Thinking Right

By Planner

November 9, 2007 8:05 AM | Link to this

We’ll never be truly mobile if getting there requires an operator.

Wow. Just when you think the anti-transit fringe has finally played their last deperate card in a quixotic attempt to stave off the inevitable (and the necessary), they come up with a new stunner. Jim, which “transportation guru” whispered this pithy little gem in your ear? Wendell Cox? Bob Poole? Alan Pisarski? Now that all their other anti-transit arguments have been discredited and dismissed by those of us who deal with these issues on a daily basis, I can’t wait to see this new catch phrase popping up ad nauseum in their propaganda very soon. Thanks for the sneak preview.

Even driving a car requires an “operator” (i.e., the driver). Being an operator, however, requires one to have the financial resources to purchase a vehicle and the physical and mental abilities to operate it. There are a great number of people who do not have these capabilities. If you are unable to fulfill the requirements of being the operator of a personal automobile (even if only temporarily due to a medical issue, as I was recently), you have lost the ability to be independently mobile.

The only way these individuals can be mobile is to rely on others to fulfill the role of the operator. While it’s fine and dandy that you can still perform this function for yourself today, let’s check in 20 or 30 years from now and see if you’re claiming that an “operator” is immaterial to your well-being. Somehow I doubt you’ll still be climbing behind the wheel of your own car and hopping on the freeway to get to the doctor or the pharmacy.

There will come a day when all of us will be happy that somebody else is there to be the “operator” for us. And, personally, I don’t want to solely burden friends and family with that assignment. Having transit options available for when the day comes that I can’t be my own “operator” will be a key consideration in where I live out my golden years and the quality of that time. I hope you’re not presumptuous enough to think that your situation will be different when that time arrives for you. So for God’s sake, please stop trying to condemn the rest of us to the same “immobile” fate for which you seem to be naively destined.

By Mid-South Philosopher

November 9, 2007 8:07 AM | Link to this

Good morning, Jim,

Just a few reflections on this week’s Thinking Right.

“Roads…once built we can use them at our convenience to go where we want when we want”

You must telecommute, my friend. Try doing what you suggest in rush hour traffic.

The GREAT PLAN…Sonny’s version.

Since we are not going to develop a system of taxation, in which everyone pays, silly Sonny’s suggestion of a two-tiered process for taxing our property makes about as much sense as anything else on the table. Of course, it will increase the bureaucracy at the tax assessor and tax commissioner offices.

Pakistan is the great challenge for the coming administration. At best, it is scary…very scary!

The defeat of school vouchers in Utah.

Have you ever considered that the implementation of vouchers will end the free babysitting service now provided by public schools? Maybe Utah parents realized this.

Anyway, within ten years vouchers may come…if there are any teachers left to work in the schools. Oh, wait, we can get Miguel and Margarite. Si!

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 8:08 AM | Link to this

On the several apt notes about Congress: Our democrat friends may get a great electoral surprise as they enact – through passivity – the largest tax increase in the history of the world. Nobody else will deserve the blame, because the republicans tried to keep them from destroying the economy. Corporate planners are, necessarily, already beginning to make adjustments. So when you lose your job, thank a congressional democrat.

Analytical quote of the day: “[T]he Democrats have made clear all their [pre-election] talk about “fiscal discipline” is just that—talk. They’re proposing to spend $205 billion more than the president has proposed over the next five years. And the opening wedge of this binge is $22 billion more in spending proposed for the coming year. Only in Washington could someone in public life be so clueless to say, as Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi have, that $22 billion is a “relatively small” difference.” Karl Rove. Those who whine that the Republicrats were big spenders owe Rove an apology – his party had amateurs compared to the professional thieves running Congress today. Even more amazingly, the dems accomplished this new high in spending without even passing a budget. At least the republicrats held the line on spending via “continuing resolutions” by this time last year.

Re: Amtrak. The private automobile is the ultimate expression of individual freedom. Go where you want, when you wish. The socialists always wish to rein in freedom.

I would favor abolition of property taxes entirely, replacing those entirely with sales taxes. As an alternative, mostly replace with sales taxes, and grant every Georgia taxpayer a $1,000 voucher for property taxes. That would keep large property owners from tying up land needlessly – leaving some cost/risk in speculation – but would ease the worst wealth-erosion traits of the property tax.

The parallel between Pakistan and 1978 Iran is eerie. I hope the president can improve on Jimmy’s errors.

As our friend Glenn and I discussed yesterday, I’m not ready to give up the voucher fight. It remains a better idea than compulsory “government schools” even if you ignore the concept of politically correct indoctrination.

Actually, Jim, Hugo Chavez is more pro-American about Iraq than House Democrats.

Totally unrelated sidetrack for benefit of conservative friends, “Why the Greatest Generation was the greatest generation”: http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110010840

By Tara

November 9, 2007 8:09 AM | Link to this

Jim Wooten is correct. As he wrote in his third paragraph, elections do have consequences. And the consequences of electing Mr. Bush and a Republican congress include (but aren’t limited to) Osama bin Laden still hasn’t been captured, Afghanistan is still out of control, a weakened military because of our continuing misadventures in Iraq, dangerous nuclear proliferation (e.g. loose nooks from the former Soviet Union, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan), still no real port security, still no real security at chemical plants, still no emergency radio frequency for first responders, serious air safety concerns because of deteriorating FAA equipment and understaffed control towers, an expanded al Qaeda, backwards movement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, food recalls, toy recalls, broken levees and New Orleans, currency spiraling down, crude spiraling up, unchecked smog and global warming, increasing poverty rates, increasing violent crime rates, shrinking middle class, unchecked growth in the national debt requiring higher taxes on the next generation and the one after that (and the one after that and the one after that).

Yes Jim, elections do have consequences, and I’ll never consider voting for the incompetents, hypocrites and crooks that are part of this Republican Party again.

By Craig

November 9, 2007 8:16 AM | Link to this

“Roads never strike. Once built we can use them at our convenience to go where we want when we want.”

Do you ever actually drive around Atlanta? It would be so nice to be able to hop on a train at Towne Center Mall and relax while on my commute to downtown. And it would be better for all of us - less pollution, lower gas prices, less stress. And maybe we could avoid some of the $30 billion in taxes proposed for new roads around Atlanta.

By Craig

November 9, 2007 8:24 AM | Link to this

Amen, Tara

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 8:36 AM | Link to this

Dear Tara @ 8:09, actually the consequences of having serious people running things from 2002-2006 is: Osama bin Laden has been neutralized, Afghanistan has rejected the Taliban and girls now go to school there, our military is far stronger than during the Clinton years, Iraq is on the verge of victory over the Iranian-funded terrorists, Syria has learned the consequences of nuclear proliferation and perhaps Iran noticed, the Clinton-era port security has been significantly upgraded, there has been no successful attack on any US chemical plants, first responders have not needed their own radio frequencies, air safety in the US continues to be the envy of the world, al Qaeda is nearly wiped out, the Israelis are winning due to the meltdown in the Palestinian community, food recalls (ah yes, it was a great hamburger), toy recalls (just who is the China chump, anyway? Can you say “Buddhist monk money?”), New Orleans and Louisiana have realized the need to elect serious people and turned government over to Republicans. You correctly note the Fed is allowing currency to spiral down, an incredibly stupid move, but one that Congress lacks power to control. Oil prices rise and fall, and the current market dislocation is entirely attributable to moonbat opposition to building refineries and drilling in ANWR. Unchecked smog? You are a moron, I remember the 1960s and a brown glow on the horizon even in remote areas. Global warming – more are recognizing the scam. Iincreasing poverty rates – not in the US, you have to change the definition of “poverty” to achieve that result. Rich people everywhere else in the world may prefer to be poor in America. Increasing violent crime rates – wrong again, although “Freakonomics” has an amusing explanation for the cause in the decline. Shrinking middle class – technically correct, we are all getting rich. Unchecked growth in the national debt requiring higher taxes – actually you mean “unchecked growth in spending” requiring reconsideration of the new democrat majorities.

By macca

November 9, 2007 8:37 AM | Link to this

Let me get this straight. In Oregon (a “tofu” state), Big Tobacco’s $$$ was on of no significance on an issue that went the “right” way. Yet in Utah, a state full of “right” thinking people (I lived there for 6 years, so I’m well aware), the “left” thinking NEA’s $$$ made all the difference. Let’s ponder THAT for a minute, shall we?

