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December 28, 2006

Cover of the Year

Posted by Steven at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)

Freeper QOTD

"Mr. Silverback" comments on Bob Woodwards revelation that Gerald Ford was opposed to the Iraq war:

I would also submit that if war against Iraq was not justified--even without the WMDs--then there is no justification for war by American forces anywhere at any time.

That's all he says on the subject.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2006

Greatest Hits 2003

Billmon at Whiskey Bar recently posted a retrospect of his prescient posts from 2003. It's great stuff that everyone should bookmark as an example of how lefty bloggers got it right from the start.

Billmon's posting inspired me to dig up some of what I wrote at the time. What follows is from an email to a personal Yahoo! email group that I sent on March 17, 2003. The group was not political in any way, but as the war loomed, a few of us got into it with a lone war-supporter on the list. Part of his response to my email was this:

Over these past few weeks, I've essentially been called a stupid, idiotic, crack-smoking knucklehead deserving to be punched out. All this, because I'm apparently swallowing all the lies spit out by Bush, Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld.

In the face of such personal attacks, it's been some consolation to me that if I'm stupid, gullible, or a liar, than so must be those frequent defenders of my positions, such as Fox News, the WSJ editorial page, talk radio and a few hundred WarBloggers.

Well, there's one thing that we agree on. Ultimately, he excoriates me for name-calling. He may be an asshole for calling for a completely unjustified and potentially disastrous war, but, hey, he was being an adult about it.

I do get a couple of things wrong. At one point, I cite 500,000 to 1,000,000 killed by Hussein, when upper estimates put that at around 350,000. I also claim that the U.S. sold Hussein chemical weapons. That's not strictly true. The weapons were sold by other countries — the U.S. just made sure to prevent any trade embargoes that would prevent the sales and helped cover up Saddam's use of chemical weapons.

Without further ado, the email (names have been changed):

---

Total Jackass wrote:

I appreciate that Winston has risked Carpal Tunnel to expand upon his ideas, which I had not previously been able to derive.

Maybe I've just been immersed in that kind of stuff too long. I thought they were obvious points. I guess it's good that I know what I need to make clear in the future.

Concerns present before 9/11 and still true today:

There you go using that "true" word again. If something is true — in the sense of "true" that merits and armed invasion — you should be able to find some evidence supporting it.

• Saddam continues to hide and stockpile chemical, biological, and conventional weapons.

Status: Lie

This "information" is only available from known liars. Furthermore, it is contradicted by the most authoritative possible source:

• Saddam continues his quest for nuclear weapons.

Status: Lie

Again, brought to you by the People Who Lie.

• Saddam continues his quest for nuclear weapons.

Status: Lie

• Saddam continues to direct his country's resources -- significant because of the oil revenues -- towards the procurement of these weapons.

(see above)

• Saddam has no interest in allowing inspectors to do the only thing that inspectors are equipped to do -- that being verifying that a country is disarming.

(see above)

• Saddam runs a police state whose cornerstone for compliance is torture.

Status: True

The same is true of: Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Israeli Occupied Territories. I care about police states that use torture, and because I care I'm not going to allow the issue to be cynically co-opted by the Bush Petrocracy.

If Saddam's Iraq is a "Police State," then what are we?

• The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Iraq's prisons are virtually empty.


• In 1970, the combination of crime and political executions made it the most "deadly" year in Iraq's history. The murder rate — again, including political executions — was still lower than the murder rate in the US today.

Describe what constitutes a "police state." It should make for a nice introduction to the USA PATRIOT act.

For the last time (hopefully): If I believed that our intervention in Iraq would make things better (even accidentally), I would support it. It didn't last time, and I haven't seen a credible argument that it will this time. There's no democratic regime ready to take over. The closest thing is KDP-controlled Kurdish areas and there's already so much ugliness brewing there that I've lost all hope. If the Turks don't extend their reign of US-approved murder and torture into the area, then the Kurds will create their own. A few weeks ago, Kurds attacked a group of Assyrians in Kirkuk. Their offense? Building a church. Oh yeah, things are lookin' up for Iraq. Send in the Marines!

Concerns amplified since 9/11:

If your level of concern for any of these issues changed at all on 9/11, then it just shows that you weren't paying attention. The 1½ years since that date have not been conducive to a passive acquisition of actual understanding.

See above, again. "Saddam continues his quest for nuclear weapons," is something George Bush and Friends say on CNN. They have cited two general source: IAEA officials, who have publically reiterated that Bush's claims are the exact opposite of theirs and that they are based on forged, vaporous, or otherwise manufactured "evidence." This has been pointed out to you over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

Just tell me, Jackass, because I need closure on this: are you really, really stupid, or just basically dishonest? Or is there a new "Post-9/11" rationale that makes the tireless repetition of discreditted assertions acceptable?

• Weapons of such destruction in the hands of tyrants who support terrorist tactics generate such a threat that the cost of inaction is greater threat than that of action.

Well, I figured that we should wait until 2004 and remove Bush from office peacefully, but you do raise a good point.

• Bush is a tyrant.
• He has supported terrorist tactics.
• His regime does posses nuclear weapons.
• Bush has threatened to use them, even without the provocation of a nuclear threat.
• In 1945, the US struck two civilian targets with nuclear weapons, in admitted act of terrorism (The US was at war, but chose to hit non-military targets, placing it in material breach of binding international resolutions, and it did so to deliberately cause terror amongst non-combatants &Mdash; something that obviously calls for a pre-emptive strike, like, say, a bombing raid on Pearl Harbor. Oh, it's all so clear to me now...)

Yeah, that seems pretty dire. Oh wait, we were talking about Iraq. Sometimes I get confused. I agree with this statement. We should definitely address threats. Let's check on that:
Perhaps you might find Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity more credible. These are ex-CIA guys who opposed the invasion. That's right, some of the same people who've overthrown legitimate democracies and installed brutal dictators for over 50 years oppose this war. These are not peaceniks or bleeding-hearts. These are spooks who know where the bodies are buried. Here's their statement:

http://www.counterpunch.org/vips02082003.html

• Saddam will only throw bones at teams of disarmament inspectors, even with the imminent threat of hundreds of thousands of troops poised to take him out.

