Apparently we need one.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.
Good lord, these people are nuts.
After roe, women are no longer free.
I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.
Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?
Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard
“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”
Let there be snark.
They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.
Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?
I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
Come on, man.
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
Infrastructure week. at last.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.
I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.
Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.
Battle won, war still ongoing.
Rusty Shackleford
Did anyone catch Spitball last night?
Pb
Rusty Shackleford,
Too little, too late. There’s a lot Matthews could have said that would have been very helpful *before* the war started. I suggest he try doing that next time. But I’m not holding my breath.
Nutcutter
From the Hardball link above.
Wow. Just when you think you have seen all there is to see in the punditocracy …. you get a surprise. Whoda thunk that the only voice of moral clarity on tv these days would be Pat Buchanan?
I’m … impressed.
Perry Como
Just like Detroit:
al Qaeda has been weakened:
Is there any policy taken on by this administration that has not been an abject failure? North Korea? NCLB? Middle East peace? Medicare reform?
You’d think for $8.5 trillion we’d get a better return on our investment. It seems like the only thing the GOP is good at is using divisive wedge issues to win elections. Their governing is for shit.
Nutcutter
Indeed.
The Other Steve
Then again, Pat Buchanan is an unabashed bigot. He’s hardly someone I would wish to trumpet agreement with on issues of homosexuals, immigrants, minorities, jews, etc.
Zifnab
John Stewart on a stem cell rampage!
The War On Terror-ble Diseases!
Nutcutter
He might be more of a fan of divisive politics than a true bigot. I’ve been listening to him for years and I am never sure one way or the other. With him, one has to figure out constantly where he is crossing the line between principle and self interest. He’ll say stuff to rile up his followers, he knows how to push their buttons. He likes applause more than he cares about any particular principle, I think.
Par R
Pat Buchanan is probably just the kind of guy that someone like ppGaz would fall for.
tBone
Look, moonbat, you can’t make a liberty omelette without breaking a few civilian eggs. Freedom is messy.
Perry Como
A conservative?
Par R
No, a bigoted anti-Semite.
Nutcutter
Why don’t you send me an email and call me that with a real name and address?
My email address is in plain sight. Send the mail now.
Perry Como
You misspelled “isolationist”.
hth
hand
Par R
Like Nutcutter, aka ppGaz, and Pat Buchanan, many are the critics of Israel who react in horror when accused of anti-Semitism. Of course it is theoretically possible to criticize Israel without being a Jew-hater. Many Jews criticize Israel, and so do many well-meaning friends seeking a better future.
Diana Muir, writing for the History News Network has discovered a new study which points to an interesting correlation between habitual severe criticism of Israel and anti-Semitic beliefs.
“Two Connecticut professors got curious about the constant denials that extremely harsh critics of Israel were anti-Semitic. Edward H. Kaplan, the William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Management Sciences, and Charles A. Small, Director of Urban Studies, Southern Connecticut State University, decided to examine the issue in formal way. Their paper, “Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Anti-Semitism in Europe,” appears in the August issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution.”
In brief, the correlation among those who criticize Israel and habitual anti-Semitic beliefs was nearly perfect.
Nutcutter
There is nothing “theoretical” about it, you lying sack of shit.
Send me your email address. I double dog dare you.
Punchy
He’s been doing this on the Sunday shows for weeks. He’s on that McLaughlin Group thang just excoriating the extreme right and the neoclowns. The guy’s had an awakening…he really has.
Nutcutter
I guess miracles are actually possible, then.
Praise Jesus.
That’s Jesus Moreno, my financial planner, but praise him, anyway.
Nutcutter
Par, I must have missed your mail. You were going to write me and tell why you think you should call me an anti-semitic bigot from behind your cowardly veil of anonymity.
Does John Cole know who you are? He knows who I am.
Send the mail.
Rusty Shackleford
On Hardball last night Buchanan and Shrum were not far from the position former CIA agent Bob Baer held, who is worried about the conflict in Lebanon being the catalyst for the U.S. to broaden their campaign in War on Terror to Iran and Syria like the Neocons want.
Iran could end up with a huge Shia empire in the ME and hold the American soldiers in Iraq hostage (via Shrum). Iran is a country of 60+M and the Financial Times reporters Matthews had on Wednesday told him not to believe the hype that the young Iranians are chafing at the Iranian govt the way Bill Kristol and the other Neocons claim they are.
Iran has been the big winner in the Iraq War and it appears that we’re not learning anything from our experience there.
Regarding Buchanan, I always feel dirty when I agree with him on something and in the last week I’ve felt like I’ve needed a perpetual shower.
