The Times treats these things
as Rumsfeld treats Abu Ghraib:
SORRY-- to get caught.
With no video
of Rodney King's beating, it
would be no big deal.
Just more examples
of why we are so proud to
be Americans.
Bad apples are the
ones who ignored their training
and brought cameras.
So much for our desire to reduce Iranian influence, lest a Shiite theocracy emerge. But then, hey-- who knows WHAT the new Iraqi government will look like, right? That's what Mr. Bahiri is trying to figure out!
Well... hey, we just pissed off 3 or 4 million Palestinians by negotiating away their right of return for them... shall we level Najaf and piss of a coupla million Shiites while we're at it?
Bet it'll all play well in swing states.
Nathan is one smart dude. He was out front, for example, questioning what Wes Clark's bona fides for the Democratic nomination besides looking handsome in a uniform were... (he was ahead of me on that, actually). He is a principled, smart guy-- who knows bloody well that ends don't justify means, and stupid ends are worse than no ends.
As to Dick Morris, he told me:
TTD: You have observed that you think if the 2004 election is about terrorism, Bush will win, and if its about anything else, Bush would lose.
Would another terrorist attack between now and November 2004 help or hurt George W. Bush? Put another way, would the Democrats benefit from a
national security breakdown because they've urged Bush to spend more and do more; or would Bush benefit because people would rally around the President?
DM: HELP, BECAUSE IT WOULD RAISE THE PROFILE OF THE ISSUE AND END OUR COMPLAISANCE.
Morris, of course, would see the world in terms of branding and marketing: Bush (as I have noted, uniquely) calls himself "the war president". Bush has (1) not delivered OBL or the rest of Al Qaeda, and (2) though he has Saddam in custody-- then a lone man dressed as a hobo living literally in a hole-- he has mired this nation in a military minefield-- which at this point, will only result in much higher casualty counts, monetary expense, and probable national humiliation. I think DM has a point on this...
And it just shows how the so-called liberal media is PRECISELY that-- I KNOW that Kerry has been "beaten down in the polls by Bush's ads branding him a tax and spend liberal"-- but haven't heard a damned thing about Bush's nosedive thanks to Iraq... interesting, no?
(Btw: proposing a gas tax right about now-- BAD IDEA. Keep it simple, stupid, as they say... Bush is self-destructing-- Kerry seems smart enough to get the fuck out of his way.)
Oh-- the scary thing (especially for New Yorkers): read my question and Morris's answer. If Bush feels its fourth and long come, say, September, or October, we may be looking at him going for the bomb. And I do mean bomb.
Belated Mazel Tov on your silver anniversary. What a wonderful occasion...
Rivka--
Who exactly are you talking about? People for whom the "compassionate, God fearing base" now wants to cut off housing vouchers and job training and emergency room treatment and food stamps for? Have we not prisons and work houses, honey? No need to get your pretty little head worked up over the plight of these disposable people... best to concern yourself with important matters, like St. Peggy does.
The amazing thing is that this issue has to be kept alive by flaks like Noonana; the bully pulpit man claims to have been napping at the time. For those jerks out there who think that the Chimp in Chief is unbeatable-- think supermarket scanner for Daddy, Super Bowl nappy for Junior-- he is OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE FUCKING COUNTRY.
Also-- Karl is losing it. How many times will the Super Bowl be played in Texas? Christ, Chimpy could have landed Air FOrce I at an airport named after HIS FATHER! Christ, he spends 60% of his time in Texas ANYWAY-- he's going to the Daytona God damned 500! He can't be bothered to go to THE SUPER BOWL?
Its not that I care whether Bush showed up at the big game or not. I'm just saying that us lib'ruls need to commit suicide trying to guess who is "electable" will be what manages to fuck us THIS YEAR. We have (or had) not one, but TWO candidates (Kucinich and Sharpton are circus acts, not candidates) who are actually speaking in complete sentences about what actual Democrats actually believe (hint, neither of them is John Kerry). And yet,we intend to commit national suicide again of course, by guessing WHAT REPUBLICANS MIGHT VOTE FOR.
