Infinite Monkeys
"...a sparkly blog..." - James Lileks"Read them only with extreme caution."- Hugh Hewitt
Infinite MonkeysOkay, I'm not too good at joke writing, but I've got an idea for a new schtick. No, not for me. I want to put two pros together. Now that Dr. Drew has lost his co-host gig with Adam Carolla, he needs to be paired up as the straight man to another funny man. With word today that Britney is in the hospital and faces forced time in psych unit, it's time for us to unite. Let us call together for Dr. Drew to join with Jeff Foxworthy for a new series: You Might Be A Trainwreck If...
The comments section is available for set-up suggestions. (Note: The jokes usually work with a set-up, followed by the close, "...you might be a trainwreck.")
So a friend writes to me:
"Didn't you vote TWICE for a guy that mis-managed the Texas Rangers, placed Michael Brown in charge of FEMA, nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, and had the utmost respect for the executive skills of Kenneth Lay? :-)"No, I voted for the guy who was going to ream the whole middle east a new one by pivoting on Iraq, stomping on Syria, shitting down the neck of the Iranian ruling class, opening ANWR, and then forcing Saudi Arabia to give us a Rusty Trombone.
I was wearing some powerful goggles.
I'll certainly support John McCain if he's the Republican nominee, as seems increasingly likely today. But one of the many problems I have with McCain -- and why I will still vote for Mitt Romney on Super Duper Tuesday -- is the maverick's temperament.
I don't want to go on and on about my time covering Congress, but I can say from personal experience that McCain was among the few senators who were not unfailingly congenial when answering questions in the hallway outside the well of the Senate. His gruff manner made for good quotes -- one of the biggest reasons the Hill press corps loves him. But you got the sense sometimes that McCain was burning with anger that anyone would dare question his politics or policy positions. It was obviously just under the surface.
Investors Business Daily, Ben's old haunt, posted a long-needed editorial from the right questioning whether McCain's temperment is a disqualifying trait. It's hardly news that McCain has a hot temper. But it certainly will become a bigger topic of discussion, and a potentially crippling liability, should McCain grab the nomination. IBD warns Republicans of the coming conversation by recounting this story:
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ... said in a recent interview that he was so upset by a McCain tirade that he didn't speak to him "for a couple of years." McCain got in his face and shouted an obscenity at him.
Egad! Getting cross with the placid, professorial Grassley is like berating Santa Claus.
And Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., another congenial fellow, says McCain's erratic temperament is the reason why he's endorsing Mitt Romney. Cochran's choice of words is arresting:
"The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran said. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
Then there's what NRO's The Corner dug up while trying to track down details of former Republican senator Rick Santorum allusions to McCain's temper when dealing with his supposed fellow conservatives:
McCain stood in the middle of the GOP cloakroom and yelled at several of his Senate colleagues because they deigned to have a vote — to have a vote — on Inhofe's "English As the National Language" amendment to the 2006 immigration bill. He accused conservatives of being "divisive" and "insulting" Latinos for suggesting that immigrants ought to learn this language. He was nasty and unhinged. About 10 staffers witnessed this. He delighted in telling the conservative senators there that they were destroying the party with these efforts. This is what Santorum is talking about. He had antipathy for social and cultural conservatives' efforts.
Now, as IBD notes, there is an upside to anger. Our enemies should fear the commander-in-chief. And I quite like McCain's pledge to chase our enemies "to the gates of hell." But the accumulating stories of McCain's hot flashes, especially in their context, are troubling. Becoming enraged at your political enemies, to say nothing of those in your own party, is poison -- especially in a divided Washington.
An effective president -- like McCain's professed political hero, Ronald Reagan -- must be tough and principled, yet still make more friends than enemies. McCain's record strongly suggests that he would not be up to that task.
[cross posted at RedBlueAmerica.com]
Not a full pitch here, just a "shout out" to two good ways to get a strong feel for the consistent ongoing message (and optimism) of the Paul campaign.
First: Read the campaign blog - multiple daily updates, videos, and links. I use the RSS feed reader in Mac OS X Leopard Mail, so I these blog updates show up in my inbox as if they were e-mail.
Second: Sign up for campaign updates here - you don't have to give much information or make a contribution, but you'll get one or two e-mails a week from the campaign.
Of course, neither of these should be a substitute for reading Dr. Paul's issues page, if you haven't had a chance to peruse that yet. The issues ARE the campaign. But for regular updates on the campaign, its successes, and its struggles, take a look at the two links above.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica]
I suppose I was remiss, in discussing Paul's economic positions below, to fail to discuss his Economic Plan, given the congratulations that Congress and W. are bestowing on themselves for the sure-to-be-ineffective "stimulus plan" they just passed in a whirlwind.
In the press release for the plan, it is summarized by four points that could just as easily have been articulated by Reagan or Goldwater:
1. Tax Reform: Reduce the tax burden and eliminate taxes that punish investment and savings, including job-killing corporate taxes.
Of course, Paul's dream plan is to eliminate the IRS altogether, but the specific goal of stimulating the economy requires first and foremost the elimination of taxes on the development and expansion of capital. Larry Kudlow would be proud.
2. Spending Reform: Eliminate wasteful spending. Reduce overseas commitments. Freeze all non-defense, non-entitlement spending at current levels.
This is classic small-government Republicanism. And, by the way, a broad-based economic principle that ANY solvent institution, from the smallest family to the largest corporation, understands to be absolutely essential. Why shouldn't the government have to balance its budget just like the rest of us?
3. Monetary Policy Reform: Expand openness with the Federal Reserve and require the Fed to televise its meetings. Return value to our money.
Of course, this is code for "find a way to get back on the Gold Standard" - but it's more than that: An institution with as much control over the most fundamental instrument of the economy (the money supply) should not be able to operate shrouded in secrecy and without better public oversight. Right now, monetary policy is like alchemy. It needs to be reliable and accountable.
4. Regulatory Reform: Repeal Sarbanes/Oxley regulations that push companies to seek capital outside of US markets. Stop restricting community banks from fostering local economic growth.
