The Arab Spring is about to turn into the Islamist Summer.
No worries, though. Bibi Netanyahu and the rest of the Jews can always leave through the service entrance, should things get really hairy.
A crafty, devious people, they’ll find a way to get by.
(thanks to JHo)
****
update:
Shit, I must have misread the article, going through it quickly.
Ignore my snark, if this is being done with the approval of the Israelis. The link was sent me without any commentary and I maybe made the wrong quick assumption.
Because I’m unfairly prejudiced about the Muslim Brotherhood’s motivations, being a racist xenophobe and such.
My apologies, and thanks to Squid for reading what I merely skimmed too quickly.
A war in the mideast would be bad enough with a halfway decent president. With what we have now, it would be a disaster for the U.S. and Israel alike.
wow! This is unexpected! /s
Hmmm, why do the Egyptians hate their aircraft and tanks I wonder? One would think they’d rather keep their armament children safe from annihilation?
Am I misreading something? The linked article makes it sound like Egypt is going after some splodeydopes who were killing border guards, and that Israel is in the loop. To wit:
I’m not saying that the heavy equipment won’t be pointed at Israel soon enough, but I’m not sure today is the day.
Squid, the underlying difficulty is the mere control of the presence of armaments by treaty. So unilateral introduction, without prior negotiations and agreement would be the problem.
Shit, I must have misread the article, going through it quickly.
Ignore my snark, then. The link was sent me without any commentary and I maybe made the wrong quick assumption.
Apologies.
Springtime for Qutb and the Caliphate…
Well, yeah, let’s hope the Israelis are in the know on this one.
I don’t trust Reuters to give the full picture. And make note of the weaselly manner they use to state the situation. So we watch to see.
You had me freaked out there for a second, even though I still am in the other end of Israel.
Although soon to depart. Hopefully.
I’m just thankful that my ongoing attempts to feign sanity and intelligence have not yet completely failed.
Worse: Exclusive: FBI probed GOP trip with drinking, nudity in Israel
heh
I’ll see if I can find where I saw it, but there was an Israeli complaint that despite Israelis providing intel, the Egyptians were slow to respond to it, which resulted in 16 of them being killed. Morsi seems to be playing at partnership with Israel after sacking the military brass. And this does not bode well: President Morsi to Hamas PM: Egypt, Palestine, ‘One Entity’
Cynicism should be baked in here.
– Slart, can you get a feel for the local attitudes. We can’t trust the US media anymore.
Israelis I have spoken with are nearly all of the opinion that the US is really the right party to deal with the Iran nuclear problem. And I think they have good reasons for thinking that, not least of which is the shitstorm they would bring down on themselves for trying to go it alone.
But they don’t understand that our President is Barack Obama, and that he is extremely unlikely to take any steps viewed to be unpopular (warmongering!) by his base. I suggested that to a few of the people I have been working with here, and they were not happy to hear it.
Plus, Obama is less feckful even than George W. Bush in matters of foreign policy.
Notice how lefties are not talking up foreign policy these days? Ever wonder why that is?
PresBO is making a press appearance. First question: Are Ted Akins comments about rape the veiws of the Republican Party?
Jeebus.
– Actually Slart, Jug Ears, on military matters, is an enema wrapped in a large garbage bag in the misty cloud of a giant elephant fart. He has followed the Bush Cheney doctrine to the letter in Iraq/Afghan, and loves him the drones.
– Problem is he’s so indecisive in most things, other than entitlements pandering to hiis base, that most think he just let the war play out since he simply doesm’t know how to lead, which wouldn’t bode well in any instance where he had to take the initative rather than sit on his hands.
– Since he hasn’t really done anything on his own steam no one can tell what he will or won;t do, so lets just vote him out for the worlds sake.
– Someone in that presser should ask him if he switched parties.
Heh. He can’t answer any of the fucking questions without burying his answer in a load of bullshit. I think he’s hoping that he’s boring everyone to tears and they quit listening.
