No More Feel Good

David J., commenting over at the King of Drunkblogging:

I’m still trying to figure out how Hillary can claim to have been an Agent of Change for the last 35 years. I mean, she can’t even claim to be the wife of the Agent of Change for the last 35 years. I mean, he was an incumbent in there a few times, and that doesn’t translate into Agent of Change status, does it?

I would still take her over the other Democrats, but that’s just because I think she would do the least harm of the bunch.

Sorry to Teh Zomby, but I have to disagree somewhat. For a given value of "somewhat", that is. After all, a slight disagreement in theory isn't quite what causes a volcanic spit-take, you know.

Regardless of who wins in November, nothing will actually get done and nothing can actually change unless and until the New Do Nothings, with the charming [snark] Nancy Pelosi on lead vocals, start actually accomplishing things and stop the self-congratulation for winning control of Congress.

It's been a year now and they've done... [Cricket-cricket-cricket] Yeah. Pretty much sums it all up. Their greatest efforts of last year seem to be with non-binding resolutions and Sense Of The House votes that fail to do anything but make the rabid fanatic progressives happy that someone is "raising the consciousness" regarding certain issues. That is precisely the problem with the theory behind non-binding resolutions: they don't mean anything.

Majority Leader Reid has at least made some effort to move forward, trying to get bills on the table that could possibly accomplish something. However, he is faced with an opposition that possesses a masterful control of parliamentary procedure. Anything that the Republican minority doesn't like, they block. What they can't block, they delay. What they can't delay, they obscure. What they can't obscure, they dismantle. What they can't dismantle, they pass through and let the President veto.

(As much as I hate to say it, I have to hand it to the Republican leadership in the Senate. They are playing the game of the minority better than the Patriots are playing the game of football. Well done.)

Regretfully, the only thing that will change after this political season is in the record books will be that the GOP minority in the Senate won't have a Republican President standing behind them with the veto pen.

How to fix it? That should be the next question on your minds, right? How do we accomplish the merely possible: getting away from simply re-building the consensus that we already have and move towards wielding it like Hacksaw Jim Duggan's trusty 2x4, stomping the terra and becoming what the social-conservatives have feared ever since the Gingrich Revolution stalled in place.

First, and this may seem like an idea from the politically oblivious, stop talking about what the other team is doing and start talking more about what your own team is doing. Exhibit A: The website of the Democratic Party's Recent Legislation page. Glance through this for a moment and you will notice one obvious fact. They talk more about what the Republicans are doing, specifically President Bush and those vying for the nomination, than they do of their own accomplishments. (Plus a good four entries in the gotcha politics surrounding the Graeme Frost flap from last year.) Of course, this leads directly into the next point...

Second: Where were the goals? You know, that handy-dandy 6-Point Plan from the start of the 2006 session? Let's see here. Honest Leadership and Open Government? The only actual advancement on this front came primarily from Republican Tom Coburn, with Barack Obama as his co-sponsor, introducing the Federal Funding Accountability And Transparency Act, with the rest of them being along the lines of show trials and public humiliation. (See Point Four below for more on this.) Energy Independence? All signs point to "no". Health care? They made the effort, but it got blocked by the veto pen and humiliated by the aforementioned Graeme Frost debacle. Real Security? Maria Cantwell got the Coast Guard Authorization Act through, which tries to keep the boys and girls in CG blue at current levels, for they are the ones that really stand on the front lines for the safety of Americans at home. Economic Prosperity and Educational Excellence? Well, first they failed for tossing two different points into the same bullet, and then they failed by not being able to accomplish either of the above. Retirement Security? [Cricket] Yeah, sure.

So of their 6(but-really-7)-Point Plan, they got 2.5 points, and that's being generous. In the words of the LOLCat: FAIL. If they were serious in trying to create changes in the capitol, they would have put much more effort into crafting bills that effected the way the country is run and less effort putting together photo opportunities like the various feel-good non-binding resolutions.

Third (and this is where any progressive still reading will file me to the right of Bill O'Reilly): Get rid of the feel-good politics of Nancy Pelosi. She is much better served as being the party's Whip in Congress, keeping people in line and putting votes on the tally board. For that, I can give her all the kudos and salutations in the world. Yet the substantive policies and efforts seem to be lacking. Listening to Pelosi talk about policy is like listening to a certain South Carolina beauty queen talk about policy; they just don't get it.

Running a government is not all about looking good for the cameras and giving good sound bite for the talking heads. Given the state of American politics, some of that must certainly come into play, just as the Gingrich Revolution taught us. Yet beside the photo opportunity must sit the actual substance, which is also what the Gingrich Revolution taught us. A photo-op for the sake of a photo-op is useless. (Exhibit B: Teh Dubya) It may make your base feel good, but feel-good doesn't accomplish anything. (Unless you are actually living in an Orwellian society. But if you were, then you would be outsent to an unfree facility in Greenland just for reading this doubleplusungood unpatriotic drivel.)