Oh, well, Saddam throws bones at everybody, Jackass. He's got such an abundant supply of them, thanks to the 500,000 - 1,000,000 deaths inflicted on the citizens of Iraq (who, last time I checked, were not evil tyrants).

But you're right, it certainly is hard to believe that he's not complying with the inspections process when he's got Mechanized Death breathing staring him in the face. I mean, I found it hard to believe that the Iraqis weren't complying when with the inspections when the inspections teams said that the Iraqis were complying, but now that you mention this detail — yeah, only an idiot would believe that the Iraqis are hindering the inspections process.

So while the Bush Administration includes but downplays the oil-supply-stability issue, Winston makes this issue his central -- his only -- premise, insisting that the other concerns are spun out for p.r. purposes.

Yes. That is a completely true statement. Hurrah.

Many of [the historical] details [of previous oil-driven policy] may be true, and if so they do call into question the ethics of previous administrations. But making a case for guilt by association of G.W.Bush will not prove that his actions now are all about oil.

Dismissing my assertions as "guilt by association" is a new height of ignorance/duplicty for you, Jackass. It's just plain guilt. I don't have to associate these people with the lying, backstabbing, traiterous bastards who got us into this mess in 1991. They're the exact same people. Only the guy playing George Bush has changed. That's it. Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld — they're all back. It's like The Gulf War Reunion Special. All we need is a musical guest.

Instead, one only has to answer these two questions:

Why am I so sure that "one" has to do more than provide better answers than Jackass? He's like a creationist. If he has an answer, he declares victory, even if that answer is provably false.

1. If an administration has a single-minded focus on oil supply stabalization, then would they believe that military tactics were and are the most sure-fire way of obtaining this objective?
2. Do the other seven reasons for action I've listed above really matter to Bush, and to America?

I've tried to answer the first question by pointing out how, for Bush 41, all the money and resources and risks of oil wells being set ablaze doesn't seem to line up with Bush's alleged accomplishment of getting a single, large oil well transferred over to Kuwait.

It was a good try, too, Jackass, but a failed attempt.

Money and resources? Dick Cheney's Halliburton made a fortune rebuilding Kuwaiti and Iraqi oil production. If anything, the money and resources needed to fix the oil wells were incentive.

Risks? Heavily mitigated. Oil reserves, I pointed out. Also, consider the fact that Saudi Arabia can produce a sufficient supply on its own, but it's a risk. Long term strategy: diversify supplies. Short term strategy: Troops in Saudi Arabia. The official reason for those troops being there was to deter Saddam Hussein from invading Saudi Arabia, but there isn't one shred of evidence that he ever intended to. Instead, the evidence suggests that threat was invented for the purpose of getting the American and Saudi people to approve a US military presence in that country.

"Bush's alleged accomplishment of getting a single, large oil well tranferred over to Kuwait."

OK, Jackass, we speak English here, not Newspeak. First, it wasn't an alleged accomplishment, is was an actual accomplishment — unless you have evidence that this transfer didn't occur. "Single, large oil well" sounds pretty trivial, I admit, but an accurate description of the Rumaila asset is "the 2nd largest oil field in the world." It's like calling the Hope Diamond, "a piece of jewelry." Third, is wasn't the only accomplishment; Saddam Hussein and Iraq, the most powerful country on the Arabian peninsula that wasn't on a US leash, lost its autonomy. How convenient.

Do the other seven reasons for action I've listed above really matter to Bush, and to America?

I don't see any evidence whatsoever that the "seven reasons" matter to president Bush. I mean, they obviously matter in some way, because he's spent his entire presidency spouting a litany of duplicitous misrepresentations and blatant fabrications trying to get people to believe these "seven reasons." I think the well-documented campaign of deceit and propaganda makes it blindingly obvious that Bush doesn't "care" about these reasons in the sense of "he thinks they are genuine concerns."

As far as the American people go, yes, I believe they are genuinely concerned. That's why it angers me to see them lied to. If the American people have cause for concern, the cause should be addressed, and the concern remedied. If the concern is based on a lie, the remedy is exposing the lie. A widespread or sincere belief in a lie does not make it a truth.

Many Americans are concerned about gay people being school teachers because they believe the gay teachers will "recruit" children into "the homosexual lifestyle." Should we A) educate these well-meaning folks that people enter the "homosexual lifestyle" because they are sexually attracted to people of their own gender or B) persecute homosexuals by barring them from the teaching profession? If you picked B, then we should invade Iraq!

Finally, the opinion of the American people no longer matters. If you think it does, I have some unpleasant facts to introduce you do. Now, I've introduced you to a lot of facts already, and you've been very rude to them — snubbing them, and making fun of their hairstyles, and the like — and it's hurt their feelings. However, these are some particularly unpleasant facts, so I really don't care as much.

Similarly, Bush 43 is risking his entire Presidency on this crisis.

As opposed to risking it on:

• Not meeting any of his campaign promises on education
• Not meeting any of his promises on social security
• Not having a viable economic strategy
• Pushing through a tax cut for the rich in the middle of a weak economy.

I think the only other choice he has, besides Iraq, is risking his entire Presidency on a country music career and I don't think his singing voice is that good.

Including spending much of the past 5 months trying to get the rest of the U.N. Security Council to live up to the unanimously voted Resolution 1441.

Yeah! How many times do you have to lie to these people before they'll go along with you? Sheesh! What do they think we've been doing? Do they think we've just been massing troops on Iraq's border for an invasion we planned all along, while we fished for a plausible excuse that will get the UN to greenlight our attack?

He's waited and waited, giving Saddam opportunity to wire up all those 'production-stabalizing' wells, like he did the last time around.

I don't have my Newspeak dictionary handy. Does "waited" mean "lied"? And as far as Saddam blowing up oil wells: even if that's true, I'm sure Halliburton would be overjoyed to rebuild everything. In fact, the best place for a lot of Bush's cabinet to be in a couple years might be out of office and back in their oil companies where they can really get all the goodies they shook loose from the oil tree during these four years. And that's not all:
Cheney, Rumsfeld, as well as several wealthy Saudis connected to Al Qaeda are involved in Carlylse. I'd tell you to check it out, but they took down their web site when it started getting a lot of hits after 9/11. (I guess they figured that whole "web" fad was over.)