Oh! And Romney needs to release his tax returns, dammit!!! The country demands it!!!
I swear, that’s the only thing he has left.
Now he’s bullshitting that the housing market is ticking up. Sure it is.
– I’m sure that will come as welcome news to the 13 million Americans whose mortgages are under water.
– I’m not sure if it’s desperation, or the idiots on the Left really believe they can get away with this travesty.
– Leigh, are you watching it online. I’ve not been able to find any links to live pressers since Obama took office. Only transcripts after the fact.
No, I’m home and watching it on Faux News.
– Thanks.
Speaking of drones, you all see this?
*gulp*
That’s CGI.
Here’s a link.
“Those ones, not to mention any eventual products, would be the ones still flying after the non-drone DC-3s flyover spraying insect extinguishing DDT, right?” he said, scratching one of his fifty odd bites.
The tip off was the RFID chip. Basically a little radio. Which means a power source and an antenna. Get across those hurdles and you’re still looking at a very small transmission distance. Unless you plant receivers across every foot of the planet you’re not really going to be doing much tracking.
I suppose the second tip off is that I’m not sure we could place the sensors and processing power needed to make a mosquito fly on something near that size. Flying with flappy wings is hard. We’d probably have much more success putting a little brain control helmet on a mosquito and piggybacking on its specialized ability.
OK, thanks bh.
Still, that one is a mock-up, but I wouldn’t doubt there’s ones less sophisticated (slightly bigger say, with only video/audio capabilities) in use now.
Once drones are acceptable for use of the government to monitor citizens, expect them to exploit the shit out of it.
I share your *gulp* along those lines and it’s not like that little mosquito thingy is an impossibility. It’s generally unsafe to bet against technological advance.
After a bit of googling it seems like we’re somewhere around here at this point.
I have a cat that can catch hummingbirds. We’re still safe until they come up with something else.
Yeah, I was under the impression there already are working RC “bugs”.
Even if you step it down from that though, I mean, I can buy one of those video equipped drones that you fly with your iphone, land it on someones roof , and secretly watch anyone that comes to their door.
I’ll bet fed intelligence agencies can do better…
A couple of things related to the drone issue.
Regarding that pingback above my browser is telling me that “wars.nu contains malware. Your computer might catch a virus if you visit this site”.
Enemy of the State director jumps to his death, quite conspicuously — publicly, we might say — yet his family requests privacy about queries into his public act from the public. It’s just a strange juxtaposition, is all.
Director (blanking on first name) Scott left a note and explained that he had inoperable brain cancer. So instead of watching him deteriorate and die while his family is by his side, he hurls himself from a bridge and breaks all his bones, thereby becoming a swollen purple shadow of his former self.
Thoughtful.
The Last Boy Scout and True Romance. Good films.
It’s a bridge over water, from which they fished his remains. Not the way I’d handle it, but he likely saved himself a whole lot of misery and indignity. Brain cancer is a profoundly shitty way to go.
I ain’t going to judge the way a guy with inoperable brain cancer determines he wants to go out. If others feel a need to do so publicly, more power to ’em, I guess.
I suspect financially his family is well taken care of. And that he likely knows his family better than we do.
Any one of a great number of other measures, at home, alone, in privacy — to take up a former manner of speaking, if privacy was the question — work just as well at ending a life. So, the question did arise, why the public gesture? Not that we’ll ever know why [that moment, that place, that choice: Park the car. On the bridge. Impeding traffic, surely, right?], but that the public aspect of the gesture itself engenders the question.
Meh. Convenience. Adherence to an iconic American cinematic suicide trope. The tumor had some affect on his judgment. It was a spontaneous act brought about by overwhelming despair. Who knows? Could be any number of things that prompted the public nature of thing not at all related to a consciousness of publicity.
Don’t much care. And certainly don’t feel comfortable judging.
