Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Wanker of the Day

Yes, it's 20 minutes early but what the hell.

Dalton Conley:

That is her right, of course, and nobody should be able to take that away. But when men and women engage in sexual relations both parties recognize the potential for creating life. If both parties willingly participate then shouldn't both have a say in whether to keep a baby that results?

...

The bottom line is that if we want to make fathers relevant, they need rights, too. If a father is willing to legally commit to raising a child with no help from the mother he should be able to obtain an injunction against the abortion of the fetus he helped create.



Sometimes I wish the level of debate in our elite national publications could exceed, ever so slightly, the level of late night freshman dorm conversations. When he writes "have a say in whether to keep a baby" what he actually means is "decide what a woman does with her uterus." It would be nice if there were some intermediate position, but biology dictates that there just isn't. Either you have the baby or you don't. Someone has the right to make that decision for themselves or they don't. And, of course, he eventually makes that clear. He doesn't mean "have a say." He means "decide."

I suggest all sensible women "decide" to not let their vaginas get within 20 miles of this guy. He thinks he has the right to decide, once he voluntary donates his sperm to you, that you must carry the child to term.

Fucking wanker.

Olbermann To Be Cancelled

Well, I hope not, but it's frequently what MSNBC does to their highest rated shows.

Forced Butt Sex

You know, I'd sorta remembered this story about David Hager the other day but couldn't remember who it was about and finally decided that maybe I'd just imagined the whole thing.

Amanda reminded me.

Sachsy

The idea that Goldman Sachs genuinely needed "incentives" for them to remain in New York City is laughable. The reality is the city probably could've made them pay for the privilege.

Fresh Thread

Anybody get indicted today?

Progressive Countries

Hitler's Germany, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba, and Stalin's USSR.

Who knew?

Open Thread

What you gonna do when the thread strikes and hits you?

Fired

Something tells me it'll be Pace who finds himself up for early retirement, not Rumsfeld.

Our leaders are truly scum.

Groundhog Day

heh-indeedy.

The title is quite appropriate. In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character first tries to make the most of his lot by changing how he seemed to be. Eventually he began to change how he actually was.

Bush will of course never understand that.

Embrace Our Zombie Dissident Overlords

Via Catch, Joe Dante discusses his Showtime show:

"This is a horror story because most of the characters are Republicans," director Joe Dante announced before the November 13 world premiere of his latest movie, Homecoming, at the Turin Film Festival. Republicans, as it happens, will be the ones who find Homecoming's agitprop premise scariest: In an election year, dead veterans of the current conflict crawl out of their graves and stagger single-mindedly to voting booths so they can eject the president who sent them to fight a war sold on "horseshit and elbow grease."
The dizzying high point of Showtime's new Masters of Horror series, the hour-long Homecoming (which premieres December 2) is easily one of the most important political films of the Bush II era. With its only slightly caricatured right-wingers, the film nails the casual fraudulence and contortionist rhetoric that are the signatures of the Bush-Cheney administration. Its dutiful hero, presidential consultant David Murch (Jon Tenney), reports to a Karl Rove–like guru named Kurt Rand (Robert Picardo) and engages in kinky power fucks with attack-bitch pundit Jane Cleaver (Thea Gill), a blonde, leggy Ann Coulter proxy with a "No Sex for All" tank top and "BSH BABE" license plates. Murch's glib, duplicitous condescension is apparently what triggers the zombie uprising: Confronting an angry mother of a dead soldier on a news talk show, he tells this Cindy Sheehan figure, "If I had one wish . . . I would wish for your son to come back," so he could assure the country of the importance of the war. The boy does return, along with legions of fallen combatants, and they all beg to differ. [...]

Dante and writer Sam Hamm (Batman) adapted Homecoming from Dale Bailey's "Death and Suffrage," a 2002 short story that puts a morbidly literal spin on the idea of the dead being used to pad the Chicago voting roll. (The film also owes something to the low-budget 'Nam-era Dead of Night, in which a "Monkey's Paw" wish brings an undead veteran back to his family home.) Though Bush is never named, Homecoming tailors its provocative scenario to accommodate a devastatingly specific checklist of accusations, from the underreporting of war casualties to last November's dubious Ohio count. As if in defiance of the Pentagon's policy to ban photographs of dead soldiers' coffins, Dante's film shows not just the flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base but their irate occupants bursting out of them. "There's a lot of powerful imagery in this movie that has nothing to do with me," Dante says. "When you see those coffins, which is a sight that's generally been withheld from us, there's a gravity to it. Even though there's comedy in the movie, there's something basically so serious and depressing about the subject that it never gets overwhelmed by satire." [...]

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see what a fucking mess we're in," he continues. "It's been happening steadily for the past four years, and nobody said peep. The New York Times and all these people that abetted the lies and crap that went into making and selling this war—now that they see the guy is a little weak, they're kicking him with their toe to make sure he doesn't bite back. It's cowardly. This pitiful zombie movie, this fucking B movie, is the only thing anybody's done about this issue that's killed 2,000 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis? It's fucking sick." While gratified by the warm reception to Homecoming in Turin, Dante says he's eager for the right-wing punditocracy back home to see it: "I hope this movie bothers a lot of people that disagree with it—and that it makes them really pissed off, as pissed off as the rest of us are."


The actress Dante found to play NotAnnCoulter eerily resembles the real thing.

Blowing Stuff Up is Not a Plan

Yglesias's take is about right. Contrary to all the recent chitchat Bush didn't lay the groundwork for any withdrawal from Iraq. It ain't gonna happen on his watch.

As Yglesias says, this adminsitration doesn't know how to do any of the things they want to do.

Matthews is wetting himself over Bush's masterful proposal for $3.9 billion in reconstruction funds Bush is proposing. I guess Halliburton needs another day of pay. We'd be better served if Matthews spent some time telling us what happened to all of the previous monies which were allocated for Iraq reconstruction.

Zombie Dissidents

Make sure to have all your right wing friends turn on Showtime on Friday.

A War Plan for 6 Year Olds

The infantalization of America continues.


Well, at least Chris Matthews will be able to undertand it.

Open Thread

There'll be no mutant enemy we shall certify. Political threads of sad remains will die.

Open Thread

There'll be no mutant enemy we shall certify. Political threads of sad remains will die.

Bugger

In the process of verifying an earlier quote by Rumsfeld I managed to lose whoever had tried to make the comparison. So, I owe this in part to some commenter or blogger or emailer but I can't find who. In any case, Rumsfeld said this today:


Consider the progress of the Iraqi security forces over the past year. In August 2004, five Iraqi army battalions were effectively in the fight. Today the number is 95.
In July 2004, there were no ready operational Iraqi army divisions or brigade headquarters. Today there are at least seven operational divisions and 31 operational brigade headquarters.

In July of 2004 there were no ready special police commando, public order or mechanized police battalions under the Ministry of Interior. Today there are 28 such battalions conducting operations.

And last year there were about 96,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi security forces. And today there are over 212,000 trained and equipped security forces.


Strange, really. In October 2003 Big Don said:

In less than six months, we've gone from zero Iraqis providing security to their country -- you don't have that chart, there it is -- to close to 100,000 Iraqis currently under arms.

