Akkam’s Razor

Breaking News vis MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - A cargo ship contracted by the U.S Military Sealift Command has fired at least one shot toward an Iranian boat, a U.S. defense official said on Friday.

“It was an MSC vessel,” the official said, confirming the ship fired on an Iranian boat.

Other details were not immediately available. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain did not have any immediate comment.

Of course, this is excellent for John McCain.

What is it about conservatives that they perceive bias anytime one of their outstandingly brilliant ideas get challenged?  Or better still, that they are crucified for their beliefs socially and economically?  From Mashable's Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins :

AND he should be fired for this nonsense :

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

[…]

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

The first 9/11 proved that. *

E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/byko.

This last 6-years has been a slow-motion train wreck.  OBL is still on the loose.  The Anthrax attackers are still on the loose.  We're stuck in a quagmire in a war of choice in Iraq, losing a winnable war in Afghanistan, and then contemplating opening a third front of the Great War on Terror in Iran (and Pakistan).

I'm tired of staring into the abyss.  In addition to the 3000 lives lost on 9/11 and the near 5000 (3600 military deaths, and an estimated 1000 contractor deaths) in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can chalk up threats to free speech, habeas corpus, our own privacy, and any semblance for advocacy for the middle class in Washington.  We are distracted from true threats like class inequality, our aging infrastructure, precarious financial environment, and global warming with bright and shiny objects like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and divisive social wedge issues like abortion, gay marriage, and evolution.

Although Bykofsky takes the easy way out and (correctly) states that another 9/11 would finally unite us, he's correct, but I hope he's thinking of the wrong outcome.  He thinks that another 9/11 would would cause us to put aside our partisan differences to get "it" done - I'm assuming by "it" he means the War on Islamofacism.  But there's danger in these thoughts.  With the right proudly proclaiming that we are safer BECAUSE there have been no new attacks, another 9/11 might have the complete opposite consequences - reinforces the disgust and despair many of us are feeling towards our media and political institutions.

The next-9/11 will preceed one of two outcomes - either the police state, or the beginning of the American Renaissance, where we cast of the dead weight and corrupt institutions of the past and become the America we thought, hoped, and dreamed we were.

Should Bykofsky get fired?  Should free speech have consequences?  Vote here. 

You'll have to excuse me if I think that the sudden outbreak of swastikas on Memorial Day, as well as flag burning, seems a little too much like another time where a swastika suddenly appeared . 

• Vandals Tarnish Memorial Day With Swastikas
• American flags burned at cemetery, replaced with swastika flags

Interesting that so few events were deemed to be newsworthy, huh?

I just cannot fathom why the Democrats (some of them, anyway) are so intent to give Bush a blank check for a war that damn-near-everyone opposes (the NYTimes reports that 60% think we never should have invaded, 76% think the surge is failing, and 20% are bat-shit insane).  Can you be that afraid of the establishments stenographers and the wingnut welfare recipients?  Vote your conviction, stand up to this President, and vote NO on the Iraq funding bill.  Even if that means voting AGAINST the minimum wage increase.

The kabuki theater over Iraq, talk of "Wait 'til September" and beginning of the end is pointless - you don't build a $592 million embassy, as large as Vatican City, and plan to walk away, leaving behind only a diplomatic shell.  You don't plan on DOUBLING the size of the surge in Iraq (from 21,500 told to the American people 28,000 58,000 to as many as 98,000) by Christmas 2007 [via ThinkProgress], remembering that the original plan called for only 6,000 to remain by December 2006, intending to keep them there for decades.

Furthermore, why are we hearing the war-drums AGAIN over Iran?  Two Aircraft Carriers have returned, the President has authorized Covert-Ops to instigate regime change, and the Iranians have seized 4 Iranian-Americans for espionage and attempting to forment rebellion.  Iran even has their own version of Ahmad Chalabi, one Alireza Jafarzadeh.  How much more will we attempt to tickle the dragons tail?  Having screwed up two wars, should we be entertaining the prospect of entering a third?

I've been wondering how BushCo could so flagrantly abuse the law and expect to leave office and remained unscathed, given that the incoming Administration, either Republican or Democrat, will be eager to through anyone and everyone under the bus.

Maybe they're not planning on leaving? 

You know it's bad when far-right and far-left websites are in agreement!