Fourth: When you put someone on the ropes, you don't let them stand back up again. Look at all the investigative hearings that happened over the last year: Gonzalez, Schlozman, Doan, Taylor, Sampson, and far too many more to list before dawn. And what really came of them? One significant resignation in Alberto Gonzales, one resignation of a man that outlived his political usefulness in Karl Rove, a bunch of personnel shuffling behind the scenes at the DoJ and DoD and OEOB and the rest of the alphabet soup, and tons upon tons upon tons of feel-good photo ops.

And what did we do afterwards? Nothing. Congressional Democrats had the ball, were charging for the goal line... and dropped it at the 2-yard line to have themselves a premature celebration. Fortunately, not all of them took the time to pat themselves on the back so hard that they sprained a shoulder. Henry Waxman has pounced on the loose ball and kept it from being a turnover. Given the constant and consistent train wreck of fiscal (and personal) irresponsibility coming from the White House these days, there isn't enough time for a Democratic Congress to rest on their rather limited supply of laurels.

Fifth, and potentially the most damaging: When you say you are against something, do not then turn around and act like you are for it in order to score political points. See: Iraq "war" funding. After the 2006 elections, the huge talking point coming from Speaker-Select Pelosi's office and every other Democrat in Washington, D.C. was that the electorate had issued a mandate against the Mess In Mesopotamia. Yet what have we continued to do? Vote for it. Fund it. Give the President his special appropriations. What have they failed to do? Anything and everything they claimed they had the support of the people to accomplish. Why? Because it would not be feel-good. It would be hard. It would be difficult. It would make people not like them. And, least important to us talking heads but most important to them as political actors, it would be held over their heads. Simply talking about the possibility sent them onto the sound-bite defensive. And in feel-good politics, being on the defensive means you aren't doing what is right, simply because you're doing something that someone does not like.

Bull.

Congressional Democrats need to realize that, regardless of what they do, the GOP will not be their philosophical allies. They need to realize that doing the right thing, the good thing, the thing they swore up one side and down the other that they would accomplish regardless of all opposition, is not something that will win friends and influence people across the spectrum.

All Democrats need to realize this, whether they are running for the House, the Senate, or reaching for 1600 Pennsylvania. If they want to get something done that is difficult, they have to be willing to take the hits.

But hits don't feel good. And that is why the politics of feel-good have to be set aside, right alongside their champion in the House: Nancy Pelosi.

Feel-good works with the progressive base of the Democratic Party, the Atriots and Kossacks and FDL'ers and TAP'd. Feel-good does not work when trying to bring about the very changes that you claimed were the reasons why you retook the majority. Feel-good does not beget change. Feel-good is the comfortable, the traditional, the (Dare I say it?) conservative position.

Democrats are not conservatives. So why be feel-good when that is precisely what the other side wants you to be?

[Linked to by Teh Zomby aforementioned]

The Off Colfax List Of Best Books Of 2007 That No One Has Heard Of

Well, here we are. Another holiday season gone by, and you were actually fortunate enough for your Great-Aunt Sue Ann to give you a gift card to Borders or Barnes & Noble or Amazon rather than the usual pair of puce and cream macramé socks. But what to get with it?

Here are my unsung, or sometimes sung at too low of a volume, gems of the past year. This won't be a list with your Skinny Bitches and Looming Towers and Eat Pray Loves and Ann Coulters and Water For Elephants and Oprah Book Clubs and Age of Turbulences and James Patterson's team of ghost writers and et bloody ceteras. (C'mon. You can't tell me that you expect a single person to crank out 5 new novels in a calendar year without using ghost writers, even with such incomprehensible twaddle as Patterson usually releases under his name. That's just crazy talk.) This is for the real book lovers that can venture beyond the best-sellers list.

I know what you're thinking. Dude. How come this strange OC person could be qualified to judge what could be a good book, much less one of the best books of the year. Simply put, and most of you don't know this, I've been working at the bookstores in Denver International Airport for the past 6 months. So I'm constantly picking up random books and leafing through them. And when I start unconsciously reaching for a handy place to sit, I know I have a good one. (Now all I need is a way to spot my manager before he spots me first.) (And no. I don't get any kickbacks from these links. So click away without fear of accidentally supporting an anonymous blogger.)

First, for the occasional high-school girl that randomly gets to this page via the Next Blog button while still laughing at the incompetent emo threatening to cut his fingernails, I give you the Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac. Gabrielle Zevin brings us the occasional daydream of every high-school student: What if I was able to start here at school all over again? In this one, one high-school junior is is about to do so after falling down some icy stairs and waking up to zero memory of the last four years of her life. Remarkably well-written and highly accessible, even to those odd socialites that insist they only read the Clique series and are very stuck-up about it.

