Rolling Stone — yes, Rolling Stone — has the goods on the scam job that is ethanol.
Read the whole thing. The more I learn, the more I am convinced that corn ethanol is a disaster waiting to happen. It wouldn’t be there first time we’d have a disaster because our government thought it could solve problems better than the marketplace.
Oh, that liberal media! You know things are bad when the NYT’s reporting looks like a position paper from the Democratic party.
Another shitwit conservative tries to tell us Iraq=WWII because apparently they haven’t gotten the memo that we’re dealing with an internecine guerilla war, not a conventional one. But their comparison unintentionally makes the case against the President:
But during those months Churchill had been busy firing or re-assigning the generals who were not bringing victories: including Gens. Wavell, Dill, Auchinleck, Ritchie, Norrie, Brooke-Popham, Messervy and Corbett — among others.
Finally he found a general who could win — Bernard Law Montgomery.
Funny how Churchill (and Lincoln) didn’t need to wait until they lost an election to realize they had the wrong guys in charge.
I wonder whether, perhaps, in Gen. Petraeus President Bush has finally found his Gen. Montgomery. And whether Petraeus’s new strategy and success at beating al Qaeda in Iraq and growing success against the Mahdi Army — may be his El Alamein.
Look, Petraeus is fantastic. If we’d had him in charge earlier, things might have gone differently. But I’m becoming concerned about the messianic attitude the Right has adopted toward him. He is not a miracle worker; he’s a good general. He and Gates are a vast improvement over the last pair of buffoons. But the surgery may be coming too late to save the patient.
To build on Blankley’s anology, this would be like Churchill switching to Montgomery after the Nazis were in London – after insisting for years that all was well. But now I’m buying into this Iraq=WW2 bullshit.
Of course, there are vast differences between WWII and the current Iraq Theatre of the War on Terror (ITWOT).
Gee, ya think?
For one thing, in 1942, the British Parliamentarians were not proposing bringing the British troops home and surrendering to Hitler and the Japanese. They merely thought another leader (perhaps Sir Stafford Cripps) might better lead Britain to victory.
Yes. This is the only difference. Iraq is a globe-spanning superpower with massive industrial might fighting a conventional war. If we leave now, Iraqi troops will be in Cleveland by 2009.
Were they more patriotic than the current defeatists in Washington? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was just that they understood (at least by that terrible summer of 1942) that for England, it was victory or death — while for many of the Washington defeatists in this dismal summer of ’07 they are under the delusion that America in all its might and glory can simply surrender to al Qaeda without potentially mortal consequences.
To quote Robert, jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, is this guy serious?! Is he mental? Does he not realize that Al Quaeda is only one of the factions in Iraq — one that didn’t exist until we went there? Does he really think Iraq sliding into chaos is going to be the same as Nazi marching in Trafalgar Square? Or that our getting out of a civil war is the equivalent of “surrender”?
Look, you can make the argument we need to win Iraq. You can make the argument that we can win in Iraq. But you need to lay the World War II comparisons aside. History did not begin in 1939 and end in 1945. There are thousands of historical comparisons that are better here. Just off the top of my head, I could say better comparisons might be Vietnam or Korea; the Occupation of Haiti; numerous British occupations including Afghanistan; our recent experience in the Balkans; various Roman occupations; maybe even the Greek invasion of Sicily.
None of these comparisons are very good, but they are far more accurate than World War II. The problem is that the “conservatives” see everything in terms of World War II. Good vs. evil instead of good vs. evil vs. evil vs. evil. A straight-forward conflict instead of a non-linear ethnic strife. A villain with distinct facial hair instead of many villains with different agendas. And, to be honest, they’re mostly thinking in terms of movies and TV shows instead of history. (Remember the “lessons” of 24?)
And if we are going to go with the World War II analogy, Bush is closer to Chamberlain than to Churchill. Churchill said he had nothing to offer but blood toil tears and sweat; Bush tells us all is well and offers us tax breaks. Churchill changed commanders when they lost; Bush stuck with Rummy until he lost an election. Churchill knew he needed to get the hell out of Dunkirk; Bush would say this was surrendering to the enemy. Churchill acknowledged bad news and was honest with the British public, whose resolved he trust; Bush thinks Americans are a bunch of weak-kneed morons and constantly insists that the only thing going wrong in Iraq is that we have Democrats and a media at home.
Bush isn’t even in the same league as Churchill. He’s not even in the same God-damn sport. I’m not even certain he’s the same species.
Again, there are some Dems who would love for us to lose in Iraq for political reasons, sure. But most of the people opposing our continuing presence are genuinely concerned that we are throwing lives and treasure into an unwinnable situation. Fuck the historical analogies – let’s deal with the situation we have in the present.