Indeed, the progress has been so swift that Iraq is already the second largest of the security forces in the coalition. It will not be long before they will be the largest and outnumber the U.S. forces. And it shouldn't be too long thereafter that they will outnumber all coalition forces combined. Some have suggested that any statement that raises awareness of these successes is putting an optimistic face on a difficult security situation. Not so. Every time we've discussed progress in Iraq, I have made clear that the situation in the country remains dangerous, and that there will be setbacks.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Freedom

Smell it:

WASHINGTON -- As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. . The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents, and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

While the articles are basically truthful, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles -- with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism" -- since the effort began this year.

Puke Funnel

Round and round the bullshit goes, where it stops nobody knows...

Your Liberal Media

Funny how it's desperate to defend Republicans.

Of course neither Pinch nor Billy K. are liberal, so this should be no surprise.

Open Thread

Threads to the left of you threads to the right speak when you are spoken to don't pretend you're right.

Please Save Us

Bush today:

want you to know that Jon Kyl, United States Senator from Arizona, still listens to his mother. (Laughter and applause.) That's a pretty good sign, isn't it?...

Look, I don't know how many U.S. senators there are that like NASCAR. (Laughter.) I view that as a pretty good sign, to have a United States senator who follows NASCAR. It means he's down to earth. He doesn't walk around Washington with a lot of airs like some of them do...

These are serious times in which we live, and it requires serious, experienced people to deal with the problems that we're confronted with. And the biggest problem we got is we're still at war. I wish I could report to you we weren't at war, but there's an enemy that still lurks that wants to do harm to the United States of America. And they want to do us harm because we stand squarely for freedom and democracy and we're not going to change. You see, they can't stand the fact -- (applause) -- they can't stand the fact that we allow people to worship freely, or to speak their mind in the public square, or to print articles the way they want to print them in America. They have a different view of the world. They've got this vision of darkness that stifles dissent and stifles the freedoms that many of us take for granted...

The enemy has made Iraq a central front in this war on terror, so we must take it seriously...

Jon Kyl understands that in this war on terror it's important to have members of the United States Senate who understand mixed messages...

You know, I just recently came off a trip to the Far East...And it struck me that I was in a region of the world where there -- where wars had started.

Sebastian "Jeffrey Dahmer" Mallaby

Ah, the lovely level of discourse which our elite media gatekeepers feel fit to use. Calling a decorated war veteran a traitor? No problem!

Furman advised John "Benedict Arnold" Kerry in the 2004 campaign and has never received any payment from Wal-Mart; he is no corporate apologist.


(via Romenesko)

Oxymoron of the Day

"IED Factory."

discuss

Pullout

We do admittedly face a tremendous problem - that there's little reason to expect that the idiots who couldn't run a war will be able to run a withdrawal any better. Whether we're going to get a fake withdrawal or a real withdrawal (I still think it's the former), the results could be disastrous both for Iraqis and Americans. Those of us who think getting out is the right thing to do don't think getting out stupidly is a good idea. The shorter version of Fred Kaplan's questions here is basically, "Is Karl Rove Setting the Iraq Policy?"

President Bush is going to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. That no longer seems in doubt. The question is: How does he plan to do it? Which troops will come out first? How quickly? Where will they go? Under what circumstances will they be put back in? Which troops will remain, and what will they do? How will they keep a profile low enough to make the Iraqi government seem genuinely autonomous yet high enough to help deter or stave off internal threats? Who will keep the borders secure, a task for which the Iraqi army doesn't even pretend to have the slightest capability? What kinds of diplomatic arrangements will he make with Iraq's neighbors—who have their own conflicting interests in the country's future—to assure an international peace?

More to the point, does the president have a plan for all this? (The point is far from facetious; it's tragically clear, after all, that he didn't have a plan for how to fight the war if it extended beyond the collapse of Saddam.) Has he entertained these questions, much less devised some shrewd answers? If he's serious about a withdrawal or redeployment that's strategically sensible, as opposed to politically opportune, we should hear about them in his speech Wednesday night.


Much as we couldn't control the execution of the war, we also can't control the "peace." It will be a sad thing indeed if "peace" takes the form of the current conservative favorite, the El Salvador model.


...Just on CNN they're claiming over 200,000 trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers. Right.


...Arthur suggests we may Snorkelpuffle from Iraq.

A Plan

Hey, two and half years later we're going to get a plan for victory.

Feel the Joementum!

Time magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware on Morning Sedition this morning:

I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot or he knows he's spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he's not talking about any country I've ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting.


(tip from res ipsa loquitur)

Strip Search Sammy

I've always been puzzled by people who think foreigners shouldn't be entitled to constitutional rights when they're in this country. I can only imagine that they've never been outside the country or they believe that their flag lapel pin gives them universal diplomatic immunity or something.

Would certainly by a nice state of affairs if every country thought they could play calvinball with the rights of foreigners in their countries.

Open Thread

How can the thread with its arms all around me?

Open Thread

Now the threads I've sang don't add much weight to the story in my head so I'm thinking I should go and write a punch line.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Show Your Papers!

God I miss the days when I could make fun of my European friends (mostly undeserved) for this stuff.

Friends

I read this article a few times before I realized what we were supposed to learn from it:

The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

It's not clear why Luskin believes Novak's deposition could help Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, who remains under investigation into whether he provided false statements in the case. But a person familiar with the matter said Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October, when the prosecutor brought perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges against Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"This is what caused [Fitzgerald] to hold off on charging" Rove, the source said. But another person familiar with the conversations said they did not appear to significantly alter the case.

Luskin presented evidence, including details of his own conversations with Novak, to Fitzgerald at a secret meeting at a downtown law office shortly before Libby was indicted on Oct. 28, according to a source familiar with the case.

It could not be learned what Luskin and Novak, who are friends, discussed that could help prove Rove did nothing illegal in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters and the subsequent investigation of it.


Um, so Viveca Novak's been covering this story and she's friends with Rove's lawyer?

You know what to do, folks, CONVENE THE BLOGGER ETHICS PANEL STAT!

Bling Bling

Don't have sex until he SHOWS YOU THE MONEY!

Was worried this was photoshopped, but there's an entirely different mention/picture here.

Whack Jobs on the Left

Tweety says (small video link):

Everybody sorta likes the president except the real whack jobs on the left.


Favorability ratings: Favorable/unfavorable (this is favorability, not job approval)

Hotline: 41/56
NBC/WSJ: 38/50
Zogby: 47/50
CBS: 33/51
FOX: 45/49
PEW: 46/51



It's nice to see that the majority of the country are officially lefty whack jobs!

Dukestir Say Bye Bye

Whether a calculated attempt to obtain sympathy or an honest expression of regret, the Dukestir did make a good speech today. As I said, I almost felt sorry for the guy. Tough waking up at age 65 and realizing you're gonna go to the slammer.

He's still cooperating with the investigation. One assumes that Mitchell Wade will have some talking to do. Who knows what else he might have to say...

Bozo the Coward

Conservatives always think it's unfair when the "liberal media" actually matches them up with someone who can put up a fight.

Office Furniture

Think Progress asks:

Why did the White House hire MZM, a “defense and intelligence firm,” to buy office furniture for the White House?


Good question. As soon as Scottie comes out from his spider hole maybe someone can ask them.

