W's Enablers

We are still in Iraq due to either fear, gullibility or profit on the part of W's enablers.

Any and all of those are shameful reasons.


All the President’s Enablers, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times:
Via Economist's View

In a coordinated public relations offensive, the White House is using reliably friendly pundits — amazingly, they still exist — to put out the word that President Bush is as upbeat and confident as ever. It might even be true.

What I don’t understand is why we’re supposed to consider Mr. Bush’s continuing confidence a good thing.

Remember, Mr. Bush was confident six years ago when he promised to bring in Osama, dead or alive. He was confident four years ago, when he told the insurgents to bring it on. He was confident two years ago, when he told Brownie that he was doing a heckuva job.

Now Iraq is a bloody quagmire, Afghanistan is deteriorating and the Bush administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate admits, in effect, that thanks to Mr. Bush’s poor leadership America is losing the struggle with Al Qaeda. Yet Mr. Bush remains confident.

Sorry, but that’s not reassuring; it’s terrifying. It doesn’t demonstrate Mr. Bush’s strength of character; it shows that he has lost touch with reality. ...

Mr. Bush ... still has plenty of enablers — people who understand the folly of his actions, but refuse to do anything to stop him.

This week’s prime example is Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who made headlines a few weeks ago with a speech declaring that “our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests.” Mr. Lugar is a smart, sensible man. He once acted courageously..., persuading a reluctant Ronald Reagan to stop supporting Ferdinand Marcos ... after a stolen election.

Yet that political courage was nowhere in evidence when Senate Democrats tried to get a vote on a measure that would have forced a course change in Iraq... Mr. Lugar, along with several other Republicans who have expressed doubts about the war, voted against cutting off debate...

Thanks to that vote, nothing will happen until Gen. David Petraeus ... delivers his report in September. But don’t expect too much.., the general’s history suggests that he’s another smart, sensible enabler.

I don’t know why the op-ed article that General Petraeus published in The Washington Post on Sept. 26, 2004, hasn’t gotten more attention. After all, it puts to rest any notion that the general stands above politics: I don’t think it’s standard practice for serving military officers to publish opinion pieces that are strikingly helpful to an incumbent, six weeks before a national election.

In the article, General Petraeus told us that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously.” And those security forces were doing just fine: their leaders “are displaying courage and resilience” and “momentum has gathered in recent months.”

In other words, General Petraeus, without saying anything falsifiable, conveyed the totally misleading impression, highly convenient for his political masters, that victory was just around the corner. And the best guess has to be that he’ll do the same thing three years later.

You know, at this point I think we need to stop blaming Mr. Bush for the mess we’re in. He is what he always was, and everyone except a hard core of equally delusional loyalists knows it.

Yet Mr. Bush keeps doing damage because many people who understand how his folly is endangering the nation’s security still refuse, out of political caution and careerism, to do anything about it.

Beginning of the End for W

The Chalice of Fear lies in the corner. Quaffed in mouthfuls, its contents had for years given him almost unlimited political power. The remains of each mouthful mixed with vile spittle could be spewed into the faces of the gullible to fuel their war-lust. Now overturned, its last remaining contents mix with the blood of the newly dead before soaking into the earth beside its legions of earlier victims.

Standing amongst the vast waste of mangled bodies, excrement and destruction it has wreaked, the conservative politician hears the faint sounds of the 2008 elections approaching from far away. Handcuffed to one arm is George Bush... still babbling profanity and words of war.

"Time for a shape-shift", he thinks. Time for demons to quickly change colors, time to claim that they were against war all along. The weaker demons will beg for mercy. They will say that their evil acts were just following orders. They will try to rationalize their foolishness.

But the greater demons know the best way is to slough off the mask of religious righteousnous that has served for so well and to transform into the visage of indignation. "How dare those others act in such as way!", he'll bellow, sacrificing the lesser demons as necessary to give him time to zip up his new cloak.

But how to deal with the George Bush that is handcuffed to one arm, still babbling profanity and shrieks for more war? How to get out of these handcuffs fast enough to separate himself from this maniac before being slaughtered by George's surviving countrymen?

The demon betrays a subtle smile. "I'll claim that it is I placed him in arrest to save the nation from chaos." He presses the wrinkled from his new wardrobe. Why would they not believe him now? They believed everything before.