The bitter taste of Enron is still on people's lips, but if we're going to be serious about long-term economic prosperity, we need to acknowledge that SarbOx and other massively restrictive regulatory policies were not only an over-reaction to what happened, the side-effects have had a significant negative effect on the whole economy. I say this as someone who actually BENEFITS from SarbOx: I sell (expensive) software to help companies comply with the document retention, reporting, compliance, and legal discovery burden of Sarbanes-Oxley. But every commission check I cash for this software comes from money that businesses COULD have been spending on, well, something else. Like another employee's salary, or better benefits, or a marketing campaign, or ANYTHING other than placating the federal government.
Read the whole economic plan here.
Robert Novak's latest column notes that the Obama camp is "quietly passing the word that John Edwards will be named attorney general in an Obama administration."
Good. God. No.
A slimy ambulance chaser who considers the war illegal and immoral as America's top prosecutor? I can just imagine his performance, if he employed some of his most lucrative trial tricks. Channeling the spirit of dead terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to argue against "mistreatment" of enemy combatants at Gitmo? Would he sue American oil companies by giving voice to silent polar bears? Will Dick Cheney be brought up on charges of attempted homicide for his birdshot incident?
[read more of this post RedBlueAmerica.com, and please forgive the minor hassle].
I was going to spend more time building a case for Ron Paul's economic policies, but how could I do better than this article by Donald Luskin at National Review Online. Ben was kind enough to link to it in his comment to my post over at RedBlueAmerica and I'll highlight it here:
If you crack the nut shell and look objectively at what Paul is really advocating, conservatives will find that Paulonomics looks an awful lot like Reaganomics. Paulonomics emerges as a refreshing return to conservative roots: small government, low taxes, deregulation, and sound money. If Paulonomics seems nutty, that may say more about the sad state of events today, with “big government conservatism” having become the new touchstone.
Indeed. When Bill Clinton said, "The era of big government is over," who knew the REPUBLICANS would be responsible for turning that statement into a lie?
The core concept of Paulonomics is the reduction in the size and cost of the federal government...
A lot of Republican politicians say that want this, and the Republican rank-and-file certainly used to. But Paul doesn't just say it, he lives it. During his ten terms in Congress, nobody has even come close to voting as consistently against federal increase.
...Paul would outright eliminate what he believes are wasteful and counterproductive federal programs, such as the departments of Education and Energy. Nutty? Most Republicans wouldn’t dare talk about eliminating the Department of Education in the age of “No Child Left Behind.” But Paul reminded me in a recent interview that it wasn’t so many election cycles ago that scrapping this department was an official plank of the GOP platform.
...Paul would decommission Social Security and Medicare by honoring obligations to those who are utterly dependent, but letting young people opt out of both systems entirely. Nutty? Let’s be honest: Most conservatives want to do exactly this, but are afraid to say so in a political environment where even mandatory personal accounts are vilified as a “risky scheme,” as Al Gore famously put it.
Why isn't it okay to talk about this anymore? I'll point you back to the first paragraph I quoted.
...Paul points out that today’s level of federal tax revenues, without the income tax, is sufficient to meet all the government’s expenses as they stood not so many years ago. The problem is that the size, scope, and cost of government has grown so much. Would it be such a nutty trade-off to roll back the clock on government expenditures if it meant eliminating income taxes for all Americans?
When I first heard that the income tax could be completely eliminated and the government could still fund itself at 1997 budget levels, I was shocked. Then I was angry. How can this be so? In ten years the government has grown that much? They could have frozen expenditures at 1997 levels (which were still too high) and gradually reduced the income tax to zero over ten years? Can you imagine what that would have done for the economy?
Luskin continues, but I'll let you read his statements yourself. Then look at Paul's positions on Debt & Taxes, Social Security , Taxes on Tips , and Sound Money - each position page contains an overview, plus links to writings, videos and other information on the subject. This guy knows his stuff.
Then, for those who wax nostalgic for a time when "Republican" could mean less government and more freedom take a look at this video:
<dr.nick>Hello everybody!</dr.nick>
I've been gone for awhile. Long story, busy times. But we're a week and a half away from Super Tuesday and I figured it was time to get off my butt and start shilling for the only Republican candidate worth voting for: Ron Paul
Dr. Paul was the subject of endless amusement 6-9 months ago. Who was going to vote for an anti-war libertarian in this big-government neo-con age? Well, that was then. In the last quarter of 2007, Ron Paul took in more donations than any other candidate (just shy $20 million) including not one but two single-day donation records. And unlike a lot of candidates, the vast majority of those donations were around $100. Also unlike the other candidates, the two record-setting days were organized completely by the grassroots, with no meaningful coordination from the central campaign. He just took in another $1.85 million on Monday in another grassroots "money bomb" timed to coincide with MLK day.
Last year, eleven different men announced their intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Earlier this week, Fred Thompson (who was treated as a front-runner throughout - and even before - his campaign) became the sixth to abandon the campaign trail:
Of the five that are left, there is no clear front-runner. Romney, McCain, and Huckabee have each won one or two primaries/caucuses, and the only momentum seems to be Rudy Giuliani's momentum in plummeting to the bottom. And the only two candidates that still have any significant amount of cash on hand are Romney (mostly his own) and Ron Paul.
Paul's got the institutional cards stacked against him: Fox News has already excluded him from one debate (they included Fred Thompson) and for a long time the ten-term U.S. Congressman from Texas was curiously absent from many voting guides, polls, and coverage. Even last weekend, when Paul came in second place in the Nevada caucus, Fox News covered the race as if he wasn't even in the running:
As I mentioned, Paul wound up finishing ahead of McCain to take "the Silver" (as Romney likes to call it) in the Silver State.
All of this from a guy who everybody thought would be the Dennis Kucinich of the Republican party. Well, it ain't so.
But viability is, in my opinion, a minor point. Issues and record are what's REALLY important, and Paul's got this locked up for me. Over the next several days, I'll post about both, and about what differentiates him from the other four candidates. For a preview, take a look at his issues page.
