Tail-End Thinking (or: How to Speak from One's Ass)

Atrios, as usual, gave the concise version of something I've wanted to say for awhile:
The fact that some people failed to have "foresight" does not mean that those who did were only correct in "hindsight."

He was referring to a post by The Atlantic's newest blog joke, Megan McArdle (formerly known as Jane Galt). In that post, McArdle suggests it's only in hindsight that we can attack Giuliani's savvy decision to house New York's emergency command center in a known terrorist target, saying:
In retrospect, of course, it was dumb. But hindsight bias distorts our perceptions.

And yes, for poor Megan, it's only hindsight that tells her that putting an emergency command center in a known terrorist target is a dumb idea. But I doubt she really believes that at all. More likely, she's just looking for some rationalization for defending Giuliani and this is the best she can come up with. And if she disliked Giuliani, she'd be joining in with the rest of us in condemning Rudy for his egotistical blunder. It all just comes down to whichever conclusion she needed to justify.

As I commented at her site:
And the need for monogrammed towels there was...in case he handed one to someone to mop up blood and they wanted to remember who to give it back to?

And the cigar humidor, no doubt, must have been in case a pregnant lady gave birth while trapped in the bunker and the father wanted to celebrate.

Rudy thinks of everything!

Indeed he does.

Bass-Ackwards

And speaking of rationalizations, I first encountered Megan's ability to reverse-engineer thought processes last night, after Atrios linked to her attack on single-payer insurance at her old blog, in which she insists that it's unfair to expect healthy people to finance the mistakes of people irresponsible enough to get old and sick.

Two choice quotes:
Moreover, as a class, the old and sick have some culpability in their ill health.

As a class, the old and sick are already luckier than the young and healthy.

Ah, to be old and sick. I can't wait! But as I mentioned above, I doubt she believes any of this. She has her conclusion, that single-payer insurance is a bad idea, and then reverse-engineered that conclusion to try to find some justification for why it's true. Of course, her primary breakthrough seems to be that she relabeled single-payer insurance a "tax", and as a libertarian, the rest of it just falls into place.

And it's entirely pathetic and makes absolutely no sense at all. Because first off, all insurance is premised on the idea that people who don't need it will finance the people who do need it to such an extent that the insurance can continue to be provided, and for for-profit companies, can actually make enough extra money to give to their owners. So for health insurance, it's always the idea that the healthy will pay for the sick. That isn't some flaw in taxpayer funded insurance. That's the entire premise of insurance! That's why health insurance companies strive as much as possible to get sick people off their plans and to only sign-up the people who don't need it.

But...that's not really the case for taxpayer-funded insurance. For taxpayer-funded insurance, it's high income people who finance it for people who can't afford it. And those high income people might very well be the people who need it the most. In fact, while I don't have any numbers offhand to back me up, I say without any doubt that there is a direct relationship that the more you pay in taxes, the more likely you'll need insurance; until you retire, after which you've already paid so much into the system that you're just getting back what you paid.

And so she's got her dynamic entirely wrong. For as much as she tries to suggest that rich old people are taking advantage of young people, those rich old people are likely to be paying more in taxes than the young people. It's only the poor old people with little income that will really gain any benefit from this; which is a group that she entirely ignores in her post. But seeing as how the government already provides these people an insurance they're relatively happy with, I can see why she didn't want to mention them.

Overall, her "reasoning" is based upon the weird presumptions that only the elderly need insurance, people only get sick due to their own mistakes, old people are rich enough to afford their own insurance, and the young pay more of this than the old. And all four of those ideas are entirely absurd, but are the only way her argument makes any sense.

The Young & Sick

And that's not to mention the inherent suggestion as if this is a one-time bill that young people are footing for old people, rather than an entire system that almost all young people will eventually require. And perhaps far sooner than they'd ever expect. Believe it or not, even young people can get horrible diseases that are beyond their control.

In reality, there's really only a small time period that people won't need insurance, because insurance isn't just a requirement for the elderly. It's also a requirement for the very young, as in our children. And for all you non-parents out there, let me tell you that kid medical bills are always high, even for healthy kids. So while Megan suggests that there is this "large group" being disadvantaged by those greedy old people, there really is only a very short time in our lives that most people don't require insurance; and it's best for them to have it anyway.

But as I said, Megan's got the dynamics of this all wrong. This really isn't a case of the old feasting like irresponsible vampires on the young. This is the poor and middle-class feasting on the rich. And as I said, it's more likely that the rich are going to be older people who need insurance. And so Megan's point is entirely absurd. She had her premise and desperately sought out any kind of justification for it. But it failed miserably on every level and exposed her to obvious criticism of being both mean and dumb.

But I don't think she's really mean. I don't think she really blames people for getting old or sick. That was dumbness talking all the way. And the dumbest thing she did was adopting her conclusion in the first place. The rest of it was just a futile attempt to justify that initial mistake. But I guess that can be said of everything conservatives do. It's not their reasoning that's at fault. It's that they chose to be conservatives in the first place.

Damn, this isn't even want I wanted to talk about in reference to the quote I gave on hindsight, but I just kept typing and now this took up the whole post. Oh well, I'll get back to my original point another time. It was about Iraq and had nothing to do with Megan McArdle.

Shamming Abortion Away

I just read of a recent law in Missouri which will require abortion providers to make extensive changes to their facilities in order to be allowed to provide abortions. Naturally, Planned Parenthood is suing.

As the article says:
If the law takes effect, Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri claims it will be forced to halt abortions at its Columbia and Kansas City offices — either permanently or while costly and "medically unnecessary" renovations are made.

Missouri Republicans dispute this, saying that it's necessary to preserve the health and safety of the women getting abortions and that Planned Parent is exaggerating the financial hardship this will incur. But then State Senator Delbert Scott, a lead sponsor of the legislation, gives the whole game away saying: "Certainly, abortion is our target here and we're trying to save the lives of our children."

Well, I guess that settles that question, huh. And who do they think they're fooling? Is there any anti-abortion person who heard of this law who wasn't happy about its effect to stop abortion and hurt abortion providers. Of course not. But that won't stop them from insisting that it's not true. And are there even wavering pro-abortion people who won't see this for what it really is? I don't really know the details of this bill, but I fail to see how this is even a wedge issue. You'd have to be a moron to truly believe that this stuff isn't just about stopping abortions.

I mean, one of the new rules is that they provide separate changing rooms for male and female personnel. What, are they afraid that one of the abortion doctors is going to go into the changing room and get so turned on watching a nurse change that they have sex while the patient dies waiting for her abortion? Ah, who am I kidding? That is how many of these people imagine it works at these places. Sex in the changing rooms, rampant drug use in the lobby, and satanic rituals performed with each of the aborted fetuses. Possibly even stem-cell research! (Gasp!)

As a side note, I once saw a lady on public access television insist that she was a former abortion clinic employee who made a fortune convincing women to get abortions. She actually insisted that she did cold-calling to get these sales and insisted that she was really good at it. I'm sure that went over well. "Are you pregnant? Yes. Would you like me to cure that for you?" And now she's a "convert" and had to warn us of how evil these places really were. I'm sure not one of the people seriously watching that show doubted a word she said. I, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing. But I suppose I wasn't the target audience.

But this law is ridiculous and will be yet another drain on precious government resources. And if the Missouri legislature is correct and this isn't a financial burden to Planned Parenthood, what difference would it make? That's what's so weird about their argument. They have to give a sham reason for why this law is necessary, because it undermines their case if they admit that this is solely about hampering abortions. And if they honestly believed what they were saying, they wouldn't have bothered with any of this.

But anti-abortion leaders have long since given up any direct attack on abortion, because they can count. They insist that a majority of Americans support anti-abortion laws, but somehow democracy continues to prove them wrong. And so they have to try with as many sham arguments as possible to make this work. And as I've argued in the past, Republican leaders don't really want to outlaw abortion. That'd be political suicide. They just want to milk this stuff for all it's worth. And so it's another sham law, high legal fees, and something else to complain about in those fundraising letters.

Out-Guessing Rove

I just read an article suggesting that the reason Rove was attacking Hillary was because he was actually afraid of Obama and wanted Dems to rally around Hillary instead. And I don't really put too much to this kind of thing. Once you get into this triple-secret reverse psychology, you just end up tripping over your own feet and mess yourself up. And I think that's really the only thing Rove's trying to do; besides pumping up his overhyped "genius" reputation.

So I figured this was just more of Rove's typical mindfuck stuff that he puts out there to make everyone think he's a genius. If he attacked Kerry more than Edwards before the 2004 Democratic primaries, as the article suggests, then it was because they saw Kerry as the one requiring more softening. Or perhaps it would make him more likely to win because he was getting more media attention. But I'm not sure I noticed any specific rallying around Kerry due to Rove backlash and could easily see how this kind of thing could backfire. Afterall, if you spend all your time attacking the weaker candidate and it works and the other guy wins, then you've just wasted your time and are futher back than if you had attacked the person you were really worried about. So I really didn't think there was anything to this.

That was until I read this part of the article:
Asked whether he was attacking Clinton because the GOP feared Obama, Rove replied: "I read that in the LA Times this morning. Those, those guys out in LA have got to get clued in. I mean, come on."