Sidney Blumenthal at Salon

July 19, 2007 | One of the more memorable and revealing statements explaining the nature of the Bush administration buildup to the invasion of Iraq was offered in September 2002 by then White House chief of staff Andrew Card. "From a marketing point of view," he said, "you don't introduce new products in August." Five years later, a period longer than the Civil War and World War II, the administration is preparing to present its case for continuing the surge in Iraq. But rather than waiting for September, when Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to deliver his report, the administration has moved up the marketing to July.

The familiar props are rolled out, like the well-worn and peeling painted backdrop for a production of a traveling Victorian theatrical troupe, and members of the audience are expected to watch with rapt fascination, as though they had never seen this show before. The negative response to the preview does not alter the same old script.

The usual atmospherics are pumped up -- sudden panic and fear, an elusive and ubiquitous enemy that assumes many guises and shapes, cherry-picked information to provide a patina of verisimilitude to the danger, followed by a march of authority figures to rescue us. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, held a press conference on July 11 to announce that he had a "gut feeling" that the terrorist threat was dire. Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on his final tour of Iraq Tuesday, proclaimed a "sea change." Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice frantically telephoned moderate Republican senators, urging them not to defect from support of the president's position.

Even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern supporting players wander through, like Frances Townsend, President Bush's homeland security advisor, who, Tuesday, entered right into the White House press room to declaim about the terrorist threat, only to confirm the administration's failure to destroy al-Qaida and expose her own bafflement: "You're assuming it's a zero-sum game, which is what I don't understand."

Gen. Petraeus is promised as the dramatic hero who will stride to triumph in the last act. The author of a recent study of counterinsurgency who has not previously fought such a war, he has been thrust into the spotlight partly because his halo is yet untarnished. Bush's unpopularity disqualifies him from the "Mission Accomplished" moment. So he pushes out his handpicked general and walks behind his chariot, hoping the cheering of the crowd will be also for him. In his July 12 press conference, Bush mentioned Petraeus 11 times, his name flourished as a talisman for "victory." The generals with the greatest experience with the Iraq insurgency, who opposed Bush's surge, such as Gen. John Abizaid, an Arabic speaker, have been discharged or reassigned. The burden on the ambitious general to produce a military solution is unbearable and his breaking inevitable. But for now, Petraeus' tragedy foretold is being cast as the first dawn of a happy ending.

At his July 12 press conference, Bush elevated al-Qaida to enemy No. 1 in Iraq and mentioned it 31 times, asserting that not supporting his policy would lead to "surrendering the future of Iraq to al-Qaida." Asked about the soon to be released National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaida, Bush claimed it would state, "There is a perception in the coverage that al Qaeda may be as strong today as they were prior to September the 11th. That's just simply not the case."

One day later, on July 13, Bush held a meeting at the White House for a small group of conservative pundits, giving them a glimpse into his state of mind. David Brooks of the New York Times described his "self-confidence." Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard quoted him saying, "I'm optimistic," even though he also said, "I understand the polls. This is an unpopular war!" At his press conference, Bush had said, "There is a war fatigue in America." And he pointed to his head. "It's affecting our psychology." During his meeting with the conservative writers, he mocked his critics. Kate O'Beirne and Rich Lowry of the National Review quoted him as saying: "How can he possibly do this? Can't he see? Can't he hear?" The son of a president explained that no one could really understand what it meant to be president. "You don't know what it's like to be commander in chief until you're commander in chief," he said, according to participants. His critics could not possibly understand him. But he was obviously peeved. Washington, he complained, was filled with "a lot of talkers." Yet Bush pledged, unbidden, that he would not listen to these critics. "I'm not on the phone chatting up with these people writing these articles, ascribing motives to me." Such are the reflections of the so-called self-confident president.

On Tuesday, the executive summary of the new NIE on al-Qaida was made public. But it did not fit the administration's marketing campaign. Al-Qaida, the report stated, has "protected or regenerated" itself in the northern provinces of Pakistan. It also said that the terrorist group would "probably leverage" its contacts with the group known as al-Qaida in Iraq, an "affiliate," and "the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland."