Dukestir Resigns

Almost felt bad for the guy. But, somehow taking bribes on defense contracts during war time should, you know, be a big deal.

2245?

Either someone made a really bad typo or an extra 135 US deaths in Iraq appeared overnight.



...mistake. fixed.

(via icasualties)

Navy Seals Rock!

And blogs didn't think that it'd be a good idea to spend what would presumably be gazillions of dollars to have Katie Couric anchor our nightly news show.

Couric actually use to be okay by the standards of morning show hosts, but the Today Show is utterly creepy now.

Holy Crap

Dukestir pleads really really goddamn guilty your honor.


Isn't it about time for the House to kick his ass out of there? He sits on the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee and he admits to taking bribes?

Jeebus.

Ralston

If true this could be quite a big deal:

Earlier this month, attorneys say Fitzgerald received additional testimony from Ralston -- who said that Rove instructed her not to log a phone call Rove had with Cooper about Plame in July 2003.

Ralston also provided Fitzgerald with more information and "clarification" about several telephone calls Rove allegedly made to a few reporters, including syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the lawyers said.

Cunning Plan

So, Bush is going to turn things around by talking up an immigration proposal that the Right absolutely hates and nobody else likes very much?

Gatekeepers

I'm not one who gets outraged when media types rant about how blogs are filled with inaccuracies. They are, as any visit to one in the full-o-shit-o-sphere, such as Time Magazine's Blog of the Year, will prove. Zuckerman's little anti-blog rant is ridiculous for other reasons, as P O'Neill points out.

Still, it's worth addressing his central point that "gatekeeper" media, a system by which "journalistic professionals" determined what the great unwashed did or did not need to know, is being torn down by the blogs. I think that concept of "gatekeeper media" is on balance a bad concept, but I don't see it as being entirely without merit. Nothing wrong with real professional standards, assuming they're real and not imaginary.

However, it isn't blogs that destroyed the Gatekeepers. It wasn't blogs that put Rush Limbaugh on as an election analyst. It wasn't blogs that gave Bill O'Reilly the flagship show on a major cable news network. It wasn't blogs that gave Michael Savage his own television show on a cable news network. It wasn't blogs that put Ann Coulter on the cover of a major national news magazine. It wasn't blogs that created all of the various and often fact free screaming heads shows. It wasn't blogs that gave syndicated columns to numerous conservatives with little or no experience in journalism. It wasn't blogs that devoted the summer of 2001 to Gary Condit (uh, ok, well, maybe Josh helped a bit)and the summer of 2005 to a missing girl in Aruba. It wasn't blogs that invented the New York Post or Washington Times. And, it wasn't blogs that were responsible for all of the errors that this wonderful organization tracks on a regular basis.

Gatekeeper media may be dead, but to a great degree they dug their own grave and dove right in. Blogs didn't really get there until after the funeral.

The War on Christmas

Yglesias is right to remind us all, for the 10 millionth time, that godless Europe mostly consists of states with explicit state religions or quasi-state religions. Some countries even handle the tithing for churches by collecting the "church tax" and distributing it to churches.

While church attendance is definitely higher in this country (claimed attendnace at least), it is not because of strict church-state separation in Europe. If anything it's the opposite.

Elite Women

This Prospect article is quite good. The are many problems with all of the recent "dopey New York Times articles" in part because they emphasize the notion that "elite women" have "choices" and then imagine a phony trend that they're "choosing" to have children.

We all have choices, and we all make those choices subject to various constraints. Even "elite women" who are presumed to have more, if not unlimited, financial resources and more desirable careers to leave behind face other constraints. The "choice" to perhaps leave a career behind in order to have children is not a simple embrace of childrearing over all other things, but simply the most preferred available option.

More flexible and forgiving work environments, great male willingness to participate in household duties, greater availablity of flexible and affordable childcare arrangements, and numerous other things would make raising children more compatible with an elite career would soften up some of the constraints women face. Some of these are cultural, some individual, and some could be improved through better policies.

While I have no firsthand knowledge, it's rather apparent to me that it's goddamn hard to raise a kid when both parents have full time jobs, and it's goddamn difficult, even for relatively affluent people, to raise a kid with one income. I think some of the reason we don't talk about this enough is that in these days of baby and family fetishizing it's somehow taboo to acknowledge that it is, as our great president is fond of saying, hard work.

Who Cares?

Unlike conservatives who appear to see every Hollywood movie as an affirmation or challenge to their entire belief system I don't actually care if Bruce Willis gets to make his war movie or if it dies in "development hell."

Still, one has to wonder why they're so excited to see fiction about the war that they're mostly not willing to go see in person (it's still going on guys, in case you didn't notice) and about which they stamp their feet and shriek every time the dreaded MSM shows any kind of footage of.

Well, no, one doesn't really.

Open Thread

If we reason with destiny, gonna lose our touch. Don't kill the thread.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Booby's Obituary

Howie's nice about it, but that's what he's writing.

Open Thread

I beg to leave, to hear your wonderous threads.

BoBo Broder

Broder today:

MR. DAVID BRODER: It's possible, Tim, but they won't get there by arguing about who did what three years ago. And this whole debate about whether there was just a mistake or misrepresentation or so on is, I think, from the public point of view largely irrelevant. The public's moved past that.


BoBo today:

Every time you delve into the situation in Iraq, you come away with the phrase "not enough troops" ringing in your head, and I hope someday we will find out how this travesty came about.


Broder at another point:

We saw it in the House, we saw it in the Senate, and we will see it increasingly now because the president is weakened. The one thing the president could do that would help himself and help his party would be to start leveling with the American people. I mean, I think an honorable man like John Warner, to have to sit here and not be able to say to you what those young officers clearly said to him about the troop situation in Iraq, just puts his party in a terrible position and people can see through that.


I know I'm not a smart Washington Post/New York Times pundit, but, uh, can't we connect the dots here and see that what happened 3 years ago, and every day since, is that they lied about everything?

Up in the Air

Now this hadn't occurred to me. Jeebus help us all.



...more:

HERSH: You know, Wolf, there is people I've been talking to -- I've been a critic of the war very early in the New Yorker, and there were people talking to me in the last few months that have talked to me for four years that are suddenly saying something much more alarming.

They're beginning to talk about some of the things the president said to him about his feelings about manifest destiny, about a higher calling that he was talking about three, four years ago.

I don't want to sound like I'm off the wall here. But the issue is, is this president going to be capable of responding to reality? Is he going to be able -- is he going to be capable if he going to get a bad assessment, is he going to accept it as a bad assessment or is he simply going to see it as something else that is just a little bit in the way as he marches on in his crusade that may not be judged for 10 or 20 years.

He talks about being judged in 20 years to his friends. And so it's a little alarming because that means that my and my colleagues in the press corps, we can't get to him maybe with our views. You and you can't get to him maybe with your interviews.

How do you get to a guy to convince him that perhaps he's not going the right way?

Jack Murtha certainly didn't do it. As I wrote, they were enraged at Murtha in the White House.

And so we have an election coming up -- Yes. I've had people talk to me about maybe Congress is going to have to cut off the budget for this war if it gets to that point. I don't think they're ready to do it now.

But I'm talking about sort of a crisis of management. That you have a management that's seen by some of the people closely involved as not being able to function in terms of getting information it doesn't want to receive.

