Month: March 2004

Endorsements and advisories.

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…I actually had to do real work today, so my usual Must Blog About This Post-it note stash is seriously depleted. Gotta delete that spambot and that’s about it, at least as far as my scribbles go. We’ll combine the two other items: First, North Georgia Dogma has confirmed our worst fears: Cynthia McKinney is … Read more

Broken Record Watch, Part II

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More: Suspected insurgents killed four American civilian contractors in a grenade attack Wednesday in central Iraq, U.S. officials said. Cheering residents in Fallujah pulled charred bodies from burning vehicles and hung them from a Euphrates River bridge. “Barbarous savages,” says Tacitus. True. Our principle enemies in Iraq are bad guys. They’re thugs, assassins, terrorists, criminals. … Read more

Is that a gun? No, it’s a gas pump.

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Not that you can tell the difference much lately. Gas prices in some stations in New York City are over $2.00/gallon. OPEC announces it’s cutting production targets. But don’t worry, Bush knows how to handle this. When running for President in 2000, he said: it was the president’s job to “jawbone” OPEC producers by getting … Read more

Broken Record Watch

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Save for the hands, feet, and (possibly) genitalia, I am a broken record on Iraq. But I seem to be a lonely broken record in the blogosphere, so let’s spin it around once more: We are in danger of losing Iraq. Today’s bombing — though hardly encouraging — is not the reason for my concern. … Read more

Pro Choice Debate

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In the previous entry I pointed out how many pro-life advocates muddy the waters of the abortion debate, and gave advice about how to avoid doing that. Since I am pro-life myself, I won’t be so rude as to give advice to the pro-choice side about how they should argue. That won’t stop me from identifying how some of them poison the well of the debate. If some pro-choice advocates want to use that to steer their compatriots to a more civil debate, I’m not opposed. The polling data on abortion reflects a large amount of unease on the part of the US public. You may believe that the best way to deal with that unease is to use the techniques which I outline below. I suspect (or maybe hope) that such tactics will eventually alienate some voters in the middle, which may cause a sudden shift in abortion politics at some point in the future. If that is true, it may be to your advantage to manage such perceptions so that you have some control over the shift.

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To me, my loyal minions!

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…Oh, right, I don’t have actually have any. Oh, well, so much for that evil notion of everybody going out on April Fool’s Day and posting/commenting as their Spock-has-a-beard Evil Twin*; we’ll instead just use this as an thread for relating classic April Fool’s gags that you, you know, heard about somebody else doing once, … Read more

A minisurvey of what people want re the UN.

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Richard Cohen wants to be able to make a citizen’s UN Resolution so that there can be an official condemnation of Palestinian terrorism, especially the practive of using children as suicide bombers; he also wants everybody not willing to sign such a resolution to shut the hell up. James Joyner wants more Gomer Pyle at … Read more

Honey, not vinegar.

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Lt. Smash demonstrates how to bend elected officials to one’s will – or at least get them to listen attentively for a couple of minutes. Amazingly enough, his technique didn’t require schoolbuses, crowds of demonstrators, flocks of signs and rhyming protests to work; there wasn’t even any violations of private property or abuse hurled at … Read more

Oops?

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Taranto (scroll down) picked up on … actually, I’m not sure if this use of a photo that prominently displayed a ProtestWarrior* poster was an accident, or else the machinations of a VRWC Merry Prankster. Probably the former, although given the generally dour nature of the article it accompanied, you have to wonder. On the … Read more

Just for kicks…

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Let’s revisit a dead horse. There seem to be three main groups of Americans who supported the invasion of Iraq: Those who believed there was a direct threat to the US from Iraqi WMD and that, in and of itself, warranted the invasion (although, granted this includes those who have since reconsidered this in light … Read more

Crashing through the parlor door, what was your first reaction?*

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Well, if you’re the Bush-Cheney campaign, it’s probably the wrong freakin’ one.

UPDATE: Ob Wi demands, and the President responds! (That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.) According to CNN: “The White House will allow national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify in public and under oath before the commission investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks[.]” Good thing we wasted a week coming to that conclusion.

In politics, as in life, it’s typically not the action that gets you. It’s the reaction. This ain’t news. Since Watergate, if not before, pundits have repeated that it’s not the third-rate burglary. It’s not the affair. It’s not the $60K in insider profits. No, it’s the response. The cover-up. The lie. The suggestion that if it takes so much to get a Big Mac outta ya, there’s gotta be an Extra Value Meal in there somewhere.