The next day, Wednesday, the U.S. military made a timely announcement of the capture of Khalid Abdul Fatah Daud Mahmoud Mashadani, a courier for al-Qaida in Iraq. After two weeks in detention, he confessed to hand delivering messages from al-Qaida leaders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, suggesting that the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques vociferously defended by the administration indeed work.

The latest NIE, however, is a strange product. According to highly reliable sources in the intelligence community, no new intelligence at all is reflected in the NIE. Its conclusions, on one level, are a rehash of obvious facts that anyone who reads a daily newspaper could glean, such as the protected status of al-Qaida in frontier regions of Pakistan. Other conclusions lack contextual analysis, partly because of the continuing pressure from the administration to politicize information and cherry-pick intelligence. The NIE, for example, does not explain that al-Qaida in Iraq, while lethal, is a very small part of the Sunni insurgency, and that a number of Sunni insurgent groups are its sworn enemies. Nor did the NIE note how few foreign fighters are in Iraq and what a small percentage of insurgents they constitute. (A Los Angeles Times story published on July 15 reported that of the 19,000 Iraqi prisoners held by the U.S. military there, only 135 are foreign fighters, and nearly half are Saudis.) The NIE is utterly devoid of political analysis.

According to intelligence sources, CIA director Michael Hayden has been under attack within the administration from Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives since testifying frankly to the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group that urged a strategic redeployment of U.S. forces and new diplomatic efforts in the region, which were rejected by President Bush. A virtual paralysis is setting in within the intelligence community. Analysts are even anxious about putting their names on their reports. While they are homogenizing information, the administration is still unhappy with the result, as it was with the new NIE.

For the embattled president, filled with "self-confidence," the "motives" he doesn't wish critics to examine turn out to be far more utopian than the military success of the surge, as he explained to his conservative interlocutors. "There is such a thing as the universality of freedom. I strongly believe that Muslims desire to be free just like Methodists desire to be free." Beneath the seething chaotic violence, beyond the tribal and religious strife, past the civil war, the Iraqis, according to the president, under their robes are no different from American Methodists. There's nothing more to understand. If only we can prevail, they can be just like us. The rest is marketing.

Orwell on War Human Emotion

Orwell via a reader at Andrew Sullivan

"The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions — racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war — which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action ... He [H.G. Wells] was, and still is, quite incapable of understanding that nationalism, religious bigotry and feudal loyalty are far more powerful forces than what he himself would describe as sanity."

This is very true. Let us not forget the 'Fear' in 'FUD', which was also groomed mightily by the Bush Administration.

I had hope, for the most part, that my fellow countryman would rise above these shortcomings. Our society still has a long way to go.


An original is here.

Why Iraq War

Good as any other explanation. Via Andrew Sullivan

1. World, but especially Chinese, demand for oil had been growing and continues to grow exponentially.
2. Western and western-friendly oil assets are either all in sustained decline or approaching the point of decline from peak oil production.
3. The last time world oil discovery outpaced world oil consumption was twenty years ago.
4. The remaining massive, potentially politically accessible deposits of oil left remaining available to the industrialized West were all contained in the Middle East.

Under these conditions the Iraq War makes sense geo-strategically, politically, in fact in almost every way. Regime change creates a secure client state in the middle of the world’s last remaining great oil patch at time of dwindling supplies. It protects Israel, and so satisfies the pro-Israel part of the party. Insofar as it uses the rhetoric of ‘freedom versus terrorism’ it can be spun ideologically in a way that garners support and splits the opposition – thus creating the political el dorado of Rove’s ‘permanent majority’. It provided lucrative contracts to the military-industrial complex. It gave the pro-Republican officer corps a prestige boost and something to put on their resumes. It appealed to liberal interventionists like Thomas Friedman, nauseating moralists like you, and salivating imperialists like Bill Kristol. Throw in an arrogant, ignorant president with a messianic complex and a chip on his shoulder, a subservient, politicized mass media, an incompetent opposition, and a supremely ignorant, panicked, and fearful citizenry and the question inverts itself. Under these conditions, how could we NOT go to war against Iraq in 2003?

The rest, as they say, is history.

