Causality loops are rarely entertaining. We can all recall a variety without much trouble, of course. The most famous are of the closed loop sort. You know, something must have actually have happened in the past for a future person or event to recognize and change the past.
Then there are the more entertaining kinds. Here, a future persona wants to reach back and change what was to create a new future, and risk an entirely fresh and different future *now*. Skynet was one of these bad boys.
Believe it or not, we see Annapolis and Cher Condi’s empty dance as another feeble attempt to break into an existing causality loop. It’s particularly noteworthy because (a) she’s clueless about the temporal mechanics involved; (b) U.S. power and prestige are at historic lows; (c) Olmert has shown no willingness to risk political damage at home; (d) and so on. It can really have only one outcome.
For months self-interested institutions and people have been fluffing this conference with astonishing gusto. A couple of invites to gabfests had so many “formers” listed we thought at least 1/2 had already passed. Same with TV — the mere menition of the syllables “A NA PA” and we’re on another channel.
Those who flew to the U.S. for the event naturally have a greater investment: communiques, pictures, and it may be the last time to see if a quarter really can be bounced off Cher Condi’s backside per the recent biography. Nikolas Gvodsev sees progress here. Why Gvodsev is surprised to see the racial/militarist origins of Jabotinsky, BETAR, Irgun, Likud and now Kadima express itself via Olmert? Musings on that perhaps away another day.
We do, however, suspect Nikolas may have also liked “Matrix Reloaded”. It’s just a guess.
Comment says
Worse than jail, the coup the grace would be a documentary about Conrad featuring Kissinger talking to the camera and telling everyone Conrad felt unloved and that was the source of his neurosis and why he failed to listen to Dr. K advoce, but that Jerry Bremer, his younger employee, won the Medal of Freedom because he was willing to let his friends and family support him emotionally.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Agree that it is too late for Conrad to start sporting a Che t-shirt, but travesty of prosecuting such modest sums (and with Martha) while Jerry Bremer et al. lost billions in the wind truly boggles the mind.
Anon says
Quiescent before the Iraq war and NAFTA, the liberal media begins to awaken:
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/racists_polluting_my_race_scie.php
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/11/in_which_we_smoke_weed_with_sn.html
A Random Quote says
“I can hardley wait for Rudy [to debate] – I will eat him alive [cheers].”
~Joe Biden 11-29-07
DNC speech
A Random Quote says
“Iranians have a lot of other qualities that are not discussed in the US media. They revere their poets and their ancient Persian history and are careful to distinguish themselves from Arabs.”
~Hanna Rebecca Lundqvist
HuffPo 11-29-07
Anon says
Correction – it was not really the indictment that contained false piety. In fact, that was rather spare. But the prosecutors sounded some false notes when they talked to the jury. At the time, we thought they were bungling a bit.
Anon says
re Booming Ireland – Interesting to see a small gaffe in the Murdoch papers – As they catalogue Erin’s glories, they refer to a booming trade surplus. Trade surplus? That concept is sneered at in the WSJ and on FNC – Maybe they think it’s only important for little picture countries that don’t have to wage battle with Arabs.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/europe/article2917976.ece
Anon says
re Conrad – Something is fishy about this probationers report filed with the court – It contains what seems to be soundbites, which is unusual for that kind of thing. Anyway, Conrad should STFU and tell Steyn to stifle for a while – for his own good. We think he really hurt himself when he called the prosecutors Nazis. Black is never without insights though – he is lately referring to the “false bourgeois pieties” in the UK press. It’s probably too late for Black to go into and come out of a Marxist phase, but there was something about his indictment that contained false bourgois piety and his attorneys failed to exploit that with a jury that may have been receptive to it.
Anon says
We’re hardly pro Rudy, but we have been surprised to see this recent transit funding story have legs. We think we read pretty much most of this story in parts, several years ago. So is it really a scoop? Sometimes we are surprised by what hurts a pol and what does not:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003679459
Anon says
LOL – Let them cry foul! As an aside – we thought that young woman with the granny glasses asking the abortion question was a plant, but we doubt CNN picked up on that. We mentioned earlier our pleasure at the bible question. We see Andy Card and others starting to cry. Let’s see more, inshallah!