I've also tried to present, over all my previous emails, why these other seven reasons are so important for all free nations to act upon.

Here's a helpful tip: include supporting facts. You've done a fine job explaining why we should be worried about a country that would give WMDs to terrorists, but you haven't bothered to demonstrate that Iraq is likely to be one of those countries. Everything you write starts with an implicity "Assume that everything Bush says is true." That's a tough request. I've read a lot of articles in the last month and I honestly can't think of a single case where Bush hasn't lied.

Not one. I'm serious. If you can provide an example from the last year where Bush has made a significant statement regarding his personal beliefs and intentions, that is provably true, in its entirety, I'd like to know about it.

Ironically, I can cite you examples where Saddam Hussein was branded a liar, when he was telling the truth. For example, the reason the weapons inspections process broke down in 1998 was that Iraq, after 4 years of patiently waiting for the UN to act on their complaints, finally put its foot down and demanded an end to the US using the inspection mission as a cover for unauthorized covert activity. Of course, Saddam was called a liar and we made vigorous denials that any spying was being done under the cover of the inspections process.

But Saddam Hussein wasn't lying. We were spying, in violation of the agreement. Think about it. We're supposed to buy a lot of the hype because of what a big fat liar Saddam Hussein is, and he has a better record of honesty than George W. Bush. Amazing!

And now it seems we're on the eve of an invasion. I cannot at this time elaborate more on answering these two questions, and I doubt this newsgroup wants me to.

If by "elaborate" you mean "repeat more Bush administration fabrications," then no, we don't want you to. We can all get Fox News for ourselves.

I'm curious to know what events would have to transpire for Winston to admit that his judgment has been wrong.

Fair enough.

What if Iraqi citizens really do publicly express their appreciation for liberation?

Do you mean before or after CNN moves their crew to the next hotspot? In early 2002, we sure heard all kinds of success stories that proved that Bush did the Right Thing and that opponents of his Afghanistan strategy were wrong. I never changed my opinion. I looked pretty stupid in the glow of those early news reports. Of course, if you look at Afghanistan now, it's pretty much exactly what I predicted. Nobody's talking about it though, so I don't get the "I told you so" opportunities I so richly deserve.

I'm sure the Arabs cheered the conquering British soldiers in 1918. Read up on 1920.

Or if Saddam uses on our soldiers the chemical or biological weapons he has so often claimed he does not have?

What would that prove?

I never said that Saddam Hussein had no CBW, just that his stockpile wasn't a threat to us or his neighbors.

Here's a question for you, Jackass: if the US were invaded by an enemy army — in violation of international law — and the army was overrunning us by commiting blatent violations of the Geneva Convention, would it be acceptable to use our NBC weaponry to defend ourselves? I'm just curious, seeing as how you seem to have such a passion for bestowing Iraq with the same rights and freedoms America has. I assume that means the right to defend its borders against unprovoked and unauthorized attack.

We aren't attacking "Saddam Hussein." "Saddam Hussein" is not going to be firing any bullets and "Saddam Hussein" is not going to be launching any artillery, CBW or otherwise. There are 22 million other people in Iraq. Those are the people who will be killed by our forces. You're correct that Saddam Hussein has taken away most of their rights. Why are we the Good Guys when we take away what few they have left with no promise that they'll get any of them back?

Or if many more details about Iraq's nuclear weapons program come out?

If they're anything like the details that have been coming out steadily for the last 10 years, I think I'll be fine with it. I don't know what you think they're going to find, but I guess it doesn't matter, as you've shown a willingness to believe just about anything.

Or Iraq is caught harboring scores of known terrorists?

That's pretty vague. America harbors known terrorists. After WWII, more Nazi's ended up on the CIA payroll than on trial at Nuremburg. More to the point, Iraq is harboring known terrorist groups that operate in Turkey (PKK), Iran (MKO), and probably others. We have known SCIRI, IRA, and PLO members in the US, not to mention all the ex-Nazi's brought in by the Republicans over the years.

If Iraq is actively supporting Al Qaeda, I'd find that interesting.

I'm not saying that all these scenarios will come to pass. I'm just publicly wondering exactly how many things have to happen that fly in the face of his current world-view for Winston to eventually come to terms with his misjudgment of the Bush Administration's motives.

In 1991, when I told people that the Gulf War was really about oil, people said I was nuts, and that it was about liberating Kuwait. I can't believe anyone still clings to that illusion. Even the Reaganite Hawks weren't buying it at the time:
IF Iraq ends up with:

• A stable, independant, elected government,
• National control of its oil
• Return of territory "granted" to Kuwait
• Adequate national defense (no NBC weapons, though)

...I'll feel foolish. Frankly, I'd rather feel foolish than vindicated; it would be a small price to pay. On the other hand, if the hawks are responsible for hundreds of thousand more sick American veterans, the further degradation of the Iraqi people, years of regional conflict, or an increase in anti-American terrorism, they will have reason to feel deeply ashamed.

But if they had a capacity for shame, we'd live in a different world.

I, for one, agree to radically re-examine my own world view should a significant amount of the following occur: Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil reserves get moved into posession of U.S.-run energy companies.

This is already the case.

No further evidence of hidden Iraqi chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs surfaces.

You might want that to read "No further credible evidence". I know that credibility isn't a requirement for you yet, but I'm urging you to join us on the "reality" bandwagon. There's plenty of room, seeing as how so few American's are on board.

Scientists freed from Saddam's threats of torture do not give grizzly details of Saddam's Modus Operandi, up through and including his threats to them about cooperating with the recent "inspections process."

What has that got to do with anything? Why don't you add "Saddam turns out not to have a mustache." Saddam Hussein committed his worst atrocities under the watchful gaze of the Reagan Administration, which had normalized relations in 1984. The Reagan Administration sold him the chemicals to make his nerve gas and gave him intelligence data so he'd know where to deploy it. Why is it suddenly a burning issue? We had our opportunities to take the moral high ground and we passed on all of them. This is the same group of people that was responsible before, Alan. Not "Republicans" but the exact same individuals.

The U.S. and its allies do not devote major effort to building a peaceful representative government in Iraq.

