Michael Young on retreating from Iraq (- think he's basically right that Washington is, perhaps inevitably, undermining the war effort):
Bush has completely missed an essential rule of politics: Don't leave a policy vacuum, because someone else is bound to fill it. Congress is now energetically filling it in Iraq, forcing the administration to do the same, but using a document that Bush never liked in the first place: the Iraq Study Group report, with its central idea of refocusing the American effort on training and supporting Iraq's security forces. But as Bush knows well, and indeed as the benchmark assessment released last week confirmed, the situation of the security forces—meaning both the Iraqi army and Ministry of Interior units—"continues to show [only] slow progress."
Training and support are good ideas in the abstract, but their results in Iraq have been uneven, they take time, and, perhaps most important, many Iraqis are worried that the U.S. is leaving. As the benchmark assessment underlined: "The increasing concern among Iraqi political leaders that the United States may not have a long-term commitment to Iraq has also served in recent months to reinforce hedging behavior and made the hardest political bargains even more difficult to close."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/...how/
121465.html
I haven't got time to worry about Hitchens. I guess he's got something like intellect without charm, but given these amoral standards, why would I bother? Sure he's right about some of these people, but I hope Dominique Villepin gets off--for all the wrong reasons. He said nothing about Hans Blix, however, so there is no point whatever: There were no WMD and the UN did a thorough search. Bush, Cheney, Libby--all of them--lied all the way down the line.
Censure motion for Bush may come up, is being talked about. Subpoenas for
contempt for Miers and Bolten tomorrow. It's a bad time for Erzbeth Bathory freaks and geeks.
Prognosis is grave for Gilles de Rais freaks too (no, haven't read your book yet, but have read a good bit of Bataille, who seemed to enjoy these types rather vicariously; I think I know the type). You see, if you have no passion for the tragedy, but only for the vengeance, there is often a time limit on the pleasure. Other versions I've heard of, vaguely related, are the swarthy and repellent feminist, Andrea Dworkin, who said men raped women every time they fucked them. I believe she had a husband, but have no idea whether or not this means she lost her virginity or not (I rather hope not, for the world's sake.) An otherwise hysterical woman I know said wisely of Ms. Dworkin: 'She thought sex and violence were one, and the violence was the good part.' You see, that doesn't really work for me. Seeing Gilles de Rais step on babies' bleeding bellies does not turn me on.
The secret to living is not 'knowing who to let eat you', since you are going to get eaten up by somebody, but rather to choose your B.O.'s well. All social life is based on what B.O. is least offensive (in the less attractive scenarios) or attractive (when it gets better). Now I prefer Ms. Delphine Seyrig, who played the granddaughter of Erzbeth in an old French movie. Erzbeth's grandson or something like that gave Franz Liszt a prize, living on the outside and, of course, it wasn't his fault that Erzbeth was into the 72 virgins in a most corporeal way.
You see capitalism as so freeing it even annihilates your championing of the Anglosphere, which you have mentioned would be quite disposable if the Sinosphere got loaded enough to sink it. This is capitalism as a religion of cheap commercial sensation much like Marxism is a religion of cheap miserablistic sensation.
I have decided never to go anywhere in China but Hong Kong or Taiwan. They are still Western or Westernish, but Taiwan may be a longer road to hoe because you don't have the U.K. to make the deal up top. I imagine it's a good training at learning how to ignore anything extraneous in life, though.
Anyway, I think Rushdie is still good buddies with the corpulent Hitchens.
Of course, the Iraqis don't want the U.S. to leave. Who else is going to mind the fort right in the middle of a bloodbath so that they can go get some R & R with A/C? Truckload of assholes, all of them. I think Rumsfeld had the museum destroyed early on as a Hyperstitional sacrifice offering: Get rid of all sissy stuff like art museum. Had learned something from Mistah Mao Tse-Tung, beating up statues and killing off Peking Opera folk.
Living in Red China may turn you into something of a Maoist automatically. You can never listen to Ravel or Debussy again without thinking they're mere parasites, having the gall to retain a portion of innocence and humanity. That may account for the delight in all ozones carrying capitalism in most extreme Vegas-flat forms, which can be quickly converted to various cyberpunk products. Does China have anything Western in it but capitalism? I still think Sweden and Switzerland have done a good job, even though they are somewhat boring.
I had a Swedish economist friend who was like you, wanted to erase everything from the past and just go on from one capitalistic high to another--wrote a book called 'The Libegalitarian Society: Equal Opportunity in a Free Society.' Name of Kaj Areskoug. Hated Sweden but went back there to perish, probably by suicide, most think. Was basis for main character in White's 'Forgetting Elena'. Both White and I found out about his death 7 years afterward, he kept that secret too--except left all his money to a D.C. 'Center for Individual Rights' that won't answer letters. Found out about his death from their website, because they'd named their board room after him. Was into heavy sterilization of things and affected an attitude of 'playing it cool' that didn't necessarily work wonders.
Gotta disagree about Hitchins, troll-prime - he's got plenty of charm, just not much patience.
'he's got plenty of charm, just not much patience.'
I suppose I'm glad he's around, but the religion seminar business sounded like freshmen at college stuff. He might do better with learning something about sparseness though. I like his stuff about Mrs. Mother Teresa, but it does get a little predictable, all this righteousness and sledgehammer condemnation--the drinking too much definitely shows.
On Sweden (circa autumn 2002):
The median (not average) American household, has a yearly income before taxes which is 50% higher than the Swedish one. The median Black household in the US is better off than the median Swedish one
In the US, the biggest income is earned by 'Asians' and second by 'Whites and non-Hispanics'. The poorest are the 'Blacks'. The Swedish median income is lower than that of all those groups.
http://instapundit.com/archives/003594
Hitch has got his calvinist preacher hat, and he wears it with glee and (IMO) some distinction. I suppose it would be more annoying of he wasn't so right (on the WoT, at least).
This is interesting, a debate with his brother, the Daily Mail columnist (and old school tory) Peter, at the Hay Festival:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/
hay2...1495897,00.html
'The Swedish median income is lower than that of all those groups.'
Amazing the way my Cambridge friend who is half-Swedish never saw any slums there, and the way it doesn't follow that statistics don't seem to
indicate anything about a general standard of living.
But I'm not going to fool with that. I have spent time in Switzerland, and just see if you can pull up something for me there that will convince me that they have anything but the highest standard of living in the world. I mean--you have to practically PAY to live on the streets (in fact you do in some circumstances, they have a law there in which you are fined if they catch you with no loose change on you).
"I have decided never to go anywhere in China but Hong Kong or Taiwan. They are still Western or Westernish, but Taiwan may be a longer road to hoe because you don't have the U.K. to make the deal up top. I imagine it's a good training at learning how to ignore anything extraneous in life, though."
Being in possession of neither (as the cretinously stupid statements above demonstrate), troll-prime is hardly in a position to pass judgement about either Hitchen's intellect or his charm.