Who knows indeed? I don’t. Nor claim to. But do consider the possibility that the suicide considered it important to be seen, among the many other possibilities at hand.
He had to climb an 18 foot fence to swan-dive off the thing. How could it be spontaneous when he left notes to family and loved ones in the car? He had to drive to the bridge, too. No one with his kind of coin lives in San Pedro.
Pablo, hitting water from 200 feet is like hitting concrete.
Spontaneous as in, he decided that night, not right that second. Maybe he isn’t a gun owner. Maybe he didn’t want to go with drugs. Maybe he felt like flying. Point being, we don’t know, and I see no reason to speculate, not knowing either him or his family or the extent of his illness.
Hitting concrete from 200 ft is like hitting concrete. Hitting water from 200 feet will most likely kill you, but it ain’t the same as hitting concrete.
The request for privacy is from the family. It was not expressed by Scott, AFAIK. To my ear it translates quite neatly to “Piss off, we’re grieving.”
Egypt hates Israel as a matter of tradition. but they know that the biggest real danger to them in the region is an unchecked Iran.
Yes, there’s that too. Also, the diagnosis I’m assuming as most likely (glioblastoma) would also hit one like a ton of bricks, if properly considered. With very rare exceptions, it is a death sentence, so this may have simply been a matter of deciding the terms of his inevitable demise.
I imagine if you’re killing yourself in the thought to spare your family the disease then maybe jumping off a bridge is a fairly safe way to make sure they won’t be the ones finding the body.
OT: Came time for nearly all my advertisers to renew. All said they’ll pass. The killing off of Jeff is near complete. No links = no advertisers. I doubt this site makes it to the election. I have to start selling off my own shit to pay for this rifle. Anybody in the market for some shit? I’ve got it. And I’m a motivated seller.
Consider it a going out of business very soon sale.
Meanwhile, the number of predictable, milquetoast morons with paid internet gigs who don’t have to beg each month skyrockets. Life sometimes sucks a big bag of dicks.
Fuck.
I see no reason to speculate, not knowing either him or his family or the extent of his illness.
I don’t see why not. It’s not like suicide is all that rare. He’s a high profile figure. So is his brother, Ridley. People still speculate about Marilyn Monroe.
Anyway, it’s one of the things I have an interest in.
OT: Came time for nearly all my advertisers to renew. All said they’ll pass.
baracky “the private sector is fine”
Well, that sucks.
most are from china. even more sad.
I doubt this site makes it to the election.
have you tried shaking the grant money tree ?
how about putting this site in hibernation and moving over to blogspot?
No. I can’t even get links from my “own” side. Nice.
Anybody want to buy a fucking rifle?
Nothing here you can’t find elsewhere. Many of you already have anyway.
Ok, enough pouting. Walking away from the keyboard. Baby needs some attention. The real baby, not me.
You get linked all the time on Memeorandum. I see you in blog link sidebars on different sites, too.
Anybody want to buy a fucking rifle?
the rifle’s maker is a potential advertiser.
Could you sell opinion pieces to Reason ? Maybe write zingers for snark tracks for movies? Move to youtube and become a every other week video-guy like Alphonzo Rachel did ?
Maybe become the next Bill Whittle “splaining” things to people? I’m not making fun here BTW. But I’m not in a position to give any realistic advice either.
pw needs to become a 501c3. that way you go for grant money. i mean that’s how david brock supplies his armed security.
How to Start a Nonprofit
you could crowd source this here at pw
There are a couple of main points that should be made. First, Chomsky is an absolutely shameless liar. A master of the argument in bad faith. He will say anything in order to get people to believe him. Even worse, he will say anything in order to shut people up who disagree with him. And I’m not necessarily talking about his public critics. If you’ve ever seen how he acts with ordinary students who question what he says, it’s quite horrifying. He simply abuses them in a manner I can only describe as sadistic. That is, he clearly enjoys doing it. I don’t think anyone ought to be allowed to get away with that kind of behavior.