That’s what it’s called when you take one fact or a few facts in isolation and attempt to prove something. Fred Thompson was doing it below with global warming; and the entire the Right Wing Echosphere is doing it with the death toll in Iraq, which was at an eight month low in July. Rush Limbaugh was going on about this non-stop yesterday.
Of course, no word on if Iraqi sectarian violence declined as well.
The problem that many people — left and right — seem unable to grasp is that one data point does not create a trend. Trends are trends, i.e., more than one data point. The violence in Iraq has been trending up for years. A one-month pause does not mean anything, especially since past Julys have also been relatively calm.
I hope they are right and things are getting better. But this could just be a blip. Let’s not go around screaming success because Iraq is “only” as bloody as it was in November, when it was so bad President Bush decided to call for the surge in the first place. Oh wait, that was the bloodshed at the ballot box.
If the trend continues in August, then we have progress. But if the violence ratchets back up, as it has every August, I hope the RWE will acknowledge it.
Fat chance.
There are some encouraging signs in Iraq. Let’s hope they continue. But let’s also remember that it didn’t have to be this way. And that the surge was only supported after the GOP lost an election.
Two thoughts on yesterday’s bridge collapse.
I lived in Minnesota for four years and took 35W back and forth to school. I know the Minnesotans. They’ll mourn, buckle down, rebuild the damn bridge and move forward. They won’t get into the morass of, say, Ground Zero and never rebuild anything.
Fred Thompson gets smarmy on global warming. For the record, not all of the planets in the solar system are warming. And the idea that global warming is caused by the Sun has been recently disproved.
Next!
I don’t know where the time goes. I have a long post on healthcare — two actually — that I’ve been meaning to write for a week. Oh well. I got a great comment today on Bush’s death penalty record. I tend to be a law and order type guy. I think law and order is where civlization starts. If government can not establish it, what’s the point of having free speech?
But that doesn’t mean I can sit around when gross miscarriages of justice – mostly in pursuit of the War on Drugs – go on. To wit:
A Justice Department lawyer had argued that federal authorities couldn’t be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution and had no duty to share information with the officials who prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco.
He’s a Justice Department lawyer so he has to take the position of his client. But would it have been that hard, maybe after the first twenty years to break their cover?
Don’t we have something better to do? We have limited resources for law enforcement. Can’t we spend them finding murderers, thieves and rapists instead of jailing pot growers, innocent men and pill poppers?
Good gravy, just when you thought our out of control farm subsidy program couldn’t get worse, the Dems somehow manage to jack spending through the roof.
Hopefully, the Prez will veto this piece of cow dung.
Step One: Coverly support a radical Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
Step Two: Convince the US to make a$20 billion dollar deal on the condition that you’ll do something about the insurgency you created.
Yeah, the Bush people are all over that whole Iraq thing.
I am currently reading James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds and ran across this quote about diversity:
The negative case for diversity, as we’ve seen, is that diversity makes it easier for a group to make decisions based on facts, rather than on influence, authority or group allegiance … After a detailed study of American foreing policy fiascos, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the failure to anticipate Pearl Habor, [Irving] Janis argued taht when decision-makers are too much alike – in worldview and mind-set – they easily fall prey to groupthink. Homogenous groups become cohesive more easily than diverse groups, and as they become more cohesive, they also become more dependent on the group, more insulted from outside opinions, and therefore more convinced that the group’s judgement on important issues must be right. These kind of groups, Janis suggested, share an illusio of invulnerability, a willingness to rationalize away possible counterarguments to the group’s position, and a conviction that dissent is not useful.
Remind you of anyone? By diversity, he’s doesn’t mean “diversity” the way academics do. He means differences of opinion. (It’s worth noting, however, that the lone voice of dissent in our latest foreign policy fiasco was that of a black man – Colin Powell.)
We have a President who likes to surround himself with people who think alike – authoritarian in temperament, convinced of American invincibility and viewing the law and the Constitution as obstacles not guides. He’s not unique in this, of course. But we’re know seeing, in vivid red colors, the result of having a bunch of people running the country who agree with each other.
Reagan was different. His decision were often made after heated discussion among his staff. But even Reagan messed up occasionally – as in the War on Drugs. That’s understandable since most Presidential Administrations have a dearth of crack addicts.
It’s not just conservatives who are prone to stupid groupthink, of course. “Reasonable rational” iberals are even worse. I work in academia were everyone – man or woman, black white or polka-dot – thinks alike. And the pressure to conform is enormous. I don’t even bother to express my opinion anymore. And they are not only convinced that their dumb political ideas – gun control, high taxes and big government – can work; they are convinced that they are far smarter and far more reasonable than the skeptics. They have letters after their name, dontchya know.
