Lame joke deleted. Strange how something can seem so entertaining until one clicks ‘post’.
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Apropos recent comments . . .
Comments
Commentsays
@Dr Leo Strauss
Saw that. Shocker! It’s amazing how there are almost no non-lies to emerge. The decadent dishonest into tricking a nation into war was so total.
For the record, we are supremely indifferent re Eric Schmidt stepping down at Google. Absent something unexpected we don’t expect to write about it.
We were never that impressed with him at Sun although he was good in his role. He then drove Novell into a ditch, and ultimately lucked out landing at Google . He proved basically competent and after initial turbulence worked out a relationship with the young founders. Together they created a structure and maturity which had cascading benefits. But then again, here’s a man who incessantly cites Friedman’s columns as the acme of insight. And that’s simply unforgivable.
Yeah – he said Richard Wolfe is good at psychobabble. When Wolfe cringed, Tweety noted that pyschobabble is important — But Tweety does not really know what psychobabble is – He just thinks that it is term that means explain a politician’s behavior.
Tweety is like many in the pundit class – but only more so. He has very little non political knowledge – You see this phenom with many conservatives who call for study of the classics that they themselves do not read.
We gotta stop watching his show — we did for a few years and never missed it.
“The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but …”
~Richard Nixon to Chuck Colson
(2/13/73)
The prob Obama has w/MidEast is that the entire structure of negitiations have no relation to reality. The whole thing is designed for the onus to fall on America – It would be far better to rethink the whole entreprise. Afterall – if Clinton is right and we already know how a final agreement will look, then a plan should be built around that inevitability.
Bush Sr took a big hit and so did Baker – but it did not directly affect his base vote support. One thing for for sure is that O really screwed up with this nonsense about jets.
We saw Willie Geist asking Holbrooke about the WaPo article: “….even WaPo …thinks …” Holbrooke seemed sort of surprised that Geist seemed to think it was odd for the the supposedly liberal Wapo to offer criticism – These categories really do baffle many in the media as can be seen whenever Diehl or Hiatt offer up their standard pablum.
— Israel’s right-leaning Parliament approved legislation late Monday that could hamper the leadership’s ability to seal future peace deals with the Palestinians or Syria.
The measure requires that any peace deal involving the ceding of territory annexed by Israel — namely East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights — must be put to a national referendum.
@Comment Typical Politico rehash of a Likud/coalition press junket. A few Livni glosses. Great for Politico’s page views and advertising base. The ‘Obama’s a European’ hilariously a red herring, like invoking Baker/41.
Practically speaking, Israeli Rightists have no reason to cooperate with Obama. They’ve sized him up. He’s been rolled on so much and unlike Baker and 41, doesn’t know how to use power for purposeful outcomes. J Street isn’t much of player to be feared either. One just wonders how much Obama will get shaken down before acceding to Likud et al.’s Manicheanism.
It’s reasonably clear from those anonymous quotes in the Smith article that there is frustation that Obama has resumed the Bush Sr. approach instead of just going along with Bibi’s new reality.
Whatever – if Obama really pushed for a final settlement it would complicate his reelection so we are just impressed that his modest efforts have caused angst.
It’s sort of funny how Smith tries half heartedly to dress up a rejectionist rant against Obama as a general Middle East thing. He sort of gets lazy halfway into the piece and just lets people rant against Obama. But the problem is that the people being quoted are on the record claiming to be for the traditional 2 state solution – While it is true that the center and the right have basically rejected that – every year that goes by makes that a more attractive solution – The European leader quote is something of a giveaway that the talking points are not authentic – but geared for American politics –Only Dubya gave the Israelis carte blanche – Certainly not Sr or Reagan – much less Carter. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45471_Page5.html
L. O’Donnell’s show spends a lot of time on fluff but he thinks he can excuse himself by stressing that he does not care about the stories he is reporting.
With a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Soghoian has exposed four years of DEA spending on wiretaps and pen registers. A wiretap grabs actual telephone or Internet conversations, whereas a pen register merely grabs numbers and addresses that show who’s doing the communicating.