Bush’s response to his Air National Guard records is a case in point. Kevin Drum (among others) dug and dug and dug and dug. You know what was there? Pretty much nothing. But does anyone think that Bush won that round? A show of hands? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

L’affair Plame. Richard “Do you have a grinder for this axe?” Clarke. George “I prefer to twist in the wind” Bush? Tell me, Virginia, exactly who is afraid of Karl Rove? I’ve seen cannier strategies in student council campaigns — high school student council campaigns.

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How To Be Pro-Life (and still politically relevant)

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I am strongly anti-abortion.

However I believe that the pro-life movement is amazing in its ability to squander good will and obscure even the clear moral points which could aid it. This happens because there are certain truths which the pro-life movement does not accept.

Just because you believe you are morally right doesn’t mean that the people who disagree with you are evil. Not every pro-life advocate believes this. But the debate gets played out by many as if pro-choice advocates were evil and engaged in a vicious plot to kill babies for nefarious reasons of their own.

Abortion questions revolve around a disagreement about the moral and legal status of the unborn. It is not clear to many people that a fetus–especially at the early stages of pregnancy ought to be afforded the same protections as an adult. It may be that this disagreement is willful self-blindness about the status of the unborn in late term pregnancies. But in early term pregnancies you need to understand that many people do not see the fetus as a baby. Believing that everyone sees the fetus as a baby, and then ignores the implications of that is a sure way to get on the wrong track when arguing about abortion. It is perfectly possible to believe that a 4-month fetus is not a child without being evil.

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I don’t know why this struck me…

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… or even how it’s striking me, precisely: President Bush Welcomes Seven Nations to the NATO Alliance. The nations in question are Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Only two of those countries even existed when I was born, and all of them were ruled by dictatorships. Now…. well, according to Freedom House … Read more

Separation of powers issue.

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It’s not so much the violation of private property that bothers me, or the fact that they were actually pounding on the man’s windows. It’s the fact that there are actually people out there who can’t quite get it through their heads that Karl Rove is an advisor to the head of the executive branch … Read more

Adding to the mix again.

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This time, somebody a bit more on my side of the spectrum (just trying to keep up with Katherine, von and Edward all by my lonesome is exhausting, folks); Sebastian Holsclaw has agreeably consented to toss a post or two over here. He’ll still keep his own blog (which doesn’t get the traffic it deserves) … Read more

Two Days and counting.

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To liberal talk radio, that is. Several thoughts: 1). I’d be interested to hear what the people planning to tune into it are hoping to get out of the new service. 2). I’m surprised that there isn’t a more easily-findable website. 3). OK, to tell the truth I’m still perplexed about why they’re busy reinventing … Read more

Hrm.

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While I agree with Skip Perry that giving Cynthia McKinney even the vaguest, slimmest, faintest hope of a chance that she would even be allowed to see her old House seat would be bad, bad, BAD… Rep. Denise Majette’s not a bad choice by the Democrats* to replace the outgoing Zell Miller, she just might … Read more

John Kerry – actually not a theocrat.

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Now normally I let my cobloggers have all to themselves the topics that they’ve stalked and brought down – I can do my own hunting, after all, and there’s a biggggg blogosystem out there – but this one I’m interested in, not least because it’s fascinating to see just how different Kerry’s recent Scripture quoting looks from the other side. Edward’s opinion can be found here… so now let’s talk a little bit about the Epistle of St James.

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Keeping up with the Kerry’s

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It’s got to be tough to find new ways to criticize your opponent in a Presidential race that has 7 months plus to go yet, especially when virtually everyone on your staff is busy defending you against charges by a former aide, but Team Bush really needs to get more focussed. Today, Bush campaign spokesman … Read more

Looking at Art in All the Wrong Places

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/snob alert/ A fellow gallerist who was born in Russia tells the joke about two New Russians who go to an art gallery and haggle with the dealer over a newly available van Gogh (estimates for any of which run in the tens of millions). Eventually they secure it (after an exchange that must be … Read more

This Margolis thing.

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Look, on the one hand I’m appalled by it on general principles, on the other hand I can’t believe that any of my Lefty readers here would have a reaction substantially different than Philosoraptor’s and on the gripping hand I am not entirely certain why Philosoraptor feels the need to apologize quite so comprehensively: he … Read more

Birthdays.