Bush Administration in a Nutshell

Later in the conversation, Gilbert recorded Goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Snopes

Cognitive Biases via Wikipedia

Cognitive Biases via Wikipedia

Paul Krugman: Trust and Betrayal

Via Economists View

Paul Krugman says it's time to start treating "belligerent, uninformed posturing" on the war with the lack of respect it deserves:

Trust and Betrayal, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: “In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.” That’s what President Bush said last year, in a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

Those were fine words, spoken by a man with less right to say them than any president in our nation’s history. For Mr. Bush took us to war not with reluctance, but with unseemly eagerness.

Now that war has turned into an epic disaster... Yet Congress seems powerless to stop it. How did it all go so wrong?

Future historians will shake their heads over how easily America was misled into war. The warning signs ... were there, for those willing to see them, right from the beginning... But the nation, brought together in grief and anger over the attack, wanted to trust the man occupying the White House. ...

It’s a terrible story, yet it’s also understandable...: nations almost always rally around their leaders in times of war, no matter how bad the leaders and no matter how poorly conceived the war.

The question was whether the public would ever catch on. Well, to the immense relief of those who spent years trying to get the truth out, they did. Last November Americans voted overwhelmingly to bring an end to Mr. Bush’s war.

Yet the war goes on.

To keep the war going, the administration has brought the original bogyman back out of the closet. At first, Mr. Bush said he would bring Osama bin Laden in, dead or alive. Within seven months..., however, he had lost interest: “I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure,” he said in March 2002. “I truly am not that concerned about him.” ...

But Osama is back: last week Mr. Bush invoked his name 11 times in a single speech, warning that if we leave Iraq, Al Qaeda — which wasn’t there when we went in — will be the winner. And Democrats, still fearing that they will end up accused of being weak on terror and not supporting the troops, gave Mr. Bush another year’s war funding.

Democratic Party activists were furious, because polls show a public utterly disillusioned ... and anxious to see the war ended. But it’s not clear that the leadership was wrong to be cautious. The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.

Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

But they aren’t, at least not yet. And until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.

Spinning Sparrow Shit

Bush's spin machine has jumped the shark:

ABC News

As President Bush took a question Thursday in the White House Rose Garden about scandals involving his Attorney General, he remarked, "I've got confidence in Al Gonzales doin' the job."

Simultaneously, a sparrow flew overhead and left a splash on the President's sleeve, which Bush tried several times to wipe off.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino promptly put the incident through the proper spin cycle, telling ABC News, "It was his lucky day...everyone knows that's a sign of good luck."

Lightning Strikes, Damages Jesus Statue

The Denver Post

Don't look for any religious symbolism here - it was only a freak act of Mother Nature, says Sister Ilaria.

The nuns at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden were thanking God on Sunday that no one was hurt when a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and struck their 33-foot statue of Jesus.

The lightning bolt broke off one of Jesus' arms and a hand and damaged one of his feet, sending marble plummeting to the ground during a Saturday afternoon storm.

"There were pilgrims up there on the hill," Sister Ilaria said. "The biggest miracle is no one got hit with the falling debris."

The statue of Jesus, which had one hand pointing to his "sacred heart" and the other outstretched, sits atop a mountain near the shrine in the foothills of Golden. Drivers on Interstate 70 can see the statue in the hills, and at night, light illuminates the white marble.

Jesus, wearing a robe and glancing down, is 22 feet tall with an 11-foot base.

Sister Bernadette was doing paperwork in her office when she heard the crackle of lightning.

"We did hear a bang, but we didn't realize it was the statue," she said.

Ironically, a bit of science could have prevented this from happening. Unfortunately, they relied instead on faith.

Infinite Copyright

Arguing For Infinite Copyright... Using Copied Ideas And A Near Total Misunderstanding Of Property

Well, well, well. I don't think we've ever had a single story submitted to us more often than Mark Helprin's opinion piece in the NY Times over the weekend, trying (and failing) to support the idea that copyright deserves to last forever and be passed on from descendant to descendant. Before getting into the details of why he's wrong (and confused), I should note that it certainly is interesting that just as a new "copyright alliance" has formed to push for stronger copyright laws, we start seeing articles like this one and others pushing the argument for stronger copyright and patent laws to extreme positions. A conspiracy-minded person might suggest that this is no coincidence, and that the best way to get stronger copyright and patent laws passed is to first get people arguing about ridiculously strong laws, and then get them to agree to "lesser" changes that are still much stronger than what we have today.