In 2010, the document shows, the DEA paid ISPs, telcos, and other communication providers $6.7 million for pen registers and $6.5 million for wiretaps. Pen register payments more than tripled over the past three years and nearly doubled over the past two. Wiretap payments stayed roughly the same.
The documents confirm that Microsoft does not charge for surveillance. “There are no current costs for information requested with subpoenas, search warrants, pen registers, or Title II collection [wiretaps] for Microsoft Corporation,” they say. But they show that Google charges $25 and Yahoo! $29.
As Soghoain points out, Google and Yahoo! may make more money from surveillance than they get directly from their email users. Basic Google and Yahoo! email accounts are free. Department of Justice documents (PDF) show that telcos may charge as much as $2,000 for a pen register.
Jon Stewart is too easy on MSNBC when he rips them for being just bad – We just tuned in and who do we see they snag to be a new contributer – Rick Lazio. Lazio has nothing to offer – he was creamed by Hillary and then totally humiliated by Carl Paladino. This was after Lazio ran a squalid Muslim baiting campaign. Lazio has always been a mediocrity – He was not even good at Muslim baiting – He was so rude to Hillary Clinton during his debate with her that only Podhoretz thought he won. So MSNBC decides to snap up this guy. Amazing. Paladino or Christine O’Donnell would make far far better gets.
Those Taiwanese NMA people should do a bit on how many Americans (including many self styled cosmopolitans) seem to be unable to distinguish Taiwan from Korea, Japan, and even China –
Senor will lose if he runs – if we had to guess. Newt is a negative in NY and Rudy is no longer a positive and may be a negative. Gillibrand is smart and pretty. Senor lacks principles – his consistent mendacity (re Iraq) will no longer be seen as convienient for the cause as he will be forced to run way to left of movement acceptability. Notice he did not mention Bremer – his old boss.
Lewis Black ceased to be compelling to us around 2005 or so. His humor began that morph into the blunt rant without focus. Whether it was because he relied on outside writers, lacked time while exploring other career platforms to maintain earlier standards, or just started phoning it in, don’t know.
Lewis Black is starting to rely to much on the histrionics in his shtick – Carlin went into a long decline when his acerbic style just seemed bitterness after a while. Black is not just yelling for the sake of yelling – but he hints in that direction.
You mistake our interest. The merits are irrelevant – although that site is an aesthetic and substantive Tower of Babel. We have long thought about having the spam filter here auto kill a link.
But we have to pretend we read or noticed acquaintances free content posted there so we relent. Our thoughts on Arianna personally from the era well known in any event.
Having read Daou and heard him speak – we think he would not have been able to make a go of it even if it was his idea – HuffPo definitely reflects Arianna – A lot of it is dubious , but undeniably successful and well presented. She now can shape news – Daou does not seem like someone who had that within him.
He is the Winklevoss in the woodpile.
Peter Daou’s lawsuit against Arianna for allegedly stealing the HuffPo concept, business plan and idea may or may not have merit. The depositions, however, promise to be immensely entertaining.
Pour Les Nuls – the French version of the American For Dummies series – has overcome deep-seated snootiness to win millions of readers. Indeed, the French collection has proved more popular than any of the other 34 languages in which it is published.
A Murdoch-owned paper in UK conducted illegal telephonic interceptions/surveillance of government, sports, cultural and pop figures for news. Scotland Yard fails to explore leads how pervasive the illegal surveillance penetrated British society.
It’s a new twist on the notion of governmental actors/contractors being primary players in the Surveillance State (note to certain pundits and their followers, we and others were using that a long time ago . . . in an America far, far, away). True, the HP spying scandal of surveilling and intercepting data/calls on reporters is not inapposite from the narrow corporate interest. Here, the private party spies on its apparent customers/sources to provide them product to sell back to those being surveilled.
The Birther/Muslim thing is one of those nutjob memes that thankfully couldn’t really get too serious. Call it a half-victory, since it’s not something running 24/7 all-networks like health care debacle and Afghanistan.
The oil spill also sort of petered out. The damage is real and massive, but the capping of the well coincided with a big coordinated federal effort, so… I mean, they could have done worse. That story’s far from finished, though.
And let’s wait to see what GM goes for on the stock market. w00t etrade bay bee
(Bonus points if a reader can predict the Alter spin on one of the marginal MSNBC shows this week).