Huh? What the hell kind of answer is that? If I didn't know any better, I'd say this guy is the worst liar over the age of twelve. That denial was simply pathetic. I've had cats who could lie better than that. I'd almost go so far as to put this into the triple-secret reverse psychology category of him giving such a pathetic denial because he wanted people to believe something that wasn't really true, except that this would make him look like a fool and that's the one area Rove doesn't go. He might take advantage of Bush's well-known intellecual disabilities, but he still wants the Boy Genius title for himself.

I know he likes to pretend as if he's some Do-Gooder getting smeared by evil Dems, but that's all part of his game. It's fun for the villain to smear the goodguy by pretending to be wrongly smeared by the goodguy; that was the entire premise of the Dudley Do-Right movie. But in no case is he playing this so that he looks like he's a lousy liar. For him to go there would be to give up the whole game.

So I can only guess that it really is true, and that he somehow wasn't expecting to be asked about it. Or something, I don't know. I'm sure he really does like to engage in weirdo reverse-psychology stuff, as it helps both his ego and reputation. When in reality he only wins because he fights dirty and hits hard. And even then, he really hasn't been that successful and his reverse-psychology bullshit often hurts him more than it helps.

Planting smears that his opponent is a lesbian or has a mulatto kid; that's Rove's magic. But this reverse-psychology stuff only works if his opponent allows it to work and tries to out-think him. He'll get you second-guessing yourself and then smear you for being indecisive. But he really doesn't mean this stuff at all. It's just part of the smoke & mirrors he uses to hide the fact that he's only a cheap thug and that's all he'll ever be. And the greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing anyone that he was anything else.

I'm the King

It's good to be the king. I should know, because I just made myself King of America. Not for my for own selfish desires, mind you. But to protect our great nation and everything it stands for. So I've decided to swear upon a stack of pancakes to do my duty to uphold our constitution and protect it from the tyranny of brown-skinned people by doing whatever it takes. And to do "whatever it takes" I have to be king.

And so now I am the king, and let me tell you, it's great. I'm not even one of those Constitutional Monarchs, as I found that to be much too limiting on my ability to protect you and the constitution. So I decided to play it safe by going for Absolute Monarch. That's right, I can do anything. Hell, and why even bind myself to physical possibility, as you never know when I might need to fly or use laser vision to defend our nation from terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. So I've decided to be omnipotent. Granted, I haven't found any reason to actually use any of these powers so far, but I assure you that I have them. How could I not? I need them to protect you.

And let's not forget omniscience, so I don't even have to bother with Congress attempting to limit me with silly advisories like the FISA law. It'll be simply a matter of me telling my secret police what all the bad guys are thinking, and having them arrested and whisked away to my secret dungeons for an interrogative debriefing. And let me tell you, these won't be any of those mambsy-pambsy, politically-correct "stress techniques" oldman Rumsfeld settled with. I'm going old school with this. The rack. The iron maiden. You name it. That way everyone will be safer. Sure, you might ask why I'd need to interrogate people if I'm omniscient and already know what they're thinking. But you'll just have to trust me on this one. You have no other choice.

And again, I must stress that I'm not doing this for my own personal benefit. This is absolutely necessary because the Bushies are just too small-minded to take the extra steps required for our basic protection. In a time of existential crisis such as ours, when our women folks are just moments away from being hidden away in burkas forever, we simply cannot afford a president who bothers couching his authoritarian power-grabs in terms of "constitutional authority" as Bush continues to do. Because that establishes the precedent that the Constitution can bind the president, and we all know what a fatal disaster that would be.

As Abraham Lincoln once famously said, in order to save the Constitution, we most surely must destroy it. Martial Law goes into effect in three minutes. Be sure not to be outside. And don't stop thinking happy thoughts. I'm listening.

Becoming the Enemy

Via Carpetbagger (aka Steve Benen at TPM), I just read some absurdist porn by NRO's Victor Davis Hanson which most assuredly only made me dumber for having read it. A shorter version of this piece reads: America must be allowed to behave like the immoral blood-thirsty monsters we're attacking or we might be taken over by immoral blood-thirsty monsters. It looks to me like some of them are already here.

One of my favorite parts is when he laments that Democratic presidents are always given a free-hand by the Left to wage war, referencing Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton. But in the same paragraph goes on to say: "World War I, Korea, and Vietnam were all controversial in their time."

And those wars cover every Democratic president he listed besides FDR and Clinton. And seeing as how I have one of those brains that remembers things, I remember the war in Kosovo and remember it being opposed by Republicans, as well as many liberal peaceniks. And one of the reasons the GOP opposed the war (besides outright partisanship) was because Clinton insisted on fighting the war humanely; according to rules which Hanson decries liberals for wanting. And let's not forget that Vietnam didn't really get going until LBJ took it over, and it burned him so badly that he decided to not seek re-election. So basically, Hanson is crying foul because Dems supported one Democratic president in a war that almost everyone agrees was entirely necessary. Fucking hypocrites!

(Unmentioned in this is that quite a few peaceniks complain about many of the tactics used in WWII, including the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, as well as the internment of Japanese-American. So in that regard, it could easily be stated that no Dem president has received a free-passes from the Left. But again, that would require a check with reality, which is in clear violation of several of NRO's by-laws.)

Oh, and while reading the piece, I failed to see any real connection between some of the various arguments he was making. And then I re-read the title line: The Burdens of General Petraeus. And now I get it. Hanson's realized that Petraeus has failed in his mission to make the surge work, and now is wanting to once again blame liberal Democrats for this predictable failure. We'd be able to win, if only the hypocritical partisan liberals would allow us to do what was necessary to win. These are sad, sad people we're dealing with.

Rightwing Burka Bullshit

Carpetbagger, pseudonymously posting as "Steve Benen" at TPM, showcases an exchange between Naomi Wolf and an insane person in which the insane person rebutted Wolf's valid points by saying "Keep attacking, keep attacking Naomi, because you're going to look great in a burka. You're going to look super in a burka."

Carpetbagger responds to this by saying: This description may sound hyperbolic, but a surprising number of high-profile conservative voices actually believe that we're this close to an invasion and the replacement of our constitutional system with a radical Muslim theocracy.

But this simply isn't true. Conservatives don't really believe that we're about to be invaded. They're just bullshitting again. In fact, this is one of the primary points about referring to conservatives as "Chickenhawks". Because if they really believed civilization's survival was dependent on our victory, they most assuredly would make a point of having as many rightwingers join the military as possible. This wouldn't be about having Naomi Wolf shut-up with Ann Coulterish punchlines. They'd actually be serious.

And only an insane person would argue against reinstituting the draft, if this was as serious as they're pretending it is. The draft is only a bad idea when the underlying war is bad. But people won't mind being forced into fighting if their survival is really at stake. The Bushies most certainly know this, which is why the draft is definitely off the table. They know that people really aren't that serious about this war.

And even the very idea of this is entirely absurd. The strongest military in the world is having trouble subduing a second-world country the size of California, and we're supposed to believe that a non-army could possibly conquer all of America? The very thought of this is so entirely absurd that it's not even worthy of even half-hearted consideration.

But they don't really believe this. They don't truly believe this is the war of all wars. It's just empty rhetoric. They're just saying whatever they need to to make their point. They don't give a damn, and they assume we don't either. That crazy woman wasn't really making a point she found valid. She was just trying to score a cheap debate point against someone who had bested her. But you shouldn't think for a second that they really believe this stuff. They don't. And all they deserve for their troubles is open mockery and scorn.

And that's what Naomi's follow-up line should have been. I don't know what she actually said. But what she should have done was simply to laugh in the crazy person's face, given a sarcastic "Really?" and then laughed again before giving an "Alrightie then" and a few more laughs. The crazy person deserved no better. We really can't take this stuff seriously. Bullshit should never be treated as if it's rational or requires rebuttal. If the person saying something doesn't care what they're saying, we shouldn't either. They deserve nothing but mockery.

An Immigration Policy You Can't Not Afford

Guest Post by Doctor Snedley, Personal Assistant to Doctor Biobrain

Josh Marshall mentioned Giuliani's change of heart on immigration, now that the technology has finally caught up with the brown people streaming across our borders. But it's totally bush league stuff. Sensor-based platforms doing surveillance? Wow. I'm sure Jose Gringo is shaking in his sombrero just thinking about it. This is the biggest threat modern civilization could conceivably face, so I don't see why we shouldn't be taking this to the next level.

And what's the next level? Lasers, of course. Heat-seeking lasers. I've got a few of these babies right here, and let me tell you: Totally awesome. These suckers are great. I use them to shoot down the heat-seeking spiders Grandfather Snedley created for use against the Irish all those years ago. And look how well that turned out. Nobody worries about the Irish anymore. And I can crank out these heat-seeking lasers just as fast as you can ask for one. Sure, there are a few kinks in the system, but that's nothing compared to the ginormous kinks in our immigration system. Think about it.

But I'm not leaving it at that. Hell no. It's simply a matter of time before the Brown Plague starts fighting back with mirrored heat-insulation suits sold by Schmoctor Schmedley Enterprises, an international conglomerate with absolutely no legal ties to me.

So it's time to take it one level further: Randomized Personal Nukes. That's right. Small-scale tactical nuclear bombs that detonate at random intervals all across our vast border. With these suckers going off every fifteen to twenty minutes, I can guarantee that no dishes will be getting washed within three hundred miles of our porous southern border. And any Mexis who make it through will all have that warm glow that La Migra shouldn't have any trouble distinguishing from us real people. It's even better than the color coding God gave them.

