War with Russia

The Republicans are really hot to go to war with Russia. I have no idea what makes them so excited about getting into a war with Russia, but they are.
Of course, it's difficult to manufacture an excuse to go to war with Russia. Russia clearly doesn't care very much about any countries which it doesn't share a border with. But the Republicans are very giddy about the prospect of either a war with Russia directly or a proxy war with Iran.
Mitt Romney thinks that Russia is America's "Number one geopolitical foe." It's the sort of thing which makes you think "Wait, what?"
How is Russia a geopolitical foe of the United States at all?
But remember, the second Bush Administration ran a proxy war with Russia though the state of Georgia.
I don't see that there's any reason they wouldn't do that again if they had the chance. Setting up missiles in Poland, attacking Iranian installations, whatever the Republicans can get away with they will. They are hot to go to war with Russia. And that could be disastrous in a way we haven't seen on earth in over 50 years.

Norabbit.

It almost doesn't matter what else Barack Obama does, if he doesn't actively pursue a war with Russia we'll be better off under an Obama administration than a Romney one.

The Times

Sometimes someone makes a comment on the Internet which is just so dead-on that you can't believe how out-of-it big papers like the New York Times are.

In regards to the Times' hand-wringing about being perceived as "skewing left", Deborah Weiss says:

Basked a bit in the warm glow? A strong current of skepticism holds that the paper skews left? Oh, please. The paper's failure to endorse McCain-Palin in 2008 wasn't evidence of a leftward skew, it was merely evidence of a slight skew toward sanity, from which the Times seems to have recovered very nicely.

Debbie Hayford gets a +1 from the Internet today.

Chickenhawks

Draft-dodger Ted Nugent wants to kill the President.
—
I find the complete disconnect between reality and what the NRA thinks to be somewhat fascinating. They desperately believe that, somehow, Obama is going to take their guns away. The Orlando Sentinel asks if Nugent embarrassed the NRA. But obviously the NRA can't be embarrassed.

In fact, Obama not doing anything is part of the conspiracy to take away our guns. Get it? Right. Exactly.
The NRA likes to think of itself as a one-issue organization. And of course it isn't. But I suspect that the nuttiness will work against them in the general election because to the undecideds and the independents, they just look like a bunch of nut-jobs.
So if you were a pro-gun-rights and pro-Obama person, what organization could you possibly join?

Today's Question

How much larger would Israel's economy be if they didn't have military conscription? What percentage of the GDP is eaten by their semi-universal conscription? You're taking most of your population out of the workforce for more than a year. What exactly does that do?

Vietnam

Or: "My Marines are winning this war, and you people are losing it for us in your papers."
-- Dispatches
+++++
Do you ever say to yourself, "Hey -- I don't really understand what the Vietnam War was all about?" Well don't be too hard on yourself. Nobody understands it. Nobody understood it at the time, and it hasn't started to make more sense since then.
Wikipedia's article on the war is extraordinarily well-written and concise. When I say "concise" I mean it's incredibly long but considering how complicated the war was... well it's pretty darn concise.

I have a friend whose dad was a Lt Colonel on Westmoreland's staff. Apparently the dad said that "General Westmoreland is hands down the stupidest man I've ever met."

The age-old questions are:

• Why did the true believers want the war so badly?
• Why did it take so long for the American public to realize that the government was lying to them?

The US military has been plagued by incompetence since its inception. And the stereotype is that, at least for the beginning of each war, they're fighting it like it was the last war.

The irony is that the lesson the military took from the war was that you couldn't trust the newspapers. The reason that's ironic is because of how credulous the American media was, for so very long. The US newspapers and TV would be the mouthpiece of every general who told them the war was almost over until finally, finally, the BS piled up so much that even they had to finally admit that there was no winning the war.

Boundaries Not Authoritative

And then almost exactly the same thing happened again with the Second Gulf War. Credulous press, believing every lie about Weapons of Mass Destruction. The military opened up to the media just a little bit, so that they could gush over the weapons and the glory of men in battle.
But maybe, just maybe, the total level of Malarky was recognized just a little bit faster this time around. Certainly far fewer people (American soldiers and everyone else) were killed.
+++++
But that's not where I'm going with this. I'm on my way to the Goldwater-Nichols Act and how we have the best (and smartest) military we've ever had.
But I'm not there yet.

How Long Until This Gets a Parody?

If you were going to make a movie of The Turner Diaries it would essentially have the feel of this Santorum spot:

The Turner Diaries has a similar theme of the Government oppressing the poor White people in small down America. The FBI, using Affirmative Action (remember that?) is now all Black agents who rape white women with impunity while the impotent White men are powerless, etc., etc.
And, just like the Turner Diaries, the narrative in this fake movie trailer of Santorum's completely breaks down. After hearing all the horrible things about how the freedom of religion is under attack and there aren't any jobs we hear "one President's failed policies really hit home."
Wait. What?
You gotta be specific, man.
Failed policies? What failed policies?
You just can't go general like that. You absolutely must be specific. (Of course, they can't be specific because there's no real content there -- they can't identify any particular policy having done any particular thing because... well because none of those policies actually exist.)
It also doesn't work dramatically. If you made the movie this spot is pretending to be a trailer for you'd see the evil President declaring martial law and doing all the things which lead to the attacks on religion and higher gas prices. But you don't see those things here (because they don't exist.)
They've also made another critical dramatic mistake in the trailer.
When you hear the typical "In a world where (attack on religion, loss of jobs, threat by Iran), one man ("one President") must do blah-blah-blah in order to save (his family, the world, etc.) This is a formula. And it's a good formula.
But what's the issue here? The "one man" is the supposed antagonist in this spot. No, no, no. The "one man" needs to be the hero. He's Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis. So the Santorum campaign has already defeated its own message by dramatically inserting Obama in the place of the hero protagonist when it says "one President".
These guys are not the A team. They put together a very dramatic spot without realizing the inherent flaws. I'd guess that's because they're all "true believers" so they're willing to overlook the absurdities of their own positions.
And I say to the Santorum campaign "Keep up the good work there."

Neither Onboard or Off

So there's this new "Kickstarter" law that's being passed. By and large I'm favorable toward people being able to crowdsource any sort of funding.
Now I respect Bernie Sanders. And he seems afeared that the law will lead to fraud and (primarily) old people being ripped off.*

So, uh, yeah. I think we need a more sophisticated analysis of this proposed new law to really reach any conclusion.
Certainly the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act is not actually important to startups. I can imagine it might launch a thousand movies -- all of which will lose 100% of the money put into them.
I think too that it might be best if there were a limit to how much an individual could "invest" in all of these Kickstarter-esque startups in a year. Say $500. That way nobody could sink their own pension on putting thousands of dollars into scores of different businesses.
Bernie has a point that this law could create a gazillion mini-Enrons. But the key here is "mini". Not full-sized Enrons. Because every idiot with a half-baked idea will make a public offering. I wonder how much the SEC filing and the yearly costs of one of these corporations will be.

*Hey old people -- why do you fall for scams so easily? Just stop doing that. You didn't fall for them when you were in your 30's and 40's, why do you fall for them now?