Well, I'll tell you: Republicans, unlike us, have PARTY LOYALTY AND DISCIPLINE. They won't stay home in droves because their pet issue is overlooked. Also-- their man fundamentally (as in fundamentalist) shares their values.
WE just took the #1 guy that actually shares our values and threw hiim on the scrap heap, so that the bo-tox man of a thousand positions who "looks presidential" can take us... well, he might win. But then, so what...
Amen to Zizka.
The Republicans continue to show admirable party discipline, amidst a group governing in its name that really should be anathema to every Republican worthy of that name from Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on up to Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush: irresponsible deficit spending ("tax and spend liberals" replaced by "borrow and spend" so-called Republicans), warmongering (remember how Democrats were "the war party?"), governmental meddling in every nook and cranny of your life ("faith based initiatives", "partial birth" abortions, "the sanctity of marriage, etc.) Really, these are not Republicans as I grew up with that word. I don't know what to call them.
But they have TRULY shown that Mead was wrong: a large, self-interested group can get together, and use a democratic system for its own ends-- far more effectively than any fringe group of lunatics-- ESPECIALLY when the large group is LED BY FRINGE LUNATICS. (I'd love to violate Godwin's Law right about here, but I'll stop dead right there).
And yet, this group of sociopathic maniacs has-- successfully-- relied on and received ABSOLUTE PARTY LOYALTY. Like any good criminal organization, the GOP mafia has made it clear that supporting it will be rewarded-- by tax breaks for corporate interests, if not outright subsidies (think sugar farming, for example, or preserving our forests by handing away contracts to log in them.)
But its more than that; their defenders no longer believe in what they are doing, but root for the home team anyway! It would be unthinkable to go to "the other side", even if it is the only hope for fiscal restraint.
Meanwhile, Democrats continue to argue amongst ourselves about ideological purity; instead of railing against Bush's insane spending, we scream that he's not SPENDING ENOUGH. OUR pressure and pander groups AREN'T GETTING A BIG ENOUGH PIECE OF THE SPOILS. Etc., etc., etc. Their message is simple and straightforward-- join our crew, and get your cut. Our message (beyond "abortion on demand") is blurred and complicated-- hell, I have no idea what the party in which I am registered stands for.
In that sense, maybe Meade was right too: WE could use a group of zealous, committed maniacs to get us to show some damned discipline for a change.
You know, Singapore is a one-party state, and its nice and clean.
People are taking to the streets by the thousands in IRAQ to demand their right to vote (the AMerican occupiers seem to want to control the outcome with "regional caucuses", instead of direct representative elections).
And yet, we, a far richer, far more important country, where our elections matter a great deal more to the whole world and frankly to our individual lives, can barely even get a majority to even register to vote, and only a bare majority of THAT group to even bother to vote.
9-11 has taught us nothing. At least I can take solace knowing that Court Street and Union Street and 4th and 4th Avenues will likely be tidier in a one-party state.
And in a decisive moment of the match, he grabbed his opponent and tossed it out of the ring...
To see time fly...
Time? Isn't that a tad ethereal for the sweet science? I mean, last week-- he clocked his opponent...
The perfect is the enemy of the good. Yes, a candidate with extensive military and foreign policy experience (Clark) or a legislative record (Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards, even Lieberman) has some appeal, BUT... beating Bush will, frankly, involve NOT following the conventional wisdom-- not "playing it safe" and pandering the usual pressure groups-- but GOING BALLS OUT FOR IT.
Of this group, boys and girls, that means Howard Dean. (And I think his hatred of Bush is sincere. Like mine.)
Yes, it would be nice if he were a Southerner himself-- seemingly the only way any Democrat ever carries Southern states-- but he doesn't have to be. If he takes the Gore states plus New Hampshire, he wins. Yes, Gore is taking a chance on ending party divisiveness-- but as the show of hands shows, the Dems may be more interested in in-fighting and positioning (why do you all think Hillary's stand-in Terry McAuliffe keeps allowing Sharpton, Moseley Braun and Kucinich in the debates... to make the guys who HAVE a chance look GOOD?) than in winning the damned election.