Admittedly, our technology hasn't quite caught up with this one yet. But that's where the government comes in. Research isn't free and neither is the damage done by the flood of illegals poring across our border every second. Sure, ten billion dollars a month sounds like a lot of money for technology with no proven scientific basis, but that's nothing compared to the comfort of knowing that your grandchildren will finally be able to sleep easily knowing that their landscaping is being down with 100% American Hands. God bless America.

Discussion Thread

Why is Atrios stealing my thunder? I could do what he does if I knew how to write lots of succinct posts on a variety of subjects every day that interest people. If we needed another one of him. So why does he continue to undermine me by being popular and being the person I would be if I wanted to be that person? Discuss.

And remember, I still don't have ads. I have too much integrity for that, and simply prefer to sell your personal information to spammers and perverts. That's the American Way.

I Am The Winner!!

Well, it's Carnival Time again for the Carnival of the Liberals, and guess who just pulled through for yet another bigtime Carnival win: That's right. It's your very own Doctor Biobrain. So why don't you head on over to Greenbelt and read all the other runner-ups in this manly, man test of awesomeness (and I use the phrase "manly, man" in the most gender neutral sense possible).

And remember, if you don't play, you can't win. And if you can't win, you just suck.

Giuliani's Banana Brain

Wow. Josh Marshall just gave a link to the blog of Giuliani's new Senior Middle East Advisor, Martin Kramer, and let me tell you, not only is this guy a total wacko, but he might be the biggest dork I've ever read; and I read science fiction!

If you want to suffer and groan, read this dorky, dorky speech he gave entitled Know Thy Enemy or an Approximation Thereof at some Israeli conference in January. He makes the classic mistake of lumping all anti-Israel and anti-American Muslim groups together and treats them as one enemy intent on taking over the world. But as if that blunder wasn't bad enough, he does so in the first person, speaking as a non-existent composite of all these groups. Yikes, what a dork.

Oddly enough, he uses Sun Tzu's "Know thy enemy" quote as the overall theme of his dorky narrative, yet seems to have missed the strategic importance of dividing your enemies, rather than lumping them all together into one big bad enemy which must be defeated all at once.

Somehow, he even has it that the Shiite/Sunni feud is bad news for us, writing:
Now you may enjoy a brief respite from us, because Sunnis and Shia are regrettably at each other's throats. Your diplomats whisper to you that this is an opportunity. Don't rejoice. If Sunnis and Shia can demonize and massacre one another—fellow Muslims who profess the same faith, speak the same language, share the same culture—what does this portend for you? The Sunni-Shia strife is a warning to you: our visions, our history don't ever go away, they always come back.

Did I mention what a big dork he is? Do you think anyone at the conference thought this was really cool, or were they all groaning as much as I was just reading it? This guy seems like that nerdy high school sophomore who thinks he's taking it to the next level when he employs overt narrative devices into his speech on the environment by pretending to be a tree. I can't believe this guy didn't get booed.

And what does he mean "brief respite"? They separated almost fourteen hundred years ago! And while his imaginary Muslim extremist seems to regret their fighting, I think the actual fighters just regret that they haven't done more to kill the other side. It's almost as if Kramer imagines this is some sort of ruse; like Captain Kirk and Spock pretending to fight until they can attack the guards and disarm them. But then again, these guys assume anything that isn't exactly what they expect to be a trick. But if they want to believe something, there are no bounds to their gullibility. Just ask Curveball.

And as far as the message we should take from this, I just think it means we shouldn't start fights with Muslims unless we're willing to keep going for a long, long time. And that would suggest that we probably shouldn't have invaded Iraq or try to invade Iran. But he seems to take a different message; that they're stubborn monsters who can't be dealt with and must be destroyed. Somehow, I suspect that he has more in common with these people than he realizes.

Banana Theory

But as I said, I suspect that Kramer doesn't even believe this feud to be real. And I say that based upon the first post of his I read entitled The Shiite Banana. He starts by mentioning Ehud Barak's warning to Condi Rice to not neglect the "Shiite banana" which is an all-Shiite swath of territory stretching from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, all the way to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is compared to King Abdullah of Jordan's reference of the "Shiite crescent".

As Kramer says:
From the beginning, the "Shiite crescent" resonated among the Bush-bashers, since it had this overtone: you invaded Iraq, and now look what you've done?

Naturally, Kramer cannot possibly answer back to that rightly accusatory question, so he resorts to labeling such people as "Bush bashers" and moves on. Because as we all know, these people loved fighting preemptive wars with hints of racism until Bush came along. Then it was all doves and peace protests after that. If only they had put Cheney in charge instead...

He then moves on to citing the Bush Admin's phrase to describe this threat: The Caliphate, which he says refers to Al Qaeda's plan for global domination. Now, this guy's the middle east expert, while I'm just some dude with a blog. So I imagine that he must know something about the middle east. And so I decided I better look it up, to make sure I hadn't gone crazy on this. And sure enough, I was right. Al Qaeda and the global Caliphate are Sunni things. And needless to say, the Shiite crescent is, that's right. Shiite. Not Sunni. In fact, one big reason the "Bush bashers" would bash Bush with the "Shiite crescent" phrase was because Bush turned Iraq from Sunni to Shiite; thus creating the Shiite crescent that we should now be worried about.

So...how on earth could these separate phrases be referencing the same thing? How else: Because Martin Kramer is a schmuck, that's how. He just wants us to see one big scary threat. Even when he actually talks about the "Shiite crescent" it's only in terms of Iran exerting influence, as if a stabilized Shiite presence in Iraq wouldn't some day be an equal threat. Or Syria. Or Hezbollah in Lebanon. No, the only threat is Iran.

As he says:
"The threat posed by Iran isn't that it's going to unleash a Shiite chain reaction, which is hard to do, but that it could set off a nuclear chain reaction, which may soon be within its power. "

All this guy sees is what he wants to see. It's obvious that he wants to invade Iran, so that means that the worries of the "Shiite crescent" just come down to us invading them and worrying about Al Qaeda. Sure, we overthrew a strongman in Iraq to install religious-led Shiites, and are planning to overthrow religious-led Shiites in Iran to install that Super-Pony Democracy that we all know is waiting...which will be a bunch of Shiites, many of whom follow their religious leaders. And in all this Al Qaeda is waiting in the wings, so they can swoop into Iran and create chaos for everyone, just as they did in Iraq; but whatever. Brown people are dying, and the rest is just details.

He ends his post with a few jokes about the "Shiite banana" which is all I think he really wanted to write about, but felt compelled to add a bunch of serious-sounding noise so he didn't look like he was just blogging about a few dumb jokes. But that's all this was really about. He had no real analysis to add regarding the problem Bush caused by allowing Shiites to gain so much territory, or what we should do about this threat. He just liked the name "Shiite banana" because it made him laugh. I'm sure any fifth grade nerds reading his blog got a few chuckles out of it too.

I'll give you one sample joke:
And if the Shiites are bananas, what are the Sunnis? (Given how varied they are, perhaps they're a fruit platter; Al Qaeda might be nuts.)

Keep your senior advisor job, dork.

The Weak Horse

I wanted to end by quoting this weird part at the end of the speech I cited at the beginning. Again, speaking as an imaginary Muslim extremist:
Let's set aside the Chinese general, and end with a quote from our own Bin Laden. "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse." He's right. We sense, not that you're weak, but that you're weakening.

Say what? Did I miss something? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I somewhat agree with what Bin Laden's saying, in that people often do prefer a strong horse over a weak one. But that's not necessarily true, as some people inherently prefer the underdog. But how on earth does that translate into Bin Laden saying that we're weakening? Am I missing something? What the hell is he talking about? Because Bin Laden says that people like strong horses means that he thinks we're weakening? Huh?

And what does he think is weakening us? What else: The people who disagree with him. The "wise men" who have different ideas of how we should deal with Iraq, Iran, and other Muslim issues. Wow, what a surprise. You'd think a Muslim extremist might cite our decadent lifestyle, heathen beliefs, or perhaps our idiot president as the thing leading to our downfall. But no. His imaginary terrorist believes our intellectuals are the problem, with their "new diplomatic offensive" and their "alternative plan for Iraq." This guy is perfect for Giuliani.

And he then ends with this teaser:
Finally, you ask us about the place of Iran's nuclear program in our vision. It's an excellent question. Unfortunately for you, Martin Kramer's time is up. We return him to you—unharmed.

Unharmed?! Argh, can't these terrorist bastards get anything right?

Breaking Story: Television News Sucks

Some fool just came into my living room (where I blog on the couch), turned on the television, and left it on CNN. Simply inexplicable. But one thing I just learned: No one will touch Giuliani on terrorism and foreign policy, because he was "America's Mayor". The blowhard anchor-type guy who said that admitted that this might be a false perception, but it is the leading perception and it's not going anywhere. I wonder why that might be...

From there, he asked his guests about topics that Giuliani might be weak on. I thought it might have been easier and more illuminating if they had just covered the reasons he should be president. I can't think of any, besides that people like this schmuck keep referring to him as "America's Mayor".

I don't know what show this is, but damn if it doesn't look like it's on the set of a sports show. The only other thing I learned from watching this show for five minutes is that this show absolutely sucks. It says CNN Headline Prime. I'll remember to avoid this forever. I'm turning the television off now. Ahh, much better.


