Letters to the Editor
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It's time to just stop fucking shit up.
Bravo, Lupercus! Vivid analogy destruction, too.
This agnostic would like to believe that Ken Pollack and Mike O'Hanlon will be slowly turning on adjoining spits, part of a giant Ferris Wheel-like rotisserie about three thousand miles beneath Las Vegas. Entertainment for the infinite milennia to come will be provided by a gargantuan animatronic Rosie O'Donnell, reading their op-eds back to them in a screeching falsetto whilst millions of dead Iraqi children watch from nearby bleachers.
Or something.
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BTW, the Idiot Queen
Ruth Marcus, is defending Fredo in the Washington Post-script.
Gak.
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Measurable Metrics
GG:
All along, there were only two choices -- (1) Bush's war or (2) no war. There was no magic third option -- the Pollack/O'Hanlon Perfect War.
Exactly. And those "experts" who decided to follow a course promoted by a man with poor justification and a proven track record of screwing everything up, have no excuse for getting this major issue wrong. Surely they had access to all the same information as did the people who made the right choice [(2)]. They are well-educated, able to read and write and presumably understand Serious Stuff. Their jobs, since they work for a think tank, must involve a considerable amount of thinking. I presume one of the performance measures applicable to a think tanker is the percentage of right calls. They should be held accountable at every turn for such a stunning series of wrong ones. Thanks for doing your part, Glenn.
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No offense lupercus
But you'd be hard pressed to get through any reasonable number of sentences without any metaphors. Even "fucking shit up" is one (as are "hard pressed" and "get through").
Just leaving and assuming that you've done everybody a favor just for going is a little arrogant, too. It's like a fall from grace punishment. It isn't enough.
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@ ondelette
Just leaving and assuming that you've done everybody a favor just for going is a little arrogant, too. It's like a fall from grace punishment. It isn't enough.
I'm missing something; what's the backstory to this?
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I want a mandatory FST for O'Hanlon and Pollack, Bush, Cheney, et al
So how about calling 911 and starting first aid until EMS arrives?
-- ondelette
Then triage and tripartition of the patients.
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There are no good options
Just leaving and assuming that you've done everybody a favor just for going is a little arrogant, too. It's like a fall from grace punishment. It isn't enough.
-- ondelette
It's a mess.
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After hearing this speech
I vote for Hugo Chavez!
...Our covenant with ourselves did not stop there. Instinctively we recognized a deeper need--the need to find through government the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization. Repeated attempts at their solution without the aid of government had left us baffled and bewildered. For, without that aid, we had been unable to create those moral controls over the services of science which are necessary to make science a useful servant instead of a ruthless master of mankind. To do this we knew that we must find practical controls over blind economic forces and blindly selfish men.
We sensed the truth that democratic government has innate capacity to protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable, to solve problems once considered unsolvable. We would not admit that we could not find a way to master economic epidemics just as, after centuries of fatalistic suffering, we had found a way to master epidemics of disease. We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster.
Nearly all of us recognize that as intricacies of human relationships increase, so power to govern them also must increase--power to stop evil; power to do good. The essential democracy of our Nation and the safety of our people depend not upon the absence of power, but upon lodging it with those whom the people can change or continue at stated intervals through an honest and free system of elections. The Constitution of 1999 did not make our democracy impotent.
In fact, in these last eight years, we have made the exercise of all power more democratic; for we have begun to bring private autocratic powers into their proper subordination to the public's government. The legend that they were invincible--above and beyond the processes of a democracy--has been shattered. They have been challenged and beaten...
This new understanding undermines the old admiration of worldly success as such. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life.
In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned. Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse hardheartedness. We are moving toward an era of good feeling. But we realize that there can be no era of good feeling save among men of good will.
For these reasons I am justified in believing that the greatest change we have witnessed has been the change in the moral climate of Venezuela.
Among men of good will, science and democracy together offer an ever-richer life and ever-larger satisfaction to the individual. With this change in our moral climate and our rediscovered ability to improve our economic order, we have set our feet upon the road of enduring progress.
Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."
Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"
True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.
But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.
To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose...
I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its twenty seven million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a Venezuela which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.
But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see millions of its citizens--a substantial part of its whole population--who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.
I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.
I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.
I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.
I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope--because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every Venezuelan citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little...
http://oilwars.blogspot.com/2007/07/words-for-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow.html