Everyone remembers the lightning striking the building when Rudy was explaining his... nuanced opinion about abortion, right?
Well, Ann Althouse calls this Kerry syndrome.
There's far more support out there for the merger of politics and religion than the separation of politics and religion. And yet, Giuliani is popular. So was Kerry (up to a point). What's different about Giuliani is that the disjunct between his religion and his politics is also a disjunct between his politics and his political party.
Can a barely religious Northerner get elected President? Conventional wisdom would say no. You have to be either genuinely religious if you're a Republican or you have to pander to the religious freaks if you're a Democrat if you want to get elected. Also, everyone knows only Southerners vote and they only vote for fellow Southerners.
But is it true?
My gut says no. My gut says that people will see Giuliani's convictions and abilities and qualifications, and look at Hilary's lack of convictions (alas) and Obama's lack of experience and substance, and will go Rudy.
Most people, after all, hold competing and contradictory opinions. I, for example, believe that homosexuality is a grave sin and I think the state has no business in the bedroom. I believe that we should give tax cuts to the rich- they create wealth, which creates business, which creates jobs, which creates wealth- and I also believe rich people are jerks who should be shot. I believe that most social services are a waste of taxpayer money and I also believe that many social services are vital. I support the death penalty and oppose abortion. I am glad that Saddam is dead and Chemical Ali has a date with the hangman, and
I am saddened immensely that any human being, anywhere, has to lose his life.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.
As for conventional wisdom-
The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events. John Kenneth Galbraith
Monday, June 25, 2007
Rudy's Achilles Heel
Monday, May 14, 2007
Candidate number 368923560: Mike Bloomberg
Mayor Mike is planning on spending a cool one billion- $1,000,000,000- to guarantee a Democratic win, by running as a third party independent. Chuck Hagel is cheering him on. That's not my joke, it's Ace's. And Newt Gingrich is mulling his candidacy.
At this point, is there a white, Christian, middle aged male with (as Dave Barry sez) two dark suits who has not been indicted recently not running? At this pace I may just throw my hat intot he ring myself.
Heh. There's a thought. Our first blogger-President. With an all blogger Cabinet. Tee hee.
Well, for Secretary of State, I'd get Mark Steyn- he knows how to talk to those furriners, being one himself. Glenn Reynolds will be Attorney General and Frank J will be Secretary of War (one of my platforms will be to rename the Department of Defense, because everyone knows that the best defense is a good offense).
Secretary of Education will be Ahitoricality. Secretary of the Interior will be Lileks. Rubin can be the Secretary of Commerce- he's in advertising, he must know how to get the furriners to buy our stuff, which is what the Secretary of commerce does as far as I can tell. Secretary of the Treasury will be whoever runs AdSense.
Did I leave anyone out? Want to nominate a blogger to fill a position? Comments!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The Lion in Winter
Later this summer, Tony Blair will resign as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and his beleaguered Labor Party will be inherited by Gordon Brown, a current financial chancellor in the Blair government and in all likelihood, Blair’s successor as Prime Minister as well. The end of Blair’s decade in office seems an appropriate time to reflect upon the lasting significance of the man who brought Labor in from the wilderness and proved to be perhaps the most enduring champion of the trans-Atlantic alliance since Dwight Eisenhower.
Tony Blair entered office in 1997 with a sweeping public mandate to reform the British welfare state and restore Britain’s faltering economy. Blair’s vision was to transform Labor (and consequently Britain itself) from a demoralized socialist wreck into a genuinely pro-American party which stood for justice abroad and economic freedom at home. Blair’s domestic agenda was a resounding success. “New Labor,” as Blair calls his party, is here to stay and the days of former party leader Ramsey McDonald advocating the socialization of the means of production are gone for good. Blair’s legacy, however, will ultimately be judged on the success or failure of his support for nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Heart-wrenchingly, the British public has turned against its former champion. With his nation discontented with slow progress in Iraq, the Prime Minister has become the object of vitriolic scorn and animosity on a scale not even paralleled in the United States with the current administration. As Blair’s approval ratings have plummeted, so have Labor’s, and the opposition Conservatives stand poised to assume control after the next election cycle. The only chance for Labor seems to be an early exit for Blair followed by frantic action from presumably Gordon Brown to win back over former Labor supporters who left the party because of Mr. Blair.
