Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

Try, try, try and you just might find a way to make your first failure look pretty fucking keen.

Will Bunch says:

It was Chertoff, as assistant attorney general overseeing the initial 9/11 probe, who OK’D and then defended the detention of hundreds of “material witnesses” of Arab descent — even though it would later be determined that none — that’s right, none — of the detainees had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Chartoff’s actions during this period would later be roundly criticized in a report from the Justice Department’s own Inspector General. It found that immigrants were rounded up in an “indiscriminate and haphazard manner,” held for months while denied access to attorneys and sometimes mistreated behind bars.

Memos justifying torture from Gonzales, false imprisonment OK’D and subsequently defended by Chartoff — small wonder there isn’t an axe murder in the bunch. No shiting around here, this is offensive.

Other instructions given performers include a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements.

Oh hell no! Please do wake me up when this is all over.

Olde School Barleywine, brewed by Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware. Forgive the indelicate language, but this beer is a real motherfucker. I mean that in the best possible way of course. At 15% alcohol by volume (!), you should be prepared to have your behind firmly planted in a chair if you are planning to have more than a few of these. The taste is big, strong and malty with only the slightest indication that Olde School is one of the most potent commercially available beers around. This beer is made in limited quantities and is pretty hard to find, so if you see a bottle, jump on it.

Since I’ve been a bit testy with Senate Democrats of late, I should say that I think this letter sent to President Bush by Senators Kennedy, Lautenberg, and Reid regarding the administration’s $240,000 propaganda payout is terrific. I’m doubtful it will accomplish much, but raising a stink over something as obviously crooked as this is beneficial to those trying to grow new spines. More of the same please.

I feel a little silly doing this since I haven’t been posting much lately, but I just noticed that the site has gone over 15,000 unique hits since its inception. Not that it’s a big number or anything, but I’m a bit surprised nevertheless since I’ve done nothing, as yet, to drive traffic to the site and I don’t plan to do so until I feel as though I have something worth driving traffic to. I used to run a site that would get about 15,000 hits every two or three days so 15,000 in four months is really pretty crappy.

For some perspective on my dinky little number, the actual number of unique hits to the server is really quite a bit higher, standing at well over 300,000. That’s due to the fact that I do some image hosting for a real blogger who I let make use of my huge quantities of unused bandwidth.

Anyway, I’m still very much in the practice stage, and will be for some time to come, but thanks for visiting and not making too many cruel remarks.

I should also thank the sites who have been nice enough to link to me for whatever reason.. They are Dolphi Mir, Liberal Avenger (who has also given me quite a bit of good advice), Rittenhouse Review (Who has given me some very good advise as well), The Aggressive Progressive, Campaign Extra!, Fables of the Reconstruction, Exit Stage Left and The Modulator. Thanks.

Don’t do anything that would make people like me suggest that you ought to change your mascot from this fine donkey:

To this yellow bellied sapsucker:

Just to briefly follow up on the Herbert article, my own feeling is that if Senate Democrats aren’t able to muster a party line vote against Gonzales’ confirmation they deserve whatever failure is in store for them. Fuck the political calculus, if they can’t keep themselves from rolling over on torture, they certainly won’t deserve our support.

Bob Herbert:

“If the United States were to look into a mirror right now, it wouldn’t recognize itself.

The administration that thumbed its nose at the Geneva Conventions seems equally dismissive of such grand American values as honor, justice, integrity, due process and the truth. So there was Alberto Gonzales, counselor to the president and enabler in chief of the pro-torture lobby, interviewing on Capitol Hill yesterday for the post of attorney general, which just happens to be the highest law enforcement office in the land.

Mr. Gonzales shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near that office. His judgments regarding the detention and treatment of prisoners rounded up in Iraq and the so-called war on terror have been both unsound and shameful. Some of the practices that evolved from his judgments were appalling, gruesome, medieval.

But this is the Bush administration, where incompetence and outright failure are rewarded with the nation’s highest honors. (Remember the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded last month to George Tenet et al.?) So not only is Mr. Gonzales’s name being stenciled onto the attorney general’s door, but a plush judicial seat is being readied for his anticipated elevation to the Supreme Court.

It’s a measure of the irrelevance of the Democratic Party that a man who played such a significant role in the policies that led to the still-unfolding prisoner abuse and torture scandals is expected to win easy Senate confirmation and become attorney general. The Democrats have become the 98-pound weaklings of the 21st century.”

If you are interested, Human Rights Watch is live blogging Alberto Gonzales’ confirmation hearings.

Here’s a lovely image from an editorial in today’s Philadelphia Daily News:

Can you imagine being trapped on a plane next to a cell-phone yakker? Who then decides to download a little porn for fun?