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/talkradio/transcripts/Transcript.aspx?ContentGuid=1d46007f-df8c-4136-9eb2-68ab46b9f172
A Random Quote says
“I only have the background in two areas: publishing and finance – I think I could return to finance. I mean, this is not a difficult area to make money in.”
~Conrad Black 11-30-07
Comment says
Taibbi probably really annoyed Tom Friedman. God bless him for that, if so. Friedman is still a big problem. Richard Harding Davis was a more interesting writer, but Friedman is derivative of that tradition.
There’s a lot wrong with the elite media – Taibbi’s comment about Candy Crowley was harsh harsh harsh. But it was , unfortunately, a bit illuminating.
Comment says
Barack just gave a good speech at the DNC. He’s getting better. His wife was pretty good on the stump recently. Last night she gave a pretty unusual speech extoling her blue collar backround and he Dad’d ability to pay for Princeton on a working class wage. It’s very hard for a political figure to give this kind of speech without seeming annoying, but she pulled it off. She’s a bit intense and she probably scares some of the press
Dr.LeoStrauss says
Great Taibbi quote . . .
Aldershot says
If you have no real knowledge or skill set and you’re lazy and full of shit but you want to make a decent wage, then journalism’s not a bad career option. The great thing about it is that you don’t need to know anything.
-Matt Taibbi
Anon says
Interesting Taibbi interview. Freidman etc
http://campusprogress.org/5mw/2226/interview-matt-taibbi
Anon says
We read Primar Colors when it came out and we tried to guess the author etc — We enjoyed that book very much. So we have been saddend to see Klein decline in real time since then. As a novelist Klein knows names are important for story telling, so it’s fitting, in a way, that his name literally means Little Joe. He wants so much to be ‘serious’ and liked by people who could care less. It’s a shame
We see people are catching on:
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001785
Comment says
Condi does reflect the times – One of her bio writers said that tonight, but he seemed to think that was what was fascinating about her. In actuality, that’s what bores us and surprised us. If you look are her long list of experiences and associations and degrees and travel etc and you did not know her, you would expect great and fascinating words to flow from her. But they don’y and that’s the interesting story. Why is someone who should be great, not great? Why do people pretend not to notice – These are interesting questions.
Dr.LeoStrauss says
Great, after all, is ultimately ambiguous. Great disaster. Great disappointment. Great vapidity.
Condi is merely a mirror for our times, outting fellow shallow thinkers and those with the ‘souls of staffers’.
Comment says
re Condi – We find the coverage of her annoying on the NewsHour. The establishment media ‘clearly’ want everyone to give Condi points for putting on a nice circus in Annapois. Comment wishes Condi well and we long hoped that she would live up to her promise, but we became disillusioned early on with her less than honest performances before Congress and then watching her razz ma taz followed by no concrete agreement, time after time. Yet – everyone is supposed to agree that she just accomplished something – But that was all razzmataz. We have often criticised the Israeli leadership, but we cannot think of a good reason why they would make an agreement with Abbas. Maybe they have their reasons, but we think they are just playing games and they would never make the necessary sacrifice now and Abbas is just useful to them.
So why does Liz Bumiller say Condi could go downs as a great Secy of State? Why? Whys is Condi “serious”? Why does Dubya get to get away with this stunt?
Comment says
We see Abbas praising Condi on the dais – Abu Mazan at his waxing moment – Wouldn’t it have been great to grill Abbas on his holocaust denial when he was up there with Condi. Make him reply to his quotes with all the Arab and Israeli media etc. The Bush people would freak out, but it would be hilarious and expose the fraudulance and hypcracy of the whole circus.
Comment says
McCain’s moment has past. Bush did him in 2000 and now he’s basically like just tooling around. He thinks the “surge” has succeeded in the same way that we gained control of Central Highlands and we had the VC on the run etc. It’s all strategically irrelevant since the surge has failed to create a political opening. We believe this is intentional and we have long believed that Bush has failed on purpose many times because they want a permanant presence. But it’s impossible to argue this in today’s climate because you have to pretend there is no darkness at the core of Bush’s program.