What? You think the White House approved all this? OK, it’s possible, I suppose. But let’s go back to that “it’s only in the past few weeks that the war plan has been fine-tuned.” That would mean the White House okayed a statement that suggested that, 20 months into this administration, they were just now getting around to finalizing their plan for what is certainly their signature foreign policy initiative. Do they — or the general — really think that this “just give us one more try” approach is going to work with the American people after almost a decade of tragic losses and mind-boggling expense? In a war that can’t be won?
@Comment
Yeah, as you said, it’s known but ignored by polite Serious People. As we’ve all discussed here before, oddly, its’ precisely *because* of this duality that the more mature, self-aware Neocons love him so. Neocon hatchlings, rubes, fellow travelers and innocents are the ones left to parrot only the naive 1933-45 frame.
David Gregory acted like he was talking to a painter or sculptor on MTP w/Petraeus = “How stifling are these deadlines, General?” Plus == his whole body language and tone was similar to Charlie Rose interviewing Chuck Close.
Oddly appropriate – because the Beltway Bubbleboys really do see things like that.
Comment says
@Dr Leo Strauss
Saw that. Shocker! It’s amazing how there are almost no non-lies to emerge. The decadent dishonest into tricking a nation into war was so total.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Filed under “You Don’t Say?”:
Curveball admits he lied.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/world/middleeast/16curveball.html
His bigger crime may be giving Larry Wilkerson another 2 seconds of fame.
DrLeoStrauss says
For AARP readers and those who love them,
Engelbert Humperdinck:http://www.studiomultitracks.com/2011/01/gimme-shelter
Dr Leo Strauss says
For the record, we are supremely indifferent re Eric Schmidt stepping down at Google. Absent something unexpected we don’t expect to write about it.
We were never that impressed with him at Sun although he was good in his role. He then drove Novell into a ditch, and ultimately lucked out landing at Google . He proved basically competent and after initial turbulence worked out a relationship with the young founders. Together they created a structure and maturity which had cascading benefits. But then again, here’s a man who incessantly cites Friedman’s columns as the acme of insight. And that’s simply unforgivable.
DrLeoStrauss says
UK Telegraph — Conservatives have larger lizard brains . . .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8228192/Political-views-hard-wired-into-your-brain.html
Comment says
Yeah – he said Richard Wolfe is good at psychobabble. When Wolfe cringed, Tweety noted that pyschobabble is important — But Tweety does not really know what psychobabble is – He just thinks that it is term that means explain a politician’s behavior.
Tweety is like many in the pundit class – but only more so. He has very little non political knowledge – You see this phenom with many conservatives who call for study of the classics that they themselves do not read.
We gotta stop watching his show — we did for a few years and never missed it.
Dr Leo Strauss says
He didn’t really say that, did he?
Comment says
“Psychobabble is important” -Tweety
Comment says
“The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but …”
~Richard Nixon to Chuck Colson
(2/13/73)
Comment says
“Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”
~Richard Nixon to Chuck Colson (2/13/73)
Comment says
The prob Obama has w/MidEast is that the entire structure of negitiations have no relation to reality. The whole thing is designed for the onus to fall on America – It would be far better to rethink the whole entreprise. Afterall – if Clinton is right and we already know how a final agreement will look, then a plan should be built around that inevitability.
Bush Sr took a big hit and so did Baker – but it did not directly affect his base vote support. One thing for for sure is that O really screwed up with this nonsense about jets.
Comment says
We saw Willie Geist asking Holbrooke about the WaPo article: “….even WaPo …thinks …” Holbrooke seemed sort of surprised that Geist seemed to think it was odd for the the supposedly liberal Wapo to offer criticism – These categories really do baffle many in the media as can be seen whenever Diehl or Hiatt offer up their standard pablum.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Obama obviously made them do it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/middleeast/23mideast.html?_r=1
Dr Leo Strauss says
WaPo Editorial Department syncs with Politico piece.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/21/AR2010112102263.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment Typical Politico rehash of a Likud/coalition press junket. A few Livni glosses. Great for Politico’s page views and advertising base. The ‘Obama’s a European’ hilariously a red herring, like invoking Baker/41.