By PJ

November 9, 2007 8:38 AM | Link to this

Dear Sir,

Provision of a map of the locations of these free-flowing roads as a part of your next missive would be considered a great public service.

Thank you.

By Will

November 9, 2007 8:40 AM | Link to this

Let’s see, last Tuesday voters rejected things that you don’t agree with because they are wise (and, I assume, not because the opposition like the tobacco lobby in Oregon spent millions of dollars to defeat the tobacco tax out there) but the voters of Utah, most likely the most republican state in America, were tricked by the bad ole teachers union into rejecting sending tax dolars to private schools?

Either that doesn’t say much about the intelligence of republicans voters in Utah (possibly) or maybe, since tax vouchers for the rich to partially offset the cost of a prviate education seems to lose everywhere, maybe this tax credit for funding church schools and segregation academies is just not very popular.

By Steve

November 9, 2007 8:45 AM | Link to this

Is it just me, or does Wooten sound like some broken, out-dated, good ole boy southern Republican record?

It’s the same mantra about the evil “taxes,” and the evil “liberals.” Yet our Republican Governor is asking us to “pray” for rain to solve the water crisis, and our Republican Congress/President have flushed the nation down the tubes.

Wouldn’t it be a shame if Mr. Wooten was laid off, his car broke down, and he had no way to get to the grocery store except for public transportation?

By JL

November 9, 2007 8:47 AM | Link to this

jbmlaw at 10:36,

The sun is out. Time to stop dreaming and wake up.

(As has been said, we’re entitled to our own opinions, but we’re not entitled to our own facts. Unfortuntately, jbmlaw seems to think that he’s entitled to his own facts.)

By Craig

November 9, 2007 8:49 AM | Link to this

Counselor, ignoring whether or not your statement is true “The largest tax increase in the history of the world” - may I opine that you sound just like Newt Gingrich in 1993. The small tax increase passed, the federal budget was balanced, and over the next 8 years we generated 22 million new jobs.

He was wrong then; you, respectfully, are wrong today.

By Craig

November 9, 2007 8:52 AM | Link to this

Tara, to follow up on your wise post, here’s a summary of all the messes that Dubya will leave behind for the rest of us to clean up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110801810.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

By Van

November 9, 2007 8:56 AM | Link to this

Will, et al

The press while losing readership, still has influence with the population. I would imagine that in Utah, the press was all over the voucher issue and solidly against it.

We have seen this kind of brainwashing before.

The economy is terrible, but we have the lowest unemployment rate??? Iraq is lost but the surge is working??

Do we have 90 days of water or 180 days?

The US has large reserves of oil, but we are not allowed to drill??

Lowering taxes increases revenue for the federal government, but the left wants to raise taxes??

By Billy

November 9, 2007 8:56 AM | Link to this

Roads don’t require operators? What about those who operate the maintenance department, the 511 and navigator system, the HERO units, the state highway patrol, and the bridge inspectors?

By Watta Load

November 9, 2007 9:00 AM | Link to this

I’ve lived here 22 years and I’ve never heard of Nick Belluso.

By Jenny

November 9, 2007 9:01 AM | Link to this

Just remembering a few things that Tara didn’t mention –

No-bid contracts, billions (with a ‘b’) lost and unaccounted for in Iraq, spying on Americans (you and me) via telephone and internet lines without warrants, torture (e.g. Abu Grab, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo) that puts our troops at risk of being tortured themselves, signing statements, troops having to purchase their own body armor, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez, Walter Reed Hospital, politically motivated Justice Department, sex scandals of so-called social conservatives,…

Let’s see. What else?

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 9:12 AM | Link to this

Touche, Planner! That’s painfully clever and phunleyput. And good morning.

The oddest thing about Jim’s stanza isn’t even one of the oddments you make from it, but that Jim for once had a flash of structural thinking before reverting to his usual fascination for the bottle over its contents. So that later he calls for school reform, unaware that school reform is as dead as vouchers. People who are hardcore about macro-level education planning don’t use such archaisms. The closest they come to Jim’s quaint libberish is restructuring, a whole new ballgame—especially in the global service economy.

So your humorous Fisher-Price game of pin-the-operator-on-the-conveyance is all the richer in the education vs. transportation context.

Rudy 08

By Redneck Convert

November 9, 2007 9:12 AM | Link to this

Well, I’m awful glad they voted down that tobacco tax in Oregon. It looks like the pointy-heads won’t be happy till every person in America don’t use tobacco and jogs along the road and eats green stuff all day. We would be the healthiest looking corpses anybody ever seen by the time its over if the libruls got their way. Like jbmlaw, a Great Man, says, its 100% sure we are all going to die anyway. Might as well get rich and be happy while we’re still here.

I got our problems figured out. Just leave us alone. If I want to put a good plug of Red Man in my jaw after breakfast and spit in my coffee cup, it don’t hurt you none. And if you don’t like bad traffic, move. Don’t try to make the rest of us pay for your train ride and make bicycle paths for you and fix your water so you don’t have to pee and then drink it after it goes back into your water system. Just move and shut up. And don’t expect me to pay more taxes so you can waste your kids life by sending him to some fancy school. I didn’t do You Know What and make a kid. You did.

Like jbmlaw sort of says, we don’t have no duty to help somebody else. We need to set about getting rich. We don’t have time to worry about your problem. Leastwise, you can’t take the bible too serious.

That’s my opinion and its very true. Anyway, I got a bunch of beer to deliver today. Some of the bars is stocking up extra because we have some revivals going on up here. After the preacher scares the bejesus out of people by painting a scary picture of hell, people need to drink to settle their nerves. Have a good day everybody.

By anonymous

November 9, 2007 9:19 AM | Link to this

jblaw, you said “our military is far stronger than during the Clinton years.”

I am not going to tell you that you’re incorrect since you seem to be a pretty smart guy, but can you back that up with some numbers please? I only ask for the clarification because I read and hear all the time how the military is stretched thin and is on the verge of collapse. I don’t recall ever hearing that during the Clinton years. I would ask that you refrain from blaming the “liberal media” for spreading lies about the military and stick to numbers and facts to back up your claim. Thanks.

By Craig

November 9, 2007 9:21 AM | Link to this

Good morning Glenn. Thanks for your comments yesterday about Huckabee.

By mommaknowsbest

November 9, 2007 9:30 AM | Link to this

I truly hate you Mr. Wooten. I think that you are an arrogant, self-righteous, and malicious person.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 9:34 AM | Link to this

Will @ 8:40, that’s shrewd and accurate. (Jim’s also right about the power of the $3M, NEA’s longstanding bounty on the head of any statewide voucher initiative.) If not vouchers, what kinds of changes would you propose, or do you like the status quo well enough?

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 9:36 AM | Link to this

Here’s Jim Wooten’s neocon hypocracy at its best - still trying, but failing, to convence everyone, anyone, somebody somewhere, (is anybody listening?) that the Democrats are the sole reason for the low approval of Congress.

“…Congress has an 11 percent approval rating: House Democrats, still milking the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys for presumed political advantage….”

Mr. Wooten just can’t bring himself to admit that Bush/Cheney/Republicans are more interested in building a political machine with “our kind of Republicans” (and protecting themselves from “war crimes”) by circumventing the Congress and the Constitution.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By James

November 9, 2007 9:43 AM | Link to this

Weapons of Mass Destruction. Al-qaida. Valarie Plame National Debit Trade Balance Secret Prisons ETC., ETC.,ETC.,

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 9:47 AM | Link to this

Hi Craig, I was just trying to answer the q. re why some professed Xian voters don’t like him. That wasn’t my opinion. On the contrary, I’m impressed to have found him on several occasions framing problems differently from the way his rivals do, and propounding strategic approaches when they can’t get off the tactical. My own personal political demon sits atop my shoulder and whispers in my ear that Huckabee’s oddly likeable and curiously smart in a way that’s just asking to be underestimated. In short, Jimmy Carter with an (R).

By Craig

November 9, 2007 9:56 AM | Link to this

I think the word is “mis-underestimated, Glenn.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 9:57 AM | Link to this

Redneck, heidi. You ought to try taking the text more seriously yourself. Sez right there in redneck letters that there’ll always be rednecks around. But then it also sez if jbm keeps keeping his eye on the main chance, he might as well squeeze through his proctologist’s sigmoidoscope as get out of the fix he’ll be in. I can’t find the part where it says that caritas is a gubmint thing, though. But you can find that on yer own, probly.