'Being in possession of neither (as the cretinously stupid statements above demonstrate), troll-prime is hardly in a position to pass judgement about either Hitchen's intellect or his charm.
Roxy | 07.24.07 - 5:49 pm | #'
Is that so, you fetid Kunt? Roxy is a whore's name in New York, although you may know it from 'Chicago.' That's Roxy Hart, you fucking cunt?
troll-prime - have you read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age?
I think you'd like it, or at least resonate strongly with parts. Stephenson ultimately throws in his lot with the West (what remains of it in the book), but he shows an astounding level of insight into the deep undercurrents of Chinese culture, and corresponding disdain for consumerist glitz.
IMHO the key to the 'consumerism' culture debate is that, as a spontaneously emergent (and, as you suggest, structurally amnesiac) culture, the only counter-point is an autocratic elite you trust. I find myself very short of those, tending to loathe self-appointed elites even more than the vapid tackiness and blatant stupidity of much popular fashion. Only option that will satisfy me is fast-forward to the Shoggoths, whose culture I'm sure I'll adore (at the moment of nano-vivisection into vulvo-cosmic particulate tic-chatter), but if I had to pick from among the remnants on offer from the various traditions of my species, the Chinese would win every time (saturated intelligent godlessness and its consequent graces obviously playing an essential role in that).
On Hitchens - confess to being less than impressed by the tenor of his atheistic critique.
Dawkins, despite being such an obnoxious bastard and politically despicable, has far more competent arguments. Sam Harris is also impressive IMHO.
I agree with tim on this - Hitchens' huge strong point is his resilient stance on the war, that is, on the defence of secular civilization against theocratic barbarism.
Sweden is a monocultural Lutheran village, so I don't see much of relevance to any serious country, whatever side of the absurd 'Swedish model' controversy one comes down on.
Will take a look at the Stephenson if I can find it. The quote by 'Roxy' about Hong Kong and Taiwan is, in fact, a thread in the plot of Richard Clarke's novel, 'Breaking Point'. Takes place in 2012, is not important as literature, but that's not why I read it. This is someone who was well inside till 2004--as Bush's counterterrorism czar. Interesting because I first heard of it on the Kurzweil Newsletter. It talked about this idea of serious troubles possibly coming up with Taiwan, and how recently there'd been this surprising accommodation by Beijing regarding Hong Kong. This was first place I was even aware of it. I remember reading about Patten and the changeover well before it occurred, there is a book called 'City on the Rocks,' I think it's called. But there was only pessimism that was expressed then. So that, even though the Clarke book was a novel, he would have only been using facts. We simply haven't been hearing that much about Hong Kong, so Beijing letting it be the unique place it is is actually quite thrilling. I suppose it is in that plus the booming Chinese economy that makes it seem possible that the whole country, or at least the big mainland cities, may experience some of what is already fully evolved in Hong Kong.
'Sweden is a monocultural Lutheran village, so I don't see much of relevance to any serious country, whatever side of the absurd 'Swedish model' controversy one comes down on.'
Well, that is, I think, because you aren't interested personally in this sort of small country that is not particularly dynamic. But while I like dynamism too, or there would be little point in living in Manhattan for so many years, there are simply other modes of existence, and I think that you are somewhat unfair in your judgment of European countries that have, within themselves, shown that certain problems of life that other nations merely talk about and promise solutions to, are truly delivered in some of these small countries. Unless you utterly hate humanity, it makes no sense not to see what Switzerland has accomplished, and as much as I had heard about it and known a Swiss very well, this was nothing to going there and seeing what a place like where people were neither lazy--in fact, they were ridiculously riddled with work ethic--nor deprived of basic services. Having social services has in no way turned Switzerland into a lethargic cesspool. Within its limited boundaries, it is a dazzling success which cannot be ignored. I was never excited in the sense of ecstasy there, but that's beside the point. Lausanne has the smallest subway system in the world, and you pay based on the honor system--and I was the only one who was ready to cheat and take advantage of it that I'm aware of! My friend had a neighbour living below whose son had been murdered, and when I was there he was about to get out of jail--the maximum sentence given in Switzerland for premeditated murders is 20 years! I was disgusted, and so was my friend's brother, a prosecutor for the Govt., but my friend seemed to think this was normal.
Well, the place is not a rock concert and I thought it felt like what I might describe as 'benign totalitarianism', but that's partially just my own tastes in more intense stimulation. There's no way the place was not impressive.
"IMHO the key to the 'consumerism' culture debate is that, as a spontaneously emergent (and, as you suggest, structurally amnesiac) culture, the only counter-point is an autocratic elite you trust."
I know, you've talked about this before, I just don't know for sure myself, although I am thinking about it.
"if I had to pick from among the remnants on offer from the various traditions of my species, the Chinese would win every time (saturated intelligent godlessness and its consequent graces obviously playing an essential role in that)."
Well, it's those 'consequent graces', but also the traditional Chinese graces that have made it one of the great civilizations of history. Maybe you mean by 'saturated intelligent godlessness' something that goes well back before periods of 'trendy Atheism' as propounded ad nauseum throughout the 20th century (however necessary). You might mean 'practical' by 'godlessness', otherwise it seems the 'graces' of the Chinese fall within the 'godless' and 'godful' varieties each. It's interesting to find out what you think of these things, since living in them. Although do you prefer in all ways living in Shanghai to living in Hong Kong or Taipei, where the Westernism is mixed in more thoroughly already? or is it trippy or something to be surrounded by all those years of Communism that have not yet dissipated? I looked at one of the English language Chinese papers last night, and saw a story of an arrested drag queen in some park (it may have been Shanghai or Beijing, I can't remember) and how the authorities said 'he would be detained for 5 days.' Well, now...that's not exactly shocking given what our stereotypes of Chinese authority amount to, but mainly I didn't believe that 'the authorities' would say to the paper exactly what they would be doing with this creature.
Both Hong Kong and Taiwan are delightful places, making an interesting triangle with Shanghai (and maybe a quadrangle with Singapore, which I don't know but would love to visit). They're all very different, in ways that have their specific appeal. The Hong Kong (Cantonese-Anglosphere hybrid) culture core is the one I suspect you anticipate best - an absolute fusion of the hard-core commercialism coming from both sides, and thus delicious or abhorrent according to taste. Candidate for the most globalized real estate on the planet and an architectural feast. Taiwan is the most traditional, and maybe least Westernized in a way. The KMT were far more sino-traditionalist than Mao's people, and Taiwan more insular culturally, despite its incredible global economic niche in the electronics field. Taiwan still sticks to the old (complex) characters and celebrates the Chinese festivals far more riotously than I have seen on the Mainland -- New Year excepted (but that's predominantly pyrotechnics and kissing up to the money god (I love it, of course)). Shanghai is probably the most genuinely cosmopolitan city on the planet, extremely cultured but nontraditional (Chinese call it 'Yangpai' meaning over-impressed with foreign ideas), masses of heritage architecture, but the heritage is already international. Stephenson has neo-boxerite rebels flood in and trash the place (again) at the end of his novel, and I'm sure deep down quite a lot of mainlanders wouldn't object to that scenario.
