Notes from an enraged misanthrope on North Korea's nuclear test

Well, not really, I kind of like people. Al Martinez seems to think differently:

...I have learned that, with some notable exceptions, blogs are largely the habitat of unemployed writers, enraged misanthropes, retired teachers, aging journalists and people who normally pass their time doodling or making obscene telephone calls....

For the record, I pass my time with sudoku, I've never made obscene telephone calls, just crank calls, and I'm an unemployed grad student, thank you very much.

Anyway, there is some good commentary on the North Korean's nuclear test on the dreaded blogs today. John Marshall puts it in historical context, Glenn Greenwald goes back to that amazingly prescient Howard Dean foreign policy speech during the 2004 primaries, Jesus' General assures us this is all part of building the case to bomb Iran:

Why would Our Leader bomb Iran to punish North Korea? For the same reason he attacked Iraq to punish Al Qaeda. It's what emperors do.

This all reminds me of the story about Jimmy Carter and the overthrow of the shah of Iran. Carter was so furious this huge event happened with no warning from the CIA he wrote a handwritten note to the head of the agency calling it one of the greatest failures of American intelligence ever. I just find that story interesting considering the North Koreans had been telling the US FOR NEARLY FOUR YEARS it was going to build a nuke and the Bush admistration just let it happen. Bush refused to negotiate with them because....I don't know, it would make them look like pussies, and that was what Clinton did, so you know that's horrible? According to that calculus, it's better to look tough and be a failure than actually achieve your goals. Great plan, asshole.

Seriously, on ever level this administration has been a failure and has made us more unsafe. The worst thing is I think the Jesus' General is right: this, like all their fuck ups, will be used to justify more military action.

I'll go back to the California initiatives tomorrow, but keeping with the irrationality of our political discourse, check out this response to a well-written review of Woodward's new book on Amazon sent to me by AR. I mean, wow, get that guy a talk show! Or better yet, a blog!