Re-elect Laura Roslin!

Brad R. from Sadly No! (the photo is from there) has a great piece up in the American Prospect Online about GOP punditry and Battlestar Galactica, which is, seriously, great. The article and the show.

Brad talks a little about Jonah Goldberg's musings on the show and the links to the war on terror, and just to give a little color to how profoundly stupid and arrogant this man is (a dangerous combination), I say we take a short look at a column he wrote recently for the LA Times titled "Iraq Was a Worthy Mistake". Goldberg replaced Robert Scheer at the LA Times (and they wonder why they are losing money....).

In the dumbed-down debate we're having, there are only two sides: Pro-war and antiwar. This is silly...

Oh yeah, that's totally silly.

...I must confess that one of the things that made me reluctant to conclude that the Iraq war was a mistake was my general distaste for the shabbiness of the arguments on the antiwar side....

And that's NOT silly. Anyway, after admitting the war was a mistake (but Democrats are still losers, and we are all so unfair to Bush for thinking he is using DEMOCRACY! (tm) for his own cynical purposes):

I'm now supposed to call for withdrawing from Iraq. If it was a mistake to go in, we should get out, some argue. But this is unpersuasive. A doctor will warn that if you see a man stabbed in the chest, you shouldn't rush to pull the knife out. We are in Iraq for good reasons and for reasons that were well-intentioned but wrong. But we are there.

I do love this line of argument because it absolves one of any responsiblity for what happened, and, more importantly, for being so totally wrong about what happened, leaving that person in the unreflected upon position to STILL TELL US WHAT WE SHOULD DO! "Why should we listen to anything you say after admiting your, yourself were wrong?!" "Look, we are were we are." "Wow, good comeback, you obviously care more about the world and Iraq than I do!"

So what's Goldberg's great idea for the mess, err, FOREIGN, ILLEGAL, HORRIFIC OCCUPATION we are involved in? Wait for it:

I think we should ask the Iraqis to vote on whether U.S. troops should stay.

Polling suggests that they want us to go. But polling absent consequences is a form of protest. With accountability, minds may change and appreciation for the U.S. presence might grow.

If Iraqis voted "stay," we'd have a mandate to do what's necessary to win, and our ideals would be reaffirmed. If they voted "go," our values would also be reaffirmed, and we could leave with honor. And pretty much everyone would have to accept democracy as the only legitimate expression of national will.

Finishing the job is better than leaving a mess. And if we can finish the job, the war won't be remembered as a mistake.

Refering to a past post, "what's necessary to win" means kill every last motherfucker, so why, why, why would they vote to keep us there? And voting for us to go? Iraqi polls say (by larger margins then people here want to) we should go, some major Iraqi political figures have said publicly they want us to go, AND Bush has said he can't see ANY CIRCUMSTANCE we would leave Iraq as he is president. But Goldberg is getting paid money to present this childish idea that if they really, really mean it and showed it in a cool vote, then the US will be restored to its moral greatness to the rest of the world.

I sometimes think the Cylons' plan for New Caprica is more honest, realistic, and humane than the GOP's for Iraq. This is not a joke.

UPDATE: Tapped has another chapter in Jonah Goldberg's bizarre musings on BSG.

It has come to this: time for a clip show

I wanted to write something about Obama announcing he's thinking about running for president, but I realized a few things. One, maybe its a little to early to be thinking about an election two years from now when there's going to be an election in two weeks (!). I think some of you have heard my "I'm sick of being told what we need to do to win instead of the guy just f--- doing it" rant about Obama, but after reading this I realized maybe I'm wrong about the guy. And then after reading this maybe I'm right.

More importantly though, and number two, I'm too busy right now with my real life to be posting to a blog! By busy I mean watching documentaries about heroin users and exotic dancers in Sheffield, trying to pull something together for a conference in fabulous Dallas, and beating EV in Sudoku (at a Moderate level!). Anyway, lots of kids and tenured professors are talking about this thing called YouTube (its like "the Google"), so here's some ads for the upcoming race people have been talking about.