"I looked at one of the English language Chinese papers last night, and saw a story of an arrested drag queen in some park (it may have been Shanghai or Beijing, I can't remember) and how the authorities said 'he would be detained for 5 days.'"
In the metros there's pretty much total freedom as far as personal behavior is concerned, certainly as far as sex is concerned, but that doesn't extend to public demonstration. Not sure that upsets me as much as many Westerners, since I've always found the street protest scene fairly obnoxious. Anyway, if that kind of public expressionism is a big thing for you, the Sinosphere will probably seem a mite oppressive (but a 5 day talking to isn't exactly fascism in tooth and claw)
Tim--enjoyed the PH and CH interview, quite worthwhile and one understands him better-although I'm not going to pretend that some of the stuff is...charming. Sometimes he might consider forcing himself to pull back from some of it--but it's not serious, his bumptiousness is not a serious menace.
"I agree with tim on this - Hitchens' huge strong point is his resilient stance on the war, that is, on the defence of secular civilization against theocratic barbarism."
And you see that the difference about this part of the WoT and the other parts HAS to be made in the countries that are the prime targets. You must realize that you are able to stand back from some of it and see it as a spectator with a long-range view of a whole program of dealing with radical Islam, but that the terrorist threat is literally in the skin of Americans and Britons. I think that this distance has to be what explains it, or I would simply think that your overarching WWIV could easily accommodate a nuke on the U.S. while one goes about the business of destroying caliphate planning country by country. We, here in the U.S., automatically, if we are paying attention, see what the problem in trying to lump Al Qaeda/Iraq with Al Qaeda/Pakistan--which Bush did again today, and each time to less and less effect, he's not selling it--because it is our asses that have to do with this difference. Which makes me interested, as per the above things about China, in your apparent affection for America, but it seems that you prefer China even more. Is it because you see the U.S. as on the decline and China to become the pre-eminent power? In any case, you are not in danger in any Chinese city from Al Qaeda from any dusty Muslim country at this point. We cannot separate ourselves emotionally from the issue, which is why people like me are truly afraid at the neglect in the matter of Pakistan. It is also strange that Bush would not have chosen to start with Pakistan and Al Qaeda not only for the reasons that I've harped on ad infinitum, but also because to have captured and/or killed Bin Laden would have made him an enormous hero--which the entire nation would have understood. As it is, he captured Hussein and Hussein is dead, and he's got a was totally unpopular with the American public. You therefore can only conclude that Bush's choice of Iraq was wrong or that Americans are now stupid by not being convinced by this operation. Because they are not convinced of it, and that is the fact that everybody has to deal with, whether they want to or not. The Democrats are not trying to force withdrawals because 'they can't take it', but because they are political bastards just like the Republicans, and the electorate has told them to do this, and that is the only reason they are doing it. Plenty of these Dems did vote for the Iraq War, as is well-known, but we need not go over the early moments in this matter again at this moment.
"(but a 5 day talking to isn't exactly fascism in tooth and claw)"
No, I didn't think it was all that serious. What interested me was, would they say 5 days and mean 5 days, i.e., how much is current Chinese police work and oppression as we imagine it, how much is it like old Soviet police state and old Maoist police state? I didn't really care about the drag queenery, except I never had thought one could exist in China. In any case, I am neither a political marcher or drag queen myself, so personally would not be concerned with my own welfare in that regard. I will say that I like that in New York such things are very free for others, and I find these characters (of all kinds) amusing.
"Candidate for the most globalized real estate on the planet and an architectural feast."
I believe it, I think Hong Kong is like New York, and I think that kind of intensity of building is beautiful.
"Which makes me interested, as per the above things about China, in your apparent affection for America, but it seems that you prefer China even more. Is it because you see the U.S. as on the decline and China to become the pre-eminent power?"
- as you might expect, I spend a lot of my time defending America among Chinese, and defending China among Americans. The part of each society (and they're big parts) phobic about the other, is the part I like least about either (China-bashers are usually neanderthal protectionists or god-pushers, and America-bashers xenophobic crypto-fascists). Hedging on the big questions, of course, but think I'll keep hedging until kicked a bit harder ...
At the end of the day, at least intellectually, my loyalty lies with what Abu-86 calls 'Cosmodromic Capitalism' -- highway to Shoggothic Insurgency -- and I'd support a Capitalist X against a Soci*list Y under just about any circumstances I can imagine, but that's not to say a smallish margin of superior free-marketry is enough to discombobulate all critical judgment, and I'm hoping intense hybridization will dispel some of the more painful either/or stuff.
Finally (apologies for getting all confessional, but there are a number of intriguingly impersonal issues behind all this) a relatively long evolution -- involving such key way-stations as Gibbon -- crescendoed with the Rome TV series, making me realize how much structural mourning for classical paganism underlay my alienation from much Western culture. Despite the slavery, misogyny, torture, genocide and whatever I totally adore the Romans -- who share a huge amount with the Chinese on cultural essentials -- and if it were possible to sand-blast Western humanistic culture down to its pre-christian forundations, keeping only the mathematical technoscience and Lockean property rights (which entail market culture, 'feminism' and free labor IMHO), then I'd be a proud Westerner. Given the obvious impossibility of that, my dissidence is an insoluble necessity.
The disaster of Christianity -- everything truly nauseating to afflict this planet began with that.
Confucian restoration in China:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...7072301859.html
(this really is a huge thing going on -- not much exaggeration to say the Communist Party is repositioning itself on neo-Confucian foundations (catch-phrase: "the Harmonious Society"))
"how much structural mourning for classical paganism underlay my alienation from much Western culture. Despite the slavery, misogyny, torture, genocide and whatever I totally adore the Romans"
Yes, I've been experiencing some of that quite explicitly too--it has to do with the irresistible--and I was reminded of that when you were earlier saying 'IMHO the key to the 'consumerism' culture debate is that, as a spontaneously emergent (and, as you suggest, structurally amnesiac) culture, the only counter-point is an autocratic elite you trust,' that sense of the irresistible comes into play there too, I was thinking about it then. I know what you mean about hybrids, although the emphasis is going to be different, of course. But this question might ultimately be decided by realizing that the irresistible is what one wants, and that's related to all attractions to deterritorializations and the dangers involved, and that how can anything but the pagan be completely irresistible? But that first, it's just 'the irresistible' that will win, and secondly that 'the irresistible can only be of a certain nature.' There can BE no irresistible longing and mourning for the loss of Christianity. Christianity is only useful as a sort of bondage sequence, which makes what is really irresistible even more so. I don't think the Athenians were any slouches about paganism either, and Isaac Asimov's description of Paul's trip to Athens is definitely the only thing that interests me about Paul; I can sense the scene so well even after centuries. I and II Kings in the Old Testament are also marvelous along those lines, with people like Jezebel having the gall to appear and present themselves.
