Liberal Media Elite

As of right now: 1.00 USD = 0.995483 CAD. That’s right: The Canadian dollar is worth more than the U.S. dollar.

Bush really has spent all our money.

The amount of money Saddam Hussein supposedly requested in order for him to step down and go into exile before the war even started: $1 billion.

Total cost of war in Iraq to date: $455 billion.

Being able to say “screw you” to your allies and to force other countries into compliance by blackmailing them while indulging in absolute self-delusion: Priceless.

My nephew has recently coined the word “poonis,” under the logical (and etymological, and scatological) reasoning that if pee comes out your penis, then the anatomical region that produces poo must be your poonis. I’ve rapidly developed an intense fondness for this word, not least because it seems to me to neatly encapsulate my current feelings about the Democratic Party.

I often feel out of step with the rest of the LME crowd — not so much because of the philosophical differences, but because I so rarely talk about current events, preferring to use this space as a place to think about the relationships of individuals to their societies in a much broader, less specific sense. I pay fairly close attention to day-to-day politics — I’m something of a news junkie — but I just don’t feel that I have much to say about it.

Take the current debate over the surge, for example. What’s the big story here? That the Democrats continue to be a pack of pussies, worn, torn, stretched, and bleeding from brutal overuse? That the Republicans continue to form a line of glistening, erect penises, eagerly thrusting in and out of whatever oily orifice they can find? It’s hardly worth coming up with the crude analogy, although I did enjoy the triple pun in the word “crude.”

Briefly spent some time in a resort village. I’m told that the landscape was beautiful, though this may have been obscured for me by the presence of four Starbucks in a single square mile. Partway through the trip, we discovered a sign that boasted the opportunity to “Make Your Own Ice Cream.” We eagerly rushed forward, to discover their offer of ANY combination of chocolate or vanilla, with ANY combination of either a waffle cone or a cup. Buh? Those are significantly *less* options than just about any ice cream shop I’ve ever been to.

The rhetoric of self-determination requires only the illusion of choice. And — in an age where we’re coming to accept a more fluid perception of human sexuality — I find it ironic that our ultimate choice boils down to a bunch of pussies, or a bunch of dicks.

Well, well, well, it looks like one little internet company has been busy. Google, Google Earth, YouTube are all in on Australia’s 2007 federal election. Here’s hoping they reveal much the same for our ‘08 contests. ‘Cause it looks really, really cool.

The kids at Columbia give him the most appropriate welcome to the United States possible:

Now if only we could do this to Katherine Kersten once in a while… Not that I’m equating Kersten with a quasi-fascist religious zealot who believes in the unmitigated power of the state to… Oh.

[Update: No, no, no I'm not equating them at all... It is, to wit, a joke. I just think the denial of human nature is ridiculous. Ridicule-able.]

God. Damn. It. As of Friday, the Canadian dollar—long the little brother of the U.S. dollar—is trading at $1.0003. That’s parity.

This would be good if, you know, our country manufactured anything. Alas, we don’t do that much any longer. Also, Canada used to be 30% cheaper. Et cetera. I’m not the economist on board. Personal to Rik: I know that this isn’t good, but I can’t explain why. If you have some time, could you give us a lesson on currency value and how it relates to how a country’s economy might start sucking? Kthx.

Sigh.

On a more personal note, your LME bloggers travel a lot, often to assorted countries (there are five of us and we carry the passports of four countries… not all of us, certainly, and all of us are U.S. citizens, but there’s some France, Germany and Australia here and there). This means, of course, we can never leave these borders again. Not that this isn’t a fine country, but we don’t have poutine and bars that close at 4 a.m.

I didn’t think Slate could be so funny. Well, God love me, I was wrong.

Just saw on the AP that Iran says it will retaliate against Israel if Israel attacks it. The press is in a tizzy about it and the Israeli’s and various US officials are hoppin’ mad.

Um…what’s the surprise? Forget the names involved…country A says to country B “if you bomb us we’re gonna bomb your ass back”.

Like, no shit, dude.

I’m not a fan of Iran. Never have been. But, why is it everyone’s acting like they said something outlandish?

Weird.

In an airport again. On my way to Canada this time. Stopped to use a restroom — three stalls, all lined up, all occupied. Used those motion-activated flushing mechanisms, which means that each time one of us shifted, the damn thing flushed again, which happened roughly every five seconds.

Aside from the horrific environmental waste, this is just stupid. Everything in the bathroom was automated, the sink, the soap, the toilets, the towels, and not one goddamn thing worked the way it was supposed to. An extraordinary amount of time, money, and effort went into making my bowel-moving experience both more wasteful and less convenient. And — why? Because we’ve literally become too collectively lazy to wipe our own fucking asses?

