Conservatives
mikethemadbiologist | August 22, 2006'Will-based' foreign policy making seems to have overcome the modern conservative movement (maybe it should be called 'realpolitik backlash'...). There is the constant belief--and it has to be called a belief since it doesn't appear to be evidence-based--that if we just wish hard enough, the tactics, strategy, and logistics will simply solve themselves. But reality doesn't work that way.
In 1944, the British 1st Paratroop Division dropped into and around the city of Arnhem, with the goal of taking and holding the Arnhem bridge until relief arrived. For many of reasons, the relief didn't…
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2006This is a remarkable post, although it's not too surprising. Who needs Hizbollah when you have these assholes:
My parents raised my sisters and me in a small town in rural Wisconsin. Never mind exactly which one -- I have to maintain my anonymity here in order to keep my jobs for grad school. Suffice it to say it's a good distance away from Madison, and in terms of worldview, it might as well be on a different planet. You might recall the story of the Indian River School District in Delaware, which ran a Jewish family out of town with death threats and other harassment after the family…
mikethemadbiologist | August 21, 2006About a week ago, Sen. George Allen (R-VA) referred to an American of Indian descent as a "macaca" which is a racist slur (derived from the French word for monkey). I'm pleased to see that this act of bigotry has hurt George Wallace Allen:
In an election for the United States Senate in Virginia today, 8/21/06, incumbent Republican George Allen edges Democrat challenger James Webb 48% to 45%, according to an exclusive SurveyUSA poll conducted for W*USA-TV in Washington, DC.
Since an identical SurveyUSA poll released 6/28/06, Allen has lost 8 points and Webb has gained 8 points. Allen's lead…
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2006What's shocking is the utter silence from the White House about the immigration story unfolding in Chicago. Remember, this is the same administration that interrupted the president's vacation for the Terry Schiavo incident. So when it really matters politically the White House is willing to move. But they've remained mysteriously quiet on this.
First, the story. An illegal immigrant whose son is a seven-year old U.S. citizen is to be deported back to Mexico. She refuses to leave and has sought sanctuary in a church. Right now, I'm sure Karl Rove is hoping this goes away quietly. On the…
mikethemadbiologist | August 19, 2006The best description of George Walker Bush ever penned (or at least for the next 48 hours which is forever in internet time):
Dubya is a white-knuckling, emotionally dead dry-drunk halfwit with the attention span of a massively over-caffeinated mayfly who believes in all the fun, flight-suit-related bits about being Preznit and leaves the hard thinky stuff to Dick.
There is no one better who skewers the modern conservative than driftglass.
mikethemadbiologist | August 17, 2006I've never thought of myself as a particularly brave or courageous person. Plenty of things make me a little bit nervous at the very least. But the overt fear many claim to have felt since Sept. 11, 2001 really hasn't been part of my thinking. Let me make it clear: I was angry and sad after the 9/11 massacres. But I didn't feel afraid or fearful; my attitude was always along the lines of "We have to find the people responsible, prevent them from doing this again, and let justice take its course." And I never wanted to gratutiously hurt someone. Related to this, Josh Marshall, whom I…
mikethemadbiologist | August 16, 2006
During his 2004 presidential bid, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) called his bus tour 'The Straight Talk Express.' One of his signature issues that fit into his campaign storyline was the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, because it allowed him to portray himself as an honest, incorruptable straightshooter. The only problem is that he seems unable to follow the law that he co-wrote.
Senator Snuggles has a credibility problem.
mikethemadbiologist | August 14, 2006Here's some interesting articles I pulled off the internets for you:
Publius argues "The fact that Iraq was so incompetently executed is actually the least of its problems. The bigger problem is that the idea of it represented a staggering failure of vision and judgment in terms of anti-terrorism policy. It's simply not possible to devise an anti-terrorism policy more at odds with the nature of the threat facing us."
An interesting NY Times magazine article by Michael Young on how Hizbollah relates to the Lebanese political scene (as opposed to the War on Terra).
Neil the Ethical Werewolf…
mikethemadbiologist | August 14, 2006...and calls a dark-skinned man of Indian descent a monkey. When viewed with his other forms of sociopathy, I'll ask once again: can the Republicans please nominate a presidential candidate who isn't cracked in the head? (Just in case).
From a historical perspective, a VA congressman once referred to Chain Bridge which connects VA and DC as "the longest bridge in the world, since it goes from VA to Africa." That was a few decades ago though. George Allen: he wants to party like it's 1959.
Update: Atrios points out that "macaca" is a nasty slur directed at North Africans. Who knew…
mikethemadbiologist | August 13, 2006At this point, one has to wonder if there are any sane people left in the Bush Administration. In the New Yorker, Sy Hersh describes the run up to the next war:
A former intelligence officer said, "We told Israel, 'Look, if you guys have to go, we're behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later--the longer you wait, the less time we [the U.S.] have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office.' "
And regarding intelligence, it's the same old song:
The Pentagon consultant told me that intelligence about Hezbollah and Iran is being mishandled by…
mikethemadbiologist | August 8, 2006No, I'm not describing Joe Lieberman (although, hopefully, I will be). I'm talking about Tom DeLay. Says one of his former lobbyist friends (italics mine):
A few lobbyists who helped raise money for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)--all of them outside the inner circle of the former Majority Leader--say they'd like the outgoing Congressman to offer them their money back.