First there's the HILAROUS ad in the Tennessee Senate race. Man, is this funny! Just so you know, Harold Ford, Jr. is A BLACK MAN!!!

It would have saved the Corker campaign lots of money if he just put of a screen saying: "The boy sleeps with white woman!" Oh wait, I'm sorry, this ad isn't trying to drop that in the minds of viewers at all. It’s more about the joke Democrats think terrorist need privacy and want Canada to fight North Korea. That makes more sense.

This ad is an internet ad from the Ned Lamont campaign comparing Nixon with Lieberman. It is a bit long at over two minutes, but seriously, this will BLOW YOUR MIND!

By the way, Iraq has nothing to with Vietnam, unless its about those liberal wimps pussing out!

I was looking for this next one on YouTube, but I saw this comprehensive clip from the MSNBC show Countdown with Keith Olbermann up on Crooks and Liars (maybe the best site on the internets you will find from the google). It’s about the Michael J. Fox ad backing a Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri because of her support for stem cell research. You probably have heard about this by now because the humanitarian Rush Limbaugh claimed Fox was "faking" the effects of Parkinson’s, or purposely didn't take his medication, to look the way he does in the ad. The fact Fox's movements are actually caused BY his medication, that's just the liberal media at it again. Well, the Olbermann clip has the visual to go along with Limbaugh saying Fox is faking by wiggling his fat ass around and an interesting analysis of the whole debacle afterwards. Its a good clip, the most amazing part being that the Republican candidate is running an anti-stem cell research ad that has athletes and celebrities in it, including the wife from Everyone Loves Raymond and Kurt Warner. Hey Kurt, thanks for your views on stem cell research, how about you tell Jesus to help you not fumble for five minutes? Or at least get him to convince you your career is over, either one is fine.

Wow, this is long, again. Maybe it’s wrong to use YouTube in this way, and I'm breaking some kind of blogging etiquette. Maybe. Anyway, here's the last clip. It’s not about politics, its viral advertising from EA for its new FIFA 2007 game. This one with Wayne Rooney is the best one. It's not "I met Harold Ford at the Playboy mansion and I'm white!" funny, but its still pretty good.

Our president cares about US casualities...well, not really

By now you've probably read about Bush's interview with George Stephanopoulous on ABC's This Week. It was the first time I have listen to Bush talk in something like four months because I would be in physically pain when I did, but for some reason I sat down for this one. There were some great moments, like the classic Bush/Cheney "I never said that thing I totally said" maneuver:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Exactly what I wanted to ask you about, because James Baker said that he's looking for something between cut and run...

BUSH: Cut and run and.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... and stay the course.

BUSH: Well, listen, we've never been stay the course, George.

Listen, Bush has never been stay the course, and anyone with evidence to the contrary is politically motivated, therefore untrustworthy!

There was also the much commented on comparison of the current violence in Iraq to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968-69. On one hand this would look crazy for Bush to mention, considering his administration has been saying this is nothing like Vietnam, but Tim Rutten in the LA Times has a good piece explaining the internal logic to this spin.

...In classic reverse spin, the president was sending two messages — one designed to rally a key component of the Republicans' electoral base, the other a warning shot across the bow of the American news media as they weigh their reports on the bloody events in the shadow of what is shaping up as a critical congressional election.

To understand just how Bush spun this particular pitch, you have to recall that Tet occupies a particular prominence among the revisionist lessons drawn from the Vietnam debacle by the GOP's neoconservative wing...

Many people don't understand that there is a segment of the GOP (which happens to be surprisingly represented by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush!) that believe the US lost the Vietnam War not because it was unwinnable, or poorly conceived, or a battle against a repressed, highly motivated nationalistic force, or a horrendous crime, or a mistake, but because there was a lack of political will to win, and that lack of will was created by those pussy anti-war liberals and their punk friends in the press. From the above link:

Russert: Were you favor of the war in Vietnam?

