This is the fruit of the simultaneously Triumphalism and Oppression myths that Serbs hold about themselves.
The independence of Kosovo is the fruit of attempted genocide against the Kosovars, and it is justified.
Year: 2008
Good Point on Castro
Matthew Yglesias wonders why Castro was so prominent on the world stage.
The answer is that it was not him, but rather the fact that he made so many people in the US power establishment crazy.
His conclusion is spot on:
I think there’s probably a lesson to be learned with regard to current issues with Islamist political movements around the world. For good reasons and for bad ones, the romance of thumbing one’s nose at the USA has powerful and important resonance for a lot of people around the world. Under the circumstances, it rarely serves our interests to get into dramatic confrontations with leaders who are far too puny to objectively threaten our interests. After all, what significance would Castro have without his superpower adversary? US persecution of the Communist regime in Havana is really the only thing it has going for it.
TNR Story on Internal NY Times Politics on McCain-Gate Story
Every now and then, The National Review does something worthwhile.
It’s an interesting snapshot of the internal processes of the Times, and it’s rumored that this story is what got them to publish the McCain story in the first place.
The real question is why the Times sat on it for 3 months, and I think that the answer is because they love that sick old man.
The Obama-Nixon Connection, and it’s a Good thing
I got this quote from The Economist:
As Mr Crook observes, Mr Obama is far from a centrist. His voting record suggests that, if elected, Mr Obama would be the most economically left-wing American president since … well, it’s hard to say. Richard Nixon?
He means it as an insult, I’d take it as a compliment, and there is an argument to be made that Nixon in terms of the economy and regulation was more liberal than any of his successors.
I think, however, that the author of the piece overestimates Obama’s liberalism.
Australia to Leave Iraq
No surprise. Ever since Bush toadie John Howard was driven out, a withdrawal has been a forgone conclusion.
Pakistan: PPP and MLN Make Coalition
Note that this does not take them to the 2/3 necessary to amend the constitution or to remove Musharraf, but with a few smaller participating, they would be there.
Musharrar’s days are numbered.
Infrared LEDs On Your Hat Obscure You from Security Cams
I gotta consider putting Boing Boing on my blogroll. They are always coming up with neat stuff like this.
Invisible to the human eye, but it dazzles the camera.
Please, Just Kill Me.
Drive a nail through my skull, impale me on a stake, set fire to me, I don’t care.
Just do it before the new 3D CGI Smurf movie comes out!!!!!!
The horror……the horror….
Supreme Gives 401(k) Participants Standing for Lawsuits
It was a unanimous decision.
The facts of the case are that James LaRue lost $150K after his 401(k) managers ignored his orders to move his holdings to a different account. The lower courts said that only the plan had standing, but SCOTUS said that the participants do to.
Frankly, I’m surprised. I would have figured that one of the court Neanderthals would have taken the side of the incompetent money managers.
$36 Million…..Woah!!!
The Sick Old Man Sells His Soul to the Devil
First he promises, “no new taxes”, and then proposes taxing employer supplied health insurance, which amounts to taxes on about a trillion dollars a year, and then he says that Bush should veto the anti-torture bill.
Raising taxes on the middle class, and going pro torture to suck up to his constituency….some “straight talker”.
BTW, is it me, or is he looking increasingly physically feeble on the stump?
Falling Wages
On TPM Cafe, Jared Bernstein makes a very good point, that wages are falling:
O’Reilly Suggests a “Lynching Party” for a Black Woman
Here.
Of course, the Long Island Klansman will get away with it.
Su-35 Flys for the First Time
This is a major update of the Su-27, with new engines, and a significantly lighter airframe, thought updated materials.
It has no canards, because it has tvc. Additionally, its supposed to be able to supercruise, though it’s unclear if this is clean, or when carrying a meaningful combat load.
I want one for Chanukah.
Credit Crash Hits Student Loans
As the credit implosion spreads, getting credit for safe loans is getting harder. Case in point, Student lenders are getting out of the business, because they can no longer get capital on the markets to lend out.
So, this will hit university bottom lines, effecting economics professors.
Karma, neh?
Wait a Minute, We Can’t Have Acquittals.
So said Pentagon general counsel William Haynes, when it was explained that fair trials always have the possibility of acquittals.
I guess he just hates America and fair trials.
Read the article, largely based on interviews with Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for the Guantánamo’s military commissions.
What we find is, as is stated in the article, “For people like Haynes, justice is meant to serve the party.”
Stalinism at its finest, ant it is unnecessary when the defendants are as guilty as hell.
It will be the Saddam show trials all over again, and the officers officiating and prosecuting, along with the civilians directing them, are violating international law, and US treaty obligations.
NATO checks Serbs’ Kosovo border challenge
After Serb mobs burnt down UN border posts in northern Kosova, NATO troops took control of the crossings, and sealed them off.
Good.
Germany and Lichtestein in Talks Over Tax Fraud
Well, it appears that Germany is going after a bunch of tax cheats based on a DVD acquired from a paid informant for $6 million, and the leaders of Lichtenstein are upset.
I have no sympathy. Money laundering has been the Lichtenstinian economy for decades, and it’s time that they started unraveling this mess.
Thoughts on Cuba
First, you have to read what Lower Manhattanite of the Group News Blog said. The short form is, that that the US is in the position of a stalking ex-boyfriend. To true.
Then we have Ben Sargant’s editorial cartoon:
Hoisted from Brad Delong’s comments, it’s an excellent historical perspective:
And I think he knows that he has fallen short and is pained by that. And to have his life evaluated by a moral midget like George Bush and his ilk must gall him.
Having said that, the real decision on Castro will be made by the Cuban people and above all I wish them as much freedom as possible to do this. Freedom from their own government trying to hold on to power the old way even if that is no longer appropriate. But even more, freedom from those in our country would be willing to slaughter large numbers of Cubans and destroy what good Cuba has created over these past.Whatever Castro has been, the Cuban people have paid a high price and achieved genuine social development. The worst tragedy would be for this to be taken from them in a wave of Thatcher-Reagan-Yeltsin privatization combined with America bringing “freedom” to Cuba the way we have brought it to Iraq.
(emphasis mine)
Finally, I have a thought on why the Cubans are way more batsh%$ insane 50 years after Castro left than, for example, my Estonian acquaintance was about the USSR and Estonia 40 years after Stalin invaded:
It’s more than that with the emigres.
You have to understand that Cuba has a heritage of Spanish rule.
For 300 years, when the British Crown got too autocratic, the refrain was, “This isn’t Spain”.
Spain bought into divine right big time, and it got passed down from the Spanish crown to the despotic successors of the crown.
A coup was OK, because that was just the man at the top changing, but Castro, he broke up the estates, and gave them to the peons, some of whom were n***ers (IIRC, Cuba is now majority Afro-Cuban).
That is an affront to God, and cannot be tolerated.
California Town On Near of Bankruptcy
Vallejo, California is broke. They will be out of money on late April.
Unlike Orange County, this is not from bad investments. This is the fruit of proposition 13. They have multimillion dollar homes taxed at 100K, and no tax base.
It doesn’t help that the municipal bond market is frozen, like everything else.
My solution would be to disincorporate.