I caught a few episodes of “American Inventor” a while back. I had some interest in the concept — my father’s a scientist, and most of our money growing up came from patents on his inventions — but I was vaguely appalled by the steady stream of new bike seats, sunglasses, and perfume bottles. There wasn’t a single new idea there, and these people had devoted years of their life and thousands of dollars to — what? A better bar of soap?

If this (admittedly sensationalistic) piece of pop-culture is any indication, the new god of invention isn’t progress but convenience. It’s a sad irony that such an astounding amount of intelligence has gone towards developing new technologies that have pampered us into drooling incompetence. Living in such a decadent culture is almost enough to make me run off into the woords and become a survivalist.

But not quite. After all, what would I do if I needed to rent a Buffy DVD at 11:59pm?

Alright. I watched the President’s speech to the nation. I cannot really decide if it was shockingly delusional—the kind of delusion you’d run across talking to Madonna or Barbra Streisand or Céline Dion, someone who is so convinced of their Greatness of Person that they’re always thinking, “Of course I’m the Angel of Righteousness! My talent and vision is so beaming, so pure that I feel uncomfortable in this mortal skin. Quickly, we must make the world beautiful!”—or if it was merely pathetic. It’s sort of a fine line the guy’s walking these days.

But that’s really the big thing, isn’t it? He’s turned into the GOP’s Streisand: a big, floppy, cringe-inducing embarrassment of a thing that can’t be easily swept under the rug because there’s a tiny minority of fiercely committed fans who won’t allow it to happen, perhaps because of some sort of secret blood oath.

Except, you know, that Barbra Streisand never invaded Iraq under false pretenses, plundered the nation’s wealth and destroyed our moral standing for a generation. With this analogy, “Yentl” seems almost forgivable.

I dunno… All I want to do is look at the guy and think, “It’s almost over, it’s almost over…” Except that lets me off the hook. And I’m not interested in letting myself or any American off the hook for this disaster.

More later… From all of us, I mean.

It’s been a long time since I looked at Minnesota Democrats Exposed (I don’t actually read it, as one can get a pretty good idea of what’s happening there by quickly scanning the headlines, i.e., lots of outrage at polysyllabic words). But I noticed that it got a face lift! Good for them. It was time they grew up and stopped looking like Miss Jensen’s 3rd grade class’ Halloween party e-invitation.

Being a designer myself, I was curious about the guy who put it together. And I found these testimonials for Derek Brigham, Graphic Designer to personal trainers and right-wingers throughout the Upper Midwest. And good for him. It’s certainly not a niche market I’d ever fuckin’ want.

One of his happy clients is the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. David Strom, president of the League and (correct me if I’m wrong, here, ’cause this is what it looks like) part-time bartender at chub night at the Eagle, says “Derek exceeds my expectations.” Seriously? They’re happy with that? Really? I won’t even start with how many rules of decent Web design the page breaks… Let’s take a look at the source code:

<!–[if IE 7]><!–></a><!–>![endif]–>

Dude uses Adobe PageMill 3.0! What?!? And who puts their logos on their clients’ pages? It’s not 1996 any longer. There’s a Google now.

I do think that this says far more about the Taxpayers League and MDE than anything. Namely, that they’re tasteless and boring. The design is crammed, unfocused, the kind of thing you’d see in a direct mail circular shilling something you’d apply directly to the forehead. So, snake oil, really. Which, all told, isn’t that far off the mark from the products they’re selling.

(Okay, granted, the code on this site isn’t the best. But, of course, I’m not actually paying myself to design it. Nor does LME make any money. So this isn’t the best to judge my work. Plus, most of the local blog designs suck, so it’s maybe a moot point. With those caveats, I stand by this post. And I still think Strom looks like a bartender at chub night.)

When the Strib buys out/retires the old-fashioned homosense of Rick Nelson and Claude Peck after the shocking veneer of their “oooh, what a big sausage you have” hijinx gets a little less glittery to the good people of Anoka County, the editors should totally hire Chris Crocker to be a columnist:

Because Fox News has taught us one thing, and one thing alone: Conservatives buy piles and piles of cultural carnage scraped fresh ‘n’ hot off the bottom of the nearest stereotype’s shoe. Love it. Can’t get enough. It’s like butter. Rolled in bacon. With a big dollop of ranch dressing. Mmmm mmm mmm, now that’s some tasty nooz.