Perry Como
More Unhinged Leftists(TM) at Cato:
LITBMueller
Wow! Nutcutter is going JANE HAMSHER on ParR’s ass!!! Just kidding! Just kidding!!!! Couldn’t resist!!! :)
Well, I’d say the tax cuts designed to make rich people even richer have been very successful. Oh, and the pro-Halliburton stuff has made them boatloads of dough!!!
Zifnab
I like how it is, in fact, theoretically popular. I also like how you have even stated that Jews and well-meaning friends have critisized Isreal with some degree of success. And yet the study you site seems to indicate that these Jews and Jew-friends are either anti-Semetic or on the road to anti-Semetism.
I’ve actually read the study you quote, and one of the primary arguements Kaplan and Beach make is that support for a Jewish state can be compared to, say, support for a firmly established state like Germany or China. If you have someone who claims Germans deserve a homeland, but Jews (in the form of Isreal) do not, then you have a person exhibiting some degree of anti-Semetism. Naturally, I have a very serious problem with this logic, since Germany has existed in one form or another for centuries, while Isreal is a mere 50-odd years old. If you went back to the Holy Roman Empire on the verge of collapse in the 1800s and demanded an independent German state, you would likely get a much different array of opinions. Likewise, if you were to take this study in Canada asking whether Quebec should be its own state, would you be an anti-Quebecian for being disabused of the notion? Quebecians, after all, often claim to be an independent social and ethnic group.
There are one or two other points that bare mentioning in the article, about how it defines anti-Semetism and what criterions it sets down to determine the existance or absence of the trait which I disagree with as well. But it is an interesting study to look at, if for no other reason than it gives you an idea of how Zionists think in their quest to reclaim the Holy Land and rebuild the Temple.
Zifnab
*theoretically possible
I should really proofread anything more than three lines.
Perry Como
If Buchanan is an anti-Semite, why did so many older Jewish people vote for him in Florida in 2000?
Pb
Pat is not all there. I remember, in 2004, he railed against Bush for his economic failures at home, he railed against Bush for his military failures abroad… and then he told people to vote for Bush anyhow, and he parrotted the ridiculous and libelous election smears against Kerry, out of some sort of “tribal” loyalty.
Rusty Shackleford
Cataracts?
Nutcutter
I’m just getting caught up on this. Haven’t seen much Hardball lately, I assume that’s where he is hanging out.
I am starting to think … a little … that Bush’s uncritical and downright idiotic knee-jerk support for Israel and the fact that he has wrapped that up in his whole dysfunctional package of Meddle East policy (no, that is not a misspelling) to the extent that if you took away the Israel component …. the premise for the policy might just collapse entirely …. anyway, his chew-with-mouthful-of-food trailer park stupid idea of a policy here just might be the undoing of the policy once and for all.
He’s getting approval numbers in the 30’s for his response to the current crisis. And almost all of that approval is coming from his base. Which means they are giving no actual thought to it at all.
As silver linings on clouds go, it took Katrina to really expose the incompetance of these guys on the domestic front. Right now, the paint is starting to come off on the confused mess that is our Meddle East policy.
LITBMueller
Sounds nice and snippy, but that’s way too simplistic. War is a means to an end. For guys like Bill Kristol, its a means of establishing his long sought-after “Benevolent Hegemony.”
Punchy
Not so sure I’d want my financial planner to be named Jesus. Too afraid that he’d be just giving away all my money to the poor and spending the rest on wine and manna…
Pb
Punchy,
Maybe he’s more of a supply-side Jesus…
Nutcutter
That’s just their sense of humor.
Or, cataracts, and they thought they were voting for “Buchwald.”
Krista
Nutcutter — you just made yourself laugh again, didn’t you?
Nutcutter
:-)
Par R
Nutcutter has to be a spoof.
RSA
The Kaplan and Beach study is online, by the way. (Oddly, they seem to be affiliated with Yale, rather than Southern Connecticutt University.) It’s worth noting that the study was carried out in ten European countries, and extreme anti-Semitism was measured by answering Yes to more than five of the following questions:
That’s 10% to 15% of the surveyed respondents. Rather than Par R’s summary, here’s what Beach and Kaplan have to say:
Nutcutter
Buchanan’s piece today.
I am so fucking sick of these crazy, lying assholes.
SeesThroughIt
Learning is for commie pussies. What are you, some kind of terrorist?
Nutcutter
Ask John Cole which of us is a spoof.
Send the email, asshole.
Perry Como
Activist judge alert!
RSA
Oops, forgot to finish up: a 56% correlation is not a perfect correlation.
Nutcutter
Fixed.