Well, Gore has chosen WINNING, or at least, the best shot at trying to win-- and I say, kudos to him.
Maybe Dean won't win the election-- but damn it, he won't play it safe trying. (As far as I'm concerned, Al Gore just about walks on water...)
But as noted, if "Oh boo hoo Dean is a McGovern liberal who can't possibly beat the Mighty Bush" is the best the other candidates can do-- then fuck them, and let Dean be the standardbearer.
To all alleged Atkins sufferers, I say "Let zem eat cake".
America is a great and vast country that can find a horror story to attach to just about anything. First, Atkins is killing the bakery industry. Now, its killing STUPID people. Who knows what's next... maybe it will soon kill EVERYONE!!!
But yes-- I like the abuse of dangling modifiers as a concept...
There's the old Benny Hill bits What's that in the road? A HEAD??? (Its all about punctuation sometimes)
I believe the expression is "The perfect is the enemy of the good". To Ralph, 100% ideological purity has always been more important than having to "compromise" to achieve only 99 or 98% of his wanted agenda.
But in the end, although one should feel free to want to kick his ass and to certainly issue him stern tongue lashings, its (currently) a free country (no thanks to Ralph, btw)-- and God knows its his absolute constitutional right to run.
I still get the feeling that the only reason the Green Party exists AT ALL is as an insurance policy for the GOP. Note how it seems to hang on, while its likely counterweight, the "Reform" Party, seems nowhere to be found.
Always-- ALWAYS-- thoroughly wash those fruits and vegetables.
"American" agriculture-- manned as it is by a combination of legal and illegal immigrants, migrant workers, the (very) occasional family farmer, and otherwise a whole lot of badly paid other people, is amazing. It leads the nation in industrial accidents, it has exemptions from various worker safety rules that cause the first thing, it has exemptions from minimum wage laws that should make other industries incredibly jealous, it uses chemicals and bio agents that should make the rest of us gasp, and on net, it is subsidized to the tune of kazillions, increasing American taxes, screwing up the "free market", and of course, keeping cheaper ag. imports from the Third World safely out-- so that the most desperate nations in the world ALSO suffer needlessly. I won't even talk about distortions caused by ethanol subsidies and the Archer Daniels Midlands and Monsantos out there.
Just another indignity farm workers must suffer in the name of the almighty buck. Probably, not the worst of them by any means, I would guess.
WEll, boys and girls-- this one's the ballgame. Whether the voting machine fiasco is stopped in yet another filibuster (I don't know how) or in a court case, if its not stopped, we are looking at the hijacking of democracy right at the source. I have never seen a report of a single mistake by any machine by Diebold or its subsidiaries in favor of a Democratic candidate, though I have heard numeverous reports of mistakes...
RM--
You Canadians just use the bags and cartons because your OWN transcontinental milk pipeline proved to be such a huge failure-- no matter how deep the pipeline was sunk, it kept freezing somewhere around Saskatchewan. For whatever reason-- freezing milk into icebergs and floating it along the Great Lakes and/or St. Lawrence never caught on, either, possibly because those water bodies spend so much time frozen themselves.
Actually, tapping into the transcontinental milk pipeline has been illegal since shortly after the pipeline opened. Such illegal tapping not only reduces milk pressure (absolutely essential where the pipeline runs uphill), it also undermines the centralized pasteurization scheme, forcing re-pasteurization locally. Highly wasteful. In fact, I understand that protecting the integrity of the pipeline is now a function of the Dept. of Homeland Security.
And hey-- good one about the orange juice sluice! Of course, we all know that (at least on the East Coast and in the Midwest) orange juice is frozen each year into large icebergs, and then floated up either the Atlantic coast or the Mississippi and broken up into smaller pieces for distribution in the East and Midwest. I understand that the Californians (typical, right?) STILL use a sluice system, even though much of it runs right over a fault line.
This still being a free country (for the moment), some have undertaken to at least publishing lists of the war dead from Iraq such as this.
I suppose by publishing such lists, these people are undermining national security, or giving aid and comfort to the enemy, or are Saddamites or whatever, right?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 11 |
| 2003 | 49 |
| 2002 | 2 |
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