By getalife

November 9, 2007 9:59 AM | Link to this

How many troops did your French hero send to Iraq Jim?

It is already divided.

“The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power,” Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said on Wednesday.

When are praying with this idiot, tell him there are other solutions.

Geez.

By deegee

November 9, 2007 10:00 AM | Link to this

The presidential campaign cycle has now stretched to two full years. This ensures that congress will keep their finger to the wind and do absolutely nothing substantial for two solid years. This is why the approval rating is so low. People want action and are sick to death of the political posturing.

By Van

November 9, 2007 10:01 AM | Link to this

Dennis,

After Pelosivich took power in the House, where did the approval ratings go? Where were all the promises she made?

All the far left progressive, I mean socialistic “talk” was as empty as their bucket of ethics.

The American people got what they voted for in ‘06, nothing!

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 10:03 AM | Link to this

Craig, you’re right. Escuse me. You said he’s not your candidate, but what do you make of Huck?

By Southern Democrat

November 9, 2007 10:20 AM | Link to this

In the aftermath of 9/11, Mrs. Southern Democrat and I had long talks about the future of this country’s foreign policy, she being generally more conservative than me (she would more appropriately be named Mrs. Never Voted for a Democrat to Her Husband’s Knowledge) and she will vouch that in 2002 as the rough beast slouched towards Baghdad to be born and we had al Qaeda on the ropes in Afghanistan, I commented that our strange bedfellow Musharraf would haunt us in the future.

My friend Jbmlaw compares the follies of President Carter in dealing with the Iranian crisis to our current one in Pakistan, but I said then and repeat now that the more apt comparison is to Saddam in the 80s. I truly do admire James A. Bakker’s foreign policy, but short-sightedness has plagued both sides of the aisle, particularly in dealing with the Middle East.

If Mr. Wooten will excuse my nastiness and ad hominem attack, his senseless advocacy for road building in lieu of investment in mass transit really burns me up. For an example (besides Atlanta obviously) of how highway building without defined infrastructure planning creates a whole host of problems, I humbly suggest you return to your roots and gaze upon the blossoming metropolis of Macon whose two major highways and bypass have succeeded in providing drivers with a way to get past the gross decay and racial divisions that cripple an historically quaint and distinctly Southern town.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 10:21 AM | Link to this

Dennis, thanks for the recommended reading, which I’ll look up.

By Van

November 9, 2007 10:31 AM | Link to this

When the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy sounds more American than the Democrats in DC, I must think that the end days are near - but wait, lets see if it amounts to anything, the Democrats might change.

By sct

November 9, 2007 10:35 AM | Link to this

Americans may not be pleased with Congress right now but that does not mean that Americans are more upset with the Democrats.

Real Clear Politics has Democrats up by 10% in generic congressional polling.

46% vs 36% of all Americans would vote for a Democrat in congressional races according to recent polling.

Americans are more unhappy with the Republicans in Congress. This fantasy of theirs that its the other way around is all spin. Whats sad is that it’s all they have right now. Thats their whole arsenal. I guess it helps keep the base motivated.

By jm

November 9, 2007 10:40 AM | Link to this

Both the French and the americans can want a united Iraq but their wishes matter little unless the shia, sunni, kurds, arabs, turkmen etc., who inhabit that area also wish for a united Iraq.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it will be interesting to see what measures are done to try to preserve the status quo in Pakistan. Will W the incompetent try all the “woulda, shoulda, couldas” that the Monday morning quarterbacks wanted done to keep the Shah in power? Time and history will tell.

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 10:42 AM | Link to this

By Van November 9, 2007 10:01 AM “Dennis,After Pelosivich took power in the House, where did the approval ratings go? Where were all the promises she made?”

I seem have at least one advantage over you, Van, that I am not so partisan as you are. I readily admit that Congressional ratings are at 11%(?), which is higher than they ought to be. But that can not all be blamed on the Democratic party.

If the Republican party had been doing such aa great job as you seem to pose, the Democrats would not have made the gains they made in the last elections.

But maybe you have a great explaination that none of the rest of us have as to why the American people were so fed up with the Republican party that they voted for the Democrats. If so, maybe you’ll share it?

Last night, the Democrats shot themselves in the foot by confirming Judge Mukasey as head of the DOJ.

In short, what the Democrats did was to insure that none of the war crimes committed under the Bush administraion will ever be prosecuted.

That’s what the underlying issue about Mukasey was about all along.

And in addition, what the Congress did was to cover its own a—- by the vote.

The American people aren’t fooled by this confirmation - unless maybe you are.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By Van

November 9, 2007 10:44 AM | Link to this

sct,

You are very correct. When the elected Republicans act more like Democrats, we tend to get a little peeved.

When Republicans engage in the same type of garbage that comes out of the Teddy boy camp, then we get a little angry.

When we see the Republicans think about helping to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty, we tend to start writing, faxing and calling our Congress Critters.

But, again, SCT, you have hit it on the nail head, we are upset with our elected “Conservatives”.

BTW, in light of the lack of rain, we can not alter the cloud pattern, praying does do good. It is a positive step. Like all prayer, the answer many not be what we were looking for and the answer we are looking for many not happen right away.

Just like all the prayers offered up for the folks in dangered by the California fires. In the neighborhood where my daughter lives, three houses burned, but it took three days to find out that none were hers. Prayer does work.

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 10:51 AM | Link to this

One other thing, Van. The Congress, under the guise of fighting terrorism, will still be sending our troops all over the globe to protect American corporations and their sweatshops.

And people like you will fall for it.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By MAD MOMMY

November 9, 2007 10:56 AM | Link to this

I think you are all nuts. We are having the issues we are having because there is always high times and low times, we just happen to be in a low time at the moment. 9/11 is the start to most of our issues and it is easy to say what to do now that things have been done, but where was everyone right afterwards when they were demanding justice and protection?
Congress has an 11% approval rating because they haven’t done anything. They are acting like spoiled children without focus on anything other than what the other is doing and who has more. They remind me of children who just won’t get along and keep accusing the other of doing worse then them.
We need more public transportation and to say that rail lines are not a good option is just irresponsible. The planet is warming up due to our consumption and since we fixed the hole in the ozone layer starting in the 70’s. I feel in time we will know how to fix the planet again, but we need to stop all the fighting and start working on the facts and truths. Schools need to be changed, but there isn’t one answer to all the questions. Since the start of time those with the most money recieved the education and the fact still stands. I don’t know what the answers are, but at least people are looking for them. I fear for the fate of the USA if Bill-ilary gets into office. I fear people who hide so much of their lives, but want us to just “trust” them.
Hell is Hell, the Bible is there for a reason. Maybe if you were to read it you might understand a bit more of what is going on in this world and how to prepair for the next world at the same time.

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 10:58 AM | Link to this

By Glenn November 9, 2007 10:21 AM Dennis, thanks for the recommended reading, which I’ll look up.”

I hope you like it.

This is a great country with great people. But it’s government, regardless of political party, is CORRUPT.

And we are now a “banana republic” because of it.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 11:07 AM | Link to this

Dear Craig @ 8:49, there is a technical aspect in which your analysis is correct. The massive increase in tax rates will cause a great slowing in tax revenues – the perfect reverse of the tax cuts and effects in 2002 – so the tax increase may not be so massive. When the economy fails, the tax revenues fall. The US now has an unfortunate competitive disadvantage, one of the highest corporate tax rates in the Western world, and the rate hikes proposed by the Rangelites will do nothing to alleviate that problem, either. As to 1993, you will recall the massive expansion in international trade, due to NAFTA, that buoyed the economies of the 1990s; I am comfortable that no such saving-offset from trade is plotted now.

Dear anonymous @ 9:19, you almost certainly truthfully affirm that you, “read and hear all the time how the military is stretched thin and is on the verge of collapse. I don’t recall ever hearing that during the Clinton years.” I would respectfully suggest different reading and hearing materials. The seven sisters constantly told us during the Clinton years that the massive true budget cuts inflicted on the military had no negative effects, and they now constantly tell us that the massive rebuilding during the Bush administration have only left the military weaker. You have surely noticed that all of the main stream media has pulled its embedded correspondents; their reports were too positive. I suspect you have not seen anything remotely like this essay on military esprit, from last month’s WSJ, http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010686 There is a corrupt political agenda among leftist journalism editors, to falsely depict the state of readiness in our military. I have the frequent privilege of meeting fellows, through my son, who have been in the military for 10 years or longer – I always get the same story, faithfully depicted in my post.

