Settin’ aboot the Troofers

Smeaton smites.

The Los Angeles Times, getting it 50% right 100% of the time in 2007

Patterico’s annual roundup of the LAT’s 2007 record.

Im in UR PaPr!

Heads asploding at the NYT!

Pinch makes a Faustian deal with Bill Kristol, and “intellectuals” everywhere threaten to cancel their subscriptions.

More recession porn

How about this–when we string a couple of negative growth quarters together, let’s talk about a recession.

Yeah, the guy who killed Osama bin Laden, I mean, Daniel Pearl

Probably misspoken, but interesting nonetheless. Did Bhutto treat us all to one final intrigue?

Who shot B.B? Was it you? Was it you?

Despite being withnessed by hundreds if not thousands of people, nobody knows what exactly killed Benazir Bhutto.  Maybe she’s not even dead, ya know?

China pwned the NSA

Good grief.  Unless of course, this is itself a well crafted piece of disinformation.

Objectively portraying holiday sales

It’s not unusual for the NYT to take both sides of the story on the same page, I guess.

Plus, finding a way to scupper the GOP without dragging the economy down in the process.

Saturday stupid

15

Yeah, I took the evaluation.

Star bails Guantanamo suspect

Tireless campaigner of human rights Vanessa Redgrave helps out in the War Against the War on Terror, in the only way she knows how.

Meanwhile syphilis has returned to the UK in big fashion, scrambling the minds of thousands of UK’s most talented.

Coincidence?

I can’t believe it’s not a human/CO2 link - spray!

Heat from earth’s magma melting some of Greenland’s scrumptious ices. Mmm, mmm delicious. I can’t believe I’m reading this.

Dems lose fight to ease abortion restrictions - Capitol Hill- msnbc.com

Lacking votes and itching to close out the congressional session for the year, Dems fail to pass abortion provision and lash out at Bush the Malfeasor instead.  Some notable quotes:

“This dogmatic adherence to an illogical position diminishes our influence around the world and prevents us from working effectively to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions,” said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House State and Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee.

. . .and. . .

“It is unconscionable for a president to ignore the majority of the members of Congress, the majority of Americans and the best interests of millions of human beings because he is blinded by his own narrow beliefs,” said Amy Coen, president of Population Action International. “Today, the shadow of one man darkens the lives of so many.”

Unconscionable!

The perils of forced bipartisanship

California leads the nation on health care.

California leads the nation on the environment.

California leads the nation on immigration.

California leads the nation into a giant gawddamed hole.

And to think that up until just last month Californians seemed generally impressed by Arnie’s ‘workable’ balance between entrenched state interests and taxpayers.   This wild swing in budget forcasting is either a cunning political move designed to force long needed cuts in spending or  shockingly incompetent management.

A little early but,

. . . Howard Fineman says there’s real danger of Hillary losing all of the early electoral contests. My sense is that—he’s right. At some point, that which is already obvious to every reasonable person suddenly becomes newsworthy to those influential few who frame the important media topics of the day. Would the next Clinton presidency be a force for change (as claimed)? No–another Clinton presidency would be nothing of the sort! And how in the heck was Hillary as president ever characterized as inevitable? The sands have apparently begun to shift in the elite media.

Here are some other narratives waiting for the big pivot:

• The economy, despite empirical evidence to the contrary, is continuously attempting to find ways to self destruct. This was also a common theme during the 2004 election.
• There is a consensus about why our planet is undergoing climate change.
• The war in Iraq began with Bush’s illegal circumvention of the United Nations in 2003, and is a ill-conceived folly disconnected from the GWOT. I mean, ask Joy Behar.
• 47 million Americans don’t have health insurance. How embarrasing for such a wealthy country!

Politicians promise honest leadership and quick action on these tough issues. The media has the power to enable them, and actually create opinion. Is it too much to ask that they provide for a honest, public debate?

AP unable to find alternate viewpoints on the NJ death penalty

For all of the resources available to the AP, they can only come up with a single opinion about the abolishment of the death penalty in NJ–that of a (former) death row prisoner!

So, what you’re saying is. . .

. . .there’s precedence?

Two researchers here spent months scouring through old expedition logs and reports, and reviewing 70-year-old maps and photos before making a surprising discovery: They found that the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland’s glaciers that has alarmed the world’s climate scientists [also] occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s.

If we’ve seen this before, then what caused it last time?

Their evidence reinforces the belief that glaciers and other bodies of ice are exquisitely hyper-sensitive to climate change and bolsters the concern that rising temperatures will speed the demise of that island’s ice fields, hastening sea level rise.

If there’s anything needing reinforcing, wouldn’t it be our curiosity about the abrupt warming in the 1920’s?

Conventional wisdom on Iran won’t get us anywhere

 Did Fareed Zakaria write this three years ago? Nobody can be this out of sync with reality.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has upended the Bush administration’s policy toward that country. This could be a good thing, if it leads to some creative rethinking.

There’s a good chance such rethinking gave us the NIE.

For Washington to threaten a regime with extinction and simultaneously expect it to disarm is a policy doomed to failure. Were we to be clear that what we seek from Tehran is only a change in behavior, a policy of sticks and carrots might actually produce results.

