what is chomsky’s rebuttal to skinner regarding the assigned material this week? (pp. 53-54)

September 30, 2005

Right On Fourth dimension

By my ascertainment, colonial wars ever take three stages in the minds of supporters:

1. We've got to assistance these people!
2. Why are these people resisting our attempts to help them?
3. These people MUST BE KILLED!!!!!!!!

I didn't want to see this procession broken in Iraq. That would mean I'd have to rethink my view of reality, and that always makes me mad.

So, I'one thousand pleased to learn Thomas "The Apotheosis of Human Folly" Friedman is right on time:

Perchance the contemptuous Europeans were correct. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as nosotros encounter just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to exist. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and nosotros should stay to help build it. If they won’t, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and get out the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the current of air. Nosotros must not throw more skilful American lives later good American lives for people who hate others more than than they love their own children.

This would be awfully funny if information technology didn't involve the potential death of millions.

No, wait—it's still funny!

At to the lowest degree if you are non the person being garroted!

Via The Poorman.

September 29, 2005

Popes Are Catholic; Goth Lead Singers Are Morbid; Politicians Are Disgusting

I used to joke that the Soviet Union collapsed because they only had one communist party. They'd still exist around if they'd been smart plenty to have two communist parties that were exactly alike on every issue except abortion.

So, here'southward an excerpt from a tangentially-connected post by Limited, Inc.:

[Begin] past viewing the parties as dead machinery. Not every bit ideologically colored, but every bit primarily vehicles to achieve political power by politicians. At present, just as we know that goth lead singers are going to be morbid, nosotros know that politicians and those in the inner circle of politics are by and large going to be disgusting. I mean that special level of disgusting, that level on which every human activity of niceness, of goodness, is actually aimed at some incredibly narrow self-interested terminate. Politics collects manipulators. Furthermore, it is impossible to view politicians merely in terms of their political careers. In the historic period of large national governments, politicians long ago learned that this is a very good way to channel up and brand money – with an constituent office just the junket that prepares one for the bucks of lobbying, corporate lath membership, or the one thousand and one ways to milk the moo-cow that have developed since 1940 in D.C. Cheney merely puts into starker terms the reality of D.C. politics – it is all about making it in the â€Å"individual sector,” which is really as connected to the public sector as the function of the dryer is connected to the function of the washer. For a liberal like me, keeping my optics on this primary fact – thinking, for instance, that it is equally important in the career of Madeleine Albright that she lobbies for the Kuwaiti regime as it is that she used to work for the Clinton assistants – that the switches, hither, are seamless -- is 1 way to become out of the magic circumvolve cast past the reputation of the Democratic and Republican parties. For more politically important people than myself – people who govern NGOs like the Sierra club, or Moveon, etc. – this is a crucial footstep, although somehow I dubiousness they will ever take it. Eventually, they all plug into D.C. courtroom society.

You should read information technology all. (Via.)

September 28, 2005

What I Do With My Time

When I first heard the They Might Be Giants song "Particle Man" many years agone, I was dissatisfied. As excellent every bit the song was, I felt the three verses weren't enough to brand information technology artistically consummate. Specifically, it needed ii more verses right in the middle.

I sent "encephalon waves" to John Flansburgh and John Linnell to encourage them to expand the song in this way. The results were negligible. So, I was forced to come upwardly with the boosted verses myself.

These lyrics were long thought lost to history. However, I just constitute them in a box. Hither they are:

(Added verses are in bold. You'll enjoy this much more if you lot sing it to yourself.)

Particle homo, particle man
Doing the things a particle can
What'due south he similar? It's not important
Particle human

Is he a dot, or is he a speck?
When he's underwater does he get wet?
Or does the h2o get him instead?
Nobody knows, Particle man

CHORUS:
Triangle man, Triangle man
Triangle homo hates particle man
They have a fight, Triangle wins
Triangle man

Testicle human, testicle man
Spreading the wealth with both his easily
Finds the eggs sacs in the sand
Testicle man

Has some orders just for yous
Has a program you must run into through
Won't close upwardly until you do
Ex why man, testicle human

Intellect human being, intellect man
Shiny hope from another land
And brand new prison cell all spic and span
Intellect man

Love machines to fly down there
Guns to shoot off all the hair
Lose on all fronts everywhere
Who's the man, intellect man

