The simplest explanation for a phenomenon, ceteris paribus, is to be preferred. Here is my candidate for understanding current American policy regarding Iran: Barack Obama wants Iran to acquire a a nuclear weapon, indeed several or even many nuclear weapons. Why? To teach Israel a lesson and put the fear of God into Israelis. The President [...]
...WALL...
Latest on Tue, 11:26 pm
: What did Beck expect to get out of Massa? The contents of the video Rahm Emanuel would have released if he didn't resign?: That must be some video.
: the testimony of Massa's staffers is more than enough.
Emanuel couldn't have forced the guy to resign in a million years if there wasn't a good chance that an investigation would lead to an indictment.: An indictment for what, there's nothing here that rises to that level. Massa's a grade A flake
: narc, do you have any idea what Massa's staffers have said or could say?
how the heck do you know what's there?
this sure as hell doesn't rest on a nasty comment/conversation/headrub at a party.
: Well, the good news is it will probably lose a lot of money.: 
Recent Comments
- CK MacLeod on The Wall:
- CK MacLeod on The Wall: Well, the good news is it will probably lose a lot of money.
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narciso on Iraq and Glaspie: WEll the problem goes back before Wahhab to ibn Tammiya, the Syrian born father of Salafism, in the 13th Century, for similar reasons to Wahhabist rising in the 19th... -
Geoffrey Britain on Iraq and Glaspie: @ George Jochnowitz: “Although in theory Islam has to reject all revisions for theological reasons, it has evolved. The Wahhabi movement began in the... - Geoffrey Britain on Iraq and Glaspie: @ fuster: Nor am I ready to give up on you yet either fuster. As occasionally you do show faint signs of using that grey matter between your ears. It is the...
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George Jochnowitz on Iraq and Glaspie: @ Geoffrey Britain: Although in theory Islam has to reject all revisions for theological reasons, it has evolved. The Wahhabi movement began in the 18th... - fuster on Iraq and Glaspie: @ Geoffrey Britain: I’m not going to give up on you despite that, Geoffrey. You just do your best and I’ll make allowances. Would you care to speak slowly...
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- Geoffrey Britain on Iraq and Glaspie: @ George Jochnowitz: “But nowhere in the Koran is Palestine mentioned. Islam has evolved. Today, the primary element of religious doctrine is...
- Geoffrey Britain on Iraq and Glaspie: @ fuster: Euripides, 2000 years ago, said it best… “Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish!”
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Said in a Thread
- when you’re a designated shepherd or sheepdog…
March 6, 2010 | 12:17 pm… (remember you can designate yourself) part of you is actually glad to see a wolf, because now you can prove to everyone how important you are, by bossing everyone around for their own good.
“A doctor and a peasant know more than a doctor alone,” the Italians used to say. Self-appointed doctors everywhere are working to suppress this insight. Human societies can save themselves from the next wolf, if they are allowed to do so; but it is hard for them to save themselves from the shepherds.
- Consider this angle on what Ryan is doing:
February 15, 2010 | 2:37 pmThe unbridled, technocratic arrogance of this administration has acted like a time machine. Obama and the Dims have, deficit wise, leapt at least 10 years into the future. The ever-over-the-horizon inevitable fiscal catastrophe of the committed welfare state has been brought rudely into the present tense for all of us to gape at in shock. RIGHT NOW! As with the hapless, doomed frog sitting in water slowly being heated to boiling, yet continuing to sit because the heat is being added incrementally, Americans have for 40 years been putting up with first 50- then 100-, then 200-, and even 400-and-500-billion-dollar annual shortfalls with pathetic equanimity. The Dims threw caution to the winds, skipped right past 800-billion and even trillion-dollar deficits – why tarry? – and seized the big brass ring: Whack! $1.6 trillion bucks in the hole. Suck on that! And more of the same to come. Ring-a-ding-ding!
The frog is scalded pink and more than ready to jump. It just wants somewhere – anywhere but the destination on offer now – to land. Ryan suspects that, I believe. Why can’t the Repub leadership see it, too?
Joe NS @ Who’s afraid of Paul Ryan?.
- America is much bigger and much stronger and far more resilient and wonderful…
January 11, 2010 | 12:17 pm…than the pedestrian Obami would have it, and [Avatar] is an American film. Think about it. The Russians and Chinese and others will see it and they must again marvel at our creativity and our technology. They will be seeing yet another distinctive American film, a wonder like Dances With Wolves and E. T. and Close Encounters… before it. Again they will be seeing America at Her best, an America which can meld together all people of good will, an America which is not afraid to be self critical and idealistic. They may even come to think well of an America which can inspire such a fine sense of wonder as “Avatar” has done.
Zoltan Newberry @ In a world of their own: Conservatives and Avatar.
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Archive for Said in a Thread »
- when you’re a designated shepherd or sheepdog…
Collected Poetry of Sully
- Telomeres
February 17, 2010 | 6:23 amTelomeres of defined length,
Were by his God in mankind bent,
To make it sure that aged ones,
Would pass to make room for their sons,
Before they learn to mount the hill,
They yearn to climb, their God to kill.New daughters too then see their day,
As the used up old fair pass away,
And the brighter young can in their turn,
Seek their creator’s iron rules to spurn.One day mankind may beat the odds,
And take on the powers of the gods.
Sure on that day He’ll mold an image,
And include within his toy’s equippage,
A strictly limited telomere,
To set for it a cliff that’s sheer.For once a former God is whipped,
Displaced by his toy free will equipped,
The former toy learns something odd,
About possession of the mind of God,
Namely, knowledge of the entire script,
Makes the endless now a boring crypt.Mere mechanical beasts are not a cure,
For their script entire a God knows for sure,
To divert a toy must have free will,
And at least a chance to climb the hill,
There to displace its God, a bitter pill - Riff On MacLeod’s Quote
January 29, 2010 | 6:32 am“People are 97% water and no damn good.”
They’d do what they oughta,
If they god dammned could,
But they can’t, so they don’t,
And they ain’t gonna change.It’s a hundred percent fact,
That the truly pure,
Are more or less demure,
And don’t make a show,
Of a holy man act.Those precious few don’t affect the case,
For the utterly pure never win the race,
Which always goes to the mostly base,
Cause none of us likes very much to be,
Reminded too much that we’re deeply flawed,
Though we talk a bit about being awed,
By those few among us who walk with God.Then too the vast mass,
Of the flawed and crass,
Like nothing better in the end,
Than a deep and sweet crow,
At the predicament of them,
Who get caught, caught, caught,
Where they ought not go.Who’s to say the vast herd,
Isn’t better off for the word,
To get around and resound,
Among the flawed but sound,
That if you should get caught,
Doing what you shouldn’t ought,
Ninety Seven Percent will pretend,
That your act was round the bend,
And the mocking, the mocking, will never end. -
Archive for Collected Poetry of Sully »
- Telomeres
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"Jochnowitz, throughout the essays, is animated by the cool precision of logic.... scintillating, amusing, and provocative."
—February 2009, Midstream Blog Authors