The two dudes with the worst jobs in America are Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. They’ve just gotten through getting grilled by the Senate and now they’re being ripped in the press and the blogosphere. Interesting. They work for the Prezzz. They were given a task with a set of parameters and they’ve set forth to achieve that task (stabilize) within those parameters (whatever it takes).

One thing worth pointing out with both of these gentlemen is that they’d been critical of the war and/or its execution and tactics since the initial blast into Iraq.

The most revealing part of the testimony to my mind was the inability or utter resistance put up by both men to answer the question “Tell me how this ends?” There is no defined mission beyond the short term one of stabilize the country (not the democracy, you’ll note). This isn’t surprising as there has never been a clearly defined mission. There were no answers to the long term questions…what’s the strategy to put the whole country back together and bring our forces home? None. Zip. Again, not surprising. The closest we ever had to such a strategy was “kick their asses”. Again, not a surprise, then, that there were no answers forthcoming from the two sacrificial lambs, nor will the Prezzz offer any in his speech tonight.

So when, then, will we leave Iraq? Certainly not during the Bush presidency. The Dems, despite their bluster, conceded the timeline through next June, during which the big change will be that the additional 30,000 troops who went over as part of the surge will come home. Leaving us exactly where we were in 2006.

The answer to that question?…When the Democrats find their collective spine and the Republicans find their collective conscience. In other words, no time soon.

I took this picture on September 2, 2007. It’s a store front on Via Cavour in Rome which led me directly to the centre of the old empire, the Forum Romanum.

Hey, it was 7am on a Sunday. In Rome. There was meaning in everything.

Dear President Ahmadinejad,

Fuck you.

That is all.

Love,
Matthew

This evening the Bubble Boy will announce his bold vision to move forward in Iraq which consists entirely of restoring troop levels to November 2006 levels by July of 2008. Remember when we all that the levels in November 2006 were too high and we voted the Republicans into the minority? Yeah. By the time the 2008 election rolls around we just might have decreased the number of US personnel in Iraq to the same number that were in Iraq at the last election.

This, apparently, is progress.

Caught the Junior Senator from Illinois during the wall-to-wall coverage of the Iraq dog and pony Petreaus Crocker show in MPR. It was impressive.

Look! Youtubes!

OBAMA (D-Ill.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. Obviously, with seven minutes, it’s a little frustrating, because we’re dealing with an extraordinarily complex situation.

So I just want to stipulate a couple things. Number one, the performance of our troops has been outstanding. And we thank them for their service. They’ve done everything that’s been asked of them throughout this process.

Number two, I think that both of you gentlemen are doing the absolute best that you can, given an extraordinarily difficult situation. And so I appreciate the work that both of you are doing. I would say that the mission that’s been given to you is what’s at issue here in the Senate.

The question is one of strategy, not tactics. And the difficulty we have, I think, is that, each time we’ve talked to you, questions have been posed to you about the broader strategy of our war in Iraq, you’ve punted a little bit because you’ve said, look, that’s a little outside my bailiwick.

But as Senator Feingold pointed out, we don’t have limitless resources. And we’ve got to make these decisions, at least, in the Senate, based on priorities and the costs, as well as benefits, to pursuing a particular strategy.

I have to say, and this hasn’t been commented on, I think that we should not have had this discussion on 9/11 or 9/10 or 9/12. Because I think it perpetuates this notion that, somehow, the original decision to go into Iraq was directly related to the attacks on 9/11.

OBAMA: And this is not to relitigate the original decision to go into Iraq.

It is to suggest that if the American people and the Congress had understood then that after devoting $1 trillion, which is what this thing optimistically will end up having cost, thousands of American lives, the creation of an environment in which Al Qaida in Iraq could operate because it didn’t exist prior to our invasion, that we have increased terrorist recruitment around the world, that Iran has been strengthened, that bin Laden and Al Qaida are stronger than at any time since 2001, and that the process of Iraqi reconstruction and their standard of living would continue to be lower than it was pre- invasion, that if that had been the deal, I think most people would have said that’s a bad deal, that does not make sense, that does not serve the United States’ strategic interests.

And so I think that some of the frustration you hear from some of the questioners is that we have now set the bar so low that modest improvement in what was a completely chaotic situation, to the point where now we just have the levels of intolerable violence that existed in June of 2006 is considered success, and it’s not.

This continues to be a disastrous foreign policy mistake. And we are now confronted with the question: How do we clean up the mess and make the best out of a situation in which there are no good options, there are bad options and worse options?

And this is not a criticism of either of you gentlemen, this is a criticism of this president and the administration which has set a mission for the military and for our diplomatic forces that is extraordinarily difficult now to achieve.

OBAMA: And there has been no acknowledgement of that on the part of this administration, so that we have the president in Australia suggesting somehow that we are, as was stated before, kicking A-S-S.

