Excellent!

Some people might say that it's unkind or out of line to mock conservative women, as I often do. Fortunately, one of them said it's perfectly okay, and joking about "those stupid women!" is even worth defending.

Is it Still Legal to Make a Joke Like That? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

My plane is late. Man next to me says: "It must be a woman pilot. Women
are always late. She must be doing her nails."

Thanks, K-Lo. It's nice to get the Vatican Medal of Approval, With Virgin Clusters and Fig Leaf.

Nice Soul You Got There; Be a Shame To Lose It

From one of K-Lo's inept, leading interviews, this time with Fr. Thomas D. Williams:

God expects more of us than we think we are capable of. He demands selfless, faithful love. He demands that we pardon our enemies and those who have hurt us. He demands that we give from our want, and not only from our surplus. Why does he ask such difficult, such “unrealistic” things? Because he is calling us to greatness. He is calling us to realize our potential and to grow in resemblance to Jesus. Is this unrealistic? If we were left to our own devices, yes. With the assistance of his grace, no.
...

Part of God’s greatness, according to Christian theology, is his willingness to allow people to act without coercion. He assists us, but our lives and our world are truly in our hands. He made us free and respects our freedom. This means that things will go wrong.

Christian religious institutions have a problem: They feel the need to explain why bad things happen when God is supposedly good and loves us, cares for us, and is omniscient. Their response is Free Will; God is good but people are bad, so bad things happen but it's not God's fault. But they also say that God demands we follow his example (Jesus) and obey his laws at all times or we'll go to hell. So God demands we follow his laws which are so rigorous we can't follow them without his help, but he also gives us utter freedom.

You have to tie yourself up in knots to live with the contradiction. You also have to tell yourself that you are inherently sinful and bound for hell unless you hand your life over completely to God. Yet the Church also tells you to live in this life, marry and have children, get a job and tithe. The illogic of it all causes needless anxiety in people. I've seen people weep with distress that they aren't doing enough to worship God, despite their blameless lives. It's cruel.

Megan on Health Care

Megan discusses health care, which means Megan fantasizes about ways to punish the poor for their inherent inferiority.

Imagine if, rather than giving people food stamps, Section 8 vouchers,
welfare payments, public schooling, and so forth, we simply had an incomes
program to boost the wages of those whose productivity is not up to providing
them a basic, decent standard of living?

Is she actually suggesting that the public subsidize businesses?

But that's not all it would do; it would put choice back in the hands of
the consumers. Do poor people want more car and less house? Great;
why not give them that choice if it doesn't cost us anything? They could
even (whisper it) save the money and do something really important with it at a
future date.

Says the woman who just took on a bunch of debt for consumer purchases.

[...Y]ou'll probably end up giving the wastrels less money if they do
fritter it away. Because once you've actually provided people a minimum
income that is adequate to take care of their basic needs, there's no moral
reason not to turn away those who decline insurance from the emergency
rooms. Giving people more choices also means allowing them to live with
the consequences of those choices.

McArdle offers this as an incentive. Imagine the feeling of moral righteousness you can enjoy as you turn away sick people.

No matter what we do to our health care system, it will never much resemble the
cool modernistic dreams of socialist realist fiction, where everything is
effortlessly resolved by smugly serene Agents of the People.

Megan likes to remind her readers that she was taught politeness and she is very civil, unlike other people . If you say the right thing it's the same thing as doing the right thing. (Just ignore the actual digs and insults.)

We are a phenomenally rich nation--the richest in the history of the planet (in
our weight class, anyway). We can afford to paper over the holes with
money.

She's a libertarian, remember.

California and New York are undergoing financial emergencies. The federal government is of course deeply in debt. It will be easy to convince the public that they should be able to keep more of their money instead of paying for medical care and retirement funds for others. Like Megan they'll emphasize choice and responsibility and fairness. And people will die.

Oh, Megan!

No, Megan, you're still not a feminist. Just because you found someone who formerly had the same sense of entitlement as yourself doesn't mean you are against the unequal distribution of power between genders. You still think power belongs to the powerful. You put on an apron and took off your shoes and served men food as a joke. That's what you think about power inequality--it's a joke to laugh at. You like the gender power imbalance because you think it gives you special privileges, and you believe in privilege.

Give it up. Nobody is fooled, and nobody really cares. Real feminists won't accept you because they're not stupid and they recognize the truth. Conservatives will hire you as a token woman and libertarian, and as long as you hem and haw and quantify feminism, your pretensions will be seen as the pretensions they are. Your words will, of course, continue to support those in power over those out of power. It's your job, and the only reason an English major with a MBA was hired to analyze the economy in the pages of the Atlantic.

Our Duty to our Country

These are the only people in the country who have the right to call themselves Americans. Via Crooks and Liars:

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Four peace activists were arrested on Friday as
they attempted to make a “citizens arrest” of Karl Rove, who was one of
President George W. Bush’s top aides before leaving the administration last
year.
“It should be Karl Rove in that van. War Criminal!” one of a dozen
protestors shouted as the four were put into a police van outside a Des Moines
country club where Rove spoke at a private state Republican party
fundraiser.
Chet Guinn, a retired Methodist Minister, was among those led
away.
“To be silent when major crimes are being committed against all
humanity makes us accomplices,” Gwinn told reporters just before his prearranged
arrest, which took place when protestors stepped past a gate.

He's right.

Empathy and Evil

As I've said before, a major difference between conservatives and liberals is empathy. If you can imagine how other people feel, you can put yourself in their shoes. You can begin to try to understand them, and no matter how different they are or how much you disagree with them you can't hate them completely. You empathise, and empathy makes you brave enough to fight your fear of the Other and strong enough to conquer hate. Most conservatives can't begin to understand this. They think the lack of hate is moral confusion and that fear is vigilance. To be brave is an affront, and to understand is to be weak.

This lack of empathy is dangerous. If you don't think about the consequences of your actions and how they affect other people, there is nothing keeping you from doing whatever you want. You will quite deliberately choose to take actions that will harm other people. You manipulate energy markets or sign torture memos or order the bombing of ancient nations because you don't really care what happens to the people affected by your actions. Sometimes you are able to feel some empathy when something bad happens to a person you know, such as when a friend is shot. Then you can feel the shock of his family and friends and sympathy for his pain. But in general you don't care about anyone outside your own circle, be it as small as a family or as large as a nation.