[cross-posted at RedBlueAmerica.com]
For those of you still monitoring the Dan Rather Frequency -- the farce that is America's most pompous, delusional, journalistic empty-suit poseur -- there is some news (HT: Exurban League).
CBS Says It Will Give Rather the Docs He Wants
Dan Rather's efforts to get CBS to produce in court documents that it has previously withheld concerning the investigation into "Rathergate" could backfire, the network suggested Wednesday. Speaking to reporters, CBS lawyer Jim Quinn said that the network was prepared to produce "virtually all of the materials" that Rather has requested, including a report by documents examiner Erik T. Rigler, which Rather has suggested had been hushed up because they confirmed the authenticity of the controversial documents he referred to on his disputed 60 Minutes II broadcast about President Bush's National Guard service. But Quinn said Tuesday that the Rigler study, far from supporting Rather's claims, will do "just the opposite."
That should be a fun development. In this case, justice delayed (upon Dan's shoddy journalism and outsized ego) will still be justice served.
Cut back on the tuna at the sushi bar. I speak from the perspective of one who has read. There's lots of other good stuff on the menu.
Don't take the dare to try the sea urchin. I speak from the perspective of one who has been offered a free order from the sushi chef. As a point of honor, I finished it, but it was not easy keeping a brave face. I was out of water, and wound up quietly devouring the rest of my pickled ginger just to survive. I'm glad that at the time I didn't know I was eating the hermaphroditic animal's gonads.
On Dennis Prager's radio show, Frank Luntz invited listeners in L.A. and Phoenix to sign up to be considered for participation in one of his highly regarded focus groups. At Luntz's site, the page that asks the prescreening questions is located at www.surveymonkey.com. Coincidence? I think not.
I'm very curious about how these things really work. I'm signing up. Any other Monkeys care to make it a troop thing?
Remember Jeff Conaway? "Bobby" from Taxi... "Kenickie" from Grease?
Dude.
Seriously.
I don't have time for the sort of disclaimers, caveats, and excuses that any sane person would feel compelled to give before admitting to watching a VH1 reality show. But I'm saving the episode and a half of Celebrity Rehab (now with extra Dr. Drew!) that I have on my TiVo.
I remember being in seventh grade and having to get a permission slip signed so I could be shown an anti-drug propaganda film. It was effective. I have no memory of what it was called. The scene I remember most vividly is that of a heroin addict in a jail cell going through an agonizing cold turkey experience. The film pulled no punches and we the seventh grade class collectively groaned as we witnessed what I would later learn is called "loose booty."
Heroin may be making a comeback, but in this new era of Oxycontin and Xanax, we need a new poster child. Thanks, Jeff Conaway! No, that's cold. I'm sorry. But honestly, I'm strongly considering showing several clips from the show to my older son, and even recommending them to my friends. Let me start now.
It's a glorious age, as I can point to the whole dang series here. Follow that link and you should be able to see the third episode loading. Once you get past the short ad and the actual show begins to load, "drag forward" the show to about the 4/5th point. After seeing some former child star explain her trouble with weed, we join Dr. Drew and Conaway in the exam room. Keep watching. After that, watch episode Four. It starts slow, but you must not miss the sudden seizure/shakes at the lunch table. It sounds tame in writing. Ozzy was funny-sad. Conaway is scary-sad.
Be sure to watch through to the end, when the aging Kenickie frighteningly channels Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin. It's either that character or he was hoping to get the gig as Jack Bauer while Keifer slept it off in the hoosegow. Somewhere in the mix, Daniel Baldwin gives a valuable summary of his typical falling-off-the-wagon via cocaine sequence.
[Thanks, Safari or Amazon, for my browser crash and the loss of all of my post's link url's and its amazingly clever denouement. A quick summary will serve as a dim sad reflection.]
Dr. Drew seems cooly detached but it works well with the freaks. I respect him.
Googling Jeff.Conaway and trainwreck yields 1080 hits.
Googling (Amazon's) kindle and fugly yields 888 hits.
It's a new era, folks. [Cue Smuckers or Country Time Lemonade ad voice] Time was, you could be a fetish model/erotica editor/sex educator/tech geek and if you reported getting dissed by a major tech industry mogul at his own expo, folks would write you off as a crank. But with video phones and sites like qik.com, the new immediacy (tm) gives such a report new credibility.
Brian Caulfield at Forbes recalls Blue's story as he exposes some of the longstanding and newly emerging negatives inside the Apple. But are those same negatives essential parts of the Jobs genius? Caufield cuts it open and avoids the love and hate that supporters and detractors usually derail themselves with. With the world markets freaking out today, it's worth considering whether discounted Apple stock is worth looking at.
[crossposted to the up and coming RedBlueAmerica.com]
To riff a bit on Ben's post over at RedBlueAmerica and a comment it elicited, I was struck by the whining tone in The Washington Post piece about the demise of newspapers. Acclaimed ex-journalist David Simon, in his laments, think's he's touting the virtues of old-time newspapers. In fact, he's exposing the reasons for their march to irrelevancy. And he gets off to an arrogant, roaring start in the lead:
Is there a separate elegy to be written for that generation of newspapermen and women who came of age after Vietnam, after the Pentagon Papers and Watergate? For us starry-eyed acolytes of a glorious new church, all of us secular and cynical and dedicated to the notion that though we would still be stained with ink, we were no longer quite wretches? Where is our special requiem?
Boo-freakin-hoo. To think of your profession as a mission -- where you preach to the intellectual savages -- and as your place of work as a church (secular AT ALL TIMES, of course), is a serious misreading of the job. Just report the news, dude. Save the patronizing attitude toward your readers for the cocktail parties.
Bright and shiny we were in the late 1970s, packed into our bursting journalism schools, dog-eared paperback copies of "All the President's Men" and "The Powers That Be" atop our Associated Press stylebooks. ...
