April 2005 Archives

It's like a Saturday Night Live routine, isn't it?

Bush Touts Technology to Solve Energy Woes

"Technology is the ticket," said Bush, calling today's tight energy markets "a problem that has been years in the making" and will take time to resolve. He said he was determined to spur development of more nuclear power, coal, oil and renewable energy and again called on Congress to provide him with a national energy agenda.

The president said he knows "many people are concerned" about the high gasoline prices that now average more than $2.20 a gallon nationwide, but he lamented that he can't do anything about it.

"I wish I could," he said. "If I could, I would."

"It's time for America to start building again," he said.

Just saying.

One of the major reasons why I hold such contempt for libertarians is that I think they've flunked the evolutionary test - i.e. they're a dead end. An interesting adaption, and something I myself went through. But if it's a destination I think they've simply missed the point.

And what's truly odd is that I really do buy the whole selfishness meme. I just think that if you're really going to be selfish - i.e. you're trying to maximize your own utility function - you're pretty much rooting for the group.

Groups - at least good groups - amplify and enhance the capabilities of the individuals they are composed of. Think about all the work going into the enhancement of humans - exoskeletons, mind expanders, life enhancers, artificial global immune systems, whatever.

None of this would have ever come about if it was up to you - even on a good day.

So stop your bitching. It's not like you are losing anything anyway. What? You're going to go off planet in a huff? Hell, why are you living in California then? You can't even walk five minutes without bumping into some yokel who you just know is going to clog up your toilet.

Being this cool takes a shit load of integrated human time. And I don't think I have to tell you what the average quality of the available time is. So just sit back and count your lucky stars that you're here at all in what is most probably the last gasp of a once glorious species.

Because from here on out, it's going to get rather interesting.

Scoobie is absolutely right.

Mystery of the Democrats' New Spine

The mystery is, how did this happen? How did the Democrats find their voice and gain the upper hand over Bush on a number of issues: Social Security, his right-wing judicial appointments, the Terri Schiavo case, Tom DeLay’s ethics mess and the John Bolton nomination? What has caused the Democrats to grow a new spine?

One thing missing from this otherwise excellent article is the rise of such groups as Media Matters. It's not just that we finally have a friendly forum, but that we're also out there fact checking their sorry asses. It's not a glamorous job and it's certainly not something that's going to have a explosive effect. But it's the continual wearing down of the edifices they have carefully built up over the past 20 years. The shit that they've piled up and mixed with straw to produce these towering altars has ossified and is highly resistant to direct attack. Withering erosion, on the other hand... We need sand blasting, seeping water which then freezes in the exposed cracks of their facade, and the constant erosion of their "credibility".

It's not enough simply to talk up your own game. You have to destroy theirs.

Unspeakable horrors from outer space paralyze the living and resurrect the dead!

US admits Iraq insurgency undiminished

The Iraqi insurgency is just as strong now as it was one year ago, the most senior US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers has admitted.

Iraqi Insurgency Is Weakening, Abizaid Says

Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said yesterday that the strength of the Iraqi insurgency is waning as a result of momentum from elections, and he predicted Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against insurgents in most of Iraq by the end of 2005.

I'm going to say this: I think we are winning, okay. I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time," Myers told reporters.

"So therefore winning or losing is not the issue, in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war," he said.

"The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis. And the Iraqis will do it not through military means solely, but by progress on the political side and giving the Iraqi people a sense that they have a stake in that country," he said.

There will be no early end to Iraq violence, warns Mubarak

“Iraq differs from every other country because it is composed of different groups Shias, Sunnis and Kurds. And every group is bent on making its voice the loudest.”

Iraq PM forms cabinet as insurgents shot dead woman MP

Well, at least they're forming a cabinet, right?

The proposed cabinet “will be submitted to the presidential council, which will in turn submit it to parliament” for approval, Jaafari told a news briefing broadcast by state television.

But he failed to name those on the list, saying only they included “at least seven women” and that the Sunni minority would get the defence portfolio.

Sorry to be late on the party.

You know, I'm not anti gun. But I must say that people who think that gun ownership is the most important issue on the face of the planet have some major issues with insecurity and self worth. Most of the time I just keep these thoughts to myself. But I must say that Ted Nugent has gone completely non-linear and - imho - is someone who has literally crossed the line between sanity and blithering idiot

"Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em!" he screamed to applause. "To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em."