The resurgence of David Cameron’s Conservatives is disenchanting from an American perspective principally because Cameron’s party is not conservative in any sense of the word. Cameron is a slick politician who has forsaken the traditional Tory policy of pro-Americanism and moved towards a generic anything-but-Labor platform. Cameron has gone as far as to indicate that he would move the U.K. away from the United States politically and his support for American action in the Middle East is unreliable to say the least.
The best chance for the trans-Atlantic alliance to be preserved is probably for Gordon Brown and Labor to retain power. While Brown is certainly not as vocal about his American sympathies as Mr. Blair, Mr. Brown is a reliable ally and is a moderate supporter of a continued British presence in Iraq. Unfortunately, this muted position is the best America can help for out of its long-time strongest and most important ally.
What Blair’s exit demonstrates more clearly than anything is that Britain is no longer the rock of Europe. After three and a half centuries of leading the Western world, Great Britain has finally settled into a long slumber. While after the Victorians Great Britain had seemingly found a balance between projecting power and shunning colonialism, the Second World War caused Great Britain to fully retreat from its imperial past and settle into its role as a second rate world power. The status quo of the Thatcher-Blair era was a waning Britain struggling to exercise what influence it had left as it sought to support Washington in strategic areas across the globe. However, even this minimized approach seems likely to meet its own end as the trans-Atlantic alliance’s last great champion makes his exit.
With Britain now seemingly in perpetual retreat, it is more important than ever for American policy makers to look elsewhere to forge lasting and meaningful alliances. While Europe has always dominated global politics, the strategic scene has, for the past quarter century, been shifting towards the Orient and in particular the Pacific Rim. Japan is the most likely candidate to replace Great Britain as our foremost ally, and so long as we finally liberate Japan from the burdensome post-WWII restrictions placed upon its military, the Japanese will be able to project power deep into Asia and safeguard a liberal order on the high seas just as Great Britain did throughout its history. Coupled with a strong bi-lateral alliance with Japan, a strategic partnership with India would not only balance a growing China, but provide a reliable trading partner without the double-edged sword of doing business with the Devil. In short, a new Pacific entente is in order, fully integrating growing Japanese self-confidence, India’s immense population and economic potential, and of course the hard power of an American Carrier Battle Group.
As American policymakers look towards the brave new world of the future, they would do well to keep in mind the strategic implications of the Blair administration’s fall from power. With Great Britain on the defensive, new strategic partnerships will have to be forged and while Great Britain will always remain a sentimental and ideological ally of the United States, hard power has shifted decisively to the Pacific Rim. The future of the world rests with the burgeoning powers of Japan and India, and perhaps if we are less fortunate, with China as well. While the twilight of British power is surely lamentable, if history teaches us anything, it is that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. We as a people cannot meet the challenges of the 21st century with the strategic partnerships of the 20th.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Happy May Day!
Ebay has quite a collection of KGB memorabilia for sale. Get this stuff while you can.
Here is a repost of my "A Jaywalking Primer, or, Dividing the Spoils of the Cold War", from April 7th, 2004. Enjoy.
I went to shopping in the Park Slope neighborhood today. Park Slope and the surrounding neighborhoods of Sunset Park, Fort Greene, and East New York is a fascinating case of shifting demographics. Just a decade ago, the area was under the control of the Brooklyn chapter of the Drug Dealers' Union, along with their affiliates, the Hookers Union local 452, The International Brotherhood of Thieves, Carjackers, Muggers, and Pickpockets (IBTCMP) and the gang banger's franchise of Murder, Inc. In other words, the neighborhood was fun and interesting. Then the white people moved in.
Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against white people. Heck, I'm white myself, or Jewish, which is close enough. "White People" is what we call the people who call themselves "hipsters". You know, Midwestern-born the latte drinking, health food eating, goateed jerks who wear Buddy Holly type glasses and listen to jazz. They are ignorant of the most basic aspects of life in the city.
Say, for example, something as simple as crossing the street. These morons will stride to the nearest crosswalk, wait for the light to change, carefully look both ways, and proceed across the street at a leisurely pace, all the while blathering about the cultural diversity of the urban experience. This in the city that invented jaywalking and has since elevated it to an art form. I or any other Brooklynite worth his rat poison will cross between two parked cars I will wait for a break in the traffic and walk briskly to the double yellow line. I will watch the car coming the other way. Provided the driver is not in a homicidal mood (by no means a given), he or she will speed up, traffic conditions permitting, causing a gap in the flow of traffic. Noting this, I will shift my weight to my left leg a raise my right. When the car's mirror passes me, I will step with my right leg and begin walking. Timed correctly, I will reach a gap between two parked cars on the other side before the next car can turn me into a greasy spot on the pavement and a forty five second spot on the five o'clock news. See? Like I said, it's an art form. That is, if a native is driving. If a white person is driving, there really is no telling what they'll do. Sometimes, they'll slow to a crawl, causing cars behind them to drive into oncoming traffic in an attempt to pass (and narrowly missing me standing on the double yellow line, if I'm lucky). Sometimes they will panic stop, causing horrific traffic pileups. Sometimes they will gesture violently to the effect of "I'm from out of town! Take my wallet and my car keys, just let me live"! Or so I assume.