Of interest in mentioning the Bataille above, I have never reread any of it, but I remember the one that is translated 'The Tears of Eros' and I'd read through this in 2000. I remember that I came upon a reading list that I absolutely could not ignore that he made in there: as a result I read not only Sade's 'Eugenie Franval' but, in his describing 'Recherches du Temps Perdu' in its relation to Sade and its merciless deciphering of social machinery, I decided that I must finally read it at once, and did read the entire novel. I still need to get to 'The Red and the Black', which was on his list as well, and he had recommended 'Philosophe dans le Boudoir' as 'an amusing book', which it certainly was. I also had read that weird novel 'Blue of Noon', and decided to order it up again and re-read it--I recall it as having a sense of deformity about it. I mentioned this, because I thought it of some interest that my resolve to finally read Proust was entirely due to Bataille's determining that it was indispensable. Later I read 'Proust and Signs', which was illuminating as well, because of the hierarchy Deleuze makes of the business of the 'signs of memory', 'signs of art', and the 'social signs' or whatever he calls them exactly.
He seemed to favour the discovery of art as the 'means to go beyond death', which is a little vague to me at the party at the end of 'Le Temps Retrouve' above all the earlier talk of 'madeleines' and Combray in the first volume; although there are some horses' hooves and a tea cup and spoon that come in there too reminiscent of the madeleine. It's an amazing mirror to hold up to oneself: At the time I read it, there was no question that I was as adolescent as Marcel and liked 'The Guermantes Way' and Oriane's dinner party better than any of that talk about Albertine, which was a pain to get through, if I must say so. A while back you said something about the best things 'have always been pulp', well the best things in Recherches for me don't happen in Combray and Balbec--although some of that's pretty intoxicating too-but rather the Duchess's hundred-page dinner party at which she gossips like mad and takes center stage. Yes, Proust can do pulp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/2.../25sanc.html?
hp
This is the kind of stupidity we Americans seem to have learned from Britain, and maybe take some of the cornball aspects ever further. While I don't agree with Deleuze that cats and dogs are merely silly (can't remember the exact line), I even like them, but much prefer horses and giraffes. But any of it taken into serious intrusions of human life (as dead Vegan babies in New York a few months ago, only to be defended by this ignorant fool in Brooklyn) is so repellent I won't even talk to these people. Some of these people take it to the ultimate length: They make their cats be vegetarians, and these usually die. I can't imagine the Chinese doing this, since they've managed to serve me what I think was cat even on E. 41st Street, and when I lived in Paris, I knew a girl victim of rat at a Chinese restaurant.
Dead Vegan Babies sound like a good punk band.
... or at least a punk band.
tim - [embarassing technoloser confession coming] only just noticed the 'homepage' link glowing bright orange by your ID and so, obviously clicked it. Was going to leave a comment over there, but since it was of the "wow! great blog" variety, thought it would just lower the tone. Going to be a regular visitor from now on, that's for sure. Any strategy for sparking up the comments threads there?
"I can't imagine the Chinese doing this, since they've managed to serve me what I think was cat even on E. 41st Street ..."
In my experience the general attitude is more along the lines "if we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"
Favourite idea I ever had for a punk band name: Pregnant Babies. Just wrong on all sorts of levels. Then I noticed an album by a US noise rock band called "Pregnant Babies Pregnant with Pregnant Babies", which is even better.
Nick - yeah, thanks for stopping by the blog, and the kind words. I seem to have been caught out by other commitments since starting it, so haven't had the chance to write the pages of rant I feel I've got within me, and am still trying to find the right tone/focus/template and so on. I'm aiming to hit broader themes at the moment than current events and happenings, because other blogs already do that pretty well (like LGF and Instapundit). It's something I'm giving a bit of thought to, anyway. Got some ideas I'm planning to explore soon (the so-called "death of the state" (classical liberals know better), islamofascism 101, capitalism and resource management and more war realted gubbins) - watch this space. Blogging is pretty new to me, but it's been satisfying wacthing the number of visitors slowly rise.
Poss. strategy for increasing comment yield:
4GW seems to be the tag that brings 'em in quickest (try it), so I reckon I'll drop that in as much as possible and hopefully cash in (ha). Can't think of anything beyond that, I'll admit, other than arguing with the loony (and moderately loony) left over at Dissensus and maybe enticing the odd stray.
"other than arguing with the loony (and moderately loony) left over at Dissensus and maybe enticing the odd stray."
-- if we'd ever had an engaging, rational, argumentative leftist over here I'd recommend hunting them. But it just tends to result in drive-bys, snark, and ad hominem trolling.
Pretty much the only place I've seen real (left-right) debate is Winds of Change (maybe occasionally Samizdata), and even there it's the right-right controversies that actually seem to have some substance. I'd put that down to the fact that the left has totally imploded into feeeeling and fashion (clique groupthink), but maybe there's an alternative explanation.
My friend Jambo's been commenting on the "Underground Economics" post on my blog, discussing why "marginalisation" from the global economy occurs. (I think that the first world poor and third world poor face a similar problem (lack of access to the capitalist bell-jar) but in very different contexts and requiring different solutions. The "fourth world" mutual identity described by Castells just obscures this in an even more inclusive, touchy-feely iteration of third world-ism). Anyway, he's a student of International Development so has obvious institutionalised marxoid leanings (poverty is created by capitalism, for e.g.), but is intelligent and engaged. Hopefully he'll stick around, because I really feel that a good argument brings out the best in me.
yes, saw Jumbo's post - impressively civil and at least germinally rational. Trouble is, as you suggest, true (classical liberal) dissent is structurally excluded institutionally.
Best of luck in any case.
The implosion of the left-
Well, they lost, didn't they? I think that the left is pretty much dead, and merely going through the (zombified, lobotomised) motions because of inertia. The lack of a positive programme, rather than the endless reams of inchoate miserabilist negativity, speaks volumes.
(I recall one communist telling me, when challenged on his economic solutions to capitalism's "problems", that he was first seeking a "revolution on the level of ontology", whatever that means, before bothering to consider what these might be. That barely coherent heap of junk, Negri and Hardt's Empire is the best, most hilarious example (I'll not recommend it, but it's funny to skim through, at least) of the kind of absurdity that the (hard-er) left has involved itself in, in the last few decades).
A "revolution on the level of ontology" - that still brings a smile to my lips, even a year or so later!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
new...ing_new_cel.php
Good on cells in U.S. possible and/or developing.