Open Thread

No thread can take your place, you know what I mean. We have the same intrigue as a court of kings.

Calling All Advanced Plameologists

Don't know where this fits in:

WASHINGTON - A second Time magazine reporter has been asked to testify in the CIA leak case, this time about her discussions with Karl Rove's attorney, a sign that prosecutors are still exploring charges against the White House aide.

Viveca Novak, a reporter in Time's Washington bureau, is cooperating with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity in 2003, the magazine reported in its Dec. 5 issue.

Novak specifically has been asked to testify under oath about conversations she had with Rove attorney Robert Luskin starting in May 2004, the magazine reported.

Novak, part of a team tracking the CIA case for Time, has written or contributed to articles quoting Luskin that characterized the nature of what was said between Rove and Matthew Cooper, the first Time reporter who testified in the case in July.

Privatization

This is truly a distressing story. The issue is not that private companies are never going to be a cog in the war machine. That is nothing new. The issue is that the military needs to be responsible for those things which are truly mission critical. And, when private companies are involved there needs to be oversight and enforcement. There should never be a situation, especially on the battlefield, when there is a tension between "the military notion of completing a mission irrespective of cost" and the goal of private companies to earn a profit. If they can't do the necessary job then they shouldn't be doing it. It's that simple.

I watched a bit of the recent Washington Monthly panel. During it Paul Glastris mentioned how he had previously been far more supportive of federal privatization initiatives than he was. The reason is that he's seen how it simply ends up duplicating, at the federal level, the patronage/machine politics that we see at state and local levels. I don't know why this was a surprise.

Yep

digby sez:

The really neat thing about this is that Rove has decided that Joe Biden should be the 2008 Democratic nominee. Feel the magic.

heh-indeedy

Mine All Mine!

Yglesias writes something which everyone needs to understand:

Record companies and their movie studio allies have managed to convince a shockingly large swathe of opinion that the purpose of intellectual property law is to prevent copyright infringement. In fact, the purpose is to advance the general welfare of society.


but judging by the number of people who seem to take issue with this in his comments obviously a lot of people don't. Let's go to the constitution:

Clause 8:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.


The key phrases being "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and " securing for limited Times." A lot of the commenters seem to side with Disney et al who, after having made tons of money ripping off fairy tales without paying any royalties, seem to think that copyright law should extend out to time infinity.

The business centered discussion of these and related issues often serves to obscure the point of certain institutions. For example, antitrust law exists solely for the protection of competition for the benefit of consumers, not to protect competitors. It's a seemingly subtle distinction, but it makes a world of difference in how we think about it.

Our Plan!

Funny. White House is now saying it's great that everyone supports the plan that they never announced.

It's BS, though.

Open Thread

On the darkest night so painful do you hunger for thread midst the torture of being one?

Open Thread

There's a thread and the thread is now and it's right for me.

Screw Them

The warbloggers' war:

In response to the lynching of four American security contractors, US forces were ordered to "clean out" Fallujah, over the protests of the Marine commander on the ground, who argued that months of painstaking efforts to win hearts and minds would be destroyed.

"The decision was political, not military," said Toby Dodge of Queen Mary College, London University, who went to Downing Street with other Iraq experts before the war to warn Mr Blair of the perils of an invasion. "It was taken in the Oval Office."

But after three weeks of heavy fighting, and correspondingly high casualties, the White House lost its nerve. The Marines, who lost 600 men, believed they were on the point of seizing the town when they were ordered to hand over to an "Iraqi brigade" commanded by a general from the Saddam era, which promptly yielded control back to the insurgents.

In the midst of this disaster, the Prime Minister was at the White House. That Britain was concerned about the conduct of the fighting was revealed in a leaked Foreign Office memo the following month. This said: "Heavy-handed US military tactics in Fallujah and Najaf, some weeks ago, have fuelled both Sunni and Shia opposition to the coalition, and lost us much public support inside Iraq."



...update: the 600 number is bogus, didn't notice it on the first read. Don't know if this was just a typo or what. In any case it wasn't the reason why I linked to the story but it certainly raises questions about the legitimacy of the reporting.
(tip pseud)

Buh-Bye

One more person recognizes he's on the wrong side of history...

Can I Get a Libertarian?

Oh, fucking great, domestic spying by our own military.

I'm really starting to miss the black helicopter crowd.

OJ

I do like it when they tell us what they really think.

In its denial of the basis of Western Civilization it is so transgressive that it deserved to be and was persecuted. People who deny there were witches because they don't like how the religious treated them are akin to the Left denying there were Communists because they don't like that Americans reviled them. Jews too were justifiably, though unnecessarily, persecuted for their beliefs and inability to conform to social norms.


There you go.

Bugging Out?

I understand Steve's point - that staying in Iraq is by reasonable standard impossible over the longer run due to resource constraints (lack of soldiers). The thing is, I don't think the president understands this. I don't think anybody's told him.

Open Thread

Onward through the thread, onward through the night of my life.

Open Thread

If we reason with destiny, gonna lose our touch. Don't kill the thread.

Cooper/Brown

I didn't think Aaron Brown was anything close to perfect and I don't mind Anderson Cooper, but I'm not surprised that Cooper's ratings aren't so great. Brown's show, though flawed, offered a slightly different approach to the news than is the norm these days. I think it was actually appointment viewing for some people.

CNN booted Aaron Brown two weeks ago, hoping that a more exciting personality would boost ratings for the 10 p.m. timeslot. That more exciting personality was Anderson Cooper, still basking in kudos for his Hurricane Katrina coverage.

But while Cooper may have wowed audiences reporting from New Orleans, he's off to a poor start anchoring CNN’s revamped primetime news show.

For the week ended Nov. 13, its first week, “Anderson Cooper 360,” as the new 10-to-midnight show is called, averaged 593,000 viewers, according to Nielsen.

That’s down 27 percent from October's 813,000 average for “NewsNight,” on which Cooper and Brown shared hosting responsibilities for the past month. It’s also well below the 842,000 Brown’s show averaged during 2004.

Declaring Victory and Pretending to Get Out

Attaturk's got the right idea. Certainly, as Josh says, this is all about the 2006 elections bt it's more complicated than that. I'm sticking with my "we're never leaving while George Bush is in office." The number of troops in Iraq is now at near record levels, so decreasing that number somewhat is possible simply by reverting back to the average. Perhaps they'll go down to 100,000 as that's a nice round number.

Still, it isn't just the fact that the troops are there that's a problem it's the fact that they're dying. If troop strength is decreased simply for electoral purposess and the declining numbers leave those who remain more vulnerable then that's a problem.

Open Thread

How can the thread with its arms all around me?

Robots.txt

Was searching for something and randomly came across the White House's robot.txt file which discourages search engines and archive.org from searching/providing a cache of the web pages in it. No idea if this is a new exciting discovery.

Interesting.

Pass the Popcorn

Almost sad to see my good friend Bob with such troubles:

The Justice Department's wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said.

Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. The investigators are looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Masters of Horror

Best not to say too much, but I'd highly recommend anyone with Showtime (and I think it's their free promo weekend, so that probably includes most with cable) tune into the Friday December 2 episode of that series. Called Homecoming, it's directed by Joe Dante and it will probably cause a shitstorm of rather epic proportions.