Sorry to break radio silence but I always simply crack up whenever Hugh Hewitt pops his greasy little head up and wipes his ass with the EMM ESS EMM.

Clashes Growing Between Bush and GOP Moderates

Similarly, conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt predicted dire consequences for the GOP if Republican defectors thwarted the expected effort by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to ban the filibuster for judicial nominations.

"Fundraising for the National Republican Senatorial Committee will crater, and the majority so recently and dearly won could well vanish in a matter of 18 months," Hewitt said on his Web log last week.

And he's all out of gum.

A Judicious Compromise

Democrats should give up any leverage and power they have in exchange for promises from Republicans which aren't worth the paper they won't be printed on.

Well, Justice Sunday is almost upon us and I must say that I'm trembling with anticipation. I hope this isn't going to be another promise unfulfilled. The 60 days of social security surreality have certainly been less than satisfying.

I'm looking forward to a new campaign of demonization coordinated with the new Pope. This new conservative alliance between Fundamentalist Christians, Catholicism and the Right Wing Of American Politics^tm is going to produce a war to behold. A Jihad against the unwashed and largely democratic foe.

The apocalyptic are so riled up right now that we're bound to at least see some sport shooting of judges. I'm still keep expecting to hear something out of my favorite apocalyptic and former Republican party presidential candidate, Gary Bauer. I mean, with some sort of peace threatening to at least drop in for dinner in Palestine, those who are jonesing for Armageddon are likely getting really, really antsy.

But I think the best part of the coming nightmare will be those on the right who really, really, REALLY hated left wing political correctness try to cope with right wing, theistic political correctness.

That is going to be so worth the televised revival of the Salem witch trials and return of the holy inquisition.

Via Dancing Don Henley

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
And everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor and the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
And everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
That their father or their dog just died
Everybody talkin’ to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
And everybody knows

( chorus )
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes, and everybody knows

I'm just saying.

Update: I really liked Steve's heretical take on this whole Coulter nonsense.

I imagine a person reading the story who doesn't know the first thing about her. First impression: She's Azaelf drunk and chain-chewing Nicorette. Next: You learn she's compared all liberals to an alleged wife-murderer. Soon she's graphically describing a partial-birth abortion while people around her in a restaurant are trying to eat, after which she insists that her interviewer note for the record that she's getting sloshed.

You think this makes her look good?

This sounds like an episode of Behind the Music -- the part that comes shortly before the multiple stints in rehab.

Then there are the bon mots. See, you and I, we're used to them. If you're a lefty political maven, you've heard all of Coulter's greatest hits -- you can probably recite a few from memory. But to the apolitical reader I'm imagining, this is brand new, and unless the person is far to the right, I think it must seem rather repulsive.

Kind of like a yipping dog with cancerous tumors protruding from it. You know it's dead. It knows it's dead. All it's doing is acting out of frustration of the fact that it knows it's dead but it isn't actually dead yet.

Sad, really.

Che Guevara? CHE GUEVARA?

Such counsel may seem bland beside the very real romance of revolution. But those on the political right (from which most, though not all, of the militia movement comes) should know better than to yield to that romance. Ever since the idolization of Che Guevara, a large chunk of the American left has succumbed to revolutionary romance, while those on the right have focused on workaday politics. The relative fortunes of those two movements over the last 25 years, especially after November's elections, suggest which approach works.

Having said this, I also have a cautionary note for those who are not part of the militia movement. When large numbers of citizens begin arming against their own government and are ready to believe even the silliest rumors about that government's willingness to evade the Constitution, there is a problem that goes beyond gullibility. This country's political establishment should think about what it has done to inspire such distrust--and what it can do to regain the trust and loyalty of many Americans who no longer grant it either.

Rove Decries Media Approach to Government

The media have started applying the horse race style of campaign coverage to daily reporting on government, leading to adversarial reporting that can obscure the truth just to create conflict, President Bush's chief political strategist said Monday.

Speaking at a forum at Washington College, Karl Rove said the influx of media outlets and the shrinking shelf life of news in a 24-hour news cycle are to blame.