Well I can now. Thanks I guess.

I’ve pretty much given up on ever producing anything approaching pithy analysis on this site, so today I’ll drill down my feelings on Iraq to two words — We’re Fucked.

…I should really add “utterly” to the mix.

From the BBC:

Recent events indicate that Iraqis have lost the primary control as well.

This Paul Glastris post is quite timely in light of yesterday’s announcement that plans to build Comcast’s new tower in Philadelphia are set to proceed.

Digby on the coalition opposing the Gonzalez nomination:

I’ll bet Al From is just frothing at the mouth over this one. Why, the Republicans are going to say that the Democratic Party is soft on terrorism, oh my gawd! Peter Beinert will caution that we are giving up the moral high ground by failing to show that we are serious about fighting islamic fundamentalism. Oh heck!

But then, others might think that SOMEBODY SHOULD STAND UP FOR THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, goddamnit. Apparently that isn’t popular these days, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do the right thing. This is the right thing.

…
Let them call us shrill. At least people will know that torture is a line beyond which we will not cross. Jesus, to think there isn’t a consensus on even that…

That coalition just got a little bigger with addition of several retired military officers. While they are not opposing his nomination outright, they are asking that the Senate hold tough confirmation hearings. Unfortunately, I don’t have any hope that the Senate Democrats will grow a spine on this, or any, issue.

Roll over, play dead, punt from the 30 while you’re down by two scores in the fourth quarter and wonder why you keep losing.

Since David is on a bit of a Robert McNamara kick, I thought I would recommend Errol Morris’ documentary The Fog of War which is a really nice piece of work. I’ll have to ask him to know for sure, but I suspect David may have rented it recently. As David points out, McNamara suggests, in the movie, that the reason the United States succeeded in the Cuban Missile Crisis but failed in the Vietnam War was that its leaders fully understood the motivations and goals of their adversary in the former but did not in the latter. Interesting stuff regardless of how you feel about McNamara himself. I discussed this in more detail here.

Why do you think the insurgents/rebels/terrorists/fanatics/whoever it is that is that we are fighting in Iraq continue to fight us in Iraq?

Make a list.

Your own list.

Then cross off everything that you wouldn’t die for. For example, if your list says “The insurgents are fighting because they hate democracy” and your aren’t fanatical enough to prevent the spread of democracy by laying your life on the line, cross that item off.

On the other hand, if you think it might have to do with the insurgents being a bit upset over the lack of basic necessities and the continued presence of an occupying force, and this would upset you enough to bless the lord for the second amendment and come out shooting, put a check by that.

Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson (and the guy who kept us in Viet Nam) said we should empathize with our enemy, and figure out why they are fighting us. Only then can we beat them — or make peace with them.

Bush doesn’t seem to be willing to do that, so we will only continue to fight without progress.

This I regret…

I bought my wife a big pile of U2 albums and movies for Christmas this year as they are her very favorite band and she had lost all of her old compact disks. What a bad idea that was. Now I have U2 stuck in my head 24 hours a day.

Please make it stop!!!

I’ve never mentioned it on this site before, but I went to college for music and while the experience didn’t make me much of a musician, it did make the experience of having lousy pop songs stuck in my head even more insufferable than it already was. I actually once quit a job because they had a stereo system belting out one pop song after another and I couldn’t even stand the walk home without going half off my nut from the crap that was bouncing around my skull in endless repetition. Modern pop music seems to me as though it’s conceived by guys in white lab coats, who engineer the perfect combination of gooey tertian hooks, which invariably leave your brain a weakened organ.

Of course I could be nuts.

Next year I’m buying jewelry.

Only one more homicide was added to the figure I discussed earlier, brining the total to 328. Homicides were down in most big cities across the country but the numbers are still obscene.

Um…am I late?

I have to admit that I really hate the New Years holiday and have ever since I was a little kid. I usually spend the day moping and complaining and being a general pain. I know that hating New Years is kind of like hating Arbor Day in that only a fool would really care. Well, if you ever find yourself in need of a fool, I’m your guy.

I’ll go back to moping now.

I nominate Robert McNamara for Secretary of Defense.

He’s had the job before, and he knows how to deal with an unpopular war (or not deal with it.)

He’s learned a few lessons about war and human nature that would be helpful to the folks running the Bush White House.

He wouldn’t be worried about his legacy so much as doing it right this time.

Y’know, Gulf War One showed us that Viet Nam was finally over. This whole Iraq Part II nonsense has brought it back from the dead. Let Robert McNamara have a shot at laying the ghosts to rest for the last time.