And so choices are made, and ripples of reaction fan out across the surface of the world. And the result is evil. Evil actions that rip people apart, starve children, kill nations. But that's not what the soulless ones, the ones without empathy, say. Bad things aren't consequences of callous decisions. They're the will of God, they're Satan battling God and using man as a battlefield. There is an evil miasma stalking the land, ensnaring good people into doing bad things. Or they have inferior genes. Their culture is bad and their genes are bad so bad things happen to them. It's all their fault.

We get empathy from our parents; many of us are taught that other people have feelings too, that if you hit someone else it hurts them, just like being hit hurts you. If a child is shown understanding and respect he will like and accept himself, and will be much more likely to show understanding and respect--and empathy--for others.

It's our choices that matter. What we do every minute of our lives, how we treat the people around us, and how we look at the people beyond. Who we will treat as brothers, and whom we will choose to fear. Callous people make up excuses and reasons and even ideologies to explain why the don't care about others but the reason is always very simple: They can't.

Read Evil as the Absence of Empathy by Ernest Partridge.

Such Beautiful Creatures

Oh, Kathryn Jean Lopez, you never disappoint. All those years of CCE classes I took were not in vain, for it helped me understand how one person could be so self-deluded. Once you've seen gay men marry and have children just to be accepted by the Catholic Church, Lopez is a piece of cake to understand. For Lopez, God is the Magical Marriage Fairy. Do everything he says, and she'll achieve the impossible: Find someone willing to overlook her stupidity and single-minded devotion to her cause. (But I repeat myself.) It's not her looks; not-beautiful women marry all the time, including not-skinny women. People who have been married a long time know that the surface fades away, and the inner person is the one you actually see. It's the attitude of blind submission, the lack of humor and proportion, the all-encompassing neediness, that drives people away.

Lopez wrote an article on the horrors of in-vitro fertilization, that Frankenstein procedure that lets couples finally have the children they long for. That's supposed to be a good thing, but it's not good enough for Katy Jean, because the only reason for sex is to let God impregnate you--or not, as the case may be.

This position is much maligned, but if you actually think about it, you
don’t have to be Catholic to notice that there is some wisdom in totality, the
idea that there is something very good about giving yourself totally to your
spouse — not putting up barriers and introducing artificial methods and
procedures into your reproductive lives.

Uh huh. I want nothing more than to totally give myself to my spouse, because there's no dividing line between me and him. I have no boundaries; I belong totally to him and not myself. My body is his and God's, not my own. I have no choice when it comes to when I have children, or how many, even if it should cost me my life.

Mind you, this is only for women's reproductive lives. Men can do as they please. Medical procedures are fine if they benefit men and women's non-baby parts. Artificial hearts, shunts, colostomy bags, all other medical procedures are just fine. When Pope John Paul II was shot, God's will wasn't followed; the doctors did everything they could to thwart His Plan--for surely if God let the Pope get shot it was meant to be, right? Just think of the martyrdom! How many lives could have been saved in the future by the Pope's death? Did the doctors think of that? I doubt it.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is in her thirties, and not getting any younger. Her eggs are getting little wrinkles and bad hips as we speak. Hurry up, Katy Jean. As you've said so often, selfish career women often find out they've waited too long, and one day you and your husband might be one of those couples depending on science to make up for God's lack. But I'm sure you'll just accept God's will and go through the rest of your life childless, like you tell everyone else to do.

Ann "O-Ring" Althouse, NYTimes Published writer, speaks!

I haven't read Ann Althouse in months, so it's both shocking and amusing to see what she's up to now. Post after post sneers at Barack Obama's popularity, and no detail is too trivial to create observe. It's an Onion Ringapalooza, all the time. Frankly, I'm surprised she isn't commenting on Obama's man-breasts.

There's a lilting cadence to CNN's pronunciation of the name:
ba-ROCKO-ba-ma, with an arcing, hopeful inflection. It's most noticeable when
they say "John McCain" soon after. The nonObama candidate's name is said in a
leaden singsong, ending in a flat low note.

Next up: Althouse reports the weather is biased for Obama, as it has not rained on his parade.

It's like visiting an uncle you haven't seen for decades, and finding him wearing a tinfoil hat and listening to Alpha Centauri through his cavity fillings.

Ann Althouse Trolls National Enquirer for Information

Ann "Onion Ring" Althouse links to a Mickey Kaus post in the NRO (naturally) that quotes our newspaper of record, the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer. This same periodical also reported Laura Bush moved out of the White House and is divorcing George W., which seems to have escaped Ann's eagle eye. Perhaps she ate out that week instead of buying groceries and missed the news. Perhaps her attention was absorbed by a particularly tasty candy bar in the check-out aisle, or she searched for new blades for her Lady Schick instead. No, she did note a report in the Globe, and said, "It's so freaky!" I guess tabloids are silly when they report on Republicans, and bastions of truth when they report on Democrats.

Despite her protestations to the contrary, it's clear that Althouse is in the tank for McCain. Not that it matters. Times are changing; the shifting of power clearly leans towards the Democrats, and columnists who spent years praising Republicans and slamming Democrats will have to reverse their positions if the want to stay employed.

Larry Kudlow Thrusts His Opinion Forward in the NRO

Larry Kudlow, in the National Review Online, grows excited at new possibilities for drilling deep (for oil). Stocks are "rising," the dollar is "strengthening" and "punishing" that naughty gold. Meanwhile Wall Street is happy about the "big expansion." "President Bush unleashed" the bill to "drill, drill, drill" for oil, "strengthening the dollar, pushing down gold, and driving up share prices."

But there's an impediment to President Bush's muscular plan to save the economy; a woman. She would be "a tough road to hoe" but a "discharge petition" might "blow Pelosi out of the water and open the floodgates to Democratic defections in the House." But the Republicans are still in danger of losing the presidential race, Kudlow says. So they should "drill, drill, drill," which "would have the potency of the Reagan tax cuts 28 years ago in the 1980 landslide race."