CHORUS:
Triangle human, Triangle man
Triangle human being hates intellect man
They have a fight, Triangle wins
Triangle human being

Universe man, Universe human
Size of the unabridged universe man
Usually kind to smaller homo
Universe man

He's got a watch with a minute paw,
Millenium manus and an eon hand
When they meet information technology's a happy state
Powerful human being, universe man

Person human, person man
Hit on the head with a frying pan
Lives his life in a garbage tin
Person human

Is he depressed or is he a mess?
Does he experience totally worthless?
Who came upward with person man?
Degraded human being, person human

CHORUS:
Triangle man, triangle homo
Triangle homo hates person man
They have a fight, triangle wins
Triangle man

Bob Harris Causes Crime

Here'south an exchange between Mike Brown and Rep. Steve Buyer at the Congressional hearings yesterday:

BUYER: So I’d like to know why did the president’s federal emergency assistance announcement of Baronial 27th not include the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines?

BROWN: …[I]f a governor does not asking a item county or a particular parish, that’due south non included in the asking...

BUYER: Let me ask this. Since you went through the exercise in Pam, was that not shocking to you that the governor would exclude New Orleans from the declaration?

Chocolate-brown: Aye.

Nosotros may never know for sure, simply I think it's most certain Heir-apparent's question was inspired past this September 7th mail on Bob Harris' site, pointing out the weird exclusion of Southeastern Louisiana from Bush'southward emergency declaration. Few people if any had noticed this before him, and the post zipped all over the world, Bob was asked about it by the BBC, etc. I doubtable it also made its manner to Congress.

Best of all, Brown apparently was lying about what Governor Blanco requested. Thus, Bob may be directly responsible for getting the ex-caput of FEMA to perjure himself.

I don't run across how anyone could argue this isn't a cute, cute affair.

(Via.)

September 27, 2005

New Slogans For The Autonomous Party

Before I wondered who knew which U.S. President's family unit fortune came from selling opium. This is a shard of data that was unknown to me until 2002, so I was curious how widely it's known.

The answer I was looking for was Franklin D. Roosevelt, although I may accept been wrong about there being just ONE president whose coin was opium-based. In any case, cheers to Bob of Bob's Links and Rants for existence the get-go person to chime in with FDR. But don't have our give-and-take for it; just ask the National Park Service:

Sara Delano Roosevelt [FDR'south mother] was the daughter of Warren Delano, a wealthy merchant who made a fortune in the tea and opium trade in Cathay...

This—combined with Joseph Kennedy'south enthusiastic business dealings with bootleggers during prohibition—has ever made me recall the Democratic party should come up up with some new slogans. For instance:

"The Autonomous Political party: All Our Best Guys are the Children of Druglords."

"The Democrats: Blood Money FOR THE PEOPLE."

Other suggestions welcome.

UPDATE: The comments are significantly funnier than the post.

September 26, 2005

There's A Side To Ann Coulter You Don't Know Near

Here'south some important information about Pat Tillman:

Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely contained thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country all the same was critical of President Bush and opposed the state of war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World State of war Two and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author.

What most people don't know is that it was Tillman's adoration of Chomsky that caused Ann Coulter to refer to him as "virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male tin can exist."

Even less known is that privately Coulter uses exactly the same words to depict Chomsky himself.

UPDATE: Somehow I missed this important part:

[Tillman's female parent] Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat's even arranged a individual meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place later his render from Afghanistan — a coming together prevented by his death.

Was this friend who arranged the Chomsky meeting Ann Coulter? You might think the answer is obviously yes, because of her great adoration and affection for both Tillman and Chomsky. But my sources say no, it was actually Sean Hannity.

September 25, 2005

What You Should Do

You should run into The Abiding Gardener, even though the cinematography and editing will nigh requite y'all an epileptic seizure.

UPDATE: Speaking of the rapacious exploitation of other countries by Europe, En Ming Hee in comments mentions the opium trade. Then hither's a question: which U.S. president's family fortune came from opium?

This is #xc,412 on the listing of things they don't teach y'all in school.

The Nasser Quote That Never Goes Out Of Style

Hither'due south Larry Johnson, former CIA amanuensis, on his discussions with people he knows in the mideast:

Our friends and allies naively believe that we have a plan and know what we are doing... they are convinced that we have a secret plan we are non sharing with them... They expect at me with atheism and bewilderment when I tell them at that place is no secret plan and we are as incompetent as they fright.