"We are substituting the shrill and rapid call of the track announcer for calm judgment, fact and substance,"

<heh>

In DeLay's Home District, Rumblings of Discontent Surface (emphasis mine)

Eric Thode, the Fort Bend County Republican chairman since 1992 and the former public relations director of Enron, said Mr. DeLay continued to enjoy strong support from constituents. "Democrats can't win the seat," he said. "They can spend anything they want. It's a Republican district."

Wake-up call

In the first few days of the exercise, using surprise and unorthodox tactics, the wily 64-year-old Vietnam veteran sank most of the US expeditionary fleet in the Persian Gulf, bringing the US assault to a Azaelt.

What happened next will be familiar to anyone who ever played soldiers in the playground. Faced with an abrupt and embarrassing end to the most expensive and sophisticated military exercise in US history, the Pentagon top brass simply pretended the whole thing had not happened. They ordered their dead troops back to life and "refloated" the sunken fleet. Then they instructed the enemy forces to look the other way as their marines performed amphibious landings. Eventually, Van Riper got so fed up with all this cheating that he refused to play any more. Instead, he sat on the sidelines making abrasive remarks until the three-week war game - grandiosely entitled Millennium CAzaellenge - staggered to a star-spangled conclusion on August 15, with a US "victory".

I'm quoting from an Air America Radio interview with Suskind:

Suskind: He says, you know, "You, Suskind, you're in what we call the 'reality-based community'" -- that's actually the term he used.

I said, "The WHAT?"

He says, "The 'reality-based community'.". He said, "you all believe" -- now let me see if I can get this right -- "You all believe that answers to solutions will emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality."

I said, "Yeah... YEAH, OF COURSE..."

He says, "Well, let me tell you how we really see it. You see, we're an empire now. And when we act, we kinda create a reality. Events flow from our actions. And because of that, what we do is... essentially... we act, and every time we act we create a whole new set of laws of physics, which you then judiciously study for your solutions, and while you're doing that we'll act again, promulgate a whole other set."

Janine Garofolo: "So you throw a rock in the pond, and the ripples go out..."

Suskind: And this guy said, "and that's where we'll stand ultimately; you'll study us, and we'll act. We'll be the actors, and you will study what we do. And if you're really good -- on good behavior -- maybe thirty years from now one of us will visit that graduate seminar you'll be teaching at Dartmouth in your tweed blazer." That's the thinking.

With every new terror strike, George W. Bush only grows stronger.

His enemies are vanquished. Michael Moore and the New York Times editorial page are historically irrelevant. The Democratic Party is in disarray. George Soros is busy planning ways to waste millions of his fortune on Hillary's 2008 loss.

The terrorists may still be killing a handful of Iraqi civilians. But all they are doing is strengthening their enemies in the United States and all of Iraq.

It is time for a new strategy. This killing thing just isn't making headlines anymore.

The U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office decided to eliminate "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks.

The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism.

Strange to see all the conservatives up in arms over the ever increasing lengths the social conservatives are willing to go to get their way. I guess this is just another manifestation of the whole "Free Lunch" mentality the rest of the conservatives seem to have.

I mean, the whole supply side economic theory is nothing more than one big "Free Lunch" theory - i.e. that the more you cut revenue the more revenue you'll make. Then there's the whole "Free Lunch" of Iraqi and Afghani democracy - i.e. democracy and nation building "on the cheap". We can round out the examples with the "Free Lunch" of national security - i.e. just give them all the power and give up all your privacy and you'll be safe.

So it really shouldn't surprise me that they expected to get the support from the religious conservatives and wouldn't have to pay for it. They just expect them to be so stupid as to never figure out they weren't getting anything but lip service in return for their political support.

Or were they just hoping for one more election, and then the party could break its addiction to the religious vote?

I mean, just where did they think the radical anti-abortion wing of the party came from? Hello? Eric Rudolph? Hello? Timothy McVeigh?

And might I just add that for the last five years we've had a non stop siren sound of

If you don't share our politics, you hate America.

If you don't share our politics, you hate the military.

If you don't share our politics, you are a treasonous liberal.

