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Holy Crap! Dick Cheney shot a guy! This is no joke! It happened on a hunting trip...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11312757/
Here is briefly what happened with the Cheney thing...
"Armstrong said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington. She said Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance."
...Either Whittington stood up or stepped into the line of fire or Cheney lost situational awareness. While I'm no Cheney fan, he is an experienced hunter, so I'm surprised this kind of thing happened.
Remember when we were all making fun of John Kerry a couple of years ago for holding his gun imporperly during a bird hunting trip? Quite a step up here.
Cheney's support for the "illegal war" in Iraq sufficiently demonstrates his generally reckless disregard for human life and serves as proof positive that this was no accident. If he's willing to lead wars to stop terrorists who kill thousands of innocent people by flying planes into building and by detonating bombs while riding busses, he'd clearly be willing to shoot his own friends. He's unfit for office. Impeach him.
Holy Crap! Dick Cheney shot a guy!
For a minute there, I thought dueling had made its long-overdue return to the realm of American politics.
Thank you, Zell Miller. :)
Patrick: Heh.
"He's unfit for office. Impeach him."
The rest of it is, let us say with Christian charity, a Moderately amusing satire :) but ya did get that Last part right, Patrick. :> Welcome to the Darkside, yer Eminence. :) The Civil-unioned crossdressing Abortionist staffing the Coatroom will take your Red Hat & Cloak and then please join us in the planning session for our next series of Attack Ads on the Flag, the Bible, and All Damn Taxes. :)
Who is this new Bea who posted at 4:34pm? Are you new here? If so, can you pick another name or add a last initial so people don't confuse us in the future? Thanks :)
Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail late afternoon on Saturday.
Hurrah for the Great White Hunters / trampling for miles over Hill & Dale & Valley & Glen at the Wheels of their SUVs :>
..."The vice president didn’t see him," she continued. (Well, That's a Big relief. Whew. :) "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by God, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."
..."Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been,” she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."
I think that by God, Harry needs to be Grateful for Dick's cardiac condition.
..."This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I’ve been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.
I also suspect it's a damn good thing they were hunting Birds and not, say, Deer. I'm no Hunter but I've gathered that Birdshot is One thing, whereas Buckshot, well ~ with That, I think you Don't wanna get Peppered. (Am I right, any of you Shotgunners out there?) :/
Bea, hopefully the Newbie newBea will comply. :)
I sure as hell wouldn't want to get peppered with buck shot...
(or bird shot, for that matter...)
As a Christian, I find Berlusconi's comments very offensive. Now watch me NOT burn down the Italian embassy.
I think the thing ya gotta watch out for is if Berlusconi moves on to comparing himself to other parts of the Trinity.
I understand Silvio is a randy old rascal. Maybe next is a comparison of himself to the 'Holy Spirit'. If you know what I mean.
(Cue 70s soft core soundtrack).
First, per my earlier prediction, Whittington apparently came back into the blind without letting Cheney know he was back. Cheney followed the bird thinking he had a 180 degree clear line of vision and nailed Whittington. So, technically, Whittington has only himself to blame. However, this should raise some eyebrows...
"The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The vice president’s office did not disclose the accident until nearly 24 hours after it happened."
If I am correct, all shooting incidents must be reported by Hospitals to local authorities, so it is really odd Cheney's office wouldn't have put out a statement sooner.
"As a Christian, I find Berlusconi's comments very offensive. Now watch me NOT burn down the Italian embassy."
Brendan-
Hate to raise this issue, but Muslims consider Jesus to be almost as important a prophet as Muhammed (though they don't consider him to be The Messiah, but they believe God gave four books to man - the Torah - through Moses; Psalms - through David; the Gospels - through Jesus; and the Koran - through Muhammed). Don't be surprised if radical Muslims start burning down Italian Embassies.
Sorry Bea, that was me. Your name was in the comments on my mom's computer and I didn't notice until after that first post.
Or maybe they will riot over this...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
art...2038149,00.html
...I imagine the frustration the British soldiers must be dealing with, but in the broad scheme of things, this isn't going to win many "hearts and minds." Short of killing every Muslim in the world - which would make Hitler, Stalin and Mao look like rank amateurs - winning hearts and minds is going to be the only way we will achieve victory in the War on Terror.