Well, Jackass, of course they have to build the peaceful representative government in Iraq before they can run it. Don't worry, I'm sure all the oil companies will have full representation!

No officially approved harboring of terrorists within Iraq's borders are uncovered.

I doubt Henry Kissinger will set foot there.

And finally, if the Iraqi people, who have genuine reason to be suspicious of America's intentions, don't show a similar amount of the same appreciation that has been shown for our recent efforts to spread freedom in the former Communist Bloc, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and in Afghanistan.

I have no doubt, that a similar amount of appreciation for American efforts is forthcoming.

Winston has written, somewhat cryptically, in an earlier posting:

"A lot of people like Fascist rule. It makes a lot of stuff simpler.

"Like, usually, you don't have to remember when the Jewish holidays are anymore."

Regarding the first sentence, I'm of the optimistic bend. And I think that even with decades of living under tyranny, people yearn to be free.

How free? Jean Kirkpatrick coined a distinction between "totalitarian" and "authoritarian" and the only actual difference is that totalitarian regimes are evil and poor, and authoritarian regimes are prosperous and not too evil to ally with. Iraq became a decent place to live for the first time in its history in the first 10 years of Ba'ath Party rule. It wasn't a free place by any stretch of the imagination. There were plenty of human rights abuses, but things were easing up as the economy improved. While the Shah of Iran was squandering his nation's wealth, Saddam Hussein was building roads and hospitals and schools. When Saddam Hussein because President in 1979, he was relatively popular. There were all sorts of reasons why his popularity would wane over the years, but we've eclipsed most of them.

The Shi'a Muslims in the south were really pissed off when his expelled Ayatollah Khomeini in 1977, and had another Ayatollah put to death in 1980. After years of brutal war with their Shi'a brothers in Iran, and then the betrayal of the rebellion by the Americans in 1991, the Shi'ite Iraqis are widely convinced that, warts and all, Saddam Hussien isn't such a bad deal. He has certainly done better for them than we ever have.

I know you think we will do better for them. Even if we really, really wanted to, they might not give us the chance.

I'm not sure where Winston is going with the second sentence

People support authoritarian figures to make them feel safe. The tent is usually not a big one and some group always gets shafted — and the Jews have had more than their share of turns as shaftee. Still, no one seems to mind as long as it's not them and "The trains run on time."

Saddam, who fancies himself as the reincarnation of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, surrendered Gulf War I on Purim 12 years ago. Tonight, on Purim, he gets perhaps his final opportunity to spare many of his people from the consequences of his actions.

The actions that have devestated Iraq were ours, not his.

I pray he takes it.

He doesn't have any options, Alan. He didn't last time, he doesn't this time. The policy is, and has been since 1991, "Regime Change." The weapons crap is just window dressing. Starting soon, hundreds of thousands more innocent, non-combatant Iraqs will be blown apart by US ordinance with cool-sounding names.

We'll all watch on TV.

And as the piles of smouldering bodies light up our video displays, millions of ignorant, deluded, self-important, smug assholes will shake their heads and go, "Why did Saddam let this happen?"

If you're going to pray for something, I suggest you pray it's not as bad in Hell as they say it is.

Posted by Winston Smith at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)

Dennis Prager is a Complete Moron

On November 28th, 2006, radio show host Dennis Prager published an op-ed at Townhall.com expressing his belief that the First Amendment of the Constitution shouldn't apply to uppity negroes. Well, more specifically, he said that newly-elected congressman, Keith Ellison, should be the only American citizen who isn't entitled to choose which holy book he can hold during a photo-op. At issue is the fact that Ellison is a Muslim and planned to hold a copy of the Q'ran.

In response to outcry from many different corners, including a denunciation from the ADL (Prager, by the way, is Jewish), Dennis published a jaw-dropping follow-up response to critics. He notably cited the profanity used on the left-wing blogs and the fact that they called him a bigot. I, myself, called him a "dick" and a "fucking asshole" — "whiny fucking asshole" is more accurate.

Dennis is back today, which an incoherent and fact-free rant clarifying the importance of the Bible to everyone except bad people. What was interesting to me was that in Prager's second column — his response to critics — he claims to believe that all events in public political life should use a Christian Bible and that he disagrees with fellow Jews who would just use an Old Testament (Torah). In this latest column, he bases his moralizing on the idea that the first five books of the Old Testament — the ones that comprise the Torah — are considered "divine" (he doesn't explain what that means) by Jews, Catholics, Protestants and even them there Mormons. So, now he's backed off from the importance of the entire Christian Bible and is now hiding behind the supposed universal authority of the Torah.

Resident Theologian, Sister Weasle explained to me that although all the aforementioned religions include the Torah in their Bibles, none of them use the same text. The Jews who consider the Torah to be divine, such as the Hasidim, goes as far as considering the sequence of Hebrew characters in the text itself to be sacred. To them, a book like the King James Bible, used by Protestants or the Catholic Septuagint is a blaphemy. Also, good luck getting any of these groups to agree on the proper interpretation of the books. Prager sees no potential disagreement:

And they line up together on virtually every major social/moral issue.

Name the issue: same-sex marriage; the morality of medically unnecessary abortions; capital punishment for murder; the willingness to label certain actions, regimes, even people "evil"; skepticism regarding the United Nations and the World Court; strong support for Israel; or a willingness to criticize the moral state of Islamic societies. While there are exceptions -- there are, for example, secular conservatives who share the Bible-believers' social views -- belief in a God-based authority of the Torah is as close to a predictable dividing line as exists.

According to Sister Weasle, this claim is entirely false. Good Catholics are not supposed to take Communion unless they oppose capital punishment. Many Hasidim oppose the state of Israel. The list goes on.

Then there is Prager's inexplicable claim that the books of the Torah are "over 2,500 years" old. That is technically true, but a more accurate — and knowledgeable — statement would be that the Torah dates back over 4,500 years. It seems odd that a religious Jew who claims to have some kind of broad knowledge about world religions, and teaches the Torah at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, doesn't seem to know when his own holy books were written.

The only answer is that Dennis Prager is also... a complete moron.

Posted by Winston Smith at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

Top 10 Iraq Myths

If you don't read Juan Cole's incomparable blog regularly, then you may have missed his Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006 . It's a must-read.