At present, here's something Gamal Nasser said to Miles Copeland—some other CIA agent—in the fifties:

The genius of y'all Americans is that yous never made lucent stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which makes us wonder at the possibility that in that location may be something to them nosotros are missing.

Human, that's an evergreen.

Stephen Colbert: Yikes

Exercise non miss this interview with the alarmingly funny Stephen Colbert. Though be forewarned it includes something about his babyhood that's the contrary of funny.

September 24, 2005

The Most Popular Discipline Ever

For those of y'all fascinated by Columbia University economists—and really, who among u.s. isn't?—here'south an article by Doug Henwood near the peculiar career of peculiar Jeffrey Sachs.

September 23, 2005

An Bodily Serious Question

Here's something from a Times of London story nearly Iran'south growing ability in Republic of iraq:

Iraqi and British officials interviewed this week said Iran’s growing influence is being felt from Basra in the south to Baghdad in the due north, where Iranians are blamed for stoking sectarian tension, undermining the coalition and trying to create a breakaway Islamic state in southern Iraq.

Responding to the clashes in Basra this calendar week, Donald Rumsfeld, the Usa Defence Secretarial assistant, accused Tehran of being â€Å"interested”, â€Å"involved” and â€Å"not helpful”.

Tougher language is being heard in the Arab world, where Iran has been a foe from the fourth dimension of the Persians. Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister, said: â€Å"We fought a war together to keep Islamic republic of iran out of Republic of iraq afterwards Republic of iraq was driven out of Kuwait. Now we are handing the whole country over to Islamic republic of iran without reason.”

Maybe al-Faisal was misquoted. But if non, here's a existent, serious question: what is he talking about?

Ie, what "war" is he referring to? After the Gulf State of war in 1991, Saddam of course viciously put downwardly the Shiites in southern Iraq. Was there some involvement in this by Saudi Arabia (or America) beyond just sitting back and watching information technology happen?

Moving Right Along, Without Any Indication Of Embarrassment

Hey, look over here at these things! Look! Look at them!!!

1. The interesting yet deeply depressing words of Hedgehog at Rhinocrisy about pinnacle oil.

ii. Chris Floyd'south heartfelt phone call for decorum.

3. Bob Harris' Return to Upsidedownland.

don't look here

Do You Remember When We Starting time Met? Dorsum When We Had The Ability To Hover Several Hundred Feet In Mid-Air?

For the past few weeks, Salon has been intermittently running wink ads for Visa. They begin with the statement, "I wish we could relive the nighttime we first met" and so segue into a picture of a happy couple eating dinner with a nighttime city skyline behind them. If yous have flash y'all can watch the department of it I grabbed, here.

Otherwise, here's a frame from it. The city in the groundwork is clearly Chicago—you tin encounter the Chicago River and Sears Tower:

What I bask is that, judging by the view, the happy couple is floating several hundred feet in a higher place Lake Michigan. Peradventure the Visa ad is targeted at the demographic of "affluent people who are not subject area to gravity."

The above claim was, in fact, completely wrong. The view is not looking westward down the Chicago River as it enters Lake Michigan, but south downwardly the river from where information technology forks. Thus, the whole raison d'etre of this mail service has collapsed.

Still—and I call back this is the important function—this would have been a very, very funny thing to point out in an alternate universe. In other words, it is comedy from another dimension. I am disappointed, though not surprised, that normal people have a hard time appreciating information technology.

September 22, 2005

Again, I Notice Myself Stymied By Life On World

Curtis Dahlgren of Renew America speaks:

I guess I've been writing about the Puritans lately because Katrina means "Purity." Liberal academics take a fear of "looking dorsum" upon history--much like Frankenstein's fearfulness of looking at a cross (that may exist fifty-fifty more profound than modesty would appear to let). What else would explicate recent judicial "edicts"?

"Frankenstein"—ha! What an embarrassing fault by Mr. Dahlgren!

Obviously the reference should be to Frankenstein's monster.

(Via.)

Welcome, Readers Of Juicy Matures!