What does that make me? Anti-manufactured-housing?
Pb
Perry Como,
Phew! I’m glad they didn’t catch me!
Pb
Sweet.
The Other Steve
No. Kerry was going to force everybody into a gay marriage, and only voting for Bush would stop that from happening.
Richard W. Crews
The world’s events have overwhelmed dubya, he has no policies left. I suppose he can fling the Air Force at Iran in a final bluster. While the mideast burns, bush acts like an oaf at the G8, swearing, uttering simplistic erroneous notions with his mouth stuffed full of biscuits. I’m so proud
Hearing of our being in a “time of war…” I grit my teeth and think about bush’s lame conduct. Bush cancelled the real war against terrorism and diverted the entire country into his delusional psychodaddydrama.
So last week, when Attorney General Abu Gonzales was testifying on the NSA citizen spying case, Gonzales stated that FISA courts wouldn’t work because “… but we didn’t have a declaration of war, only an authorization to use military force, so we couldn’t work with that provision. … Obviously they are different.” So we aren’t at war.
Bush and his supporters are more afraid than we were during any real war. What a strange bunch, bombing abroad while eviscerating their own society, selling it up for their fears. Benjamin Franklin saw their ilk : “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Par R
Here’s a Link to the article I referred to above. You will note that as of that date one of the authors was affiliated with Yale, while the other was with SCU.
Also, here’s a portion of their abstract:
“..based on a
survey of 500 citizens in each of 10 European countries (for a total sample
of 5,000), we ask whether those with extreme anti-Israel views are more
likely to be anti-Semitic. Even after controlling for numerous potentially
confounding factors, we find that anti-Israel sentiment consistently predicts
the probability that an individual is anti-Semitic, with the likelihood of
measured anti-Semitism increasing with the extent of anti-Israel sentiment observed.”
Punchy
If Novex makes a crappier, more insanely frustrating transfer box/assembly, I have not seen it. Nothing like pissing away a good portion of a Friday trying to assemble wet sponges in every concievable fashion until it “decides” it likes it.
Note to self: purchase some Bio-Rad stock.
Nutcutter
One more anti-semite troll from Par, and I may have to pull out the seed catalogs ….
RSA
Sure, to a probability (high for the social sciences) of 56% at the extreme. That’s interesting, but kids should not try calling other kids anti-Semites at home.
Nutcutter
{ Add to Cart }
Pb
Par R,
Yes, their research found a correlation between the two, a fact that I find to be entirely unsurprising (Anti-semites hate Israel, Film at 11!). The question then becomes, what is the strength of that correlation and how predictive is it. So it goes from 25% to 50%… so what. That means that they’d probably give Pat Buchanan 50-50 odds of being an anti-semite, whether he is or not. Now, did you have a point?
Nutcutter
{ Add to Cart }
Par R
Alas, not a single statistician among the readership.
Oh well, it’s still abundantly clear that Nutcutter is a spoof, apparently of the garden variety type…
Faux News
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Punchy
THERE’S a surprise….by the way, how and when did Jewish-ness become an ethnicity? It’s a freakin’ religion. So why it always spoken in terms of being an ethnicity?
Are there any anti-Christians (analogous to anti-Semites)? Anti-Hindus? And why shouldn’t many Christians be anti-semitic? After all, they didn’t just 86 the Son of God, they tortured him first. There OUGHT to be some residual anger towards Jews for that enormous debacle…
Joey
Perhaps my understanding of religion is a bit off (I find it all ridiculous), but didn’t the Romans torture and crucify Jesus? I always thought that the whole “The Jews killed Jesus!” was a tactic used by people to perpetuate hate against the Jews, up there with “The Jews control all the money!” and “The Jews run the entire world!”
Nutcutter
“The Jews write Par R!”
Pb
Joey,
From Wikipedia:
Joey
Ah, thank you very much Pb. I was not aware of the circumstances. It’s still idiotic, of course, to blame the Jews. It’s a bit like blaming every Japanese person one sees for Pearl Harbor, or every German for everything that happened from ’33-’45. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that the story very well could have been altered while being written to put the blame on the Jews. It’s not like that’s unheard of in Biblical history (Just ask Judas). But that, of course, is just a thought, and I have nothing to back that up.
RSA
What complete, intellectually bankrupt crapola.
The Other Steve
Judaism is an Ethnic Religion. That is, it’s the religion of the Jewish people. So it’s kind of both an ethnicity and a religion.
Punchy
It was tongue-in-cheek. Snark. Spoof.
Joey
Oh, I know that Punchy. I was just talking in general. I wasn’t attacking you or anything you said. Sarcasm can be easily lost on the internet, but in this particular instance, it wasn’t.