Dear Dennis @ 9:36, I suspect early stages of moonbat disease. Jim Wooten is a Neo-conservative, a Jewish ex-democrat? And where do you get the unhinged “war crimes” stuff? Or is that simply the “loose epithets” so-characteristic of leftist blogging?

By bill

November 9, 2007 11:10 AM | Link to this

Jim, i am with you on tax and spend votes; but isn’t the february vote the presidential primary?

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 11:15 AM | Link to this

Dear jm @ 10:40, I agree with every word of your post. Sorry about that.

Dear Van @ 10:44, well said.

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 11:20 AM | Link to this

Dear Dennis @ 9:36, I suspect early stages of moonbat disease. Jim Wooten is a Neo-conservative, a Jewish ex-democrat? And where do you get the unhinged “war crimes” stuff? Or is that simply the “loose epithets” so-characteristic of leftist blogging?”

I’ll be happy to hinge the “war crimes” if you just can’t do without it.

As to “leftist blogging”, tell us, honestly, how a neocon attorney who’s doing much legal business can stay on these forums as much as you do?

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By @@

November 9, 2007 11:26 AM | Link to this

Oregon and the tofu state of mind. Tofu does take on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. It would appear that liberal Oregonians took on a conservative flavor.

Labor unions are a Democrat’s dream. Liberals prefer to “chauffeured” by their leaders while conservatives want to drive independently driving head-on into the left lane.

Unserious people wasting our time and money? Is “unserious” a word? Wouldn’t “unctuous” people prevail? only if you’re a weak-minded Democrat.

Adjective: characterized by excessive piousness or moralistic fervor, esp. in an affected manner; excessively smooth, suave, or smug.

About Pakistan Jim…if you don’t have a subscription to Stratfor you should get one. It’s not the usual hysteria promoted by mass media. It’s thoughtful analysis and they’ve got a great article on Pakistan. Only when divisions begin within the military is there need for concern. Occasionally one of America’s liberals makes their way into the discussion forum; one had this to say.

Armies are like fungus. Given a chance they grow on you. After all it is the easiest living on the planet: requires no work, no morals, and no thought.

Claimed to be as american as apple pie, she did…

Again with the unions. This time it’s all about the work of education. Any mention or concern for the students? Nope!

In a recent poll, it was revealed that 34% of Democrats said they don’t want the war in Iraq to succeed while 15% just didn’t know. Duh! Sarkozy’s response?

oh mon Dieu!!!!

By ConservativeDem

November 9, 2007 11:30 AM | Link to this

By anonymous

November 9, 2007 9:19 AM You want numbers? I was in the military when bill and hillary arrived. I was a military intelligence analyst. There were 2100 of us then bill made it 254. Osama Bin Who? Anyone who votes for a clinton is a simple idiot.

By Bryan

November 9, 2007 11:36 AM | Link to this

Utah voters rejected the voucher bill because they understand that even though we have problems in our educational system, it is still one of the best in the world. Public schools are making improvements and the present school system works.

As someone posted earlier, Utah voters don’t want to subsidize rich kid’s education, they don’t want segregated schools, and school run by churches opening the door to discrimination. Also vouchers will take money away from public schools that are already struggling financially. Utah voters and other state voters understand that public schools are better for this country. If someone wants to send their kids to private schools they are free to do so. America’s schools should remain public schools. Let us not capitalize our kids out of and education.

By The Anti-Dennis

November 9, 2007 11:39 AM | Link to this

Dennis,

Why are you upset that someone can make a living while writing on a blog? What makes that your business? Why is one’s employment relevant to the quality of his opinion? Are you the decider on such matters? How did you earn that coveted spot?

Your comments always reek with jealousy and class warfare. Further, your tiresome ending is a substitute for critical thinking.

You don’t have to be a covetous moron to understand it, just a repetitive idiot to deny it.

By ga_tech_92

November 9, 2007 11:41 AM | Link to this

jbmlaw - THANK YOU!!!!

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 11:58 AM | Link to this

Dennis, dis ain’ no banana republic, mon. We buy and sell banana republics before breakfast, and drink their coffee at lunch.

In 1979 I spent some “quality time” in banana republics. In sleepy Costa Rica, at a soiree hosted by a jolly Costa Rican for a rum crew of exiles, criminals on the lam, and journalists—all of us fresh from various banana republics—our host brought out that day’s newspaper, which contained a letter to the editor from the President of Costa Rica. The letter was a personal assault on one of the Administration’s critics, whom El Presidente flatly called a “sonofab*tch”. It seems that the critic had himself used the term to describe El Presidente in a letter to the editor published two days earlier. So, a round of laughter at the soiree. At which point a certain polo-playing mafioso from Colombia (I $hit you not) calls across the room to a certain exiled land developer from Guatemala, “Ay, Victor! Does that ever happen in your country?”

Victor: “Does what happen?”

Francisco: “Can somebody just write a letter to the editor of La Nacion and call the President of the country a sonofab*tch?”

Victor: “Of course he can!”

Francisco: “Really?”

Victor: “Yes. Once.”

This is no banana republic.

P.S. A few months after this incident, the dashing editor/publisher of Guatemala’s national newspaper, a young man I’d met while there, was machine-gunned on his doorstep as, in his bathrobe and pajamas, he was fetching his own newspaper from the sill one morning. His father had been killed in the same fashion.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 12:07 PM | Link to this

Bryan @ 11:36, I so concur with your conclusion that it makes my ticker race. Everything else you say is a lie. The historic truth is that the U.S. has the most expensively bad system of education ever devised. I would ask you what you propose to do about it, but you’re so schooled up and full of libberish that you can’t even diagnose death throes.

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 12:07 PM | Link to this

By The Anti-Dennis November 9, 2007 11:39 AM Dennis, Why are you upset that someone can make a living while writing on a blog? What makes that your business?”

After having pushed the send button, I regreted sending that. It was out of line.

My apology to JBMlaw. (On a rare occasion, I do agree with you).

No apology to you.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By HIDT

November 9, 2007 12:16 PM | Link to this

Jim, you know if we leveled and paved all the undeveloped land in Georgia it sure would be easy to drive around wouldn’t it?

By HIDT

November 9, 2007 12:25 PM | Link to this

I think one of the dirtiest tricks in politics today is scheduling tax, bond votes at off times, which has had the effect of virtually guaranteeing passage. It’s a cowardly way to raise taxes.

Jim, maybe you’ve done this already, because I don’t read every day, but I would be interested in knowing what it’s like to be the token righty on an editorial board that leans in the opposite direction.

By Jim Wooten

November 9, 2007 12:43 PM | Link to this

HIDT @ 12:25: My colleagues are cordial, but we most often see entirely different universes. But I am hopeful that one day I can persuade them to my point of view. I could, too, if I didn’t have to take vacations. They slide back into their old ways of thinking when I leave them unattended for as little as a week.

By Jackie

November 9, 2007 12:44 PM | Link to this

The metro transportation will not go away because there is not enough land to pave for all the cars in Atlanta. It was proposed that I-285 would become double-decked and 6 to 8 lanes on each side. This was ruled out because it would be too expensive and it would soon be too small, given the explosive population growth of the city. Vouchers are just another way of trying to get a tax break to educate children of means in private schools. Our system is just as strong as the weakest link in this interconnected dynamic. Break the weak link and the entire system implodes.

By Jackie

November 9, 2007 12:52 PM | Link to this

There is a poll published today that indicates the public wants ALL elected officials thrown out of office. The accountability to the citizens of this country is gone and there needs to be a means to reclaim our constitutional rights from all those miscreants, Dems and Repubs.

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this

Dear Dennis @ 12:07, apology accepted, no hard feelings, already forgotten. Now let’s fight again.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 12:55 PM | Link to this

Dangit, Wooten, if you’d stop being charming it would be a lot easier for us amateurs to use you as a whipping boy.

By HIDT

November 9, 2007 1:06 PM | Link to this

I hope I didn’t come across as being negative toward Jim (whipping him) in the earlier post.

I’m pro roads, but not as pro as Jim. I think alternatives are worth looking at if they can pay (or at least come very close to paying) for themselves.

And I was really curious about how he copes with his lot as a member of the AJC editorial board.