I've been flattered still dislocated to see this site's referral logs reporting a great deal of traffic coming here from such fine establishments as:

• JuicyMatureWives.com
• Juicy-Hotties.com
• SweetMatureWives.com
• Juicy-Matures.com
• Immoral-Wives.com

and of course:

• Armonia-Hotel.com, which appears to be a German site offering "Preview of Tranny Porn Movies and shemale beauty"

And then, what the fuck is going on? The general phenomenon seems to have started in April. Does information technology have something to do with annotate/trackback spam? Or have these sites somehow surreptitiously stuck something on my server that they're linking to? For example, this site once (though no longer) had this in its source code:

this.certificate.write(" left caret img src=http://tinyrevolution.com/ + Math.random() + "' width='1' height='one' border='0'>"

Whatsoever insight/advice from the Net Overbrain would be greatly appreciated.

September 21, 2005

A Joke

My favorite joke of today comes from the unrepentant English major King of Zembla:

Yous come across, Mr. Gittes, most bloggers never have to alive with the knowledge that, at the right fourth dimension, in the right place, they are capable of posting... anything.

To truly understand the joke, y'all volition have to go here.

Runner upwardly in the joke contest: "America'due south bustiest governor".

At that place'southward Stuff On The Internet!!!

Professor William Domhoff at UC-Santa Cruz has a new website. It'southward based on and extends his volume Who Rules America?.

Domhoff is besides the author of Irresolute the Powers that Exist: How the Left Tin can Stop Losing and Win. Don't miss the first Amazon review, which is by a sure David Swanson.

UPDATE: Here's a keen quote from Who Rules America? It's from a 1788 letter abode from Thomas Shippen, a rich young man from Philadelphia, who was visiting the French court at Versailles:

...a certain caste of equality is essential to human bliss. Happy above all Countries is our State, where that equality is found, without destroying the necessary subordination.

I Have A Question

Merely before the get-go of the Iraq war, a British Lieutenant Colonel named Tim Collins gave a speech in Kuwait to about 800 British soldiers:

We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Republic of iraq to complimentary a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their ain. Show respect for them...

It is a large footstep to take another human life. Information technology is not to be washed lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. I can assure you they alive with the mark of Cain upon them...

If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international police and ensure that one day they get abode to their family. The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please...

Equally for ourselves, let's bring anybody dwelling and leave Republic of iraq a better place for us having been there.

Our business now is due north.

The speech was beloved by state of war supporters, because it expressed then clearly their self-image: tough and manly—yet righteous. Plain George Bush-league loved it so much he requested a copy to put on the wall of the Oval Role.

This week, yet, Tim Collins—at present retired from the British military—wrote this:

It is time for our leaders to explain what is going on. It was every bit a battalion commander trying to explicate to his men why they would embark on a war that I came to public find. The irony is that I made sure assumptions that my goodwill and altruistic motivations went to the top. Clearly I was naive.

And then here's my question, which I would appreciate if some reporter would ask Scott McClellan:

Is George Bush going to put THAT on the wall of the Oval Office?

UPDATE: Your Correct Hand Thief got here style before me.

September 20, 2005

Telling the Truth

Sam Husseini has an original proffer for an Republic of iraq go out strategy.

September xix, 2005

My Goodness

I strive not to write the "Await At This Ludicrous Thing [Someone Whose Political Viewpoint I Disagree With] Said On Their Blargh!" type of post. Life is too short. Life would be too short for that even if human life expectancy were seven,000,000 years.

However, I have to make an exception for screenwriter/novelist/lid-wearer Roger Simon. He recently read an AP story quoting the president of Islamic republic of iran saying, "Iran is set to transfer nuclear know-how to the Islamic countries due to their need."

From that, Simon drew this conclusion:

If Saddam Hussein were still in power he wouldn't have to go as far equally Niger or anywhere near that for for help in obtaining nuclear arms. He could go all the assistance he needed right next door.

I read this and I feel... stymied. I feel stymied just as I would if Roger Simon had revealed a belief that Saddam Hussein was just about to get nuclear weapons from Israel. I experience stymied as I would if Simon earnestly said we live on a planet called Xerxis IX, and so began expounding on Xerxisian political conditions.

Before the invasion of Iraq, I sometimes asked people gung-ho for war if they could tell me the history of the mideast since World State of war Ii. Nothing fancy, just five minutes of the basic highlights. I never met a single pro-war person who could.

September 18, 2005

September 16, 2005

Neat Moments In The Not-Comprehension Of Acronyms

I sympathise some people are irritated whenever someone says:

I have to become to the ATM machine.