Next up on the list... Hmmm. Let me guess. You've heard of the Dangerous Book for Boys, right? And the Daring Book for Girls as well? Good. Now have you read the Dangerous Book for Dogs? I didn't think so. This is every good dog's essential companion in the ever-lasting quest to become the bad dog that they always wanted to be. From proper ways to get out of the yard undetected, to cat-chasing tips, to a taste comparison between Dolce & Gabanna leather slides and Kenneth Cole moccasin-stitched loafers, it's all here. Pay special attention to the etiquette section on crotch-sniffing. Please. Your humans will thank you. (And yes. It is a parody. But I'm still waiting for the Daring Book for Cats to come out.)

Now, for you cooking fanatics out there comes this collection of sordid tales of the kitchen called Don't Try This At Home. All of us have a war story about when things go horribly wrong in that strange place-where-food-is-put-together-place. (Yes, even when you accidentally microwaved the foil-wrapped leftovers because you were too hungover to notice. That counts.) With little of the pretension of Anthony Bourdain's ego-stroke known as Kitchen Confidential, this collection of Murphy's Law-related stories will cheer you up immensely. Whether it is the lobsters that are off or the kitchen is flooded or the cake is in 15 pieces on the Long Island Expressway, it is proof positive that the more (self?)important the chef, the larger the associated screw-ups.

Music lovers and musicians alike will enjoy this book by Daniel Levitin called This Is Your Brain On Music. A former music producer turned cognitive psychologist, Levitin delves into such obscure elements as neurobiology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, empirical philosophy, Gestalt psychology, memory theory, and neurochemistry; and all in language that is easily accessible to anyone, regardless of whether you can carry a tune in a bucket or not. Read it. Love it. Pass it on. Only try to get it back afterwards. Unfortunately, my copy is still in the hands of my manager's family in El Paso. Hopefully I can get it back one of these days. (Then again, I'm on my 9th copy of Ishmael, 6th copy of Atlas Shrugged and 3rd copy of Shampoo Planet, so probably not. I have a habit of buying books that migrate.)

For us science-fiction lovers out there, a new release of an old trilogy has hit the shelves. The Chronicles of the Black Company, from way back in the '80s, has returned to print once more. Not individually, mind you, but in an onmibus edition that will keep you well and truly happy with life for a serious stretch of time. This is one of those books that most of the "professional" booksellers never believe would sell, but it marches straight out of the store whenever new copies arrive, in lockstep with a very happy new owner.

For you current affairs fanatics, I have three words for you: Band of Sisters. With the ever-increasing number of females serving in the military, and particularly in the Iraqi theater of operations, this is one of the first books to chronicle their stories. If I had time, I could wax poetic for hours about this book, but I would run out of metaphors far too quickly for my taste. Pick up a copy at the next possible opportunity. Just don't ask me for one. I'm sold out.

And finally, for those fiction lovers out there, comes my one extraordinary odd choice: The Gum Thief. Of course, for those that know the Me-Behind-The-Keyboard, any Coupland novel is far from an odd choice. I've been a raving fanboy since I first read Generation X in college. It's practically expected that I love and promote a new Coupland novel, sometimes before I even read it. Which, unfortunately, was what I was doing with JPod, which I tossed aside in disgust at the self-aggrandizing and self-promotion even while chortling at the occasional self-abuse. In the Gum Thief, he returns to what he does best: real people in real situation talking about their real lives... and how much they really suck. Most people wouldn't expect a novel about a 40-something alcoholic and 20-something overweight goth girl, both working at a Staples, to be interesting. Most people would be sadly mistaken.

So what are you still reading this for? Go and read something with quality for a change. G'wan. Shoo.

Fuel For The Mind

It’s 4 a.m., and I’m gacked to the teats on energy drinks. Four cans of Red Bull, four cans of Full Throttle, two cans of Rockstar, and a 10-ounce plastic cup full of some nameless yellow drool they dispense straight from the beverage gun over at the pub across the way. I’m bug-eyed, red-eyed, itchy, twitchy, anxious and sweaty and grinding my teeth, talking to myself and talking to the walls and talking to my dog. Which isn’t unusual—the talking to my dog part, that is. I do that all the time. Except ordinarily he just looks back at me, like he’s bored, or he needs a biscuit, or something. This time, he just looks too scared to answer.

Is that a bug crawling on the wall?

Maybe I’d have been better off with Neuro Fuel. What’s a Neuro Fuel, you ask? Well, really, you didn’t ask. I asked for you. Because I’m the one sitting here in a paranoid frenzy, trying to make a late-night finish on a story about Knoxville’s own contribution to the energy-drink market. And talking to myself, and to the dog, and to the walls. And now I’m talking to you, too. Wait, this isn’t making any damn sense.

Hmmmm. I wonder if this guy has been peeking at some of my draft posts. Still, it is an interesting concept: re-evaluate the energy drink concept and provide one that actually gives the consumer what they actually expect from the neo-magical 8.6 oz. can and remove all the negatives that they really don't want.

