue is whether or not Bush has a committed base of support? Which, strictly speaking, would be the same, rather than a parallel dynamic... right? But maybe he means something else?
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November 15, 2005
"IF THE DEMOCRATS ARE LYING, THEN THEY REALLY ARE UNPATRIOTIC": That is the basic argument that Glenn makes here, and that Tom Maguire has aptly summed up by observing that
I believe there is a substantial difference between "Your false charges are undermining the troops" and "Your criticism is undermining our troops".I agree with this argument in the abstract, although I don't think that it justifies what George Bush said. For Bush to be in the right, it should be transparently clear that his opponents are lying. I would argue that while the Democrats may not be telling the truth, it is not intentional. Instead, they have succumbed to confusion, short-sightedness, and unthinking resentment of the President.
Which, when you think about it, are ideal qualities to have in a political opponent, aren't they? Not just because an opponent with impaired judgment is easy to outmaneuver, but because they're a little less endearing to folks making up their minds about who ought to be governing them.
Update: David says, later:
more...
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November 02, 2005
Now just how is a reasonable person supposed to be unoffended by this obvious, and foolishly self-destructive, clamor for attention? On one side you've got the nomination of a brilliant and qualified conservative to the Supreme Court (who Michael Barone thinks won't be seriously opposed), the launch of a campaign to make ready for the next Influenza Pandemic (a move that Moveon criticized Bush for not having made earlier), a UN investigation of Syrian thuggery exposing a political assassination in Lebanon, and findings that will lead to indictments against prominent members of the "peace movement" who got rich acting as Saddamite conduits. On the other side the Gang That Can't Shoot Straight claims that these are all distractions, and that even though nearly everyone on the planet was certain Saddam was seeking WMD the whole thing was somehow a clever deception arranged by the Bush Administration. Yeah, that's a winner. Keep it up. We really need to vote you guys back into office.
Never saw that one coming...
(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia)
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