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2006

A Very Freeper Xmas

Yesterday, writer33 as Free Republic, wished his (her?) fellow Freepers a "Very FReeper Christmas." In the beginning of this ode to Freepism, the author notes:

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, "Free Republic has some of the finest minds I’ll ever know."

Whoa. What qualifies as a "fine mind" for writer33?

And a special thanks to Rush Limbaugh. You have galvanized the conservative movement, enacted the "New Media," and given hope and optimism to so many people. You ardently support Americans and give us daily doses of truths. Thank you for keeping “The Passion” alive. Merry Christmas, Rush Limbaugh.

Ah. Well. With Rush Limbaugh as the top of the find mind list, let's see some other fine minds at work:

Condor7: "Aha. Now the treasonous nature of the Dmocrat Party comes flying to the fore. I wonder how many of the liberal socialist crowd have back channels to Zahwhari? It is likely the prime reason they were caterwalling so loudly about the Presidents telephone surveillance program."
Responding to Al Qaeda's message about the American elections

bray: "These people were shields for the terrorists and our Marines are getting railroaded. We have to make sure they get a fair and OPEN trial. Pray for W and Our Marines
In chorus with others that the charges against the Marines in Haditha must be completely false. Why we need to pray for President Bush is beyond me. Maybe so he doesn't get tried for his war crimes either.

all the best: "Progressive is to keep moving, moving, moving in a leftward direction. Moving and never arriving. No matter how far we go they want to take us a little bit farther. I wish that all liberal/progressives would have the guts to come out and say what their desired end result is. And then they will tell us the shocking truth and we will all know. Or they will lie and then we can hold them to the limit of their lie."
This was on a thread about Air America Radio in Madison, WI. Not sure what it was getting at.

King Moonracer: "I'm sure Al-Quaeda loves Gore too."
Responding to a 3-year-old article about Al Gore joining the Apple board of directors.

chiefqc: "This judge can sleep well knowing he just enabled this horrific doctor to continue to murder babies for money."
Responding to a story about a judge who threw out a baseless case against an abortion provider. The case had been brought by an anti-abortion crusading DA in Kansas.

Yeah. Free Republic, what a brain trust.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2006

Yow! The PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY is CRYING for an END to BURT REYNOLDS movies!!

Everyone is a-buzz about the Washington Post's interview with America's favorite pinhead, George Bush. The focus of this buzz is on Bush's version of "Yow! Are we winning yet?"

An interesting construct that General Pace uses is, "We're not winning, we're not losing."

The title of the article is "U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq, Bush Says for 1st Time," highlighting the first part of the sentence. The 101st fighting keyboarders, who have fallen back somewhat from their blather-offensive about how great the war is, are now focusing on saving face with whatever positive spin they can wring out of... well, anything. "Blogs for War" (they sound like fun guys) says:

I actually find that statement to be pretty accurate. The current situation may seem intolerable to some but we’re nowhere near losing.

Blog of War is an award-winning weblog that is, "part of the Library of Congress MINERVA permanent historical collection on the war in Iraq," so I'm going to assume that this isn't its best work. Perhaps, though, it is heralded for exemplifying the tragic chasm between reality and pro-war bloggers.

Whatever the case, I'd like to explore the ramifications of agreeing with the President. If we're not winning and we're not losing, then we are not moving towards any kind of end condition, positive or negative. So... does that mean we're going to keep treading blood water indefinitely? Or are we going to wait until there is an unmistakable outcome? If so, what outcome?

As comments to the "Blogs of War" post point out, the situation in Iraq is trending towards bad. If we aren't losing, we'll need to turn that around before we are losing. Rosy predictions from armchair pundits aren't going to help. Consider this post at Military.com — not a haven for anti-military hippies — claiming that pessimistic press coverage of a recent Pentagon report wasn't pessimistic enough.

Maybe it can be argued that we are not currently losing the war in Iraq, but there is abundant evidence that we are headed towards a loss. Sending more troops will solve nothing — note that Iraq reached it's "worst point this year" during Operation Together Forward, a military operation intended to secure Baghdad.

The remaining war cheerleaders don't seem to understand: it is possible for America to lose a war. Let's not prove that, OK? Time to get out of Iraq.

We now return to our 'round the clock "Zippy the Pinhead" commentary on "winning the war." The Preznit says, "I ... don't believe most Americans want us just to get out now." Actually only 32% of Americans want troops to stay indefinitely. Meanwhile, only 11% support sending more troops.

Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey like some drunken CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, coughing in line at FIORUCCI'S!!

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2006

Georgia's Obsession with Dick Sucking

In 1986, the Supreme Court agreed with the Attorney General of Georgia that no one has a right to get a blow job from a consenting partner. You'd think that this would be a lesson for everybody, but no, some poor 17-year-old kid is now facing 10 years in prison — and life as a sex offender — for getting a blow job from a consenting 15-year-old.

"Oh!" you say, "This isn't about blow jobs! It's about underage sex!" Well, actually it's about blow jobs. You see, if the guilty party had actually had sexual intercourse with his young partner, he would have been guilty of committing a misdemeanor. Since he got a blow job, he's subject to a minimum sentencing guideline of 10 years in prison.

Justice is served — and it tastes like manmeat.

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:29 AM | Comments (1)

Smash the Market Place

(Post title is a punk music reference)

Despite the languishing middle class, Republicans love to talk about how great the economy is doing. Their proof? Well, look at the fabulous stock market! The market is only part of the economic picture, but since it's the only really rosy part, that's what we're supposed to focus on.

OK, now that we're all focusing on the thriving stock market... omygawd!!!! It's choking on regulation! Oh no, we've got to save it! Never fear, Henry Paulson (Treasury Secretary) is here! Paulson will get rid of all that regulation that's keeping the market down! Oh, did we mention how well the market is doing?

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has more here.

Posted by Winston Smith at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2006

Salon.com names S.R. Sidarth Person of the Year

Good choice.

Posted by Winston Smith at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)

I Hate Saddam Hussein, OK?

Do I really have to make this explicit? Apparently, I do.

