Whiskey Fire finds what may be the greatest Erick Erickson post ever. The title is “Is Glenn Beck TV’s Obi Wan Kenobi?”
Archives for August 2009
Bleg: Reality-Based Milblogs?
A long-term acquaintance on a small group mailing list chose this week to move from a steady drip of more-or-less-ignorable libertarian/objectivist statements into Full Frontal Wingnut. After circulating a long, badly-written, tediously unfunny “humorous letter” about the Self-Proclaimed So cia list President Obama’s Nazi-Inspired Campaign to Trick Innocent Americans Into “Flagging” Their Neighbors for Thought Crimes Against IRS Death Squads of the So-Called-Health-Reform Task Force to Destroy the World’s Best Medical System, they were rebutted with great patience by fellow members from all points of the political spectrum. Amidst the ensuing squid-cloud of butthurt, rules-lawyering, and accusations of bad faith, Acquaintance announced that they get all their news from four “smart, unbiased” online sources: Instapundit, Google, and two “trustworthy” milblogs, Winds of Change and Blackfive.
I know nothing of military blogs or bloggers, but I suspect that if Glenn Reynolds is the measure of smart & trustworthy, then these two may bear the same relationship to military news as Icanhascheezburger bears to veterinary science. Can the better read among you, especially the veterans, provide some recommendations for sane milblogs that won’t be too frightening to someone with a bad case of Starship Troopers Syndrome?
Tuesday Night Open Thread
Lily is pouting because it is raining and she only got one several mile walk on the rails to trails today. Such a poor, abused puppy. As such, you are stuck with a new Tunch picture:
Made pad thai tonight with some of the thai hot peppers I grew, and man did I underestimate how hot those babies were. Regardless, it was really good, and I needed to use up some cilantro, too, because that goes to seed so fast.
Also, the site is supposed to be rebuilt some time this week. The designer has been super busy, but should be free this week (crosses fingers), so maybe some of the site performance problems we have been experiencing lately will disappear. I couldn’t get on for several hours today, and I got a bunch of emails, so I know I was not the only one.
*** Update ***
One of our readers passes along this pic of his recently departed buddy Maxie, who just had to be put down:
If It Is So Tiny…
Ron Beasley declares Obama’s presidency dead. This seems just a tad premature. Think back to this time in Bush’s presidency: all he had to show thus far was a small tax cut and the Chinese airplane fiasco.
So if the 2001 tax cut was so tiny, then repealing it should be no big deal. Glad that is cleared up and we can expect some libertarian support should it be determined those tax cuts should be repealed to help bring the budget in line. I’m also glad we both agree that by comparison, the stimulus bill was even tinier.
More on Obama and LBJ
In response to my earlier post on Obama and LBJ, Laura Clawson at GOS writes:
But if Obama could look at the history and see that that kind of arm-twisting is what it took to get big, good domestic legislation passed, shouldn’t he at least try? Is his personal style of politics that much more important to him than the substance of getting people in this country the health care they need?
I think that the fact that Obama brought in Rahm Emauel and tried to bring in Tom Daschle is a sign that Obama knew he would have to twist a lot of Congressional arms. That’s why it was a good idea to try to bring those two aboard, even though they’re assholes and possibly crooks. If you were a president with limited Washington experience and you wanted to emulate LBJ’s success, Daschle and Emanuel are the two guys you’d want on your team. And it’s quite possible that things would be going better with Daschle at the helm, as others have suggested.
I also tend to think that Obama’s personal political style is a carefully managed stage piece, modeled after Reagan, the idea being that the president should appear to be a bit above it all. Clinton liked to scream at people on the phone. Obama has Rahm Emanuel do it for him. “I don’t get tough with people, Mr. Gittes, my lawyer does.”
Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a feeling the Obama White House plays tougher than people think. I also have a feeling they’re just plain nowhere near as good as it as LBJ was. But who is?
Just. Stop. Negotiating.
“I think it’s safe to say that there are a huge number of big issues that people have,” Kyl said, referring to Republican senators. “There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill.”
They are not going to vote for anything you propose. Just write the best bill you can, and pass it.
Boycotting those who boycott the boycotters
That’s where all this ends, isn’t it?
Who would have thought that a time would come when conservatives would be boycotting Walmart and Krispy Kreme while flocking to Whole Foods?
(I still say it was dumb of the Whole Foods CEO to trash health care reform, the same way it would be dumb of the commissioner of NASCAR to endorse Cindy Sheehan for Congress or co-write a book with Richard Dawkins.)
Update. I see others are thinking the same thing. Now, to be clear, people can boycott all they want to, but the conservative list of boycotted companies has gotten awfully long.
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