It seems quite possible that leftists could just go ahead and imagine that they already have a revolution on the 'level of ontology'. Who could prove them wrong? Fortunately, it's nowhere else, or 'racism' wouldn't now mean 'you haven't researched Islam enough.'
Some of the Republicans are making asses of themselves this week, not least of whom is Mitt Romney, who's going nowhere fast. Likening Hillary's economic program to that of Karl Marx may warm the cockles of y'all's neocon little hearts, but it does not exactly hold water. Gonzales has apparently agreed to keep appearing to testify, but now is so fascinated by the chambers that he doesn't even make up a reason why he won't answer, just sits there and stares.
Good article on Confucianism. Interesting the way you see religions being revived, as in this case, as useful objects, as in 'the government is looking for new ideologies.' Probably purely Chinese for one of them to say these are ways to 'fully realize communism', so that everybody is rich and everybody is moral. Still unclear as to whether the original Marxism may or may not have set the stage for the economic boom to happen, even if it didn't happen that way in Russia or anywhere else. I can't tell, even though I don't really want to give Marxism the credit. Is this, in fact, a successful application of Marxism, which, when that part was rendered obsolete by overlaying it with the money part, could mostly just wither away?
On the terrorist threats issue: Everyone agrees that playing defense on this makes a major defeat somewhere down the line all but inevitable, right?
Of course, it's necessary to do defense as competently as possible, but rooting out the problem at source is the only way it could conceivably be dealt with adequately. Difficulty is, finding the resolve and common purpose to take the required steps in that regard seems to be overtaxing the West's instinct for self-preservation. That's why so may people are in what Winds of Change's 'Armed Liberal' calls a "holding pattern" -- the status quo of the conflict is quite evidently unsustainable, there's nowhere to retreat to (unless abandoning global modernization is considered an option) and escalation is politically blocked by the cult of masochistic sentimentalism that presently constitutes mainstream Western culture. Not easy.
OK, it's hyperbolic to accuse Hillary of bolshevism, but it's also transparently obvious that she lacks either the economic understanding or the political will to push the pro-growth economics that just about everybody serious on this planet now understands (free trade, tax-flattening, fiscal and regulatory restraint and voucherization of public services). Modern (US-style) 'liberalism' isn't marxist in part because it isn't anything, just an ultra-political pie-carving free-for-all where left-leaning special interest groups get a place at the trough without much thought for where the swill comes from in the first place.
Not that the Republicans have much to crow about, of course, but at least they've nudged taxes downwards, fought off the worst of the protectionist agenda and continue to pay lip-service to the free-enterprise system.
... that said, Romney creeps me out a little. Nearest thing I've ever seen to a Stepford Husband.
The Mormonism stuff is weirdly interesting though. Basically a 19th century Scientology as far as I can see, a patently absurd new revelation that retro-actively contaminates the entire Abrahamic lineage with its artificiality, whilst reciprocally attesting to the deep convergence between religious convictions, science fiction scenarios and psychotic cults. The genealogical program is great -- completely gone, in the best tradition of deranged speculative fiction while fusing seamless with the biotechnical potentialities of post HGP genodata compilation -- and the "we can all become gods" business is also intrinsically inimical to conservative piety (didn't John Travolta already do that movie?). Hoping it will turn into a massive, deeply corrosive debate that at least implictly raises questions about exactly why lunatic cosmological ideas become respectable as soon as they acquire a patina of religious traditionalism.
'politically blocked by the cult of masochistic sentimentalism that presently constitutes mainstream Western culture.'
And that article from WaPo on Confucianism makes it seem like that China has a long way to go before there's a U.S.-type sentimentalism, but that it may be human nature for large numbers of people to 'get sentimental' once they get comfortable. Some of the Chinese quotes sounded so odd I had a hard time remembering it was a WaPo article, e.g., 'nowadays society is very superficial' and 'with the economic growth many people have become selfish and have no morality. This has created a need for Confucianism.'
I remember when the Japanese were getting fat and started doing whole neighborhoods in American-suburban style houses. It's true that we in the West think we should do the importing and use Asian and other styles for our exotic tastes and needs, but Japan doing an Archie Bunker-style neighborhood is not something we think they ought to be doing, because it seems like we in the West are being somehow caricatured.
"Hoping it will turn into a massive, deeply corrosive debate that at least implictly raises questions about exactly why lunatic cosmological ideas become respectable as soon as they acquire a patina of religious traditionalism."
Well, that's cool, but it's obvious that with the acquiring of this patina they will become more respectable. This is even necessary because religions cause even more pain when they are in pure form--you get various forms of ashram-freaks and such stuff and that's even worse than just regular Episcopal or Catholic, since these people really know that they are doing something social and not letting it get in the way of their money. My family is like this, and that's cool about them, although they are all churchgoers and I'm not. Now, Harold Bloom's book 'The American Religion' is excellent--he is very good on the Mormons, that suffocating bunch which spookily always manages to insert themselves into CIA, as well as 7th Day Adventists and other homegrown types of churchy stuff.
Scientology has not been able to make itself into even as mainstream a cult as Mormonism, of course, and they probably won't be able to. I don't know whether you meant a literal movie Travolta made about 'we can all become gods', but that's a tenet of all sorts of the most mindless California New Age groups, who are far more intrusive to people's bank accounts than Catholics and Protestants. Scientology and the New Age cults just fucking steal, as far as I'm concerned, and they're always rude and really aggressive too. Travolta just opened in 'Hairspray' in drag as the fat mother. Stupid show I saw in LA in national productions a few years ago, I won't bother with this. But Tom Cruise, that magnificent 'Operating Thetan' Level 7 (or whatever he thinks he is) has not done very good publicity, if he seriously thinks he can proselytize for Scientology. These cults are another very special form of Miserabilism, where the practitioners pretend that they are the only ones who have learned The Great New Secret. I remember when a bunch of my friends first took EST, a spinoff of Scientology. They were such pains in the ass trying to force me to do it, and I wouldn't. They got such an attitude--then whole bunches of them died, including some suicides, when they ran into some scientific facts that they had been told their 'choosing' could overcome, all that 'you create your own reality' crap, so when that didn't seem to work, there was no place to turn.
will just post to see if the site is fully working, very slow to connect both to site and haloscan last few minutes. probably happens often enough.
More on the left - Hans Magnus Enzensberger examines the "radical loser":
http://www.signandsight.com/feat...atures/
493.html
Can you believe this? I found this on the blog of a successful leftist American professor. Talk about sentimental masochism, this just plain stinks. He'd been responding to some other text about how Iraqis responded to grief in an 'American-like way', not just 'tribal', etc., etc.,
"I honestly do believe that many (most?) Americans do have a bit of trouble picturing people from other nations, especially non-English speaking nations, as human in the full sense of the word. Not trying to be silly or mean in saying this - I believe it's a strange sort of cultural dysfunction."