As an agnostic, I find Berlusconi's comments very absurd. And likely to lose a lot of his (Catholic) voter base. Look for an electoral upheaval in Italy. :)
Briandot-
The last megalomaniac who ran Italy seemed to do pretty well even with these kinds of crazy statements. Considering Berlusconi has had the longest run as head of state of Italy in 50-plus years, I wouldn't count him out yet.
Berlusconi = Mussolini?
Heh.
Brendan-
I didn't say that. Heaven forbid someone should bring up Godwin, even if Mussolini wasn't Hitler.
You said "Hitler"!!!
;)
Happy Now?
Waw haw, Jazz! Yes I think we get yer Drift. :)
I think they WILL be Rioting over That, A&A, it was prominent on the NBC Evening News (3rd story after the Cheney Shotgun Kerfuffle and the Blizzard :) and it looks like the Next Big Thing to me. / And while I, too, have long been Deeply sympathetic, say since circa 1969, to "the frustration the British soldiers must be dealing with" :), I agree that this is surely No Way to express it.
Now then: as a proud Italo-American :> I think Berlusconi is a Dolt who should be invited to go Quailhunting with Cheney. (Or even Duckhunting with Quayle, that should probably work too. :)
DUP, for My part I wouldn't even want to get buckShot with Pepper. ;>
We're not going to win shit aiming for hearts and minds. The only thing the Muslim world understands is death and bloodshed.
Andrew, I'm not unwilling to consider the possibility that you might be right... presupposing of course that "the Muslim world" doesn't mean all Muslims, but merely means "enough Muslims to control the dialogue"... but if you ARE right, aren't we, like, doomed? Didn't the collapse of imperalism conclusively prove that you can't indefinitely subdue huge populations of people exclusively through fear, bending them to your will with "death and bloodshed"? If you are correct that their "hearts and minds" are completely out of reach, it seems to me that Angrier is correct: our choices are 1) lose the war on terror (or at least allow it to continue as a permanent conflict which will never really end, in which we'll always be at risk of attack -- which basically means we lose), or 2) commit genocide. I don't like to be as pessimistic as that, which is why I prefer to believe that winning enough "hearts and minds" to turn the tables is still possible. But as I said, I don't deny the possibility that you are correct... I just don't see how we can possibly hope to succeed, if so, without becoming our enemy.
Some of this is redundant to Brendan's post:
Andrew, I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that, possibly in the epic Sheehan thread, you mentioned that the current Iraqi military action is worthwhile because "democracy takes time".
If the only thing 'those people', (e.g. Muslims) understand is brute force -
- I'm not sure why American troops are dying to create a democracy in Iraq.
I mean, if you beat me up and take my milk money, to prove a point, would you then willingly let me dictate to the Principal the terms of your punishment?
Of course not. Why then would we want to enfranchise Iraqis?
Not sure whether your premise is right. If it is, it would seem that our troops' mission to establish democracy in Iraq is a foolish foreign policy error.
The Bible calls Christians to "be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." We are to do our best to become perfect and sinless, a process known as sanctification. Yet it is equally understood that no one, save Christ, can ever be sinless and perfect--we will always have sin.
Similarly, with the Muslim world, we can't force Islam to work with modernity. We can't make Iraq and the Arab world functional and unbackward. But we must try, because as Brendan points out, the alternatives are grim: genocide; or resigning ourselves to endless terrorism and conflict borne of a backwards culture incapable of adapting to modernity.
So yes, we should try to establish democracies in places where we can, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. But we should not be shocked if it fails, and any failure to establish democracy should not be interpreted as justification for those who say we should not have bothered to try in the first place. We simply are not honoring our belief in freedom and liberty for all humanity if we are content to leave half the world consigned to despotism.
Of course, I'm not totally cynical. THe truth is, if democracy is new to the Arab world, so is despotism. The autocratic regimes of Iraq, Syria, and on down the line were all set up by the Brits after WWI, so there's no reason to believe these kinds of regimes are natural to that culture.
On the other hand, the experience of Iran, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, among other examples, suggests orthodox Islam is incapable of adapting to modernity and is consigned to waging bloody conflict--either internal (against Christians, Bahais, Jews, and other minorities) or external (against the West). If this proves to be true, the West will have no choice but to step into this paradigm and retaliate on the behalf of oppressed minorities in Muslim societies, and in cases where "uppity" regimes like Iran deign to threaten the West with, e.g., nuclear capabilities, the West has no choice but to put these regimes in their place in the only language they understand: bombs and destruction. If we shy away from the threat of force, we may as well cede our freedoms to the terrorists today, as Europe seems willing to do.