...since they're actually maxim:

I take to get to the Automated Teller Machine machine.

That doesn't really irk me that much. Even so, I was deeply irritated and/or tickled to meet this judgement in Thomas Friedman's latest column:

...although its fourth and eighth graders already score at the height of the Timss international math and science tests, Singapore has been introducing more innovations into schools.

...considering, given what TIMSS stands for, Friedman was writing:

...although its fourth and eighth graders already score at the tiptop of the Trends in International Math and Science Report international math and science tests, Singapore has been introducing more than innovations into schools.

Read it out loud for the most funniness.

By the manner, in addition to my in-depth knowledge of the Iraqi WMD programs and Social Security, I also know a groovy deal about international educational comparisons.

How my life turned out like this is a sorry and tawdry tale.

At present More Than Ever, It's Critical That Nosotros Larn Nothing From History

Mike Gerber likes to refer to the History Channel every bit the Learn Zilch From History Channel. This is i of my favorite jokes ever made by anyone.

In honour of this joke, I would like to indicate something out. Everyone is familiar with this famous section of the October, 2004 article by Ron Suskind:

In the summer of 2002, later on I had written an article in Esquire that the White Firm didn't like nigh Bush's sometime communications manager, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White Business firm's displeasure, and and so he told me something that at the fourth dimension I didn't fully embrace -- merely which I now believe gets to the very centre of the Bush presidency.

The adjutant said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based customs,'' which he defined every bit people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something nearly enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cutting me off. ''That'due south not the way the world really works anymore,'' he connected. ''We're an empire now, and when we human action, nosotros create our ain reality..."

Now, here'southward part of George Kennan's 1946 clarification of the Soviet Marriage in his famous "Long Telegram":

[The Soviet Union] is seemingly inaccessible to considerations of reality in its basic reactions. For information technology, the vast fund of objective fact about man society is not, as with u.s.a., the mensurate against which outlook is constantly being tested and re-formed, but a grab bag from which individual items are selected arbitrarily and tendenciously to bolster an outlook already preconceived... Problem of how to cope with this forcefulness is undoubtedly greatest task our affairs has ever faced and probably greatest it will ever accept to face.

Hmm.

Remember the Long Telegram is one of the all-time-known documents ever in The states foreign policy, and part of the assigned reading in any college class on post-World War Two history. Then you'd expect a senior adviser in whatever administration would realize the peculiar resonance of what he/she was saying about "reality."

However, you'd await incorrect! That's because these days senior White Firm advisers don't accept the fourth dimension to do former-fashioned things like reading. They're besides busy watching the Learn Nothing From History Channel.

September 15, 2005

Something I Bet You Didn't Know

Everyone remembers this famous quote from Condoleezza Rice:

"I don't think everyone could have predicted that these people would take an plane and slam it into the Earth Trade Center, have some other one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

You probably know this wasn't, uh, 100% truthful. In addition to lots of other bear witness, we only learned this:

American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," according to previously secret portions of a study prepared last twelvemonth by the Sept. 11 commission.

But here'due south something I bet you didn't know:

William Harlow was the Director of Public Affairs—ie, chief spokesman—for the CIA from 1997 to 2004. He was quoted all the time in the news after the September 11th attacks. But Harlow did more than simply PR; he as well had written a novel published in 1999 chosen Circle William.

The plot of Circle William revolves around an try by terrorists to crash a commercial airliner into the Knesset in Israel.

Information technology would exist incredible enough that Condoleezza Rice would say what she did, while all the while the public face of the CIA had written a volume with almost that precise topic. But here'south something more than incredible: the media never, ever noticed this.

In fairness to them, of course, it was extremely difficult to detect this out. I was only able to do so by using a special technique I developed, which I call "Having a Library Menu."

Also, retrieve that xc% of the reporters at the New York Times don't speak English. And even if one of the 10% did become ahold of the book, there are no lights in the Times' offices, so it would exist too nighttime for them to read it.

• • •

ALSO: Circumvolve William is pretty entertaining, and oftentimes genuinely funny.

September fourteen, 2005

Let's All Fleck In To Buy These Guys A Thesaurus

The Washington Post reports this:

With an 60 minutes-long slide show that blends satellite imagery with disquieting assumptions about Iran's nuclear free energy program, Bush assistants officials have been trying to convince allies that Tehran is on a fast track toward nuclear weapons.