This takes the cake as dumbest thing I've read in a long time, and I thought this guy was fairly smart.
tim - thanks for the Enzensberger piece, it's a classic and the whole site seems to be stuffed with excellent articles (haven't had time yet to properly poke around).
troll-prime - does this leftist professor have any claim to anthropological competence, or is it more random windbagging? (Ironical thing is that it reveals such utter parochialism -- if this saddo had ever visited another country, with eyes open, he'd realize that America is probably the most hypersensitive, dewy-eyed, humanistic society on the planet, with the likely exception of the Canuckistanis (try asking Pashtuns whether they think Americans are "fully human"))
Nick--It's parochial all right, but maybe even more the windbagging--oh, and just wistful as hell, a sort of movement into late summer wistfulness with thoughts of things like 'a theory of melancholy' of the sort Susan Sontag not only used to talk about all the time, but unfortunately was totally successful at embodying. There's a hilarious description of Francis Kingman's burlesque about 'Susan and her daughter' (referring to her wonderful best friend and son David) in the Rollycraft/Paddison bio of Sontag. Apparently mother and 'daughter' went to a PEN gathering in S. Korea and behaved so disgustingly that this was Kingman's alternative to acupuncture. I remember the first time I heard her read at an event and how I nearly retched when she started talking about this 'theory of melancholy' as she read her essay on Benjamin. I looked at the written essay later, and she had even read little parenthetical asides out loud, as if it were the Torah or something.
'Rollycraft/Paddison' should be 'Rollyson/Paddock'. It was tough going, but at least prevented me from trying to go through any of her horrible novels.
Democrats and genocide (not as crassly polemical as that sounds, but provocative nevertheless):
http://www.americanthinker.com/
2...nd_the_awf.html
Talking of classics, I've just read this for the first time:
http://www.econlib.org/library/E...ys/
rdPncl1.html
Absolutely brilliant - I, Pencil by Leonard E Read.
AHA for president:
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/...yaan-hirsi-ali/
Canadians can be so teeth-grindingly irritating ...
"The little pinhead does not deserve to sit in the same room as Ayaan." (from HA comments thread, and truer words were never spoken)
PS. I think the saddo interviewer is Naomi Klein's brother, part of a clan characterized by pure moonbattery in all directions as far as I can tell
Even the NYT is hosting the thought that the Surge could be working -- anyone aligned with AQI must be freaking out more than a little ... (it's like Al Jazz defending Koran flushing)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/
3...xprod=permalink
On topic!
http://reason.com/news/show/119237.html
(Vinge and Singularity)
Ooops.
That should be: 'On the previous topic!'
"Even the NYT is hosting the thought that the Surge could be working "
You can call it "the NYT is hosting the thought", but that's totally misleading. They have allowed this op-ed, which is not quite the same as 'hosting a thought.' It is the only op-ed in the Times which has expressed this view (excepting Brooksy, illuminated by the elite-bunker-pundit lunch with Billy and Kuds), and the actual editorials have not once supported such a view. You might as well concede that the NYTimes even lets Zizek put an op-ed in from time to time.
"we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with. "
Even given the cartoon-like quality of this piece, you have to deliver VICTORY if you are in enough agreement with Bush and Cheney. It's certainly obvious that this 8-day tour was not a rent-a-car excursion through Old Mesopotamia. This smacks of the kind of audiences carefully picked for all of Bush's speeches. He hasn't spoken to a group that has even the slightest chance of confrontation for several years. All one could say is nothing, which is what is done here; it's obvious the 'troops' the Brookings writers talked to were not visited at random but would have been carefully as has Petraeus.
"anyone aligned with AQI must be freaking out more than a little"
Of course they are not.
troll-prime - Phew! NYT still firmly locked-into objectively pro-AQI self-fulfilling defeatism - my whole world view was in danger of coming apart there for a moment.
I'm so glad you're relieved at something or other.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...id=opinionsbox1
This is the same kind of op-ed, and shows you what constitutes media chic these days. It should become more entrenched, this black-and-whiteness under guise of greyness as the summer whitens on. Here we have Miss Marcus in 'an unaccustomed and unexpected position'. The Brookings guys, one will not, were also caught up short by their unexpected findings. Do be your guest at this one, one paragraph was enough for me to find this one 'resistibly attractive.' It begins to seem like Saturday Night Live all of a sudden.
one will not=one will note...
thanks for link, but despite struggling to care about the latest Gonzales screw-up / scandal / apologia, I just can't manage it. It's like trying to sit all the way through a Ben Stiller movie ...
what's wrong with Ben Stiller movies?
Avi Lewis is married to Klein, I think. What a tool.
If you want to understand the surge, this is the document to read (if you've not already) - Dave Kilcullen, "Understanding Current Operations in Iraq":
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog...rrent-operatio/
"On June 15th we kicked off a major series of division-sized operations in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces. As General Odierno said, we have finished the build-up phase and are now beginning the actual “surge of operations”. I have often said that we need to give this time. That is still true. But this is the end of the beginning: we are now starting to put things onto a viable long-term footing."
"viable". key in preemie care.
"key in preemie care"
-- if the baby dies in this case, things just move onto the next baby (Karzai's regime?), then the next ...
Might as well make a stand where the enemy is right now. It's not as if WWIV is just going to fade away if the West retreats far enough.
"Avi Lewis is married to Klein, I think. What a tool."
-- Poor Canada
"Might as well make a stand where the enemy is right now."
It's not like that haven't said they were going to 'make a stand where the enemy is right now', even if that's primarily Iraq, which it isn't. Every new corner is supposed to bring a Paradise to 'all Iraqis', and every one of them is knocked to hell. And as for the Surge, it is not supposed to be 'just getting started', yeah, 'I always said le's us give this here baby some breathing space and time and it'll work like clockwork', it was supposed to kick in ages ago. Remember the benchmarks of 2 weeks ago? None of them viable, and even the White House couldn't make them up any more, then the NIE--yep, that one, kids! I know you wish I'd forget about that one, the Big Enchilada all about Waziristan, where the real enemy is, and even Mistah Dickus Cheney knows it, they nearly blew him up a few months ago, he's so butch he didn't even care, what a guy...--so they'll do a few carefully staged theatrics so Mistah Petraeus can send in his 'Mission Accomplished the Second' memo and Bush can say 'you're doin' a heckuva a job, Petey..damn I missed the way that jumpsuit fit, I got Laura to order it from International Male 'cause I wuz embarassed...'
Well, Mrs. Barbara Walters and I don't see it thataway, we both got impawtant reputations to keep up in the Big Apple, and we are not interested in entertaining the boonies with a Big-Time New York Minute! We don't want Le Cirque to get radiation contamination in our truffle sauces, just because Kurzweil is scared to eat anything good.
One will note that British journalists started using the term 'civil war' long before the Americans, except for some o' them 'New Yawk elite journalists' gave it the go-ahead, since that seems to be the nicest thing one can say about it. I think those virgins were Ms. Bathory's enemies, because they were younger, therefore they needed to be killed since they didn't have face-lifts in Old Hungary.