Update: If someone on that show had delivered this line from one of TPM's readers, it would have been worth the watch:
Had the Captain of the Titanic survived we probably wouldn't have feted him as the go-to guy on iceberg defense.

But no. We just hear about how Rudy's untouchable on terrorism because God anointed him America's Mayor and blowhards tell us this makes him untouchable.

Accepting Applications

I just read an article on Jose Padilla's trial and saw a detail that I've seen before but had forgotten: A key piece of evidence against Padilla was an Al Qaeda application form that had his fingerprints, alias, and birth date. And every time I read that, I think: They have application forms? Multi-page application forms??

Doesn't that seem a bit...I don't know...weird? Or wrong? Why would they want it documented who joined them? Particularly of the sleeper cell type guys like Padilla; mightn't that blow the whole deal if someone finds the form? I guess it never occurred to me that they'd be so formal. Does the mafia have application forms? Can you submit a toughguy resume instead? It would seem to me if a murderous organization hands you an application form and you don't immediately whip out a large knife to stab the form into the table, you don't get the job. Or perhaps I just watch too many movies.

I always have some trepidation whenever I write silly stuff about Al Qaeda, as it really is a serious subject, but...application forms? Really??

Ignoring History

The ubiquitous Glenn Greenwald has a good catch from Roger Simon, pissing in his PJ's over the idea that Muslims are going to conquer America and destroy all our rights, even our right to listen to music! Why didn't anyone tell me this earlier? Looks like it's time to kill me some brown people.

As Simon describes us:
They act as if the threat is not real and is only a blip caused by a post 9/11 overreaction by George Bush, thus ignoring virtually all of Western history since the year 800, not to mention the overwhelming demographic changes of recent decades.

Virtually all of Western history for the past twelve hundred years has been about us fighting Muslims?? Really?? What history has he been reading? I guess Columbus and the discovery of the New World didn't count for anything? The Reformation and Enlightenment were just afterthoughts? It was really the Nazis and Soviets who were the historical blips? Or am I just too dumb to understand how each of these isn't directly tied to our eternal struggle with Muslims? The Napoleonic Wars, the fight over slavery, the fricking Norman Conquest of England; all minor events in our twelve hundred year struggle against Muslim tyranny? My god, where the hell has this guy been?

These fruits have always been a joke, but their tunnel-vision on finding rationalizations of their idiotic plans has really gone way too far. Is there anything they won't say? I doubt it.

Unprincipled Lectures

And all this isn't even to mention that his entire premise is wrong. Liberals aren't ignoring the threat of Islam. Sure, I guess we've been ignoring this threat of an actual invasion of America; but seeing as how terrorism really isn't much of an invading tactic, I'm not so sure we're wrong in this. But we're not allies to Muslim extremists. If he'd bother paying attention, he'd know that we're actually hostile to their anti-woman attitudes and always have been. Just as we're hostile to it in extremist conservatives.

But even that's one of the myths perpetrated against liberals; as if we're only against white male Christians who want to turn America into a theocracy. But it's not just them. We're against anyone who wants these things. The separation of church and state isn't a cheap ploy to hurt Christians. We mean it. And that's one of the underlying problems with these people: They think we're like them. They don't have principles. They don't stand for anything but themselves. For them, principles are excuses you use to push your agenda. And concepts like "freedom" are nothing more than rationalizations that are tossed away like used toilet paper as soon as they become inconvenient. And that's what they imagine we're doing, because they don't even understand what principles are.

And that's exactly how they can write complete crap, such as suggesting that virtually all history since the birth of Islam has involved us fighting off their invasion of us. Because they lack higher values that would prevent them from saying such embarrassing tripe. They'll say and do whatever they need to in order to get what they want. Because that's the only principle they understand. And so Simon dreams up this embarrassing argument, somehow imagining that it might convince anyone to switch sides and start supporting a war that is only undermining the very struggle Simon believes he's supporting.

But his war really isn't even against Muslims. His war is convincing people that he's right. And while it is quite likely that we'll finally get terrorism down to a relatively benign level (after Bush leaves office, of course); Simon will never truly prevail in his war. Some things truly are impossible, no matter how much history you're able to ignore.

The Profit Motive

One of the certainties all fiscal conservatives believe in is that government is inefficient and that the private sector can do anything better than the government. And it doesn't matter how many times this is proven to be untrue, it remains a core belief of theirs. That's not to suggest that government is always more efficient, as that'd be wrong. But there can be no doubt that government can be better at things than private industry.

And why should the private sector be more efficient? The primary thing they cite is The Profit Motive. That greed will be enough to ensure that things are done better. But how is that? I know some companies are different, but I've never worked at a place where I got any share of the profits. I've never had any incentive to do a good job, except that I have high self-esteem and like to do well at everything I do. Plus, I didn't want to be fired. And when you've got bills to pay, that's really the main motivation anyway.

And I'm sure that's how it is with most people. Even places with profit sharing are probably unlikely to see huge boosts in efficiency due to the tiny share they're likely to get. Admittedly, I'm just pulling that out of my ass, but I haven't seen anything to show that it is a huge motivator for making employees work better. And as I've learned in my CPA audit courses, it's a HUGE motivation for management to cook the books. After all, it's far easier to cook the books than to make them better legitimately.

And in many cases, the owner of a company isn't even the person doing the main work; assuming they're doing any work at all. Even small businessmen often turn the day-to-day operations over to hired hands who know more about it. And for the big corporations, it's really the company's management who calls all the shots; not the owners. As we've seen too often, Boards of Directors often don't have a damn clue as to what management is really doing, and will agree to all kinds of crazy things.

So in all these cases, it isn't strictly profits that make people work harder. People work harder so they can keep their jobs, not be harassed, and hopefully be promoted. An owner or Board of Directors will fire the top management if they believe management isn't doing a good job. And top management will fire the lower people. And they'll promote the good ones. That's how this works.

And so how is this any different with the government? If a majority of the workers aren't getting profits in any case, how is this different? The only real difference is that the people at the top aren't using profits as their measure of whether they should fire someone. They have some other motivation. But to the peon down below, this makes no difference. Fired is fired. And it's the combined effort of the workers who really make this stuff work. Sure, you've got to have smart people up top, but if the little guys aren't working, nothing gets done.

For Profits

And curiously enough, the Profit Motive is one of the reasons why government can be more efficient than the private sector. Because for the government, providing the service is enough. They've got a job and they do it. And things cost what they cost. But with for-profit businesses, that's not enough. They also have to make a profit. On top of covering all their expenses and salaries, they're expected to make an extra 10% or more. And to do that, they have to charge more than what something really costs. Rather than being the grease on the wheels, dividends and distributions are just an extra expense; sucking precious funds away from the business.

And then there's the fact that governments usually have fairly strict rules about salaries. But with the private sector, the sky's the limit. And sure, that's one reason why the private sector can attract far better people. But oftentimes, there's only so much a person can do to make things better. And as we've seen, businesses often reward poorly performing CEO's with lavish salary packages that most of us could only dream about.

And then there's the fact that the private sector won't attempt something unless they can expect to get a healthy profit at it. Like fighting poverty. If there was good money to get out of the poor, they wouldn't be poor. But I guess to conservatives, that's reason enough to believe that something shouldn't be done. If it can't make a profit, it must not be beneficial. That's yet another of those "common-sense" logic points that you just can't get passed with them.

And let's not forget that conservatives have forbidden the government from competing with the private sector in some cases, solely because the government would be able to out-perform them. That's why you can't electronically file your taxes directly with the IRS. They're not allowed to provide that service. The best they can do is to provide you links to tax software companies who will file your return for you. Because if they provided that service, they'd completely undermine an entire segment of the accounting software business, and that would be bad because...I don't know. Just bad.

And I've spoken with conservatives who insist that the government should be forbidden from performing any service that the private sector wants to engage in. But why? Because the government can do more with its vast resources and doesn't require profits to be successful. But that isn't a reason to not let them out-do the private sector. That's the exact reason they should do it.

My Career

And let me just say, I've worked for the federal government, a large city government, a private university, as well as numerous private companies; and frankly, I see no big difference between them. They all sucked my soul. I briefly worked for a booming software company in the 90's which was fairly fun to work for, but even that wasn't so different. And after the initial glow dies off, they all become the same drudgery as all the others. The cool people are much more likely to leave than the lame people, and that makes the remaining cool people want to leave. So you get stuck with the lame people, until you leave. And that's how it is everywhere.

But in all these jobs, it wasn't profits that motivated me, as I didn't get any. And the federal government has a much better scheme for rising up the ranks than many of the places I've worked for. Hell, I've never actually gotten a promotion. I had to rise up the ranks the old fashioned way: Getting a new job somewhere else. Many companies just aren't big enough to have a ladder to climb up; especially not if you're limited to accounting jobs, as I was.

And so now I'm self-employed and work out of my house. But it wasn't for the money. I could get paid far better working for someone else. I did it because I was just sick of working for someone else. And so instead of going to bed too early so I could wake up too early, I'm going to bed really, really late. And that's what I like. Anyway, I'm tired and think I've said enough. This is my witty conclusion.

Patient Americans

I'm sure you've read by now the crackpot from the Philadelphia Daily News who actually suggested that America needs another 9/11 to bring us together. And that's so obviously whack that I'm not even going to add anything to it. But one thing I wanted to point out was this insult of American "impatience" that I read about too often.