The USDOJ document dumps (related to AttorneyGate, PurgeGate, Abu Gonzalez, etc.) that have been posted at the US House Judiciary Committee's website(and parsed at TPMMuckraker) are now part of a searchable database.  Via the Sunlight Foundation.

[In the beginning] Shown as a Graphic Novel…
http://www.needlenose.com/i/fubar/inthenickoftime.jpg

The Narrative Story…
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/05/shocking_lawlessnewss.html

What We Don't Know?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-could-possibly-be-so-bad-by-digby.html

Bush's PERSONAL Involvement…
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/16/bush-comey/

The Secret [Domestic?] Wiretap Program…
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003242.php

The Outcome…
http://salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/16/nsa_comey/

You'll probably encounter this article by Clive James in Slate all across the interwebs today, accompanied by shrieking cries of "fascist", "wingnut" and "moonbat", and appeals to Godwin.

Take a few minutes and read this, and think long and hard about where we are, where we're going, and where we're likely to end up.

The most important story that most people know nothing about is the Scooter Libby perjury trial.  This trial delivers - Freedom of the Press, Undercover Spying, WMD, Iran, Iraq, the cozy and manipulative relationship the Bush White House has with the Press, bloggers…and well, everything, including possibly the kitchen sink.

The grand jury from whom these charges sprung was charged with determining if a crime had been committed by the disclosure of the name of an undercover CIA operative doing WMD research against Iran and Iraq in an attempt to smear her husband, war critic of former Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson, in response to an OpEd he wrote asserting that Iraq never made an attempt to acquire "yellowcake uranium" as mentioned by the President in his notorious SOTU address regarding the "16-words".

The subpeona list was literally a who's who of the government and press, and in the end, the machinations and statements of Scooter Libby, and their contrast with "the truth", ended in perjury charges for "Irving".

But the nagging question remains - is Patrick Fitzgerald, Republican US Attorney from Chicago, Roman Catholic, Jesuit Educated, "relentless" prosecutor done?  Not based on this statement, as recapped at Rawstory, from his rebuttal of the defense closing argument:

While rebutting the closing argument by the defense at I. Lewis Libby's trial, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spoke of a "dark cloud over the White House," due to the alleged obstruction of justice by the former White House aide. At the Washington Post's website, columnist Dan Froomkin points out that for the first time, as many have speculated, the prosecutor wasn't just accusing Libby, he was also referring to "them."

According to Froomkin, Fitzgerald "at long last made it quite clear that the depth of Vice President Cheney's role in the leaking of the identity of a CIA operative is one of the central mysteries that Libby's alleged lies prevented investigators from resolving."

"There is a cloud over the vice president . . . And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice," Fitzgerald said. "There is a cloud over the White House. Don't you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?"  More…

So let's pretend, just for a minute, that we pull it off…enough Americans come to their senses and steer us away from the iceburg.  We don't escalate Iraq and ignite a regional war, we change our borrow and spend fiscal policies and start planning for a sustainable future, we don't cook and then freeze ourselves out of existence, and we solidify, codify, and if necessary reframe out government to be more transparent and accountable, so that this sort of mess we've gotten ourselves into doesn't happen again.

Like I said, just pretend.

What do we do with these people?  What do we do with people that advocate nuking entire regions (and lack the common sense that radiation would complicate their oil changes at Jiffy Lube)?  What do we do with people who nod their heads appreciatively at radio hosts who advocate the poisining of Supreme Court Justices, genocide, political assasinations, and paranoid delusions?

What do you do with people who vote against their own financial interests based on "populist" notions like racism, religious superiority, xenophobia, and fascist authoritarian cult behavior and lack the intellectual curiousity and "liberal arts" thinking skills to actually evaluate how and why they are being manipulated?

What do you do with people who prefer the certainty of a lie to the uncertainty of truth?

So the great enemy out there, besides gays getting married, bloggers, and islamofacists, is those of the far-left (ie. all Democrats).

I really, really wish someone would describe for me what this far-left boogeyman is, and what he wants.  I try to figure it out from the "code-words" the right uses (tax and spend, cut and run, San Francisco values, Hollywood values, etc.) but not onlydo I not see them in the public sphere, I don't see it anywhere amongst my own value set, or amongst any of the blogs I read or my peers.

Who are these far-left liberals, and should I be afraid of them too?