How can we have a president making that assessment? And it makes it very difficult then for those of us who would like to join with you in a bipartisan way to figure out how to best move forward to extricate this from the day-to-day politics that infects Washington. So I just wanted to get that on the record.

Final stipulation, I think the surge has had some impact, as I suggested. I would hope it would, given the sacrifices and loss that have been made. I would argue that the impact has been relatively modest given the investment.

And I have to say that, based on my testimony, it is not clear to me that the primary success that you’ve shown in Anbar has anything to do with the surge. You said, in this testimony, that it’s political the reason for the success in Anbar, not because of an increase in troop strength.

We have, maybe, seen some modest decline in sectarian violence inside Baghdad as a consequence of our troop withdrawals. That has been purchased at the cost of increased U.S. casualties and is unsustainable. What we haven’t seen is a significant disarming of the Shia militias. Again, during your testimony you’ve told us that essentially the Shias decided, even before we got there, to get on one knee and to wait it out.

We haven’t seen, most importantly, any significant improvement, in terms of the central government’s performance. It continues to be ineffectual and we have not seen national reconciliation of the sort that was promised prior to the surge.

So I just think it is important for us to get all that clear and on the record because that provides the context in which we are going to have to be making a series of decisions.

That, of course, now leaves me very little time to ask questions and that’s unfortunate.

BIDEN: That’s true, Senator.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: Let me pick up on a question that, I think, was relevant and posed by Senator Murkowski. And that is, the general theory has been that we will draw down when Iraqi security forces stand up and or the Iraqi government stands up.

OBAMA: General Petraeus, in the counterinsurgency manual that you wrote, it says that even the strongest U.S. commitment will not succeed if the populous does not perceive the host nation government as having similar will and stamina to our own.

The question, I think, that everybody is asking is, how long will this take? And at what point do we say enough? General — Ambassador Crocker, you said the patience — the Iraqi people understand that the patience of the American people is not limitless. But that appears to be exactly what you’re asking for in this testimony.

I don’t see, at any point, where you say, if this fails, or if that does not work, or if we are not seeing these benchmarks met or any conditions in which we would make a decision now to start drawing down our troops. And you suggest, somehow, that our drawing down troops will not trigger a different set of behaviors on the part of the Iraqis, but I don’t see what will.

And if we’re there the same place a year from now, can you please describe for me any circumstances in which you would make a different recommendation and suggest it is now time for us to start withdrawing our troops? Any scenario? Any set of benchmarks that had not been met?

CROCKER: Senator, I described for Senator Sununu a little bit ago some of the things that I think are going to be very important as we move ahead.

OBAMA: Can you repeat those? And I know I’m out of time, so I’m just going to ask for both the general and the ambassador to answer.

I have to run, but look to the comments in AdamB’s Diary at DKos to get the gist of why this was so awesome.

As the Strib continues its long, hellish descent into madness, all Miss Havisham-with-ink-in-her-veins style, Withering Glance with Claude Peck and Rick Nelson has now officially replaced Katherine Kersten as the most irritating column in the paper. Because what’s a descent into madness without a nancy-boy court jester? Nothing to be embarrassed about, that’s for sure, and if the Strib’s going to implode, it’s going to implode the right way: embarrassing, messy, full of lawsuits and leaving nothing to the imagination.

Yesterday, Claude and Rick were ever the part of their giddy selves, as self-congratulatory as a 13-year-old girl and twice as rich. I’d like to say they’re setting the gay rights movement back a decade, but that would be unfair. They’re just keeping it stagnant. Sort of like all of the “gay” characters on the televisions, with their impeccable ability to make women whole because they have no lives of their own, and certainly nothing icky. So, by that, I suppose that Claude and Rick aren’t so much gay as they are faggy. The blissful stagnancy of substance-free dreck, breeding so many mosquitoes.

Anyway, here’s my take on yesterday’s WG or, as I like to call it, The Limp-Wristed Bitch-Slap (which I feel to be a far more accurate title, even for a family newspaper—perhaps especially for a family newspaper).

CP: How are you set for straight male friends, Rick?

RN: I don’t quite understand the question.

Here, we see CP and RN trying to establish the “premise”: Rick Nelson is too busy with a manicure or poppers to focus on his job, and he’s sort of daft in a very adorable kind of way, the kind of way that has wide, clear eyes that always seem to be looking into middle distance. LESSON: Gay men are charming but incompetent. This is why gay men make really good admin assistants, as long as you have a competent woman to back them up, because even if they screw up the copy jobs, they’ll always have a cute quip about how your enemies must be destroyed (cf. Ugly Betty).

