Clearly Defined

Today's "Stupid Or Lying?" comes from James S. Robbins at NRO:

Surely the goals of the Iraq war were clearly defined, principally regime change, a national policy adopted under president Clinton and achieved by President Bush. The costs of action were weighed and communicated very openly in the months leading up to the war, and afterward — there is no question of them ever being hidden in any way, and Congress regularly considered and voted on war funding.

Something Called

Hunter at Kos:

I'm most struck by his wording, which was not just dissing volcano monitoring, but more exactly, quote: "something called 'volcano monitoring'". That "something called" part was just strange... what, does the supposed new star of the Republican party not know that we monitor volcanoes? Or that volcanoes are real?

More to the point, what did he think "volcano monitoring" might refer to? I mean, there's only two words there -- which one didn't he understand?  Did he think it was a euphemism for something?  And if so, I almost hesitate to ask: for what?

Not Enough

Conservative legend Bill Bennett says the Right shouldn't call what Obama is doing "Socialism," but the trolls aren't satisfied by the anger they can get out of reality (see the comments at Ace's fairly reasonable post).

Very Sad

Erick Erickson over at RedState:

My three year old calls Ann [Coulter] “Wonder Woman.”

Okay then!

That's Clear

More clear headlines like this please: AP: Obama sets firm date to end Iraq war he inherited

John McCain, Will You Please Go Away?

Wow. John McCain is such an asshole.

Cocaine and Coma

If you wrote for the NY Times, and were writing an article about media stars that use twitter, why would you start it this way?

Left alone in a cage with a mountain of cocaine, a lab rat will gorge itself to death. Caught up in a housing bubble, bankers will keep selling mortgage-backed securities — and amassing bonuses — until credit markets seize, companies collapse, and millions of investors lose their jobs and homes.

And news anchors and television personalities who have their own shows, Web sites, blogs and pages on Facebook.com and MySpace.com will send Twitter messages until the last follower falls into a coma.

Am I missing something about Twitter?

It’s tempting to dismiss Twitter fever as a passing fad, the Pokémon of the blogosphere. But it’s beginning to look more like yet another gateway drug to full-blown media narcissism.

And then the last 20% of the article focuses on Rick Santelli, who doesn't use Twitter. The suggestion is that his rant the other day was the culmination of the self-absorption that the author believes Twitter engenders.

Those who say Twitter is a harmless pastime, which skeptics are free to ignore, are ignoring the corrosive secondary effects. We already live in an era of me-first journalism, autobiographical blogs and first-person reportage. Even daytime cable news is clotted with Lou Dobbsian anchors who ooze self-regard and intemperate opinion.

On-air meltdowns are the new scoops. The CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli, a former trader, delivered a rant last week...

Blech. Blame writer Alessandra Stanley.

There's Not Even Any SINGing!

Big Hollywood writer Mike Baron is confused by this hip-hop stuff, which is totally not music :

Cultural arbiters such as The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and People regularly cover hip-hop as serious art, generally in the music section.  But if music is a combination of rhythm, harmony, and melody, where does hip-hop, with its chanting and choruses “sampled” from better songs fit in?  Is it music?  Not by definition.  It’s a perpetuation of “the dozens,” the tradition of black cultural put-downs and sports-style cheerleading set to a beat.

Wait - where's People's "serious art" section again?

Cheap

Ace of Spades shows a side of stability and honesty:

Agita Alert: Cliff Kincaid Suggests Obama Not Born in US to Applause from CPAC
It's the kind of throwaway line guaranteed to get laughs and applause.

But is it worth it?

Nope. We conservatives are already alienated from the rest of the country by about a 65/35 split on a lot of critical issues. We're already marginalized. We really don't have to increase the marginalization by pushing silly nits like this.

There are a lot of issues we can potentially win on -- but this ain't one of them. I view this as unserious stuff when we'e got to be deadly serious indeed.

John Bolton's Mustache of White Bushy Justice was unable to control its host organism and let out a joke about Chicago being nuked that played well in the hall but isn't exactly politic.

This stuff isn't outrageous or worthy of condemnation. But we just got our asses kicked big time and really should be focusing like lasers on the real, live issues.

But just when I'm starting to think Ace and I might have some points of understanding, he drops this:

Gingrich hosted a roundtable briefing for bloggers this morning and was stressing that, particularly in this environment, we push issues we're already pretty much winning on, such as Drill Baby Drill and cutting business taxes. More of that, less of the cheap and ultimately counterpoductive gags.

Less "cheap" and more "Drill Baby Drill?" I don't understand these people at all.

Dumbo Octopus

What a beautiful creature. Would it have killed them to move the camera a bit closer?

(via Collision Detection)

Well, I Guess It's 66% Of Your Sample Group

An MSNBC reporter interviewed 6 Iraqis for a story on Obama's plans to withdrawl troops from their country. 4 were concerned about what would happen when US troops left, 1 doubted the US would ever leave, and 1 believed it would be okay.

So what is the headline of this story?

Many Iraqis fear ‘hasty’ withdrawal

Good Old Days

John Cole:

During the depression, were there organizations of idiots running around having little tea parties and chanting porkulus?

Triumphant Ends

I was talking recently about putting together a playlist of tracks that represented what I called "Triumphant Ends" - tracks that end albums in a way that presents a shift of some sense from the rest of the tracks of the album. It's like these songs are "the next morning" from the rest of the album - they acknowledge the journey that preceded them, but are separate from it. They are not a summary of that journey, but a kind of transformation beyond it. The focus is not on being epic (although some of those Cocteau Twins tracks are), but on leaving the rest of the album behind.