President Bush: I supported my government. I did. And would have gone had my unit been called up, by the way.

Russert: But you didn't volunteer or enlist to go.

President Bush: No, I didn't....The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War....

It is important to understand that when these people say the lesson of the Vietnam War was to not let "politics" get in the way, they are essentially saying we need to kill as many motherfucking people as it takes regardless of how many mothers are crying for their dead children and how disgusted the rest of the domestic populace gets. Vietnam would have only been won if we bombed the fuck out of it and stayed forever. Then we would have won! This is the "stabbed in the back" myth of conservatism that has been going on for decades, and is standing in the wings ready to come out right after we leave Iraq. "If only Howard Dean and the crazy liberal coast dwellers didn't demand we leave Iraq, then we would have won, for sure!" Wait for it....

Those two points are familiar territory from the interview, but I just want to point to the, frankly, really disturbing moment in the interview with Stephanopoulos:

BUSH: The fundamental question is: Are we on our way to achieving a goal, which is an Iraq that can defend itself, sustain itself and govern itself and be an ally in the war on terror in the heart of the Middle East.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It seems like, every month, we're going farther from that.

BUSH: Well, I don't know why you would say that. I mean...

STEPHANOPOULOS: The casualties are going up.

BUSH: ... if that's the definition of success or failure, the number of casualties, then you're right. But that's what the enemy knows. See, they try to define success or failure.

I define success or failure as to whether or not the Iraqis will be able to defend themselves. I define success or failure as whether the unity government's making difficult -- the difficult decisions necessary to unite the country.

I define success or failure as whether schools are being built, or hospitals are being opened. I define success or failure as whether we're seeing a democracy grow in the heart of the Middle East.

Because a democracy in the Middle East, a society based upon liberty, will be a defeat for the terrorists, who have clearly said they want a safe haven from which to launch attacks against America, a safe haven from which to topple moderate governments in the Middle East, a safe haven from which to spread their jihadist point of view, which is that there are no freedoms in the world; we will dictate to you how you think.

I know some Americans don't think that is a threat. I view it as a threat because -- and the reason it's a threat is I can conceivably see a world in which radicals and extremists control oil. And they would say to the West: You either abandon Israel, for example, or we're going to run the price of oil up. Or withdraw...

Once again, postmodern theorist George W. Bush is dropping some mad knowledge and blowing your mind. You might think an increasing number of casualties means we aren't doing so well, but you are just in line with terrorist thinking. By killing more Iraqis and more American soldiers, they are making you think we are losing which is their goal, which you just end up accept without seeing we are winning. Get it? There definition of winning is killing a bunch of people. We don't care if they kill a bunch of people, we care about if the Iraqi government is difficult decisions. Well, they aren't doing that either, but still, stop thinking with the terrorist!

(On a related note, what the hell is Bush talking about in the second part of this answer? Its like a stream of consciousness international policy vision: success, government, hospitals, democracy, oil, jihad, Israel...)

The right-wing acts as if the problem is people aren't understanding what Bush is saying, not the fundamental failure of his policies. Does any find it amazing that Bush is claiming the number of causalities is not a good way to define success or failure a few moments AFTER he said this:

BUSH: Yeah, absolutely, I read every casualty, and it breaks my heart, because behind every casualty is somebody with tears in their eyes. Behind every casualty are families that will be mourning the loss of life for a lifetime.

I'm sure your heart breaks, dude. I'm sure it does.

What happens when you take procrastinating to a new level

It might not look it, but I actually have lots of stuff to do. However, I still find time for the Internet (my values are more refined than yours I guess) and am now in a strange non-argument with a blogger on the other side of the country. A friend of mine told me about the University Diaries blog because of a personal connection and I started read it fairly regularly. Written by an English professor, I was interested because it was a place to read about things related to academic life generally. As the months went by I started catching on to things about the blog I didn't like, but whatever, I kept reading it.