Sigh. When you are a secular missionary, instead of a reporter, Watergate is the miracle of the Resurrection, and "All the President's Men" is your Scripture. And Vietnam? Perhaps leading America to defeat is akin to Moses (Charlton Heston version) coming down from the mount to shatter the golden calf. Yet it is instructive to read this piece from the Columbia Journalism Review that exposes the myths of journalism's heroism in Watergate. We continue with David Simon:
Isn't the news itself still valuable to anyone? In any format, through any medium -- isn't an understanding of the events of the day still a salable commodity? Or were we kidding ourselves? Was a newspaper a viable entity only so long as it had classifieds, comics and the latest sports scores?
Well, yes. News is valuable. But we'd prefer it without the pretensions of most liberal journalists, who feel their job is to tell us what to think about the events of the day rather than just reporting the news. True, not a lot of that has changed just because more people read their biased news on the Internet. But now we have the opportunity to consume news from various points of view -- and talk about it with other readers -- rather than just taking the big media's word for it. And, as for me, the Los Angeles Times serves two main purposes: Giving me a sports page to read on the can, and crossword puzzles. Most everything else, pretty expendable.
But I give Mr. Simon credit for having more self-awareness than most MSM dinosaurs.
It's hard to say that, even harder to think it. By that premise, what all of us pretended to regard as a viable commodity -- indeed, as the source of all that was purposeful and heroic -- was, in fact, an intellectual vanity.
Bingo! X gets a square
That's about as much of this story as I can take. I'll leave it to Ben and others, if they feel so inclined, to get deeper into Simon's story where he talks about the nuts and bolts of the decline of old gray ladies.
According to Rueters, a film about the Roman Polanski "sex scandal" is shaking up Sundance. The story claims "Polanski presumably fled because he feared unfair treatment amid the media frenzy," and the director says
I think this story is a real 'Catch 22...It is my understanding that he doesn't want to come back unless there is a deal in place. They (law enforcement officials) don't want to make a deal until he comes back.Well, judge for yourself whether this sicko deserves any sympathy...you can read the testimony of the victim at The Smoking Gun.
As a football fan, I really wanted to see the Patriots go 16-0, and I was very happy when they did...but I always said I was really hoping they lost the Super Bowl. Of course, now I realize that it would be far better if they didn't even make it to the Super Bowl. And if the San Diego Chargers, my favorite team, some how, some way, manage to stop them today...now that would be a perfect season.
This might be the new normal level of excitement at your friendly neighborhood anti-war protest if the latest spate of positive news out of Iraq keeps up. (Caption: "[Yawn] Hey, Jessica, that's a great scarf." "Thanks, Louise. Why don't we get out of here and grab some coffee.")
Courtesy of WSJ's Best of the Web.
From the BBC, hardly an Iraq war cheerleader:
Iraq faces a period of economic growth and political progress, according to assessments by the International Monetary Fund and the UN.The IMF sees 7% growth in 2008 and a similar rise next year, and says oil revenues from buoyant exports should be up by 200,000 barrels a day.
The UN envoy to Iraq welcomed dialogue between the Sunni and Shia communities and praised the government's work.
Investors, call your brokers, and get in on the ground floor of the reconstruction! Yes, yes. "Analysts warn" that we need to see rapid progress in the next six to 12 months -- but that's what analysts do. They issue warnings, qualifications, and other such hedge-talk so they don't look foolish months hence. Always easier to be happily surprised than to be wiping egg of your face.
Then we see Reuters, called al-Reuters by some critics, finding it hard to downplay the positive developments in Iraq. Of course, they are a news service -- and it's big news when a U.N. envoy starts making happy noises about the prospects of a free, democratic and reconstructed Iraq.
U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said the passing of a key law allowing former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to return to government jobs had changed what had been a pessimistic view of progress in a crucial year for Iraq."At the beginning of the year we were worried ... we were genuinely concerned by the lack of progress on national dialogue," de Mistura told Reuters by telephone.
"Today that has substantially changed. It has changed our mind from being worried or from being pessimistic," he said.
Of course, those statements, too, were couched in prudent warnings that it could all fall apart. But the bottom line is that independent watchdogs, who are on the ground in Iraq, are now beginning to counter the left's meme of endless quagmire and hopeless disaster. In fact, the words of Staffan de Mistura sound like a certain general's testimony to Congress in September. I remember that being on the news.
Will Hillary now upbraid the U.N. envoy, like she did Gen. David Petraeus, for mouthing platitudes about Iraq that require "a willing suspension of disbelief"?
That faint and out-of-tune bugle call you hear is being blown by anti-war activists, who are now sulking back in retreat from their efforts to get the Democratic Congress to surrender Iraq to the terrorists.
It must be so disappointing, after Democrats swept into power, to have watched bill after bill ordering an immediate withdrawal of troops in Iraq get absolutely nowhere.
So the Democratic leadership went to Plan B: trying to micromanage the war and affect a retreat by way of the funding bills for Iraq. And those, too, fizzled, with even a majority of Democrats in the Senate sending Bush fighting money for the war with no strings attached.
Now the tie-dye and patchouli set are shifting strategies and lowering expectations yet again:
In recognition of hard political reality, the groups instead will lower their sights and push for legislation to prevent President Bush from entering into a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could keep significant numbers of troops in Iraq for years to come.
That's pretty small beer compared to the heady anti-war goals of one year ago – especially after the anti-war coalition, led by MoveOn.org, spent $12 million for their cause.
I wonder, though: Why the resistance to a long-term military agreement with Iraq, a rare ally in the Middle East? We've been in Japan and Germany for 60 years, and Korea for 50. And those commitments have paid off handsomely in trade alone. If Iraq settles down, and their government requests that we stay, why should we not weigh the strategic pros and cons and give it serious consideration?
A group of Democratic senators has sent a letter to the White House demanding that any "post-war" agreement with Iraq go through Congress first (and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., has introduced a bill to that effect, too).