We're Doomed.

Via Think Progress:

President George H.W. Bush’s former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft warned the current president to stop threatening Iran. He said yesterday “that by mentioning that threat, ‘we legitimize the use of force…and may tempt the Israelis’ to carry out such a mission. He said he thinks that negotiations must continue.”

This worries me more than anything else I've read. The temptation to stick it to his father is so strong that Bush might just bomb Iran to spite him. And I'm only partially joking.

Words To Live By

Someone on the internet is wise:

If you don't eat meat, go buy some. This way you'll never be tempted to unnecessarily mention[....]
If you don't eat meat and are able to refrain from relating this fact, then, uh, carry on.

TO CLARIFY: You don't have to eat it, of course. That's your call. But by eating meat, most attempts to proudly explain your aversion to the food will become so bogged down in qualifiers that they'll never escape your lips. This will be well worth the $19 investment.

Remember, these days, when you say "I don't eat meat", you're not just misleading people into believing that you spend all of your spare time growing organic vegetables; you're also signalling that you don't have a barbeque grill. This is a major social liability, especailly in Texas.

Flashback Megan: Megan Cooks

I don't often curse here, but you have to be fucking kidding me. From the blog of Rick Bruner.

30th Aug 2004

Jello Salad
Last night, I was invited to a delightful
dinner party at Megan McArdle’s house in the esteemed company of political
bloggers including Tim Blair, Mickey Kaus (albeit fleetingly), Matt Welch, Roger
Simon, Julian Sanchez, Andrew Hofer, Walter Olson, Amy Langfield and others
whose names I missed or forgot....

The theme of the party was Republicanism, given the convention for which several of the bloggers were in town. In keeping with the theme, Megan (who bills herself as a “libertarian,” which as someone at the party noted is what Republicans call themselves when they’re embarrassed to admit they’re Republicans) did all the cooking and waited on the mostly male assemblage hand and foot — barefoot, at that — and clad in a ’50s-housewife-style blouse and skirt and lace apron, the table decorated with two lilac blooms and a small American flag, and so on. The meal, along the same lines, consisted of glazed chicken, homemade dinner rolls, potato salad,
homemade peach pies and, the pièce de résistance, jello salad.

Beautifully prepared and presented and absolutely delicious, it was all
meant to be ironic and Republican. But the joke was on Megan: the food took me
vividly back to my youth, as it was exactly like what I grew up with my
Minnesota-born mother cooking, who is slightly to the left of Michael Moore.

I'll bet she lapped up every minute of the attention. What a servile thing to do, even as a joke. What an embarrassment this woman is.

Flashback Megan

Megan berates a student who emailed her for help. Megan, who is psychic, has determined that the brat just wants someone to do her homework for her.

Bleg
08 Feb 2008 09:01 am
I'm looking for a particular study--one in which students were given a piece of (false) negative information about a teacher, and then told this had been a mistake, that the bad information was about someone else. Nonetheless, when the students who had gotten the bad information were asked to evaluate the teacher, they systematically ranked him/her lower than the students who had never heard it--even though they now knew this to be false. Can anyone help? I had the study, but I can't find it, nor remember the name.

Woops, I'm sorry. That's Megan asking someone to do her homework for her. Here's the other post.

Amusing moment of the day
11 Feb 2008 01:22 pm
I got an email from a student today asking me to do her homework. This is not exactly unusual--the more thoughtful ones provide word counts that I am supposed to hit--but usually they try to be a little more subtle, asking me to "summarize" or "clarify". With the typical conviction of the teenager that adults are total morons who were never young, they expect that I will not recognize the poorly disguised voice of a blurrily photocopied handout peeping out of their request. This one bypassed
such subterfuge and threw herself on my mercy. Having already passed ninth grade, in however desultory a fashion, I find myself unwilling to take on the repeat burden of someone else's homework. I kind of admire the chutzpah of the thing, to be sure, but I am afraid America's students will have to struggle on without my help.

Megan, who frequently berates others for being impolite, cuts a kid to ribbons in the pages of the Atlantic. Imagine how humiliated the girl felt. A simple rejection and enjoiner to do one's own work in a private email would have been enough, but Megan enjoys sneering at others.

A Preamble for Our Time

We the Customers of the United States, in Order to form a more
perfect Business Model, establish Order, insure domestic Obedience, provide for
the corporate defence promote the corporate Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Safety to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America.

Some Like it "Hot"!

As a person who cooks very often, I felt it behooved me to remind all the little people who might want to emulate my example that they will need a stove for cooking. You need a stove with "on" and "off" buttons, and also a range of temperatures. My dear friend John Featherington-Stokes uses an Aga, but I wouldn't expect you to be able to afford an English stove. You will have to buy an American one.

Stoves should also have doors and lights. Be sure to get a light that goes on when you open up the stove door. Do the lights stay on when the door closes? I must ask my good friend Arabella, who writes for a gourmet magazine. The knobs should turn so the stove can be hot and not so hot, depending on your recipe. The inside of the stove, called an "oven," will have racks to hold the food you want to cook. The stove probably will also have a clock on it, but I haven't learned how to set mine yet, so you don't need one of those.

Soon I will explain how you need something called a "pot" for the top of the stove.

Woman Nabbed After Bizarre Crime Spree*

A woman was arrested today at the Sweet-N-Cremey ice cream shop in Whispering Pines Mall and charged with assaulting customers and damaging merchandise. Kathryn Jean Lopez, 32, was snatching ice cream cones from the hands of teenagers and shouting about Satan when subdued by police.

"It was, like, totally freaksome," said Amber Johnson, 15, who was at the shop with her mother and sister. "She slapped my ice cream cone out of my hand and yelled that I was a slut and harlot. She said something about temptation and licking, but it was kind of hard to understand with all the shouting. My mom paid five dollars for that cone and she's really pissed."

Witnesses said Ms. Lopez's crime spree started at the mall's QVC, where Lopez hid behind a mall sign and attacked female customers as they left the pharmacy.

