PST

View current page
...more recent posts

Tuesday, Nov 28, 2006

American Psycho

RIGA, Latvia — (AP) President Bush, under pressure to change direction in Iraq, said Tuesday he will not be persuaded by any calls to withdraw American troops before the country is stabilized.

"There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said in a speech setting the stage for high-stakes meetings with the Iraqi prime minister later this week. "We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren."

A) There has not been a "battlefield" since April 2003.

B) There is not now nor has there ever been a coherent "mission".

C) The only thing that resembles a "victory" that will come out of this invasion was achieved in April 2003. We won! Woo hoo! Time to go home!

and

D) Why do you want to give Jenna, not-Jenna and their future spawn a pile of dead people?

Monday, Nov 27, 2006

"Land Rush" for a "Series of Tubes"

Adding to the lexicon of bad analogies for the internet is this poorly reasoned opinion piece by the head of LULAC. Yes, LULAC.

The global Internet infrastructure is commonly referred to as the ``information superhighway.'' And for good reason.

Like any highway needing to accommodate growth in traffic by building more lanes, Internet service providers in the past decade have invested hundreds of billions of dollars to build ever-faster lanes on the Internet. Today, we can enjoy downloads of the richest and most robust content in a matter of seconds. Never has a communications revolution occurred on such a grand scale.

For Hispanic Americans and others, this is a significant development. With the rapid deployment of new broadband networks last year, English-speaking Hispanics increased their subscription to broadband services by 46 percent.

As we move into an era in which Internet speeds will approach a gigabyte per second, everyone seems to be laying some claim to the real estate. But, in the Internet land rush, the coup de grace is a proposal known as "network neutrality.''

The crux of the argument in this piece is the "free bandwidth" canard. If I pay to access the internet, and Google pays to access the internet, and then I download data from Google, how is anyone getting free bandwidth? It's already paid for! Rtard.

Saturday, Nov 25, 2006

Bits and Pieces

Fareed Zakaria interviewed Qubad Talabany, the ~~Kurdish embassador~~ representative of the Kurdish Regional government to the US, recently on his program Foreign Exchange.

The entire program was about Iraq. I noted how the real problems facing Iraq may get attention in certain policy wonk circles, but the real problems are seldom, if ever, addressed by Mr. Bush and never surface in the talking points in the right wing radio ~~propaganda outlets~~ talk shows. The actual issues on the ground that Zakaria reported on and discussed simply don't fit into the "War on Terra" frame that has provided the foundation for pro-war arguments.

Iraq is being pulled apart by sectarian strife. Terrorists are taking advantage of the chaos to kill Americans. But the root problem is not and never has been the terrorists. It's the chaos. The pro-war camp, lead by Mr. Bush, is trading in delusions that continue to grow in their dissonance with reality.

The exchange with Talabany was telling. In a discussion about the Shia-Sunni strife, Talabany essentially said, "Those Iraqis over there in Iraq sure have some big problems." Other than offering some revenue sharing, the Kurds have checked out. I had read this in Galbraith's End of Iraq. Galbraith's contention that Iraq is permanently broken was confirmed by Talabany's words and tone.

He's an ex-Iraqi.

- mark 11-25-2006 4:39 pm [link] [1 comment]

Tuesday, Nov 21, 2006

The Washington Post Hires the Feeble-minded

Specifically, Richard Cohen, who says ...

I ... originally had no moral qualms about the war [with Iraq]. Saddam Hussein was a beast who had twice invaded his neighbors, had killed his own people with abandon and posed a threat -- and not just a theoretical one -- to Israel. If anything, I was encouraged in my belief by the offensive opposition to the war -- silly arguments about oil or empire or, at bottom, the ineradicable and perpetual rottenness of America.

Blaming the opposition to the war for his support for that same war is beyond intellectually lazy, beyond amoral -- it's a sign of cognitive dysfunction. Put another way, Richard Cohen is a fucking idiot.

But he's not just a fucking idiot; Cohen is an irredeemable fucking idiot. Nowhere in this piece does Cohen say, "Gosh, not only was I wrong -- absolutely and completely wrong -- but others were right." If he can't see the obvious before or after it happens, why does this moron still have a job?

By the way Richard, I, for one, do not speak of the "ineradicable and perpetual rottenness of America", but only the rotteness of certain people, for example: John Foster Dulles for his evil and stupid policies in Iran, Vietnam, and Central America; Lyndon Baines Johnson for his full-scale invasion of Vietnam; Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger for their pointless continuation of the war in Vietnam, for the invasion of Cambodia which lead triggered genocide, and for their overthrow of the Chilean democracy; Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush for their inept and criminal invasion of Iraq; and certain pundit putzes, such as yourself, for their fawning over evil, stupid men in positions of power.

It's not America that's rotten. It's not the people of this nation who are rotten. It's specific evil bastards who commit specific evil acts who are the rot that infects this otherwise great nation.

Richard Cohen, you are the rot.

DIgby, Hilzoy and E&P on Cohen.

Tuesday, Nov 14, 2006

You don't have to be stupid to be a wingnut, but it helps

In response to a post comparing the murder rate in Philly to the situation in Iraq, a commenter said:

I've been to Iraq, spent more than a year there as a contractor, mostly in the Green Zone, and as recently as this June.

Comparing any American city to Baghdad is a sign of stupidity. The only relatively safe place is in the Kurdish regions, there are still kidnappings and car bombs even in Erbil and Sulymaniyah on occasion.

Baghdad and the rest of Iraq is a hell on earth. Every day you hear explosions from car bombs, mortars and rockets. The Iraqis I worked with were in constant fear - many had had close calls with car bombs and mortars, and militia and police. In addition, they say it is very common to find several bodies dumped on your street in the morning.

The death rate by violence is so far ahead of anywhere in the USA. The extremity and randomness of the violence - you have to fear militias, the police and criminals - is driving Iraqis with any means out of the country.

Posted by: Iraq participant at November 14

Pathetic Sack of Shit

The craven moron who blogs at Confederate Yankee has this to say about other peoples' blood and guts.

I beseech you to commit our reserves to the fight in Iraq, as many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of soldiers that the mission requires, in order to break the will and the bodies of those who fight for chaos and tyranny.

The General chimes in appropriately.

Wednesday, Nov 08, 2006

Letter to a friend living in New Hampshire who drank deeply of the neocon kool-aid

Hey xxxxxxx,

I see New Hampshire has become a little more blue.
That is so awesome for you! Sweet! Unfortunately
you're stuck with those two sucky Red senators for a
while longer.

Does that Judd guy still think Rumsfeld is nifty keeno?
Gosh, I bet he's feeling retarded this morning. Maybe
he should go back to singing country music with
Wynona. I got a song title for him: "I supported that
Rummy, 'cause I'm a big dummy". Needs some work ...

Both House seats switching at one time! Dang that
must be sweet!

-Mark

older posts...