Comment says
Of small interest is the divergence in coverage of the debate from places like Tweety show and the NewsHour and other news outlets – On the NewsHour and other news outlets, when they show Ron Paul responding to St. John the Hothead – they show the part when he says, correctly so, that he gets the most money in donations from military officers. This is something that is true and interesting in a limited by real way. It raised questions and it’s a surprise to many in the media. But Tweety and the other cable shows edit out that point, and replace it with a weaker Paul line. It’s obviously done on purpose because these supposedly anti war types like Tweeety loath Paul and worship Saint John and Rudy. We think Rudy was the objective winner because Huckabee’s emergence serves to hurt Mitt, but Huckabee is not plausible.
Comment says
Romney’s Comstock on Carlson not doing a good job defending Mitt. Carlson’s obnox attitude re illegals signifies he is not a “serious” person, as the neocons say. Amazing how all these people give Huckabees rancid populism a pass – with his pardon of W. Dumond, a killer. All because Dumond was a cause celeb with lower elements of the VRWC.
Comment says
Hardball reviewing the debate tonight – Body language experts etc. Pretty much what you’d expect. Wretched stuff.
Comment says
Dok, we just read Lind’s column – we think you disagree with his speculation, but what’s up with “Tea Lady” = we missed that. What does that mean? One point about Lind’s column that annoyed (nitpicking) was his misuse of the word paraphrase at the end of the column. Interesting – Jonah also misused it the same way. No big deal, we often misuse words and misspe.ll. But that paraphrase thing bugs us for some reason.
Anon says
We’re generally the type influenced by such stories in the link above. But it’s just not fair, is it? The vast incarceration community is loaded with people who are innocent or lack good representation. Some stole ten dollars.
Anon says
Get your hankie out and shed a tear for a man with the best set of letters since The Libby Letters:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071129.wblack29/BNStory/International/home
We have mixed feeling because we believe many people have too harsh sentences. But we were annoyed by Steyn’s unmanly defense (which expressed the Black pov).
Comment says
Now is a perfect time to give a major speech about immigration – She should both blame Bush and take responsibility for her and her Dem colleagues mistakes. She has a short window to reframe
Anon says
Good news – NROs “The Corner” is especially neurotic covering the debate. It’s a funny read Doc – Some good KLO moments and our favorite Burkean, Jonah Goldberg, makes a bit of a fool of himself. But we also liked the fact that Boatload O’Beirn also objected to Tom Foreman –
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzA4NzIzNDI1NDJiYzY5ODk4MWE5NGVmZThjNmI3N2I=
Comment says
“Thrice” is a Biblical term, according to Tweety. Maybe if you’re a King James literalists and don’t know that Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek. But lately Tweety has been saying a lot of weird things that sound odd coming from someone who is supposedly jesuit schooled (as gets honor degrees from Fordham and Holy Cross, yikes!) He praises McCain and Huckabee by comparing them to Luther – now “Thrice.” Talk about freak shows.
Comment says
Tweety – “It’s always nice to wear a crewneck sweater when you’re being nasty” So says Tweety re some mild critiques offered by Mitt against Rudy. When Rudy quoted Boston’s Murdoch paper, Tweety smiled. He’s pathetic with his bias and the way he tries to back away from it awkwardly when his emotional for Rudy overcomes him.
Tweet is often wrong – We would not be surprised to find out that Mitt’s crewneck sweater was a coincidence – But Tweety just repeats his own mental barf as if it was a fact. Tweety is a bit of a menace. He misquotes people all the time and never apologizes. He injects lots of falsehoods into the memespere – bad ones. Now he is begging for Colleen Smile to do one of her chicklit hit jobs on a Dem.
Comment says
Ok – last comment, we promise. We just listened to the CNN and panel and Toobin referred to that Paul N. American Hwy that we referred to above. Obviously Toobing alluded to it in a spirit of total scorn aimed at Paul. Campbell Brown beamed a smile as Paul was attacked.
We knew this would happen and that’s just another reason why we mentioned it and wished Paul would STFU about these freak-magnet topics.