On to Helprin's confused piece. Helprin makes the same mistake that many make of thinking that just because the linguistic convention is to call such things "intellectual property," it really is the same thing as property. His entire argument is based on this simple point -- and it's why he's wrong. It is amusing to note that some are already pointing out that Helprin's argument is a blatant copy of Mark Twain's -- and yet we doubt he paid the descendants of Mark Twain for it. However, the key to Helprin's problem is his total and complete misunderstanding of the purpose of property as well as the purpose of copyright law.

The purpose of property is to better manage the allocation of scarce resources. Since the resource is limited and not everyone can have it, property rights and property law make complete sense for a civilized society, allowing those with rights to the property to buy, sell and exchange their property. This allows for resources to be efficiently allocated through commerce and the laws of supply and demand. It's a sensible system for the best allocation of scarce resources. However, when it comes to infinite resources, there's simply no need to worry about efficient allocation -- since anyone can have a copy. The purpose of copyright (and of patent law), then, wasn't the same as the purpose of property law. It has nothing to do with more efficient allocation of scarce resources. Instead, it's a government-granted incentive -- a subsidy -- to encourage the creation of new works. In other words, it was a case where the government believed there was a market failure. That is, they believed that without this incentive, certain intellectual works wouldn't be created -- and the tradeoff between locking up that idea and creating more content was one that was worthwhile. However, they always knew that it was a tradeoff -- which is not at all true for real property. And, as an incentive, many would say it's been plenty of incentive for many authors who have written books -- including Helprin. As an author of 11 books, clearly the incentive was enough for him at the time. In effect, by arguing for extended copyright, Helprin is going back and asking the government to change the bargain it gave him and retroactively promise him more. It's as if you could go back to your boss for the work you did in 1975 and say you now want to be paid again for it. Or, more realistically, it's Helprin asking for welfare. He is asking the government to give him a greater subsidy. But, of course, copyright is not a welfare system.

The key point here is that in pretending (or simply ignorantly claiming) that intellectual property is the same as tangible property, Helprin completely misunderstands what rights copyright law gives him. It is not the same right as he has over his own property -- which, after he sells it, he no longer has control over it. Instead of "property rights," copyright gives him a monopoly right (which is what Jefferson preferred to call it) to control how his output is used even after it's sold. That's completely different than a property right -- and, again, the reasoning is simply as an incentive for creation, not to guarantee control. Apparently, Helprin needs quite a history and economics lesson -- but if he had his way, that would be much more difficult since such ideas would be locked up forever.

Time to Excommunicate Nature

Andrew Sullivan on the Intrinsic Evil of Flamingos:

A famous avian same-sex couple - together for six years in an English zoo - have now adopted an abandoned flamingo chick. They are engaging in what the Vatican calls an "intrinsic evil." How does the Vatican know caring for and rearing a chick that might otherwise perish is evil? Because natural law says so. Meanwhile, nature seems to be ignoring the voice of God, as interpreted by the Pope. Time to excommunicate Planet Earth? Your Holiness, standards are slipping.

My New Religion

Via Scott Adams:

My new goal is to be known as Sheikh Adams. For that, I’ll have to become a leader of some sort. Unfortunately, I am not evil enough to inspire people to do things that are not in their best interest, the way a proper leader would: “Ignore those machine guns and charge the hill!”

The best I can do is to inspire my followers to do what they want to do anyway. Today I would like each one of you to eat, poop, and have an orgasm. (Not at the same time.) Once you have completed the Holy Trinity, or whatever you call it in your house, you may refer to me as Sheikh Adams.

Theft Deterrent System

On an imaginary carlot:

Person 1: The label on this car's window says,"GM Theft Deterrent System". What the hell is a "GM Theft Deterrent System"? You'd think that simply being a GM would be sufficient to deter theft.

Person 2: Yup. That's the one. Now it's a "system".

John Marshall: Immigration

Interesting and short observations:

Talking Points Memo

There are many policy debates I understand well enough to navigate on my own. But immigration policy isn't one of them. I have clear-cut general views. But I'm not familiar enough with the details to navigate the debate or the particulars of specific pieces of legislation. But one thing that does seem clear to me is that a temporary worker program is bad policy on almost every count. It gives you all the downsides of unrestricted immigration -- downward pressure on wages, weakening of unions, etc. -- with none of the upsides. You have a cheap, readily exploitable labor pool with no prospect of the people who make up said labor pool of gaining any political power to provide some counterweight to the tendency to exploit them. I would even say that having a large body of resident aliens with no prospect of actual buy-in into the country is inherently dangerous -- in economic and civic terms. The fact that birth in the US still guarantees US citizenship, I guess, prevents the nightmare of intergenerational non-citizenship like they have in Germany and other countries. But I'm not sure it's much better.

