or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
March 27, 2008
New TomDispatch
Taking Stock of the War on Terror
A Defeat Only American Power Could Have Brought About
By Mark DannerTo contemplate a prewar map of Baghdad -- as I do the one before me, with sectarian neighborhoods traced out in blue and red and yellow -- is to look back on a lost Baghdad, a Baghdad of our dreams. My map of 2003 is colored mostly a rather neutral yellow, indicating the "mixed" neighborhoods of the city, predominant just five years ago. To take up a contemporary map after this is to be confronted by a riot of bright color: Shia blue has moved in irrevocably from the East of the Tigris; Sunni red has fled before it, as Shia militias pushed the Sunnis inexorably west toward Abu Ghraib and Anbar province, and nearly out of the capital itself. And everywhere, it seems, the pale yellow of those mixed neighborhoods is gone, obliterated in the months and years of sectarian war.
I start with those maps out of a lust for something concrete, as I grope about in the abstract, struggling to quantify the unquantifiable. How indeed to "take stock" of the War on Terror? Such a strange beast it is, like one of those mythological creatures that is part goat, part lion, part man. Let us take a moment and identify each of these parts.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at March 27, 2008 10:02 AMwell, we can thank two people above all for the W years: Donna Brazile, and Ralph Nader. Ralph is a fruitcake who really thinks Gore was a krypto-fascist, and threw the election to W. And Donna's just a dumb bunny Gore felt obliged to put in charge to mollify one wing of the party, and Donna managed to run a losing campaign with a loser strategy when the 2000 election should have beena lay-up. Thanks, Donna, thanks, Ralph, I've had more laughs in the last seven years tahn ever before.
If Obama wins, I hope he makes Wright Fed chairman or sonmething serious. O god, I would die laughing. I can see it now, 100,000% inflation, a 250,000 $/EUR rate, and 70% unemployment. Oh, that would also be Zimbabwe. Can any of you people move to Harare? I'm sure you would feel right at home.
Posted by: xyz at March 27, 2008 10:46 AMwell, that McCain site is pretty nauseating. This site is more annoying, and deeply dishonest things are expressed here, but definitely her site wins on nausea inducing prissiness and unoriginality in format. But at least she doesn't pose as being partucularly smart.
Posted by: xyz at March 27, 2008 10:51 AMWell, This pretty much say's it all.
Now, for those of us who predicted this unfolding disaster, despite no real Middle-East experience -just a general knowledge of history, WTF do we do about it?
We have no access to the MSM, they continue to channel the Kristol's and Kagan's. I've written countless letter's to the editor - to have none of them published. I've written to my Senator's and Congressman. I've written to other Senator's and Congressmen/women. I've got a bevy of letter's from all of them thanking me for contacting them. No action! Just a letter of thank's...
And still, our kid's are stuck in an ever-spiraling Civil War. Dying daily for a war we already won, an occupation we can't hold...
If it weren't for the internet, no one would ever hear a voice of reason/dissent. And that is why they want to kill Net-neutrality.
I want those of us who were right to be heard. Not ME, personally! Those better spoken than me.
But, the-power's-that-be want to keep power, and money, and so, dissent is silenced.
I argued with my Dad in the mid-70's that we were becomiing more and more like our then enemy - the USSR.
Well, good morning to America's leader - President George W. Brezhnev. Or, as I call him, President Bushnev. What word will be your command today, sir? What stupid policy do you want to defend this morning? America's MSM PRAVDA await your word's so they can vomit then to the people.
War criminal's. All of them: this mis-adminstration, the media, the TV pundit's, the NY Times, the Washington Post... All of them! War criminal's - each and every one of them. How any of them live with themselves is beyond me. How do you wake-up every morning to lie, lie, lie. A lesser mortal would think suicide was a better option. To rid the human genome of stupidity, ala the Darwin Award's. But EGO is a grand thing. And, one can't be wrong, can one?
'Fat, drunk on power, and stupid is no way to go throught life, son...'
But the beat goes on...
Oh, the beat goes on............
c u n d gulag: It HAS TO BE YOU, personally. (1-202-225-0100)
Posted by: Mike Meyer at March 28, 2008 01:19 PM