But maybe we are wrong – we want to Paul to talk about the war and civil liberties. But maybe that would just doom his potential Rudy-wrecker 3rd party possibility (which he danced around with a non denial denial that few noticed)
As a point of accuracy and media sociology – Toobin was factually incorrect when he said Paul said this was a secret highway and secret conspiracy – In fact, Paul said it was the open ideology of the establishment groups – True, some of Paul’s followers talk about secret cabals etc – But Paul did not.
So why did Toobin say something false about Paul? We don’t think Toobin lied – but he is a media snob and he loathes outsiders like Paul’s following. There is a bipartisan media bias against freaks following of Paul and Nader – So if we had to guess, we would say Toobin just mixed up in his mind what some Paul follower said and he has such contempt for the Paulies that he just didn’t bother to sort it out in his own (“who are these people?!?!”) mind.
Bennett was restrained re Paul because he probably senses he’d be harassed by email if he said anything. LOL
We doubt other “serious” candidats would ever be held accountable to weird things emanating their following, such as it is.
Comment says
One more point about Foreman and his annoying inaccurate “keeping them honest” segment – He is very deceptive they way he implies Rudy and Mitt has similar roles re immigration. Romney had zero control over what somem city in Mass declared – It’s federal law, by the way, that counts – Rudy was outspoken in favor of a liberal policy. So cut the crap Foreman. Also – Paul did have 5000 people at the event according to news accounts. He has every right to use that number. Foreman can protest, but he has no basis. Ah – just so annoying.
Comment says
Huckabee gets good press, but he has a greater freak show following than Paul. His rancid populism and his awshucks smile is the perfect mix for the liberal media to adopt as a pet right winger. Rudy likes him to undermind Mitt. That colossal schmuch Chris Matthews compares him to Martin Luther (lots to mine there) one day and attacks him the next.
Huckabee is running for Preacher In Chief and it’s really not a good thing in the balance. Incidentally, Comment is no Bible expert, but we caught Huckabee in error a while back. We can’t recall what it was – it was something small, from Exodus. We’ll have to check our memory and get back to y’all on that.
Small not on weapons – Comment is middle of the road on gun issues. We are in symp with NRA on some issues, but some of those gun questions seemed to come from psychos. Rudy wanted to say that, but he bit his tongue.
Comment says
Comment likes Ron Paul raising issues and making people uncomfortable – We agree with him on the current war and the next war. But damm, we wish he would stop talking about this North American Highway. We favor working towards a soft integration of the N. American economy and we believe in investing heavily in Mexico, etc. And we angree that some elements of the corporate elite want to do this as quietly and as deceptively as possible because they suspect opposition would arise- so they want to create facts etc. Jean Monet was the model – But this is all such a freak show magnet. On the other hand Paul gets a lot of money and support from freaks. The other candidates have a freak show following too, but it’s more hidden.
Comment says
Bennett also took a swipe at Rudy’s family values – Bennett was in a quandry – He knows he lacks standing, as a chickenhawk, to attack St. John directly for supporting laws againt torture. But Bennett is generally on the pro torture side – It’s probably rooted in some demented misunderstanding of his trying to reconcile Kant or Plato with whatever demented thoughts he used to have during Vietnam before he converted to conservatism (he has several conversion stories that conflict) shortly after the draft ended. So he probably is receptive to some sort of pro torture argument from Podhoretz (“squeeze them”), Jack Bauer, Franco, de Maestra, Torquemada, and general talk radio ethos.
Comment says
Foreman is like Daily Show send up of a pompous jackass news presenter – Complete with the error laden delivery and the smug tone, he does those annoying back and forth head movements. His errors were so annoying tonight because they were the type of nuanced errors that greatly affect the debate in the land, but are hard to get corrections for on the recorf. If pressed, he’ll just issue a Joe Klein style apology – Why do these media clowns kiss the asses of Republicans who hate them?
Comment says
Someone fire that jackass Tom Foreman – His dumb news presentation is stupid and delivered in a slow condescending voice. But he comes on tonight to give his “keeping them honest” segment and just makes factual errors – He implies falsely that waterboarding’s status is legally debatable and he then indicates that it matters that the Admin thinks terrorists should not be coverd by Geneva – He never mentioned that the Supreme Ct settled that question, leaving viewers with a false impression. Then he does this with a Sanjay Gupta – type of smugness. What a horror show! Keeping them honest. These people are awfull – We never saw Michael Moores movie and we imagine it was open to attack and critique, but CNN ran a dishonest “keeping them honest” segment against Moore which was quickly disproved and made Moore look like victim.
