Things I’ve Seen

Since I get lots of hits here from people interested in the US economy (despite my total lack of anything novel to say - thanks to google), I thought I should take the chance to join the chorus pointing out that Luskin is not just an unbalanced stalker, but a failure as a fund manager. CNN.com - OpenFund closes its doors

Via Crooked Timber

It’s a good article, but a great title: Body and Soul: Our president, the mammoth snack

Republicans and Democrats see the world in very different ways. Republicans want to be cavemen: Every man goes out into the world with his club and his spear, ready to take on the wooly mammoths. Every woman needs to find a guy with a big spear to take care of her.

The problem with that view is that it never worked, even in the days of of the cavemen. It takes a lot of spears to kill a wooly mammoth. One guy with one spear is a wooly mammoth snack. If we hadn’t learned to work together, the wooly mammoths would be using computers, and we’d be extinct.

Today we’ve got problems that are a lot more complicated than knocking off mammoths, and we don’t need leaders who run out pretending to be brave, waving their wobbly little spears, and yelling, “Bring on the mammoths.” People like that can get us all killed.

There’s a lot more, on gender descriptions in politics. Read.

If someone can be sued for libel for repeating what the ‘victim’ said about themselves then let’s all get sued together.

Just noticed the tagline on Pollkatz’s Blog

I am not a conspiracy theorist.

I am a conspiracy empiricist.

Jonathan Steele writes in the Guardian about the situation in Afghanistan, and in particular about some of the ways in which NGOs become targets:

It may seem innocuous and a positive benefit to have doctors and dentists in combat fatigues drop in to a village for a one-day “clinic”. The army doctors no doubt feel good. But they are blurring a crucial line of principle which damages the image of impartiality of NGOs working in the same field. The bigger NGOs worked under the mujahedin and Taliban regimes and have earned long-term respect from Afghans. They do not want to be seen as part of the political plans of governments which may lose interest in a year’s time or two. Nor do they welcome the risk of being seen by Afghans, however mistakenly, as agents of the military.

He concludes:

Security belongs to the armed people in uniform. Aid is the task of civilians - who will still be in Afghanistan when the “war on terror” caravan moves on.

The whole article is depressing reading.

OK, this is pretty outrageous. Atrios, at Eschaton, has been threatened with legal action over his comments about the completely bonkers Donald Luskin.

You’d think that the wingnuts would have learnt from suing Franken over ‘Fair and Balanced’ - it’s the best way to give publicity to your enemy. So, all right thinking people, bookmark Eschaton and don’t link to Luskin. It’s the only language they understand

Tedious Soporific has some excellent comments…

As much as the Prime Minister wishes to avoid humiliating world leaders who come to visit - having them address parliament as part of a parliamentary sitting day will inevitably result in parliamentarians doing what they are elected and paid to do: vigorously represent their constituents on the issues that matter to them. The opinion of the opposition parties isn’t the Prime Minister’s to control. If he wanted to listen to these presidents in peace, he should have found another forum. The Prime Minister wanted nearly half of the parliament to magnanimously defer their principles, suspend their opinions, and applaud a world leader that some find abhorrent.

Not a magazine I read regually, but I found this article interesting… The Progressive Interview - Jim Hightower

Howard Dean, on issues like health care, on the war, on gay and lesbian issues, is right in the President’s face and proud to be a Democrat. And he’s tapped into something huge, which is this discontent that is searching for some home. The significant thing about the Dean phenomenon is not Dean; it’s the phenomenon. And he’s being carried by it.

Of course, the end Hightower is driving towards is a lot further left…

You don’t build a movement by running for President. It’s got to be built by good organizing at the grassroots level around issues, bringing people in across lines, like privacy, like NAFTA and the WTO, like the USA Patriot Act. And then running people for mayor, state rep, then moving up to Congress, then to the Senate, and then President. I think we are eight-to-twelve years away from electing a President.

From Body and Soul

“The vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.” — George Bush

There are lots more here

BBC NEWS - Duncan Smith faces leadership vote. Results early tomorrow morning, Sydney time.