A scary sentence.

There is also a 53 km (33 mi) long Pyongyang Tram and 150 km (93 mi) trolleybus service, but tourists have heard that few locals use them due to the high and frequent hazard of electrocution.

Something fascinating.

Sometimes I browse foreign media with nothing but google translate to help me. This is choppy but fascinating.

Something reasonable.

There are a lot cnidarian* defenses of Roman Polanski being put forth today by some of the most detestable people I have encountered on the internet in days.


This, however, strikes me as a reasonable and important point. At the end of all this, Roman Polanski may walk out of a Los Angeles court room as a free man. That might be the correct decision based on the way the case was handled. It is in the laws interest, though, that Mr. Polanski see the inside of a court room again, whatever the final verdict.

*I sort of like that word.

This article embodies all conservative stereotypes about the liberal media.

It is official.

"In the coming weeks, the Polanski affair will no doubt become a tabloid sensation, with op-ed moralists, excitable bloggers* and the Glenn Becks of the world noisily weighing in on the propriety of his possible prosecution."

Only people on the level of Glenn Beck find child rape and fleeing the country to be actions deserving of legal consequences.

*Hi! I am an excitable blogger.

Come on, NYT.

Someone is being a lazy editor today. The headline for this piece makes no sense, since 12:40 AM is not, in any way, prime time.

The best sentence I have read today.

"Only a handful of literary novelists born since World War II have published a book that reached the top of the Times list, and two of those best sellers were the result of cult leaders’ shocking public pronouncements — the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and Oprah Winfrey’s 2001 endorsement of Jonathan Franzen."- NY Times

Too vigorous on the F-22

This is a ridiculous sentence by an otherwise quite reasonable author.

"And even if China were building Raptor-level fighters, there’s no reason to assume Beijing has designs on the U.S. interests — unless for some reason you consider the defense of Taiwan a strategic imperative for Washington."

Way too much of a jump there. A U.S. interest and a strategic imperative are fairly different things. Also, why does Beijing need to have designs on U.S. interests today, when the fighter production we are talking about right now would cover the next decade.

I totally agree, though, it is a great thing the F-22 extra funding was voted down by the Senate. I just think Axe overstated his case.

A quick request.

Dear Mr. President,

Please stop using the formulation "the politics of _______." It was great for a while. Please brainstorm with Jon Favreau and come up with something new.

Thanks,
IG

An attempt at a rule for internet reading.

I think the following rule is a fairly good one. I imagine someone else has already thought it up. It probably has a cool name, like Tim’s Axiom, or Johnson’s Directive.

So here it is- Do not get outraged when an author you have never heard of writes something outrageous on website you have never heard of.*

As a corollary, Think for a bit before deciding if you should get outraged when an author you have never heard of writes something outrageous on a website you have heard of.

* Obviously, this rule is intended for the relatively well traveled internet user. It seems too often that in order to provoke a response in a reader, a columnist/blogger will quote someone at an obscure and out of the way publication/blog. They then attempt to direct the outrage just generated at other, less deserving targets.


There are many many people who write things that appear on the internet in relatively serious locations. On any given issue, it is easy to find some one person who says something so insane that the only response you can think of is "you certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler." It is then easy to focus on these writers and focus efforts on refuting them.

For me personally, this makes it too easy to turn many good and decent people into the caricature embodied by the outrageous writer of the moment.

Someone was at a memorial day barbecue.

This is the laziest opinion column in this history of the world.

Awkward times

You know what must have been awkward? This photo.

Fun with Numbers

So, yes, I admit it, I read the comment sections of political videos on youtube and digg, just to drive myself crazy.

Here is a great one.



officialusa (57 minutes ago) Show Hide
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Vietnam war hero or not, this guy is no leader. He has zero % chance of getting elected.

Just some youtube channel facts

BARACK OBAMA : Subscribers: 54,616
RON PAUL: Subscribers: 51,398

JOHN MCCAIN: Subscribers: 5,389


Well yea, youtube is not a McCain stronghold, I agree.

You have to be kidding me!

Read this and tell me you do not despise everybody over the age of forty.

This Book Makes Atheists

This looks like the best book ever. I haven't read it, or even seen it in person, but really...who needs to? It's only the most self-explanatory title ever.