Now that Iraq has turned into the 21^st Century's first great debacle, many people have made the indisputable, and thoroughly unfortunate, observation that the average Iraqi had a better life under Saddam Hussein than they do under the current Iraqi/American regime. In an obvious attempt to deflect attention from reality, Iraq War supporters reflexively answer this observation with, "Oh! So you would rather have Saddam Hussein in power! You must love Saddam!"

Bullshit.

No, Saddam Hussein was an asshole. He was an asshole the moment his government came to power in 1967 and continued to be an asshole until he was deposed in 2003. Sadly, simply removing assholes from power doesn't guarantee anything. In 1917, the Russian people rid themselves of the repressive and devastating rule of the Tsar — but was life under Lenin and Stalin an improvement? In some respects, Democracy is like a loaded gun: what it accomplishes depends a great deal on where you aim it.

Mohammed, an Iraqi blogger at Iraq the Model, who has been cheering the arrival of his American overlords since 2004, noticed this as well. On "Democracy Day 2006" he lamented the outcome of the 2005 Iraqi elections:

...these results shown that Islamists have the advantage and it shown the humble achievements of the secular/liberals.

Mohammed notes that the religious parties were ready to fill the post-war power vacuum and chides the secular Iraqis for being disorganized. He doesn't seem to notice (or want to admit) that the power vacuum was courtesy Donald Rumsfeld. He fails to mention that the secular establishment was thrown into the street by the Americans and told not to come back. He also misses the fact that the Americans were interested in quantity, not quality in the voting, so they purposely courted the radical religious parties knowing that they could provide impressive turnout numbers — numbers that would make the Republican nation building look successful back home.

As is Iraq the Model's MO, the article ends with a hopeful note that predicts success once just a few more hurdles are cleared. For example:

It is difficult to convince the simple segment of the population that democracy will not allow dictators to appear again and that it guarantees pluralism.

Yes, it is difficult to convince people of this, but in actuality, it should be impossible because it is simply and provably false. Only Americans really believe this because we were lucky enough to have people like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and James Madison running our post-revolutionary government. Meanwhile, Hitler came to power democratically, and closer to Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini was voted into power in 1979. Lot's of dictators have been voted into office. In Africa, it's even a continental joke: "One man, one vote, one time."

Rumsfeld and friends set up an environment where only the very corrupt could wield power and only the very violent could keep it, and now the situation is worse than when Saddam ruled. Last week, Kofi Annan had the gaul to point out this obvious fact, and Omar, the other blogger at ITM went all-American on him and accused the departing UN leader of being a Saddam sympathizer. He is nothing of the sort. Omar, like other Iraqis who have hitched their future to the engine of American imperialism, can't bring himself to blame the chaos on the people who instigated it:

But that's the worst part about Kofi; he knows how things are in Iraq right now yet instead of trying to do anything to help us out, and instead of apologizing for the UN's failure to do something good for Iraq, he comes and says he's sorry he couldn't save the dictator!

The same people who dismantled any semblance of modernity in Iraq actively blocked the U.N. from doing anything to help. They were proud of how they had excluded the U.N. Annan was pointing out the folly that occurs when ideologues unilaterally impose their fantasies on a country of 25 million people, without engaging the international community. He was not lamenting the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Neither are any of us who opposed the invasion of Iraq and criticize its bungled execution. Many of us opposed Bush's version of regime change because we predicted exactly what's happening. Part of Iraq the Model's overarching theme is that what is happening now is all part of process of Iraq becoming a stable democracy. That's possible, but not likely. If history is a guide (and it usually is), what's happening now is part of the process of Iraq becoming a war-torn hell-hole and center for regional conflict for at least the next decade if not longer. To quote Iraqi blogger Salam Pax:

We all know that it got to a point where we would have never been rid of Saddam without foreign intervention; I just wish it would have been a bit better planned. Does this mean that I will be wearing a (I [heart] Bush) t-shirt? NO, because I don’t believe there is any altruism in politics and the way he sees the world scares me.

What if the invasion conducted by smart people, like John Kerry, Bob Dole, Wesley Clark, or Colin Powell? The war would still have been morally unjustified, but a competently-managed post-war environment that lead to a stable and peaceful Iraq would eclipse the abstract moral arguments against the military action. Undoubtedly, this was the scenario that the morons in the Bush Administration envisioned while getting handjobs from Ahmed Chalabi.

Omar raises a challenge to Kofi Annan and others — like myself — who express opinions about life in Iraq without every having lived there, "[you] cannot just come like this and say that Iraqis were better off under Saddam... you didn't live here." This is a valid point, so let me turn this back to some actual Iraqis.

Let's start with Mohammed from Iraq The Model. Last April, Mohammed's brother-in-law was senselessly murdered by unknown assailants. Lot's of people lost family members — or whole families and even whole communities — under Saddam, but how many family members did Mohammed lose? According to the post, the brother had gone abroad — during Saddam's reign — to study medicine. He returned post-war and was tragically killed. Had he returned to an Iraq still ruled by Saddam, he'd probably be practicing medicine today. Is there any reason to believe otherwise?

How about Omar, himself? Recently, he wrote this:

Thursday began differently for me, first thing in the morning I received very troubling news that one of our friends has been kidnapped. His shocked, terrified father came to us looking for any bit of information that might be possibly helpful in the search for his son who vanished a day before. We in turn became anxious because we too would be in danger if that friend fell in the hands of very bad guys.

...

Some news were really bad though, my uncle called on Friday to tell me that he and his family of eight were being forced to leave their neighborhood.

Again, there are people who suffered worse under Saddam, but what about Omar? What about Omar's friends and family? Was life for them ever this bad under Saddam? Omar has discussed some of the badness of life under Saddam, but was it as bad as this? Here, he discusses the defeat of some Ba'thists:

One of my aunts lives in Adhamiya, she told me they received heavy bombardment from mortars. Another friend from the same sector relayed some odd news to me "there's a war raging between the Islamists and the Baathists…the Islamists have near full control now"

Are things better or worse because the Islamists took control? The secular society that was supposed to lift Iraq out of the muck was entirely composed of Ba'thists. Many of these people were loyal to Saddam, but many more were only Ba'th party members because it was required of them. Now the whole lot of them are out of power. Is this an improvement?