"That woman stole my medicine," said Ellie O'Malley, 45. "She jumped out and grabbed my plastic bag out of my hands. Then she tore it apart and stuffed the pills in her pocket. She was shouting, "Think of the babies! Obey the Pope!" over and over. Why would she want my birth control pills? Can't she just get her own? She's not the only one who needs them, you know. I already got four kids and I ain't having any more."

Lopez, according to mall security, then ran down the length of the mall, pulling down mannequins dressed in summer clothing and shouting at customers.

"I respect the Pope but this lady was crazy," said Arturo Calderone, 38, owner of Sun Fun Fashions. "She pulled all the bathing suits off the racks and said I was a purveyor of filth and depravity. There is no filth in the store and our prices are very reasonable. Plus sandals are on sale, in a full range of sizes including extra wide."

Police refused to speculate about Lopez's motivation although they did say she was resting quietly in her cell. "She's still praying but at least the rocking has stopped," said Sgt. Alice Stevens.

*Not really.

Two, Four, Six, Eight, Who Do We Appreciate?

Glenn Greenwald:

To blithely justify unprovoked wars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, as Tom Friedman did and does, is bad enough. To dismiss matters such as government-sponsored torture and lawless detention camps with nothing more than an acknowledgment in passing that perhaps they deserve a "thumbs-down" is almost as bad. That the same people who do that are then surprised and even offended that the rest of the world finds them repellent and dangerous -- that they actually expect that the world should view them as honorable moral arbiters -- is probably the most revealing aspect of all. The casual embrace of widespread, unparalleled aggression and violence by the Tom Friedmans of the world is exceeded only by their complete inability to see themselves for what they are.

These defenders of war and torture have no idea how much they sicken us. Their ugly, blood-soaked cheerleading for war from the safe confines of their cafes, restaurants and luxury apartments. Their in-you-face truimphantism while our bombs blew apart baby girls and teenage boys, pregnant moms and innocent dads. The threats; traitors, Bush Deranged, kill the liberals. The servile excuses for torture, kidnapping, signing statements, Fallujah, the Patriot Act. They turn our stomach and make us sick to death of their callousness and vain-glorious hunger for death and more death. Suck On This, Faster, Please, Kill Them All and Let God Sort Them Out. Mottoes to live by in this wretched time.

You war-lovers and power-seekers, brown-nosers and enablers: You make us sick. We're not pretending. We're not acting indignant because we love to feel aggrieved. That's your job. You disgust us and we will never, ever let you forget it as long as you live.

Megan tries to be clever, with predictable results.

I thought I was done for the day and they drag me back in.

Megan McArdle responds to August J. Pollak's cartoon about her callousness regarding refugees.

Who says the left has no sense of humor? I mean, who aside from August J. Pollak, that is?

First, that doesn't make sense. If she's trying to say that Pollack doesn't have a sense of humor, she's not really making the point. She's implying Pollack said the left have no sense of humor, which doesn't fit the context. Second, she's spreading the cartoon by making note of it. Once again, her ego won't let sleeping dogs lie. Finally, this is very poor snark. No bite, no snap. Just Megan "tee-hee"ing yet again at her lack of compassion and self-awareness. She should be ashamed, but shame is for the little people, evidently.

Karl Rove Sighted Under Florence Nightingale's Skirts

Karl Rove, who went on vacation just in time to skip congressional appearances, has been found in the Crimea.

Run, Karl, run. May the ghostly screams of your victims follow you wherever you go.

Now Watch This Swing

Think Progress reports Bush will attend a McCain golfing fundraiser with his parents.

In May, President Bush revealed that he had given up playing golf because of the Iraq war. “I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” said Bush. Apparently though, he’s fine with golf as long as it raises money for GOP candidates.

The DC Examiner reports that next Monday, Bush’s parents will be hosting a high-dollar golfing fundraiser for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) near their home in Kennebunkport, ME....

Of course Bush's parents will golf during our wars. They went golfing the day after their three-year-old daughter died. According to his autobiography and other biographies, Bush loved Robin very much and was devastated at her death, which was mostly ignored by the family. Just try to imagine the repression necessary to do that, and you can see how GW Bush is able to shrug at death.

A Girl Can Dream: K-Lo and Rushbo

It's difficult to understand why poor and lower middle class people would vote for Republicans who will implement policies that would hurt them economically. Why support tax cuts for the rich, the eradication of social services, and expensive wars? To find the answer you can read "What's The Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank. The amazon.com review says:

According to Frank, the conservative establishment has tricked Kansans, playing up the emotional touchstones of conservatism and perpetuating a sense of a vast liberal empire out to crush traditional values while barely ever discussing the Republicans' actual economic policies and what they mean to the working class. Thus the pro-life Kansas factory worker who listens to Rush Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to benefit him economically.

Or you can just read Kathryn Jean Lopez celebrating Rush Limbaugh's new $400 million dollar contract.

‘There but for the grace of God go I.” The phrase is usually a cautionary note. My neighbor’s blunder could have been mine. My co-worker’s illness could easily be my affliction. I ought to count my blessings. But the flipside of the phrase is pregnant with promise, and many Americans felt it when they learned that radio phenom Rush Limbaugh, who marks his 20th year “of broadcast excellence” this summer, is making media history with a new $400-million contract.

Sure, many right-wingers were happy just to know that “El Rushbo” is making more than Katie Couric. “That could be me one day,” many surmise upon hearing news like that. With a little grace and hard work, maybe that kind of great success could be mine. Someday, that could be my son or daughter, if I teach them right. That sentiment — an appreciation of what’s possible in America, land of the free, which includes a free market — is at the heart of many Americans’ reaction to the news.

Yes, you too can drop out of college and make a fortune spreading hate and fear. It's the American Way.

Why do Americans think that they, too, can make tens of millions per year? How could they possibly convince themselves that if they vote for policies benefitting the rich, they are potentially voting for their own benefit? They lie to themselves.

Even though being rich is not the be-all, end-all for Americans, they are optimistic they could be and will be — having that motivational hope, even when probably not entirely realistic. One 2000 Time magazine survey had 20 percent of Americans polled optimistic that they would someday be in the top one percent of American earners; Americans frequently think we’re richer than we are, because we always see great riches and promise before us. Many Americans have real reason to be optimistic, if not always the luck, grace, or determination to seal the deal.