Photo credit to Glenn

Turning the volume up...(Or, thus endeth the Republic)

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which focused on Iraq contracting fraud last year, has moved on to steroids in baseball as its high-profile cause.-War rages, but Congress moves on-The Politico

I Need A Steroid Mute Button

I love baseball. In fact, I love it so much that I follow it closely even in the off-season. And I'm sick to death of hearing about Roger Clemens, George Mitchell and Bud Selig. I know what performance enhancing drugs say about the sport, and I know that players who have gained from them should somehow be punished. Baseball should establish a commission to determine guilt and innocence and allow players to confront their accusers and see the evidence against them. But until someone is willing to do this, I just don't care.

Clemens and his fellow Mitchell Report victims have been accused of something, yet there is no recourse to address their accusers save through law suits and the court of public opinion. There is no process to redress grievances, there is no physical evidence to challenge and there is no recourse. These guys have had their names dragged through the mud. They are "tainted" without ever having their day in court. They are guilty until (if ever) they can prove themselves innocent.

This side show is disgusting and serves no ones interest. So fuck it. I want ESPN to install a button on their website that allows me to look at the MLB page with the steroid coverage turned off.

Which one is real?

"Many whites are not ready for a person of color," Mike Tolene, 20, of North Haverbrook, said. "I don't think many whites will vote for Obama. There's always been tension in the black and white communities. There's still that strong tension. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I've talked to support [Mrs.] Clinton."-Not real


"Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color," Natasha Carrillo, 20, of East Los Angeles, said. "I don't think many Latinos will vote for Obama. There's always been tension in the black and Latino communities. There's still that strong ethnic division. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I've talked to support [Mrs.] Clinton."-The New York Times

I was just sort of surprised at how uncritical the times article was and when I though of it as a white-black thing it seemed like a reporter would be much more critical.

Correction:Thats not really the times, thats our culture.

The "Choice" Between Obama and Hillary

On the off chance that anyone besides the authors reads the posts on this blog, I should probably explain why Machiavelli has stopped posting here. She is currently working with some lobbyists in conjunction with her job, and out of respect for their interests and those of their clients, she feels it appropriate to take a hiatus from posting.

That said, she still sends me an obscene number of emails linking to articles she finds on the web and she sent one today that really changed my mind about Barack Obama.

Up to this point I had been buying, for the most part, the media narrative on Obama. That he is a new kind of politician who not only advocates for change, but actually embodies the change he hopes to bring about. His rhetoric is uplifting and inspiring and his message can be favorably compared to Hillary Clinton's tired dreck.

But this article in the New Statesman addresses many aspects of the Obama story that are left out of the media narrative. And without that uplifting life story, Obama becomes a just a variation on the same theme as the Clintons. I'm not one who penalizes people for aspiring to power, but I do ask that they present good reasoning as to why they should be entrusted with that authority. I had thought that, although Obama's positions were largely the same as Hillary's, he had arrived at those positions in a different way. The more I learn about Obama and his campaign, the less likely I find that possibility.

Senator Obama wants to do the same things as Senator Clinton, and largely for the same reasons. He just talks about doing them differently.

Define "Mainstream Media"...

I read an article this morning on CNN.com written by Lou Dobbs, and I just can't help myself:

"I'm just glad the so-called experts in the national media were wrong about their premature assumptions...At this point, all of the geniuses in the mainstream media, mainly in television news, need to summon the courage to tell their audiences that there are a few important issues to be discussed and a few important facts to be collected before permitting a public coronation of any candidate..."

Though I agree with the notion that the media needs to step back and reserve judgment about the presidential candidates, I can't help but notice that Dobbs seems to be writing as though he were some kind of internet Che Guevara. No matter how much of a blowhard you are, when you're famous for having a TV show on CNN you are NOT a revolutionary and your thoughts do not qualify as an insurrection.

For Dobbs to try and pretend that he isn't a member of the "national" media while writing on CNN.com is like a major leaguer trying to say he isn't a "professional" baseball player while being interviewed in the Yankees clubhouse.

The word you're searching for is "laughable". But that's pretty much par for the course when it comes to Lou Dobbs.