RN: [...] Of course I know and adore a number of straight men — and these are guys with whom I do not share a familial or workplace bond — but when it comes right down to it, do I have any that I would consider to be friends the way that you and are I [sic] friends? No. Does that put us in some emotional gay ghetto?

CP: Yes, it does.

I’m glad CP managed to crawl out of the intellectual Cosmopolitan 3-for-1 happy hour long enough to have at least one moment of clarity for 2008. Good for you, Claude. LESSON: Gay men only understand they’ve made a mistake when they hear the word “ghetto,” be that mistake emotional segregation or an article of clothing.

RN: Andrew [some straight guy who apparently committed war crimes in a previous life and, as punishment, is mentioned here as a friend of CP's] is a doll; it’s easy to see why Melissa is ga-ga over him. Perhaps the secret is befriending, as my cousin Elise used to call them, SNAGs, as in Sensitive New Age Guys. They know who they are, we know who we are, and we appreciate one another’s differences and similarities.

CP: You sound very Free to Be You and Me, mon cher. We’re supposed to be post-gay now, so I fret that my relative lack of straight buds is dating me.

RN: That, and those shoes.

Oh, ZING!, Rick Nelson. SNAP!, Rick Nelson. YOU GO GIRL!, Rick Nelson. LESSON: There is no better way to judge a human being’s soul than by their accessories.

CP has another revelation here before Rick Nelson vomits a hack joke all over it. I have no idea how old these guys are, but something just reeks of about ten, fifteen years older than me, though… A lot less Nirvana went into their upbringings, I think, and the relative flexibility of gender in the early ’90s did many of us a lot of good. In a way, I feel sorry for them. But I’m sure their shoes are very supple and their skin is very taut, so I shouldn’t worry too much. They seem happy.

Anyways, according to the column, CP has four straight guy friends in his cell phone. I have 12. Of course, CP also claims to have 133 entries on his cell phone. I have a mere 60, meaning my straight-guy-friend quotient is 20% to Claude’s 3%. That, I suppose, is the difference. That, I suppose, is the reason I just don’t understand The Limp-Wristed Bitch-Slap. That, I suppose, is the power of thinking homosexuality is a piece of one’s individuality and the power of thinking homosexuality imbues one with powers of flair and panache. That, I suppose, is why I really do consider myself post-gay and why CP and RN are threatened by the term.

I don’t consider being gay special. I consider it mind-numbingly normal. I think the Limp-Wristed Bitch-Slap boys consider it special, different, perhaps even better, as far as appreciation of risotto is concerned.

Which, at the end of the long, withering day, is usually just a defense mechanism minorities adopt when they don’t think they’re as good as the people in the majority.

…and, in a truly fell stroke of irony, shortly after my last blog post I received the following e-mail:

Locate Registered Sex Offenders Living In Your Neighborhood

New registered sex offenders may have recently moved into your neighborhood or your city. Let us help you locate them with a quick search so you can better protect your loved ones.

I click on the link, which offers me a “Free search for sex offenders in my area.” Inputting my zip code reveals that — gasp! — there is 1 sexual offender located in my immediate area. And, for a small activation fee, they’ll tell me who he is!

That’s right — if you don’t give us money, strangers could rape your children. Yeesh.

Gaaaawwwd. Dammmmmiiiiittttttttt.

Anyone else noticed how we’ve gone from talking about gettin’ out of Iraq (Dec. 2006, post-Iraq Study Group and Democratic wins in the election), to talking about drawing down the troop levels heavily (about the time Hilary started campaigning) but not bailing out, to now drawing down the number of troops who were part of the Surge. Petraeus is talking about the latter, which is effectively talking about ending the Surge. I thought our Democratic leadership, when they caved in to the Prezzz last May, positioned September as the critical date. If, by now, conditions in Iraq weren’t sufficiently good (in the form of the 18 benchmarks the Prezzz identified back in May,the Dems were gonna get all aggressive about pulling the plug. Wanna bet on that happening? Didn’t think so.

This is largely the result of the spinelessness of the Dem leadership combined with the ongoing obsequiousness of a servile press. If I was Bush and I wanted to make Iraq someone else’s problem, thus making the ugly withdrawal that’s sure to happen sometime (’cause we will withdraw and it will be ugly) something that I don’t have to be held accountable for, then I know I have two trump cards. First, the press will let me determine the language, ground rules, and context of the debate (ending the surge vs. ending the war). Second, the Dems are going to be eternally afraid to push me too hard on getting out. The Surge may have been a questionable military strategy but it was solid gold as a political one.