The PowerPoint conference, titled "A History of Darkening and Charade," has been presented to diplomats from more than than a dozen countries. Several diplomats said the presentation, intended to win allies for increasing force per unit area on the Iranian authorities, dismisses ambiguities in the evidence about Iran's intentions and omits alternative explanations nether contend amidst intelligence analysts.

I understand that it's the task of the American authorities to have no sense of shame—since if they had a sense of shame, they couldn't bear to practise this kind of thing afterwards what happened with Republic of iraq. So I don't quarrel with that. But... couldn't these guys at least come upward with some NEW WORDS?

Iraq—its infrastructure of darkening, charade and intimidation

This study draws upon a number of sources, including intelligence material, and shows organisations whose job it is to continue Saddam and his regime in power, and to foreclose the international customs from convincing Republic of iraq, how the Iraqi authorities is constructed to take, and to keep, WMD, and is now engaged in a campaign of obstruction of the United Nations Weapons Inspectors.

Story via Chris Floyd.

September 13, 2005

Things To Do

You could read and/or listen to:

ane. An interview with the always-compelling Uri Avnery most Israel's detachment from Gaza:

The not bad majority of Israelis are non aware of the real and present danger to Israeli republic. They nevertheless have the illusion that this is something that volition pass. Only when people realize that existent danger is there and that people must come out and face it will there be a gamble that some leadership will emerge. One tin only hope that it volition non be too tardily. I'1000 very much reminded of the last days of the Weimar Democracy. I think virtually it constantly. And I think that the dangers that people were facing at that time are hither. It has been said that the Weimar Republic collapsed not because the fascists overthrew it, but because at the moment of truth no one was prepare to step upwards and defend the Republic. This nightmare pursues me.

2. David Moberg asking, Will History Repeat Itself?" regarding America's response to flooding in Louisiana.

iii. An analogy from Chris Grayson in which Tom Filibuster plays the part of the hurricane.

4. This American Life's prove most the aftermath of the hurricane.

5. An NPR interview with Kurt Vonnegut nigh his new volume A Man Without a Country

September xi, 2005

Today Is The Fourth Anniversary Of An Enormous Opportunity

I thought information technology would be overnice to mark today, September 11, 2005, with a brusque test.

Here's the first question: what is this?

What did yous guess? Did you lot say "That's the terminal moments of the lives of thousands of people"? Or "That's a hideous deed of mass murder"? Or "That's the beginning of a lifetime of suffering for everyone who loved someone who died at the World Trade Center"?

Wrong! The right respond is: that is an OPPORTUNITY, an ENORMOUS OPPORTUNITY:

Through my tears I see opportunity.

—George Bush, September 20, 2001

If the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11 bookend a major shift in international politics, then this is a period not simply of grave danger, merely of enormous opportunity. Before the clay is dry once again, America and our friends and our allies must move decisively to take reward of these new opportunities.

—Condoleezza Rice, April 29, 2002

Now hither'due south the second question: what is this?

This question is a trivial harder. Some people might answer, "That'due south the grotesque Al Qaeda bombing of a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya in November, 2002." Others might say, "It'southward the place where terrorists murdered thirteen people, including Israeli brothers Noy and Dvir Anter, ages 12 and thirteen." Or, "That'south the place where, CNN reported, 'screaming children covered in blood searched desperately for their parents among the wreckage.'"

Of course, those are dumb answers. The right answer is: it is a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY:

Israeli officials view concluding week'southward terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in Republic of kenya, plain by Al Qaeda or an affiliated group, equally reinforcing their statement that Israel and the West are battling a single enemy.

Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting with ministry staff in the aftermath of the Kenya attacks, said that the incidents had presented State of israel with a "golden opportunity" to strengthen its strategic ties with the United states and other Western countries.

At present, hither's the final question: what is this?

I hope you didn't reply, "That's a young Iraqi girl covered in the blood of her parents, who'd merely been killed by U.S. soldiers terrified of car bombers." Or, "Something that every American should exist atoning for until the day we die."

Because, again, those answers are stupid! The right reply is, that's a motion-picture show of yet some other GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY:

Targeting America in Republic of iraq in terms of economy and losses in life is a golden and unique opportunity. Do not waste it simply to regret it afterwards.

—Osama bin Laden, Dec, 2004

Probably my betoken here is clear. Simply I will go ahead and spell it out.