I know none of this is particularly original. All these points have been made more acutely and articulately. But whether you want tight limits on immigration or expansive ones, untying the connection between work and citizenship seems bad for America.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts. And I'm interested to hear from others who understand the ins and outs of this bill what else can be said in its favor or against it.

I just passed a roadside construction project and for some reason the guy holding the "SLOW" sign stood out in particular.

Do you think that maybe the job of holding the SLOW sign is a job the construction crew reserves for the crewmember they like the least? Is there any other job on a construction crew that is as simultaneously humiliating and useless? You're in essence demonstrating your credulity to thousands of drivers a day, displaying your vain belief that anything short of a court appearance will get a driver to slow down. All the while holding a sign that summarizes your team-mates summation of your mental capacity.

"Hold the sign higher Charlie!", the grew shouts as they giggle about the glory days of old when each construction crew was allowed a single conical hard-hat inscribed with "dunce" in bold vertical letters.

The new guy's gotta start somewhere.

Hayek on Conservatives

"Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule - not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people."

America's Slide Toward Fascism

A writer to Andrew Sullivan:

What American 'conservatism' has become fits closely within the definition of fascism: an intensely nationalist movement intent on defining membership in the 'nation' on linguistic, religious, and (increasingly) ethnic/racial criteria, accompanied by an unquestioning loyalty to (male) authority, enshrined in family leaders, business leaders, religious leaders, and especially, the leader of the nation, who is seen as embodying the Nation. Loyalty to the Party or Movement and its ideology is of great importance. Violence is the preferred means of accomplishing goals. Diplomacy, compromise, negotiation, are all identified with (feminine) weakness. The rule of law is also despised, because it lacks the immediacy of (violent) action, and its emphasis on balance and its concern with proper procedure is also seen as a sign of (feminine) weakness.

What the writer doesn't mention is another necessary trait: the unwillingness to question or verify assertions that leads to those authority figures being able to smear, discredit and outright lie about it's enemies. This foments hate amongst the uneducated throngs and leads them to violence against the authority figure's enemies.

For example:

Has anyone else noticed the bizarre spectacle of many Bush-backing blogs demonizing Ron Paul for not saying that we deserved 9/11, at the same time eulogizing a man who absolutely and explicitly said that we did deserve 9/11: Jerry Falwell.

For a short time, religion makes an excellent filter to sort out those that are willing to follow without thinking critically or questioning authority.

Unfortunately for both fascism and religion, their conflicting authoritarian manners eventually lead to a power struggle between their respective leaders. Therefore after the authoritarian government gains control, they immediately look for ways to yank the rug out from the other.

Unfortunately, this whole mess means nothing but misery for everyone else.

Hitchens on Falwell

Hitchens summarizes Falwell quite succinctly: Elmer Gantry
CNN

Outsourcing is Great... Hey! Wait!

Ah, the number of journalists that wrote the outsourcing was just another great way to make America more competitive and simply opens the doors to better jobs for American workers.

Then why are journalist is such a flutter about a Pasadena paper that's outsourcing local beat reporting to India? Gives those underutilized reporters a chance to score that better job, right?

CNN

Anyone think that economists are gonna continue thinking outsourcing is so dandy after a few of them and their professor friends start losing tenure to a videoconference in Mumbai?

Famous Bad Opinions

Famous incorrect opinions. Threadworn to be sure, but still instructive.

From The Big Picture

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
-Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television."

"The Atomic bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
-Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers ."
-Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what is it good for?"
-Engineer at the Advanced ComputingSystems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-Bill Gates, 1981

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us,"
-Western Union internal memo, 1876

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible,"
-A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"
-Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make,"
-Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,"
-Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"
-Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this,"
-Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy,"
-Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
-Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value,"
-Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, France.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented,"
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
-Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University

"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
-the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon,"
-Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

And last but not least...

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977