Seriously encouraging the return McCarthyism? And the whole issue of gay marriage? My lord are these people truly that dense?

Just read G. Reynolds' latest screed on TCS.

But Americans really don't like busybodies telling them what to do. The decline of the Left as a political force in America coincided precisely with its shift from a politics of individual freedom to that of tut-tutting politically-correct nanny-statism. I suspect that if the religious Right decides to emulate the Left in this regard, its influence will evaporate in similar fashion.

(All our myths of hubris based on the apt Dr. Frankenstein stereotype in question have all been resolved by the threat evaporating in a puff in the face of an onslaught of fierce libertarian logic)

I guess we all better pray like hell (so to speak) that there's enough sane republicans left and they're able to wrest control from these lunatics.

Color me skeptical.

But you see, this is justified terrorism. Terrorism designed to correct the vast wrongs perpetrated by Blue State politicians and their winged monkey minions. Because they love 'merica.

Bracing for reaction in wake of Olympic bomber’s manifesto

Abortion clinics around the country are bracing for attacks after Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph issued his manifesto justifying the use of violence to stop “the worst massacre in human history.”

Yep. Just like the left wing loons.

Via Alan Parsons, a trip down memory lane on this cold April morning

Somehow you made it in the big wide world
And you're absolutely home and dry
You got away from a one horse town
And the only way out was to fly

You heard a lot about an easy street
And it seems like the place to be
You heard some talk about a slippery slope
But you think "it can't happen to me"

Vulture culture
Use it or you lose it
Vulture culture
Choose it or refuse it
Hollywood is calling won't you join the dance
Moving onto Wall Street why not take a chance
It's a vulture culture
Never lend a loser a hand
Just a vulture culture
Living off the fat of the land

It was only a matter of time. Bluetooth hacking from over a mile away. Private pairing? In secret? Give me a break!

Lord almighty. We're doomed.

How To: Building a BlueSniper Rifle

Watching the news these past few weeks, you would think that hackers have taken over our cellphones. From the Paris Hilton phone hack (which was not Bluetooth-based), to the unintentional release of Fred Durst's (from the band Limp Bizkit) sex video - Wireless security has been thrust into the limelight. The proliferation of Bluetooth devices has made wireless communications easy and the Bluetooth group wants you to believe that this technology is safe from hackers. However, the guys from Flexilis, a wireless think-tank based in Los Angeles, beg to differ and they have a big freakin gun to "voice" their opinions.

Via Shriekback

In a jungle of the senses
Tinkerbell and Jack the ripper
Love has no meaning, not where they come from
But we know pleasure is not that simple
Very little fruit is forbidden
Sometimes we wobble, sometimes we're strong
But you know evil is an exact science
Being carefully correctly wrong

Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big Black Nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home

We feel like Greeks, we feel like Romans
Centaurs and monkeys just cluster round us
We drink elixirs that we refine
from the juices of the dying
We are no monsters, we're moral people
and yet we have the strength to do this
This is the splendour of our achievement
Call in the airstrike with a poison kiss

So, the assertion is that academia is not just a hot bed of liberalism, it is overwhelmingly dominated by liberals. And if I read this report right, this overwhelming liberal bias applies not just to the humanities, but to the hard sciences and engineering schools as well.

Jonah Goldberg speculated on why this is so, basically saying that anyone who stays behind in academia in these fields is an absolute moron loser. After another rousing good laugh at J. Goldberg's expense, Brad DeLong lists a number of reasons he's heard that the academics in these fields don't trend overwhelmingly Republican.

With me so far?

So imagine my surprise when the Vodka Pundit says that Brad DeLong is on drugs - almost every academic he met in his field of engineering (doesn't mention what type) was conservative (except for those wacky physicists - they're all on drugs anyways).

What's even more funny is all the comments streaming in on the post. Seriously. It's like being at a Baptist revival. Can I get an amen!

I guess what I find truly humorous about all this is that V. Pundit didn't even actually speak to what DeLong was said - not even close. Brad was taking the assertion that even the engineering and hard sciences were overwhelmingly liberal at face value and then relaying the reasoning he has heard from these liberal folk. See?