This is what happens when people try to show “both sides” and lack the ability. Foreman just had to say something, so he made s*** up/
Comment says
Interesting to hear St. John’s revisionist account of Vietnam war era communism – Now he says the communists wanted to stay in Vietnam to build a “workers paradise,” but as recently as a few years ago the standard Republican script was that we had to fight them (the communists) over there (Nam) so we wouldn’t have to fight them door to door in California.
This illustrates what Alexander Hamilton would call the GOPs womanish attitude toward war – full of impetuosity and caprice.
Recall when Bush 41 ran against Clinton. 41’s supporters showed pictures of a young bearded Clinton and called him a hick failed Governer of a small corrupt state. When 43 took over the scene, Clinton’s bearded picture was redefined as an upscale hippie Oxford thing since 43 wanted to claim low class hick status for himself.
It’s fascinating how the media lets the GOP get away with these things.
Comment says
Bennett on CNN is spinning hard for Romney – What’s his agenda? Like Rudy, he was a peace dove in the 60s when that was the fun and safe option – Now the music is bad and he’s married, so he likes torture and war. But why push for Romney – Unless we missed something , we think Romney did poorly and we were hoping he would do better because we think he’d be easier to beat.
Comment says
This was a debate that alternated between being enjoyable to watch and annoying to watch. In terms of Republican politics, Rudy may have lost the debate when that psychopath with the weak van dyck beard held up the King James Bible and asked, nay demanded, candidates to illuminate their degree of Bibical literalism . Luckily for Rudy, he has the support of the media execs and the Tweety (the mancrush is back, he was blushing when he talked about Rudy today) types, so they will not highlight Rudy’s politically embarassing Biblical liberalism.
Dr Leo Strauss says
It’s fascinating to watch Ron Paul on stage and the others’ reaction to him. All the other candidates, Anderson Cooper, the CNN corporate apparat, have this puzzled look — why is he still here with the writer’s strike?
Comment says
Buchanan and the Francoist falanage wing of the gop imagine themselves to be tough truth tellers braving the PC police and telling it like it is. But in fact, they are in a closed loop, responding to irrelevent unconnected left wing academics (Ward Churchill types) or spurious neocon bulls***. If they got out a bit more and visited diverse areas of places like Queens and Brooklyn, they would find that people are , if anything, too unified and chauvanistic – especially when compared to the 30s, the 20s, the 1890s, etc
The elite of this country decided, for a variety of reasons, not to enforce the border – Pat blames the Mexicans – even though they go to church and work hard/
Anon says
Jeez – Buchanan on “Morning Joe” still flogging that second hand anecodote about latinos cheering for a foreign sports team, He must have made a lot of money using that one anecdote – IMO, things look better for America going forward – not worse (despite the problems we discuss). Incidentally, that Tweety Torquemada question was symbolic on many levels. You can sense Tweety thinks torture is effective, if immoral – Imagine Pat grooving on stage with these women:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=K0-WYGsrLwY
Anon says
Portrait of a weasel as a middle age man:
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2007/11/fisa_confusion_and_correction.html
Comment says
Interesting to see Bush with his prop reading glasses when he gave his speech in Annaopolis today – Like Brian Williams, he also forget to use the glasses at some point during his speech.
He also probably erred in calling for ‘democracy’ in Lebanon – In any ‘democracy’ the Hezbollah will have a hueg demographic advantage and the results will be as predictable as they were in Gaza.
But he was comic when he warned against outside interference and intimidation in Lebanon. Clearly, as Condi would say, he is clueless.
Comment says
Has Condi achieved any major agreements?
Comment says
Maybe Condi will give Olmert a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom? You know, even of Olmert wanted to have an agreement he would not have the political strength to carry it out. He would be judged as a double loser of wars and peace. The Palenstian leaders are all corrupt and dependent on foreign aide. They just want to keep the wheels spinning. Hey – why not have the conference in Baghdad – the road to Jerusalem …