Practically speaking, Israeli Rightists have no reason to cooperate with Obama. They’ve sized him up. He’s been rolled on so much and unlike Baker and 41, doesn’t know how to use power for purposeful outcomes. J Street isn’t much of player to be feared either. One just wonders how much Obama will get shaken down before acceding to Likud et al.’s Manicheanism.
Comment says
Lib bedwetters like William Galston have whined , weeped, and nashed teeth over Pelosi – so she must be doing something right,
Comment says
It’s reasonably clear from those anonymous quotes in the Smith article that there is frustation that Obama has resumed the Bush Sr. approach instead of just going along with Bibi’s new reality.
Whatever – if Obama really pushed for a final settlement it would complicate his reelection so we are just impressed that his modest efforts have caused angst.
Comment says
It’s sort of funny how Smith tries half heartedly to dress up a rejectionist rant against Obama as a general Middle East thing. He sort of gets lazy halfway into the piece and just lets people rant against Obama. But the problem is that the people being quoted are on the record claiming to be for the traditional 2 state solution – While it is true that the center and the right have basically rejected that – every year that goes by makes that a more attractive solution – The European leader quote is something of a giveaway that the talking points are not authentic – but geared for American politics –Only Dubya gave the Israelis carte blanche – Certainly not Sr or Reagan – much less Carter.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45471_Page5.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
@anxiousmodernman The fees are likely higher – that was for the DEA alone iirc. . .
anxiousmodernman says
So the US taxpayer is paying $12M a year to buy our own presumably private information.
In a world where I had perfect confidence in our justice system, fine, but I don’t live in that world.
Did the deficit commission recommend we cancel reimbursing corporations for this “service”? Prolly not! 🙂
Comment says
L. O’Donnell’s show spends a lot of time on fluff but he thinks he can excuse himself by stressing that he does not care about the stories he is reporting.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Google charges $25 to surveil users for USG. MSFT does it for free, Yahoo charges $29. Telcos charge $2,000 for a PEN register.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/18/microsoft_does_not_charge_for_government_surveillance/
Comment says
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/18/gm-flashback/
Boehner’s comments are sort of symbolic because of Ohio’s real and relative decline.
DrLeoStrauss says
The American oligarchs must be so relieved to see their tormentor move on.
Comment says
Jon Stewart is too easy on MSNBC when he rips them for being just bad – We just tuned in and who do we see they snag to be a new contributer – Rick Lazio. Lazio has nothing to offer – he was creamed by Hillary and then totally humiliated by Carl Paladino. This was after Lazio ran a squalid Muslim baiting campaign. Lazio has always been a mediocrity – He was not even good at Muslim baiting – He was so rude to Hillary Clinton during his debate with her that only Podhoretz thought he won. So MSNBC decides to snap up this guy. Amazing. Paladino or Christine O’Donnell would make far far better gets.
Comment says
The Grey Poupon factoid redeems an otherwise boring plea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-mZtdI7-hY
Comment says
Those Taiwanese NMA people should do a bit on how many Americans (including many self styled cosmopolitans) seem to be unable to distinguish Taiwan from Korea, Japan, and even China –
Comment says
Ed Henry CNN tweets a lot about Air Force 1 protocol, pictures, etc – Media seem obsesses with this stuff.
Comment says
Senor will lose if he runs – if we had to guess. Newt is a negative in NY and Rudy is no longer a positive and may be a negative. Gillibrand is smart and pretty. Senor lacks principles – his consistent mendacity (re Iraq) will no longer be seen as convienient for the cause as he will be forced to run way to left of movement acceptability. Notice he did not mention Bremer – his old boss.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Can you say senatorial candidate Dan Senor?
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/dan_senor_muses_to_friends_about_FPi4T3LQ9iLO2FKp7XpYJO
Dr Leo Strauss says
Lewis Black ceased to be compelling to us around 2005 or so. His humor began that morph into the blunt rant without focus. Whether it was because he relied on outside writers, lacked time while exploring other career platforms to maintain earlier standards, or just started phoning it in, don’t know.
Comment says
Lewis Black is starting to rely to much on the histrionics in his shtick – Carlin went into a long decline when his acerbic style just seemed bitterness after a while. Black is not just yelling for the sake of yelling – but he hints in that direction.