It works sometimes and sometimes it does not.  Contrast Libya’s example with Iraq’s vs Iran’s.

In the last month alone, reformist former president Mohammed Khatami addressed a rally at which the crowd chanted “Death to the dictator,” referring to the current president.

It’s a revelation to hear that a “moderate” like Khatami and his apparent association with anti-government factions demonstrates that healthy debate and dissent not only exist in Iran, but are actually a vibrant part of the political dialog.  Knowing that Iran’s deadly complicity in the Iraq war began under Khatami’s regime, does Zakaria find it somehow heartening that there are at least two powerful forces within Iran that seek the annihilation of the West?

Western statesmen should stop declaring that Iran has no use for nuclear power, that it cannot be trusted to enrich uranium. This smacks of paternalism—especially when coming from nations with large nuclear arsenals of their own—and naturally evokes a defensive response.

Something about . . destroying Israel. .and the West. . .I don’t know.  Can’t remember. What does that smack of?

And instead of thundering that Iran is dangerous, President Bush should keep repeating, “We want to have relations with Iran, do business with you, visit your country and have Iranians visit us. We want Iran to join the World Trade Organization and other such bodies. We want you to be a respected nation. But this cannot happen if you do not verifiably end your pursuit of nuclear weaponry and support for terrorism. We are ready to put all this on the table.” . . . .

We know that Tehran’s hard-liners would reject this offer, but it could produce a feisty debate within the regime and outside. It would add to the feeling in the country that this government is mismanaging Iran’s foreign policy. It would dramatically alter a stale negotiating dynamic between Iran and the West. If Iran accepted, such an opening would, ironically, strengthen the private sector and civil society, and over time weaken the government’s grip on the country. A smart policy could, in the long run, win us both policy change and regime change after all.

Yes, you heard that right.  Some simple dialog — repeated often  — will somehow generate some kind of internal debate within the Iranian regime that the spectre of hard diplomacy and actual UN-sponsored sanctions could not.  If such debate hasn’t happened already, the true nature of the regime is just a more ominous than people like Mr. Zakaria are wanting to believe.

Coming soon

Four signs that point to a ‘Mission Accomplished‘-type speech to be delivered by President Bush in March 2008 which will signal the drawdown of the bulk of the American troop presence in Iraq:

First, the mysterious Israeli attack that crippled something in Syria that happened to coincide with early progress in the surge.

Second, the strange and controversial reversal by American intelligence regarding the progress of the Iranian nuclear program.  Something here stinks like the rotten carrot diplomacy Bush critics have often characterized as absent between the administration and Tehran.  Was a deal struck?  Other than our military gains, what else is behind the sudden drop of IED attacks?

Third, the enablement of nearly half a million Iraqi national security forces.

And last, but not least, Gaddafi takes Paris with a squad of 30 hot female bodyguards.

Ok, maybe not.

The beginning of the end of the Hillary campaign - Part II

Big trouble brewing for Hillary, in so many ways. The evergreen Clintonian renunciation of the “politics of personal destruction” is wearing ever so thin. It’s like her brand team couldn’t see any of this coming.

Makes you wonder about every single one of her husband’s plentiful accusers, and how they were all summarily dismissed.

“Bush vetoes kids health insurance bill”

A head-shot of a headline.  Now, what Grandma in her right mind is going to read anything past this headline?  This Bush is a real menace!

The bill Bush vetoed would have increased federal funding for SCHIP by $35 billion over five years, to add an estimated 4 million people to the program that provides insurance coverage for children from families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance. The joint federal-state program currently provides benefits to roughly 6 million people, mostly children.

A major point of contention with the White House was Bush’s demand that nearly all poor children eligible for the program be found and enrolled before any in slightly higher-income families could be covered. He originally proposed adding $5 billion to the program over five years but later said he was willing to go higher as long as his conditions were met.

The president also has opposed using an increased tobacco tax to fund the program expansion. The bill includes a 61-cent rise on a package of cigarettes.

Can’t we find something else to tax, like, say poorly written headlines?

Where stands Huckabee?

Huckabee is growing his lead ’supernaturally’, presumably because of his stance on immigration, abortion, taxes, and who knows what else.  All that aside, here is THE important question that should be asked of him as well as any other contender:  What is your plan to regain and maintain control over our non-military intelligence services?

Interesting confluence. .

Two major stories have popped up in the media this past month, but no responsible person has tied them together–until now. Here it goes: How can a thoughtful individual support the continuation of embryonic stem cell research at all costs but reject in toto the use of waterboarding as an enhanced interrogation technique?

The latest NIE as a political gambit

An interesting take on a “de facto Middle East Treaty Organization” that uses the Persian threat to forge an uneasy yet working peace between frightened Arabs and their equally frightened Israeli neighbors.

Doesn’t do much for the neocon-haters out there, does it?

White Russian Anschluss

Checkmate, Kasparov?  Putin, if nothing else, is quite a creative chap.

Fasha Gaddafi

Libyan strongman Gaddafi may have a lot of interesting positions, but he sure has a sexy all-female bodyguard squad.

Also notice that Gaddafi is spelled two different ways in the very same article.

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