Holding my breath

The rumor of an imminent attack by the U.S. on Iran, due at four a.m. Iran time tomorrow (see my post below, "Whaddya Think?") has bounced around the web for a few days and I've even heard it discussed among some of my leftist friends, whose reaction is "I don't doubt it one bit."

Well, I do doubt it, frankly. But then I doubted Bush would attack Iraq in the months before the invasion; I doubted he'd nominate Bolton, Alito, Roberts, Gonzalez; I doubted he'd veto embryonic stem-cell funding. In fact, I've doubted scores more actions by this administration only to be proven wrong, and yet I still can't believe Bush is the monster he--it turns out--actually is.

So, having been wrong about Bush so many times in the past, I'm turning on my TV at eight this evening, hoping all's quiet in Persia.

BTW--Here's a fellow nonbeliever, but for a different reason.

Maybe there's hope for us, for the U.S.

I have long argued--including several times in this blog--that true conservatives and liberals agree on a fundamental tenet of constitutional law: a strict restraint on executive power over personal freedoms. Now, finally, we are seeing a rejuvenation of a conservative movement that represents that view--as opposed to the Anne Coulter wing of the right, that accedes to any presidential power that Bush seeks--and its joinder with the liberal left. (Note the membership list in the middle of the article.) Could it be that sanity, and constitutional law, will once again obtain in this republic?

Yeah, what about that?

Remember the "incident" back in January, where American forces grabbed five Iranians in a town in northern Iraq? The justification for it was that they were "Iranian agents" or something, and we've not heard a peep about their whereabouts or disposition since. Well, now it turns out that that act was apparently a blundered attempt by the US to snatch senior Iranian officials--highly-placed intelligence officers--who were in Iraq at the time.

So what's the difference between Iran's seizure of British sailors--even if they were in Iraqi waters--and America's seizure of Iran's officials on Iraqi soil? They're either both illegal, or neither is. But there's this difference: We know where the British sailors are.

You can't make this shit up

From the Washington Times:
"The head of a California company hired by the U.S. government to help build a fence along the Southwest border to curb the flow of illegal aliens into the United States has been sentenced on charges of hiring illegals for the job."

Radical?

He calls for an end to US occupation of Iraq, he calls for a day of protest, of hanging Iraqi flags throughout the nation. He lists the miserable conditions in Iraq since the US invasion.

Just once, I'd like to see al Sadr's name appear in an article without the adjective "radical." His words sound like those of any patriot whose nation is under occupation by a foreign power.

Whaddya think?

This report of an April 6 attack by the US on Iranian sites is awfully (literally) specific. Too specific to be true, or to be untrue?

Free speech?

Apparently not if you say that the US ought to move its embassy out of the heart of Baghdad.

I don't understand

I mean, I just don't get it. Who are those people who stand in line on the opening night of a movie's run, who crowd into the theater with hundreds of others who've paid full-boat ticket prices, to fulfill some need to see the film immediately after its release? What's the benefit from seeing a movie on day one as opposed to day four, or week four?

For that matter, who are those people who bought and installed Microsoft's new Vista system--millions did so in the first weeks of its release--only to learn that it has numerous kinks that cause difficulties with photo and audio peripherals and other applications? Everybody knows a new system will have wrinkles when it's first submitted to widespread use by the public, and the "old system"--Windows XP, which I have on my computer--ain't so bad. So what's the goddam hurry? Why not wait for a month or two or three until the system's been tried in the real world and some of the initial wrinkles ironed out. Really. I want to know.

Let them eat pizza

Given these numbers, where are the bread riots?

High stakes

With some form of troop-withdrawal legislation, tied to funding, apparently nearing the President's desk, and with Bush's vow to veto it, clear battle lines have been drawn. At this juncture, Congress looks to hold the upper hand, politically.

But after the veto, Congress will fail to override and there will be no funding forthcoming for the troops. Then what? Who will win the propaganda war that then ensues? From my perspective, Congress will then be forced to acquiesce in Bush's position to avoid allowing funding to languish, and Bush will have scored a political victory, given the influence of MSM spin and the stupidity of the American people.

