Preparing the Battlefield

Seymour Hersh says Bush is bound and determined to stop Iran's military nuclear program. He seems to think that's a bad thing. It isn't. And no matter what his supporters say about it today, President Obama will be very glad his predecessor did this. I remember the Cold War and I'm just tired of that kind of shit. Let's take the fuckheads out now, whoever they are, while we still can, while the risk of incinerating millions of people is still relatively low. I honor Hersh for speaking up about My Lai and Abu Ghraib, but this is different. Covert ops were a major part of enabling the Soviet collapse. Let it continue. What's good for the U.S. is good for mankind. Now if only those fuckers in the press understood that and knew when to keep their fucking mouths shut.

Michelle

This blog is my vent. And at this moment, my rant is that they should leave Michelle Obama the fuck alone. She's her own person and entitled to be her own person. And she's not running for President. And she's hot. And people who go after the candidate's spouse are dickless fruitcakes with no judgment or decency. I'd love to see how they'd look under the same brutal spotlight. Not very pretty at all. I'm with these guys:

John McCain: "I've never met her, Mrs. Obama, she's a talented and a very effective person."

Barack Obama: "These folks should lay off my wife, all right?"

They Never Run Out of Stupid

Windfall profits tax? How in heaven's name is that supposed to correct the fuel prices? The oil companies have their cost and profit structures set up. They're not going to rebalance all of that in a panic over extra federal taxation. All they have to do is pass the tax on to the consumer and bang, the working poor are even more burdened and now they're additionally paying for some boneheaded federal redistribution scheme. I can't believe these people.

I mean, how does it address the problem? It doesn't, except to discourage people from driving, a choice most people can't make if they wish to keep their jobs. Trust a typical Senator not to get that. What we need long-term are incentives to develop alternatives but short-term, today, we need to increase domestic production. The entire problem really is as fundamental as they get: Oil is a resource, there isn't enough of it, and too much is on the hands of people who don't particularly like us. How the windfall profits tax people miss seeing that as the long painful prelude to an eventual global war is beyond me.

(And by the way, said war does not need a Republican cowboy to start it. People who blame saber-rattlers for precipitating warfare know nothing of history, nothing at all -- and are hence doomed to repeat it.)

Big diff

Someone explain to me the difference between stimulating the economy with give-backs and stimulating the economy with tax cuts! (Other than that tax cuts reward the productive while give-backs are more broadly spread -- not a smart way to invest, but it's only guv'ment money.)

I got no problem with Obama, especially if he listens to the party elders and toes a centrist line. Just quit with the bullshit that he's somehow different, that he's about change. Change is unavoidable -- it's making the right decisions in the midst of change that matters.

Force for Evil

Apparently more Europeans think we are a force for evil than a force for good. Right. We waged war on a country already devastated by one of history's worst dictators with the purpose of ending his reign, putting a halt to Palestinian blood money, and smashing a highly capable and motivated potential storefront for WoMDs of every type. Did we do it for territory? No. For oil? Only indirectly, as the region's oil wealth is what renders all other events there of such significance. Meanwhile the puir wee lads we hold at Guantanamo are in the main violent religious fanatics who would happily kill every hippie in California given half a chance, and who would have nothing to do with the rebuilding we do in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the attempts we make to help the Middle East transform into a place whose people are actually served by government. What do the fucking French do besides sell them weapons? How much have they helped out in Myanmar relative to us? If they truly think we are a force for evil, they need to bend down and kiss our collective ass.