V. Pundit is apparently under the impression that liberals do not totally dominate the academics in engineering (maybe the physics department). In fact, what V. Pundit and his echo chamber are saying is that J. Goldberg and D. Ho are full of shit - most everyone's really a conservative.

<snicker>

Still left unanswered by V. Pundit is the assertions made by J. Goldberg regarding the loserness of these conservative academics. I must say that it's pretty darn funny to have J. Goldberg use V. Pundit as proof that he isn't a complete and babbling idiot.

Contrary to the news reports you have read, I'm actually not quite as naive as I appear to be. For example, I do actually believe that liberals and the left have actually committed any number of sins that they are purported to have committed. Specifically, in the past, I do believe that the collective gestalt of the left had resulted in an atmosphere of "political correctness". This insidious virus spread throughout American culture and literally sucked out the manliness in any interaction and reduced an entire generation to the metro sexual horrors of city life.

But quite frankly, I think I long for those good old days - pre Bush. At least back then, the presumption was that you had a brain. Back when you didn't have to worry about showing lesbians without a big, flashing neon sign above their heads to protect the fragile Christian fundamentalist minds. Time was, simply having a difference of opinion regarding a war wasn't grounds for labeling you a traitor.

Um, strike that last one. As far as I can tell, that has always been the case.

In any event I must say that it's pretty damn hilarious to hear people get all medieval on the dusty past when radical feminists roamed bra-less through the liberal owned streets. People getting all self righteous about how they've been so victimized by the liberal elite.

I mean, how lame do you have to be to let a peace loving hippy get the drop on you?

Now a days, we have to watch our step or the Moral Elite will whip us back into line (literally). Expose a pasty covered nipple on probably one of the finest breasts around today and you'll be coughing up the cash. Talk trash on an adolescent radio talk show and you'll have your ass kicked back to Monday of last year.

We literally have to teach a theory dreamed up in a mescaline induced vision (i.e. Intelligent Design) as an alternative to the theory of evolution because our Moral Overlords want "equal time". Can affirmative action for Republicans be far behind?

<sigh>

I miss the good old days when the worst we had to deal with was deciding who to laugh at the most.

3. Which comes closest to your view?

--People should pay the same rate of tax on their incomes, regardless of how much money they make, 40 percent.

--People who earn more money should pay a higher tax rate on their incomes than people who earn less money, 57 percent

--Not sure, 3 percent

Take it away, Mithras

What the Democratic Party must do is undercut the GOP's science-fiction-based comparative advantage. First, it must promote the right candidates. Ladies and gentlemen, consider Picard/Data '08. Yes, yes, I know neither are eligible to the Presidency, on account of foreign birth and being fictional, but these are minor details that can be swept aside with a pliant press - after all, they didn't say anything when a man with the intelligence of a small woodland creature was twice elected President and then dragged the nation into war under the barest of flimsy excuses. Second, we must transform ourselves into the party of Killer Robots That Can Blow Up Other Killer Robots With Lasers. Our strategy will be to disperse the robot and laser factories in low-income areas of major cities, divert the funding from places like Alabama and some of those other states in the middle of the country - I can never remember their names - and then stream the video of "tests" of competing robot armies over the internet. No one will be killed, there will be full employment and high-tech job training, and campaign contributions from tech companies will pour into Democratic hands. The Republicans won't stand a chance. It'll be a rout.

Paul's not the Walrus! Paul was never the Walrus!

I am the Walrus!

Fact: If Bolton is not confirmed, we’ll be sending a signal to the rest of the world that we are not, in fact, as serious about UN reform—or American foreign-policy rectitude—as we pretend to be. Bolton has America’s best interests at heart, and he is the perfect man for the position of US Ambassador, particularly in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal and the myriad other UN missteps of the past few years. Anyone who votes against him is, in my opinion, a bonafide moral coward posing as a statesman. Period.

<heh>

Got to love D. Ho. The man truly has no shame.