We'll see.

Tell me what you think

of these two poems by a 19-year old Barack Obama.

If you wanna bring down the emperor

it doesn't get any better than this. Except maybe this. (And as to the latter, where, exactly, is John McCain's "straight talk express"? Oh he of military background and an asserted aversion to bureaucratic bullshit, evasion, CYA and prevarication. I'd love to see Jon Stewart pull the Tillman question out during one of McCain's cozy interviews, wouldn't you?)

What if the South had seceded?

It might have been a bit dicey for the black folks, but as this essay points out, the North might well have spent that last fifty years at peace.

In lieu of writing these thoughts myself

I link you an essay that says what I feel about Bush, better than I could ever express.

Surely there's a lesson to be learned

Within ten days, Annika Sorenstam loses in a playoff with an unheralded golfer in the MasterCard tournament; Roger Federer loses in an early round of a tennis tournament in California; Tiger Woods' game goes south--a duck hook, two or three water dunks, yanked putts--during the finish of Arnold Palmer's tournament at Bay Hill, Florida, and he drops from contender to undistinguished also-also-ran. Whaddup?

Could it be that these three monuments to their games are human? Is that too facile an explanation? Could it instead be that our expectations of them are inhuman? Are, for that matter, inhumane?

Sometimes statistics say a lot about a culture

Like this one.

The tar-baby syndrome

I've been laid low for the past several days by the flu, but today I managed to compose the following letter to the editor of the SB News Press. The idea that our continued presence in Iraq fuels the terrorists organizations that are the true threat to the West in its "war on terror" isn't new, but it's been lost in the debate about the "surge," with the result that no one seems to reflect on how the surge is actually Osama's briar patch.

"To the editor:


Among their arguments against withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, Bush supporters contend that “if we pull our troops out of Iraq, we’ll be doing precisely what the terrorists want us to do.” While this may be true of some of Iraq’s disputing factions, it is not true of the terrorists who struck our soil on 9/11. That group, which, it is reported, now maintains affiliated cells inside Iraq and is growing in numbers throughout the world, has consistently said its goal is to destroy the world powers that it claims have long dominated and exploited the lands and people of Islam.

That group doesn't want the U.S. to leave Iraq, not at all. It wants to be able to continue to point to the violent U.S. occupation as proof of Western intent to dominate the region; to exploit U.S. troops’ transgressions there (murders, rapes, torture) to fuel their recruitment; and to bleed our nation’s fighting force and treasure. Osama bin Laden (from whatever cave he could be heard) was cheering Bush on as he announced the “surge” ten weeks ago.

If Bush’s “war on terror” is really that, why don't we pull of out Iraq so we can free ourselves to fight it, instead of feeding it?"

Smoke and mirrors

The real estate bubble has burst, the foreclosure rate of those easy-interest refinancings and home purchases is skyrocketing, the marginal-loan industry is reeling from defaults and both interest rates and inflation are on the rise. Bush's "improving economy" was never real. It was based upon historically low interest rates that allowed Americans to borrow on their credit cards and homes at unprecedented levels--causing personal savings to dip into negative figures for the first time since the Depression.
By the time the Bush administration is driven from power the United States will be in the worst shape ever, internationally and domestically. Let's just hope we learn from this experience: That we should think before we vote.

My worst nightmare

The US is now going to police the world? We're going to attack "terrorists" everywhere on the planet, no matter whom they threaten? Bangladesh? Ethiopia? Turkey?

A bad week

Let's see: Since last week, we've learned that the FBI has overstepped the limits of the (illegal) secret surveillance program, the President is sending 4800 more troops to Iraq, the scandal about insufficient treatment of war veterans is spreading beyond Walter Reed hospital, and the Libby conviction continues to reverberate around the capital. What else can go wrong? Another question: Who on Earth still supports this administration?