Andrew,
I'm less familiar with 'Persian' Islam, but pre-WWI, 'Arabic' Islam was synonymous with the Ottoman Empire, which was ruled for several centuries by a caliphate as bloody and backward and brutal as any mankind has had the misfortune of experiencing.
Brought up in response to the argument that despotism is new to the Arabic world.
I don't take issue with anything else in your message - other than what seems like a reasonable effort for "trying" to build democracy, and what burden makes sense for our troops to bear.
The region has been ruled by iron and blood for many many centuries. How quickly can that history be undone?
but if you ARE right, aren't we, like, doomed?
My friend, you have much to learn about conservatism. To be conservative is necessarily to be gloomy about the future:
A conservative ought to be a pessimist, at least about human nature, human society, and the prospects for improving them. The facile cheeriness of the lefty world-perfecters are not for us, with their New Soviet Man, their Socialist Spiritual Civilization, their City of the Sun, their coming reign of peace, justice, and absolute equality. We are more of the temper of H. P. Lovecraft, who began one of his short stories with the arresting observation that: "Life is a hideous thing."
Read the rest of that article and you have Derbyshire's predictions for the future:
-Most of us will die in poverty.
-Quality health care for all is not possible.
-Pop culture is filth.
-Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait.
-The environment is collapsing.
-Science has stopped.
-Not all groups are equally good at all things.
-Affirmative action is absolutely essential to social order.
-Socialism is popular.
-Conservatism is dead.
-Nothing will be done about immigration.
-Only Anglo-Saxon countries can do democracy.
-China will get stronger and richer, without moving one inch closer to constitutional government.
-Taiwan will be re-united with the Motherland....by some combination of economic carrot and military stick.
-Something inconceivably horrible will happen in the Middle East.
Some of these seem absurd or unlikely on their face, but the more you consider Derbyshire's case, the more merit it seems to have. Conservatism is at its heart a gloomy disposition. Ignorance and liberalism (but I repeat myself!) are far more blissful. Libertarian-conservatives like Glenn Reynolds, the Jonah Goldbergs of the world, and the neoconservative thinkers undoubtedly have a strong rebuttal to all this, but the rightness of their positions are no more assured than the dour conservatism of Derbyshire and his conservative predecessors going all the way back to Edmund Burke.
My incessant cockiness about being right aside, you will meet very few people who so frequently wish they were wrong than me. And that, ultimately, is what being a true conservative is all about: you strive, hope for, and argue in favor of the best, but you expect the worst and simply hope you turn out wrong.
Jazz, I should clarify my assessment of the nature of Islamic government pre-colonialism. Yes, it was despotic, but it was not nearly as totalitarian as the regimes that followed colonial occupation. The Ottoman Empire was far more tolerant than everything that's followed it. This is like comparing the Austro-Hungarian empire to Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy. The former absolutely was nothing to be proud of, but among its merits is the fact that it sure was never as bad as the latter.
My knowledge of the late Ottoman Empire mostly comes from Alan Palmer's "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/
product...5Fencoding=UTF8
Its a terribly dull, scholarly book (and as such doesn't cost very much). However, tracing the Empire's long, slow collapse from the siege of Vienna in 1683 to WWI in 1914, it reads about like this:
'Grand Vizier Suleiman I was brutal, garroting everyone in sight, then he went out on violent raids, came home to more brutality, until he himself was garroted.
Grand Vizier Suleiman II was brutal, garroting everyone in sight, then he went out on violent raids, came home to more brutality, until he himself was garroted.
Grand Vizier Suleiman III was brutal..."
Not exactly a confidence-inspiring history.
I am so surprised this post did not turn into a "Andrew is such a bigot right winger" food fight.
Andrew seems to describe my brother and his paradoxical take on the war--feeling it is his duty to fight even as he belives it futile. We grew up in a society doomed to violence and corruption, so perhaps it is easier for us to accept doom than if we had grown up in the land of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Bea, that's funny...
Is it possible that this blog is evolving past a traditional blame/flame chamber into one where issues are debated with "what's best for the country" at the front of everyone's mind?
(The possibility brings a tear to the eye...)