Anyway, Park Slope. There is a weekly flea market in the yard of the local public school. One can purchase hilarious neckties from the fifties, ridiculous buttons from the sixties (Make love, not war!), horrible clothing from the seventies, and horrible and ridiculous Danish furniture from the nineties. There is enough gaudy costume jewelry to bebauble every prostitute to ever work in this city going back to Tammany Hall. There are always elderly Russians Soviet era gewgaws- campaign ribbons and medals from the Great Patriotic War, tie clasps and cufflinks bearing Lenin's ugly mug, and various coins and bills.
It was at one such stall that I got into a bidding war with a soft spoken Asian guy over a Soviet tanker unit patch. "But why?" his girlfriend wanted to know. "I guess I just have a Soviet militaria fetish (the magazines and websites of which I shall leave to your imagination). I ended up paying six dollars for the patch and six dollars for a set of cool looking shoulder boards. The dealer alleged that the shoulder boards were that of a police senior sergeant, which I am still attempting to verify. The guy event threw in an officer's belt, which has a cool looking buckle. The belt itself, however, is made of the awful thin plastic-looking leather we failed to make wallets out of in summer camp. The Asian guy bought a less elaborate set of shoulder boards and an awful- looking Sam Browne belt, also police, in white patent leather. It would have been rejected out of hand by any self respecting crossing guard (oxymoron alert) in America on account of its comical appearance. The fellow, clearly delighted at the sale, promised to have better stuff next week. "You like officer coat, yes? Maybe hat?" He solemnly shook hands with the Asian dude and me, and we walked away with our purchases.
It occurred to me that what we had here was nothing less than the spoils of our victory in the fight against International Communism (European Division). The guy walked away with twenty six dollars between us and was clearly thrilled to be dumping the useless garbage on us. The powerful, terrifying Soviet military was nothing but junk. That's right, comrade. The revolution is over, and the bourgeoisie won. I was surrounded with elderly men desperate enough for my greenbacks to supplement their Social Security checks to part with their hard earned "Proletariat of the Week" medals and old, yellowing Ché posters (although the people selling the Ché posters were all aging American leftists). Taste the ash-heap of history, tavoritch.
It is always prudent, while doing a sack dance in the end zone, to make sure the other members of your team aren't setting fire to the stadium, defenestrating the announcers, and raping the cheerleaders. In the next stall over, there was an Author Andersen travel coffee mug. The woman selling it said I was the first person all day to recognize Enron's old accounting firm. It was labeled five dollars, but she let me have it for four. Then, with the mug of capitalism at its most rapacious sharing a shopping bag with the uniforms of the police state so total in it's totalitarianism that it simply collapsed under its own weight, I went home. I had a coffee while looking up my new purchases on EBay. The belt was selling for six dollars, but there were no buyers. The tanker patch was selling for four. I couldn't find the shoulder patch at all. The bastard had ripped me off. Maybe he was getting the hang of this capitalism thing after all. So there's hope for the Russians. At least I have the mug.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Democracy is survival of the craziest.
With less than a year and a half to go to Super Duper Extra Special Super Happy Fun Tuesday, the day when all the states except New Hampshire and Illinois get to vote on who will be America's Next Top Model, if I understand this here New York Times editorial right, I think that it behooves us, as a nation, and also, by the same token, as a blog, to get to the end of this sentence and pick a President.
You may be wondering, who will Chainik decide to vote for? You may ask yourself, who is Keith Olbermann going to punch? You may ask yourself, did Hillary know what she was starting, announcing her candidacy so early? You may ask yourself, what brand of whitening toothpaste does Obama use?
Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.
Now, in order to decide who to vote for, as opposed to just picking a name at random based on campaign commercials which strongly imply that if you vote for the other guy you're voting for a Communist who advocates the hunting of schoolchildren for sport, you have to think back to a time before last Tuesday. You have to think, who did I vote for last time? Then you have to ask yourself, did that person do a good job?