Second, Chomsky is immensely important to the radical left. When it comes to American foreign policy he isn’t just influential, he’s basically all they have. Almost any argument made about foreign affairs by the radical left can be traced back to him. That wasn’t the case when he started out back in the late ’60s, but it is now.
Third, he is essentially the last totalitarian. Despite his claims otherwise, he’s more or less the last survivor of a group of intellectuals who thought systemic political violence and totalitarian control were essentially good things. He babbles about human rights all the time, but when you look at the regimes and groups he’s supported, it’s a very bloody list indeed.
Communism and fascism are obviously dead as the proverbial doornail, but I doubt the totalitarian temptation will ever go away. The desire for unity and a kind of beautiful tyranny seems to spring from somewhere deep in the human psyche.
Fourth—and this may be most important—he makes people stupid. In this sense, he’s more like a cult leader or a New Age guru than an intellectual. He allows people to be comfortable with their prejudices and their hatreds, and he undercuts their ability to think in a critical manner.
link
be outlaw: the cult leader of a 501c3. hookers for the armadillo!
Well really, Jeff — how do you expect advertisers to take your site seriously if you’re not out their hyperventilating about Todd Akin’s Unforgivable Sin, and how we’re all DOOMED if he’s not kicked off the ballot immediately. (OMG! It’s like Christine O’Donnell all over again!)
I mean, that’s what all the Serious Conservative sites are talking about, not anything as useless as “first principles”. It’s all “will to power” these days, baby!
Chomsky was the sick fuck who insisted that the Khmer Rouge were decent people and the tales of the killing fields were mere agitprop. Pol Pot was a patriot according to Chomsky and anyone who said different was a liar. I think he finally admitted he was maybe a little wrong about Cambodia’s revolution in the late 1990’s. But it was unimportant trivia by then.
And he’s a linguist with a bad theory who teaches at MIT. Why this qualifies him to speak authoritatively on foreign policy, politics, various aspects of post modern progressive humanist theory, and collectivist ethics is bit of an enigma.
He’s also a hypocrite, but why pile on?
So they are the DCCC echo machine?
Sent to me by a liberal friend who seems to think I’m one of those echo machine RINOs for some reason I can’t get my head around.
Maybe I’m wrong, but at the time he made his academic reputation at MIT his linguistic theory(ies?) were revolutionary and made him quite a bit of coin (something to do with machine language/computer programming and the pentagon, but my memory is hazy and I’m not about to go digging for my Paul Johnson or Daniel J. Flynn), didn’t they?
It’s his politics that’s craptacular, not his linguistic theory.
Since when is incorrect or incomplete scientific information a disqualifier for a Republican?
Democrats love to run against those guys!
It’s his politics that’s craptacular, not his linguistic theory.
one hit wonders
His theory is that there is a universal gramar built into the human mind that all languages share and that Chomsky is someone who can recognize and describe this universal component of all human language and any languages that don’t appear to share it are obviously lies planted by his desperate enemies.
gramar -> grammar
http://chronicle.com/article/Researchers-Findings-in-the/131260/
Yes. His Universal Language Theory has been discredited. It was wildly popular for a time until new (to us) ancient languages that are unlike any other were discovered that are still spoken in remote areas.
Well, from the perspective of a Martian linguist….
Interesting article. thanks.
See, I’m not seeing what’s so outrageous about what Akin said, at least if the quote in Geoff’s 9:43 is accurate. I mean, other than having the sheer audacity to be a Male Republican and saying whatsoever on the subject of rape and abortion.
I assume the freak-out is over the term “legitimate”; presumably he meant “violent, forcible” as opposed to statutory rape, “passed out drunk in a frat-house” rape, or the “changed my mind the next day” rape, which are what they are, but presumably not the sort of things that would induce the trauma-driven “flush the system” response. If such a thing even exists; I’ve got no idea. I guess there must be something there, and he didn’t just pull that bit of dubious info out of thin air, but whatever.