DrLeoStrauss says
You mistake our interest. The merits are irrelevant – although that site is an aesthetic and substantive Tower of Babel. We have long thought about having the spam filter here auto kill a link.
But we have to pretend we read or noticed acquaintances free content posted there so we relent. Our thoughts on Arianna personally from the era well known in any event.
Comment says
Having read Daou and heard him speak – we think he would not have been able to make a go of it even if it was his idea – HuffPo definitely reflects Arianna – A lot of it is dubious , but undeniably successful and well presented. She now can shape news – Daou does not seem like someone who had that within him.
He is the Winklevoss in the woodpile.
DrLeoStrauss says
Peter Daou’s lawsuit against Arianna for allegedly stealing the HuffPo concept, business plan and idea may or may not have merit. The depositions, however, promise to be immensely entertaining.
Tbilisi says
@Dr Leo Strauss
Putin should have just taken a truck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkqtcfhiE4A&feature=related
(Or at least a Niva…)
Dr Leo Strauss says
How oligarch Boris Berezovsky first made his money and Putin’s whole Lada love.
http://bbc.in/c3cZix
Good thing such things could never happen here.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Whatever would Jack Lang think?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/french-suck-up-books-for-dummies/story-e6frg6so-1225951347111
Dr Leo Strauss says
A Murdoch-owned paper in UK conducted illegal telephonic interceptions/surveillance of government, sports, cultural and pop figures for news. Scotland Yard fails to explore leads how pervasive the illegal surveillance penetrated British society.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05hacking-t.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
It’s a new twist on the notion of governmental actors/contractors being primary players in the Surveillance State (note to certain pundits and their followers, we and others were using that a long time ago . . . in an America far, far, away). True, the HP spying scandal of surveilling and intercepting data/calls on reporters is not inapposite from the narrow corporate interest. Here, the private party spies on its apparent customers/sources to provide them product to sell back to those being surveilled.
Very . . . modern.
metin2 yang says
very cool
anxiousmodernman says
The Birther/Muslim thing is one of those nutjob memes that thankfully couldn’t really get too serious. Call it a half-victory, since it’s not something running 24/7 all-networks like health care debacle and Afghanistan.
The oil spill also sort of petered out. The damage is real and massive, but the capping of the well coincided with a big coordinated federal effort, so… I mean, they could have done worse. That story’s far from finished, though.
And let’s wait to see what GM goes for on the stock market. w00t etrade bay bee
Dr Leo Strauss says
Somewhere on the list is 20% of Americans think Obama is a Muslim. Axe and co. must be high fiving they drove the number from the 30s.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/19/americans-believe-barack-obama-muslim
Aldershot says
@Dr Leo Strauss
Meme victories?
1)…..
Is this a trick question?
anxiousmodernman says
1)…
Dr Leo Strauss says
Should one be glad or saddened that Serious People are _now_ asking if the Petraeus tail is wagging the WH dog re no Afghan rapid wind down?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17herbert.html?_r=1&hp
(Bonus points if a reader can predict the Alter spin on one of the marginal MSNBC shows this week).
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/16/petraeus_media_surge_and_the_aftermath
Dr Leo Strauss says
Top 5 Democratic Meme Victories 2009-2010:
1) . . . . .
anxiousmodernman says
@Comment
I almost spilled my coffee when I heard David Gregory speak those words. Thanks for the link, too.
@Doc
“Hatchlings.” Lolz.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment
Yeah, as you said, it’s known but ignored by polite Serious People. As we’ve all discussed here before, oddly, its’ precisely *because* of this duality that the more mature, self-aware Neocons love him so. Neocon hatchlings, rubes, fellow travelers and innocents are the ones left to parrot only the naive 1933-45 frame.
Comment says
Some great Churchill quotes , Leo – nothing new, but just a refresher:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/books/review/Hari-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Comment says
David Gregory acted like he was talking to a painter or sculptor on MTP w/Petraeus = “How stifling are these deadlines, General?” Plus == his whole body language and tone was similar to Charlie Rose interviewing Chuck Close.
Oddly appropriate – because the Beltway Bubbleboys really do see things like that.