The Other Steve
Bah, the biblical account of the crucifixion is so distorted.
“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” was the crime. That is, calling himself King was rebellious. The Romans choose who was King.
Roman’s didn’t give a shit about the religions of regions they took over. All they cared about was taxes and order. So you start rebelling against the system they put in place, and your gonna piss off the Governor.
And by all other accounts of Pilate, he was not a generous governor. So it’s been suggested that the wording of that story was intended to appease the Romans.
Nutcutter
So, it was the Republicans who killed Jesus.
jg
Yes. Because that’s what Jesus would have done.
Par R
RSA: What complete, intellectually bankrupt crapola.
Agreed.
jg
Holy crap. In ten minutes it went from hot and sunny to hot and stormy. Wind, dust, lightning, thunder and rain came out of nowhere.
Ancient Purple
Welcome to the monsoon in Phoenix. I am watching the fun from the 25th floor of my office building. Beautiful.
Steve
With an attitude like that, you are never getting in my tribe.
“Yeah, Jesus was Jewish, but only on his mother’s side.” -Archie Bunker
Anyway, it’s an ethnicity.
Nutcutter
Downtown? Chase building, or …?
We must be neighbors.
jg
My office is at 56th and Mayo. Can you see that area from teh Chase building? I’d imagine there are a couple large mounds of dirt in between.
Punchy
Didn’t mean it as a slam. Was actually a serious question. Since no one refers to Christians as an ethnicity…just wondering how judaism (sp?) was diff. Someone answered…I’m happy…I’ll shut up.
Nutcutter
Oh, it was the 25th floor that made me think downtown. There aren’t that many 25 story buildings around here for a metro area with 4 million people.
If look at my url you can pretty much figure out the neighborhood where I work, if you know your way around downtown. Steps away from the old Union Station. Which is now a County utility building.
One-seventeen today. Nothing like a July-August afternoon to make us appreciate Willis Carrier
Punchy
Dammit, Tim. What the hell am I supposed to drink tonite? What will look nice, give me lots of head, and doesn’t cost much? And what about the beer?
Damn two-bit operation here…maybe we can get a responsible grandma to guest-blog…like Friday Sewing Blog…or Friday How To Drive Even Slower Blog….
Ross
Ick, that sucks. I always hate it when PI’s try to save a couple bucks by buying cheap-ass equipment, which then give their users endless problems.
Steve
You’re right about Christians, but “ethnic Catholic” is actually a fairly common term where I come from.
Nutcutter
Tomorrow’s NYT OpEd page will carry that blurb.
At what point is it time to just say, okay, everybody OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE? You’ve screwed things up enough, just go home. We can do without a president for a couple of years.
A “new” Middle East? After Israel spent 18 years in Lebanon, first creating and then trying to get rid of, Hizbollah, and accomplishing basically nothing except the near-destruction of Beirut and infuriating half the radical Arab world before slinking away …. now they are poised to start the 18-year cycle all over again, and it’s the “new” Middle East?
How fucking crazy and out of touch do these idiots in our government have to be before we just say, “Enough?”
Kirk Spencer
Par R,
The major flaw with the survey is the questions used to determine “anti-Israel” status. Four questions. One uses “is similar to” for the critical phrase. One uses “is there any justification”. One gives a double choice – “Do you agree it’s red or blue” type phrasing. There is one question which does not lead or muddy, and it’s got possible other problems.
The statistics are good. The survey is bad. GIGO applies.
ats
The Washington Post has a front page headline today saying, “Israeli Troops Feel Sense of Moral Clarity.”
Just curious. Is it the same sense they felt last time, when they oversaw the massacre of Palestinians in the two camps outside Beirut? Will they have the same sense of clarity when, a few months hence, their buffer zone engineers re-route the Litani River water to the settlements in the West Bank?
If the American people only knew! But our media will make damn sure they never do.
Krista
Actually, I was curious about that too, Punchy, so don’t feel bad. It’s so rare around here for people to profess that they don’t know about something, that I think you threw people for a loop.
ats
“In brief, the correlation among those who criticize Israel and habitual anti-Semitic beliefs was nearly perfect.”
Which suggests that, based on the Pew poll, the whole rest of the world is antisemitic. A blood libel of all gentiles, as well as Jews like Noam Chomsky.
There is another nearly perfect correlation, between those who are losing an argument and those who label the winner antisemitic.
Par R
ats, I don’t think there’s much doubt as to where you stand on the question of anti-semitism.
Punchy
That’s literary genius. Well-spoken.