Open Thread

No thread can take your place, you know what I mean. We have the same intrigue as a court of kings.

Open Thread

As I see a new thread in me, I can also show if you and you may follow.

Freedom Farts In Our Faces

Smell it:

On this latest trip to Baghdad, the bubble shrank even more. No roaming the Green Zone. Not even a stop at the convention center. The press corps, including veteran war correspondents, was sequestered in Hussein's old palace for most of the seven-hour stay. We were discouraged from wandering the palace and were provided escorts to go to the bathroom.

Our one venture out was a short hop to the nearby prime minister's office, also in the Green Zone. All we saw were new barricades trimmed with razor wire, concrete blast walls, roadblocks and time-consuming identity checks. No Iraqis. No vendors. In October 2004, the bazaar had been attacked, one of two almost simultaneous suicide bombings inside the Green Zone that together killed 10, including four Americans.

Robe

Idiots.


...Oh, and shorter PJ Media editorial board:

Uh, does anyone know what the fuck we're supposed to be doing here?

Journamalism

Lovely:

NBC did not interrupt its broadcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade yesterday to bring viewers the news that an M&M balloon had crashed into a light pole, injuring two sisters.

In fact, when the time came in the tightly scripted three-hour program for the M&Ms' appearance, NBC weaved in tape of the balloon crossing the finish line at last year's parade - even as the damaged balloon itself was being dragged from the accident scene. At 11:47 a.m., as an 11-year-old girl and her 26-year-old sister were being treated for injuries, the parade's on-air announcers - Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Al Roker - kept up their light-hearted repartee from Herald Square, where the parade ends.

...

When the balloon failed to arrive at Herald Square at the appointed time, she said, "we rolled with some previously recorded footage."

Open Thread

Onward through the thread, onward through the night of my life.

Open Thread

More in the mind than the body this feeling, a sense at the end Of a circular thread.

Open Thread

I asked my love to give me shelter And all she offered me were threads.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Open Thread

Threads speak much louder than words.

Open Thread

More in the mind than the body this feeling, a sense at the end Of a circular thread.

Open Thread

Onward through the thread, onward through the night of my life.

White Guy Entitlement Syndrome

I've said this about Alito from the beginning, so I'm not surprised he was a member of an organization which was actively against the admission of women and minorities to Princeton. We're not just talking about opposition to affirmative action, we're talking about preserving Princeton as a club for the "right" kind of people - wealthy white sons of privilege. It wasn't simply for admission limits for women, but also for perpetuating and expanding affirmative action for children of alumni. A wealthy white boys club, no women or minorities need apply.

Repeat, by Request

Our little Thanksgiving tradition. Has it really been two years since they tried to claim to the press that at 30,000 feet in the middle of the night another pilot visually ID'd air force one "sneaking" to Iraq? Since there was a fake photo op of Bush handing out turkee to the troops? Jeebus.


Open Thread

Thread comes to you and you follow - lose one on to the Heart of the Sunrise.

Open Thread

Threads speak much louder than words.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Open Thread

Our thread is our world, our life.

Open Thread

No thread can take your place, you know what I mean. We have the same intrigue as a court of kings.

Turkee

Posting will be inconsistent over the next couple of days (with the exception of trusty threadbot) as I do things like eat and go to the market 586 times to prepare for eating. Enjoy your turkee...

Jonah's Girls

What nutcase would imagine this would be appropriate for Teen People?

Memories

Big Time, 9/2002

RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The regime says it has no weapons of mass destruction, but we know that is a lie.


At another time:

RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think they know the same information. I think the fact is that, in terms of the quality of our intelligence operation, I think we're better than anybody else generally in this area.

I think many of our European allies, for example, who are reluctant to address this issue, or who have been critical of the suggestion that somehow the United States wants to aggressively go address this issue, I think many of them do not have access to the information we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: General Grange, I know you can explain this to our viewers who may be confused. Well, why doesn't the United States simply share this intelligence with those close allies?

GRANGE: Well, some close allies, in fact, we do, but some of them we don't. And it's tiered depending on the reliability and the different treaties we have with different allies. Some ongoing operations that are supported by some intelligence that the United States has may not be able to be shared because it will compromise that particular mission.

So when the time comes, I believe that more of this will come out in order to gain some support. But it'll never be 100 percent.

More Kaplan

From Sam Rosenfeld:

To the extent that a choice between liberal internationalism and coldhearted realism is framed as a choice between support for the Iraq war and opposition to the Iraq war, you're going to be seeing ever-increasing numbers folks aligning themselves with the realists. But the blame for that unfortunate development lies most clearly with the Iraq war and those war supporters -- like Lawrence Kaplan -- who constantly argue that the only alternative to endorsing their position is pledging allegiance to Henry Kissinger. I, for one, opposed the war but also have little love for Kissinger. I even wrote an article, with Matt, about the danger that the war poses to the viability of a reality-based liberal interventionism. Kaplan is kind enough to cite it over the course of a piece that manages to prove our point all over again.

Gaffney: Oh Just Blow It Up

Gaffney suggests it'd be okay to blow up Al-Jazeera.

As with many issues we keep running into these days it shouldn't be necessary to explain why targetting journalists might not be such a good idea. In this case not the least of which being that Al-Jazeera is happily housed in Qatar, a country we aren't actually at war with. Maybe it's not such a good idea to start bombing yet another largely secular Arab country, especially for committing the High Crime of freedom of the press.

Treason

Rice:
But in an interview with CNN, she said, "I suspect that the American forces are not going to be needed in the numbers that they are there for all that much longer because Iraqis are continuing to make progress in function, not just in numbers but in their capabilities to do certain functions like, for instance, holding a highway between the airport and the center of the city, something that our forces were doing just a short time ago, they're now doing."

"I think that's how the president will want to look at this," she said.



I know lots of people think the Republican Cut&Run shuffle (which is entirely different from any cutting and running suggested by Democrats in ways which are clear if you live in Wingnuttia) is inevitable. I don't. I think they'll continue to make noises about future withdrawals, but there won't be an actual serious withdrawal. Bush has said the terrorists want us to leave so we have to say. Leaving=losing. We'll be in Iraq at roughly current levels until the day he finally goes back to Crawford for good (well, at least until that campaign prop is sold).

Poor Crazy Jean

She's stupid and she's ugly and nobody likes her.

Judging by her words yesterday -- the first after avoiding the public for three days -- Schmidt doesn't understand what the fuss is about, and sees herself more as victim than villain. "I am amazed at what a national story this has become," she said in a statement. "I have been attacked very personally, continuously since Friday evening."


Not even the ball.

Open Thread

On the darkest night so painful do you hunger for thread midst the torture of being one?

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The Mad Scientist

I've met him, and I agree, he's nuts. But not, you know, Crispin Glover on the Letterman show nuts. More, sorta, Malcom McDowell in Clockwork Orange nuts.

Rice

Rice on CNN to John King, just now, responding to King pointing out that Democrats didn't have the same intelligence as the White House. It's her shiny new talking point. Shr grinned triumphantly as she said it:

They had the intelligence that made the case that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his biological and chemical weapons and was at least on the way to reconstituting the nuclear weapons.



Right, they had the intelligence that made the case, but not the intelligence which pointed out that that intelligence was full of shit.

Nice follow up (not) King.