Then I noticed some of my comments were being deleted. It's not like there are tons of comments on posts, just two or three, but for some reason mine were being deleted. The first was in response to this post, which is just a long quote from Don DeLillo's essay on 9/11 and its aftermath. I think it’s a really good piece, but I made a smart-alecky comment that was along the lines of

all this talk about language doesn't highlight the threat of islamofacism, there isn't a war against the past and future (what delillo says), but between evil and America, and his last line in the article (allah akbar) sounds somewhat appeasement driven.

I know I'm just a jerk on the internet, but seriously, why delete that? You either think I'm serious, which is crazy, or you think this type of response has no place on your high class BLOG.

I decided I either had to comment on every single post or stop reading it all together. Deleting comments to posts that aren't defamatory or highly offensive seems to say, "I don't understand this whole internet thing". I stopped reading. Anyway, like I mentioned before, better values, and I came back. Again, I started commenting and, again, UD started deleting. The latest deleted comment was in response to the ONE AND ONLY other comment to this post about a Harvard prof. having his title stripped for stealing manure. The other commentator said if people were looking for horseshit, they should go to

Kendall Square and dig into Mt. Chomsky, which has a never-ending supply.

I made a post saying,

What does Chomsky have to do with theft, corruption, and Harvard professors? Oh, I get it, you don't like him! Funny.

Deleted!

Why am I boring you with all this? Because of two points, which surprisingly have to do with two recent posts by UD. The first from yesterday was about a controversy involving a department chair removing quotes from associate professors' doors because he thinks (ridiculously) others might find them offensive. UD, with no irony, mocks the department chair and university president for doing ESSENTIALLY WHAT SHE IS DOING WHEN SHE DELETES MY COMMENTS. Maybe I am wrong here, but I think the parallels and different responses are shocking. I made a comment, check it out before its deleted!

The second reason for all this is her very next post about a recording on ABC of various Democratic senators, like Kennedy and Kerry, meeting with lobbyist on Nantucket. I don't want to say Democrats are on the side of angels, cause they aren't, but to compare this meeting to the type of corruption from the Republicans from the last few years as UD does is not only lazy thinking, but shows a lack of knowledge about the depth and severity of the accusations against what GOP legislators. Several GOP congressman are not just losing their seats, they are GOING TO JAIL.

The real crime of this meeting for UD though is some stupid, silly limerick recited by Kennedy about the Dems taking about Congress. The horror, the horror. Somehow this means...I don't actually understand her point, but I do get she is attacking Kennedy for poor writing. The Democrats suck, but I don't know if I would link bad poetry with torture and crimes against international law, or other issues regarding this upcomming election. But hey, that's just me.

Ezra Klein has a good post on the somewhat, if not extremely tenuously linked, similar issue, mainly how it seems liberal academics don't seem very concerned about the pubic shere, or life generally outside the university walls. Even when it is about how subjects they are experts on are misrepresented:

A few weeks back, David Brooks massively misrepresented the positions of Lawrence Katz, a former Clinton administration economist and current Harvard professor. I'd read a bit of Katz and noticed the discrepancy, so I gave him a call and convinced him to let me set the record straight. What astonished me, however, was that Katz himself had no interest in challenging Brooks' distortions. It sucked, to be sure, but he had things to do, and why dwell? That the nation's most popular op-ed page was misinforming Americans on the inequality debate was a shame, but whaddayagonnado?

I think the disdain for public affairs outside the self-referential bubble of academia is endemic, and quite possibly the main cause for softheaded thinking that sees hangin' on Nantuckt and writing bad limericks with trying to destroy some of the fundamental tenets of our democracy like habes corpus and the seperation of powers.

By the way, have I mentioned UD has expressed an admiration for David Brooks?

Cindy Sheehan = Mark Foley

This video made me throw up in my mouth.



