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
September 09, 2008
When You Die In The Nuclear Fireball, The Most Important Thing To Remember Is That Jeffrey Goldberg Bears No Responsbility
The New York Times gave Jeffrey Goldberg space today to make this critical point:
The next president must do one thing, and one thing only, if he is to be judged a success: He must prevent Al Qaeda, or a Qaeda imitator, from gaining control of a nuclear device and detonating it in America...Many proliferation experts I have spoken to judge the chance of such a detonation to be as high as 50 percent in the next 10 years...
We live, seven years after 9/11, in the age of the super-empowered, eschatologically minded terrorist. He is motivated by revolutionary and theological concerns rather than by nationalist grievances...
Thank goodness we know that—no matter what Al Qaeda says—they're not motivated by nationalist grievances. Because if they were, people who'd advocated the invasion of Iraq, like Jeffrey Goldberg, would certainly have increased the possibility we'll get nuked.
And that's not the end to the good news. As Goldberg says, our "paramount goal" is "pre-emption," so we're obviously going to have to invade lots more countries. If Arabs or Muslims did have nationalist grievances, then this would raise the chances of nuclear terrorism even higher than they are now. But since they're motivated purely by their bizarre sand-religion, we can kill as many of them as necessary without increasing the risk to ourselves.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at September 9, 2008 12:06 PMGive that man a rifle, 2 dayz rations, and a plane ticket to arabland.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at September 9, 2008 02:40 PMVery good post.
Posted by: Cody Reisdorf at September 9, 2008 03:33 PMLegitimacy's meaning eludes Goldberg so thoroughly he's incapable of differentiating between preemptive and preventive war; a common trait among our imperial elites, their apologists and servants.
Like those boobs who say nook-yew-lar, they sure look like schmucks, but America wouldn't be the country it is today without them.
Posted by: Pvt. Keepout at September 9, 2008 04:18 PM...as high as 50 percent in the next 10 years...
A million ivy educated monkeys, pounding away at a million typewriters...
Posted by: Labiche at September 9, 2008 04:38 PMAs many as necessary? Hell, more than necessary. One of Goldberg's principal worries is that intelligence is always uncertain; hence, since Saddam turned out not to have Weapons of Mass Destruction™, as the "intelligence" supposedly showed that he did, when the CIA comes to President Obama with concerns that the sand niggers are about to nuke New York, he'll blow them off. He much prefers a John McCain type who doesn't need to be persuaded by real evidence.
Posted by: cervantes at September 9, 2008 05:39 PMJudging by that quote Mr. Goldberg appears to be quite an eschatologically minded individual.
Posted by: abb1 at September 9, 2008 05:47 PMso i guess that's dubya's legacy:
"at least we weren't nuked"
Posted by: hapa at September 9, 2008 07:39 PMNothing says stopping nuclear proliferation like outing a CIA agent who was tasked with reigning in nuclear proliferation.
You'd think something like that would make it into the article.
Home run on this one. And much needed, given 9/11 coming soon and much idiotic blather with it, I'm sure... Goldberg would get along just swell with retired general Keane in the Woodward book excerpts the WaPo is printing.
Posted by: Batocchio at September 9, 2008 08:24 PMThis was so assholish that I actually direct my wrath at the NYT instead of Goldberg. Sure, Goldberg is walking excrement, but who put a fan next to him so that others would be forced to endure his stench? That paper needs to go down.
Posted by: No One of Consequence at September 9, 2008 08:44 PMSo there was this one Iraqi guy whose family we accidentally killed, right? He was like a goat herder or an engineer or some shit, whatever they are over there. Anyway, after we killed his wife and son--again, our bad--we locked him up and tortured him for, like, years, and then after we figured out he wasn't a terrorist and released him, he suicide-bombed a checkpoint.
My take away from this is that the second you lets Arabs outta your sight, they get really, really radicalized. By what, I fear we'll never know. Perhaps a giant talking Koran visits them in the night.
Who can understand the mind of the religious fundamentalist?
Posted by: gil mann, times contributor at September 9, 2008 09:51 PMJ. Goldberg wrote:
We live, seven years after 9/11, in the age of the super-empowered, eschatologically minded terrorist. He is motivated by revolutionary and theological concerns rather than by nationalist grievances...
Actually, we have lived in that age at least since 1981, when the super-empowered, eschatologically minded terrorist Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President of the United States.
Thing is Mr. Goldberg wanrs to see SOMEONE killed but NOT enough to go do it himself. He hopes he can inflame U&I into doing the job for his delight and entertainment. It gives one pause to actually LOVE the DRAFT.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at September 10, 2008 03:01 AMThing is Mr. Goldberg wants to see SOMEONE killed but NOT enough to go do it himself.
Now, that's unfair:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Goldberg
...he served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a prison guard during the First Intifada.
Posted by: abb1 at September 10, 2008 03:24 PM
abb1: I MUST RETRACT, he may well be willing to do some shooting himself. Now I'm back to a rifle, 2 dayz rations, and a plane ticket. I'm sure he's already trained. BUT SINCE I have taken the stance of not funding the Israelis OR the Palestinians then let him get his OWN rifle, rations, and ticket. I would just be defiling the Holy Land with my money.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at September 10, 2008 04:37 PM
