Dodd Harris, who is a daily read for me, is celebrating his third anniversary with a round-up of posts from the previous year. Go check it out.
Archives for 2003
Maybe I am Missing Something
More than a dozen rockets fired from donkey carts slammed into Iraq’s Oil Ministry and two hotels Friday — attacks dismissed by a U.S. general as “militarily insignificant” but which also exposed weaknesses in gathering intelligence on insurgents.
The brazen, coordinated strikes at some of Baghdad’s most heavily protected civilian sites defied a U.S. crackdown.
Two other donkeys — one pulling a rocket launcher and another rigged to a bomb — were found within hours, one 30 yards from the Italian Embassy. U.S. officials said the targets were the headquarters of a Kurdish political party and a law school.
A civilian contractor was seriously injured at the Palestine Hotel, where many foreign journalists and U.S. workers are staying. No other casualties were reported at the Palestine or at the Sheraton Hotel across the street, and police said no one was hurt at the ministry.
“They’re trying to break our will. They’re trying to seize the headlines … but they’re militarily insignificant,” Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military deputy director for operations, said at a news conference.
But he conceded that the insurgents were playing off American weaknesses, specifically in terms of gathering intelligence that could have prevented the attacks.
Am I the only one who sees this as a sign of weakness of the enemy? Their only option is to have a few jackasses strap a rocket to a jackass and then attack soft targets? This is spun as a sign that we are losing? I don’t get it.
Meanwhile, Matt Yglesias recycles a few lies and in the process finds the real enemy in Iraq- James Lileks:
First we were assured that the Iraqi people would welcome us in every way and western war opponents were castigated for being insufficiently attentive to the needs of Iraqis. Now Iraqis face condemnation for being insufficiently supportive of our policies.
A.) No one stated the Iraqi people would welcome us in every way- this is more nonsense from the quagmire crowd. You can almost hear Yglesias itching to say ‘cakewalk.’
B.) No one is condemning Iraqis for being insufficiently supportive- Lileks was responding to a rather obnoxious, short-sighted, petulant, and assinine letter from Salam Pax:
To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service. We are a bit disappointed. So would you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, get your act together and stop telling people you have Iraq all figured out when you are giving us the trial-and-error approach?
Then again- that does sound like something from the DNC, so I understand why Matt is endorsing it. At any rate, has Matt apologized for this out and out lie yet?
*** Update ***
Baldilocks asks a question. The answer, Baldilocks, is because some people are idiots.
Feel That?
It is another democrat reaching into your back pocket:
A U.S. senator said on Thursday that he would hold up a massive year-end spending bill if it included a ban on Internet-access taxes that he and several colleagues fear would harm state and local finances.
Delaware Sen. Thomas Carper, a Democrat, told reporters he would try to keep the omnibus bill from coming to the Senate floor if the ban was included in its present form, which he said infringed on the rights of state and local governments to raise revenues.
“If we end up with just an awful … provision I would certainly object to bringing the omnibus spending bill to the floor and I suspect others will join me,” Carper told reporters after a news briefing on the issue.
Although Senate rules offer many ways for individual senators to hold up bills they disagree with, it would be hard for Carper to do more than delay the bill for a few days.
Colleagues said they hoped to reach a deal with lawmakers on the other side of the issue before matters reached a head.
The ban is meant to replace a 1998 moratorium that kept state and local government from imposing taxes on the monthly fees Internet providers such as EarthLink Inc (ELNK). charge their customers. The moratorium expired on Nov. 1.
It is going to take more than a smack on the wrist to get Carper’s hand out of your wallet. You know who to write/call/email.
Free At Last
Oppressed and repressed no more, protesting Brits tear down a statue of Bush.
Look at All the Pretty Pictures
I really don’t have any comments- I just thought this was a really cool picture:
Hundreds of Monarch butterflies crowd a pine tree at the Piedra Herrada Sanctuary in Valle de Bravo, Mexico. Mexican police have been called in to protect the sanctuaries for the butterflies(AFP/File/Mario Vazquez)
Sick People
Oliver engages in a little fringebaiting with this post, but over all, he is right- these comments are unacceptable:
“This is great that Massachusett’s gay judges did this. Let all the fudgepackers move there and be clients of the Dickem and Dunkem (Ted Kennedy) law firm.”
“Born Gay” is Marxist propaganda. They’re vile perverts, nothing more.
In the past, they were confined to mental institutions to protect the innocent. Some touchie feelie let them out. They thought they could be rehabilitated and placed back into society. They were wrong. It’s too bad they can’t see the damage they’ve done to society by their ignorant mistake.”“The reason for that stat is that male queers are ungodly horny pigs. I used to be an inner city bartender and when one of these trouser pilots came into the bar they practically dropped their drawers around any male in the place. they’re sick sob’s.”
Now while Oliver would like for you to think that this represents the mainstream of conservative thought, I can assure you it is not. These disgusting comments do not represent any sort of position that can be derived from conservative ideology or from the philosophical underpinnings of conservative ideology. There is, however, a name for it. Bigotry.
It really is that simple, this is bigotry in its ugliest form. I simply have no tolerance for it, and no patience for people who think like this. People like this should just crawl into a hole and leave the rest of decent society alone- and they can take Derbyshire with them. That guy has been the “thinking man’s” homophobe for too god damn long, and it is time he stops providing cover for the bigots and homophobes who use his arguments to mask their hate and cotempt.
Kill This Bill, Please
The Prescription Drug Vote Buying Scheme must be stopped:
We had hopes that a GOP Medicare reform might do so, but this bill’s fine print reveals that short-term politics has overwhelmed the policy. Republicans are offering the certainty of trillions in new entitlements in return for the mere promise of future reform, and that’s too expensive a gamble for principled conservatives to support.
Bunch of idiots, these Republicans. If they had any brains or balls, they would write the right kind of bill, one that all Democrats would vote against, and then we would not have to worry about this enormous ill-advised giveaway or the Democrats running their mouths about it all election cycle, as they would be the ones who killed the bill.
Precisely what is wrong with means testing, again?