Here it is:
Most Americans today believe Iraq was a mistake. Why? Not because Americans are “anti-war.”

Americans have turned their backs because the war has dragged on too long and we don’t have the patience for a long slog. We’ve been in Iraq for four years, but to some it seems like a century…. Americans are impatient. We like fast food and fast war…. America likes wars shorter than the World Series.

Huh? Is there any country in history that really likes endless wars that waste a lot of money? Hell, England has a constitutional monarchy largely because they had too many kings who fought expensive wars that nobody wanted. And there was more than one occasion that the English got upset at kings for fighting against enemies who really were a direct threat to the survival of England. And times when their armies would just melt away against dire threats, having tired of being away from their farms too long; even though invading forces were approaching.

And Iraq isn't anything like that. Even war supporters are down to arguing that us leaving Iraq only serves as a "moral" victory for Al Qaeda, and there are plenty of arguments suggesting that this is complete baloney. The truth is that Iraq really wasn't all that important to most people. Sure, they might support a short-term engagement with few deaths and little costs. You know, the cakewalk they were promised. But the longer, deadlier, and costlier this gets, the less people will support it. It's not that Americans are impatient. It's that they're not fools.

And so it is throughout history. No country has supported endless, expensive wars without purpose. Even the Spartans would have thrown in the towel on this one. Conquering nations want their military victories to be wipe-outs. They don't want long slogs. They want for their guys to sweep in, conquer, and get the goods. Sure, they'll support a war of survival if they need to. But wars of choice better be quick, or the people aren't going to be pleased. The key to being successful militarily isn't just knowing how to win the battle. The key is knowing which ones not to fight. And this is a battle that people just don't want to fight anymore and shouldn't have been asked to support in the first place.

No Sacrifice

And it's obvious that the Bushies have always known this. Not only do they refuse to use the draft to create the army they need, they wouldn't even go so far as to ask the citizenry to make any sacrifices at all. Because they know that we just wouldn't have it. Not because we're impatient or selfish, but because we just wouldn't like this war as much if we were asked to do more about it. It was supposed to be like a spectator sport. When you go see the Yankees play, nobody asks you to make any special sacrifices. You pay for your ticket, you buy your damn hotdog, and you wait to be entertained. And that's exactly what the Bushies had in mind with this war.

And I'm sure that would all be different, were they to believe that people would really support this war. It wasn't that the Bushies were fools who didn't know that war took sacrifice. It was that they knew this war wasn't worth a sacrifice. So they wanted to use the smallest fighting force possible, for the cheapest amount the generals would let them get away with. I bet they would have gone with a platoon of Girl Scouts with pea-shooters and a credit card, had they been allowed to. Not because they were freaks who didn't know how wars were really fought and thought they could out-plan the "overly cautious" generals (though I suspect there was some of that); but because they knew people wouldn't support an expensive war with a huge army.

And they were right. And now we've sacrificed too much and people are getting damn pissed about it. I'm sure all the war supporters are privately pissing in their pants by now. Even Iron Balls Cheney himself is probably wearing the triple-ply Depends these days. This just isn't how it was supposed to go. Sure, they put on a brave face in public. But all that's just a show. They don't like how the war's going any better than we do. When Bush declared Mission Accomplished, he meant it. That's when the war was supposed to end. That's how long they wanted this to be. Just a few months, then they'd be bringing the boys back home.

By August 2007, we were supposed to be wrapping up our invasion on Iran or Syria, while they prepared for a clean sweep in the 2008 elections; not still trying to close the deal on Iraq. And if they could just make this war disappear and be done with it, they would. But they know this is their legacy, and they'll never hear the end of it if they can't wrap it up appropriately. They're not really waiting for victory. They're just trying to prevent a defeat from being hung around their necks.

And that's only the case because this war isn't that important to us. Were the Iraqi hordes swarming our beaches, I'd fight to the death to keep them out. I'm sure all of you would do the same. But fighting a war to save Bush's ass? I don't think so. Again, this isn't because Americans are different than other people and are impatient and weak. It's that we're just like everyone else and don't like our government doing dumb things. And the only reason people supported this war in the first place was because they were lied to about how dumb it really was.

Anonymous Dem v. The Suit

Not only do I not have any idea who I think will be our next president, I have no idea who I want to be president; except that it must be a Democrat. For someone who follows national politics closely, is that weird? But it's not that I dislike any of them. It's just that I know that they'll all do about the same job of cleaning up Bush's mess. And they'll all be attacked viciously every step of the way. But I see no significant difference between them, and that's a good thing.

But as I've said before, I'm fairly convinced that Mitt's going to be the Republican nominee. He's the only one that fits the suit. I'm not sure why any of the others are even trying. I found it odd that anyone tried to compete against Bush in 2000, and he didn't fit the suit at all. But Mitt's the guy they're going to lose with...I think. It'll be tough for any Republican, after what Bush did. But Mitt sure does fit the suit well.

Presidential Island Hopping

Damn, I was hoping to get this finished Thursday morning, but I got busy and so now you'll probably read this a day late.

Hey, I just found something that President Bush is really good for: Waking me the fuck up. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been posting all my stuff really, really late at night (ie, the next morning). And that means I've also been waking up pretty late too. And I've been wanting to change that, particularly now that school will be starting soon and I'll have to get my lazy kids out the door every morning. But when you don't go to bed until five in the morning, it's kind of hard to get back out of bed before eleven. Even with my alarm clock, I'll usually feel so crappy after only five hours sleep that I turn it off and go right back to sleep.

Well I just found a good way of getting up in the morning: Listening to our idiot president give a press conference; as I did this morning when my NPR station which normally plays music at that time of day had Bush on instead. There's nothing like having your head explode to help get you out of bed in the morning. It works better than coffee.

And let me just say: Wow. What an idiot. I can't remember the last time I actually heard him speak for an extended period of time, but...wow. What an idiot. The transcripts really don't do him justice. I'm not sure how anyone could ever have listened to him without thinking the same thing, but I guess that just goes to show the human capacity for fooling oneself into believing that the crap they're eating is really caviar. People can believe anything, if they want to badly enough. I learned that from Karl Rove.

Like a Child on Acid

And frankly, I don't know which part disturbs me more: When he spends all his time floating around, with no clue as to where he's going or even what his next sentence might possibly be, or when he finally does find a point of reference that is familiar to him and begins to repeat that point over and over again. Imagine someone lost at sea, and whenever they spot a piece of land they recognize, begin to circle it over and over again, happy to see any kind of land at all. Or perhaps the better equivalent is to a half-witted child who happens to make one funny joke, and then won't stop repeating it for the rest of the day. And when you don't laugh, he assumes you just didn't get it and repeats it a few more times.

And the pattern was clear. Every question was a bad question. Every question was based on a reality that Bush was simply unable to recognize. Or at least that's how it was with the three questions I endured before I finally turned off my radio alarm and bounded out of bed, more awake than I had any right to feel. And so he'd impatiently wait until the reporter finished the question, and then start on his quest to figure out how to turn the question asked into the question he wanted to have been asked. And he even failed at that, so that you never really were quite sure what question he was even wanting to answer; though you were certain he didn't answer the one given.

And it was painful to listen to him during these parts, because it was so obvious that he was lost. He'd just start rambling about something, clearly having no idea where he was going with it. And then he'd finally get to a part that he'd recognize, and he'd start sounding more confident. And then he'd start repeating that part, as if he was speaking to children who just weren't able to "get it" unless you said the same phrase five or six more times.

And even then, that wasn't good enough. He'd keep talking. And before you knew it, he was back into the weeds again, clearly out of his element and again searching for familiar turf to talk about. And he'd generally find himself back again, confidently repeating that comfortable part over and over before arbitrarily signaling that his answer was over and that he was ready for another round.

And again, that's the weird thing about Bush. For as much as his supporters talk about him being brave and resolute, he sure doesn't sound brave or resolute when he talks. He sounds like a little kid who was daydreaming when the teacher asked him a question and now he's stalling while he mentally backtracks and prays he can recall what the actual question was. But that really is the case. Except that it's not just that he's daydreaming. That's where he's at all of the time.

People refer to it as a "bubble" but I'm sure it goes deeper than that. I'm sure he's just batshit crazy; so deep into his fantasy world that he doesn't even have a clue he's there and can't figure out why the reality people talk to him about has so little relationship to the one he's living in. Sure, the faces and names are all the same, but somehow all these other people have an entirely different perspective on who those faces really are and what those names really mean. Like your crazy Aunt Millie who calls you Fred whenever she sees you and keeps asking about the dog you never had.

The Emperor Has No Accountability

At this point, I had a long section on a question he was asked about accountability, but I've now read several A-list bloggers already going over that question, so I'll just delete that part. But you can watch the clip yourself at TPM.

There, I deleted it. But my main emphasis wasn't on how dumb the answer was, but on how dumb the question was. What was the point? The reporter could have asked me the same question, and I could have said exactly what Bush said, but more succinctly. Did the reporter really think Bush would screw-up and start talking about how Cheney told him they couldn't screw-over poor Scooter, and how Gonzalez is the only guy he can trust for the job because he knew the Dems won't give him a comparable lackey? Or that he'd even admit that Al did something to be held accountable for?