Why Horowitz Hates Professors

So what do you think, dear readers? Do you think David is going to disavow any of his friends in the far-right network anytime soon? I don’t, and here’s why: though he never tires of asking me to dissociate myself from leftists with whom I have no connection in the first place, David doesn’t disavow people on the far right. On the contrary, he hires them (remember, he gave Ann Coulter a job after she was fired from the National Review back in the fall of 2001 – yes, he’s even lower on the food chain than Jonah Goldberg) and, even more important, he answers to them. Remember, the day he says one bad word about the religious right in this country, or the day he demurs in the slightest about our very own domestic right-wing terrorists and their enablers, that’s the day his sugar daddies at the Bradley and Scaife foundations cut him off and toss him out of his “center.” That’s why he wouldn’t answer my cAzaellenges; indeed, that’s why he wouldn’t do so much as print them.

I think we’re finally getting to the real reason David hates professors so much. It has nothing to do with our salaries or our working hours: he hates our freedom. Horowitz knows perfectly well that I can criticize the Cockburns and Churchills to my left and the Beinarts and Elshtains to my right any old time I choose, and that at the end of the day I’ll still have a job – whereas he has to answer to all his many masters, fetching and rolling over whenever they blow that special wingnut whistle that only far-right lackeys can hear. It’s not a very dignified way to live, and surely it takes its toll on a person’s sense of self-respect.

Seems like the stench of decay is in the air. The vultures are circling. Seems that all we're doing is waiting for the corpse to realize that it's long since dead and the twitching to stop.

I'm talking DeLay, of course.

There are those that think this is going to be a replay of the 2002 Trent Lott affair. There are those that think Democrats should back off and let the Republicans go in for the kill.

Personally, I think the Dems should be a vicious as they can on this. They should yank out everything even remotely connected with this vile excuse for a Congressman.

The reason why there wasn't much traction with killing off Trent Lott is that - unfortunately - there's a pretty significant fraction of the US which really doesn't think racism is a problem. Either they're out and out racists (hopefully a small percentage in the 21st century) or a bunch of "angry white folks" who are feeling disenfranchised by the whole affirmative action thing. In any event, the end result is that you didn't have a lot of Republican outrage against Trent Lott's sin.

But DeLay is pretty much universally reviled at this point. If things keep going as they are currently unfolding, then there isn't going to be anybody on earth - except maybe Saddam - who will have anything good to say about DeLay.

No one.

So there is absolutely no political downside to tearing into DeLay full force. The stuff spilling out of this rotting zombie corpse is getting uglier by the second. If there is any time to go for broke and grab the brass ring, it's this time.

And given the kind of guy DeLay looks like he is, it's pretty clear that his tendrils go deep into the Republican power structure. Simply grasping and pulling is going to cause a lot of trauma within the party. With a bit of work and some elbow grease, I bet you could do some serious damage to the whole organization. Leave it a shattered shell of its former Rovian glory.

Bush is on the ropes with respect to SS. Frist may or may not unleash the nuclear option. The wackos on the Right may literally start killing judges - they certainly want to tar and feather them.

If there was ever a time to strike while the iron is hot, this is it.

Normal people would have stopped digging at the 9th circle of Hell. Heck, normal people would have stopped digging once they found themselves in Hell. But not Brooks.

Brooks' latest is actually pretty darn cool. I think I can actually see him squirm in this latest column. It's almost like his heart isn't quite into it when he lashes out at the Democrats at the tail end of the piece. You can almost hear the faint beginnings of a twinge of regret.

But then he proceeds to shore his flagging hope by dropping the fact that Dennis Hastert (Denny to his friends) will soon be back from minor surgery and he will whip these Republicans back into shape.

<snicker>

I think it's cute when a party starts getting embarrassed by their more radical elements.

I just wish they weren't bat shit crazy, armed and not afraid to take Senators and Congressman at their word regarding judges n' such.

The worst Beinart has to worry about his radical left is Michael Moore exploding in some donut accident or Dean breaking someone's ear drums with a poorly timed signal amplification.

Wow. I'm watching the video of the NPC panel with Guckert.

Painful. Wincingly painful.

Jim/Jeff, please read this.

Ye gods.

My first banning from a blog's comments.

Andrew Olmstead, famed Libertarian and free thinking military man has decided that he doesn't like what he hears. So I'm banned.

<sniff>

Via Alan Parsons

Who knows where the road may lead us, only a fool would say
Who knows if we’ll meet along the way
Follow the brightest star as far as the brave may dare
What will we find when we get there

La sagrada familia we pray the storm will soon be over
La sagrada familia for the lion and the lamb

Ah yes. Spring is in the air, it's a truly lovely day outside. Birds are chirping. Must be time for another homey homily from the good father Brooks.