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I was just told that I should mention that today is my 34th birthday. It feels a bit hubristic, not to say self-congratulatory, so instead I’ll make this the Funny Birthday Story Thread; if you’ve got one which isn’t umpteen pages long, let’s hear it.

Why does this fool still have a job?

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The fool in question is Terry McAuliffe, who has apparently acquired a doormat with George Bush on it, the better to have people walk over it. I’m guessing that it didn’t take the Commissar long to remember a parallel to remember somebody else who wanted his visitors to ritually defile the image of an American … Read more

Early night.

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I’ve got a long day ahead tomorrow, after all, here in lovely, exciting Trenton, NJ (a much less interesting vacation spot than the Outer Banks, let me tell you). I probably should stop hogging my buddy’s computer anyway, so let this be a weekend Open Thread about… I don’t know. Intelligent Design? I’m a theistic … Read more

Sing it, Brother.

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Better late than never: Phil Dennison’s discussion of Dizzy City’s Metro system is spot-on. I’ve had to deal with it for over two years now, and let me tell you: I miss the NYC subway system. Better hours of service, more cars, not notably more likely to break down, more likely to find a train … Read more

Hoax Warning

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Normally, I don’t even bother to read this sort of chain-email, even from friends, but some times it’s better to be safe than sorry. A good friend from London passed this along: If a man comes to your front door and says he is conducting a survey and asks you to show him your arse, … Read more

Updates.

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We have a new email address, not to mention a new mailman: Edward, who’s officially here full time now. Other clarifications and changes in the roster to follow; watch this space. Also, our blogfather is finally switching to Scoop. I dunno if this is going to be the final URL for Tacitus, so I won’t … Read more

I’m surprised that it’s still up, frankly.

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Unless, of course, I’ve seriously underestimated the maturity level of my own side’s frothing partisans when shown the vision of Noam Chomsky’s blog. I do notice that Chomsky has already prudently removed comments from his site. Wicked, evil naughty frothing partisans! Bad! No biscuit! (via Pejmanesque, who’s being a blogging purist about the whole thing.)

Not very surprising.

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Although it might seem so, or at least odd, to my generation: US May Halve Forces in Germany.

The Pentagon has drafted plans to withdraw as many as half of the 71,000 troops based in Germany as part of an extensive realignment of American military forces that moves away from large concentrations in Europe and Asia, according to U.S. officials.

Under the plan, which is nearing approval, smaller, relatively spartan bases would be established in Romania and possibly Bulgaria, and designed for the rapid projection of U.S. military power against terrorists, hostile states and other potential adversaries.

Farther east, in Central Asia, bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan that were established in 2001 to support the war in Afghanistan would be preserved as training sites and as staging areas that U.S. forces could use in emergencies.

I am of course pleased to see this added confirmation that the nightmare scenario of my childhood – the one that started with a massive Soviet armored invasion of West Germany and ended with mushroom clouds sprouting over Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, Prague, London, Moscow, Washington – is well and truly dead, at least in its current form. It’s been going on sixty years now: I think that we can safely reduce our military presence in Western Europe to something a bit more reasonable. For that matter, there’s some indication that our new deployments will reflect current geopolitical realities, which is equally welcome. The Cold War is over, too, and I mourn its passing not.

It still feels odd, though. Possibly because so much time and effort was spent preparing for a conflict that never quite materialized, thank God; it’s like climbing a stairway and thinking that there’s one more step than is actually the case. You don’t get hurt when your foot jerks through the air to smack against the floor, but it does put you off your stride.

(Via Outside the Beltway)

Moe

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Blogs that deserve more traffic

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I command you to go read the Fafblog. They’ve just done a redesign, and Fafnir, Giblets, and the dread “Medium Lobster” are on a roll. Be sure not to miss — Fafnir’s Terrorist voting guide: “Ayman al-Zawahiri: STRONGEST CAMPAIGN ISSUES: Tort reform, faith-based initiatives . . . . WOMEN’S RIGHTS: Opposes Roe v Wade on … Read more

Come on Estrada, you’re barely registering here…

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The British-based group Transparency International has announced a “Top 10” list for “most corrupt” among global political leaders over the past 20 years. The complete top 10, with the dates of the rule and estimated sum stolen, are as follows: 1. Mohamed Suharto, Indonesia, 1967-98, 15 to 35 billion dollars 2. Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines, 1972-86, … Read more