Bloggity blah blah

Sheesh... maybe I ought to sweep this place out and clear out a few of the cobwebs...

When you're busy with real life, your InterTubes time is limited and you have no television it gets kind of hard to follow current events, which is why I haven't been commenting on same regardless of the rich material out there (Shotgun Dick claiming waterboarding is no big deal just being one... just "dunking people in water", after all. Maybe he'd like to talk to the ghost of Pol Pot about that one.)

Which makes me more understanding in this unfortunate election season of those who vote on the basis of a candidate's really impressive commercial. Not that I defend it, but it's apparent WHY it happens. How can we expect people to cast informed votes when the crap economy continues to drive people to exhaustion, and they end up perfectly understandably disinclined to spend their few free hours reading policy statements?

(Silly radical that I am, I'd suggest we need to change our economic system and economic priorities. Take some of the survival pressure off of people and allow them the space and time to become more politically aware. But what do I know, right?)

Fool us once

We can't set a pullout deadline for Iraq, but a retired Air Force Lieutenant General sees a need for deadline for Iran:

But retired US Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney thinks otherwise. There is a good military solution to Iran's nukes but it requires courage and determination to act Mcinerney told Ynet in an interview.

"Courage and determination", or "total batpshitt insanity"? You make the call!

McInerney said Iran should be attacked by fall 2007 if diplomacy fails.

Of course assuming diplomacy has any chance in the first place.

He added that an aerial attack should be backed by a secret land operation aimed at deposing the Ayatollahs.

Don't worry - it'll work THIS time! Flowers, candy, loving Iranian greeting our troops liberating them from their oppressors - the whole shebang!

McInerney said a military operation against Iran should aim at destroying 1,500 targets within 24 to 36 hours, which would delay Iran's nuclear ambitions by at least five years.

He added that paralyzing the Iranian air force and the Shihab 3 missiles aimed at Israel would be among the goals of a US military offensive against Iran.

He said the Iranian Navy should also be destroyed to prevent Tehran from blocking the Persian Gulf.

Quick, find some food to rename, too - that's always a really effective strategy. Call it "Freedom Vintage" instead of "Shiraz wine", maybe.

Asked whether the exiled Iranian opposition is capable of governing Iran once the Ayatollahs are ousted, McInerney said the Iranian nation is divided and many citizens opposed to the Ayatollahs would attempt to take power.

After all, what's the fun of having a destabilized anarchic mess in only ONE country in the Middle East? Maybe, seeing as he's given up on Iraq, we can have Ralph Peters come up with a partition scheme for Iran as well.

He concluded that a diplomatic solution is preferable but without a serious military option in the cards, diplomacy would fail and the US should be ready to act.

Or we could just cut to the chase and start dropping bombs without all that boring messy whiny liberal feminized "diplomacy" crap. Whee!

File under "micturition"

You know, when I'm dead wrong, I own up to it and admit it, instead of clinging to my viewpoint by my bloody fingernails until it becomes totally untenable.

But what do I know? After all, I'm the sort of person who looks at an event like the Cory Lidle crash and think "omigod, what a horrible accident" instead of the proper reading of "OMFG!!1! TERRORIST JIHADI WE"RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!"

Seems to me we've got a group of people here who, far from being truly afraid of another attack, want it to happen with all their hearts in some kind of macabre "kid about to go into a haunted house" fashion. God knows why, other than the momentary political advantage their Preznit would be able to get from yet another pile of corpses to shout through a bullhorn from.

At least they've been able to save something from their evening of terrorus interruptus in being able to slag Alec Baldwin for being "shallow". A Hollywood actor being shallow, imagine that.

Morality

The conservative "Cybercast News Service" on the Family Research Council's take on the Foley situation:

(CNSNews.com) - "When a 16-year-old boy is not safe from sexual solicitation from an elected representative of the people, we should question the moral direction of our nation," a conservative advocacy group said on Monday.

[snip]

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins noted that so many people -- Republicans and Democrats -- are "shocked" by former Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to a teenage boy -- a House page at the time.

But we shouldn't be shocked, Perkins said: "This is the end result of a society that rejects sexual restraints in the name of diversity[. . .]

Meanwhile, on the issue of the new "interrogation" policy allowing all-American star-spangled torture? What's the FRC's stance on that?

*crickets*

In fact, they assert the GUARDS are the ones being abused:

There is abuse at Gitmo, as our Witherspoon Fellowship Alumnus, 1/LT Pete Hegseth, has said: it's the detainees abusing their guards. They are the ones who throw bodily waste on the guards and hit their own Korans! Some Capitol Hill liberals will not be satisfied until we've read all these terrorists their "Miranda rights" and turned the military tribunals into media circuses like the Moussaoui trial.

God forbid we should, you know, assume innocence until guilt is proved.

So, in the FRC's alternate reality, torture's hunky-dory while Mark Foley's lack of self-control should make us hang our national head in shame.

That's what you get when "morality" becomes a word that refers to nothing but sexual matters.

I give up

Long blog post about all the crap I've missed in the last couple days, eaten by hitting the "Reload" button... dammit...

Suffice to say Mark "Catheter" Foley's been chasing chicken for over ten years, Senator Bill Frist wants to cede Afghanistan to the Taliban, CBS is giving air time to people who say guns don't cause school massacres - evolution and abortion do, and Bush says Democrats can't be trusted to run Congress...

...'cause, you know, they might destroy the economy, piss off the rest of the world at us, and crap all over whatever moral virtue our country might still have left.

'Cause that's the Republicans' job.

Laugh, clown, laugh

So the top story on CNN.com today is video of 9/11 hijackers laughing.

Well.

How insensitive! What monsters!

You'd have to be pretty low to laugh about 9/11:

President Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note. The agents said, "You'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. You know, kind of a nester. Like the way things are. I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura --

Mrs. Bush: I don't have my contacts in, and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers --

President Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back upstairs and go to bed.

Mrs. Bush: [laughs] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.

Noonan: So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.

President Bush: That's right -- we got a laugh out of it.