Sure, Bush isn't a bright guy, but he knows how to stay in his own reality. So what was the point of the question? Bush was clearly somewhat embarrassed by it, as it had sort of an Emperor Has No Clothes quality about it. You know, because it shot right past the polite fiction the Bushies hold on all these subjects and went straight to the heart of the matter. Hell, it's the kind of stuff that real people talk about. So there was no way Bush could answer the question, so it shouldn't have been asked. Could this reporter really be in such a bubble that he thinks Bush might have actually shot from the hip on that one? Or was he merely setting up the president because he wanted his question to be quoted by all the A-list bloggers?

Tony Snow for President

On a final note, I'd just like to point out that it would probably be easier to program a computer to give intelligent responses to these questions than to try it with Bush. Seriously. All the program would need to do is to pick out a few key phrases from the question, toss out a few empty sentences to rephrase the question, and then go ahead with the answer already written on that subject. That's all Bush ever does, and he every real question asked. The computer could only be an improvement.

But is the point of these Bush press conferences? He never gives real responses. He never says anything of any importance in them. And if he did, his handlers would promptly issue retractions for anything that might have interested anyone. And seeing as how those handlers have a better grasp on this stuff than Bush anyway, those retractions would really be the correct answers.

Who cares what that buffoon says anymore? He's not calling the shots and never was. They feed him the information. They give him the limited options; one of which is set-up to be clearly superior to the others (ie, the shiny and brave one). He wouldn't even know the right questions to ask assuming he wanted to ask them. So what's the point? I have no doubt that the country would be better off if they just handed the job to Tony Snow, President Bush is nothing more than the Public Spokesman for the Whitehouse, and he isn't even good at that. We'd be better off with someone who can at least speak.


P.S. Oh damn, I just realized that they already found their Tony Snow to be the next president, and he's called Mitt Romney. From what I understand, they use his shoulders to land fighter jets on when the weather is rough. All Hail Mitt!

Listening to Rush Every Day

From an article about a 55-year-old unemployed man who has lived in a car in back of his wife's house for the past seven years:
Graham acknowledged that he watches TV, listens to music and sometimes sleeps in his blue, 1989 Buick Century. The car is parked on a concrete slab, mostly covered by a large, blue tarp that is secured with bricks and cinder blocks.

An extension cord from the house to the car provides power for a 13-inch TV, an oscillating fan and a radio.

"I get better reception there than I do in there," he said, pointing at the house. "I listen to Rush (Limbaugh) every day, just about."

I'd suggest that I may have debated this guy online on a few occasions, but I sort of doubt he has a computer. Perhaps he was at the library at the time. His neighbors supsect he uses the lawn as a toilet. Yep, sounds like your typical dittohead to me, though they usually only do that kind of thing in their neighbor's lawn and aren't quite so literal about it.

No Apologies

I'm playing electric guitar right now in your face and I won't apologize. What are you going to do about it? It's really loud.

Supply-Joke Economics

For the life of me, I can't fathom why anyone takes supply-siders seriously. Because their "theory" has no basis in reality. Now don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no doubt that a high tax rate can stifle an economy. For example, a 99% flat tax would probably be a bad idea. And I consider a 70% tax rate to be far too high and a bad idea. I mean, why should I bother risking $100,000 of my cash, when the best after-tax profit I could reasonably expect might be as high as 6% annually (that's a 20% profit, less 70% tax bill), and I could lose the whole thing. It's safer to just put it in a mattress and wait for tax rates to go down. When you only get to keep 30% of your profit, there's little point in making one.

But the main point of Supply-Side and the Laffer Curve is that there is an optimal tax rate. And that if taxes are too high or too low, you won't have optimal tax revenues. And I agree with that completely. And I can't see anyone disagreeing. Believing this doesn't make you a supply-sider. It makes you a non-moron.

If you care to disagree with me, I guess I'll debate the point with you. But be prepared to be schooled, as you can't possibly win this one. If you agree that a 99.9% tax rate would stifle our economy, then I already win the debate.

Einstein's Beetle Clock

So the real difference isn't whether tax rates can be too high, but what the rates should be. And we have no good idea on that. I'd easily say that 80% is too high and 15% is too low, but after that, we're getting into hazy territory. Especially as I doubt that the optimal rate is some fine-tuned narrow number. In fact, I'm sure there is a wide range of where tax rates could be without doing serious harm to tax revenues.

Rather than supply-side being some overriding theory of economics, it's more like a minor rule which only applies if you do really extreme things to the tax rate; like by making it 90% (which it has been in the past). And it also applies if the rate is too low; which I'm sure many supply-siders would be glad to see. But treating this as an everyday economic consideration is comparable to using Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity to readjust your car clock while driving at highway speed. Sure, the theory does apply, but only at speeds that you're unlikely to reach in your old Beetle.

And whatever the optimal rate is, I seriously doubt that minor fine-tuning to tax rates will have any significant effect on our economy. Like moving capital gains from 20% to 28%. It's quite doubtful that the 8% difference is going to dent our economy to such an extent that we'd lose more revenues than we gained from the rate increase. And I showed that to be the case in my last post. We raised the rate, the economy continued to grow, and revenues went up. Just like we always see. It's not supply-side that wants these tax cuts. It's greed.

Spending the Beast

And even the underlying principle of supply-side is entirely absurd. If "Tax & Spend Liberals" really just wanted more tax money so they could spend more of it, and lower tax rates truly did generate more revenue...then wouldn't the T&S Liberals want the lower rates? Of course they would! Conversely, if "Starve the Beast" conservatives truly wanted to starve the government of funds, wouldn't they wholeheartedly agree to adopt high tax rates, at least for a short enough period to starve off government revenues? Sure. The rich would surely have enough funds to tide them over until the drought was over, and then they'd have the smaller government they so desired.

But no. The people who want more tax revenues support higher tax rates, and the people who want lower tax revenues support lower tax rates. Just as you'd expect to see if lower tax rates generated lower tax revenues. Duh.

How conservatives get away with suggesting that lower tax rates generate more revenue while simultanously insisting that they're against government spending and want less revenue I'll never know. I guess it's because when liberals encounter proponents of this lamebrained theory they're either too dumbstruck to say anything or they relish in the details of the debate, rather than bashing the overall absurdity of the thing.

But that's what needs to be done. To laugh at these people. We just can't take them seriously. Why should we? They don't take themselves seriously. This is just yet another of their little games they like to play, to pretend that they really want higher tax revenues; when all they really want is a lower tax bill. And so they'll recite a few cherrypicked numbers that they haven't even looked at themselves and pat themselves on the back for having scored a few points.

And they'll never listen to your explanations and will insist that you're the cherrypicker. And even if you somehow get them to look at the real numbers, they'll find some reason or another to ignore them. And so why bother. Just laugh. It's all they deserve. They're not actually thinking about what they're saying, so why should we?

Smartest Boy in a Dumb, Dumb Class

Carpetbagger watched the GOP debate that I couldn't have endured, and writes this of Giuliani:
Giuliani fared well overall, just so long as facts have no meaning (he denied his own recent comments from a Charlie Rose interview on Pakistan, he exaggerated his NYC adoption numbers, and he exaggerated his role in protecting New York’s bridges). At one point, Giuliani insisted, “The last time we raised the capital gains tax, and you can go back and check it, from 20 to 28 percent, we lost $45 billion.” So, folks went back and checked it — Giuliani’s claim was completely wrong. For voters for whom facts have no meaning, he’s the ideal candidate.

And so I clicked through to read about Rudy's bogus claim, and was astounded to read this bizarro interpretation of Rudy's performance by Slate's John Dickerson:
Giuliani has a smartest-boy-in-the-class aspect not too different from the one that Republicans used to pound Al Gore. He loves to show off his smarts, dropping facts, boasting about reading the hundreds of pages in the immigration bill, and insisting that he'd not only read a book on taxation but had underlined it.

Did Dickerson watch the same debate as Carpetbagger? I suppose he did. The only difference is that Carpetbagger was rating Rudy's performance based on reality, while Dickerson was rating it based upon how things would appear to an unwitting viewer. One apparently like Dickerson himself. And yet, why did he even bother to fact check Rudy at all?

Dickerson went on to say:
But in an otherwise politically effective defense of tax cuts Sunday, he appears to have botched his facts. He claimed that when the capital gains rate was increased to 28 percent from 20 percent, revenues decreased by $45 billion. If he's talking about the 1986 increase, they didn't. Giuliani boasted, "You go back and check it," but his campaign couldn't find the supporting data. An aide says he may have misspoke, meaning instead to have said revenues decreased 44 percent. That's closer to the truth but still distorts the case by cherry-picking the data.

But why does Dickerson stop there? I clicked through to his numbers, and see that 44% still was far from the truth. The real number was 36.3%, a difference of over $4 billion from what Rudy's campaign correction was, and $25.8 billion off from Rudy's original claim. In fact, Rudy's "go back and check it" fact suggested that capital gains tax revenues dropped from $52.9 billion to $7.9 billion in one year; a complete absurdity. The actual drop was only $19.2 billion, not $45 billion. And this is the guy Dickerson would have us believe looks like the "smartest boy in the class"?