Kirk Spencer
Par R,
Now I’ve read the whole draft you linked to, and some peer reviews, and even found some of the data elsewhere. In addition to my notes about the question, the peer review noted that based on the data, there is a strong correlation (14%, vs the 56% discussed above) of antisemitism in those strongly PRO-Israel.
They also note that the scores are not equitable across nations, and one of the worst scorers of anti-semitism is Sweden, a nation that on almost every other study of antisemitism scores LOWER than the rest of Europe.
Between the poorly phrased questions, the careful avoidance of indicators that the issue is confused, and the fact it’s contrary to the tendency of peer studies, it’s not something to which I’d stake my reputation.
Par R
Kirk Spencer – Thanks for the additional isight. It’s also good to see a couple of Yale professors apparently taken down.
Nutcutter
Well, Ancient Purple, NWS has just issued a revised forecast for today …. to possibly be even hotter than yesterday. And based on the temp readings this morning, I’d say they might be right.
Hold onto your hat. Today could be one for the record books. 105F on the ppgazptmd as I write. (ppgaz patio temperature measuring device).
Punchy
Looks like Dudley DoRight took some shrapnel today
How long until Prime Minister Krista gets The Ehs out of AfGONEistan?
Krista
I’m Prime Minister? Holy shit, I know I drank a lot of rum last night, but I don’t remember THAT happening…
CaseyL
ats, what exactly do you mean by “oversaw the massacres” at Shatillah and Shabra?
Tim F.
You might be happier with Bio-Rad transfer boxes.
\
BTW, we just got our first minigel apparatus. Can get an amen for the 30-minute PAGE gel? Thank you.
rilkefan
People here who would like to see Cynthia McKinney not return to office can donate to her (apparently sensible) primary opponent here.
Par R
CaseyL, I’m afraid that your question of “ats” will likely go unanswered, as the charge of “overseeing the massacres” is a trope advanced by CAIR and other such groups in an attempt to mask the fact that the Phalangists themselves committed the atrocitites. At the very worse, Sharon could be held responsible for not having perfect foresight in anticipating what might happen.
rilkefan
Note that Sharon was held indirectly responsible for the massacre by an Israeli commission of inquiry and lost his cabinet post as a result. “Perfect foresight” wasn’t the issue so much as reasonable care.
Nutcutter
Moral clarity is a cinch, when you know that God Is On Your Side.
If you don’t believe me, just ask George Bush.
Apparently God Is On Our Side wrt to our Meddle East policy. Which just goes to show you what a great sense of humor God really has.
Par R
The point was that Israel/Sharon were not involved in “overseeing the massacre” as “ats” was asserting.
VidaLoca
CaseyL —
[link]
Nutcutter
The spoofturd Par R can quibble over the semantics, but the Israeli government seems to have no qualms about assigning responsibility for the massacre.
The same spoofturd will mount a troll to the effect that such criticisms are “anti-semitic” in exactly the same way that we’ve seen criticism of the Bush administration called “anti-American.” And for the same reason.
Par R
ppGaz/Nutcutter/shithead, or whatever- you are an anti-Semite, as well as an unpatriotic dickhead.
Nutcutter
Right on schedule.
Say, you cowardly fuck, where’s that email you were going to send me?
Nutcutter
Anyone can find out my real name. Just send me an email.
What are you afraid of?
Nutcutter
Buckley trashes the Potemkin Government of George Bush
Nutcutter
Four Children and the Cost of War — CNN
The last I heard, US policy was that we’d like Israel to end its operations “next week.”
I really don’t know if I will ever be proud to be an American again.
rilkefan
ppGaz, having slept through the Trail of Tears, slavery, the Philippine-American War, Nagasaki, the Tuskeegee expt., the bombing of Cambodia, the Dirty War, Pinochet, Reagan’s Central America policy, Rwanda, Bush fils, and the pictures of Israeli children blown up by Hizbullah missiles, wakes up and sees some disturbing stuff. There there.
Krista
rilkefan – Sometimes, you can fiercely love your country despite some of its more horrible moments in history. But then, enough horrible things happen that one day, you wake up and don’t recognize your country anymore. It looks like Nutcutter’s gotten to that point
Par R
ppGaz proves yet again what a complete and total asshole, not to mention a pitiful anti-Semite, that he really is. It is hard to understand why any thinking American would want his e-mail address, that he keeps pushing, as most of us don’t care to associate with trailer park trash and unpatriotic scum.
Tulkinghorn
Blaming Sharon for allowing the massacres to happen is antisemitic? That makes most of Israel antisemitic.
Realtity is reality, truth is truth, whether the facts are pro-israel or not. To their credit, most Israelis recognize this.