Me bad. It wasn’t Spinal Tap’s drummer. It was al Qaeda’snumber three guy, who just got blown up…again….
Year: 2008
More Peculiarities in Bhutto Assassination
First, we have reports that the Pakistani police prevented an autopsy, and now we have reports that Bhutto was to hand over evidence of vote rigging to US lawmakers on the day of her death.
“Where an opposing candidate is strong in an area, they [supporters of President Pervez Musharraf ] have planned to create a conflict at the polling station, even killing people if necessary, to stop polls at least three to four hours,” the document says.
The report also accused the government of planning to tamper with ballots and voter lists, intimidate opposition candidates and misuse U.S.-made equipment to monitor communications of opponents.
What’s that phrase, “Will no one rid me of that troublesome priest?”
Musharraf definitely bears some of the responsibility for her death, as they clearly skimped on security in an attempt to reign in her campaigning, but it is increasingly looking as if his responsibility is broader and deeper.
The Definitive Word on Partisan “Gridlock”
Greg Seargant nails it when he says, “The way to reduce “Partisan Gridlock” is to further weaken the GOP.
….
These questions are kind of relevant. Partisan gridlock happens because people — and by extension, political parties — disagree about stuff. One party wants to do one thing on a particular issue. Another party says No. The first party offers a few concessions. The second party still says No. That’s where “partisan gridlock” comes from — underlying disagreement on issues — and in our current case, the fault for our “partisan gridlock” isn’t equally distributed between the two parties. Rather, it’s almost exclusively the fault of the Republicans.
You aren’t allowed to say this, but it’s true. If you don’t believe me, ask the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. They proposed a bunch of solutions to Iraq. The Democrats largely embraced these solutions. The Republicans, by contrast, didn’t. ….
In fact, I would argue that over the past 30 years, the Republican party has lost any interest in governing. Instead, what we have is a desire for power and wealth.
I went to school at UMass with former Tom Delay Deputy Chief of Staff, and now a convicted member of Abrahmoff’s “entourage”, Tony Rudy.
I served in the SGA Senate with him with him, and we were both nominally “Conservatives” in that body*, and we got along fairly well, he was the first to shake my hand when Nummo News†, the Black Student newspaper, condemned me on its front page for calling for their sanctions as a result of illegal electioneering in the SGA presidential race. We got along, and we sometimes traded private snarky comments during debates.
This has given me some insight into Tony’s feelings on governance, and considering the positions that he has held since UMass, it is not unreasonable to extend those views to a significant portion of the Republican party.
Republicans, with the qualifiers listed above, believe government to be evil. If a government program exists, it is a bad thing™. If it is successful it is even more evil, because it weakens our morality‡ and compromises out strength.
When you come to government service with this philosophy, there are only two reasons for that service, money and power.
This makes Republican obstructionism fairly easy. There is no other goal to be accomplished.
It’s why, at least for now, reaching across the aisle is a waste of time. There are no Everett Dirksens in the current Republican Party leadership.
*It’s not that I had an epiphany and became a liberal. It’s that the left wing of the SGA Senate were all the “US Out of North America” crowd.
†Seriously, I think that half the Senate shook my hands before someone told me why….Strange political experience.
‡Yes, it does seem like General Jack D. Ripper’s “Purity of Essence” from Dr. Strangelove.
For Next 40 Years
Mention Ponnuru kerfuffle.
End Result, tripled my (still meager) readership.
I Was Completely and Totally Wrong
Once again, we find that my powers of prognostication fall far short.
On 7 November, I predicted that the Dollar would drop below $1.50:€1.00, and that oil would exceed $100/bbl.
Neither have happened, though they are close, that only counts in horse shoes. I was wrong.
Bush’s Man in Afghanistan Backs Surrender
This is what happens when you take your eye off the ball, and go after someone who was a threat to no one but his own citizens.
KABUL, Afghanistan – The United States supports reconciliation talks with Taliban fighters
Would you like your capitulation with, or without mandatory Burkhas?
More Proof that Obams Will Be Disasterous Down Ticket
Yes, once again, Barack Obama is doing his best to validate Republican talking points. This time, he’s going after Edwards for being a “trial lawyer” while he did community activism.
There is a lot of talk about how Hillary mightt be a problem for people running for lower office, but having a presidential candidate who is running on Republican talking points is far, far worse.
Obama is the wanker of the day.
Edwards response is this tape from one of his clients, the mother of the little girl whose guts were literally sucked out by a faulty wading pool drain.
Not only is he going after a lawyer who has done heroic things, he is going after the whole concept of people protecting themselve from greedy corporations with these heroic lawyers.
Barak Obama can kiss my shiny metal ass.
Random Thoughts On the Working Experience
My boss looks like Patrick Stewart. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t use the phrase “Make it so”.
On a telecom with the UK, I realized that I love how Scotsmen say “Schedule” (shed-yule), “Buffer” (sort of boofferr), and does (dooze).
The worst part about meetings is that they are like Sominex® to me. How do you stay awake, particularly after lunch. What I do to stay awake is to take two sets of notes one for the meeting, and one for the pretty much anything that pops into my head. It keeps me engaged enough to keep the old eyes open.
I showed up for work early one morning, and a guy out here for a week from the west coast was already here…..Talk about an early bird…..It’s 3 hours earlier for his circadian rhythm.
Every Thursday, a bunch of get chicken and potato wedges from the Amish Market…Yum.
Home Prices Sliding
This Wall Street Journal article makes a slight increase in home salse its lead, but it misses the bigger picture:
The median price of a previously owned home fell 3.3% to $210,200 in November from $217,300 in November 2006.
Sales up slightly, but prices down…both an artifact of potential house sellers being willing to cut prices. There are a lot of people out there who are waiting to sell homes, and believe that this downturn will be short term, and as more and more people see the falling prices as a longer term trend, they will move to sell sooner.
I’ve never seen a real home price drop that (not month to month, but a real one) that lasted less than 4-5 years. This one has even farther to go.
Hippo Gnu Yaaaarrrrr Everyone!
What is 40 Years in the Desert?
This blog is a place to put my stream of consciousness thoughts about life, politics, technology, and cats, published 6 days a week (not on Shabbos, or Yom Tovim).
It’s a posting ground for my more-or-less annual personal newsletter, 40 Years in the Desert. (PDF archives available at link)
I find that if I wait until year’s end I miss stuff from earlier in the year, so I use this blog to keep track of material that is potentially of interest for the newsletter. If it’s the goings on of my family, it gets the tag family. If it’s of interest, but unrelated to family happenings, I use some weird news stories, it gets the tag 40yrs.
40 Years is put out the old fashioned way, it’s printed out on one sheet of ledger sized (11″x17″) paper folded into 4 pages and mailed to people, total circulation of about 100.
I’m just not the holiday card kind of guy. A warning, if you comment here, I may use it in my paper publication.
You will get credit, and if I can find you you will get at least the issue where you are quoted (probably a lot more, I rarely trim my list).
If someone actually wants to pay for an issue…I don’t know, I guess a buck, but you can get the PDF’s free.
If someone actually wants to pay for an issue…I don’t know, I guess a buck covers printing and shipping.
This post will be repeated on a monthly basis.