Jazz, don't cry yet. Look at the list of commenters discussing the doom scenario thus far. You, Brendan and Andrew are capable of rational discourse, that is all this thread means. One nasty comment from the resident left, and this will degenerate into a food fight. Only bigoted right wingers like us make this offensive, doom and gloom comments, don't you know?
Economic reform and democratic institutions are what the middle east needs if the doom scenario is going to be avioded. Until people realize this is a clash of civilizations and do not feel guilty about championing our way of life as worth fighting for, don't hold your breath. People are too afraid to accept what Andrew said, as true, and even more afraid to say it publicly. It is not only un-PC, but also so sad and fatalistic. But, hey, life in un-PC and pretty sad most of the time.
You know what's funny? On the topic of "whats best for the US", I actually suspect that a moderate, slightly leftwing government would be best for us. I myself am no liberal, but my reasoning goes like this...
Americans generally have a frontiersman, John Wayne-type ethic, you know 'shoot first and ask questions later'. Our goal as a nation is to be successful, more prosperous - to win -, and as such it may be that a slightly left-wing government would help manage these natural forward-leaning impulses for the greatest benefit to the nation.
In a similar, though reversed, manner, I suspect it is good for Canada to have elected right-winger Steven Harper. Canadians tend to be more cautious, 'let-the-government-handle-it' than Americans are; so a right-wing government may give them the kick in the pants they need to make the most of their country too...
All of which I say as yet another cry for "where is the slightly left of center alternative"? Throw this comment on the trash heap with the millions of others... :o(
Jazz, can you ellaborate a little more on why a left of center moderate would work for us? I do not get what you mean from your argument. I am serious, not bagging on your theory.
If it hasn't come through on these threads yet, I have a bit of a tendency to "shoot first, ask questions later". Many Americans do, and to some extent that is how the US became so great.
Sometimes it is best to shoot first, ask questions later, and at other times it is better to have a more controlled approach. I don't personally favor the controlled approach, but I recognize that sometimes it is appropriate.
The theory goes like this: if a nation is trying to find the ideal mix of freewheeling/entrepreneurship and overall control, and the populace is by instinct freewheeling, a government that is somewhat measured/controlling can be an effective check on the nation's natural tendencies.
The Canadian example is a better one - that population behaves in a very very measured/controlled fashion, so having a government that is highly rigid threatens to lead Canada to complete stagnation. Being led by a more American-style politician, with his freewheeling tendencies, will probably do that country a world of good.
In conclusion, I am afraid to endorse a liberal, since I fear ending up with Hillary, (to say nothing of the fact that I am not a liberal)...but in principle I recognize the right liberal might be very good for the USA.
Not sure if that made any sense...
I do not see it, Perhaps because we a have different idea, different feel, for the US populace, if you will. I fully agree, and have argued before, that we need a strong opposition party to check and balance the ruling party, and have lamented the lack of meaningful opposition in the US today. But that is different from what you are saying, which sounds more like the opposition to "the people" should be the ruling party? to keep "the people" checked and balanced? No, that makes no sense to me. I guess I find there are as many Americans entrepenurious as there are Americans confortable, complacent, with government running thing, plus many many voters fit the profile: we want no cuts to social programs, we want no tax raises and we want no deficits!)
Canadians reacted to years of the same tired stuff. That is what voters do, react, clean house if you will.
As I see it, Canadians get more left wing governments because such governments tend to suit their (Ontario, anyway) personalities.
Then when the government and the people are similarly ruled by inertia - nothing happens - and the country underachieves.
In summary, any country needs some combination of aggressiveness and restraint, freewheelingness and caution, that meets the needs of that country at that time.
If the people are inclined toward one approach, my argument would be that the country has a better chance at the appropriate balance if the authorities don't inevitably share that approach.
In any event, it frightens me to write this. I can't even visualize who the hypothetical Democrat is that fits the description from this thread. I wouldn't vote for him or her - but they might anyway make the country better.
I guess I just think a strong opposition would do the job, representing the views of some of the populace and restraining and balancing out the ruling party. I understand the general idea you are putting forward, and it makes some sense. Kinda how a man needs a good wife to make sure he calls his mother every once in a while, hahaha.
that was me.
Re: the good wife to make sure the man calls his mother every once in a while...
..some people such as myself may think those words cut too close to home (!)
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