Rudy's Just Wrong

And even Rudy's basic point is entirely wrong: higher Capital Gains tax rates don't seem to have a detrimental effect on tax revenues. Sure, Capital Gains Revenue did drop $19.2 billion from 1986 to 1987, when the tax rate went up. But that's because Capital Gains were super-high in 1986, having gone up $155.7 billion from 1985. And that's most likely because tax accountants knew that the rate was going up in 1987 (along with many other significant tax changes), so they wanted to cash-in their gains during the more favorable period. And that looks to be the case because the pre-1986 Capital Gains were comparable to post-1986 Capital Gains.

So Rudy's bogus number relied entirely on a single freak occurrence. As proof of that, I'll note that Capital Gains averaged $145 billion in the three years before 1986, compared with $155 billion after 1986. And the 1986 Capital Gains were over $327 billion. So unless we're to believe that there was something magical about the 20% Capital Gains tax rate in 1986 that didn't apply to the prior years, I'd say Rudy's point is entirely wrong.

Even more so, Capital Gains tax revenue averaged $22.2 billion for the three years before 1986, and averaged $35.9 billion for the three years after 1986. Overall, the three years after 1986 brought in over $41.2 billion more in tax revenue than the three years preceding 1986. That would entirely refute Rudy's point. Tax revenues went up due to the higher tax rates, just as you'd expect to see.

But it wasn't just 1986. Looking over the 50-year tax chart Dickerson linked to, there doesn't seem to be any real relationship between the Capital Gains tax rate and Capital Gains. While there is fluctuation, it follows the general economic flows; which don't seem to be based on the tax rate. And while there is a relation between tax rates and tax revenue, it's the one you'd expect to find. The higher the tax rate, the more revenue you get. No duh. It doesn't appear that people are willing to forgo making large amounts of money in order to avoid tax payments. And that would again be a "duh" moment.

Missing the Picture

And let's face it, Giuliani did not wade through all these charts, crunch the numbers, and make some sort of error in arithmetic. He was given a list of factoids to repeat during the debate and just happened to repeat a bad one. Does this make him less presidential because he repeated a bad factoid? Had he not flubbed that one factoid, would Dickerson have anointed him Chief Smart Guy? Why? Because he could memorize a few facts? Is that really the standard we should be going by?

But that's the thing, politicians aren't supposed to be the experts. They're supposed to be Big Picture guys who hire the right experts. And whether or not Rudy flubbed this factoid, he's clearly got the wrong experts. The factual slip-up isn't the problem. The problem was that he was trying to make it in the first place. It wasn't the fact he flubbed. He's got the wrong Big Picture. And whether or not he sounds like he knows what he's talking about, it's pretty obvious that he never really will.

Moreover, was there any nominee on that stage who wouldn't have gladly used that factoid, had they believed they wouldn't be fact-checked on it? Iraq and the "War on Terror" are pretty touchy subjects for Republican politicians to be truthful about. But supply-side economics? What was once derided as "Voodoo Economics" by Bush Sr. is now considered gospel by the Republican base. You'd be better off questioning Jesus' resurrection than to question supply-side economics with many of these people.

Dittoing Carpetbagger

So what should Dickerson have done? I mean, most of the folks watching that debate weren't likely to learn how wrong Rudy was. So in a sense, Dickerson was just reporting what most people would have taken from that debate: That Mr. Fact Check Giuliani really knows his stuff. And Dickerson did fact-check one item of Rudy's. Isn't that enough?

And the answer is simple: He should have written what Carpetbagger wrote. If a candidate is tossing out bogus facts, it should be an objective reporter's duty to report that the candidate was being bogus. And if Dickerson was being subjective, he had even more a duty to this. Instead, he left the impression that Rudy is quite knowledgeable, but got one fact wrong. Perhaps he doesn't know any better and really thinks Rudy nailed it. But if that's the case, then he shouldn't be writing at all. There are too many knowledgeable writers out there for us to bother with the unknowledgeable ones. It's guys like Dickerson that allow candidates like Giuliani get away with what they do. Democracy deserves better.

And that should be the real report. Not that Rudy is the smartest boy in a dumb class, but that Rudy doesn't know what he's talking about and has no problem faking it. And if I were Rudy's opponent, that's exactly what I'd nail him for. And no, "cherry-picking" is not the word I'd use to describe Rudy's deceit. I'd nail him for being a phony using the horror of 9/11 for his personal benefit. That's the way it works. He's counting on phony factoids and 9/11 to support his candidacy, so you've got to cut his legs right out from under him. And the best part about it, it's the truth. And that seems to be Rudy's biggest weakness.

I Am SOOOO Serious. No Really, I Am. I Swear.

If anyone stated their intention to blow-up the Vatican if the US won't leave Iraq, isn't that a terrorist threat that would justify tough actions on our part? The kind of thing that gets you "disappeared" into Eastern European CIA prisons that don't exist? Yet isn't that the exact equivalent to what whackjob Tom Tancredo is doing, when he says we need to explicitly state our willingness to blow-up Mecca if Muslims attack us? Civilians are just not considered valid targets, even if your own citizens have been attacked. And the use of threats against civilians to scare them is the very essence of terrorism.

But as I said in the last post, I think this is just more tough-guy posturing and not a real policy. Maybe Tancredo is as insane as he suggests he is, but I don't think so. I believe that a President Tancredo (god forbid!) would not actually nuke Mecca, were Muslim terrorists to attack us. I think he's just trying to send a message, similar to keeping the Nuke Pakistan option "on the table". As TPM noted in that link, a Tancredo advisor defended his statement saying it "shows that we mean business."

And that's one of the weird things about the rightwing foreign policy these days: It's ALL about sending messages. But it's not really about doing things or having real solutions. It's all about showmanship, marketing, and acting tough. Even our invasion of Iraq is expressed in terms of sending messages. Whether it was sending a message that America will unilaterally attack anyone we want, or sending a message that we won't back down from Al Qaeda; it's all about the message, not the actions themselves. Because leaving Iraq sends the wrong message, they won't even consider it an option and will attack anyone who does.

And it's not just foreign policy. This is exactly how they got into power and all they seem good at: Bullshitting other people into giving them the power they don't really have. But what they fail to grasp is that while domestic politics are largely perception-based (until it's time to pay the bills), foreign policy is not. No longer is it about fooling the rubes with sleight-of-hand and fake news. It's about BS-ing world leaders, most of whom only retain power due to their own intellect and cunning abilities. Even wackos like Kim Jong-Il will be surrounded by cunning people who understand how the world works. That's how they stay alive and in power. This is all just a game for people like Cheney and Rove. But when you work for a dictatorial madman, your life is on the line with every piece of advice you give. So you better be good at it.

And so their eternal bullshit and messaging just doesn't cut it in the real world. But they still fail to grasp this. Somehow, with Iraq still not going as they had fantasized it would, they still believe that messaging is enough. It's all about propaganda and acting tough, and they continue to insist that liberals are causing us to lose in Iraq because we send the wrong message. It's like reality doesn't exist for these people. It's all about perceptions. It's all about the message.

The Wrong Words

And I note this same thing from a Lieberman interview:
JL: I worry that whoever gets the Democratic nomination will have a hard time scampering back to assure people that they're prepared to take on the Islamist extremists and [any] other nation that threatens our security.
WS: Turning to another thing --
JL: They don't use that. You'll have to check it. But they don't use the term "Islamist extremism" or "Islamist terrorism" in the debates.

And so in Lieberman's world, the Dems are going to have a hard time assuring people we can handle terrorism, simply because they fail to use a specific phrase in their debates. It doesn't matter if they have good policies. All that matters is that they use the correct phrases. It's all about words for these people. And if Dems aren't willing to use those phrases, they're harming our policies and aren't serious. Somehow, they fail to grasp that they're the ones harming our policy, by making dumb threats they won't follow-up on and relying too heavily on phrases, rather than actions.

And of course, words won't stop terrorism. Nor are they intended to. Conservatives use these phrases as code-words to beat Democrats with. As Lieberman made clear, Dems will be attacked for not using the phrase "Islamist terrorism". But if they use that phrase, then they've already lost half the battle for defeating these nimrods and their dangerous policies. And that's the whole point. But while phrases like "Islamist terrorism" probably test well with American focus groups, it only makes Muslims distrust us more and can only make terrorism worse. Al Qaeda isn't afraid of American threats against Muslims. They're counting on them.

And in this case, I don't know which is worse: That we're scaring other countries into being more hostile towards us, or that they'll take us as empty blowhards who can't follow-up on our tough talk. And most likely, they'll do both. They'll feel threatened by us and not take our threats seriously. There's nothing worse than being known as a bad bluffer, and with Bush having exposed the limits of our military might, we're giving other countries every reason to defy us. And that's just bad policy.

Taking the Serious Person Award Off the Table

How is it that the adult and serious “Foreign Policy Community” seems so entirely silly? I’m thinking right now of the phrase “On the table”, as in when Obama did or did not suggest that nuking Pakistan was “on the table”. And this whole debate is silly, as it revolves entirely around the meaning of that phrase. Specifically the Foreign Policy experts take that phrase as meaning whether you would consider an action as any possibility. And that if you say that something is "off the table" that means you wouldn't consider it under any circumstance.