For normal people, information technology'southward an unmitigated tragedy when their boyfriend citizens are killed in terrorist attacks or wars. Normal people cry, get afraid, and think of children who at present have no parents and parents who at present accept no children.

For our would-be "leaders," however—in every land—the situation is dissimilar. Of class, they pretend to feel the same as normal people. They requite teary-eyed speeches near sorrow and suffering.

And yet, behind their tears, in that location seems to be something else. When they think no one is looking, you glimpse another expression flitting across their face. You think information technology couldn't be. But—yep, incredibly enough, they're smiling. Because before the bodies are cold, earlier the mothers have stopped shrieking, our leaders are thinking:

This is really a FANTASTIC OPPORTUNITY.

And for them it is. It's an opportunity for them to do any they wanted to practise before, but couldn't become away with. It'south an opportunity for them to smear anyone who criticizes them equally disloyal. It's an opportunity for them to get much more powerful than they always could be in peacetime. Leaders dear war. That's why there's then much of it.

It's understandably hard for almost people to come to terms with this. It's terrifying to believe your leaders may secretly be, uh, not and then sad if you die. But all you have to do is listen to them, and they'll tell you lot.

Can we change this? Maybe. But the get-go footstep in changing reality is facing it, no matter how ugly and frightening it is.

Happy September 11th!

September x, 2005

Everyone Connected To Everything

There'due south an extremely interesting post on Jonathan "Hugo Zoom" Versen's site about his mother Nezhat. Endeavour not to read between the lines nearly the effect stupid, fell politicians must have had on her life, considering it would brand you rip out your hair in anger.

Amidst the highlights:

• she left Iraq at seventeen past herself in 1951 to come to the U.s. to go to college
• she hosted an Iraqi children's Television receiver bear witness in the late fifties
• she liked to sing "Over the Rainbow" to Jonathan V. over the telephone

Read the whole thing.

September 09, 2005

I Am Impressed

I'm a grumpy malcontent and generally don't go enthusiastic about anything. Just I'm impressed with Independent World Television.

IWT wants to build a real telly news network without regime funding or advertising revenue; essentially the plan is just to ask people for coin. At first glance I thought this was ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. But no. They are trying to appeal to the entire English speaking world—ie, not but in the United states of america only besides Canada, England, Australia, fifty-fifty Bharat. And if they tin can go one one thousand thousand people to pony up $100 per year, they'd accept more than enough cash.

Add together to this the fact that IWT is fabricated up of serious people who really know what they're doing, and that they've already gotten serious startup money both from foundations and the Canadian Car Workers.

Across that, I just similar their general social-movement-can-do-non-sourpuss attitude. I urge you to check them out, watch their video, and read the thoughts of IWT Chair Paul Jay on Hurricane Katrina, complete with historical references.

September 07, 2005

Longstanding Taibbi Mystery Solved

Fancy Robot and David Weigel are both wondering—is that Matt Taibbi behind Sean Penn?

Sources close to Taibbi confirm that the answer is: yes. Obviously something happened in New Orleans recently and he went down there to write about it for Rolling Stone.

Speaking of which, in all the idiotic stories making fun of Sean Penn, I've never seen any that mention an apparently pertinent fact: Penn is in a new pic version of All the King'south Men coming out later this year, and it was partially filmed in New Orleans. So it'south not surprising he'd feel obligated to help.

Man, I hope they don't massacre the book, which is certainly one of the greatest novels I've e'er read.

We clocked off 5 miles more, and I said, "But suppose at that place isn't anything to detect?"

And the Dominate said, "There is ever something."

And I said, "Maybe not on the Judge."

And he said, "Homo is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something."

September 06, 2005

The Eternal Puzzle

Avedon Carol has been trying to find out who originally said this:

"Whatever sufficiently avant-garde incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."

Whoever information technology was, they were correct. If y'all were sitting on the roof of your New Orleans house last week waiting to drown, you probably weren't wondering whether the Bush administration was acting out of incompetence or malice or a exciting combination of both.

Further away from the destruction, though, it'south hard not to enquire: idiots? evil? evil idiots?

In whatsoever case, information technology's skillful to remember that this is a puzzler that has arisen throughout the ages in many countries. For instance, here's George Orwell, writing more than than 60 years ago:

Information technology is still very uncertain what programme they acted on... and they may take had no clear plan at all. Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most hard questions of our fourth dimension.