I personally voted for the candidate who promised to kill the most terrorists. Yet, to my chagrin and disappointment, here we are three years or so later and there are terrorists out there who are still not dead. This makes me mad. I pay a lot of taxes and I expect to see dead terrorists in return. And maybe some pothole repair.
That is why I am voting for the candidate who has promised to murder terrorists personally. I am talking of course, of Hizzoner Rudy Guiliani, the Mayor of 9/11.
Rudy ready for action!Mayor Giuliani brandished the ceremonial New York City Mayoral Tire Iron as he described to this blogger just how he would use the tire iron, symbolic of the toughness of New York City, to "drive America's enemies before me, crush them, and hear the lamentation of their women". When asked how this would effect the war for oil, he explained patiently that "a war with a base objective, a, ah, motive based on financial gain, takes away from the purity and the, the sheer beauty of death in battle". When asked why he still had the tire iron, which technically belongs to the current mayor of New York, Mayor Mike, Giuliani said that he would gladly return it but "Mike's too scared to ask for it back, and, you know, I've kind of gotten used to having it around. Makes dealing with the press a lot easier".
Mayor (later Governor) DeWitt Clinton with the Mayor's Tire Iron in 1537 (source: The New York Post )Monday, May 22, 2006
Welcome to the United States of North America, can I take your order?
Now, this is surprising.
Apparently, 10% of Mexican citizens live in the United States.
Allow that to sink in, shall we?
Imagine two million, five hundred thousand Americans moving to, say, Brazil.
That is a large portion of the population.So large, in fact, that I say its useless to fight it.From now on, lets call ourselves The United States of North America. We should send the Army into Mexico City and Ottawa, force them to pull down the statues of national heroes, and install a Starbucks every fifteen feet. Because, hey, I like coffee, and, hey, who's going to stop us?
Mexicans will approve of the plan, because now all Mexicans will be eligible for free healthcare, welfare, Social Security, a public school system with the highest levels of edutainment in the world, and Paris Hilton. They will have equality under the law and a law worth being equal under. They will be part of the greatest, richest, most powerful nation the planet has ever known. They will have four channels of MTV, two channels of VH1, and innumerable HBO affiliates.
Yes, I know America, officially speaking, has no national healthcare system. But we have a de facto national healthcare system in that it is illegal to turn anyone away from an emergency room due to lack of insurance. I've seen people go to an ER for aspirin, a toothache, a splinter. So, we have all the benefits of a free healthcare system- free healthcare- and none of many horrible drawbacks- beurocracy and that whole "planned economy takes away the incentive to work better" thing.
Now, the benefits to Canadians may be harder to see. But, hey, come on, they're Canadians. Just tell them "next Olympics, you can have black people play for your team in basketball! You may even find out what it feels like to win a gold medal!" (For you Non Americans out there wondering what it feels like to have your national team win a gold medal in Olympic Basketball, allow me to share the following with you: it feels freakin' sweet).
If they still object, just point behind them and say, "look, a moose! and he is carrying a sign saying "Cnadaada suX0rs" in English but not in French!
Meese can't spell very well, so the Canadians will totally believe this. Also, the French Canadians, or Quobecoises (motto: Even we can't spell that word, and we made it up in 1967) get seriously cheesed off (frommaged sur plus dans) when someone dares speak English, but after many decades of fierce negotiation, they grudgingly allowed the English speaking Canadians to print signs in English, assuming matching text is printed in French. And then they must wrestle a Maple Leaf Monster. While juggling hockey pucks.
Which leads me back to my point, which I'll recall as soon as I scan up a few lines in the text.
Meese? That can't be right. Meeses, maybe.
Oh, yeah, my point is, just tell the Canadians that if they join the United States of North America, we will immediately deport all the French Canadians to Mars and distribute a free can of spray paint to every teenager ages 14-17 who promises to spray paint over any bit of printed French visible in public.They'll rush to join.
We'll get the Mexicans to make the spray paint. They work cheap.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Freedom of Speech is the Freedom to Disagree.
Now, a lot has been said about freedom of speech in regards to the Danish cartoons, and the Muslim world’s opinion about it.
Now, before you get involved in an argument, you have to understand all sides involved.
