Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Victor Davis Hanson, writing in the National Review:
Although we don’t hear much any more about “No blood for oil,” the lie about “Bush lied, thousands died” has never been put to rest.
What was odd about the untruth was not just that Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and the anti-war street crowd become popular icons through spreading such lies, but that the Democratic party — whose kingpins had all given fiery speeches in favor of invading Iraq — refined the slur into an effective 2006 talking point. That Democrats from Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid had looked at the same intelligence from CIA Director George “slam-dunk” Tenet, and had agreed with Tenet’s assessments, at least until the insurgency destroyed public support for the war, was conveniently forgotten.
:
No one, of course, noted that the initial success in Iraq also helped shut down Moammar Qaddafi’s WMD program in Libya and pressured the Pakistanis to arrest (for a while) the father of their bomb, Dr. A. Q. Khan. The latter nations apparently feared that the U.S. was considering removing dictators who that they knew had stockpiled WMD.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A part of the anger directed toward George W. Bush over the Iraq thing, came from the beltway mentality — unspoken, but practiced — that when you make your move to confront some sort of pressing problem, you shouldn’t go so far as to actually solve it. Solving a problem is forbidden, in fact, merely changing the state in some permanent and beneficial way is frowned-upon. You’re supposed to make a lot of speeches and generate a lot of movement, like a hamster in a little wheel. Passively wait for something good to happen, hog all of the credit for it, and if anything bad happens then blame your predecessor. Solve the problem? No. Just give a wonderful speech, use the phrase “come a long way, but we’re not quite there yet,” and go back to playing golf. For decades.
That almost looks like an Obama rant, doesn’t it? I don’t mean for it to be. It isn’t just Him. It’s the Washington way.
Along comes George W. Bush, to identify a serpent in the grass, give his reasons for removing it, and then actually getting it done. It’s quite the paradigm shift, and some people can’t handle it. Even out here, away from the capitol where all the real people live. Voters have a way of getting used to ineffectual leaders who give the same speeches generation after generation about the same problems, without doing anything to solve the problems.
Those voters are like me, though. Something breaks, we fix it or replace it. The difference is, they are unnerved by the idea of our leaders doing the same thing. Budgets, way “up” there, are not supposed to be balanced like we try to do with our household budgets; problems “up” there are not supposed to actually be fixed, pests are not supposed to be removed. When the matter is too big, or perhaps too distant, they just want to see speeches and nothing else.
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Mark Steyn used to make a joke about all the Vermont and New Hampshire hippies around him with “Free Tibet” bumper stickers on their Volvos. He said that if George Bush simply took that at face value, said “OK” and rolled the U.S. military in to liberate Tibet, the very next day all those “Free Tibet” stickers would be papered over with “End the Imperialist War in Tibet” stickers. Very astute observation.
- cloudbuster | 02/03/2015 @ 15:21Every other year politicians would vote on “tax relief for the poor”. Of course it was always temporary. George really pissed them off and there was no one they could (openly) complain to. Taking the poor all the way off the tax rolls. What a horrible thing to do to a pandering politician. They never forgave him that either.
- Theo | 02/04/2015 @ 03:09