But that's not what that phrase means, and that's an entirely dumb interpretation. An interpretation that has been purposefully dumbed-down by the war-hawks, as a way of cowing non-war-hawks into also agreeing that these seriously dumb ideas are "on the table". And I suspect that this is the main problem with the "Foreign Policy Community", whoever they are. Because that community is unofficially chaired by war-hawks, and anti-war people are automatically excluded. So to be considered "serious" on foreign policy by these people, you either have to support war or admit that you'd be willing to support war under almost any circumstance. And that's kind of a loaded deck to use as a starting position of foreign policy. In essence, our foreign policy has been hijacked by the war-hawks.

But here's a good definition of what that phrase really means:
1. if a plan or offer is on the table, it has been officially suggested and is now being discussed or thought about. The offer on the table is an 8% increase on last year's wages. At 6 p.m. on Thursday 29 April, a new deal was put on the table.
2. if a plan is on the table, no one is dealing with it at present but it has not been completely forgotten. The committee agreed to leave the option to build a stadium in the city on the table.

See what I mean? If something is "on the table" it doesn't just mean that it's a possible option. It means that it's an official option that is being considered. And so if something is "off the table" that just means that it's not being discussed. But that doesn't mean that you're completely ruling it out or announcing that you won't use it. It just means that you're not talking about it.

And we all know what this means. If you're watching a movie and a character sets his gun on the table, he's making a statement to the other people at the table. Sure, he had the gun on him the whole time. But when he sets his gun on the table, he's clearly making a threat. It's not as threatening as him pointing it at the people he's sitting with, but it's not too far from that. You put your gun on the table to send a signal. And that's exactly how it works in foreign policy too. Everyone knows we have nukes. It's not really a secret. But saying they're "on the table" is clearly an explicit threat. And nobody likes to be threatened.

And the Award Goes To...Idiots

But what makes the Foreign Policy Community so silly isn't just that they misinterpret this phrase so entirely, but that they make such a big deal over phrases like this. For them, you are immediately considered "unserious" and a menace to our foreign policy if you don't use this specific phrase against any enemy they deem a threat. Who cares what your actual policy is. They insist that you say that everything is "on the table". So the fact that they have the phrase wrong is just the icing on their phrase-based idiocy.

But as I said, this isn't all of them being idiots. The more hawkish ones want this confusion. This isn't a mistake on their part. They really do want our nuclear threat to be expressed explicitly. They are making threats. And they want the world to feel threatened by us. And so they've used their position of power to force the rest of the Foreign Policy "experts" to adopt their usage, even though they don't mean it the way that hardliners do.

And so the idiots are the less hawkish members who adopt the framework of the hawks, but only as a means of aiding their resume. So that they can burnish their credentials with the prized "Serious Person" label that the Foreign Policy community only hands out to those willing to adopt their framework. I'm thinking of Hillary Clinton and that type. The ones who now regret their actions regarding our war in Iraq, but who are setting themselves up to make the same mistakes over and over again, if only to retain their title as Serious Person.

And that plays exactly into the hands of the hardliner hawks and seriously completely undermines a non-war-based foreign policy. I seriously doubt that Hillary truly thinks nuking Pakistan is a real option right now, but that won't stop her from using a phrase which tells Pakistan that she's considering it. Sure, she's using the hardliner's misinterpretation of that phrase, but it would seem that Pakistan is still using the original meaning and will react accordingly.

And so here we have Clinton, and apparently Obama, fighting each other over whether we should make explicit threats against an ally. And all because the hardliners altered the meaning of one phrase. And these are the people we call "serious". Great.

Fear-Mongering

It would be seriously detrimental to you if I went into any details (and trust me, I have more details than even I want to know), but it's extremely crucial that you give me your house keys, car keys, and important banking information. I've said too much already. Just leave all of this at your doorstep tonight and stay in a hotel until you hear otherwise. Trust me. I'd like to tell you more, but you'll be glad I didn't. And for god's sake, don't turn around!

Bush's One Trillion Dollar Plan

Guest Post by Doctor Snedley, Personal Assistant to Doctor Biobrain

Jesus, you just can't please liberals. On that fateful and holy day of September 11, when Muslims worldwide demonstrated that our borders and oceans provided us no protection from their horde invasion, thus giving liberals their big chance to toss up their hands in mass surrender, exactly one trillion dollars in damage was inflicted upon us. This left our resolute leader George W. Bush with only one option: Revenge, equal and opposite to that which was inflicted upon us.

And what could be more opposite from our enemies causing us one trillion dollars in damage, than for us to spend one trillion of our own money attacking people who hadn't attacked us? That seems pretty straight forward and is perfectly in line with what President Bush had explicitly stated as his underlying super-secret message that only us loyal Americans could decipher and not reveal until it became convenient to do so. That's obvious.

And so that's what we did. As Tony Snow tried to explain to the insulting dunderheads who refuse to accept reality:
Asked today about a new Congressional Budget Office report that puts the price tag of the war on Iraq at more than $1 trillion, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said: “Well, if you take a look at what happened on September 11th, 2001, it’s estimated that the aftershocks of that could have cost up to $1 trillion.”

Well, duh! The logic of this is perfectly obvious to anyone who remains unblinded by irrational Bush Hatred. But libs just aren't big on the obvious and are now attempting to obfusicate the matter by pretending as if this one trillion dollar war is somehow a mistake. As if we hadn't started this war with the explicit plan to spend one trillion dollars and force Muslims out of their sleeper cells to kill thousands of our troops. I mean, how else would things have turned out this way, if Bush hadn't planned it as such? Do they think we're just making this shit up as we go along? As if...

And it worked perfectly. Thanks to Bush's plan, there are now millions more Muslims who have been lured out into the open to make explicit their undying hatred of us; thus giving us the justification we needed to invade. And had we followed Lord Michael Moore's plans, we'd still be naively unaware of this hatred and our enemies would still pretend to like us. Just think about that. Bush didn't create Muslim hatred for America. He just made them more willing to do something about it. And for that, we all owe him a big debt of gratitude.

Damned If You Do

And as I said, you just can't please these people. Because for as much as they rant about the expense of this war, they also rant about how Republicans spend our money domestically. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They don't want us spending this money to establish democracy in a place that lacks the infrastructure for democracy, and they don't like us giving it away to our political and financial benefactors. What's a man to do?

I mean, where do they think this one trillion would have gone, had we not poured it into Iraq? We could have given a long overdue taxcut to the unfortunate individuals forced to pay the majority of our tax bill, but they would have complained about tax "give-aways" to the rich. Or we could have earmarked it to the super-secret defense contractors that buy us our homes, yachts, and hookers, but they would have complained about that. Or we could have just given it outright to the free-market heroes sponsoring our political campaigns at a rate of $1 for each $100 they receive, but they would have complained about that.

In fact, they would complain about where we put any of this trillion dollars, short of just giving it to poor blacks and illegal immigrants. So they would have used it for the same purpose we do: Buying votes. Damn hypocrites!

Supporting the Troops

And let's not forget about where a big part of that money went: The troops. That's right. A lot of our military guys got a big ol' payraise thanks to being in a warzone, and that's not to mention all the free meals and enhanced medical care we provided to them. And how about all the Reservists and National Guardsmen receiving a veritable mint thanks to Bush's awesome plan. By sending them to war, we not only gave them a purpose in life, we gave them cash. And I don't hear no one complaining about that from my accepted news sources.

And so that's what this is really all about. The hypocrite libs just don't like the idea that we're giving away all this money to the brave men and women protecting our borders. The idea that even a cent of this money isn't being funneled directly to illegal immigrants and welfare queens must drive them wild. Much better to give money to ol' Jose Gringo than to the people putting their lives on the line to protect our nation. Disgusting!

So I say Bully to Bush, for devising such a brilliant plan and for not kowtowing to the liberals demands that we funnel our hard earned money into Mexico. Those terrorists caused one trillion dollars of damage to us, and I'm sleeping easier knowing that Bush helped burn through another one trillion to avenge their evil deeds. Hell, let's just throw another trillion into the mix. That'd be just another trillion we'd be keeping out of the hands of those Tax & Spend liberals. Let them use their own money to buy votes. We've got a few minarets to blow-up. Yee-haw!

Incentivizing Wellness

Wow. I just read at Carpetbagger’s that Giuliani has come up with a great idea to solve our healthcare problem: Provide incentives for people to not get sick. That’s right. He nailed the problem on the head with this one.

I quote:
Currently, he said, “there is no incentive to wellness.”

Of course! Because under the current system, people don’t care if they get sick at all. They stand out in the cold rain, eat rotten chicken, and be born with a predisposition for cancer and other inherited diseases. And why? Because they know that Big Daddy Insurance will take care of everything and make them all better.

But if we sweetened the pot a little bit, like say by giving people a $15,000 tax break for their own healthcare, why, people would finally have some reason for not getting diabetes and heart disease. Heck, it might be enough that I decide to stop being morbidly obese! And to think, I was just about to have my doorways widened.

The details on how this tax break provides any incentive is still a bit sketchy, as people wouldn’t be keeping any of this money for themselves. And if it were really possible to just decide to stay healthy, people would simply not buy any insurance at all. Why pay $15k for health insurance for a meager tax savings, when you could save the whole amount? That’s what the uninsured already do, which is why they’re uninsured. So it sounds as if this would really just be a small subsidy for people who were already paying for their own insurance, while doing nothing for those who couldn’t afford it in the first place.

But whatever. The devil is always in the details, and I hate the devil. All I care about is that someone is finally making it advantageous to stay healthy, and I like it. I think I’ll avoid getting that leprosy after all.