A House Divided, and Strong

If I were a liberal, which I used to be, I wouldn't want message discipline. I'd take this opportunity to have a big debate about the things Thomas Paine, Herbert Croly, Isaiah Berlin, R. H. Tawney and John Dewey were writing about. I'd argue about human nature and the American character.

In disunity there is strength.

To which I say "duh".

I just don't think this was Brooks' point at all. I think this is another one of his whacked out ideas he has when he starts using that 100 hectare-foot gravity bong that he keeps in the study for special occasions (along with his "tin" of cocoa). Special occasions - say - like the huge fractious debate over Terry Schaivo which has degenerated into a scene where both a Senator and Congressman have both come pretty darn close to threatening federal judges. Or special occasions like the complete melt down of Tom DeLay.

Quite embarrassing stuff for someone like Brooks.

One of the more surreal things about reading Mark Schmidt is that the world he occupies looks nothing like my own. I'm certainly not saying that he's Azaellucinating - only that he seems to have a very insider-ish view of the whole thing.

Something that is perfectly acceptable for someone like him who is pretty much the definition of an insider.

But out here in the rest of the world, the world where I don't have lunch with party luminaries, wonks and hot interns of the party apparatchik, it doesn't seem like we're lean on debate.

Maybe I'm the only guy who's noticing it, but the whole New Republic crowd led by Herr Beinhart seem to be on a literal jihad to purge the party of people like me. And although I can't begin to wonder how they are going to accomplish this (not being an insider) I can tell you from the layman's point of view that it's pretty damn uncomfortable and raucous debate not without consequences.

Again, maybe it's just me, but I haven't really noticed that democrats agree on all that much. I really haven't noticed that there's some lock step script we're all supposed to be following. This is likely because I'm not really plugged into the mainline and have missed the memos... but packs of roving, ideological, lockstep democrats is simply something that I can't possibly imagine at the moment.

I see a fractious, bitterly divided party wrapped in an endless debate about what they want to be when the grow up.

When Republican Senators and Republican Congressman can openly threaten judiciary and speculate that the death threats (and occasional actual deaths ) are well deserved for their vicious activism...

Well, I think that they pretty much have jumped the Shark. And I don't mean "jumping the shark" in that cute and cuddly "Happy Days" way.

Whatever this political movement the Republican party has become, it has now started to openly threaten the last remaining patina of independence.

And you silly ones think the Democrats are just as bad as these jokers - worse, perhaps.

Hopefully they'll be carting you off to the concentration camps first.

In any event, I think all this talk about egging these jackals on is irresponsible. I think it is quite fool hearty to think that the American people are going to wake up and throw these bozos out of office. I think most of the people who voted for these guys the last time around know precisely what they're getting for their vote. Eyes wide open, as it were.

What's the quote? Ah yes.

Time is when the day is like a play by Sartre
When it seems a book burning is in perfect order

I tell ya. This really is precious.

The show will go on: Gannon to remain on National Press Club journalism panel

The Press Club’s president said he planned to ask Gannon why he considered himself a journalist.

“He should answer that question. The alternative is to censor somebody. We believe in free speech and tough questions,” Dunham said.

“I don’t think John Aravosis is the only person in the world who’s capable of criticizing Jeff Gannon,” Mike Madden, a reporter with Gannett News Service who will moderate Friday’s panel discussion.

Tomorrow morning. Porn goes presidential. This is going to be sweet.

The Editors explain

Which I think moves us closer to the heart of the matter. The fact is that radically misinformed views about, say, the theory of evolution, and radically misinformed views about the existance of WMD in Iraq, all tend to cluster around wingnuts, and wingnuts tend to cluster around FOX News. These aren’t views people develop on their own. Stupidity plays a role in this, but it’s not an over-all kind of stupidity, necessarily - many of these people manage to function in society, hold down jobs, etc. - but it’s clearly not a case of having a few isolated kooky beliefs here and there, either. The problem is chronic stupidity of a particular type - an inability to identify what sources of information are unreliable - and the word for people who are stupid in this particular way is “chumps”.

