Sorry, Tim, Greenwald is trying to invalidate the veracity of Friedman's most recent observation by saying, in essence, that since this guy was so wrong before, how can anything he says now hold any water. That's the same logic that climate change deniers use - pointing to goofy predictions of global freezing made by scientists in the 1970s. Stop complaining about the cards you're being dealt.

putative
1. Commonly believed or deemed to be the case; accepted by supposition rather than as a result of proof.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/putative

There's nothing putative about Friedman's revisionism. You can try to make that assertion, but Glenn has repeatedly stapled little Tommy's butt to the floor. The existence of the Friedman Unit alone lays waste to any notion that Friedman is anything more than a windsock twisting in the breeze, however it currently blows.

One could almost feel sorry for the intellectual box Friedman has built for himself; trying to appear as though he is moving with the current by twisting, massaging, and manipulating his previous positions. Your self-assignment as his apologist makes you appear as inept as little Tommy.

Further, you would try to deflect the thread from Friedman's revisionism to the threadbare saw let bygones be bygones, or okay, what's done is done, now let's look forward, or let's find a good side to this 'situation'. Sorry. You lose. You are off topic, and you have been off topic, since you popped into the thread. You're making a clumsy effort at steering the topic. It's a common enough tactic of the neo-cons to be easily recognized. walter_map pegged you accurately enough at the beginning. Now, you're merely a play toy; one of those beach balls that gets bounced around at rock concerts.

Just keep in mind that when the press reports 19 cents for defense versus 81 cents for everything else, the split really is 68 cents versus 32 cents. Defense is not one-fifth of federal spending but two-thirds of it.

Yes, and that is what we know about. Large parts are "hidden" in the budgets of other departments.

The real question is if we can ever get that information out on the table where normal Americans can see it and make judgments about it. Must the working poor and homeless suffer for the next 1,000 years just so the generals in the pentagon have toy soldiers to order about in every corner of the globe?

After Vietnam was over, the bill came due and we had some hard times in the 70s. You could not get people to see that the main reason was the mis-allocation of resources that was the war. The reason for the hard times was never the main topic of news shows night after night.

But, at some point the country will fall totally if we do not make it clear to the public that there is a heavy price to pay for military adventures. Always has been.

Who could do this? Glenn? A few rational bloggers?

I think, under current conditions, only the unitary executive can broach the subject and be heard.

My, but it's tiresome to hear Friedmanesque claptrap in defense of, well, Friedman. Actually, it's only common sense to assume that prior wrongness, particularly unpunished wrongness, is a pretty good predictor of current wrongness. Whether or not Friedman has a point about clean energy now is rather beside the point, considering the parlous state in which "Tom's War" has left our government, rendering any real headway against Global Warming, and for that matter, any other environmental problem, unaffordable luxuries in our glorious "flat" world.

Never mind that whatever progress currently being trumpeted in Iraq is partly a product of government mouthpieces, and partly a product of the repetition thereof by those, like Friedman, who don't know any better. How can the costs, both financial and human, of the war ever be justified? They can't. Period. Ever.

Give it a rest, sock puppet. Game over.

Revised: Look up the Psalm? Get to doing a bookie cancan kicker. Raise a leg high into the air like a dear roving on tour 5th Ave, Rocket ballet dancer. Use a tin can that's all Rust ups? Or, kick a clanging Gold tin snuff can?

G@G.

A horrible war continues. A massive blood bath. It's not a bowl of spiked rum, cranberry juice drink. O. Sit in a rainy cornfield. Rice paddy in a Monsoon rain downpour. Say cory anti-war views. O. Be corny. Grab a telescope. Peer at a thorny sticker red rose bush? Scope out the here and the now too. The land, a earthen firmament. Search the night sky, and search for a romanic mood. A Place with no cell phones, and jail cell lit-up rooms, and have nothing to do if ever caged in a jail room, You Know. O. But just smile and look at a stinky "silver" dump dung commode... A cell in any county has an electric floodlight. It beams at a inmate. Sit in a jail cell-room. See how a bulb shines directly into your eyes twenty-four hours a day. Squint the eye pupils.

O Well, a Planetarium has a telescope. People visit to gaze at galaxies, stars and planets. Look at the ceiling dome. NO blow up a sacred Place such as a Middle East etc., Great Dome Worship Place. O, a place anywhere can feel up with wonderful Friends, Colleagues, Humans, and I hope to NOT be deleted for another boring thought? okay. It's okay though. It's a UT discreet blog. I wish to quote Walt Whitman? Just because I do. People are diverse. Great. Ay.

No matter:`It don't mean Nothing.

You are free to delete anything.

*

*When I Heard The Learned Astronomer.* W.W. (Walt Whitman saw blood and gore. He loved sweet chocolate candy too) It's not a Happy Valentines Day, yet, O Whoa. People sure get surly. Honest. Sigh. Relief. No comment.

Finally. Here's a poem of Walt Whitman.

*When I heard the learned astronomer,

with proofs, the figures were ranged in

columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,

divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured

with much much applause in the lecture room,

How soon unaccoutable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Looked up in perfect silence at the stars. Walt Whitman.

~

Learned astronomer Jodrell Bank is clearly in love with the 'firmament' and all good scientist.

A ton of books, scrolls, or e-mails THUD on a desk. Balloon rise like a bubble, and pop. Poet Greenleaf W. say: Economies rise and fall. Best tend to beauty, a flower, and on and on. s'ups.

A balloon was launched at 1204 UT, and reached a float altitude of 2.9g cm-2 at approximately 1530 UT where it remained for 6.5h before cutdown'-and a recent account of the evolution of the Universe: `it is generally believed in the physically realistic case, an incomplete geodisc terminates in a singularity which destroys everything which enters... including sense and meaning presumably.

The 'comment' is unfavorable? Who blame?

Below is old gibber-jabber. I giddy go now.

~

skip the rest...

Friedman, or Friendmanesque?

It makes me ponder boiled peas.

Citrus Mango juice, yellow, or pink,

and trips to Market Global Crashes.

Of intolerance, cauliflower, broccoli,

sticks of asparagus, tooth pick sticks,

And add to a list: Stinger bumble bees.

Black hue yellow creeps, Global Thieves,

Gangsters, incontinent, sleaze, and more?

Fish heads, cans of mustard gas, crude-oil.

Fancy, half-masticated, smoked raw oysters.

G@g. Gee. Ill. Op-Ed-up upchucks, and hiccups.

The worlds computer keyboards get all dank gooey.