'that haven't said '='they haven't said'.
I just love the way the Brookings guys made Iraq to sound, if not like Polynesia, at least like the land where Bangladeshi-style microeconomics would soon prevail if it didn't get in the way of government contracts.
Well, Tristram's Uncle Toby had his hobby horse too, so these WWIVs are maybe a little like carving nice sculptures of mallards and wood ducks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...=opinionsbox1''
Crumpton is the one we should be listening to. Y'all Iraqi hawks act as if this was just a little intramural basketball of fraternity football.
Bush and Nick keep saying 'they are Al Qaida..in..Iraq..' And Bush says it because 'They just GOTTA! They just GOTTA! Mama, tell me I didn't fuck up the whole world by attacking somebody and not scaring them even though they didn't attack us!' and Barbara says 'Don't cuss, George'. Bush says 'I'm sorry, Mama, yer a good 'un.' Barbara says 'Hit's all right, son. I love ya even though ya blowin' up the world.' George says 'YOU FUCKIN' BITCH!!! You ever hear of the kin' o' guy who'd see 'is own mother? Huh, bitch? Cuz you're lookin' at 'im, ole woman!!!'
Now Nick talking like this is the craziest thing I ever heard, because not dumb like cornpone Texan idiot. It's based on PURE MEANNESS!!! Is Hyperstitional Spawn of Satan!!!
In the meantime, George Bush goes into Hyperstitional Fugue State because he's worried his Alcoholics Anonymous prayers for 'serenity to accept the things I cain't change' or however it goes in the Texas coffee-and-cigarettes meetings, are wearing off, and he might have just a little snifter of Dickus Cheney's fine old Armagnac. Yep, a li'l nip ain't gon' hurt my serenity not to be able to change nuthin', hee hee hee haw.
George Bush
"who'd see 'is own mother" should be "who'd sell 'is own mother"
nick, Age of Viability: point were fetus achieves independent existence. U.S. AOV = 23 weeks (see 21-weeks: Extremely Premature Baby Readies to Go Home). viability a key point in abortion debate: conception vs. independence. however, pro & con flipped on Iraq Surge where Bush administration supports independent existence AOV: {1} when they stand up, we stand down, {2} September milestone. extreme preemie example has not changed AOV, but it certainly (as one doctor noted) reopened the debate.
nick, if the key component of Iraq stability is AOV = stand up/stand down, then Afghanistan is the AOV prototype. was proof of concept established?
AQ 640 = CRITICAL ANALYSES OF LIGOTTI'S WORK = PROOF CERTAIN BEYOND CONTROVERSY (Abuldiz) = THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF FREQUENCIES (AQ-222 HYPERSONIC) = UP AND DOWN VOTE, LEVIN-REID AMENDMENT.
if the Iraq AOV has not achieved proof of concept, how do we determine success in Iraq? will Petraeus' September progress report provide sufficient data? especially when other indicators are so poor. wiki link: there has been a profound increase in morbidity and mortality associated with the increased survival to the extent it has led some to question the ethics and morality of resuscitating at the edge of viability. How far back can we push the boundary between intruterine and extrauterine gestation is anyone's guess. compare/contrast.
correction: if the Afghanistan AOV has not achieved proof of concept, how do we determine success in Iraq.
"... how do we determine success in Iraq?"
This is the big gulf, of course, because over here on the 'mongering side we're reasonably happy with terrorist body counts (while the doves think these benighted freaks have all been conjured out of thin air by imperialist aggression, or some such).
Greatly enjoying troll-prime's southern-fried discourse around the topic, but not entirely confident I understand it -- is the idea supposed to be that we could surrender Iraq to the Jihadis without serious consequence? (if you don't think they're AQI, that's OK, seems like a fairly trivial distinction in a WWIV context to me (but then I wouldn't bat an eye-lid if people started descibing Chavez's inner-circle as AQV))
Certainly the Jihadi camp would be enormously energized by success, and make it their own 'symbolically' (at the very least) - look what the Russian flight from Afghanistan still means to them. Scandalously truth about 'domino theory' is that it's basically correct: defeats ripple, and so do victories (and I suspect everyone actually knows that)
Of course Waziristan is a cess-pit of terror - hope no one is suggesting I've ever remotely questioned that - but so what? It's hardly that there's an either/or between the Afghan Front and the Mesopotamian Front, winning or losing either would have enormous resonant impact on the other - surely no one seriously doubts that a collapsed Iraq would emit a tide of Arab wanna-be Shaheeds looking to re-double the result among the Pashtuns? America + rag-tag allies has to do both, plus a lot else besides.
Perhaps Bush's greatest failure is to have set no plans in place to triple the quantity of infantry available to the American military to put down the islamofascist enemy wherever it lurks.
"Perhaps Bush's greatest failure is to have set no plans in place to triple the quantity of infantry available to the American military to put down the islamofascist enemy wherever it lurks."
Yes.
"It's hardly that there's an either/or between the Afghan Front and the Mesopotamian Front, winning or losing either would have enormous resonant impact on the other - surely no one seriously doubts that a collapsed Iraq would emit a tide of Arab wanna-be Shaheeds looking to re-double the result among the Pashtuns?"
You're looking at it from the global perspective, but even if I don't care for the Brookings guys package tour of Iraq, they did talk about not necessarily 'winning', and in leaving we aren't going to leave a situation in which our interests are not protected--that's a place where a 'not either/or' can come into place. We need not lose to also not quite win. You see, the continued talk about 'we can win' just gets a deaf ear here, because it's just talk, and we're tired of it when we know there's been an increase in intelligence chatter coming from
Wazaristan, Inc. I suspect that the White House is going to have little choice but to do some enhancement and go ahead and tell Musharraf to go fuck himself (why the hell not? this nonsense about worrying about his delicate feelings does sound pretty absurd, since the U.S. does not tend to do things that way), and make the best of the denouement of Iraq. This is too hard to fully invision, but not primarily because of those who want withdrawals, but because it's so complicated that it really (I think) is a matter of negotiating oneself from one mess into another slightly less horrible mess, but there is no way to see anything wonderful happening in Iraq at this point. Sure, if real results come in that are so clear that you can't miss them, that's another story. But years of promises like that do not exactly instill a deep trust. You certainly ought to see how that the American public cannot look to anything substantial with regards to Iraq, and there have been so many scandals around its execution that it's demoralizing.