The full-blown “OMG! ABORT! Candidate is hopelessly tarnished! We’re going to lose, and not be able to override Obamacare, and the nation will be lost!11!!!” hysterical response from our side is somewhat disheartening, if only because it concedes that politics is driven by ignorant mobs, and there’s no hope (or even attempt) to educate said mob. No, we must placate them, and thereby encourage their mobliness.
That can’t be good.
I just don’t give a shit about all the mostly discredited Republican pseudo-cognoscenti whining about winning and then pissing on their candidate at the same time.
Ace says “Ann Coulter says blah blah blah Akin Blah…READ THE WHOLE THING!” Nah. Why? Ann Coulter dove in the mud and stayed there. I don’t read her anymore. Why would I give a shit what she thinks? She’s just another clueless, comfort seeking, mercenary like Michael Steele to me now. She burned her “I get it! “card so Gov. Christie might smile at her. Now she’s on the flippy-floppy dolt list like Brooks, Frum, Goldberg, Lowry, and Allahpundit.
All I know is I can’t trust idiots who try to inflame my political passions with lame shit like “inevitable vs. theocrat”.
I can’t take seriously someone who tells me with a straight face that electing even more treacherous waffles who are already promising the other side that they’ll screw us first chance they get, (and BY THE WAY, boy aren’t we all just a lot of AWFUL, stupid, bumble-fuck, inbred little Jesus freaks anyway) is somehow a serious, grown up, sophisticated, smart, winning political strategy.
I can’t. Not drunk or sober.
So fuck the Missouri GOP and any of the national GOP who wants to piss on their own candidate three months before a critical election. That includes Mark Levin if he really wants to climb on that particular fail-boat again. Good luck with that. Whatever. You can’t repeatedly throw away your convictions without hurting your brand and the brand is long since done for.
I support Akin merely because anything that pisses off the GOP stupid-party non-establishment machine is good to me now, ESPECIALLY when they insist that they are the only serious people who want to save the country. Go ahead. Poison the race, piss off your donors, fill them with dread at your incompetence and whiney narcissistic malice, and then publicly complain about not taking the senate. Do it. It’s not like I’m going to donate to the GOP anymore anyway. Keep shitting the bed and complaining that I’m not changing the sheets fast enough. Go on.
That’s how much the GOP has stained their reputation with me.
I wash my hands of you, you useless gaggle useless backstabbing Rockefeller GOP imbeciles. I have no use for you, no faith in you, and claim no alliance with you.
To put it another way, if the GOP won’t support their primary winners three months before an election then why should I? What happened to one party united in purpose? If that’s out the window then I guess you can forget about my assistance in the upcoming election too. Sorry Romney. Maybe you’d better think about dropping out.
I think what Akin said was stupid. I don’t in any way believe that women can routinely sub-consciously bio-dump a rapists sperm. And yeah it does sound a bit like some sort of alternative biology doctrine like the mulslim legal scholar who concluded from a prase spoken by Mohammed in the traditions that women can sometimes hold fertilized eggs in their womb ‘Benet Gesserit’ style, for a decade before releasing them from stasis and allowing them to develop and be born.
So, it’s dumb.
But…
As always, Republicans will get no points and no advantage for piling on him before the democrats do, and not recognizing that is ALSO stupid. A lot of it comes from stupid cartoonish bullshit “white knight” type thinking where people recite dumb mantras and socially disown anyone who doesn’t.
Observe.
I just read an “enlightened” comment on Michelle Malkin’s post about Akin.