According to these people's logic, not only is Sheehan's internet activities relevant to discussing the war in Iraq, to NOT talk about it and to talk about Mark Foley's actions is hypocritical. Wow. It's the enduring question: are these people that stupid to belive that, or that cynical to make such a ridiculous argument.

By the way, braintrust/American hero Sean Hannity was one of the conservative talk-radio hosts given a private audience with Bush a few weeks ago. My friend (who I would reference with initials if that wouldn't be pointless considering) sent me this article in the NYTimes about the meeting. Hannity had this to say about meeting Our Glorious Leader:

Mr. Hannity said of the meeting, “I think he’d have an 80 percent approval rating if he could bring people into the Oval Office six people at a time and explain it all to them.”

Yeah sure, Bush's problem is people doesn't understand his complicated arguments. He needs to stop saying "Listen!" and go for the more egalitarian "Hey you!". If only Bush could just talk directly to people! Except for that crazy bitch Cindy Sheehan! Did you know she looks at internet porn? And she thinks that makes her qualified to talk about her dead son?!?!

Listen, basically this is unacceptable

The Washington Post ran a piece that indirectly points out the increasingly crazed nature of Bush's rantings by remarking on his growing reliance on the word "unacceptable":

Bush's decision to lay down blunt new markers about the things he deems intolerable comes at an odd time, a phase of his presidency in which all manner of circumstances are not bending to his will: national security setbacks in North Korea and Iraq, a Congress that has shrugged its shoulders at his top domestic initiatives, a favorability rating mired below 40 percent.

But a survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

So instead of actually doing something about these problems, like negotiate or seriously reflect on his options and work towards solutions (for example, actually defining what victory means in Iraq) or, I don't know, RESIGNING, the President tells whoever will listen that the world is unacceptable. Yet another practice of the Bush administration I wish I could use in my everyday life.

Meter maid: Well, the meter is expired, so I'm going to have to write you a ticket.
Me: Considering I was only five minutes late, I find this ticket UNACCEPTABLE.
Meter maid: Okay sir, but I still have to give you a ticket.
Me: This seriously is UNACCEPTABLE!
Meter maid: Oh, I see! Well, sorry, carry on!

Oh, that would be sweet...

The Washington Post article ends though by referencing one my favorite Bush speech patterns, and something I think is inherently better than declaring things incontinent to your world view. Good ol' fashion raising your voice and condensation!

Bush's proclamations are not the only rhetorical evidence of his mounting frustrations. One of his favorite verbal tics has long been to instruct audiences bluntly to "listen" to what he is about to say, as in "Listen, America is respected" (Aug. 30) or "Listen, this economy is good" (May 24). This year, he made that request more often than he did in a comparable portion of 2005, a sign that he hasn't given up hope it might work.

For me, starting a sentence with "Listen" works just as well as using "basically", which I believe is a fav of VP Dick. Both serve well in letting your audience know something along the lines of "I have little respect for their ability to understand things, so I am going to speak to you like a moron in hopes my words will get through that mush of cells you call a brain." Here are two great examples from the Dick VP in the same interview in March of this year on CBS's Face the Nation:

..Q Mr. Vice President, all along the government has been very optimistic. You remain optimistic. But I remember when you were saying we'd be greeted as liberators. You played down the insurgency. Ten months ago, you said it was in its last throes. Do you believe that these optimistic statements may be one of the reasons that people seem to be more skeptical in this country about whether we ought to be in Iraq?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think it has less to do with statements we've made, which I think were basically accurate, and reflect reality, than it does the fact that there is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad.

...

[in response to former Scowcroft's "I don't know Dick Cheney anymore quote"] And I think a lot of my friends out there look and see some of the policies, we've pursued and disagree. But to suggest somehow I've changed, or my fundamental views of the world have evolved over time, basically, I don't think that's valid.

Oh man, here's another great example from Cheney from just this June, using it twice in the same sentence!

...What the Democrats are suggesting basically you can call it withdrawal, you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it, basically it's -- in effect, validates the terrorist strategy.