Was life for Rosie Make-Yonan this bad under Saddam? Did Raghda Zaid ever feel the need to flee Iraq for her safety under Saddam? Were Nancy's fond memories of Baghdad formed before or after Saddam was in power? (And would she be as upbeat about the future if she was in Iraq instead of the US?) How many times, under Saddam, was "Sunshine" involved in a shooting while waiting for a ride to school?

I could go on. This is just from following the links Omar and Mohammed provide on ITM. Supposedly, these Iraqi's share their support for the American intervention, but most of them have fled the country, didn't live in it in the first place, or have a steady supply of horrible experiences. In response to ITM's Democracy Day post Salam Pax wrote, "Sorry Mohammed but, to repeat a cliché, denial is not just a river in Africa." Seeing that coming, Omar's Kofi-loves-Saddam post includes the disclaimer:

I'm not living in denial, I admit it that living here is so difficult and there's a lot of fear and pain...

But less fear and pain than when Saddam was in power? Really? Omar does provide a specific example:

did [Kofi Annan] consider Kurdish mothers and wives when he made that statement?

Probably he did. After all, under the US "No Fly Zone" Iraqi Kurdistan flourished. Now it faces a brewing civil war to the south and increasing harassment from Turkey — which is routinely sending troops over the border — to the north. How is that better? Yes, Saddam brutalized the Kurds in the 80's, but was that ever going to happen again? If so, how? Who is going to defend the Kurds again Turkish troops or Iranian backed militias? These weren't threats under Saddam's regime. Saddam kept the Iranians at bay, then the Kurds were sufficiently contained to keep the Turks from freaking out.

But none of this perspective is part of a wish for Saddam to return. I opposed the war from the start, but I don't regret that Saddam is gone. No, if you want to find people who want Saddam back, you have to turn to war supporters like Bill O'Reilly or Jonathan Chait, along with many other's who have decided Democracy has failed, so we should just install a Saddam replacement.

Those of us who opposed this war and criticize it today do not do so because we love Saddam, but because we wanted the best for the Iraqi people. That, obviously isn't Saddam, but neither is it the bloody chaos wrought by amoral clowns sending in a military force to destroy the backbone of Iraqi society.

Posted by Winston Smith at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2006

Best Wishes Senator Johnson

Update: Right-wing class didn't last as long as I thought.

---

Big news today is that South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson suffered something stroke-like that had him in emergency surgery last night. According to an official statement:

Subsequent to his admission to George Washington University Hospital yesterday, Sen. Tim Johnson was found to have had an intracerebral bleed caused by a congenital arteriovenous malformation. He underwent successful surgery to evacuate the blood and stabilize the malformation. The Senator is recovering without complication in the critical care unit at George Washington University Hospital. It is premature to determine whether further surgery will be required or to assess any long term prognosis.

Reaction on the right has been conspicuously respectful even on Free Republic. Here is an example of this from right wing site, Decision 08:

Well, look, I want control of the Senate as much as the next Republican, but not this way: best wishes for a speedy recovery to Senator Johnson. Sheer human decency should overrule partisanship on a story like this…

I must repost the comment from Jim Pharo:

If you guys acted like this when you were running the place, you might still be in power (i.e., WWTDD — What Would Tom DeLay Do?”)

This brings me to my question. So... when is this newfound Republican civility going to deteriorate into mudslinging and howling outrage?

Maybe never. If Johnson dies or decides to resign, the Republicans will gain a Senate seat. They will probably accept this gracefully, given the circumstances, but I predict it won't be long before they start claiming a "mandate" kept them in power in the Senate, trying to erase the electoral beating of last month. But there's another possibility.

If Johnson neither dies nor resigns, he keeps the seat. He may be unable to function, but that's never been a problem for the Republicans. Strom Thurmond was obviously senile in his last couple of years in office, but the Republicans wheeled the poor old man around the Senate chambers anyway, just to keep the seat. So if Johnson turns out to be too disabled to realistically conduct his duties as Senator, but the Democrats convince him to hold the seat anyway, how long until the Republican wailing and gnashing of teeth begins? Who is going to be the first Freeper to call for someone to "remove Johnson's feeding tube"? How long before the talking points declaring that Thurmond was sharp as a tack until his last day are circulated?

My prediction? Well, if you don't know what a nanosecond is, you will after measure the duration of Republican civility in the face of a disabled Johnson holding his seat.

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:46 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2006

Pentacostalgon

Today Salon published a piece about the infusion of Fundamental Christians into the armed forces, and how one group is pushing back.

But I can tell you that I get -- I don't think I'm in double digits, but it started at about 10 o'clock last night; after the press conference in the morning, I've had nine death threats since about 10 o'clock last night. I usually get about two or three a week. They're very grotesque, everything from wanting to gas all the Jews in America and send the corpses back to Israel to threatening to blow me up, threatening my house will be blown up, raping my wife, blowing up my house. We've had our tires slashed, we've had feces and beer bottles thrown at the house, we've had dead animals placed on the front door of the house.

I was in Topeka, on a book tour, and the local Episcopal priest came out to support me and five hours later his church was burned down. And the local synagogue in Topeka, where I was to speak that night, was desecrated with spray paint saying, "Fuck you, Jews" and "KKK," all that stuff.

So if this is a nice, Christian response, my response is take a number, pack a picnic lunch and stand in line, because we're not going to stop, we're not going to ever stop, we're going to lay down a withering field of fire and leave sucking chest wounds on these people that are trying to destroy our Constitution. This is not a Christian-Jewish issue, and it's also not a political spectrum, left or right issue, it's a Constitutional right and wrong issue. These officers, and what's happening in that video, simply by appearing in a video that is blatantly and vociferously sectarian, by simply doing three things in that video, they should be court-martialed. That would be circulating blood, reflecting light and breathing.

Good luck with that! If, as Harper's Magazine implied in an article this summer, the military is being slowly taken over by a mass of people devoted to a "higher power" than the Constitution, then this problem is much, much scarier than I currently think it is.

Posted by Steven at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)

Bigot Ex-Judge Speaks! (Well, Grunts...)

WorldNutDaily is sure on a tear. Today, they've brought us a cheery essay by ex-Judge Roy Moore. Moore, you may remember, was a justice on the Alabama Supreme Court who used his governmental authority to place a marble monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments in front of his courthouse. Moore had somehow made it to a rather distinguished legal position without ever encountering the U.S. Constitution, which strictly forbids the government from making such an explicit religious endorsement.