Call the Wahmbulance

Crazy Jean:

My good friend Representative Bubp called me to discuss this plan during the House debate on the issue of immediately removing troops from Iraq.

I relayed our conversation with Representative Bubp on the House Floor.

Since that moment I have been attacked from across the country by the left.

I never meant to attack Congressman Murtha personally. I sent him a personal note of apology on Friday evening moments after my words. While I strongly disagree with his policy, neither Representative Bubp nor I ever wished to attack Congressman Murtha. I only take exception to his policy position.

I am amazed at what a national story this has become. It was never intended.

I am thankful for the thousands of supportive messages I have received from the people I represent and others across the nation since Friday. But this story has been way too focused on me, my conviction and word selection. Instead this story should be focused on the extremely poor policy the minority now propose. A policy, I might point out, that through this media storm has now been repudiated by dozens of leading members of the minority.

I have been attacked very personally, continuously since Friday evening. I am quite willing to suffer those attacks if in the end that policy I so strongly oppose is exposed as unsound. First and foremost I support the troops. They dodge bullets and bombs while I duck only hateful words.


uh, Jean? Even Bubp has called you a big liar.


Just keep your eye on the ball.

Open Thread

Threads speak much louder than words.

On Traffic

People can believe whatever they want, but I just wanted to address something for those of us in the reality-based community. Among Althouse's baseless claims is that the only reason this site gets any traffic is because all of the commenters keep reloading the page and then rushing off to the comments section. Of course, the comments don't impact traffic, one doesn't have to reload the page to get to the comments section, and only a tiny minority of readers actually participate in the comments section.


It's certainly the case that no internet traffic stats program is perfect. Sitemeter, the one used by most bloggers, claims to record "visitors" using a method which excludes people who reload the page within an hour. One can also look at page views, which sitemeter does also, or unique visitors which extreme tracking does. None of these are perfect, but presumably they get roughly in the ballpark of the right answer.

I felt the need to respond because I do like to make a few bucks off this site so I can feed the cats and since Althouse is apparently trying to discourage advertisers by writing things like:

Thus, I see his high traffic as rather bogus. And it's bad for advertisers who rely on the number, because visitors aren't staying on the page with the ads, but going onto the comments window, which doesn't have ads.

Anyway, according to extreme tracking The site had 188,886 views yesterday. About 21.5% of those were reloads, and about 78.5%, or 148224, were unique. According to sitemeter it was about 225K of the former and 200K "visits" as it measures them. Blogads lists me at about a million page views for the week.

In any case Althouse is entitled to her pet theories about the value of internet real estate, but those are the facts.

63% Want Out

It really is a sad state of affairs that it's been over 3 years since the sudden need to attack Iraq magically appeared on the radar and the media still doesn't even come close to representing the range and balance of public opinion on this subject. 63% want to get out over the next next year. How often does that idea get expressed on CNN?

Sixty three percent of those surveyed were in favor of bringing US troops home from Iraq in the next year, up two percent from August, while 35 percent thought they should be kept in large numbers until a democracy is established, down one point from August.

Open Thread

Onward through the thread, onward through the night of my life.

Open Thread

your eyes.

Legitimate Right of Resistance

So, Iraqi leaders say that insurgents have the legitimate right to kill US soldiers.

Why are we there?

Crazy Jean

So, apparently Jean Schmidt is just a total liar.

Nice to hide behind one marine to call another marine a coward.

Sounds like Jean's taken her eye off the ball. NO! NOT THE BALL! The BALL WILL COME BACK AND HARM US!

Open Thread

No thread can take your place, you know what I mean. We have the same intrigue as a court of kings.

Open Thread

Threads speak much louder than words.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Whiplash

Pajamas Media is dead.

Long live Open Source Media.

Open Source Media is dead.

Long live Pajamas Media!

Looking for Ponies in All the Wrong Places

Eugene Robinson in the WaPo:

The administration is losing the public debate because of its many missteps and failures, but also because of its insistence on conflating the war in Iraq with the larger "war on terror." Does anyone understand what "war on terror" means? The country was attacked by a murderous association of Islamic fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden. Last we heard, he was still alive and well, probably in some cave in northwestern Pakistan. That's a long way from Iraq.

The president says that Iraq is a test of our nation's resolve, that anything less than victory will confirm the enemy's view that America lacks the stomach for a fight. But "stay the course" doesn't play as a strategy when the course seems to lead nowhere. What is victory in Iraq? When will we know we've won? When the simmering, low-level civil war we've ignited sparks into full flame and somebody takes over the country? When a new government in Baghdad declares its eternal brotherhood and friendship with Tehran?

The mess that George Bush and Co. have created in Iraq doesn't have an unmessy solution. Murtha's plan -- just get out -- isn't really attractive, but at least it's a plan. The saying goes that when you're in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. But the president, like the optimistic kid in the old joke, just keeps burrowing deeper into the pile of manure, even though by now we can be pretty sure that there's no pony down there.

More Booby

John has good analysis, but I want to add one more thing. Previously Booby had claimed the conversation was off the record. It's already been pointed out that's a bit weird to take an off the record conversation and casually tell your colleague of that conversation (as he claims he did to Pincus). But the other thing is if the conversation was off the record how is it possible that he may have (he says he doesn't remember) asked Libby about Wilson's wife working for the CIA?

What the hell does off the record mean?

Booby Still "Confused"

In the transcript linked below, Booby says:

And there was a sense before the indictment, "Well, this is kind of interesting, but it's not clear what it means." Then, the day of the indictment, I read the charges against Libby and looked at the press conference by the special counsel. And he said: The first disclosure of all of this was on June 23, 2003, by Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, to "New York Times" reporter Judy Miller.


uh, Booby, Fitzgerald made clear it was the first "known" disclosure. A bit different.

Althouse

Althouse responds, combining the best of Michelle Malkin (Eeew! Look at all the nasty things the liberals wrote, missing the intended irony in most cases. Shocked that was the "best" she could do, really.) - with the best of Ann Althouse (how dare you understand what I clearly wrote instead of knowing what I really meant!)

But, fair is fair, go take a look.

...to answer Althouse's question, the reason I assumed that she hadn't "been a feminist all along" was because she wrote:

Are there any feminists around to see when it's happening and say a little something?

Meaning, quite clearly, that feminists are other people. Had she written, "as a feminist, I think it's important to point these things out" or something similar taking ownership of the label I (and proud feminist Echidne) wouldn't have responded the way I did.

I of course haven't devoted my life to reading the entirety of Althouse's body of work, on her blog and elsewhere, though I certainly am no stranger to it. If Althouse would like to point me to something she's written which, for example, happened "say a little something" when it wasn't directed at her I'll happily make the correction.


...one more thing, I agree that it's understandable if people find ironic jokes about racism or sexism genuinely inappropriate or offensive. Sometimes those jokes are almost indistinguishable from genuine racism and sexism, no matter the intent of the person making them, and I'm not going to tell people what should or shouldn't offend them.

But I do miss King Leopold.

Booby

Blitzer just played a clip from Larry King where we learn how Booby got involved. After he read Fitzgerald's report he called the source and said whatup with Fitzgerald not knowing about you, and the source said he had to go to the prosecutor and "tell the truth" (no mention of whether s/he had lied before or not). Booby then asked if he was free to testify since the source was going to the prosecutor anyway and the source said yes.