There are a few factions in the fight:
American Conservatives (o.k. The Ones With The Guns): who believe that there are a few silly, bad, or evil people, and if they can identify and shoot these people, the rest of the Muslim world will start watching Britney Spears videos, drinking Coors Light, and listening to the Black Eyed Peas. TOWTGs believe that all, or nearly all, humans, want to make a little money, have a little religion, and have a lot of fun. The problem, to TOWTGs, is that a few maniacs usually take over a given region and force everyone to do their bidding; then you have to send in GI Joe to kill COBRA. And the villagers will rejoice.
This is Pollyannaish at best.
American Liberals (Michael Moore and Howard Dean, i.e. Hippy Moonbats): who believe that Satan sent Karl Rove to destroy mankind. Karl Rove can't be elected because the Secret Service checks all Presidential candidates' feet for cloven hooves, so he and his fellow demon, Dick Cheney, got a patsy to be President: George Dubya Bush, who is both a retard barely capable of functioning at a third grade level and an evil genius capable of knocking down levees with his mind. Halliburton, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hell, with branches in Dis, Pandemonium, and Austin, offered Dick Cheney a dollar for every innocent Iraq civilian murdered by the US military-industrial complex. So Donald Rumsfeld blew up the World Trade Center so Chimpy McBushit could invade Iraq. Plus, oil.
Delusional.
Europeans (i.e. Euroweenies) believe that those silly American cowboys are really dumb for trying to be heroes, but, whatever. What scares the crepe suzettes out of the Euroweenies are those violent psychopaths living in huge numbers all over Europe, usually with no jobs due to flaccid, impotent economic policies set by the EU. So the Euroweenies say whatever is least likely to get their embassies burned down, because those nutjobs are effin' scary.
Gutless, and ultimately counterproductive.
Israel (i.e. The Zionist Entity): A bunch of middle class, college educated Saudis murdered a bunch of Americans on 9/11 leading to America’s latest incursion into Middle Eastern politics, so of course Israel is at fault. Israel has been fighting Islamofascist terrorism for almost four generations now, and they are getting sick and tired of it. They've tried ignoring the terrorists, shooting the terrorists, talking to the terrorists, blowing up the terrorists, negotiating with the terrorists, launching missiles at the terrorists, giving land to the terrorists, and siccing Bill Clinton on the terrorists. Currently, the policy in TZE is to create Palestinian State weather the Palestinians want one or not. The Israelis carved out a big chunk of their territory (including some of the most advanced agricultural facilities in the country; too bad the Palestinians can't seem to make it work- that thing about "making the desert bloom" wasn't propaganda, guys. And the price of kosher lettuce is up about 30%, if you can even find it for sale.) with the intent of sealing it the hell off- give the Palis guns and some money, build a big freaking wall around it, and let them make their own damn state.
A triumph of hope over experience.
And finally, ladies and gentlemen, we have.................
The Muslims, a.k.a. the Islamofascists, a.k.a. the Terrorists, a.k.a. the violent nutfudge psychopathic maniacs.
What to say, really, that hasn’t been said before?
How about this: in the United States, as in any free society, you have the right to believe as you wish.
So does everyone around you.
If everyone has the right to believe as they wish, it follows logically, then, that people have the right to disagree with you.
In a free society, you, and everyone around you, have the right to free speech.
That is, you have the right to not only disagree with me, but the right to express this disagreement in print or on your blog or by walking up and down the street with a sandwich board.
David Irving is currently serving a three year prison sentence in Austria for denying the Holocaust. David Irving is a jerk and I sincerely hope he burns in Hell. But David Irving has the right to say anything he wants to. Freedom of speech means the freedom to be wrong, too.
In a free society, you have the right to worship as you wish, and so does everyone around you.
You can disagree, argue, denounce, make fun of or spoof anyone’s religion, just as anyone can do the same to yours.
Therefore, let us conclude that people in free societies divide the world into two parts: Me and Everyone Else.
If Everyone Else doesn’t physically harm Me, I honestly don’t care what they say, or believe, or worship, or write, or blog. Let them make fun of Me. I have the right to make fun of Everyone Else if I want.
Although, as a practical matter, members of free societies usually approach the matter of religion with respect and common courtesy. I’m not a Scientologist, but if you are, fine by me.
The Islamofascist world also, it would seem, divides the world into two parts: Us and Them.
Fine. Believe what you will, sir. Its no skin off my nose.
However, they seem to think that we are obligated to follow their rules, to believe as they do.
Respect I’ll give you, but obedience goes to far.
I do not accept dhimmitude. I do not accept Sharia law.
Publishing sacrilegious images may not have been a very politic move… but rioting and burning down embassies is not the proper response. It is the response of the barbarian.
And you just can’t negotiate with barbarians.