Now, this is Kathryn Jean, eternal virgin optimist and family values pimp, so she has to point out money isn't everything.

A recent Pew poll found that “being wealthy” is far from the top priority of Americans — we value things like “having enough time to do things you want to do,” “being successful in a career,” and “having children.” “Being married” rated as “very important” for 50 percent of those polled, while “being wealthy” rates with only such a priority for 13 percent.

Ah, what we really want is marriage and children, and time to spend with them. Odd, then, that Limbaugh has no family, no wife and children. Three ex-wives, but no current wife and no family. All that money, and nothing to show for it except conspicuous consumption, from food to drugs to women to material possessions. It's almost like there's something missing deep inside, that no amount of things can compensate for. Strange, in such an incredibly gifted and humanitarian person.

And Another One's Gone

Tony Snow has died of cancer at 53. If it were not for his cancer, he probably would still be shilling for Bush, Cheney, and wars, as he did at the White House and Fox News. He was Tim Russert without the pretensions of fairness.

Snow on rendition:

Q What about the report out of the European watchdog group that 20-some-odd countries participated or allowed the rendition flights? And can you give us any reaction to that?
Q We can't hear the question.
MR. SNOW: He's asking about the rendition story. Several points to make on rendition. Number one, rendition is something that has been practiced by nations for a very long time. Carlos the Jackal, you may recall, by rendition ended up in a French jail. Nations have to work together on intelligence matters. It's also very important to stress that the United States does not condone torture, does not practice torture. Torture is illegal and we acknowledge and follow all international laws.
Furthermore, we will not agree to send anybody to a nation or place that practices torture. So when it comes to the rendition things, those are the important pieces to remember. It's also important to remember again that international cooperation in the war on terror is essential for winning, and rendition is not something that began with this administration, and it's certainly going to be practiced, I'm sure, in the future.
Q There are reports saying that there was human rights violations --
MR. SNOW: I am not going to respond to a report.

More Greatest Hits.

The Highly Valued Closet Case Endorsement

"John McCain is the best hope for conservatives to succeed in November,"
said Attorney General Troy King. "He is a principled conservative with a clear
record of supporting a strong national defense, fighting for fiscal
responsibility, and defending the sanctity of life. John McCain has served our
country his entire life, and I am honored to lead his efforts here in
Alabama."

John McCain thanked the leadership of his Alabama campaign. "As a
representative in the United States Congress, Spencer has displayed his
commitment to the people of Alabama," said Senator McCain. "Troy is an
outstanding public servant and passionate advocate for the rule of law. Both of
these men are dedicated to the principles of limited government and traditional
values that we share. I'm proud to have Republican leaders and dedicated public
servants like Spencer Bachus and Troy King leading my campaign to victory in
Alabama."

Yes, he's a passionate advocate of traditional values, alright. And sweet, sweet gay love. Embrace who you are, Troy King. Say it--you're here, you're queer, and you've nothing to fear!

Will we attack Iran?

Tom Englehardt has a post up on why we won't attack Iran. I read it eagerly because this is one time I'd be thrilled to be wrong.

Englehardt states Cheney won't attack Iran for a couple of reasons. The first is a "global oil shock." The price of oil would double, probably, if not rise higher. That's quite true, but the price of oil more than doubled after our first attacks. In January 2003 oil was $29.31/barrel. Now it is 137.12/barrel. (How quickly the extreme becomes normal.) If the price of gasoline were to double it would be a greater hardship than the earlier increase, but at $8/gallon we'd be paying the same amount as most of Europe. Our poor would be severely hit by the increase, but governments don't often worry about the poor's suffering, do they?

His next reason is that Israel would need the US's help to attack Iran. I don't see the difficulty here. Our president and Congress have repeatedly promised to back up any action taken by Israel, even if it's not in the best interest of most Americans.

Another reason, Englehardt states, is that Bush and the "adults in the room" would object. But when the grown-ups objected to the first wars, Bush fired them. And I wouldn't count on Bush to stop war and death. He lives for death. (This would take another post to explain and support; I'll try to do that soon because it's very important.) Someone who pumps his fist and says "I feel good" right before he blitzkriegs a country is not overly concerned with others' deaths. The public would also object, Englehardt says, but I don't see the Administration being overly concerned about what the public thinks. The word "So?" comes to mind.

Finally, Englehard point out that reality demands no attack occur. But we all know that they create their own reality. They run this world, we just live in it. And it doesn't help that Englehardt's final words are:

And yet, of course, for the maddest gamblers and dystopian dreamers in our
history, never say never.

That's where we started out: Never say never.

Flashback Megan

Just a quickie today: Megan thinks gay marriage could potentially have a harmful effect on heterosexual marriages. (from the comments of an old post of hers)

This is not an argument made out of bigotry, or ignorance of what it entails for gay people. I understand that gay people want marriage very much, and I think that that is an important value. But society is made of a lot of large groups of people who want things very much, indeed as much as gay people want to get married. If--and it is a big if--allowing gays to marry would undercut the institution of marriage, then I would be against it no matter how unhappy this made gay people.

It's not your decision. Do you get that? You don't get to decide who deserves to marry and who doesn't. Who has civil rights and who doesn't. It's not your life, it's not your choice. If you are so concerned about the perpetuation of marriage, get married.

Scarlet McArdle Speaks

Most people just don't seem very interested in battling subtle bias.

The earlier anti-racism movements had clear goals. Free the slaves, change the Jim Crow laws, tell people they ought to treat black candidates the same as all the others. The new battle is against an endless battle against one's own thoughts. This sounds fine for people who are professional intellectuals, especially if they are focused on race or gender issues. I think that when feminist blogs say, "Everyone is sexist--we are not blaming you, but we need your help to stamp it out" they think they're extending an olive branch. But to most people, I suspect it just sounds exhausting.

And, to tell it true, the newer forms of sexism and racism aren't as bad as what proceeded them. With civil rights, we were asking people to slay dragons. Now we're asking them to spend the rest of their lives exterminating mosquitos. It may be true that a swarm of mosquitos is almost as bad, in toto, as a single dragon. But they don't summon the same sort of emotional energy.