Check out Neuro Fuel for yourselves. The website is highly Flash-oriented, so you might want to be sure your script-blockers are bypassed for this one. And then hope for Internet-based distribution, so that one can answer the most important question when it comes to energy drinks:

Does it mix well with vodka?

[T/S: the man that posts so much that he has a Red Bull IV drip.]

Code Blue: Paging Doctor Thompson

I just can’t do it. The iron has been in the fire for too long. The pigs have yet to come out of the tunnel. The political zombies have marched on their roads of bones, and then went out for barbecued brains.

I believe every political junkie passes this point in time. Too many long hours pounding through databases to find that one perfect moment that will, for the love of God, finally let you make up your mind. Too many meaningless speeches in front of county fairs, local Kiwanis, and roadside diners. Too many press releases, those myriad tons of utter and complete garbage foisted upon the unsuspecting voter.

Too much feeding the fix, begging for that political smack dripping from our USB cables and oozing into our hearts and lungs and toenails and tonsils, drugging us into that vague stupor caused by imagining that we actually could possibly know what the hell is going on in the universe, much less our own minuscule corner.

But why. That is the question. Why.

Simple question. Simple answer.

We started too early. My God, was it too early. Normally, by this sheer concentration of political news, the fat lady would be warming up while the rest of us are staggering our way towards the voting booth, looking for that magic lever that will end it all. We seek it. We want it. We caress it like a lover waiting in the moonlight. We desire it like it was a loaded shotgun, there to finally end our agony after decades of pain.

But we are denied. Eleven long months of the political season gone, and we aren’t even to the halfway point yet. Even after all this, we still have 47 miles of barbed wire left to crawl, and that live cobra around our necks is still waiting for us to move too fast. Or too slow. Or blink. Or force-feed Wolf Blitzer into a secure-systems document shredder.

Feet first. So we can hear him scream.

Lord, how long? How long must we suffer? Like Aquitaine after the Vandals. Like Londinum after Boudica. Like the floor of a Dropkick Murphys show. Like a confused emo with the complete discography of Sunny Day Real Estate on his iPod, plus Jimmy Eat World’s first album.

Okay. Scratch that last one. We aren’t that bad. Yet.

But there is still time, Bubba. Still time left for the Chinese water torture to take full effect. And it will. It’s been going for almost a year now with no sign of slowing down. He said. Drip. She said. Drip. They said. Drip. We said. Drip. Every. Drip. Single. Drip. Second. Drip. Every. Drip. Single. Drip. Day. Drip.

And we call waterboarding cruel and unusual torture. Should make them actually listen to all the feces-coated garbage being hoovered up by the junkies of the world.

And I… I need a news vacation. A media break. A stay at the Betty Ford Clinic for the Incurably Informed. A brief spell away from the political porn that suffocates our lives.

What do you mean, Bubba? Why do I say “our lives”? You mean you ain’t crawling through this one with me? You mean I did all that for me? Wait, Bubba! Why did you write “Blow Me, Kemosabe!” on this fax! I have to know! Thousands and thousands of people depend on us! We make the news! They just star in it! C’mon, Bubba… I’ll even let you take the next few miles. But I’m keeping the cobra. He likes me.

No deal, huh? Figures. Didn’t think you were that dumb.

When the weird turn pro, the going gets weird. Isn’t that how it’s written? If not, it should be. And the weird have turned pro for this one. So the only truth is that not only have things gotten weird, but there is more weirdness yet to come.

Death to the weird. I’m on vacation.

[Crossposted from Creative Destruction]

We Might Be Giants

Thursday's post by my favorite Zomby has me starting to do some serious thinking.

(And long-term readers of this blog are suddenly starting to either cringe in their seats or make popcorn. Either of which is a viable response to a post of mine with the word "thinking" in the very first sentence.)

I think that we are seeing demonstrable, often positive changes in Iraq--changes that came from Iraqis weary of war and the excesses of thuggish “insurgents”, the creative leadership of General Petraeus, more troops, the the aggressive tactics of the surge. Iraq isn’t won, but these changes do seem to be creating an environment where the political victory can incubate. A real victory seems more possible now than it did less than a year ago; nothing is guaranteed, I realize, but if we continue to let the military do its job we can give the diplomats and politicians the time to do theirs.

I have to ponder one simple ponderable: why were we just now starting to achieve results in Iraq? We had many of the tools David mentioned before this moment in time. The insurgents have been thugs from the word Go. We had the potential for plenty of troops at the very beginning, none of which were worn thin by constant exposure to combat. We had the potential for creative leadership and aggressive tactics, at least once General Tommy Franks retired. And we have had, for many a season, the ability to create an environment for actual victory rather than simple political victory.

Yet something has been holding us back. And the blame for this can be placed solely at the feet of the political leadership of this country.

