October 2006 Archives

William M. Arkin asks

Of course the United States has plans to preempt against North Korea under a growing set of circumstances. The question, most interestingly, is whether those plans include provisions and efforts to fold the South Korean military and government into the efforts, or will Washington just take action if necessary should it deem it necessary to protect American and American interests, leaving Seoul to clean up the mess after another magnificent American strike.

This is a trick question. Obviously, assuming there's going to be a Seoul left after North Korea shoots their wad in response to any air strike is laughable. But the answer is: yes, this administration will leave it to the shattered, burning and glowing remains of Seoul to clean up the mess while Bush strikes another pose with his cod piece prominently displayed.

And the really sad thing about this is that - assuming they did pull an idiotic air strike - everyone would be better off with this administration staying out of the aftermath. Occupation and reconstruction of societies shattered by their glorious Dicks of War^tm just ain't their thang.

"Do You Want Us to Win?"

Not only do Blitzer and Letterman need to answer the question, but al Reuters, the Associated (with terrorists) Press, the New York Times, USA Today, the rest of the terrorist sympathizing media, and the lefty moonbats like Murtha, Sheehan, et al should answer it as well. Do they want us to win? Or would they prefer America lose the war on terror? And by the way, yes, the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror.

Answers itself, doesn't it? If there's any reason as to why they're going to get their asses handed to next week, this is a perfect example of why.

Let's hope we've seen the last of these jackasses - if only for a little while. My god, I'd rather have rabid feminists yelling at me to be politically correct than have these authoritarian jackanapes whining endlessly about how the media and stinky hippies won't let them win their war.

November 8th cannot come quickly enough.

Julian Sanchez asks

Just one question: Precisely how stupid do these guys think that we, and voters, are?

So stupid that you'd pick up a glowing, red hot poker from a roaring fire and suck on it like a lollipop. So stupid that you'd vote republican for the 4th time in a row after the last 6 years.

Funny thing is, there seem to be plenty of people out there even stupider than I can possibly imagine.

The Iraq war and me

Now that it's obvious to all that the Iraq war was a mistake beyond measure, let's put all that behind us and work together to redouble our efforts in digging this hole even deeper

How to handle Iran

Surely good old American ingenuity can dream up a clever way to further metastasize the instability caused by the civil war in Iraq such that it encompass the entire middle east.

Iraq Was a Worthy Mistake

Just because someone is right doesn't mean I have to listen to them.

Insult to Injury in Iraq

Clearly, the only way we're going to get out of this deep, dark cavern of a hole we've dug is to vastly increase both the rate and quality of our digging until we come out on the other side of the earth.

Leonard Peikoff, the world's foremost authority on Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, sez

The most urgent political task now is to topple the Republicans from power, if possible in the House and the Senate. This entails voting consistently Democratic, even if the opponent is a “good” Republican.

In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man’s actual life—which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world.

If you hate the Left so much that you feel more comfortable with the Right, you are unwittingly helping to push the U.S. toward disaster, i.e., theocracy, not in 50 years, but, frighteningly, much sooner.

Too Late! Sorry, but all you "Objectivists" are going to have to live with the hell of an authoritarian, theocratic rule that y'all helped set up because of your completely irrational hatred of liberals. Yep, that's the price all 3 of you are going to have to pay for the repeated offenses against rational thought that you've been pushing for the past 30 years*.

------------------
* I have no frickin' idea of the foremost authority on Objectivism has been pummeling liberals for the past 30 years. I do know that every single libertarian I've ever met or known has been pummeling them for the past 30 years of my political life (heck, when I was under Rand's sultry spell, I pummeled them myself). So I consider it a fair bet that the foremost authority on Objectivism has been doing his share to undermine the liberals - after all, pummeling liberals is pretty much the foundation of the plot line of all Rand's books.

Doing his damnedest to prove that stupidity is indeed a strategy, James informs us that slogans are not a strategy, to which one can only reply with a resounding Duh!.

“Stay the course” is bumper sticker shorthand for continuing to work toward accomplishing the mission for which we set out three and a half years ago, in contrast with various withdrawal plans floated by opposition leaders. It does not mean, nor has it ever meant, “continue doing exactly what we’re doing right now without any change.”

Of course! We're on Plan 9, now. You know, That Plan. The one seemingly designed for maximal inflamation of a sectarian war, the optimal recruitment of terrorists and one pretty darn close to breaking the back of our millitary while simultaneously draining the country of hundreds of billions of dollars while we bolster the position of our arch enemy Iran.