Equality is so tiresome. Especially when you have to think about it all the time. It's just so much easier for white people to save their emotional energy for important things, like finding the right texture of tofu and dresses that fit. That's a more suitable way for a middle-aged white lady to use her beautiful mind.

Jesus, Megan, if you're too lazy to think about someone else's suffering and difficulties, don't admit it in public. It makes you look bad, in case you didn't know.

P.S. You're making this waaaaaay too easy, Megan. You might want to hire an assistant to catch mistakes in spelling (mosquitoes, not mosquitos) and humanity.

Obama and Authority

Kathy G. has an interesting post up about Vincent Bugliosi's book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder." Her post inspired me to look up what Obama said about the prosecution of members of the Bush Administration. I found an Attytood post that said the opposite of what I remembered: Obama would prosecute the criminals in the White House.

The bottom line is that: Obama sent a clear signal that -- unlike impeachment, which he's ruled out and which now seems a practical impossibility -- he is at the least open to the possibility of investigating potential high crimes in the Bush White House. To many, the information that waterboarding -- which the United States has considered torture and a violation of law in the past -- was openly planned out in the seat of American government is evidence enough to at least start asking some tough questions in January 2009.

But that's not what Obama said. Once again, some liberals are listening to Obama and hearing only what they want to hear. It's what we correctly accuse the other side of doing, but it was jarring to see this happen regarding Obama.

Obama states he wouldn't want to be seen as indulging in "partisan witch-hunts." If crimes have been comitted, though, he'll have the AG look into it. If? If? We clearly know they have broken the law, over and over. It's not a suspicion, it's a fact. But Obama needs to see if it's just bad policies, not law-breaking. He'll have someone look into it.

You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances.

Shredding the Constitution is not an exceptional circumstance?

Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

That statement, along with Obama's deep belief in both religious and political authority, make it clear that Obama will not be inclined to do anything to prosecute the Bush Administration. That's dreadful, but not as bad as us deliberately refusing to deal with unhappy reality. We cannot pressure Obama to restore the rule of law if he won't admit it's been broken, but worse, we leave ourselves utterly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of circumstance if we refuse to admit Obama is like any other politician of any other time. If we insist that he is better than he is out of a need to feel better about who we are, we will be just as blind as----K-Lo.

(**Shudder**)

Everyone Should Have a Goal

I just noticed Megan McArdle has a section on her blogs for quotes, called "Comment of the Week." She quotes Amanda Marcotte:

People don't think you're a feminist, because you don't give two shits about
feminist ideas outside of ideal thoughts about how women would be more equal to
men if we comically aped masculinity rituals like waving guns around. I don't
think you're anti-feminist so much as just too self-absorbed and an intellectual
lightweight to really be considered a feminist.

I am *so* jealous. I've said lots of interesting things about Megan but she's never quoted me. And it's not like I'm not quotable. Mr. Mark Steyn put up one of my comments about him on his front page. If Mr. Mark Steyn, the famous conservative intellectual leader and former disk jockey, thinks my insults are good enough for the front page, why doesn't Megan?

Is it because I'm an English major? No, Megan majored in English too. Is it because I'm a woman and therefore can't be accused of sexism? No, Ms. Marcotte is a woman too. Is it because I don't make up zippy little comments? Does "world's laziest econoblogger" count for nothing?

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Megan is being kind to the little bloggers like me, not wanting to pick on small fry. Or maybe it's no fun to have little bloggers make fun of you. Nobody else feels sorry for you because they never heard of the person who insulted you. So she is forced to quote a big name blogger on her front page. That shows how important she is, since important bloggers are criticizing her.

Sigh. I guess I'll just have to try harder. Although I'm kind of busy right now, recording the strange tale of George Bush's drunken car crash and his rescue by K-Lo, his number one fan....

K-Lo on Rushbo

Kathryn Jean Lopez on Rush Limbaugh:

He's human, but one heck of one, who gives superior performances day in and day
out, and when he's down, he always gets back up.

That's the Viagra, dear. Your mother will tell you about it some day.

Are we asking the right questions?

Dan Froomkin discusses the prospect of the US attacking Iran. He quotes another journalist:

Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of the Australian, writes:
"There is, I would guess, somewhere between a 30 and 40 per cent chance that the
Bush administration will bomb Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of the year.
"This is, naturally, a personal judgment. It is based on two weeks of
intense conversations I have had with American national security figures. . . .
"People who know Vice-President Dick Cheney well believe he wants to strike
Iran, that he has made a sober judgment that time is running out. . . .
"Defence Secretary Robert Gates is strongly opposed. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice is also opposed.
"Some analysts believe that in the first
Bush administration Cheney won all such arguments, whereas in the second
administration Rice is dominant. They take this to mean Bush won't strike.
"I don't think it's that simple. It is true that Bush has ceded an enormous
amount of national security power to Rice. However, the Bush administration is
better seen as having two personalities, the psychology of which rose out of
Bush's peculiar historical circumstances.
"Bush understands that he is unpopular across the world and, as a result to some extent, so is the US. Therefore, on every issue where it's possible, from Africa to North Korea, he presents a kindly, moderate, multilateral face. And that face is Rice.
"However, Bush also knows that history will judge him on the outcome in
Iraq. So he does absolutely everything he can to win in Iraq. And this means
mostly following Cheney's advice. Remember that for all of Rice's undoubted
sway, she opposed the troop surge in Iraq, as did Gates. The surge went ahead
anyway, and was successful.
"So at this moment, in the second half of 2008, does the Rice side of Bush or the Cheney side win the argument on Iran?
"I think anyone who pronounces dogmatically on that question doesn't know what
they're talking about. For a start, if the Iranians are caught doing something
stupid, the calculations change dramatically."

Since I don't know what I am talking about, I am the perfect person to make a dogmatic pronunciation. When push comes to shove, I'd put my money on Cheney over Rice. Cheney has the greater motivation; he wants unfettered access to Middle Eastern oil. He is a completely focused and driven man, who is running a large organization he built to fulfill his goals. His time is running out, both as vice-president and as a man with enormous health problems.