Let us start from the beginning, with House J.Res. 114, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. (PDF warning.) As I have already argued, some would say successfully, an AUMF via the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is not a declaration of war. Thus, the desire to bring forth the full power and force of the United States of America was not even an issue from the very beginning. And yet this was, and is still, portrayed by our political leadership as being the ultimate battle for our time: America's Eurasia.

(I shall not go into the apparent sleight-of-hand required to convince the international community to join and/or assent to the invasion plans, nor will I make any further Orwellian references. They are simply too easy of a cheap shot.)

Next comes an obvious question: What is the worst mistake that a well-equipped, -maintained, and -manned military power can make? Open a "war" on a second front, before securing victory on the first front, unless you have absolutely no choice whatsoever to do so.

World War 2 is an obvious example of this dilemma. When the United States finally entered the war after the preemptive strike upon Pearl Harbor, strategically the only option to start off with two fronts. Hirohito's navy was too powerful to let roam in the Pacific unchecked, so it had to be destroyed at all costs and with sufficient follow-through to remove the Imperial Army from their strategic occupations. And without Britain available for a rally point for the D-Day invasion, our troops would have been forced to only enter Europe from the south, where the geography would have been in Germany's favor. A mountain range the size of the Alps is an effective force multiplier for any defenders, particularly when the attacking army is refused access to the more easily accessible passes through Switzerland.

Conversely, Germany made a significant strategic error when they opened up the eastern front against Soviets before Britain was removed. Hitler's flank was secure and his rear was sufficiently covered via the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Operation Sealion had yet to be launched in full so that the newly-formed Churchill government would be removed from the equation. And yet Operation Barbarossa was still sent directly into Russia's teeth with over three million soldiers marching for Moscow to respond to the possible threat caused by the Soviet invasion of the Baltic states. We all know how well that worked out for the Third Reich.

And so we apply this to the situation in 2002. Afghanistan was not yet secured, with roving bands of Taliban soldiers still in play. The border with Pakistan had yet to be secured, if such a goal was ever possible. And the primary public casus belli for the invasion of Afghanistan, the price on Osama bin Laden's head, had yet to be credited to our morale account. While many of the conditions for absolute victory were within the grasp of the American military in Afghanistan, we had yet to fully obtain them before reassigning a significant percentage of our troop strength to the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 20 March 2003, thereby creating the effect of an unnecessary war on two fronts.

Admittedly, this effect is difficult to see when one solely views the American news media reports, as events in Afghanistan are rarely reported here in the U.S. for various reasons, yet the effect is not unfelt. In neither theater of operations can we concentrate our forces in sufficient number to completely eliminate a ground-level insurgency campaign. In Afghanistan, this is exasperated by the fact that the physical terrain is well-suited to guerrilla operations, much as the Soviet Union found to their dismay in the 1980's. In Iraq, this is exasperated by the fact that the social terrain is well-suited to the camouflage of insurgent operations, with the religious devisions providing both ample cover for existing efforts and ample recruiting grounds for further operations.

Given the public desire of the President to secure overwhelming victory, it is surprising that an initial overwhelming troop presence was resisted so strongly. My personal speculation is that the military and political leadership were looking for, in the reputed words of Vyacheslav von Plehve, "a short, victorious war." Iraq was reportedly within the gunsights of the Administration on the first day after the inauguration. Rumors of Secretary Rumsfeld and others within the Administration requesting data to tie together Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks are too numerous to link.

In essence, Operation Iraqi Freedom was a political exercise, not a military exercise. In few areas is this more understood than via the administration of the Coalition Provisional Authority, whether in regards to the contract awarding process (PDF warning and strong liberal stance warning) or the appointment of loyal party members to positions within the CPA who then return to the White House for federal appointments. (One example of many.)

(SERIOUS PARENTHETICAL ASIDE: Hmm. The phrase "loyal party members" reminds me of something. But what could it be? Is there a connection between the operational and strategic organization of the Soviet-style Communist Party and the modern-day Republican Party? Obviously there are differences in political philosophy and I would not care to suggest that there is no philosophical difference. Yet the application of management theories are, at first blush, remarkably similar. See also: 11th Commandment.)

And then comes the home front. In theory, all politicians today are working in order to "support the troops, regardless of partisan affiliation. Yet, for the first four years after the Iraqi invasion, the "war" was treated with a business-as-usual attitude in Washington, D.C. While the reporting of Josh Marshall has defined a vast majority of them, I have one significant point that seems to have gone unnoticed by the vast majority of the punditocracy.

At no time in the history of warfare has a government been able to both cut taxes and win battles. None. At all. Period. Wars cost lots of money, both to train the soldiers on the ground and to supply them with weapons. Why is this? Because wars are expensive. Kennedy and Johnson tried cutting taxes during Vietnam, but even Richard Nixon realized that we needed to increase our revenue if we were to be successful. During World War 2, the United States saw the largest tax expansion in history. During the War Between The States, we instituted the inheritance tax. The taxes that sparked the Revolutionary War were to pay for the defense of the colonies and to restore the British military after the French-Indian War. All of the Crusades saw further taxes levied against the yeomanry and peasantry. Rome raised taxes to conquer Gaul. The Achaeans probably raised taxes to defeat the Trojans. And in the Stone Age, Ogg would have raised taxes to defeat Ugg and take his fire if such a concept existed back then.