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

Brilliant!

Well, short of a miracle that Karl Rove will literally have to pull out of his ass (or his Diebold voting machines, which oddly serve as a surrogate for his ass), it looks like the Administration will have to deal with at least Speaker of the House Pelosi for the last two years of its pitiful existence. But even if Rove does manage to pull a chocolate surprise or two out of his nether region, we can clearly see that the fat lady has hit her final high note in this particular run in the political ring cycle. How November will actually play out will have to wait until time progresses to that point, but there's a couple of things that have already played out that warm the cockles of what passes for my heart.

If there's one thing that makes those on the right squeal louder than a stuck pig at dinner time it's forking over money. And boy oh boy are they forking over money. It's kind of pathetic to see the sheer magnitude of panic spending by the right wing. When the RNC started pulling out the stops and funding the really nasty attack ads - and doing so at a clip unseen in modern times - I just had to smile. True, negative ads are effective. But when you have to literally start using dump trucks to haul the money for these ads and recruit legions of cheap Russian film producers to produce them because everyone else in the world is completely contracted with producing them... well, let's just say that I'm glad to see the money being spent on such a positive, up lifting message. Nothing says failure like having to scream that your opponent is going to kill babies.

And nothing warms my heart more than seeing Republicans dump staggeringly huge sums of money to support their highly unpopular ideas and candidates.

This is a bit subtle as many experts already believe that right blogistan is largely a conspiracy mill already. The key word here is "cheap". Currently, they've been putting on respectable airs and maintaining the thin patina of plausibility. After November 8th, they will - to a blogger - simply pop their corks and start dumping out whatever drivel enters their head.

Think of the John Birch society on acid.

The right wing has this fall back fantasy that the Republican party works best as an opposition party. Myself, I find this to be one the ultimate loser rationalizations. The idea that conservatives are, in fact, radicals and best suited for plucky opposition is almost hilarious beyond belief. But it's a belief I'm more than willing to keep them believing. Despite the idiocy, it will provide no end of comedy gold.

Temporary as it may well be, there's still something really precious about seeing authoritarian worshiping, anti-science, religious fundamentalists get brushed off like so much dandruff on the shoulder of your black sweater. As dense as the religious base seems to be, I think that the reality of just how much of a political tool they've been is beginning to sink into their collective reptilian minds. I know it won't last because any bunch of people who can maintain their faith in spite of repeated unfulfilled predictions doesn't bode well for their political learning capacity. Still, the last 12 years have been pretty brutal to the dupes and my guess is that even a blind pig finds the occasional truffle.

This one is going to be sweet. Watching the antics of the likes of Peter Beinart, the Bull Moose and all those other center twits who have been desperately trying to push the democrats even further to the right as they flail about their insane attempt to justify their own personal risk game is going to be lovely. Watching them jerk around, trying to rationalize the complete rejection of their Stratego(TM) acquired positions on military intervention as we see the last helicopter boarded by the last stunningly incompetent political appointees who completely fucked over Iraq is going to provide little joy to the Iraqis left in the middle of a full scale sectarian war, but we pull what ironic satisfaction we can from the pathetic actions of complete idiots.

It's going to be really precious to see David Broder return to his slobbering ways and to see the entire reporting staff of the New York times dedicated to finding out who Hillary Clinton's lesbian lover is (heck, I heard she has FOUR lesbian lovers). Watching these jokers who slacked off and bent over for the last five years while Bush fiddled kick back into action as they try to kill off the Democrats is going to be entertaining. Listening to their rationalizations of these actions will provide endless hours of laughter to balance the tears we'll shed as the ramifications of the last five years become far more clear to your average Joe.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm sure we can all compile our own list.

Via "Which One's Pink?"

You say the hill's too steep to climb
Climb it.
You say you'd like to see me try
Climbing.

You pick the place and I'll choose the time
And I'll climb
That hill in my own way.
Just wait a while for the right day.
And as I rise above the tree lines and the clouds
I look down, hearing the sound of the things you've said today.

Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd
Smiling.
Merciless the magistrate turns 'round
Frowning.

And who's the fool who wears the crown?
And go down,
in your own way
And every day is the right day
And as you rise above the fear-lines in his brow
You look down, hearing the sound of the faces in the crowd.

Or at least pretend to. Over to you, Tom...

<heh> indeed.