Rice seems to be devoted just to her job as Bush's Secretary of State. She doesn't seem to have any grand ambitions beyond the job. And as far as I know she has a lot less power than Cheney. When the two clash, Cheney wins. Korea might be an exception, but Korea isn't sitting on a pool of oil.

Who is in charge? What is his goal? Does he have the resources and will to take what he wants? Can anyone block him? Those are the questions that might give us the answer.

Unless something unexpected happens, we're going to bomb Iran.

Kathryn Jean Lopez Jumps the Shark

In toto:

re: Civics [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn't George W.
Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn't it be something if
his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service?
How's that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures?
How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before
they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their
parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he's a
likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.
Like I said, crazy. Saturday. Have a good one.

Sorry, Lopez, he'll be too busy drinking himself to death to get up at 6 am and teach school.

Beware of politicians gifting bears.

Hullabaloo is quite verklempt over some blogpost written by George Packer.

Now, as thinking people here on Hullabaloo, let's think about what Packer's
yakking about in his little throwaway. Packer says that thinking people, during
the past years, had forced on them hard trade-offs and ideological confusion.
But even five minutes of thought in 2002 would have revealed Bush/Iraq as
screaming yellow bonkers. But Packer didn't have the moral integrity to give
Bush/Iraq five minutes of thought, as so many others did around the world.
Instead, Packer let himself be unthinkingly swept away by Makiya's rhetoric -
and others'. Packer checked his brain at the door and went with his gut: LET'S
DO SOME GOOD!

Unthinkingly swept away by rhetoric? How could anyone do that? Ignoring the possibility of a disastrous war? Damn, that's feeble. How can you sit and listen to someone's words and not even hear what they are saying because of the rush of happiness that comes from belonging, being part of a group or movement, letting someone tell you what you want to hear?

I don't know who Obama has working for him on this stuff, but I hope he's
tapping into the best talent from the arts as well as politics. The right speech
in the right setting could reignite Obamamania into a roaring brushfire at just
the right moment.

Kill me now, please.

ADDED: Via Avedon Carol, IOZ speaks.

Watching vero possumus transmogrify before progressive eyes into status quo ante is less entertaining than it ought to be because it
lacks an element of suprise. Still, it's good for a grin. Barack Obama made such
fast work of it, leaping to
the defense of defenseless nuclear Israel, then proceeding to wrap himself
in an American flag, arm himself to the jowls, climb atop the Statue of Liberty,
and fire warning shots in a wild, easterly direction, lest the Hordes mistake
New York for Vienna and the twenty-first for the seventeenth century. Yeah, but
they'll show him. They're gonna vote for him, and they're gonna give him money,
but by motherfucking god, they're gonna blog about their disappointment.

Who was it who said, put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket?

Is it ironic, or merely consequential?

Megan asks her readers to assist an injured fellow blogger. That's decent of her. A commenter responds:

After looking at a couple sites asking for donations to the relief fund, I
have to say that I would feel more comfortable donating (and be more likely to
do so) if I knew how high the medical bills are and could see how close the goal
is to achievement -- and that the recipients get the money. Otherwise the
request is rather opaque to those of us who don't know anyone involved
personally.
If this sounds cynical, that's not how I mean it. It's just that
I wish skepticism were more widespread when it came to financial transactions in
our society. Instead, P.T. Barnum's dictum remains as relevant today as ever,
and we thus get property bubbles, phishing and bilked consumers crying for more
state regulation "for our own protection."

All those posts Megan wrote using high-minded theories to justify her lack of empathy for others are now bearing their fruit. The poster worries that the money will be misused, misappropriated, or enjoyed, perhaps. In other words, he has no sympathy for the victim, and no desire to donate any money. He justifies himself with blather about opacity, regulation and theft, but he really just doesn't care.

How many posts has Megan written that say the exact same thing about other unfortunates, one illness, accident or firing away from serious economic disaster? How many times has she justified indifference and callousness? Now she asks others to do what she's always dismissed, and naturally some of her fans give her back a bit of her own.

He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.

UPDATE: The same commenter posts again in a different tone, saying he'll donate.

There's a clue. Go get it.

Digby et al. are concerned that Congress is lying to them about FISA. The commenters, as they often do, chastise fellow liberals, saying the Supreme Court openings make voting for Obama essential.

It doesn't even occur to them that Obama might "surprise" them again.

Why wouldn't Obama vote for a conservative Supreme Court justice, or a wink-wink-nudge-nudge pseudo-liberal? His belief in the separation of church and state? His devotion to the constitution? His independence from business interests, the real constituency of the Supreme Court?

Our* biggest problem is our habit of obedience and slavish, unquestioning devotion to authority. It doesn't even occur to some liberals to question the rich and powerful.



*By "our" I mean "everyone but you and me."

(Atrocious spelling fixed)

Obama has another secret plan!

Obama on withdrawing from Iraq: maybe I will, maybe I won't.

It's not that people are stupid to believe in Obama. It's not that Obama's evil. It's just that rich people hate you.

A Few Links

The Health and Medical History of Dick Cheney. Did you know he travels with a hazmat suit at all times and he's allergic to pomegranate juice? He's kept alive by the most comprehensive, expensive medical care I can imagine and his pact with Satan, yet a simple bottle of juice could kill him dead. Fascinating.

The stupidest man on earth explains why Bush had to invade Iraq.

A lot of poor commentary has framed the Iraq war as a conflict of "choice"
rather than of "necessity." In fact, President George W. Bush chose to remove
Saddam Hussein from power because he concluded that doing so was
necessary.
...
As a participant in the confidential, top-level administration meetings
about Iraq, it was clear to me at the time that, had there been a realistic
alternative to war to counter the threat from Saddam, Mr. Bush would have chosen
it.

Next up: Bush decides he must bomb Iran because the traitorous Democrats who just want to be whiny losers won't do it themselves. It's not because he wants to, it's because he must---for your own good.

Jonah Goldberg, the famous conservative intellectual and scholar and Pulitzer nominee, has a post up at the Corner about global warming. It's thoughtful and careful enough to reprint in its entirety.

qoH vuvbe' SuS* [Jonah Goldberg]
News from the UK: "Research: Wind power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought."
I particularly like the bit about how wind energy output can sometimes be less than zero.