September 05, 2005

How To Be Treated As Normal While Beingness Completely Insane

The Washington Post editorial board has some expert news almost the destruction of New Orleans:

In general, disasters depress economic output temporarily -- companies and infrastructure that sustain damage stop producing until they are repaired -- only then comes a reconstruction phase that delivers a compensating boost to the economic system... Twelve months from now, the economy may exist bigger than it otherwise would have been.

This is true. It may be that, because of the huge corporeality of economic activity that will go into cleaning up and rebuilding New Orleans, America'south Gdp will be larger in a year than it would take been otherwise. And and so if you're a sure kind of person—the kind who writes Washington Post editorials or reads them—you lot read that and you lot feel practiced. The economic system may plough out great!

Except...

Doesn't information technology seem that if the fashion we measure things shows that the obliteration and forced reconstruction of a huge American metropolis is positive, THERE'S SOMETHING Incorrect WITH THE WAY Nosotros Mensurate THINGS?

For example, let's say we decided to hold a nationwide lottery with 100,000 winners. The winners would take their legs blown off by extremely expensive loftier explosives.

True, this would decrease economic output temporarily. Simply soon there would be many jobs available for doctors, physical therapists, prothesis designers, and the manufacturers of expensive high explosives. In fact, within a twelvemonth the economy might be bigger than information technology otherwise would have been!

Of course, this would exist completely insane. Despite what the little numbers written downward by economists might say, America would not be meliorate off with 100,000 legless citizens.

The lesson hither is that when you have to cull between reality and an abstraction from reality, you should choose reality. The downside is that if you choose reality—in fact, if you fifty-fifty realize there is a choice, no matter what you choose—you will never exist hired by the Washington Post editorial folio.

September 03, 2005

More Jokes I Wish I'd Made

Simbaud, Male monarch of Zembla, runs down the eery similarities betwixt Swaziland and his own fiefdom:

King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa'due south final absolute monarch, is due to nourish the almanac Reed Dance anniversary, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from thousands of dancing girls dressed in petty more than beads and traditional skirts. [Just like Zembla! -- S.]

... and and so on.

Worth Reading

1. The prescient Mike Davis, writing in September, 2004:

The evacuation of New Orleans in the confront of Hurricane Ivan looked sinisterly similar Strom Thurmond's version of the Rapture. Flush white people fled the Large Piece of cake in their SUVs, while the old and car-less -- mainly Black -- were left behind in their beneath-sea-level shotgun shacks and crumbling tenements to confront the watery wrath.

New Orleans had spent decades preparing for inevitable submersion by the tempest surge of a course-v hurricane. Civil defense officials conceded they had ten k trunk bags on hand to deal with the worst-instance scenario. But no ane seemed to have bothered to devise a program to evacuate the city'due south poorest or most infirm residents...

2. You've probably already seen this, from Molly Ivins:

To use a fine Southern word, it'southward tacky to start playing the blame game before the expressionless are even counted. It is not too shortly, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies accept real consequences in people's lives...

This, friends, is why we demand to pay attention to authorities policies, not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our lives.

3. A huge stew of further New Orleans-related data from Chris Floyd's excellent new site.

September 01, 2005

New Orleans

I'g relieved to see oyster of Your Correct Manus Thief got out of New Orleans safely with his family unit. They are apparently now safely sheltered in Florida with relatives for the forseeable future. Don't miss this pre-Katrina post.

Meanwhile, Chris Floyd's fancy new site is up and running. It includes his thoughts on New Orleans:

The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many of the near pernicious trends in American politics and culture: poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse, public corruption and the decay of republic at every level.

Much of this is embodied in the odd phrasing that fifty-fifty the most circumspect mainstream media sources have been using to describe the hardest-hit victims of the tempest and its devastating aftermath: "those who chose to stay behind." Instantly, the situation has been framed with language to flatter the prejudices of the comfortable and deny the reality of the most vulnerable.

It is obvious that the vast majority of those who failed to evacuate are poor: they had nowhere else to go, no way to get there, no means to sustain themselves and their families on foreign ground. While there were certainly people who stayed behind past choice, most stayed behind because they had no option. They were trapped past their poverty - and many have paid the price with their lives...

...as well as the lyrics to Randy Newman's vocal Louisiana, 1927.

cookblithad89.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/2005_09.html

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