An Anarchist Conspiracy to Disrupt Global Markets

So here's the thing. In the post - 9/11 - world the authorities simply can't call protestors "terrorists". They used to, boy, let me tell you. But they just can't anymore. Nobody will buy it. They'll try almost anything else though.

And the other thing I appreciate is the Occupy Wall Street not being all like "Obama is exactly the same as the Republicans" which was basically the message the "Millionaires for Bush and Gore" were all about c2000.

The "left" in America are often all too ready to jump on the Democrats because they're "exactly the same" as the Republicans. Now maybe that level of BS has been reduced because we saw just how bad things got under Bush II ten years ago when the left was saying that so now they think that yeah, OK, maybe the Democrats aren't as bad as Republicans. I dunno.

Mea Culpas

So the New York Times takes a bit of responsibility for the sheer malarky level of hoo-ha they spouted encouraging the US to get into the Iraq invasion.

Keller apologizes. But that's not without caveats:

We forget how broad the consensus was that Hussein was hiding the kind of weapons that could rain holocaust on a neighbor or be delivered to America by proxy.

Uh. No we don't. Even freakin' Newsweek could smell the bullshit on Colin Powell's breath when he tried to convince the UN that Hussein had chemical-weapons trailers that were roaming around the desert.

And you know what? This is total crap:

If there was only a 50-50 chance that Hussein was close to possessing a nuclear weapon, could we live with that? One in five? One in 10? 

 We were aware with 100% assuredness that Iraq had no nuclear program at all before we invaded. You didn't need some sort of high-security clearance to know Iraq no longer had a nuclear program, you only had to ask the scientists who had defected.
Lots of people did. As as much as they hated Saddam Hussein and wanted the US to invade Iraq, they would tell you there was no nuclear program in the years leading up to the invasion.

Whether it was wrong to support the invasion at the time is a harder call. I could not foresee that we would mishandle the war so badly, but I could see that there was no clear plan for — and at the highest levels, a shameful smugness about — what came after the invasion.  

What? Everybody who had any sense at all at the time realized that. In fact, the whole argument about news agencies vs those political bloggers (ahem) came about because so many blogs called the whole thing right -- right down the line. It was completely eminently clear that there was no plan for after the invasion. The whole military point the Administration was trying to make was that we get in, topple the government, and get out. How could you not remember that?
And then to whine that people don't trust you anymore?

“Whatever we wrote — no matter what it was, and no matter how well documented — was dismissed as Bush propaganda,” added Dexter Filkins, who covered the battlefields and politics of Afghanistan and Iraq for The Times...

Do you remember that the New York Times had an actual mole for the Bush Administration as a member of its reporting staff?

Meh

The Washington Post -- pthththht. Kessler hates the chart that would dare show that Obama didn't somehow magically increase the debt the way the right wing likes to pretend he did.

"But the biggest problem is that this is just dumb math. What really counts is not the raw debt numbers, but the size of the debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product."

Really? Dumb math? Maybe you could argue that's a methodological error. But the bad math accusation doesn't really hold water here. (There apparently had been a math error but Nancy Pelosi's office corrected it and that's reflected in the chart above.) The math is perfectly fine.

What they would like to see is a chart which shows debt as a percentage of GDP. Which, by wacky coincidence, makes Obama look bad (although it arguably makes Republicans look worse).

But the claims that Pelosi is somehow "cherry - picking" her data by insisting the data be cherry-picked even more is absurd. Yeah, if we put enough disclaimers on our charts (that it's "public" debt vs. gross debt) or add enough figures (debt as a portion of blonde-haired-children GDP) then I'm sure we can find numbers that will please the Tea Party.

But the fact is that the chart isn't bogus. 

Bore Me

I don't like my government to be exciting. I like it to be bland and boring. That's why I like Barack Obama as a President. In campaigns he's good at being fiery. But when he's actually governing he's staid, mature, and thoughtful.

You Know What?

I don't feel like reflecting on the tenth anniversary of 9-11. Why should those ass monkeys who killed thousands of people be able to tell me what to do with my Septembers from now on? Those douche canoes don't deserve the time of day, much less a week of hand wringing remembrance.
The people who were killed? Well the way I was brought up I believe that they don't care. They've moved on to a better place.

The people who loved those who were lost? Actually, those people can and should do whatever they want. Grief is a complicated thing.
I just don't want the media shoving it down my throat for the next few days.

I'm sorry

Do you still doubt my contention that 911 wouldn't have happened if Al Gore had become President?
This bunny is as surprised as you are.

Sarah Palin is a communist

OK, so it's kinda obvious that if Sarah Palin were running in a different universe, in a different country at a different time she'd be going on and on about how perfectly socialist her state of Alaska, where they share the oil wealth among the people. Oh wait, she already does that.
Yeah, sometimes she really sounds like a fellow traveler.

Like here when she was in Iowa she would like 2012 candidates to fight "croney capitalism."
Are we suddenly Union guys back in a company town? In 1911?
She sounds like Eugene Debs for crying out loud.
Of course, to be fair, she did follow that up with a screed about lowering corporate income taxes. But to me she sounds like someone who in a different place and time would be the great SP party member...
Then the right wing would make fun of her kids' names.