* Translated from the Klingon: "The wind does not respect a fool."

No indeed, Jonah. No indeed.

Bloomberg Today

New foreclosures almost quadrupled in Los Angeles and doubled in Miami in the second quarter, with as much as $5 billion worth of loans going bad in L.A. alone, the on- line real estate data company PropertyShark.com reported.
The number of homes scheduled for auction in Los Angeles rose 14,505 compared with 3,797 in the same period a year earlier, PropertyShark said in a report distributed by e-mail. In Miami- Dade County, the number climbed to 2,677 from 1,282.

U.S. stocks tumbled, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average into a bear market, after oil rose to a record and steelmakers and coal producers retreated on concern the economic slump will worsen.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid to its lowest since July 2006 as crude climbed above $143 a barrel, dimming the outlook for corporate profits. General Motors Corp., the biggest U.S. automaker, plunged to a 54-year low on Merrill Lynch & Co.'s warning that ``bankruptcy is not impossible.'' Nucor Corp. led the biggest decline in steel shares since 2002 as concern grew that the auto slump will cut demand and the government said metals orders declined. Peabody Energy Co., the biggest U.S. coal producer, dropped as European prices fell the most since 2005.
``Investor sentiment is clearly miserable right now,'' said Wayne Wilbanks, who oversees about $1.2 billion as chief investment officer of Wilbanks Smith & Thomas Asset Management in Norfolk, Virginia.

The fallout from the subprime-mortgage collapse is spreading from global lenders such as Citigroup Inc. and UBS AG to local ones, including Lansing, Michigan-based Capitol Bancorp, FirsTier Corp. of Northglenn, Colo. and Mountain 1st, which tempts customers at log cabin-style branches with cookies and coffee. Less capital for such hometown banks may stymie Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's effort to prevent a credit crunch.
``There is no question there is a problem,'' said Chris Cole, senior regulatory counsel for the Independent Community Bankers of America, a Washington-based trade group for about 5,000 lenders. ``Banks need the capital to lend. So that problem of raising capital causes a further slowdown. This inability to raise capital points to a damping of the whole economy.''

Ouch.

Fear is our greatest enemy.

Our country is moving down a frightening path. The economy is in trouble; houses are losing value, the credit crunch and inflation are slowing growth. We are fighting two wars and are about to start a third that will make the other two look like a playground tussle. The public spirit has been corrupted by a steady diet of hatred and eliminationist rhetoric from conservatives. When people let their fears overcome them they often give in to their violent fantasies and tendencies. Chris Floyd discusses such a situation in Israel in a recent post.

There is no good outcome to the dynamic of eliminationism and
dehumanization. It leads, quite literally, to madness and death and ruin. Israel
is not the only nation on that road; the dynamic is not specific to any country,
creed, race, religion or polity. It belongs to all of us, it's a danger we all
face. And it requires vigilance, skepticism, action and awareness to break up
these patterns as they rise among us, to derail the dynamic -- before it's too
far gone and must play out, in one way or another, in the given extent and
circumstances of the historical moment, to the bitter end.

Many of us have convinced ourselves that people are inherently bad and can only be kept from violence through strict control. They have been told this most of their lives, from parents, religious leaders, and the government. This belief, this fear, overwhelms them, and they look for relief. Blaming someone else for their fears is very popular; it's the fault of the poor, the liberal, minorities, women, Arabs, Castro, Jimmy Carter, and so on ad nauseum. If only these people could be eliminated, the fear would be eliminated too.

But somehow the fear is never eliminated. When one enemy disappoints, another is found. Bush called it the War on Terror, but it's really the War of Terror. We are terrified, and we'll strike out at anyone who frightens us. We have always been afraid, though. Iranians, Al-Qaeda, Iraqis, China, Communists, Russia, Bolsheviks, anarchists, immigrants, British, Indians--from birth to the present, we are a nation of the terrified.

There's a reason we are afraid all the time. Fear operates where logic is rejected, where worship is valued over reason, where obedience is demanded--or else--from childhood. We don't trust ourselves, therefore we don't trust anyone else. We didn't feel protected by our parents, so we constantly seek protection. We want someone to tell us we are good, like all children want to be told they're good. So we do whatever we want to chase away the fear and say it's good and necessary. Even when the result is racism, fear-mongering, and murder through war.

It doesn't have to be like this. We don't have to be afraid all the time. Fear is a choice, as well as a drive. We can choose to look at our fear, take it to pieces and find out its origin, and then destroy it. We are not helpless. We are not evil. We are adults, and when the bad times come we must either dredge up the courage to face them, or drown in an orgy of fear and violence.

Feminism

Let's make this short because there are much more important things going on than McArdle. You are not a feminist, Megan.

Bear with me. Most traditional feminists would say that being pro-life is an automatic disqualifier for calling yourself a feminist. I find this argument dramatically uncompelling. Fetal personhood is a quasi-empirical value judgement that should not be made for instrumental reasons--we can't decide that six year old children aren't persons simply because this would possibly make it easier to advance female equality.

...

To be sure, it's obvious to me that slaves are persons, while I find the personhood of fetuses deeply problematic. But I don't think it's facially ludicrous to declare that they are persons. To me that means that "Feminists for Life" cannot, as I've heard declared, be an oxymoron; it seems perfectly possible to embrace all the other tenets of whatever you want to define as feminism, and also regretfully believe that since fetuses are persons, we cannot embrace this particular means of women's liberation.

Megan is not a feminist because she she doesn't think about or understand power. She's an authoritarian, and assumes power belongs to the powerful. The question is not "is a fetus a child." The question is, who decides what a woman does with her body, she or someone else?* Who owns a woman's body? The answer is pretty obvious, to a feminist.


*Women will kill their children, legally or illegally. Abortion doesn't disappear when it's outlawed. And if all abortion were magically eradicated somehow, the child would be killed after birth instead. That's reality. Just as men (and women) will kill foreign babies if they want to wage war against a country. If every baby's life is sacred and none must be allowed to die for any reason, war must be eradicated as well as abortion. Good luck with that.