I would not have a problem with this for two reasons: (1) While the commander-in-chief needs to have a pretty free hand in war management, such long-term military commitments should have more direct consent of the people through their representatives in Congress; and (2) I'm confident, given the anti-war crowd's dismal record, that a military agreement with a peaceful Iraq would pass.
And the future stories about the crushed spirits of the irresponsible anti-war left? A nice bonus.
... is one strange cat.
Seriously. The video at the above link — the one the Cult of Scientology doesn't want you sub-humans to see — simply should not be missed.
Creepy factor: Off the charts.
Some highlights from the transcript at Us Magazine:
Delusions of grandeur: "We are the authorities on getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the mind, we are the authorities on improving conditions... we can rehabilitate criminals. ...We can bring peace and unite cultures..."
Um. Sure, Tom. Why don't you start with the hard conversion cases first — Muslims. Let me know how that works out for you.
Tom on "helping": "It is the time now. Now is the time... Being a Scientologist, people are turning to you, so you better know it, you better know it and if you don’t, go and learn it, but don’t pretend you know it. It’s like we’re here to help."
Yes. Only here to help. Just like the aliens in "They Live!" Who's got a pair of magical sunglasses handy? Somebody scream, "It's a cookbook!"
Tom on sacrifice: "Look, I wish the world was a different place. I’d like to go on vacation and go and romp and play and just do that, you know what I mean. That’s what I want it to be. There’s times I’d like to do that, but I can’t because I know I have to do something about it."
Right. Celebrity bazillionaires never take vacations. Thanks for your dedication. I haven't had a proper vacation to "romp and play" for seven years. And I didn't have to join a cult to not do it. Silly me.
Tom on the way to be: "I do what I can, and I do it the way I do everything. [laughs] There’s nothing part-of-the way for me."
And that's the creepy part. In Tom's vision of the world, the earth (at least) is separated into those who believe in his nonsense, and those who don't. And it's clear from the language Tom uses, and the tone of the whole conversation, that he considers non-kooks to be lesser beings. Ignorant animals. Somehow not human. He certainly goes after those of his own "faith" who do not take it as seriously as he does. If he is down on them, what does he think of those who have not taken a generous quaff of the Cristal Kool-Aid?
Indeed, these excerpts barely do this whole thing justice. You have to see Tom's eerie and uncomfortable laughs. The near maniacal look on his face. His seriousness of purpose. His use of pronouns like "it" and "them" — not to mention shorthand like SP and KSW — that lend an air of disconcerting mystery to the whole thing.
CREEP—EEE.
I posted this over at RedBlueAmerica. And I now share it with the Monkey Nation.
The New York Times does a bit of fact-checking of Sen. Clinton's claim on Meet The Press yesterday that when she voted to support the war in Iraq in 2002, she was not really voting to support the war.
“It was a vote to use the threat of force against Saddam Hussein, who never did anything without being made to do so,” Mrs. Clinton said.
Translated in to English, Clinton is trying to claim that she supported a war resolution put forth by Bush-bashing Republican Chuck Hagel. Um, no. Hagel's resolution -- which was "only to secure the destruction of Iraq’s unconventional weapons" -- never hit the floor of the Senate. Hillary, like everyone else, actually voted for this much more comprehensive war resolution.
Indeed, as the Times points out:
It was the White House proposal, not Mr. Hagel’s, that Mrs. Clinton supported, explaining in an Oct. 10, 2002, speech on the Senate floor that it was time to tell Saddam Hussein that “this is your last chance — disarm or be disarmed.”
What I find interesting is that the Times also notes -- almost in passing -- that the resolution Hillary voted "aye" on was to "enforce 'all relevant' United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, which was the language in the version that ultimately passed."
So ... FINALLY ... the Paper of Record sets the record straight. The Iraq war resolution was not only about WMD, but about enforcing "all relevant" UNSC resolutions regarding Iraq. And there were a lot of them. Some of my favorite language in the war resolution:
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
And ...
Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;
And ...
Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it "supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1)," that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and "constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region," and that Congress, "supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688";
And ...
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;
And ... that's enough. There were 23 "whereases" in all. Kudos to The New York Times for calling out the Hillary spin. They didn't seem all that moved to do so regarding John Kerry in '04.
You can argue about Bush's handling of the war. You can argue that the intelligence of the entire Western world was not very accurate. You can even regret your vote.
But you cannot erase the truth of what the sense of Congress was in October 2002, and the fact that there was more than one justification for going to war.
It may just be a rumor (although I expect the reality to be close, but better), but I want one. Be sure to scroll all the way down to the Monitor Docking Station post...
Update: I really, really want this laptop. I'll wait, of course, because I have five or so other things I need to spend money on first (like remodeling the house, getting an HD TV, etc) and I also don't like buying the first generation of anything, especially from Apple. My iBook, iMac and even my Airport Extreme all had small improvements made within two months after I bought them...I'll probably get an iPhone when the real second generation of that comes out, though.
Our old adversary and occasional ally (and vice-versa) Hugh Hewitt last week raised an issue about Old Media and New that's been on a lot of people's minds lately:
Hey, I can relate. But where can New Media savvy readers get the best thinking from both sides with a spot of wit?
It is perhaps the least-surprising news of the day (of yesterday, actually), to read that Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright characterizes the last 7-years-and-counting of the Bush administration as one of America's "worst presidencies." Well, as a high-ranking member of the Clinton administration, Albright should be rather familiar with presidential mediocrity, or worse.
Yes, such debates on "best" and "worst" presidencies tend to be partisan and largely meaningless. One should let at least two decades pass before taking such discussions seriously. Only then can the full measure of a presidency be more objectively and thoroughly evaluated in the context of history. For instance, Eisenhower was ranked #22 by Arthur Schlesinger's group of historians in 1962, but a poll of 49 historians by the Chicago Tribune in 1982 bumped Ike up to #9. A Siena poll put Reagan at #22 in 1990, but at #16 in 2002. Conversely presidents like LBJ and Woodrow Wilson have sunk considerably in esteem over the years (see Wikipedia's chart of polls here).