What it really is unimportant. Basically, I could care fucking less about your questions, but I pretend to do. Listen, that's how it's done. Now, let me tell you about how all this shit is unacceptable!

Here's a google search full of more examples

Ah, good times.

Great ad

Diss!



I am actually in favor of negative ads. The whole point of elections is to draw distinctions, not to be all nice and "look at my family, ain't I great". Seriously, what do I care if your wife loves you, tell me why the other guy is fucked up. What matters is the actual content, not the mere fact the ad might be mean.

Plus, I promise to get back to the California initatives. I've been meaning to do it, but seriously, do you have any idea how boring that shit is?

Where have you gone Christopher Hitchens?

Our political spectrum turns its lonely eyes to you.

This week The New Yorker will have a profile of writer Christopher Hitchens, which unfortunately is not online yet, but has generated some talk already. Apparently one part of the profile recounts Hitchens chewing out fellow dinner party guests for having the gall of not thinking Howard Dean is a "raving, sinister, demagogic nutbag". Good times.

Before starting the pile-on of wondering and mourning about what has become of Hitchens though, I just want to point to the selective memory of the The New Yorker. Is Hitchens crazy and delisiounal for contining to not only support the Iraq War, but for attacking those who opposed it as moronic "fellow-travelers"? Yes, but at least he doesn't now publish articles about the incompentance and criminality of those who he supported with this "project". I'll probably write more about this later, but from just a little over a month before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, editor David Remnick had these comments:

...What is most unfortunate about the President's lack of public engagement in the argument for force is that the objections to it are answerable. There are, of course, some who oppose an invasion of Iraq on the ground that, say, peace is better than war, or that the "real issue" is a conspiracy of oil interests, or that the President is an avenging cowboy and all his advisers a posse. Far more seriously, there are questions of why now and why Iraq (and not North Korea or Iran); there are profound concerns about the loss of life (can't we just foment an Army coup?), and about what happens the day after Saddam is arrested, or killed, or lands on Elba. Do we really expect a Jeffersonian legislature to rise from the rubble of Saddam's palaces? Are we prepared for years of rebuilding in Iraq when we already seem to have lost interest in the continuing chaos in Afghanistan?...

The United States has been wrong, politically and morally, about Iraq more than once in the past; Washington has supported Saddam against Iran and overlooked some of his bloodiest adventures. The price of being wrong yet again could be incalculable. History will not easily excuse us if, by deciding not to decide, we defer a reckoning with an aggressive totalitarian leader who intends not only to develop weapons of mass destruction but also to use them.

Saddam's abdication, or a military coup, would be a godsend; his sudden conversion to the wisdom of disarmament almost as good. It is a fine thing to dream. But, assuming such dreams are not realized, a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all.

"Sure, we have no idea what will happen, but damn it, we have to do what's right unlike those soft-headed, peaceniks!".......[three years later in the same magazine]....."Wow, what a fucking disaster, only an idiot wouldn't have seen this happen!"

Back to Hitchens though. Ever since 9/11, when he came to believe he alone understood the true nature of the threat facing liberal democracies in the West and all others who had the gall to suggest otherwise were weak-kneed, sympathizers who had no intelligence or interest in justice and the like, Hitchens has progressively gone deeper and deeper to what can only be called (I believe this is the professional term) "gin-soaked madness". As someone who enjoys a drink, it might be unfair to call it that, but for a man who proclaims loudly to be dedicated to righteousness and logic, it is hard to understand how else he could still fail to see his horrific misjudgement and continue to still act as if events have somehow vidicated him.

It is especially painful for those of us who always admired Hitchens for his truth-telling, morally driven, belligerent style. I still think his book No One Left to Lie To is one of the best assessments of the Clinton administration, in all its hypocrisy and selling-out to the values and political views that they supposedly lead with. In the recounting of Clinton's rushing home to execute a mentally retarted inmate, the lie of "welfare reform", and the ugliness of "triangulation", Hitchens was one of the first political writers I read that actually seemed to speak about politics from a clear point of view, from an understanding of right vs. wrong, instead of it just being a sporting event with winners and losers.