Damn, I was a lot funnier using other people’s IDs and causing trouble.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 1:22 PM | Link to this

Nah, HIDT, all good people worth their skin give Jim Wooten a hard time! Obviously he can take it. Alas I agree with him about everything but education, so all my pent up animus goes into that department of his work!

By Middle America

November 9, 2007 1:29 PM | Link to this

The problem we’re going to have with Pakistan is the same one we had with Iran back in the day. We failed to show our strength then, and so for the last 30 years Iran has had the philosophy that “we stood up to the US and they backed down, so we can do what we want.” Now we have Pakistan, a far more dangerous situation what with the aforementioned last 30 years of increasing hatred of the US on the part of radical muslims due in part to our foreign policies, plus the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power on the brink of disaster. What we should have done immediately after 9/11 was to overthrow the Taliban and destroy al Queda’s terror network (as we did) but also pursue those terrorists who fled Afghanistan to wherever they ended up, including Pakistan. We should have politely asked that Pakistan either capture these terrorists themselves or kindly allow the US to do so with their permission. If permission was denied (which is what happened), the US should have proceeded without permission to bring justice to the situation. That would have prevented Osama bin Laden’s 6 years of mockingly avoiding his comeuppence along with preventing al Queda from regrouping and trying to reinvent the Taliban in Pakistan. But no we allowed a dictator (who seized his power by a coup and was the only nation in the world to recognize the Taliban as the true government in Afghanistan) to sit there and refuse US entrance into Pakistan and lie thru his teeth about what type of commitment he would have to fighting terrorism in his own country.

The US has a history of poor decisions regarding whom we get in bed with. The seedy leaders and groups we ally ourselves with one decade have historically come back to be our enemies in the next decade (Saddam Hussein, the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, now Pakistan to name a few). Instead of making decisions based on what is right (like calling a genocide a genocide from WWII or modern day Dharfur) and standing up to do something about it, we delay righteousness until our questionable partners give us absolutely no choice (i.e. our way of life is threatened either danger of being killed or having our oil supply threatened). If the US would adopt a policy of doing what is right, sure we’d often pay an immediate price, but we’d never have to apologize to anyone and we wouldn’t continue to have to defuse the latest questionable arrangement that has come back to haunt us.

As all capitalists know, you can pay a reduced price now but one way or another you’ll eventually pay full price and then some for it later.

By anonymous

November 9, 2007 1:31 PM | Link to this

jbmlaw@11:07

Point taken with regard to us perhaps having different reading/viewing habits. My suspicion is that neither of us is getting the entire story since it is probably found somewhere in between. I don’t doubt that your son’s military comrade’s stories back up your claim about the state of the military, but what about those in the military who back up the opposite argument? It would be refreshing to find a news source with no political leanings either way, but perhaps I’m naive to think that would be possible.

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 1:33 PM | Link to this

Open letter to Congress (which I might as well post here, as opinionns do not matter to Congress unless you contribute a lot of money to campaigns and except during voting time).

Dear Members of Congress;

A poll released yesterday revealed the following;

“Democrats lead both Senate and House after 12 years of GOP control; Democrats got higher marks than Republicans in the poll; Record nummbers of Americans [are] unhappy with Congress; Fifty-three percent of those surveyed say most lawmakers don’t deserve re-lection.”

Regarding the confirmation of Judge Michael Mukasey, the members of the Democratic party who supported him need to understand that the American people are not fools nor fooled.

Americans are well aware that the Democratic party has now guaranteed that there will be no worthwhile investigations nor anyone held responsible for the fiasco in Iraq and the war crimes committed in the name of the American people by the Republican party -aided by the Democratic party.

That is what the vote was all about in the first place.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 1:35 PM | Link to this

Middle America @ 1:29,

There’s no need for to use a web alias, Mr. Carter. We know that y’all read Jim’s column religiously over at the Center.

By Glenn and Facts = Oil and Water

November 9, 2007 1:43 PM | Link to this

re: Glenn’s post at 1:35 —

Apparently when Glenn doesn’t like the truth, he resorts to third-grade humor.

By getalife

November 9, 2007 1:44 PM | Link to this

Excellent post Middle America.

Unfortunately, the cons here can’t handle the truth on our foreign policy.

Their heads are buried deep under the Arabian sand.

Cutting and running from obl and his gang to occupy Iraq will come back to haunt us.

I look forward to reading more of your posts.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 1:45 PM | Link to this

anonymous @ 1:31, perhaps you’d enjoy some email exchanges with personnel now in country. Many of them would really appreciate a pen pal, seriously. If you get just one email address, establish contact, and ask for a couple referrals, soon you’ll be far enough removed from a selected source to get the pulse. I did this two or three years ago, and found that lots of people were doing it. The repartee was quite free-flowing. I started with a Marine Corps friend who was just shipping out, but I’d be happy to help you find some initial contacts, if you trust me to share your rather journalistic values enough not to refer you to my own amen corner.

By Steve

November 9, 2007 1:46 PM | Link to this

I ask this simple question: why are we still electing Republicans when they have continually fouled up everything they’ve touched via control of Congress for over a decade, control of the executive branch since 2000? Oh yeah, and they want us to pray for rain, on the state level.

I’m dumbfounded. Time for change, folks.

By getalife

November 9, 2007 1:50 PM | Link to this

Steve,

It boggles the mind.

The gop have solved no problems, they have created more problems for future generations.

Hell, Sonny’s plan on your water crises is to pray.

Wow.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

Since I didn’t post at “1:35” I don’t know which facts I’m supposed to be avoiding.

By Curious Observer

November 9, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

Americans are well aware that the Democratic party has now guaranteed that there will be no worthwhile investigations nor anyone held responsible for the fiasco in Iraq and the war crimes committed in the name of the American people by the Republican party -aided by the Democratic party.

Would someone please enlighten me about how the confirmation of Michael Mukasey guarantees no future investigations of the Iraq war or seeking of accountability for any war crimes? I’m as opposed as anyone else to that snake oil salesman who can’t seem to recall the difference between interrogation and torture, but I don’t see how his service as AG in the remaining fourteen months of the Bush administration can preclude an accounting afterwards. And we are going to have the same stone-walling Department of Justice in this administration, whether the acting AG continues to serve or whether Mukasey does.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

Since I didn’t post at “1:35” I don’t know which facts I’m supposed to be avoiding.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

Since I didn’t post at “1:35” I don’t know which facts I’m supposed to be avoiding.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 2:06 PM | Link to this

Ah, my mistake, Middle America. I found the post, which in turn led me back to you. I don’t know how many third graders of the past 30 years have known that Bill Carter’s challenged brother Jimmy based his foreign policy explicitly on the human rights principles you endorse. The results, as in Iran, are plain to see. My earlier sarcasm was mild compared to my contempt for people who’ve long since moved beyond third grade without realizing, as did Carter far too late, that the world is full of nasty people who want to take everything we have, including our freedom, our treasure, our lives. Many of them are in power. Some of those we keep leashed. That’s the way it is. And that’s why, for example, at this moment we have a shockingly complete battle plan for the invasion of Iran. It in fact comprises multiple battle plans, a set of options. It’s been modeled, simulated and gamed. It’s ready to go, except that it is refined constantly, as we learn more from our unimaginably vast intelligence apparatus. What’s more, the plan is decades old. That’s because we maintain and refine battle plans for every region and nearly every country in the world. That’s the way it works, when you are in something like our position and have the resources to do it. History records with astonishment that President Carter, a former naval officer of true distinction, was unaware of how damned hair-trigger dangerous were until the Soviets sent their tank divisions rolling petroward through Afghanistan. He even admitted his dismay. He’d spent his presidency indulging the fatuous Carter Doctrine, which you limn precisely: “a policy of doing what is right” in international relations. You’re as callow as he. Dangerously so.

By Dennis

November 9, 2007 2:11 PM | Link to this

By jbmlaw November 9, 2007 12:53 PM Dear Dennis @ 12:07, apology accepted, no hard feelings, already forgotten. Now let’s fight again.”

Thank you.

I don’t know that I want to fight as much as get serious about human issues.

It saddens me to see how easily Americans are propagandized to, brainwashed, and treated with a “herd mentality”.

I don’t know if those who support the status quo just don’t see it, or if they are scared to make the break from their traditional upbrought beliefs in the goodness of their government and their religion.

To go through life like that, once the obvious has been pointed out, is to live in T.S. Eliot’s, “The Wasteland”.

It’s so much easier to go to the “game” (in the symbolic sense) and let somebody else worry about it.