What is remarkable, however, about Albright's talk at a Georgetown Barnes & Noble -- where she was promoting her book, "Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership" -- is what she considers the most important issues facing the next president:
One of the areas Albright saw that the office of the presidency needed to improve upon was the diplomacy of “global warming, climate change and energy issues.” She said the next president needed to do a better job of being aware of the interests of other nations.
Sigh. Let's get one thing out of the way quickly. The United States is not a slacker when it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. America did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, yet "out-greened" the preening European Union countries that did. Chalk one up for an unfettered economy working to come up with cleaner energy solutions.
But what is missing from Albright's list of challenges for the next president? The threat of Islamic terrorism, anyone? Perhaps Madame Secretary mentioned the subject in her speech, but I haven't seen that reported anywhere.
If not, Albright is little different in her glaring oversight than the slate of Democratic candidates for president.
So I got hit by the Man today. The Nanny State Man. Perhaps, more accurately the School Marm Man. I've always resented the ticky-tack "stuff I gotta do" just to check in so the Man can keep tabs on me. So, I passively resist. Does it do any good? No. But I do it anyway. Does it end up biting me in the butt? (well, wallet) Yes. But I do it anyway. It's my own little (very little) version of the tv or movie prisoner who's had just enough of the guards' crap and takes a swing at one of them. He knows he'll lose, surely, what with the allied forces he's taking on. But there's a stubborn streak that just can't resist that little bit of rebellion; that little assertion of independence.
Arizona drivers' licenses used to have a place on the back where you could write your new address. They don't anymore. They should, 'cause I moved. And I wasn't about to go out of my way to check in with the Man about it. (Hey, I never said this was smart.) I assumed that I was supposed to notify them of my move, but...
Anyway, I never actually notice the little line across the top of the back of my license where it reads, YOU MUST REPORT A CHANGE OF ADDRESS WITHIN 10 DAYS. I never noticed it until the police officer who pulled me over tonight pointed it out.
He pulled me over because my van's tags were expired. I had no idea. Great. I never got anything about it in the mail. Now hold on... No, it's not because they don't have my address. The registration people have my current address. It's on my expired paperwork. I gave it to them last time my registration needed renewing. (Why that doesn't count as having check in with the Man, I have no idea. In my mind it did. In theirs, no.)
So, in all this, I'm looking for my proof of insurance. 2002 card - no. 2004 card - no. Hey there's another one in the center console. Aha! my 2007 card. I handed it over, confidently. -sigh- Aw, man... it's 2008. Expired 5 weeks ago. I know I'm insured, but I just don't have the little piece of paper with the right date on it.
Well, what a great night: a craptastic hat-trick of paperwork violations. Thank you, sir, may I have another? The registration fine and the insurance card fine will be cut drastically when I show up in court with proof that I've rectified them, but boy, there's no getting out of the trouble I'm in for not letting the DMV brain trust know that I now live a few miles further down the street.
It's enough to make me consider a rant comparing the stupid hoops and hidden tax paperwork that we party members citizens have to put up with against the relative ease with which illegal immigrants swarm around my city. If the whole paperwork, does-my-car-have-its-shots, have-I-paid-extra-to-drive-on-the-roads-I've-already-paid-for, where-I-live minutia is important enough to be stopped and fleeced over, what gives with the spigot of foreigners, forgers, and flaunters?
So, I can't wait to go to court. Think I'll get lectured in that dull, said-this-a-thousand-times tone? I'm just itching for someone to dare me to lecture the court. Anyone got a Libertarian newsletter I can quote? Hey, I never said my feelings on this were based on self-preservation. Yeah, I'll likely chicken out, but if you've got a brief pithy set of talking points that's more practical than my pathetic rant above, by all means, submit it. I'll surely post updates.
The pundits are in a tizzy about Hillary's surprising win in New Hampshire (double surprise--surprising if you believe the polls, surprising if you have even heard, seen or read about the Clintons). A lot of focus is on the crying, and how it "humanized" her (had she lost, of course, the CW would have quickly been that crying hurt her).
I think the real answer lies more with the fact that Edwards gleefully suggested that a bit of emotion disqualified her from the presidency. This probably woke up a lot of Democrats who were leaning his way to the fact that he's an ass. The polls (and anecdotal evidence) support this--it looks like Hillary's votes came not from Obama, but from Edwards.
It's time for some of his opponents to start calling him on his Gore-like delusions about how humans are destroying the planet.
So Hillary is off to a bad start. I hope she doesn't cry again.
(Yes, I am aware that the Dixville Notch voting is absurd. But then, I think the whole New Hampshire primary is slightly absurd--and I only say "slightly" because the Iowa Caucuses are completely absurd.)
It should not come as a complete surprise that Charlie Gibson is winning plaudits for his moderating of the debates last night (even liberals thought so). Much of his competition — Chris Matthews, the Iowa Schoolmarm — is pretty thin. But Gibson asked probably the best questions I've ever heard during a presidential debate. He was not, as so many moderators are, obsessed with trivial matters or interested in being clever.
And the most striking thing about Gibson's questions is that they avoided each party's comfortable issues. Democrats were pressed hard on the Iraq War and foreign policy. Republicans, at the time I switched over from a heart-breaking Steelers loss to Jacksonville, were being quizzed on health care. Usually in these debates, that dynamic is reversed.
Anyway, here's the run down of Charlie's questions to the Dems, who were obviously a little uncomfortable talking about these issues (transcript here).
So let me start with what is generally agreed to be, I think, the greatest threat to the United States today, and, somewhat to my surprise, has not been discussed as much in the presidential debates this year as I thought would be, and that is nuclear terrorism. ... Well, Osama bin Laden, as he pointed out, has said it is his duty to try to get nuclear weapons. Al Qaida has been reconstituted and re-energized in the western part of Pakistan. And so my general question is, how aggressively would you go after Al Qaida leadership there?
The candidates did not do very well with this one. Charlie all but mocked Bill Richardson's idea to send a "high level envoy" to ask Musharraf to step down, and wondered how what Obama said was much different from the Bush Doctrine. Zing!