You'd think that after losing his job due to his unfamiliarity with this important legal document, he might take a gander at it — see what else it had to say about things. Apparently not. In this article Moore asks the question, "Can a true believer in the Islamic doctrine found in the Quran swear allegiance to our Constitution?"

Moore explores a variety of sources to answer this question, none of them having any bearing on the question. He quotes the founding fathers as if they were royalty, setting policy by fiat. Once again, he doesn't check that pesky Constitution for an answer.

The answer is right in Article IV: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." So the answer is yes. A true believer (or unbeliever) in anything can take the oath of office.

What a stupid asshole.

Denis Prager, who stepped in this shit several weeks ago, noted that "For the record, because I deem this a significant statement about most of the Left, I found virtually no left-wing blog that was not filled with obscenity-laced descriptions of me." Actually, Dennis there's a possibility that it's a statement about you: maybe there's no better way to describe you than "fucking asshole." I have a pretty extensive vocabulary and I'm at a loss for a more accurate depiction of someone who thinks that Ellison has some legal or moral requirement to swear on any holy book, whether his or Pragers. Read the Constitution, fucknut. Oh no! Obscenity again!

OK, OK, what has Prager got to say about this, really? "My belief that the Bible should be present at any oath (or affirmation) of office has nothing whatsoever to do with the religion of the office holder." He goes on to explain that the Holy Book of choice is up to the government (and where does it say the government can't mandate a Holy Book? Huh?!), not the office holder. It's OK, you see, because they don't have to believe it. They just have to hold it. No shit, he writes this.

What. A. Dick.

How much longer do we have to put up with an atmosphere where people feel comfortable saying things like this in public and major networks (not just Faux News, but CNN), feel comfortable giving them a microphone and a few million viewers to say it in front of?

Posted by Winston Smith at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2006

Soy Makes you Gay

John at AMERICABlog noticed that WorldNetDaily published something stupid. That's really not news, John, but props for finding such a cornucopia of stupidity.

It's totally worth clicking through to the Megashit Ministries' site.

EVIDENCE ANNOUNCED IN MEGASHIFT: a surge of documented miracles, unprecedented in scope, including resurrections in 49 countries just in the last 15-20 years!

Evidence, huh? I guess I missed that issue of WorldNetDaily.

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

Iraq War Attitude Survey

Neuropolitics.org, which looks like some sort of NLP site has an interesting survey on their site.

I like surveys, so sue me.

Posted by Winston Smith at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

Never Again

Before Christopher Hitchens lost his fucking mind, he was a vocal and insightful critic of the right. In the midsts of a deluge of Reagan hagiographies following St. Ronnie's death, Hitchens wrote this refreshing retrospective of Reagan's actual career.

It's pretty ironic, really, in light of Hitchens' incoherent, yet loyal, support of the Iraq war.

Posted by Winston Smith at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

Hillary Guilt

A good friend who lives in Houston Texas noted recently that he's surrounded by conservatives who passionately hate Hillary Clinton but can't explain why. Any mention of Hillary will elicit a torrent of derisive remarks about how awful she is, but asked to simply explain what is so horrible about her, and they are completely stumped.

Over at Free Republic, you will find claims that her memoir is a pack of lies, but not a single one of these "lies" is enumerated. You will also read that she is "ultra-liberal" but that epithet merely means that she is not the kind of pinheaded bigot who Freepers consider one of their own. Just like the claim that the Bible is literally true, and that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs, the idea that Hillary Clinton — or "Hitlery" as the Freepers have cleverly named her — is the most evil politician on the planet is considered so thoroughly established that it bears no further scrutiny for them.

For those of us hoping for a Democratic win in 2008, there is an understandable anxiety about the animosity. States that tipped blue in 2006 could easily go deep red in 2008 due to this pre-existing anti-Hillary bias. In today's Washinton Post, E. J. Dionne Jr. addresses this issue specifically. The conclusion of his Op-Ed is that if Hillary can prevail in the predicted primary battle against Barack, then she will have proven her appeal as a candidate.

Dionne chides those who guiltily dismiss Clinton's candidacy saying:

In public, the doubts are dressed up as substantive concerns -- she's too cautious, she didn't stand up against the war in Iraq, she mishandled that health care reform in the 1990s, she's perceived as too liberal or she's not progressive enough.

Um, E.J.? She didn't stand up against the war in Iraq. In April, 2004, Clinton said this:

No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade.

Bullshit. Only pandering idiots bought the WMD rationale (and boy oh boy were there a lot of those). Furthermore, Saddam Hussein wasn't a problem for anyone outside Iraq after 1991. He was contained. The only problem with that containment was that it included containment of all that juicy oil. Oil, and the welfare of the Iraqi people were the only practical reasons to change the situation in Iraq, but the former rationale was vigorously denied and the latter was just as much of a bullshit pretext as the WMDs.

If Hillary Clinton wants to play dumb, she doesn't need to do it in the Oval Office. We've had enough dumb in the Oval Office for the time being. Furthermore, at this time, 62% of the country regrets the fact that Bush was given a green light to invade Iraq. A year and a half after expressing "no regret," in November 2005, she recast her vote as "a mistake." Of course, she couched it in the "if only we knew," excuse. No dice. Ron Paul called bullshit on the Iraq war rationale and he's a Republican. Not only that, but he's been re-elected in the district adjacent to Tom DeLay's despite his unwavering opposition to the Iraq war.

The anti-war position was obvious and she didn't take it — Obama did.

I may feel guilty giving credibility to the Freeper smears again Hillary Clinton, but I don't feel guilty opposing her candidacy.

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

We're Back

After a long absence, I've decided to start blogging again.

For a while, it seemed that everything that needed to be said was being said, but now that the 2006 election is over, the big blogs seem to have lost focus.

I'm going to be trying to do shorter posts — which should take less of my time — and I plan to focus (for a while) on what the Freepers are up to. Their slide into irrelevance has taken comical proportions as even large chunks of the decepto-con base have abandoned the neo-clown fantasy world.

A hearty "welcome back" to the three or four people who actually read this blog.

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)