The political lamp is lit...
First off, for those who like very good political humor, see the transcript of Senator Barack Obama’s comedic roast-sketch at the recent Gridiron Club Dinner, which I posted in COMMENTS under the POSTING PREVIOUS TO THIS ONE. “ More Routine Miracles... and dangers...” (I did it that way because the transcript is pretty long, though hilarious.) If nothing else, it suggests that this fellow knows how to hire good writers for his staff. Fun stuff. Especially envisioning those listening to him, who would rather have been elsewhere.
In this edition of Armageddon Buffet, "Wars, Famines & Pestilences" looks at the recent slaughter of Muslims by Muslims; the "Cassandra Report" uncovers who correctly predicted recent developments in Iran, Iraq and Palestine (set aside for “predictions” topic, someday); "Preparations for Armageddon" lists some steps in order to ensure Armageddon; and "Signs & Portents" takes a new look at what it means to consume.
Other political stuff:
Will Rankin writes: “I thought you'd be interested in the Gerry Index, a simple formula designed to work out exactly how gerrymandered your district is, you can find it at
Hm, well, I went online and tried it out. My own heavily GOP district (gerried by a Dem legislature) actually scores a rather low value of perimeter to area ratio of 1.9. I guess a sign that I moved into a pretty uniformly (and boringly) upper middle class area. Sigh.
in contrast, have a look at a few I found randomly. Like the 15th in Texas. The 3rd in Florida and 3rd in Ohio and 3rd in California (“three” appears to be a highly abused number). Overall, the Dems in California have been much less outrageous... that is, overall... than the Gops who dominate those other states. Still there are individual districts that show just how absurd both sides can be.
* Censoring our troops. Haven't verified this yet. The gist is that liberal web sites are blocked by the military but conservative (or neo-con) sites aren't.
* Another item that’s scary, if true. Since fall 2003, 4,387 Army soldiers, 3,454 Navy sailors and 82 Air Force personnel have deserted. Someone verify?
* I am not a blog-troll, so it’s rare for me to know enough about other blogs to link to them. But this guy is worth a glance. Highly recommended is “ The Monolith Crumbles: Reality and Revisionism in Iran” at http://www.chris-floyd.com/ or for specifics:
An excerpt: ” It is a well-known fact – except among the American media, the American government, and about 98.7 percent of the American people – that Iran is not a monolithic state where sheep like masses bray with a single voice in chorus with their demented leaders, but is, on the contrary, a complex society where many conflicting opinions on matters political, religious, social, historical, etc., contend with each other in open debate. True, it does have a government dominated by repressive clerics, who exercise the kind of veto power over secular law that George W. Bush's vaunted "base" dreams of seeing established in the United States; but Iran is far more open than, say, Saudi Arabia or China, just to name two countries where the Bush Family and friends have long engorged their bellies through insider connections with the ruling cliques. Therefore it must have come as a great shock to the system for Americans this week to hear Iran's former president, Mohammad Khatami, rail against the ignorant Holocaust revisionism mouthed by his successor, the hardline flibbertigibbet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
As some of you know, I believe the most cosmic American stupidity in this century has been our adamant refusal to wage the right kind of war against the mullahs in Iran... by relentlessly and adamantly wooing the the restive populace of that complex and sophisticated nation. There are a myriad ways to do that, but the cartoon Axis of Evil mentality of this administration proves that Condi Rice is no Kissinger. Rather, she is sub-par even compared to a college sophomore’s level of international insight. (Oh, America, pissing your Pax away with dippy neocon nostrums and Alcibiadean adventures, when the world needs the “spread of democracy” that this administration of frat jocks claims that it is after.)
. . Re: Iran... it is a calamity that we failed to do the one simple, obvious thing that might have been the worst nightmare of ALL of our foes in that region, including the mullah’s themselves. Restoring the deep and long tradition of friendship between Iranians and Americans. (And if a peace-out failed? Exactly how would we have been hurt by a love-offensive aimed at average Iranians, even if it did not work? Oooooh. Americans made nice-nice and were snubbed! What are we, weak-ego teenagers, or the supposed grownups on this planet? Our stature would only RISE if that happened.)
* This from Russ Daggatt: ”Cheney said this week, "we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon" and "the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the [Iranian] regime."
Is this guy off his meds, or what? What exactly does Cheney propose to do to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons? (Of course, we wouldn’t expect Cheney to do anything PERSONALLY – the closest he has ever gotten to combat is getting drunk and blasting his old buddy Whittington in the face.)
When Bush took office, Iran’s two biggest enemies and regional rivals were Saddam Hussein, on its one side in Iraq, and the Taliban, on its other side in Afghanistan. On top of that, the Iranian population was young, relatively well-educated and Internet-savvy, largely pro-American and overwhelming for reform and against the country’s clerical regime. Bush managed to take out both Iran’s main enemies and actually make our relationship with Iran worse (MUCH WORSE) in the process. That takes extraordinary diplomatic skill. Bush also managed to strengthen the hand of the clerics, virtually killing all traces of the reform movement (which had been winning overwhelmingly at the polls in Iran) and getting a REALLY extreme hardliner elected president in the process.
Immediately after 9/11, the Iranian government was working with us against the Taliban. This was the PERFECT opportunity to open up the dialogue with Iran and strengthen the moderates. If we are going to take out Iran’s enemies we should at least get some goodwill out of it, right? Instead, Bush gratuitously dissed Iran in his "Axis of Evil" speech, at which point all cooperation between our two governments stopped. As we have gotten further bogged down in the quagmire of Iraq, and more powerless to actually threaten Iran, the intensity of the Bush administration’s anti-Iran rhetoric has just gotten more shrill. (While we aren’t in a position to do much harm to Iran, they could cause us a world of hurt in Iraq.)”
Meanwhile, Halliburton, continues to do business in Iran as it did when Cheney was running the show. Just last year, "…Reuters [reported] that Halliburton "has won a tender to drill a huge Iranian gas field." Also: "Vice President Dick Cheney, who has called Iran "the world's leading exporter of terror," pushed to lift U.S. trade sanctions against Tehran while chairman of Halliburton Co. in the 1990s. And his company's offshore subsidiaries also expanded business in Iran. … While he headed the Houston-based oil services and construction company, Cheney strongly criticized sanctions against countries like Iran and Libya. President Clinton cut off all U.S. trade with Iran in 1995 because of Tehran's support for terrorism."
Can you believe there was a time not long ago when Republicans spent $80 million to investigate a failed Arkansas land deal on which the Clintons actually LOST $46,000? What a quaintly meager sum. And isn't it just like a Democrat to LOSE money on his shady dealings?
It is no wonder than Cheney's approval rating (at 18%) is only eight percent higher than the percentage of people who say they would eat a rat on TV (seriously). And his approval rating is actually BELOW the number of people who think the Catholic Church has handled pedophilia well and that justice was served in the O.J. case.