Weird, really.

Bye Bob and Tom

For the record Rep. Ney was very nice when I testified before his committee.

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- For more than a year, Michael Scanlon has been a shadowy presence behind former partner Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist at the center of a corruption probe. Now, Scanlon may help prosecutors raise the investigation to a higher level.

Scanlon, a former aide to Representative Tom DeLay, is scheduled to appear today in U.S. District Court to present a plea bargain with the Justice Department likely to lead to his cooperation with investigators. His testimony would ratchet up the pressure on Abramoff and aid prosecutors in widening the investigation to members of Congress, such as Republicans DeLay and Representative Robert Ney of Ohio.

Guilty

I think there are probably several members of congress who just soiled themselves.

Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, pleads guilty in conspiracy to bribe public officials.

Shorter Joe Biden

Link:

I have seen nothing in the past few years to make me think that George W. Bush may not listen to my sage advice.



...let me just add what the real point is. Let's assume that Biden is right - do what he says, and things will improve. The corollary to that is if we don't do what he says, things won't improve. The probability of the Bush administration taking advice from Joe Biden is about 0. So what Joe Biden should understand is that lots more American soldiers are going to die while he sits around and waits for Bush to take his calls. And, then, a year from now he can give the damn speech again, perhaps with an "I really mean it this time" tacked on. Rinse, repeat.

Republicans

They're really into the idea that if you've served in the military you shouldn't run for office because you've been "out of town too long."

Iraq Leaders Demand Timetable

Over to you, Dick:

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi leaders, meeting at a reconciliation conference in Cairo, urged an end to violence in the country and demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.

In a final statement, read by Arab League chief Amre Moussa, host of the three-day summit, they called for ``the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces.'' No date was specified.

``The Iraqi people look forward to the day when the foreign forces leave Iraq, when it's armed and security forces will be rebuilt and when they can enjoy peace and stability and get rid of terrorism,'' the leaders said in the statement. The session was broadcast live from the Egyptian capital by al-Jazeera.

Poor Little Ricky

He's stupid and he's ugly and nobody likes him.

WASHINGTON - After 11 years in the Senate, Rick Santorum has become one of the most powerful and influential leaders in state and national politics.

He boasts a close relationship with President Bush, he's the No. 3 GOP leader in the Senate, and he is frequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the White House.

An incumbent running for re-election with such credentials normally would scare off most challengers and have few political worries.

Yet low public approval ratings, a well-liked opponent, an increasingly unpopular president mired in an equally unpopular war, an unhappy electorate, public perceptions of ethics lapses by Republicans and Santorum's own miscues have turned next year's Senate election upside down.

Advisers to Santorum concede they are growing increasingly frustrated by his weak support and the tactics of state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., his likely Democratic opponent.

Some analysts and party officials say Santorum's campaign tactics, such as calling for 10 debates a year before the election, are bordering on desperate, particularly for a two-term incumbent.


When asked about what he would do when he left the Senate, Santorum said he was considering opening a chain of kennels.

Open Thread

Listen, should we thread forever Knowing as we do know fear destroys?

NYT Gets Snarky

Though as funny as this was I don't actually think it deserves 30% of their front page.

Straight Racist

I'll never understand certain liberals love affair with John McCain. I'll set my bar slightly higher than "not as obviously incompetent and evil as George Bush" thank you.


Now we find out that McCain is speaking at a fundraiser for George Wallace, Jr, someone who gave a speech to the Council of Conservative Citizens four times, including once this year. Here's the SPLC on Wallace.


From their statement of principles:

We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.

7 Figures

I hope that when I use this blog to peddle lies to lead us into war I remember to negotiate a 7 figure severance package with myself before I do it.

BoBo's World

Savannah, GA edition:

A Savannah youth pastor's confession led police Sunday to his wife's body, buried on the outskirts of Chatham County, police said.

Around 12:30 p.m., a man called police to say that his brother-in-law, Eric Brian Golden, 35, had confessed to killing his wife, DeeDee Marie Golden, Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Sgt. Mike Wilson said.

Great American hero

If there's any confusion about what the Republicans have been up to over the past couple of years it should all be put to rest by their professed love of Joe McCarthy.

Open Thread

On the darkest night so painful do you hunger for thread midst the torture of being one?

Top 10 Movies You Hate

Amy H gives hers.

For the record, I liked Chuck&Buck. Thought Supersize Me was entertaining but not ultimately illuminating. Think Grease 2 sort of deserves Rocky Horror/MST3K type respect. Didn't see the rest.

Won't do a well thought out version myself, but those that leap to mind:

The Piano
The English Patient
The Fountainhead
The Three Amigos
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Meet Joe Black
Pretty Woman
Mission Impossible 2


...and, no matter how much your hate matches hers, her discussion of the contemporary ensemble movie is fascinating.

Outback

I'm not going to fault Bush for this, as security requirements (genuine or imagined), make getting out a big deal. But Jeebus Christmas on a Cracker who the fuck are these people?

For the president, it was a rare moment of fun on an otherwise dreary overseas trip. In five years in the presidency, Bush has proved a decidedly unadventurous traveler, an impression undispelled by the weeklong journey through Asia that wraps up Monday. As he barnstormed through Japan, South Korea and China, with a final stop in Mongolia still to come, Bush visited no museums, tried no restaurants, bought no souvenirs and made no effort to meet ordinary local people.

"I live in a bubble," Bush once said, explaining his anti-tourist tendencies by citing the enormous security and logistical considerations involved in arranging any sightseeing. "That's just life."

The Bush spirit trickles down to many of his top advisers, who hardly go out of their way to sample the local offerings either. A number of the most senior White House officials on the trip, perhaps seeking the comforts of their Texas homes, chose to skip the kimchi in South Korea to go to dinner at Outback Steakhouse -- twice. (Admittedly, a few unadventurous journalists joined them.)


And, I include the journalists. I mean, what the fuck? If nothing else one can go grab some Korean BBQ which is not going to be a big shock to the American palate. I understand that when you're in a grueling travel schedule a little familiar comfort is appreciated, but aren't these people curious at all?

Barking Mad

There's no one thing, but if you read through the transcript on Blitzer it's pretty clear that our Secretary of Defense is, in a word, nuts.

Time to Leave

I understand why conservatives desperately want to cling to their pet war and well-meaning liberal hawks desperately want to think that that there's some chance that what they endorsed won't end up being a geopolitical and humanitarian disaster of immense proportions. Even I'm tempted at times to hold out hope for the possibility that there's something, anything, that we can do to unshit the bed just a little bit. While I never thought this would end well, I did think there were opportunities for it to end less badly. But whether or not disaster was inevitable it obviously was not preventable by the ridiculous and incompetent clowns who run our government and who ran the CPA. Krugman's Monday column explains it rather clearly:

So the question isn't whether things will be ugly after American forces leave Iraq. They probably will. The question, instead, is whether it makes sense to keep the war going for another year or two, which is all the time we realistically have.

Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so, we're better off leaving sooner rather than later. As a Marine officer quoted by James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly puts it, "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose."

And there's a good case to be made that our departure will actually improve matters. As Mr. Murtha pointed out in his speech, the insurgency derives much of its support from the perception that it's resisting a foreign occupier. Once we're gone, the odds are that Iraqis, who don't have a tradition of religious extremism, will turn on fanatical foreigners like Zarqawi.