If another nation tried to impose on us what our own government is imposing, we would all go to war.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 2:14 PM | Link to this

Dear GF=OW @ 1:43, what’s wrong with 3rd grade humor? If we abolish that, we won’t have six posts per day. Since Glenn disclaims it, I suspect the 1:35 was really our old friend PoFo, and he really is funny, if you give him a chance.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 2:42 PM | Link to this

Jackie @ 12:52, Redneck and me got ta thinkin’ t’other day that we should form a Re-elect Nobody Party. It has built-in appeal! We’d run a fresh slate every time, and bring an end to all political seasoning and institutional knowledge. An instant success, guaranteed. Whaddya think?

By deegee

November 9, 2007 2:43 PM | Link to this

Glenn @ 2:06, I don’t doubt that the military has great plans. What do you do when the civilian leaders think they know more than the military and the foreign intelligentsia?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/07/opinion/edcohen.php

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 2:54 PM | Link to this

deegee, I’m assuming that you ask a specific, rather than general, question, as the obvious answer to the general question is, the U.S. civilian authority prevails. As to the specifics described by Roger Cohen, allow me to read your link and get back to you. (I’ll read it with a weather eye on Cohen’s insufferable anti-Zionism.)

By Redneck Convert

November 9, 2007 3:09 PM | Link to this

Well, I been lugging cases of beer all day and ain’t got the chance to get back here till now.

I’m with this Glenn. Don’t reelect nobody but make sure you elect Republicans. Some of the ideas the libruls come up with on this blog are scarier than walking thru a graveyard on a dark night. We don’t need them in office.

Anyway, I’m glad people are sticking more to the topic today. Yesterday when I logged in I thought I made a mistake and got into some perfessers religion and philosophy class. First somebody talked about Kant and then somebody talked about somebody named Nitzche and it got awful boring.

I guess Sister Dusty is working today. Best I can tell, she emptys bedpans at a hospitle for American Indians. Leastwise that’s what it sounds like when she talks about health care.

Have a good weekend everybody. And drink plenty of beer. Its good for your health and good for my job.

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 3:10 PM | Link to this

Dear Conservative Friends, I almost missed the best essay of the day. I should know better than to skip Peggy Noonan. Her opening story is exceeded only by her penultimate paragraph, and I strongly recommend her column. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/

Dear Glenn @ 2:42, I think I’ll change my name to Nuna Thubuv

By Dusty

November 9, 2007 3:15 PM | Link to this

jbmlaw@2:14

I appreciate your benevolence but you will never turn that caterpillar PoFo into a butterfly. He’s too much of a worm in IDs of many colors. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?)

I guess Jim has us all set for the weekend. I shall be singing Le Marseillaise in honor of President Sarkozy and the Statue of Liberty.

Also, I love my Cavalier but trains are so much fun. I even like to ride MARTA. I see Jim leans towards highways.

Congress holds it’s dive into the almost oblivious 11% approval. Way to go, Democrats. Try all you want but you can’t wiggle out of that one.

Pakistan is a worry. I can’t figure our Bhutto or Mushareff. Seems to be a love-hate relationship. But a Taliban supportive government sounds worse than Mushareff. I hope the Pakis remember that terrorists do not make good friends. Iraqis seem to have found out what friendship with killers means, death and destruction.

Well, here’s to a fine fall weekend. The leaves are beautiful.

By jm

November 9, 2007 3:27 PM | Link to this

Glenn@2:06 & deegee@2:43 - I am sure both of you realize that as soon as the shooting starts, most times, your plans are thrown out the window.

By dustbuster

November 9, 2007 3:32 PM | Link to this

That was good, Dusty. Maybe we can get Musharraf and Bhutto on the Dr. Phil show. Then maybe you can figure them out.

By Glenn and Facts = Oil and Water

November 9, 2007 3:33 PM | Link to this

Glenn at 2:06,

You’re almost as uninformed as your friend jbmlaw.

Consider searching the terms: Iran + CIA + 1953. FYI — We overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran and put the Shah in its place…for oil.

Another term that you might want to get familiar with: blowback.

Stop wallowing in your ignorance, Glenn. It’s unbecoming.

By deegee

November 9, 2007 4:00 PM | Link to this

The US burns 1/4 of all the oil produced every day. China was oil independent before its economic boom. China is now an oil importer and they consume about 1/3 of what the US consumes. The oil rich nations don’t know what to do with all of their money right now. The run up in the price is as a result of increased demand and dwindling supply. There isn’t enough oil in ANWAR to make a drop in the bucket when India and China grow to the point that they will be consuming as much as the US consumes right now. The world has changed and we haven’t. There is no military solution to keeping cheap oil flowing freely to the West. The sooner we face it the sooner we can do something in order to regain control of our future.

By Blogfather

November 9, 2007 4:00 PM | Link to this

Y-y-yeah! Glenn’s w-w-wallowing in i-i-ignorance!

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 4:05 PM | Link to this

Middle America @ 3:33,

Try looking up the date 1776. You’ll be shocked at its significance. While you’re at it, get familiar with the word oil. It’s of great significance.

You really do sound like Jimmy Carter would sound were that rube to drop whatever damned stupid thing he’s saying now and enroll in Columbia.

By Jackie

November 9, 2007 4:24 PM | Link to this

@Glen at 2:42

It sure would beat what is considered the representatives of the people we have in Washington, DC. New people, new ideas, not tainted by money and special interests. You may have heard,the US Senate is debating if they should grant communications companies immunity for spying on Americans because Dubya asked them to do so. Dubya wants to give them immunity from this illegal act through legislative decree to prevent the only way we have in redressing the problem, through the courts. They were spying on all citizens and gathering all electronic communications to determine if any of us were Al Qaeda. These criminals need to spend time in the cooler and our weak-kneeded representatives stand by silently while Dubya violates the Constitution. I think part of his oath was to “uphold and defend the Constitution…” So much for the rule of law.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 4:30 PM | Link to this

deegee,

Read the Cohen piece. Don’t know why he bothered to write it, except to pin as much as he can on the Bush Administration. The giveaway is in the arbitrariness of his timeline, which begins with Khalizad’s ambassadorship. Presumably you know from memory that recitation of recent history is accurate. Perhaps you even remember Khalizad’s take on things at the time; we in this household do remember it. It’s Cohen’s analysis, as slight as it is, that’s a little hinky. He seems to think that the U.S. runs Pakistan. We don’t. We run Mushaboom and we run Afghanistan. By the evening of each day for the past week, I’ve become more convinced that Bush goaded Mush into it. I’ve never believed that the marshal law will last long. Panglossian perhaps, but mine own true guess. His claim that the present U.S. policies in that region have been “developing Islamism for export” is at best a stretch. I think he’s confusing W’s policies with Carter’s and Reagan’s. Anyway, what did you think of the piece? You’ve been giving this stuff more thought than I.

jm @ 3:27,

Yep, that would be the appropriate quote. Ike’s spin on that (Napoleonic?) observation was an addendum: but things on the ground not only will play out unexpectedly, but will occur differently from how they would have occurred had the mooted plans not been made at all. Ike said that he’d inherited this little insight from J.J. Pershing, whose excellence was about the only thing, other than the need to kill the enemy, on which the American commanders of WWII could agree.

By Jackie

November 9, 2007 4:33 PM | Link to this

Michael Mukasey was brought into the Justice Department to minimize the criminal liabilities the criminals in the Administration are facing. He is standing in the door blocking any attempts by the spineless Congress at impeaching and convicting the criminals. Where is the frog march?

By Blogfather

November 9, 2007 4:37 PM | Link to this

Glenn is Redneck. Of course. Glenn is too prolific to be new, like he’s pretending to be. He’s too nice to me, because I’ve completely let Redneck be.

Of course. I could be wrong, and I know better than to try to id an alias, cause 90% of the time, you’re wrong, and everyone laughs at me and hurts my feelings and makes me feel bad…..

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter if Glenn is Redneck.

What matters is that he’s finally posting killer comments.

That’s why we have this blog, indeed, without blogging we would be blind as we go forward into our brave new cyberworld and it’s a far far better thing we do than we have ever done. (It I may be so pedantic)

Did you know that the light given off by the H-bomd and the light given off by a lightbulb are the same exact thing?

It’s all electromagnetic radiation. I’ll bet you didn’t know tha.