Okay. that sound good right? Very noble and high minded right? Hard to disagree with. Rape is NEVER legitimate! NEVER! YAAAGH!!! But try this. What he obviously meant by legitimate was almost certainly “verfied” or “actual” as opposed to statutory or ambiguous or even FALSE. he was saying ‘by force’ and ‘it really happened’. He wasn’t saying ” if you are going to rape then follow the rape rules and do it the right way. ” He was talking about people claiming they were raped ( cough Norma L. McCorvey cough) in order to more easily obtain an abortion in some hypothetical land (cough late 1960’s Texas cough) where only rape legally justifies performing an abortion.
Bizarre science fiction theories of feminine post rape ‘womb fertility control’ aside he was reminding us that rape charges and claims of rape are not always conclusively shown to be rape under investigation. And thus people seeking an abortion under a “permissible if raped” system are more likely to allege rape to get one.
Tell former members of the Duke Lacrosse team that the word “legitimate” should never be anywhere near the word “rape.”
Seriously. Call THEM up and let them know how things REALLY are in all rape cases. Because there is NO WAY that those words would ever need to be together for any reason right?
After all we KNOW what women never make false charges of rape. Ever. Except for hotel maids trying to shake down rich french IMF managers or massage therapists who come to Al Gore’s hotel room. Or that 13 year old girl that Roman Polanski drugged and jumped. Or maybe those women that said that Bill Clinton was bothering them. Other than those LIARS it never ever happens. Right?
Akin must be punished and it must be by Republicans. Because….thingy.
I heard it as forcible/violent as opposed to statutory/drunken/withdrew consent afterward.
I heard it as rape rape as contrasted with the paltry statutory kind.
Where his idea came from.
Akin needs dumping. Derbyshire needed dumping. I need dumping.
We need the moderates and independents to like us, and the only way to do that is not be ourselves or make our case, but to keep our heads low and not give the left any ammunition against us. Watch all our words carefully. Craft our sentences like lawyers so that they can’t be taken out of context — and if they are, admit that the error was ours for not being more careful, allowing the left to misuse what we said against us, for which we apologize.
That ought to show those fuckers who’s boss!
#WINNING
JB and palaeomerus —
I’m thinking I’m just going to re-post the Hot Air piece I did on Limbaugh, but replace Limbaugh with Akin.
Just for shits and giggles.
contrasted with the paltry statutory kind.
On the other hand, any man who can rape a statue is clearly not someone to be trifled with.
The universal grammar, if it can be said to exist, is what we might call a narrative function. It will be peculiar to a given groups conception of time, but it involves ordering to relay a message within the context of that group’s conception of temporality and cause/effect.
That’s my theory. That I just made up. But which I’ve always believed.
So fuck the Missouri GOP and any of the national GOP who wants to piss on their own candidate three months before a critical election.
“The GOP: We’re the Party of Treacherous Weasels, Who Just Want to Win Power, Whatever It Takes!”
Bit long for a bumper sticker, but accurate. Doesn’t seem like a particularly compelling slogan, GOTV-wise, though.
Not to say that the Dems aren’t Treacherous Power-Mad Weasels as well, obviously. But they generally seem a little more circumspect about it. Dems-gone-bad aren’t generally publicly disowned (exception: Joe Lieberman), they just are quietly swept under the rug and never talked about again. (John Edwards, Howard Dean, etc.)
The only quibble I have with Palaeo’s pyrotechnics above is that I don’t personally consider Jonah Goldberg a flippy-floppy dolt. But then I don’t know what, if anything, he’s opined vis-a-vis Akin. Well said sir, carry on!.
I hope Jeff reposts the hot air piece. That’d be a hoot!
“On the other hand, any man who can rape a statue is clearly not someone to be trifled with.”
I, on the other hand, would attribute far more terror to someone who could actually get a statue to consent to sex as opposed to merely registering no expressed objection. That’s some Gary “Kneel Kirk!” Mitchell and ‘Prospero on his island’ type shit and I want nothing to do with it.
Just so it’s not missed–it wasn’t done with Israel’s permission.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/world/middleeast/israel-asks-egypt-to-remove-tanks-from-sinai.html?_r=3