The only way to justify staying in Iraq is to make the case that stretching the U.S. army to its breaking point will buy time for something good to happen. I don't think you can make that case convincingly. So Mr. Murtha is right: it's time to leave.

Open Thread

Lost in trance of dances as thread takes another turn. As is my want, I only reach to look in

Calling the Plumber

I saw this the other day because my Google Desktop is for some reason obsessed with Ann Althouse. Waaah! Why won't feminists speak up for me!!! wahhh!

The underlying issue is, of course, a real one. Critics across the political spectrum (and of both genders) are quick to jump to use sexist and sexual language when criticizing women. Still, the "I can ignore it until it happens to me" game is annoying.

Open Thread

On the darkest night so painful do you hunger for thread midst the torture of being one?

No Exit Strategy

















(title thanks to hontlia)

Curveball

I already linked to the story, but Patrick Lang provides some highlights of the LA Times' Curveball story.

Got what a bunch of fucking losers run our country.

Thwarted

Oops:


The president strode away from reporters looking annoyed after one said he appeared "off his game".

President Bush tugged at both handles on the double doors before admitting: "I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work."

Mr Bush flies to Mongolia on Monday to complete his East Asia tour.

bloggity blog blog bloogy blogger blog

You know, I don't care if Michelle Malkin writes her blog all by herself or if she has her army of flying monkeys do it, but it seems reasonable to be up front about it either way.

What They Knew

Bob Graham:

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

...

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.

Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.

...

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

Wankers of the Century

The Bush administration.

The White House, for example, ignored evidence gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors shortly before the war that disproved Curveball's account. Bush and his aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq's biological weapons before the war even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed in two years.

At the Central Intelligence Agency, officials embraced Curveball's account even though they could not confirm it or interview him until a year after the invasion. They ignored multiple warnings about his reliability before the war, punished in-house critics who provided proof that he had lied and refused to admit error until May 2004, 14 months after the invasion.

Open Thread

your eyes.

Open Thread

Onward through the thread, onward through the night of my life.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Open Thread

What you gonna do when the thread strikes and hits you?

Open Thread

Our thread is our world, our life.

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature

A recent Times article pointed out that the methods for torture we used were taken adapted from tolitarian communist techniques valued not for their success in obtaining the truth but in their ability to obtain false confessions.

Apparently that wasn't really a bug, but a feature. The Times also recently pointed that even though the Bush administration was warned that one of the information sources, al Libi, was full of shit they kept on using his information to justify the war.

The Times article quoted a Defense Intelligence Report claiming that al-Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" although this stretches the concept of "intentionally" somewhat.


You see, al-Libi was a fine graduate of our exciting new school of interrogation. On him we used torture techniques designed to encourage the subject to tell the interrogaters what they wanted to hear. And, miracle of miracles, he did indeed tell them what they wanted to hear.

However, ABC News was told that at least three CIA officers declined to be trained in the techniques before a cadre of 14 were selected to use them on a dozen top al Qaeda suspects in order to obtain critical information. In at least one instance, ABC News was told that the techniques led to questionable information aimed at pleasing the interrogators and that this information had a significant impact on U.S. actions in Iraq.

According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons. Sources tell ABC that it was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

"This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear," one source said.

However, sources said, al Libbi does not appear to have sought to intentionally misinform investigators, as at least one account has stated. The distinction in this murky world is nonetheless an important one. Al Libbi sought to please his investigators, not lead them down a false path, two sources with firsthand knowledge of the statements said.


Just to recap. Bush administration needs evidence to support their war. They use torture techniqes designed to extract false confessions to obtain that "evidence," which they then use to sell the war despite knowing full well of the lack of reliability of the information.

Wanker of the Day

Whiny Tim Roemer.

I don't mind centrist Democrats. I don't mind criticisms of the Democratic party, including ones come from the righter wing of the party. What I do mind are people who help to perpetuate and strengthen fake right wing talking points about Democrats. In other words, I mind Fox News Democrats.

Open Thread

I beg to leave, to hear your wonderous threads.

Lots of Boobage

Competing theories from Arianna and Kevin.

I'm thinking the truth is some combination, though more on that when I have time.

Good Democrats

If it passes this bill should cover everything necessary to protect online activity.

Never Leaving as long as Bush is in Charge

Bush says "This is not going to happen on my watch." In other words, we stay in Iraq at least until January 2009.

Open Thread

If we reason with destiny, gonna lose our touch. Don't kill the thread.

Open Thread

Listen, should we thread forever Knowing as we do know fear destroys?

Friday, November 18, 2005

Open Thread

Always on the thread of what could be the greatest moment in this life.

Open Thread

On the darkest night so painful do you hunger for thread midst the torture of being one?

Open Thread

Always on the thread of what could be the greatest moment in this life.

Auspicious Debut

I guess there's something appropriate about a right wing media outlet debuting with a whopper.

As funny as it is I guess we're spending a bit too much time talking a web site that has absolutely nothing even mildy interesting or entertaining on it. I'd wonder why it didn't occur to anyone that a launch should be accompanied by an actual product, but I think the answer is pretty obvious - they have no idea what the product is yet.

Grey Lady Still Carrying Water

Pushes Bush administration line on scary weapons, unconcerned with facts.

The Fun Continues

The Fitz goes on:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in court filings that the ongoing CIA leak investigation will involve proceedings before a new grand jury, a possible sign he could seek new charges in the case.

In filings obtained by Reuters on Friday, Fitzgerald said "the investigation is continuing" and that "the investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury than the grand jury which returned the indictment" against Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Deliberately Stupid

OW has a post about the deliberate pose of stupidity many on the Right take. To prove his point, one of his righty commentators writes:

Speaking of “Stupid on Purpose”…

2 Days ago, Oliver intimates that the lackluster performance in the stock market should be laid at Bush’s feet. 48 hours later, the NASDAQ and S&P hit 4 1/2 year Highs.

Any bets as to whether Oliver will give Bush credit for this new development?

The NASDAQ and S&P hitting 4 1/2 year highs means that it's taken 4.5 years for the market to get back to the level it was at in May of 2001. I'll happily give Bush credit for that tremendous accomplishment.

Leaving=Losing

That's the Bush and Republican belief. We'll never leave Iraq as long as they're in charge.

Open Thread

No thread can take your place, you know what I mean. We have the same intrigue as a court of kings.

Boring

The amazing thing about Ponzi Media is that it's been...well, nothing. It's been so boring there's been almost nothing worth mocking.

Well, at least we have an amusing take on the launch party and Snopes Blair's apparent fear of hookers.

(via Arthur Silber)

Tiny Penis Brigade

Compassionate conservatism:

The 22 Republicans who opposed the measure represented a cross-section of ideologies and had a variety of reasons for objecting. For instance Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he objected because of an unexpected acceleration in the timetable for the federal government to stop Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for drugs that treat sexual impotence.


Joking aside, I think Bill Thomas is exactly right. It's entirely appropriate for such programs to cover reproductive health issues including, but not limited to, impotency issues. Such issues include birth control, abortion, prenatal care, and general penis, vagina, testicle, ovary, prostate, and uterus maintenance programs.