DeLay, who is fighting an indictment in Texas, announced last week his intention to resign. He is also caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal, in which some of his former aides have pleaded guilty.
His re-election kitty, probably…
mikethemadbiologist | August 7, 2006I'm swamped with work, and I plan on linking to this post from the old site, so I've resurrected this from the archives of the Mad Biologist.
I go away for a meeting and vacation, and the most important court case regarding evolution in a decade is decided. Of course, I liked the outcome, so maybe I should go on vacation more often...
Anyway, there's no point in rehashing the Dover decision: it was exceptionally well-written. An added advantage is that it was written by a laywer (obviously). Since our political system is chock full o'lawyers, having a laywer restate the arguments…
mikethemadbiologist | August 6, 2006Here are some posts I collected off those internets you might find interesting:
The NSA literally doesn't have enough electricity to run all of its equipment. At least, it will be harder for them to violate our freedoms. Maybe there is an upside to global warming...
An interesting take on upper middle class subsurbs. I'm not sure I agree, but it is interesting.
A nice takedown of the Bush Administration's economic 'accomplishments.'
Juan Cole gets all Dark Lord of Mordor on your ass. Seriously, he proposes a very interesting hypothesis. Given all of the ridiculousness Little Lord…
mikethemadbiologist | August 5, 2006...you know everything is fubar. I'll save the author for the end:
No sooner had Hezbollah taken the two Israeli soldiers hostage [Mad Biologist: Eight soldiers were also killed] than Israel unleashed an air war -- on Lebanon. The Beirut airport was bombed, its fuel storage tanks set ablaze. The coast was blockaded. Power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads, trucks and buses were all hit with air strikes.
Within 48 hours, it was apparent Israel was exploiting Hezbollah's attack to execute a preconceived military plan to destroy Lebanon -- i.e, the collective punishment of a…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2006Blood red that is. At DailyKos, Hunter elegantly describes the Peter Pan Right:
No beating around the bush, here: with talk of "World War III" and the blessed "opportunity" of the expanded bloodshed, conservatives and neoconservatives are positively giddy in their proclamations of who else -- which cities, which people -- need to die next, in the service of the city on the hill that can be built on their bones.
A Larger War is, as I have said before, a monkey's paw. Fuck the devil; there are wishes here to be granted, if you ask for them properly. There are political futures to be determined…
mikethemadbiologist | August 2, 2006In response to a CT newspaper editorial that opposed ANWR drilling, Daniel Kish, a senior advisor to the Republican Chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Pombo, spewed some serious bile:
"Connecticut should have its statehood taken away from it. The foolishness of its pampered residents should be demonstrated to others by a government program to bulldoze the entire state, salt the land and construct a windfarm to supply NYC with electricity. And its residents should be relocated to Guantanamo Bay where they can take a number behind the 3 who hung themselves this weekend, since they…
mikethemadbiologist | August 2, 2006It looks like supporters of reason won out over sectarian ideologues in Kansas. Josh at Thoughts from Kansas writes:
The Board is back in moderate hands no matter what. The night is, on balance, a victory. It'd be nice to further marginalize the extremists by winning the remaining races in November, but we've got a majority that will implement the science standards recommended by the scientists, educators and parents of the science standards committee. The Board can focus on bigger issues. They can dig into ways to address the special challenges of rural districts, and to find solutions to…
mikethemadbiologist | August 1, 2006maha agrees with me that the current Republican leadership is suffering from Peter Pan syndrome:
If there's one thing I'm sure of about our President, it's that he has never encountered his limitations. He is as oblivious to his limitations as a spoon is oblivious to soup. He's oblivious to his dark side; the dragon has been bought off; he mistakes his own inhumanity for virtue. He's still a boy, in other words. And I believe the same is true of Dick and Rummy.
And while we're on the subject of Big Famous Bloggers who agree with me, Matt Yglesias also thinks that Little Lord Pontchartrain's…
mikethemadbiologist | August 1, 2006...that conservatives don't have to face reality, they can just invent their own? DeLong writes about one delusional tax 'plan' (italics mine):
There is a serious issue here: When one does policy evaluation of the proposals of an administration, does one evaluate the effects of the policies that the administration has proposed? Or does one evaluate the effects of the policies that the administration has proposed plus policies that the administration has not proposed, shows no inclination to propose, but that one wishes it would propose?
I think the italicized part explains how so many have…
mikethemadbiologist | July 31, 2006
...the neocons had to betray it? Granted, Rolling Stone also published crap by RFK, Jr. But there are some public-domain facts to back up the Rolling Stone article's claim that several neocons tried to prevent a detente with Iran by leaking classified information to Israel (including several indictments). From the Rolling Stone:
At the far end of that room, on the morning of February 12th, 2003, a small group of eavesdroppers were listening intently for evidence of a treacherous crime. At the very moment that American forces were massing for an invasion of Iraq, there were indications…