You cannot win battles without spending the money. You cannot spend the money unless you have the money. The President has been more than willing to request money to spend. He has been reluctant to find ways to get the money in the bank in the first place. And the reason for this is simple: it is against the political philosophy of the Republican Party to raise taxes. Yet wars, whether declared or not, are supposed to be such significant events that a temporary breach in philosophy is necessary. Therefore, the continued resistance of the White House to the raising of taxes will continue to baffle me, particularly after launching into the stock "do whatever it takes" line to create and maintain a secure Iraq.

We might be the giants of the world, but not even we can win when we cut our own hamstrings. Yet that is precisely what we have done. We are not treating this as a war. We are not at war with Iraq. We have never been at war with Iraq. We won't treat ourselves like we are at war with Iraq.

And that is why we will continue to lose in Iraq.

Until the philosophy within our government changes from "just another day of business as usual" to "let's kick more ass than a donkey herder's convention", that basic fact will never change.

The Old Man By The PC

There are scores of you young whippersnappers talking about how "back in the day" of 1999 you got your first computer with, sighing as you reminisce on how you had to learn the hard way how to use Blogger and now everyone has a blog. Well, boo hoo! Punk kids. No idea what it's like.

If you're thinking of disregarding this as another curmudgeonly rant about how we had to surf the net uphill both ways in the snow, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Because you see, back in my day, we didn't even have the internet. And we liked it.

If you can remember what it means to COPY [/Y|-Y] [/A][/B] [a:][path]filename [/A][/B] [b:][path][filename] [/V], or file transfers over a 28.8, or playing Oregon Trail (Without graphical interfaces!) then give this a read. And most of you would probably laugh your assets off while doing so.

As David would say:

Read The Rest.

Personal Log

I set a new record tonight.

After almost everyone else from RMBB 7.2 went home (Aside from Bill with four Ls, who was there for one of my attempts.), I talked to three different women. All of them had smiles so bright that you could see them from orbit. That is my official Most Attractive Quality in a female.

Admittedly, I struck out with all three. Admittedly, it was worse of a showing than the Red Sox had tonight in the bottom of the 11th inning.

Yet I made the attempt. And that, dear readers, is something that I rarely can bring myself to do after the vast multiples of disastrous relationships I have in my personal history. With all the pain and disappointment and full-out depression that has followed most of my past relationships, to simply be at a bar and have a conversation with an attractive woman is a definitive advancement for me.

Who knows... Maybe one of these days, something might actually happen after a Blogger Bash. Or any other time. Something where I don't go home by myself. Or don't go home period, for that matter.

But I wouldn't hold my breath for it. I may have made attempts, but that does not blind me to the reality that is my life.

So tonight, it is just me and the cats. As usual. With Lisa Loeb playing on the Winamp. As usual.

So here is to one of these days... Yeah. I'll drink to that.

To Advocate Equality

[In response to this, yet I will not comment on what Jeff Fecke says or the logical flaws of his diatribe.]

It is not proper for any American to remove any rights from any person without due process. Period. Ad infinitum. Ad astra. Ad nauseum. Forever and ever. Amen. It was a fundamental error by our ancestors to pretend that the color of one's skin or the location of one's gonads determined whether or not the fundamental rights of, much less membership within, Homo sapiens applied to them. As such, it is just as fundamental of an error for anyone else to do so, regardless of what motivation is behind the movement.

I cannot disagree that there has been injustice performed by some of those who are, as I am, white and male. That is a simple fact that only the blind cannot see and only the ignorant can ignore. Still to this day, women are treated as if they are less than a human being simply due to their lack of a Y-chromosome: the glass ceiling, income inequality, the removal of personal autonomy, objectification, mutilation, humiliation... The list of offenses that short-sighted individuals have performed unto women is a long and miserable one. It has been codified into our laws. It has been decreed among our religions. It has been solidified in our societies. It is pervasive. It is subconscious. It is everywhere. And this is but a single example that does not touch racial discrimination, religious discrimination, ethnic discrimination, sexuality discrimination, or any of the myriad of other forms of discrimination that exist in human society.

There is no reason to excuse rape. There is no reason to excuse spousal battery. There is no reason to excuse child abuse. There is no reason to excuse oppression. There is no reason to excuse any crime, of any type, perpetrated on someone because of their gender or the color of their skin or their political views or their religion or even what they had for breakfast the day before yesterday.