Probably the thing I dread most about a big democratic win in November is the pitiful wailing and gnashing of teeth that will inevitably ensue once the fat lady sings. One might think that the incessant gloating of the right wing would actually be worse. But one quickly develops calluses to the blunt and exceedingly juvenile frat boy fist pumping at every purple finger corner we turn. And, after all, their running around screaming "loser, loser" is actually kind of comical because each and every time it turns out that their "victory" is actually a crude drawing of the word "victory" barely legibly scrawled on a napkin with the discarded stub of a crayon from the local preschool.

Well, that is, when their "victory" scrawl isn't drawn with the blood of American soldiers on a mosaic of $1,000,000,000 bills. But I digress.

So, while each and every one of their little superiority dances that they do on the graves of the dead they're responsible for grates like 200 grit sandpaper dragged across my eye balls, it's something that one unfortunately gets used to and can deal with by compartmentalization.

But the wailing and gnashing of the collective right when they've just been handed their sorry ass by the voting public - Jesus H. Christ on a Rubber Fucking Crutch. That sound that will echo across the land like someone placed a microphone in hell itself and piped it into every fricking mall, gym and doctor's waiting room on the planet. And as much as I really love to see the right eat itself alive in the attempt to blame each and every one else for the loss (everyone, except of course, themselves) and rationalize the obvious rejection of their policies, there's only so much that I can take of conservative self pity. Because, being supremely pompous bastards (see Trevino, Josh aka Tacitus), they can't just go about the dirty business of cleansing their ranks of the inner infidel in the dead of night using knives. Nope, they will instead try to pummel the infidel with blog posts, millions of column inches of shrill opinions, and harpy like screaming on the talk and news programs.

Ye gods.

Of course, the biggest whiner of all the harpies on the right will be none other than the chief petulant officer himself, George Bush. There's nothing that chaps his hide than people having the sheer audacity to give him the finger (if it ain't purple, then it ain't worthy of expression). Worse than a non purple finger extended in his direction will be the level of irrelevance that a lame duck president polling in the low 30's is relegated after the mid term elections. God almighty, Bush doesn't take the finger very well, but he takes irrelevance even worse. Already most of the saner conservatives have already written George off and are rooting for a democratic victory. Hell, even Bob "The Intestinal Parasite" Woodward has abandoned the decider. The man will be a leper.

Still, one must remember that this is all sheer fantasy. My delicate sensibilities are quite likely safe beyond all reasonable fear. After all, Diebold voting machines are still out there in large numbers in strategic districts. A party willing to torture, suspend habeas corpus, set up an archipelago of secret CIA prisons and god only knows what else is unlikely to see voting machine tampering as some insurmountable ethical barrier. And they probably don't need to even do that, seeing as how they pretty much drew the district boundaries (repeatedly, in Texas where if it's worth doing right, it's worth doing as many times as needed) which virtually guarantee them victory.

After all, Bush is in the low 30's. Congress - and in particular, Republican congressman - is polling somewhere below the Marianas trench. And as far as I can tell, it's still likely to be a narrow Republican victory.

Lucky me.

Via "which one is Pink?"

You know that I care what happens to you,
And I know that you care for me.
So I don't feel alone,
Or the weight of the stone,
Now that I've found somewhere safe
To bury my bone.
And any fool knows a dog needs a home,
A shelter from pigs on the wing.

You know who you are.

Rose Tint My World

Ah, the smell of paranoid delusions of adequacy is thick in the air.

Hastert: Foley Scandal Is A Liberal Conspiracy To ‘Get To Me’ And ‘Affect Our Election’

Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are!

Rice Questions Account of Qaeda Warning

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was “incomprehensible” that she could have ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Okay, so she didn't use the word "inconceivable"...

And now that I think about it, why the choice of the word "incomprehensible"? What? We simply cannot comprehend that someone who said "I believe the title of the memo was 'bin Laden determined to strike inside the United States'" could have ignored dire terrorist threats?

These whoppers just keep coming, don't they?

Update: Incomprehensible! 9/11 Commission saw the 'scary' briefing of 2001. I also love how "scary" is scare quoted.

Update 2: Incomprehensible! Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat. The original article has now been re-edited and scrubbed, removing Rice's priceless remark.

Update 3: Incomprehensible! C.I.A. Chief Warned Rice on Al Qaeda

A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

Update 4: Incomprehensible! The hits just keep on coming. Rice: Does anyone really believe I'd ignore terror warning?

On the radio, Rice asked rhetorically, "Does anybody really believe that somebody would have walked into my office and said, oh, by the way, there's a chance of a major attack against the United States and I would have said, well, I'm really not interested in that information?"

"I mean, it's just ridiculous," said Rice.