But also you say 'losing on either front'. That would mean more if all the emphasis were not going to Iraq and none to Pakistan. I don't know to what degree the NIE report has disseminated among the public enough yet, but clearly the administration is trying to pretend that the answer to the current chatter coming from Wazaristan is not coming from there, but rather that it is coming from Iraq. If you have a legitimate overview of this, it will be proved to work in the next few weeks, and so what then, since it's not likely we're going to witness the Miracle at Fatima? What happens is that Iraq will continue to drag out in some way for some years no matter what, but if serious terrorism is planned for the West from Wazaristan, some of the talk from Crumpton has to be heeded, because for those of us in the line of fire--like
from Crumpton has to be heeded, because for those of us in the line of fire--like me and Barbara...uh, that's Walters, not Bush...must needs see this differently. There may be, in other words, some need for either/or if it comes to real terrorist acts planned. If there's a repeat of not heeding the warnings as there was in summer, 2001, then this country is OVER. We are not first trying to solve the whole world's problems with Islam; we are first trying to protect the U.S. and Britain, the most delectable targets, it seems. WWIV as a kind of global overview thing could make at least some kind of sense to some of us until this new material opened up--this simply changes the way we have to look at things, and should change the way the administration looks at it, too, and immediately. How could you expect us to be able to see this matter as not possibly ending up with emphasis changed, since the emphasis is not on the primary danger at this point, how could you expect us to see it as an abstract sort of thing? When the recent allocations of security funding against terrorism were made a few weeks ago, New York once again, 2 years straight was given way to small an allocation, which had only been corrected once, 2 years ago. The excuse was that we needed extra security where it was 'most vulnerable'. Yeah, I think that definitely means Wyoming and Kansas, for chrissake.
You know, this sort of flesh-and-blood thing. I know it's not very sexy, actually having the gall to not get hit again, but we do have this gall, oh yes, brutha, we got it.
"(but then I wouldn't bat an eye-lid if people started descibing Chavez's inner-circle as AQV))"
No, I wouldn't either, those people are insufferable idiots. Anybody whose assembly voted on a resolution that Al Qaeda was not responsible for 9/11, which they did do, is totally irresponsible. I am quite confident Hillary and/or Giuliani will take care of this clown, but it's not an URGENT matter, that's probably really all we're disputing, and there's also much we don't know. But one thing is definitely sure: That NIE report did not make the situation with AQ/Pakistan look anything but dire, and in immediate need of attention. Bush and Cheney have got to be able to look at this, or they will be even more beleaguered than they already are.
"is the idea supposed to be that we could surrender Iraq to the Jihadis without serious consequence?"
It doesn't look like it would be either full surrender or full victory, but the 'serious consequences', I just thought I'd add, are still not of the order of the 'serious consequences' we are going to take up the ass if we don't read the riot act to Musharraf.
The most advanced piece of technology you will ever pee on. hey, i'm preggers.
nick, i know you have a kid & i just wanna make sure you grok that birds & bees thingy before they reach puberty. the difference between AQC & AQI is ....an inconvenient truth.
"hey, i'm preggers"
If that's not a weird joke I'm missing, then mega-congratulations -- the more little cyborgs coming up the tracks the better IMO.
Guess you've got an excuse to be a little distracted for the next couple of decades or so ...
a weird joke I'm missing, yup. an inconvenient truth˛.
"It doesn't look like it would be either full surrender or full victory ..."
- that obviously depends on reining in the loopy left (i.e. most Dems + others) who are fizzing with excitement at the prospect of doing Vietnam II and so thoroughly disinvesting "Bush's war" that everything would be pretty much guaranteed to collapse entirely. Given the flaky state of US public opinion right now, a kind of half-assed hanging-on-in-there is probably the best that can be hoped for, but even that on current trends converts into mountains of dead jihadis and a major black-eye for AQ-international.
As to the Pak. mess, your emphasis on it's importance is preaching to the converted as far as I'm concerned, but that doesn't mean it's easy to see the way forward. I expect the situation there to get a LOT worse before any corners get turned. The entire state was originally established as a jihadi enterprise and it's hard for me to believe it has any kind of future beyond that -- eventually it needs chopping into bits.
"yup. an inconvenient truth˛."
- this is the kind of thing that drives people to waterboarding ...
this is the kind of thing that drives people to waterboarding
child rearing has that effect, yes.
troll-prime - I like the way your guy Crumpton thinks. SF-led contra-style wars are definitely being under-used.
How John Burns sees it:
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/T...bc-
6611d80faba4
Yes--that is the real thing, somebody quite grounded in the present realities. He's got such a command of all the various things moving and in what ways that to read the interview was like seeing all sorts of trees or some sort of efflorescences sprouting all over the place. He does have a way of putting you in touch with what really is happening, not so much what should or should not be happening, and it's even interesting that he says twice that he's glad he's there to observe, not do the votes. It's clear he is aware of the impossible complexity of the situation, but has nerves of steel, as if the best thing to do is just keep staring at it and see if you can figure some sense from it. I mean he's getting somewhat into Iran, Palestinians, Sunnis, Shiites, military surge has some success, political surge has no visible success, no talk about Pakistan but only because there was no time, I'm sure of that. This is fantastic stuff, I've only read his pieces regularly in the paper, but never heard him interviewed, and he sounds as on top of things as anybody I've heard.
yeah, but. no one's talking about that pink elephant yet.
which pink elephant?
the one with the polka dotted tie.
http://
corner.nationalreview.com...zNhYmJmMjY3Nzk=
Not nearly all convincing, because has more to do with Obama than with Pakistan. Crumpton, as we discussed above, already said the same things or very similar, but he's not running for president. The business about 'if the evil Bushitler Cheney Rumsfeld monster won't do it' is just a cute little formulation written in an insider's sleazy blase way, but the nuclear weapons matter is extremely important. I haven't seen any evidence that anything but nuclear weapons will stop the U.S. from invading if it wants to.
http://
electioncentral.tpmcafe.c...he_helped_enemy
This is a helluva broad. We're now getting away from Saturday Night Live and Casper the Friendly Ghost Cock-Fights Speedy Gonzalez, and getting into 'Dynasty' and 'Dallas' country. I don't even think there needs to be a musical version with Patti Lupone in it, Ms. Hillary knows how to do a real slugfest wid da Big BoyZ.
On the Corner link, skewed senseless by Obama connection. Everybody knows he's just a silly little ineffectual, posturing kid. If Dem voters put him in charge of America's national security, it will be because some absurd protest against reality has taken hold.
Pakistan is a serious issue. Obama isn't a serious person (although compared to Edwards, he's JFK).
Hillary shows herself tough viz Cheney? Yeah, well, I guess ... Clearly I'd be more impressed by her slapping down some of the feckless idiots in her own party.
"Everybody knows he's just a silly little ineffectual, posturing kid."
yeah, well, I just hope enough people figure it out. Don't want Edwards, but think Edwards is a good man but not fit to be president yet.
Give Ms. Clinton time. Even an Amazon can't take them all on at once. She's also doing an amusing number working at seeming traditionally feminine while not being it. Between her and Catherine Deneuve, I think I may be ready for Equal Rights for Women...
What astonishes me is that Obama has gotten as far as he has, and has raised that much money.