Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
As you have noticed, I have not been posting much the last few days. Don’t be alarmed (or excited, you tricksy Democrats)- I am not going anywhere, but I probably won’t post again until Boxing Day.
You are officially ordered to go spend some time with your family and have a Merry Christmas. My friends and I insist.
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Holidays, or Whatever Blows Your TrumpetPost + Comments (10)
Deans nails this one:
The Homeland Security alert level has been raised to ‘High’. I wasn’t going to mention it here, because I assumed most people had heard it. But I’ve gone to many different web sites today from people who are making snarky comments about it, and it’s starting to get on my nerves. They’re saying things to imply that the information is worthless, is stupid, doesn’t do them any good or even, in a few cases, implying that it’s just an attempt to frighten us.
I’m sorry, some of you are my friends, but a lot of you folks need to grow up.
Our government is not all-knowing, and it is not all powerful. It is made up of men and women who are doing their best with limited information. They have more information than us, by necessity. But if you know anything about how these people do their jobs, you’ll know they have to go through far more information than is humanly possible. Many of them give their whole lives over to studying information like this, and still cannot look through even 1% of all the information that is available.
These “threat levels” are guidelines, meant primarily for government agencies. But they let the public know too, in order to keep us in the loop.
If you don’t like that, then I ask you to imagine the alternative: that the government keeps an alert system in place to let state, local, and federal agencies know how generally worried they are about security at the moment, but they don’t tell the public about it. How would you like that? Would that make you feel better?
I have spent six hours trying to fix my computer from a spyware problem. I have this awful lop.com thing which has infested my IE toolbar, and even though I have spyware killer, it can not get rid of it.
Help, please.
How rough is modern politics? Ask Paul Wolfowitz about the job he never had in an administration that never existed and how rumors of his being passed over for the nonexistent job is being spun as a personal shortcoming….
Via the CalPundit, this interesting story about modernizing unions in Las Vegas. Sounds like a success- are there other opinions or things not metioned here that should be noted?
The two papers of record both claim it has been a good week for this administration. First, the WaPo:
It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call the Bush Doctrine.
Beginning with the capture of Saddam Hussein a week ago and ending Friday with an agreement by Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi to surrender his unconventional weapons, one after another international problem has eased.
On Tuesday, the leaders of France and Germany set aside their long-standing opposition to the war in Iraq and agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of that country’s debt. On Thursday, Iran signed an agreement allowing surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities after European governments applied intense pressure on the U.S. foe. On Friday, Libya agreed to disarm under the watch of international inspectors, just as administration officials were learning that Syria had seized $23.5 million believed to be for al Qaeda.
To foreign policy hard-liners inside and outside the administration, the gestures by Libya, Iran and Syria, and the softening by France and Germany, all have the same cause: a show of American might.
Now the NY Times Op-Ed page:
James Baker III is quickly showing how old-fashioned diplomacy can advance Washington’s policy objectives. In his first trip as President Bush’s Iraqi debt negotiator, Mr. Baker met with five European leaders and emerged with declarations endorsing a substantial write-off of the $40 billion in old loans and accrued interest that Baghdad owes major developed countries. The five countries Mr. Baker visited, together with the United States, account for roughly $25 billion of those obligations. That’s only a start
Apparently, the DNC weblog is groupthink central, and interfering opinions should not be posted.