I want to go to another question. And it really is the central one in my mind in nuclear terrorism. The next president of the United States may have to deal with a nuclear attack on an American city.I've read a lot about this in recent days. The best nuclear experts in the world say there's a 30 percent chance in the next 10 years. Some estimates are higher. Graham Allison (ph), at Harvard, says it's over 50 percent. Senator Sam Nunn, in 2005, who knows a lot about this, posed two questions that stick in my mind. And I want to put them to you here.
On the day after a nuclear weapon goes off in an American city, what would we wish we had done to prevent it? And what will we actually do on the day after?
Gibson posed the question first to John "The War on Terror is a Bumper Sticker" Edwards, and he flubbed it.
Because if someone has attacked us with a nuclear weapon, it means they have nuclear technology.
Well, can't argue with that logic. Nice job Haircut. But the real bungle comes as Edwards continues.
It is the responsibility of the president in times like this to be a force for strength, principled strength, but also calmness.It is enormously important for the president of the United States not to take -- to react and to react strongly, but to do it in a way that is calming for the American people and calming for the world.
Because it would be an enormous mistake for the president of the United States to take a terrible, dangerous situation where millions of Americans or thousands of Americans could have lost their lives, and to ratchet up the rhetoric and make it worse than it already is.
Hmmm. What does it mean, exactly, to react "strongly" but in a way that is "calming for the world." Bombard our enemies with tea tree oil? Fill mortars with marshmallows? Send in a team of crisis counselors after we hit back at our enemies? Or does John-John propose striking back, but apologizing for it immediately afterward? Egad!
Gibson went on to ask about "how much you would spend with the programs you've proposed and the promises you've made" — and how that's only going to exasperate the coming entitlement meltdown. He also challenged Hillary to explain her newly aggressive stance against Obama (which Obama turned around nicely on Hillary), but then went back again to the war in a way that probably shocked the Dems on stage, but shouldn't have come as a complete surprise considering Gibson's honorable history in reporting on the war.
I want to ask all of you: Are any of you ready to say that the surge has worked?And Senator Clinton, let me start with you, because when General Petraeus was in Washington in September, you said it would take a willful suspension of disbelief to think that the surge could do any good.
Oh, how the candidates squirmed on that query, trying to dance around not insulting the troops while still calling the whole war a failure. No one came off sounding principled or serious, and voters had to be confused about why and how a Democratic president would cut tail and run when we're obviously succeeding and doing good in the country.
Then Gibson unwisely let the local New Hampshire TV guy ask questions — and we were back to inanity. (Why don't people like you, Hillary? I revved up the Republican attack machine, so respond, Obama. Gov. Richardson, is your experience important? DO SOMETHING ABOUT HIGH OIL PRICES!!!! Blah blah blah ... )
Overall, a great performance when Gibson was in charge. This is the kind of questioning that the Democrats were afraid of getting if they dared let Fox News' Brit Hume sit before them. Bravo, Charlie ... and keep your schedule open come summer. You can perform a great service to the American people by continuing to be the serious journalist you are.
Apparently, when Haley Joel Osment furrows his brow and looks pensively toward the corner of the room, he sees the likes of me.
The Fox station in LA has a Candidate Matchmaker that has an advantage over the Political Compass because it actually tries to find you a date to the Inaugural Ball in November. I apparently like my president tall, bald and Reganesque. (And, by the way, do see Fred's remarkable 17-minute address to Iowa voters that — gasp! — trusts voters to have an attention span beyond 30 seconds.)
The quiz, a very quick 20 questions, is fun — and, in my case, accurate. Here's my score:
Fred 70 percent
Hunter 68 percent
Mitt 65 percent
Rudy 58 percent
Huck! 58 percent
McCain 55 percent
Paulie 33 percent
Richardson 25 percent
Edwards 18 percent
Mike Gravel 13 percent (good .... God)
Obama 13 percent
Hillary Rodham Clinton 10 percent
Biden 5 percent
Dodd 5 percent
UFO man 5 percent
Mrs. Zaius also took the test. Let's just say I picked the right gal.
So since 1972, exactly two candidates have won the Iowa caucuses in a contested race, then gone on to win the presidency: Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. Tell me again why we pay attention to this idiotic political vaudeville?
Best news of the night: The Hillary Coronation has been canceled. As Peter Robinson at The Corner pointed out, Seventy percent of Democrats voted against Hillary Clinton. She may yet win the nomination — no way the Clinton Machine rattles to a stop quietly — but she would have to do it by tearing down Obama. And as the Politico notes, that is difficult to do "in a way that doesn’t make her look small or desperate." Boy, I'm going to enjoy watching that.
Worst news of the night: Romney's stumble. I don't think many monkeys are happy with Huck's win, me included. But I'm still confident in my long-held view that the party will not be stupid enough to nominate this man for the top of the ticket. But Romney was supposed to be one of the "out" candidates. And if the polls are correct and he is beaten by McCain in New Hampshire, he shrinks considerably.
Biggest overrraction of the night: I am just aghast at the idea that a state that is 94 percent white, rural, provincial and quirky has such a say in who becomes president. And then I realize, that they often don't. Reagan lost Iowa. Bush the Elder lost Iowa. Dukakis and Clinton both lost, too. Let's wait until at least Michigan before the press starts picking out drapes for Obama, shall we?
Biggest loser: Hugh Hewitt. Seriously. I find it hilarious that Hugh is now strangely quiet after his guy got creamed. He can only spin, saying "Shades of 1976 --the long march begins." And say little else. I agree that it's a long march (see above), but I suspect that Hugh would be doing cyber back flips if Romney got within even 5 percentage points of Huck. It's a little small on Hugh's part to not post some opinion of his own, and perhaps display a little humility, after what is really a humiliation for him, too.