Chumps are harder to argue with than regular people, because the argument is never really about the subject at hand, it’s about something far more personal: “am I a chump?” Admittedly, this is true to some extent about any argument, where the meta-topic is always “am I wrong?” and nobody likes to be wrong, either. The difference is that being wrong is something that can be remedied pretty easily, just by acknowledging a superior argument and/or more compelling evidence, thereby becoming right. Being a chump, on the other hand, is not just a lot more personally embarrassing than being wrong, it’s also a lot harder to fix, because it involves reversing one’s self on any number of positions - any position where you treated established systems and methods for weeding out fraud and error, such as exist in professional science or journalism responsibly practiced, as being less credible than what you saw last Wednesday night on “Scarborough Country” or read on like all these blogs. Being a chump is a lot like eating Pringles - once you pop, you (you! you!) can’t stop, and the tendency is to gorge yourself into a tasty oblivion. Not being a chump requires acknowledging that you are, in fact, a chump, with very chumpy opinions and pronounced chumpish tendencies, and then acknowledging that everybody you believed was a nice man who would have a beer with you and never lie was, in fact, playing you for a chump, or were simply chumps themselves. That’s not a very nice feeling. Far easier is to reject common sense one final time, and be just a slightly bigger chump than before.

The healing balm of hard data and analysis.

Word.

(emphasis mine)

Do Taxes Thwart Growth? Prove It

At the heart of such antitax sentiment is this belief: Taxes are bad for the economy. And who would disagree, especially as April 15 nears?

There's just one problem, though. Despite the widespread notion that taxes harm the economy, no one has actually been able to back that up. It's not that taxes have no effect; they are a major part of the American economic system and affect planning and behavior in many ways. Taxes influence who wins and who loses in a competitive society. But over all, there is surprisingly little evidence that tax rates are an important factor in determining the nation's economic prosperity.

In theory, the issue seems simple enough. According to basic economic principles, a tax can have a negative effect on behavior by reducing the incentive to do whatever is taxed. Impose a tax on wages, and people may decide to work less.

That's the theory, anyway. In practice, how many Americans will work less if their taxes rise? With mortgage bills, college tuition and car payments looming, who can afford to work less? Relatively few have the option of cutting back without risking the loss of their jobs.

So just because taxes can discourage productive behavior doesn't mean that they do. Too many other factors are involved - like social pressures, financial needs and a job market that isn't entirely flexible.

And then there's the evidence. Over the last 30 years, economists have undertaken hundreds of studies to determine whether taxes hurt the economy. So far, they've turned up little to convict taxes of the charge. After reviewing the literature on the topic in 1993, two economists, William Easterly of New York University and Sergio Rebelo of Northwestern, concluded in a joint paper that "the evidence that tax rates matter for growth is disturbingly fragile."

A leading tax specialist today, Joel B. Slemrod of the University of Michigan, would agree. He notes that in the 20th century, a rising tax burden in the United States and other developed countries went hand in hand with rising prosperity.

In the book "Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate Over Taxes," Professor Slemrod and Jon Bakija examine the relationship between the marginal income tax rate - the rate imposed on additional income in a progressive tax system - and productivity. After all, if you reduce the rate of taxation on income, people should work harder. But the opposite turned out to be true. Looking at the data from 1950 to 2002, the authors found that periods of strong productivity growth actually occurred when the top tax rates were the highest. And they showed that, on average, high-tax countries are the most affluent countries.

If you didn't see tonight's Arrested Development, you missed the perfect episode.

The gift that keeps on giving.

The image of a bunch of bloggers disrupting anything just cracks me up.

What I want to know is why the NPC isn't web casting this salacious event. If you're going to live blog the event, the only way to do it is over some private web cam streaming video. Not in person. You get an "adult journalist" day pass and you can mainline pure Cox and Guckert (complete with tittering, virginal schoolmarms).

Ye gods. This is going to be sweet.

This, my friends, is evidence of a seriously warped mind. This, my friends, is evidence of a seriously warped soul.

None the less, Michael Moore is still fat.

The Art of Intelligence

Use the force, Luke

A nation wounded
Sleep of reason, monsters birthed
Bad, bad, bad reason