There is peculiar kind of grand stupidity that comes out of smart people agreeing with each other. Communism, fascism, socialism, neo-conservatism, statism – these are all grand ideas for running the world that have crashed upon the rocks of reality. Rocks the world might have been spared with greater diversity of opinion.
Iraq can now take its place with our previous foreign policy fiascos and we can sleep comfortably knowing that we haven’t learned anything from our previous blunders. As things began to unravel, we stuck to the groupthink that all was well. And before I get too high on my horse, I was part of the groupthink that stupidly thought democracy could be brought to a multi-ethnic middle eastern nation that was drawn on a map by the French with an army a third of the size we needed. I knew that when everyone around me was agreeing, I should get scared and reconsider my opinions. I didn’t.
A more intellectually diverse group of people – or more rational, intelligent and articulate dissenters — would have spared us the agonies. Yes, I’m saying the dissenters bear some blame. They could have raised rational arguments against the invasion – or better yet, advocated for far superior management of the post-invasion Iraq. They could have raised their voices when the situation began to get out of control. But they were too busy chanting “no blood for oil” and screaming about Haliburton and hating Bush to bother.
I keep hoping that the Information Age and the blogosphere will help us make better decisions in the future. But I know politicians. They like their groupthink. They don’t like skeptics who poke holes in their fantasies.
This is fucking insane:
A 29-second video clip of a toddler dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” is the subject of a new court complaint against Universal Music Publishing Group, which demanded that the clip be removed from YouTube in early June. Apparently, the company believes that a few seconds of music blasting from a background stereo infringes on its copyright, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation disagrees. The EFF filed suit against Universal yesterday, alleging that the music in the clip was “self-evident non-infringing fair use
How many people out there are being bullied and harassed by these jackasses? We really need to revist the DMCA.
It is firmly established in international law that treaties are to be interpreted in “good faith” in accordance with the ordinary meaning of their words and in light of their purpose. It is clear to us that the language in the executive order cannot even arguably be reconciled with America’s clear duty under Common Article 3 to treat all detainees humanely and to avoid any acts of violence against their person.
…
To date in the war on terrorism, including the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and all U.S. military personnel killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s losses total about 2 percent of the forces we lost in World War II and less than 7 percent of those killed in Vietnam. Yet we did not find it necessary to compromise our honor or abandon our commitment to the rule of law to defeat Nazi Germany or imperial Japan, or to resist communist aggression in Indochina. On the contrary, in Vietnam — where we both proudly served twice — America voluntarily extended the protections of the full Geneva Convention on prisoners of war to Viet Cong guerrillas who, like al-Qaeda, did not even arguably qualify for such protections.
Geneva is not about the enemy. It’s about us.
Myth: Paper grocery bags are a better environmental choice than plastic bags.
Fact: Plastic bags use 40% less energy to produce and generate 70% less emissions & 80% less solid waste than paper. (U.S. EPA website, www.epa.gov/region1/communities/shopbags.html)
Myth: Plastic grocery bags take 1,000 years to decompose in landfills.
Fact: Today’s landfills are designed to prevent decomposition of anything. Chances are your orange peel, milk carton and even last year’s newspaper won’t breakdown. Research by William Rathje, who runs the Garbage Project, has shown that when excavated from a landfill, newspapers from the 1960s can be intact and readable.
Really, you don’t need to be a scientist here, just use your common sense. Plastic bags are cheaper because they use less resources.
I’m so proud:
Via the DefCon blog comes that news that Texas governor Rick Perry has appointed a creationist to head the Texas State Board of Education.
..
Here is a letter McLeroy sent out to his fellow State Board of Education members:
My Personal Confession
Given all the time in the world, I don’t think I could make a spider out of a rock. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing made a spider out of a rock.
I don’t think I share a common ancestor with a tree. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim as a fact that we all share a common ancestor with a tree.
Brilliant! This guy doesn’t understand the most basic principles of biology, and he’s going to chair the State Board of Education. And hey, if he doesn’t understand something, why should it be taught at all?
Time to homeschool.
I have zero tolerance for Zero Tolerance policies. And this is why:
The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran — what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.
But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher’s aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.
After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.
Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry in a case that poses a fundamental question: When is horseplay a crime?
Seriousy, folks, WTF? Ruining a kid’s life because he slapped a fellow twelve-year-old on the butt? Are we so incapable of telling kids “Behave! Keep your hands to yourself!” that our only refuge is draconian law?