Biggest winner: Obama, obviously. This was an historic night. A man of mixed heritage, identified as black by Americans, has just won in an open primary in probably the whitest state in the country. I'm happy he won for three reasons: He's not Hillary; he's not Edwards, and he'll probably lose in the general election despite an effort by the media that will make its efforts on behalf of Clinton, Gore and Kerry look like sleepwalking. Lose that is, to anyone buck Huck.
There are many reasons the vain, pretty-boy John Edwards would make a terrible president. But aside from his obsession with his hair, Edwards has proven time and again to be an unserious would-be commander in chief. Exhibit No. 1,472 from a Jan. 2 NYTimes story:
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — John Edwards says that if elected president he would withdraw the American troops who are training the Iraqi army and police as part of a broader plan to remove virtually all American forces within 10 months. ...Mr. Edwards’s plan, like that of many of his Democratic opponents, is at odds with the strategy developed by American military commanders, who have said the situation is still too fragile to set a timetable for such extensive troop withdrawals and a curtailment of the training effort in Iraq.
Mr. Edwards’s plan calls for immediately withdrawing 40,000 to 50,000 troops. Nearly all of the remaining American troops would be removed within 9 or 10 months. The only force that would remain would be a 3,500-to-5,000-strong contingent that would protect the American Embassy and possibly humanitarian workers.
So, screw the military commanders. Damn the torpedoes — and the measurable success we've achieved in Iraq under Gen. Petreaus — it's full surrender ahead! The only thing that tiny contingent of troops would protect would be our Vietnam-style humiliating evacuation. But, as always with the ambulance-chasing Edwards, his lousy positions are made worse by their slimy opportunism.
Over the past five years, Mr. Edwards’s position on Iraq has undergone a substantial evolution. In 2002, as a senator, Mr. Edwards was among the Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Mr. Edwards has said he was convinced by the intelligence that Saddam Hussein controlled stocks of unconventional weapons, but in the Senate speech explaining his vote he also endorsed the Bush administration’s argument that a new democratic Iraq “could serve as a model for the entire Arab world.”In November 2005, Mr. Edwards wrote an op-ed article for The Washington Post entitled “The Right Way in Iraq,” in which he argued that his earlier vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq was a mistake, while making the point that it was still important to provide American troops with “a way to end their mission honorably.”
To hell with removing the threat of Saddam in a post 9-11 world. To hell with establishing a model for the Arab world. Edwards' new model would be a disastrous replay of the scene below — his idea of ending the Iraqi mission honorably.
How our enemies want to see that. How they have prayed for and predicted that. And how America must never let that come to be.
I actually hope that Edwards does well in Iowa, and perhaps win, as some polls say he might. Let him be the nominee. And let him go the way of McGovern.
My wife observes that USC quarterback John David Booty should have been a baseball player. That way, he could eventually wind up playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Of course, there's always the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Now, there's nothing specifically explicit about pirate's booty, but it gave us a laugh, so I thought we should report it here. Okay, actually, I just like saying booty. And so do the game's announcers, so it would seem.
One day, I'll be telling my grandchildren, "I remember the first time I saw Booty. Booty used to be smaller, thinner, back in the day. I used to love watchin' that Booty pushin' it up and down the gridiron. That Booty knows how to score. Now that same Booty's older, and doesn't move as well, but still gets the job done. I hope we can hold onto our Booty."
Many tinfoil hats will be crumpled upon the news that the PaulBots will not see their hero at the last Fox News debate before the New Hampshire Primary.
"There very well might be some bias," [Paul spokesman Jesse] Benton said. "Ron brings up some topics that aren't very popular with Fox News, as in fiscal responsibility and withdrawing from the war in Iraq ... that does leave us scratching our heads a little bit about whether it was deliberate. Based on metrics, I don't see how you can possibly exclude Dr. Paul."Some livid Paul supporters are distributing e-mails calling for a boycott of Fox advertisers.
Why Fox News would be scared about such daring topics, is not all that clear to me. And, for the record, it was deliberate because Ron Paul Cannot Win — and the hour is long past for indulging fringe candidates.
The lovely Mrs. Zaius and I (along with Mrs. Z's aunt and uncle) got up at zero-dark-thirty to throw poo at cheer the Tournament of Roses Parade. As new residents of Pasadena, we could hardly skip the city's 119-year-old signature event. It was a chilly morning, but we lucked out by randomly picking what would become the sunny and warmer side of the street, about 10-rows from the curb.
We felt a little bad for this family parked right out in front of us, who stayed out all night — the moppets zonked out on sleeping bags. We strolled right up behind them 40 minutes before the parade started and had just as good a view as they did. A rude woman elbowed her way in front of me, hip-checking my wife out of the way to wave her video camera in front of us to get footage of the parade. After about 10 minutes of this, we'd had enough, and I asked her if she had shot enough video. I told her she was rude for taking my wife's place, and she silently skedaddled. I was thanked by another bystander who was put off, so I felt better about being a bit snippy on such a beautiful morning.
But the parade wasn't all flowers and friendly waves. Those afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome were out in force, marching the streets in the hours before the real show began.
I give them five stars for the well-rendered GIANT HEADS and for maintaining their balance. But points off for burning nothing in effigy. Boooooo!!
Ron Paul supporters also walked down Colorado, to yawning indifference. No photo, I'm afraid. Our camera went kablooey right as we were about to download our pics.
To end on a cheerier note: The aforementioned Aunt Z showed us a picture this morning of her young, newly engaged self standing in front of the Queen Mary float at the Tournament of Roses Parade — exactly 40 years ago today. Neat.
Leave Dr. Zaius ALONE!
All you people care about is….. silencing those who would point out that the empress wears no clothes. (Ewwww...)
HE’S A HUMAN! (ah! ooh!) What you don’t realize is that Dr. Zaius is giving you all this insight and all you do is write a bunch of crap about him.
He hasn’t been a real journalist in years. His blog is called “Infinite Moneys” for a reason because all you people want is MORE! MORE-MORE, MORE: MORE!.
LEAVE HIM ALONE! You are lucky he even writes for you BASTARDS!
LEAVE ZAIUS ALONE!…..Please.