Likewise, there should be no reason to automatically expect those things to occur against you because of those factors. That is against the principle of equality. One does not combat injustice by ensuring more injustice. As Mohandas Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Subjecting another to the same violations that you were forced to endure is to fall under the same trap, the same impossible fallacy, as you purport to fight against.

To strive for all humans to be treated equally is frustrating. Being what we are, we attach our certain circumstances to our declarations, whether it be for our gender or for our ancestors or for our religion or for our nationality. It ranges from men's rights, women's rights, sexual preference rights, hyphenated-American's rights, yet it boils down to the same thing. We want the right to be free to choose. To be free to decide. To be what we so desire to be, without anyone to gainsay against us or stop us from making the attempt.

And that is the true basis for equality: freedom. So long as you do not actively cause harm against another person with your choices, a truly free society should never stand in your way.

Yet with any of the various groups advocating such freedom for their members, it must come at the expense of those that allegedly already possess such freedoms. It is not enough that the privileged must give up their privilege, but that they must become the underprivileged in recompense.

And that is not the definition of an equal society. To punish someone for the accident of their ancestry is the same fallacious argument that the various advocacy groups are fighting against. And when another group rises in order to counter the presumed subversion of their own rights, they are decried as being short-sighted and bigoted and wrong.

Here is a basic test.

[___________] promotes the rights of their members at the expense of [___________] group's rights.

Fill in the blanks with any of the advocacy groups and their opposite number, and it will match perfectly. Gender. Race. Religion. Ethnicity. Sexual orientation. Even right- or left-handedness, should it come to that. They will, naturally, disagree with such a statement when it comes to themselves while at the same time voicing full-throated agreement with the statement relating to their opposite number.

The only way to avoid such contradiction is to promote equality for all, regardless of identifiers.

I regret to say that, with humans being humans, I will not hold my breath for such a happy occurrence.

Na Ga Ha Pen

I have said many times that I will never vote for Clinton44.

I do not care if she’s running against the combined incarnations of Iosef Stalin, Caligula, and Vlad Tepes. I do not care if the entire opposing platform is made up from Dr. Seuss rhymes and Wagnerian operas. I do not care if her Cabinet-level appointments leak as involving Weird Al Yankovic, Dusty Hill, and Daniel C. Dennett. I do not care if there is a man behind me with a big club, an evil grin, a tray full of non-sterile surgical implements, and severe sociopathic tendencies. (In fact, after voting for Clinton44, I’d welcome that. After tossing your ethical code out the window, what’s wrong with a lot of cruel and unusual punishment?)

Ambition is only to be expected at this level of politics. Yet in my memory, there is only one other Presidential aspirant to display an ambition so raw and naked as to defy any level of disbelief from anyone who is not already a supporter.

Clinton44 lost my vote the moment she formed a committee, and nothing sort of a direct commandment from God will change my mind. And even then, I’d need it repeated at least 10 more times, with associated plagues, before I went along with the plan.

[Crossposted from here]

Ouroboros Democratica

The great alliance between the progressive wing and the Democratic Party leadership is starting to eat itself.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) is encouraging anti-war activists to find challengers to centrist Democrats, with the aim of moving the party to the left and ramping up opposition to the war in Iraq, to the chagrin of top Democratic aides.

“You folks should go after the Democrats,” Woolsey said in response to a suggestion from an activist during a conference call last month organized by the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

“I’d hate to lose the majority, but I’m telling you, if we don’t stand up to our responsibility, maybe that’s the lesson to be learned.”
...

Despite the heated rhetoric, the call shed light on the frustration of anti-war groups, which must work with a Democratic majority that faces limited control in the Senate, as well as a Republican president.

The activists strongly criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for failing to meet with them and not doing enough to stop funding the war. Moran pushed back, arguing that Pelosi’s heart was with them but that she was constrained by political reality within the House Democratic Caucus and the Senate.

“We’ve got too many risk-averse members,” Moran said. “[Pelosi] really is trying. She doesn’t have the votes; she doesn’t even have the complete support of some of the leadership.

“If you heard the caucuses that are not public and could hear the arguments that she makes to sway some of the conservative members, I think you’d be much more impressed with her.”

With a mere four months to go until the first of the 2008 primaries (And no, I really don't think that the middle of September is the right time to write those words.), actively encouraging a break within the party is not the smartest thing in the known universe. Lynn Woolsey is encouraging the same schism that Cindy Sheehan started with her dressing-down of Madam Speaker earlier this year, with the same misguided principles behind her.

And, incidentally, encouraging a much earlier start down the same path of ideological purity that has hobbled the GOP over the last two election cycles, with what I predict will be the same disastrous end. I've written before that demanding ideological purity out of the party is a E. E. Milne-style Very Bad Idea. I stand by my opinions even though I know that many of you, particularly my progressive readers, disagree with them. (Likewise, I know that my conservative readers are going to do handsprings whenever they think about it.) But I really did not expect to see such a singular confirmation so quickly as this.