Today, his best book only serves to show how far off the path he has strayed, how deeply he has become identified with those just a few years prior he damned in the strongest words possible. The Trial of Henry Kissinger was, and still is, an important work that looked at American foreign policy and its results honestly. Its entire premise, if one were to take things like the Geneva Conventions, international human rights law, and the Nuremberg trials seriously, the actions of Henry Kissinger during the 20th century have to be judged as crimes against humanity and should be punished justly, is a view he may still have, but is unreconizable in his writing and comments today. With the latest revelations that Cheney and Bush actually meet with and take advice from Kissinger, a man who Hitchens discribes in detail as being linked to both mass slaughter and individual murders, how can he still honestly believe all the actions he advocated for the last five years have been right? And that those, some who were his former allies and friends, who suggested otherwise were so wrong?

I know Hitchens would probably point to some misspellings and rhetoric problems in this as evidence I am a fool and don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I actually don't know what the fuck I am talking about, but I just want to give you the preamble to that book he wrote on Kissinger and ask again, what happened?

For the brave victims of Henry Kissinger, whose example will easily outlive him, and his "reputation." And for Josehp Heller, who saw it early and saw it whole:

In Gold's conservative opinion, Kissinger would not be recalled in history as Bismark, Metternich, or Castlereagh but as an odious schlump who made war gladly. (Good as Gold, 1976)

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!

Proposition 86

Short version: No

Long version: Proposition 86 would raise cigarette taxes for emergency room hospitals, health care for uninsure children, and stop smoking programs. So, yes, I'm a heartless jerk for suggesting you don't vote for it. Actually, a heartless jerk in the tobacco industry's pocket. Seriously though, these programs are great, and they should totally be funded. I'm just of the opinion the state should be finding money in its budget for it and not just hiking taxes on cigarettes, which, like sales tax, is mostly a poor tax.

First of all, we aren't talking about a small hike. The bill would increase the tax per pack from 87 cents to $2.60, nearly a 200% increase. Second, a majority of its predicted revenue, nearly 2.1 billion, will not be going to non-smoking programs, or child insurance, but to hospitals, which aren't exactly strapped for cash. Third, since one of the goals of these tax hikes is to get people to stop smoking, there is no guarantee this money would actually be a continuous flow of revenue (which again brings up the point if children's insurance is so important, why not actually fund it in the budget?!). Fourth, law enforcement is against the proposition because they think it will lead to increased gang and criminal activity for illegal, tax-free, cigarettes. With a 200% increase in price, its hard not seeing that happen.

Fifth, and to me a HUGE point, it would be put into the state constitution a strange provision exempting hospitals from antitrust laws. The backers say this is to guarantee on-call specialist, while the opposers say it could lead to things like price-fixing. Considering the backers answer to that is "SMOKING KILLS", this proposition seems highly dubious to me.

The top link is to the Official California Voter Information Guide. Here is some other good info on this and other propositions:
Article in the SF Chronicle on Prop. 86
California Voter's Foundation page on Prop. 86
League of Women Voters information on Prop. 86
And go here for Warren Olney's Which Way, LA? debate on Prop. 86

Funny stuff, upcoming programming

Sorry for not posting for a bit, but I went on a trip. Look at that lyricisim, you can only get that kind of stuff here! Anyway, I plan over the next few weeks to do post on the various California initatives. There are alot of them, and honestly lots of them are confusing. I don't claim to know everything about them, but I will try to do a little bit of research on them, present them, and give you my completely liberally bias, anti-family, pro-drinking opinion on them. Here's a preview: down with the cigarette tax!

Till then, there's a great post on the pro-Fox news op-ed in today's LA Times. Great stuff! In that spirit, above is an example of the "anti-elitist" Fox News view, and below a great moment in punditry from the Editors. Enjoy!