The zeitgeist is evolving. We need some truth to guide it. Learn as much astro physics as you can. Read Einstein even if (like me) you dont understand it. Some of it gets through at some level and we can save the world (if we can get the math right).

‘muff said

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 4:53 PM | Link to this

Jackie, sore subject. I’d answer, but the person I love more than anything in this world is right in the middle of that effing cockup, and I’ll have to recuse myself with the utmost self-importance. It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened to her, and the Solons’ sacerdotal blades are sharpened for the sacrifice of some hapless scapegrace.

The Hill is the temple mound, concealing the sacralized remains of the victim of an originary slaying that brought order to chaos and kept men from devouring each other. That crime must be renewed in its mysterious force, symbolically reenacted in perpetuity by blood sacrifice. The gutters of the Hill run with the blood of its scapegoats, with the shattered corpses of other people’s dignity, reputations, livelihoods, careers, families. The Hill must be fed I say!

The Goreacle! The Goreacle!!

(Sorry that was too late for Halloween.)

I’m glad you’re paying attention to it. That’s all I can say, except that the preceding announcement was brought to you in Girardian Code.

By Glenn and Facts = Oil and Water

November 9, 2007 4:53 PM | Link to this

Glenn at 4:05,

Lookup the date 1776? Get familiar with the word, oil? Enroll in Columbia? What the hell are you talking about?

Is this another example of your “I can’t win this debate, so I’ll resort to bad jokes” tactic? Not working.

(FYI — Middle America speaks for him or herself. I speak for me.)

By Redneck Newbie

November 9, 2007 4:58 PM | Link to this

Heidi, GodBloggah. Wha’ doncha lose the chalkstripe and come on down tutha mudwaller? Weeza havin a darn fine hootenany down here. A real boney fied hog stompin fan-dango, dun up right!

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 5:03 PM | Link to this

Godbloggah, I come to you on the day of your daughter’s wedding to tell you this day that I will read your stuff but I sure as hell ain’t gonna read no more Einstein. Peace-loving pansy. He married his cousin you know. And it’s worse than Rudy: each of Einstein’s parents married a cousin, in a relative way.

By Captain Freedom

November 9, 2007 5:08 PM | Link to this

THE Captain stops in briefly as he counts His gains in today’s market. Never one to miss an opportunity, THE Captain cashed out of several short holdings today, and Mr and Mrs Freedom are on the way to Asheville to enjoy the fall foliage and to laugh at the hippies and granola crunchers that litter the town square.

And people say the economy is in bad shape. THE Captain’s results today belie the lie. Shameless liberal media. He is thriving on the backs of people less fortunate. It is the American way, and He loves it.

But THE Captain digresses, even before getting geared up for His point of the day.

Musharraf!!! Yes indeed, our Good Friend and Ally in the Permanent Global War on Terror is writing the perfect playbook that will allow Our Leader to become the Permanent Leader in the Permanent Global War on Terror.

Just look at the situation. Faced with a sharp-tongued harpy beeyotch who threatens to win an election that will put him out of work, Musharraf calls out the troops to set things to order. Now, the sharp-tongued harpy with the ample bodice (THE Captain is talking about Bhutto, here, not HiTlary, so pay attention) has a phalanx of army troops surrounding her compound keeping her, um, “safe”, yeah, that’s the ticket, keeping her safe from the extremists in that country that would do her harm. Mushy has also arrested nearly 1000 of her alleged supporters, in an attempt to roust out the terrorists within.

Note that Mushy pulled this off at around 4 in the morning. I’m fairly certain Our Leader could maneuver some Army troops into the Chapaqua area (perhaps pull some out of Iraq to throw HiTlary off the track!!just think of the irony!!!) and throw a cordon around her ill-gotten country manor while the Clenises are asleep. Surely no one would hear anything over the snoring of that land whale Bill.

First the state of emergency and now this. It really is a delight to behold a man taking the reins of power and cutting the bit into the horses gums. Who knew Musharraf had this in him? So, the student becomes the teacher, and we can only hope the Our Leader and His Dick are taking notes, and not sleeping in class.

A military takeover of our government…it is the Right Thing to do.

Have a great weekend, conservatives, and all you Islamunistotraitorliberalesbians can go straight to Hell.

THE Captain has spoken.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 5:11 PM | Link to this

GF=O+H2O, what frigging debate? Have you asserted anything that anyone doesn’t already know? Are you asserting anything at all? Do you want a return to the Carter Doctrine? If so, then as the Goreacle would say, debate closed.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 5:18 PM | Link to this

jbm, are you there? ‘Cause I’m ready to cook, per our agreement, and I’m not afraid to do it in front of the Columbia Sophomores and the odd assortment of half-mad geniuses who blog here. Unless one is Curtis LeMay, one can take only so much destruction before rinsing one’s heart and mind with a lavage of goodwill. Shall we proceed to save the world from worldsavers, beginning with a post mortem on the Utah voucher initiative? Jim has asked for nothing less…

By Blogfather

November 9, 2007 5:20 PM | Link to this

If you dont read einstein, then you’ll be yourself forever.

Einstein said that light has mass. If it didn’t have mass then how could it bend in a planet’s gravity? Neutrinos dont have mass so they go through everything, not affected in the least by gravity, heat, radiation or anything.

Read Einstein. Put an “einstein for dummies” next to your commode. Everytime you use gravity read another page, but resist the temptation to wipe with it. You’ll want to refer back to it as you progress.

Read Einstein for Dummies. Here’s page one: Suppose it’s five oclock. Einstein thought he could ride on a beam of light at five oclock pm….. If he did that, then he would always see the clock, from which the beam of light emerged and upon which he rode, at five oclock pm. Why? Because the light that informed him that the clock had struck one minute past five, would never reach him. After all, he was speeding away from the clock at the speed of light. Therefore, for Einstein riding his light photon, or lightwave, or light-beam, it would always be five oclock and he would live forever…..

See how cool Einstein is? Read Einstein, or be an ignoramant forever.

‘muff said

By Chris

November 9, 2007 5:27 PM | Link to this

Notice how quickly Kucinich’s call for impeaching Vice President Cheney has gone silent. This means Conyers, et. al., are starting the process to see this through, especially considering that Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, Durbin, Emmanuel, etc. can’t get stuff done with Congress’s low approval rating. This should make the likes of Wooten’s colleagues, the BLT gang of Jay “The Bolshevik” Bookmann, Mike “I hate anything conservative” Luckovich, and Cynthia “The Race Baiter” Tucker, very happy.

Given the fact that the AJC lost 9.6% circulation between April 1 and September 30, 2007 during the weekdays (Largest among the Top 25 newspaper) and also 9.6% duing Sunday (2nd behind only The Dallas Morning News), it is time the editors up above to right the sinking ship before there is no more AJC.

By Blogfather

November 9, 2007 5:35 PM | Link to this

Wrong Chris. Impeachment was taken off the table last spring. Liberals decided that we shouldn’t put the country throught an impeachment process. Goldwater’s main criticism of Nixon was that he put the country through the mess he invented.

Gore also decided not to challenge the stolen election results of 2000. He put country first. He’s a true patriot.

You’re just a misinformed blogger with itchy balls.

See the diff?

‘muff said.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 5:38 PM | Link to this

Godbloggah, my grandfather used to say that it’s OK to run a red light provided you stop at the next green one, to make up for it. They also say that you learn something new every day. Inasmuch as I learned nothing yesterday, I’m hoping you’ll teach me one more thing about Einstein. You probably think I won’t, but I actually will get Einstein for Dummies, in part because my friend Katharine edits those books and needs the money for childcare. (They’re good, aren’t they?) I’ve read only Einstein’s pacifist writings, which are ridiculously extensive, and thumbnails of his Special Theory so trifling that I knew, going into the final exam of my one course in physics, only that Socrates and I knew nothing. Einstein was right again: there is a God, because the Professor stood before class that gray morning and announced that, in view of his conviction that he’d given Dr. Einstein short shrift, he’d excised the section on relativity from our exam. But I do remember this much:

There once was a student named Bright

Whose speed was far faster than light.

He went out one day

(In a relative way)

And returned the previous night.

By Blogfather

November 9, 2007 5:50 PM | Link to this

Your Grandfather was a wise man, my fine friend. Too bad the only physics you remember describes the mathematical quanta of a wetdream.

You need a woman bad, man. I’m ashamed to know you know. Go out tonite, after all, I formally declare this to be Miller Time at 5:41 friday, nov. 9, 2007, and find that drunken slut. Then come back tomorrow and blog, blog….BLOG AWAY my fine friend.