It's probably best to let the details of the playlist define it, so here's a screenshot of the current collection. Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.

Be Clear

In other news...

Toyota vs. Toy Yoda!

Retired General Becomes Hero Of Eric Dondero-Types

There are some really creepy people out there.

Retired Major General Commanding General Carroll D. Childers:

I can present a long list of reasons, taken individually, which convinced me NOT to vote for Barack Hussein Obama; his crime associates in the USA, his lack of experience, the mystery of his citizenship, his promise to make coal power industry bankrupt through excessive regulations, his constant adjustment of position on issues, his tax plan, his spread the wealth admission, his obvious socialistic goals, his associations with foreign leaders unfriendly to the USA, the lies he tells about a range of subjects including perhaps who his biological father really is, his most recent revelation of having a “National Security Force” (whatever that is)……………all of these says [sic] he is a person of mystery, of no integrity, and in fact paints him with the same narcissist paint of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Mao, and Kim Jong Ill.

But then, there is a simple more direct, easier to understand reason that I did not vote for him and that is his lack of respect for the country that is giving him the opportunity to run for the highest office in the land……..even though I personally think he is not constitutionally eligible.

But more than 50% of America voted for this charlatan and he now has the helm of the ship of state. Even so, he is not MY President. I will not refer to him as such. I will call him Resident Obama, and an illegal resident of the white house at that. I resent him for what he is not. He has not given proof that he is a natural born citizen of these United States. He has spent millions of dollars protecting the truth of his birth from public knowledge; therefore, it is obvious he has something to hide. He is an interloper, a usurper, a fake, a scam artist, a Chicago crook, a recipient of bribes and gratuitous income for which he paid no tax, a socialist (perhaps only a communist or Marxist), and a grave danger to the future of the America that I love and have protected since I was 17 years old.

I have told my two senators and my member of the House of Representatives. I have written 9 justices of the Supreme Court as well as President Bush before he left office. NONE have responded, therefore, they are all complicit and should all be severely punished for having failed in their sworn oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The instant Obamb was sworn in, he violated the oath he took because he took the office knowing he is ineligible and there stood Judge Roberts who should have immediately had Obama arrested and deported.

Other than this, my key short-term complaint is that he has not had a heart attack in office. But most important, what I really want is the truth; is Obama a natural born citizen of the United States. If not a natural born citizen, America has been defrauded and then we would be stuck with Joe Biden whose only redeeming attribute is that he is probably not a communist.

Carroll D. Childers P.E.
Major General (Retired)

(my emphasis)

Clown Eric Dondero is unsurprisingly tingling over this guy.

Shorter Heritage Foundation

Obama Budget Recognizes the Need for More Retirement Savings

• Everything sucks about Obama's budget except for the part we worked on

Sean Hannity's Community Calls For Armed Revolt

Via DougJ, an astonishing piece from a thread at Hannity.com. Yes, this is a participant in a social network, so we cannot blame Sean for it.

But what is Sean going to do about it?



To make sure he's not misunderstood, here's the rest of the post from poll-creator "centerscroll"...

There's a lot of talk on this board about armed revolt [cricket: really?]. I am curious what form of such a revolt the revolutionaries would prefer. I can see a few scenarios:

1. Military Coup - The military deposes the government and declares itself in charge. A junta rules until democracy can be restored, similar to what happened in Pakistan.

2. Armed Rebellion - The fed up civilian population attacks their enemies forcibly. They take to the streets, or wherever they need to go, to ultimately depose the government and install one that follows their own ideals.

3. War for secession - Individual states try to secede and perhaps ultimately must arm to do it.

It's hard for me to see how #1 and #2 could realistically lead to a more constitutional system. Unlike #3, these scenarios are quite different from the American Revolution, which was closer to a secession. The problem in #2 especially is that there is no clear "us" or "them." Since people of different political persuasions are literally intermixed throughout the land, it would require things like killing your own neighbor if they disagree with you politically. While that could certainly work in terms of winning power, it would seem to contradict a lot of constitutional principles, which would presumably be the whole point of such a rebellion to begin with.

#1 is a little more orderly since the military effectively just lops off the governing class, but it also does not appear to lead any kind of constitutional system. Both #1 and #2 most likely lead to strongman type governments like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, where the guy with the most guns ultimately prevails and decides he's the best leader for the rest of eternity. We see these kinds of revolutions in Africa from time to time.

Therefore, #3 seems most realistic, since it does present an opportunity for more homogeneous states to sort of capitalize on their homogeneity. However, it would likely lead to mass migrations of the minority partisans out of the rebel states. Of course, that may be fine with those states.

Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other.

Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt.

This is insane.

Deep Thought

When does Rick Santelli head off on his stint as war correspondent in Israel?

It's Your Friends

Dan Lyons is always such a grumpy old man.

This hatred of twitter by some because somehow they think they'll be forced to hear about what their friends ate for breakfast - it's very strange. Maybe you have weird friends?

Twitter's great because it's the specifics of your own friends' idiosyncracies, the things that are specific about them that you actually like. Don't fear it.

Or, on the other hand, just don't use it. I don't really care.

Keep Cutting!

Cole:

Cut deeper wingnuts! Keep cutting off the insufficiently faithful! Keep cutting till you get it down to the distilled essence of conservative! And when you finally kick all the unbelievers out and have the party whittled down to Joe the Plumber and Rush Limbaugh, be proud of yourself. You just helped kill a major American political party.