Given the evidence at hand as to what happens when an American party insists that its members toe the rhetorical line drawn by the radical wing of the party, I can hardly believe that there are those that are actively encouraging this process, as evidenced by this comment thread at Election Central and the ubiquitous Kos diary.

If those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it, then what will happen to those who fail to remember 5 minutes ago?

RIP

Luciano Pavarotti

Going One Up On The Pythons

Not even in their wildest skull sessions could John Cleese and Michael Palin come up with this.




Just a laugh break for Labor Day. Which, oddly enough, I always have to work on...

[Turn Signal: Zach Wendling]

WANT!

All of the above.

Now, there are some amongst you in Outer Blogistan that would resist these technologies, particularly those that affect the human body itself. Already I can picture some of you refusing to accept some of these developments, said picture complete with I Can Has Cheezburger-esque "DO. NOT. WANT." captions and an expression of utter dismay and refusal.

I, however, look forward to the day where I can have full 24-hour access to whatever information I so desire, all without having to sit down at a physical computer. For, simply enough, I am a data addict and that obnoxious thing called work keeps me away from gathering in as much data as possible only because I must maintain access to that information on my internet-withdrawal downtime. And all of the above is certainly making me lean to the transhumanist persuasion.

Therefore, this and this and this (PDF warning on the last one.) are all something I look forward to with great anticipation, not to mention a sincere hope that they will be available before I shuffle down the curtain and join the Choir Invisible.

In the meantime, I'll settle for one of these. And dream of androids dreaming of electronic sheep via a BCI.

[Turn Signal: teh insty]

Not Likely

Two points of interest today.

First:

I sincerely hope [Rove’s] resignation is the end of short-sighted, divide-and-conquer politics, and that the likes of John Danforth and his “politics of reconciliation” will be the rule of the day in the not-too-distant future.

I'll lay better odds on myself winning the Republican nomination for the White House. Unless "not-too-distant" means 5 years from now, in which case the odds fall to merely improbable rather than infinitesimally minuscule.

Second:

Will Off Colfax ever remember a milestone post?

I haven't yet. And this is number 201. And still going. Sporadically, but going.

Apples And Oranges

It is sad when supporters of a presidential candidate have to stoop to this kind of misdirection. Italics original, bold mine.

America's political consensus is almost absurdly to the right. But because people still need to run to the left of each other, the rhetoric on offer frequently sounds like the rhetoric of the left, even as its actual prescriptions are decidedly within the mainstream of our fairly conservative consensus on economics. And vice versa in other countries, where rhetoric of the right can refer to almost comically leftist policies. where the center is much further left -- and in other countries, the precise opposite happens.

The French election was an excellent example. The rhetoric there was much the same as the rhetoric here, but it was actually referring to a consensus far to the left of ours, and so even the right wing radical Sarkozy was offering nothing but a couple market-friendly tweaks across the edges of France's expansive public sector. He's further to the Left than anyone running in America. Here, John Edwards is speaking boldly for the left, but doing little more than shoring up some holes of inefficiency and insecurity within our market-heavy approach. His support for the 40-hour, rather than 35-hour, workweek puts him considerably to Sarkozy's right.

Am I the only person here that finds these non sequitur and post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments exhaustingly foolish? It is a well-known fact that the American political center is more conservative than any other industrial nation. Yet here, with his gratuitous to-the-right-of-Sarkozy response, Ezra Klein falls into the exact same rhetorical trap as the Matt Miller article in the Financial Times that he responds to. Again, bolds mine.

Consider John Edwards, who the press and Republicans have cast as the heartthrob of the resurgent “left”. The centrepiece of Mr Edwards’ agenda is a call for universal health coverage. It sounds radical to American ears, perhaps. But Margaret Thatcher would have been chased from office in the UK if she had proposed a health plan as radically conservative as Mr Edwards’ – under which private doctors would supply the medicine, and years would still pass with millions of Americans uncovered.

Matt and Ezra approach the trap from different sides, of course: the former stating that "The Left isn't that far left now, is it?" and the latter responding that "The Left isn't far enough!"

Our histories are different. Our philosophies are different. Our attitudes are different. So why is it an instance of surprise that our politics are different as well? Why do we have this consistent need to compare political apples and rhetorical oranges? And who is more foolish in the above comparison? Is it the man that uses this device to supposedly discredit the "progressive" standing of a Democratic presidential candidate? Or the man that uses this device to make his candidate-of-choice look better to the poi holloi?

This isn't French politics. Nor is it British politics. Not Canadian politics or German politics or Turkish politics or Iranian politics or Armenian politics or New World Order politics or Bloomingdale's politics.

Can we please just leave aside the gratuitous references to how other countries' politicians do things, if only when discussing an American politician? For the only real point of comparison is that they are all politicians, just like apples and oranges are both fruit. For the rest of the particulars, there are not nearly enough points of commonality to bother. And in the end, it only makes you look like an idiot.