We shall be quite amused….

By Glenn and Facts = Oil and Water

November 9, 2007 5:52 PM | Link to this

Again with the so-called humor. I’ll close with this information (not assertions) that Glenn didn’t already know:

Not liking facts, Glenn, won’t change them.

By Blogfather

November 9, 2007 6:00 PM | Link to this

Glenn and fact oil and water: we know about the Shah. So what? That was a half century ago. it’s irrelevant now.

Deal with reality, sir. We are trapped in IRaq. What are you going to do to help your fellow citizens deal with that fact? Look backwards? Fine, you’re a mediocre pundit whose geo-political skills are in your buttcrack.

Remember, whatever you think of has been covered by the thinktanks for at least ten or twenty years.

Dont embarrass yourself anymore. It’s miller time. Have a beer.

Try again tomorrow. You’ll do fine. I’ll be waiting for you, sir.

‘muff said.

By jbmlaw

November 9, 2007 6:06 PM | Link to this

Dear Glenn, have you noticed that, with the conspicuous exceptions of the oft-apolitical PoFo and Redneck, most of our leftist friends don’t care for humorous banter. I perceive they wallow in their Daily Kos and emerge scarred and burned. Speaking of which, time to hit the stove.

By Glenn

November 9, 2007 6:17 PM | Link to this

G+F+O+H2O,

Well, 1.5 out of 6 is good enough for Columbia. Where to start? That’s not what blowback means, though it does refer to unanticipated and unwanted consequences. It was coined by the Agency to describe the phenomenon of U.S.-trained guerillas coming back to bite the U.S. Vietnam is the paradigmatic example. OBL is another, and much more important. Mossadegh was ousted because he was a Communist cozying to the USSR and threatening his neighbors at just the wrong time for the major powers, whose interest in the Middle East always has been oil. (Trite of you to act as though you’ve just discovered the fact.) Iran did help us get into Afghanistan. They also helped us get the USSR out. Both were in Iran’s interest. Carter did not get the hostages home, and he knows it, admits it, and is bitter and petty about it, so much so that it makes people other than you blush. The Iranian people did not rise up and oust the Shaw in reaction to our (actually the CIA’s Kermit Roosevelt’s) orchestrating his installation and guaranteeing his safety (as Carter later did). Rather, the Shaw’s inept efforts at modernization, including secularization, coupled with his police-state oppression, over time alienated the intellectuals, whose students joined forces with a handful of exiles to pull off the revolution under the nose of your peanut farmer. You have no idea whatsoever whether there is evidence of Iranian efforts to build a bomb; you simply choose to disbelieve our officials and those of other countries. You are thereby in the position of proving a negative. You err on the side of no caution at all. Some diplomat. As to W wanting to bomb Iran, you’re off your head, especially if you think that that man would do it for anything other than the national security interest. That’s as crazy as McCarthy’s calling Truman a Communist. Truman was a lot of things, but a Commie?

Liking facts, whoever you are, does not make them facts.

By Glenn and Facts...

November 10, 2007 9:17 AM | Link to this

Glenn,

It’s Saturday, so you might not get around to reading this post, but I’ve got time to kill.

First, kudos to you for your serious and (well-researched?) researched post. Notwithstanding his use of the word “buttcrack”, Blogfather appears not to have the intelligence to connect the dots between 1953, 1979 and today. Just a few quick comments—

On blowback, I could be mistaken, but I do believe that the taking of our hostages was “unanticipated and unwanted”.

My point, again, was that the 1979 revolution in Iran didn’t take place in a vacuum (your response to Middle America seemed to imply that it did). We (the CIA reports to the President, and the President reports to the American people) funded and planned the removal of an elected Prime Minister and the installation of the Shah. Those events are connected and relevent to today.

You are correct about the Shah’s “police state oppression”. Dictators have a tendency to do that.

You’re also correct that the revolution took place “under the nose of my peanut farmer”. In addition, Marine barracks were bombed under the nose of your actor. The twin towers were knocked down under the nose of your Texas cowboy wannabe. Which of these tragedies resulted in loss of lives? All Presidents have and will continue to face tragedy. It’s ludicrous to lay the Iranian hostage crisis entirely on Carter when several former Presidents provided financial and military support to an oppressive dictator in Iran.

Also, you’re mistaken when you imply that the Iranian people didn’t support the revolution. Relatively speaking, a few actually participated, but it could not have occurred without widespread support (again — blowback).

I don’t know where you got the impression that Carter admits that he “did not get the hostages home” (Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, maybe), but JimmyCarterLibrary.org says, “the toll of patient diplomacy was great, but President Carter’s actions brought freedom for the hostages…” He admits no such thing.

With regard to Bush, when there’s a conflict between what’s best for big business and what’s best for national security, Bush takes the side of big business. The evidence supporting this truth is abundant.

Yes, Iran is a long-term threat to our national security, but we have lots of time and lots of non-military options. Its way too premature to be beating war drums, and in fact, just threatening Iran with imminent military action is contributing to the decline of our currency, the rapid increase in the price of crude and contentious relations with our allies.

Also, just like with Iraq, Bush is deliberately unaware and unprepared for almost certain negative long-term consequences of any military action against Iran.

By Glenn

November 10, 2007 10:17 AM | Link to this

Look, Factoidophile,

Because you’ve decided to retrench, you’ve dug yourself in deeper. You have a penchant for using blogs to make provocative truth claims that are demonstrably untrue. You construe recent American history as through a glass darkly. I wish that you would trust me, but I don’t blame you for not doing so. After all, for all you know I might be a trained historian, or a journalist or diplomatic advisor or university teacher or Pentagon suit or something. Or I might be some schlub sitting at his computer with his dog curled up beside the space heater tapping historical inanities on Jim Wooten’s blog. Who knows?

I might have “researched” my “(well-researched?)” response to you, here with the research staff in my hardened command and control center in Marietta, or I may have blurted the thing out in a pique of annoyance at a sophomoric gadfly buzzed on some nitwit professor’s bug juice distilled from DailyKos. Again, who knows?

You make an assertion to the effect that I decontextualized the Iranian Revolution in my response to Middle America. Then you proceed rather artlessly to decontextualize my remarks as though I stand at one high school debate podium and you at the other. So that leaves me with three of your messes to clean up, two of them rhetorical and the other substantive: your decontextualization, your straw man refutation, your new spurious truth claims.

Sorry, sophomore, you’re such a piece of work that you’re too much work, especially for a sunny Saturday. Nope, I’m done giving you free tuition, you naughty little ingrate. You’re not even going to get any historiograhical pointers, for example a map of better places than the Carter Center to look for the truth about Mr. Carter.

So I’m just going to leave you—and for that matter, Mr. Carter—in your bug juice of smugness. Enjoy it. Flaunt it!

I’ll give you this one last piece of advice, though, for free. If you really believe that GodBlogger and I do not “have the intelligence to connect the dots” between events in modern history “and today”, then please continue to excercise your constitutional right as a free-born sovereign citizen to make a public a $$ of yourself. It seems not to have occurred to you that he may have forgotten more of what he learned about such matters first hand, than you’ll ever learn at a keyboard or in the cheap seats of a Columbia lecture hall. And clearly you’re far to callow to imagine that I, a non-secularist, happen to hold a tragic worldview that requires me to regard all governments, of all times, as tyrannies in the grip of evil. Much less could you comprehend how GodBlogger might have come to the same belief from secular experience. So your childish game of My Prez Can Beat up Your Prez is just as off-point as a blog can be.

If you’re not a Columbia Sophomore, then please stop acting like one. If, however, you are a Columbia Sophomore, then please ask your university President to stop acting like one.

By Glenn and Facts = Oil and Water

November 10, 2007 10:44 AM | Link to this

Glenn,

I commend you on your command of the English language. Unfortunately, your command of basic facts and your abilities to comprehend and reason are as dull as your wit. That’s a shame, since you seem to try so hard.

An observation—you might want to re-read your own posts before labeling others as sophomoric and smug. For a person who gets so much so wrong, you’re amazingly arrogant.

Make it great day!

By Glenn

November 10, 2007 11:08 AM | Link to this

G+F=O+W,

You’ve never seen arrogance. Since you “keep a list of wrongs”, by all means post them for all to see. Go ahead, make my week. It’s time to put up or shut up, you young thing you.