Bush Speech Blogged Live

Smug bastard.

So condescending! Every time someone tells him to be more articulate, he just speaks more slowly, like an idiot tourist trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English.

I hate it when he pulls this "put an Arab name and face on the tragedy." If he gave two shits about individual Arabs, he would be apologizing for blowing up their wedding parties.

Yes, establishing a democracy in the Mid-east would do all kinds of great things. Now, stop fucking off and do it.

Again, he's blaming the Baathists for the insurgency. Get a clue. Read the cover story of this month's Harper's. Shit, what am I talking about - this guy doesn't read the front page of the New York Times because he's afraid he'll get biased reporting...

It's a "massive undertaking"? Why didn't you tell us this beforehand? And let's not forget that when people have the choice they choose self-government over occupation.

5 Steps:
1. Hand over authority
2. Establish Security
3. Build infrastructure
4. Encourage international support
5. Hand over authority again???

"Full sovereignty"??? Right...

Either he's lying shamelessly to the Iraqi people, or he's a moron if he thinks we can just hand over full sovereignty, period. Rather, I think he knows (or his advisors know) that the new gov't will be so dependant on America for infrastructure and security that they won't dare defy us. We will still have de facto control. Iraqis will know this.

No one has questioned whether Iraqis want or are capable of self-government. It's the racism slur recast. Of course, there are at least some that want what we would call theocracy.

"Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters" again...

I'm reminded again that the essence of statehood is force, since the first and most important thing is to build up enough firepower to crush any unwanted rebellions.

A new prison! Bigger, more modern! That's what we need! And we'll demolish Abu Ghraib! Closure! Because modern, big, Western prisons are so humane...

Is the proposed legislature really the first freely-elected representative body in Iraq's history?

"A free Iraq will always have a friend in the United States of America." We'll see about that...

'I know the names of Afghan and Iraqi cities.'

His number one secret agent guy looks like the old man from Poltergeist.

Florida, Florida, the water table is f*&^ed/Florida, Florida, there's no more perfect place to give it all up

My opinion is not so dark as Vic Chesnutt's (of course, my experiences aren't, either), and I'm looking forward to my trip. Hortense and I leave tomorrow morning to visit her folks in the land of Jeb. There'll be short stop over in the ATL, and I'm gonna meet up with my dad - it's a pretty short layover, so visitation is limited to family, but I'll be back before summer's over, don't worry. We'll be in the Redneck Riviera thru Wednesday, then back to the ATX for a few days, then off to Spain! The fotolog will see more action than it's seen in months, I promise.

I just saw Young Adam, and also just started the (very short) book. Both seem pretty good - your typical post-war existentialist-type stuff involving a writer/drifter who smokes lots of cigarettes, screws lots of women, and ends up at the losing end of some moral ambiguity - a mixture of The Stranger, The Fall, and maybe No Exit, but taking place in Scotland and featuring much less glamorous characters (well, Ewan McGregor and one of his many lovers are both attractive enough, but no one else is, and McGregor himself isn't that hott in this feature). The book on which the movie is based was written in 1954 by Alexander Trocchi, a Scottish guy who rubbed elbows with the Beats and spent some of his life fleeing a death sentence for selling heroin to a minor. The movie is only showing at Landmark theatres, so it's kinda limited release, but I'd recommend it if you're into the above-described slow-burning stuff. The soundtrack is done by David Byrne, and serves as further evidence, in addition to what I've heard from his latest record, that he's doing cool stuff right now.

In all my skeptical musings about the Bible, I never thought about this possibility: the Bible could have a typo in it, just like any other book. What do the guys who say every word on every page is divinely inspired have to say about that?

Go watch the new Liars video for "We Fenced Other Gardens With The Bones of Our Own," directed by YYYs frontwoman Karen O., who is Liars frontman Angus Andrew's current mainsqueeze. If you start to get bored, skip to 4:45 - it gets a little more interesting there.

Big Media conspires to suppress Hilton Sex Tape!

Instapundit agrees with the unfortunate Atlanta-based radio personality Neil Boortz when he makes this idiotic suggestion:"Big Media" is giving more time to Abu Ghraib than to Nic Berg because the former story could hurt Bush while the latter will not. Well, that's one theory. Perhaps a more reasonable explanation might be that there isn't as much news to report about the Berg beheading. It happened, we're pretty sure who did it, and we continue looking for the perpetrators. Berg's family blaming Bush is news, but of course Boortz and Reynolds know the real reason the media is paying attention...

As evidence that the Berg beheading should be on the news more often, Reynolds (and several of his hawk-bloggin' buddies, to whom he links) cite the considerable web traffic that the beheading has generated. But, as their own "evidence" shows, what people want is not more information about Berg's death (such as that the occupation authorities told him to leave, that he may have been in their custody for some amount of time, or any of the other genuine news, which has been given ample coverage in Reuters, on CNN, etc.). What people on the web want is to see Berg's execution. They are searching for the video. As evinced by the popularity of sites like Reynolds' and the even more low-brow folks to whom he links approvingly, folks who surf the web are not always in search of genuine information.

Reynolds himself gives the reductio ad absurdum of the warbloggers' argument from web traffic to newsworthiness when he notes that the second-most-searched-for thing on the internet is... Paris Hilton! Now, why are we hearing all this stuff on CNN and the "Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation" about Abu Ghraib and not more about the beautiful and talented blonde jetsetter? Ask Reynolds, Boortz, Sullivan, et al... Maybe it's because more coverage of Paris would help Bush.

Idiots! Seriously, a high school student should know better than to make these kinds of arguments.

BTW, once again let me suggest that these guys read Josh Marshall on how and why to talk about Berg, Abu Ghraib, and the rest of the painful mess we're in right now.

Go here, download a coupla free mp3s of people covering Bjork songs, read a great story about doing acid, and find out the context for this hilarious aside: "(I hear that if you fold a $50 bill just right, you can see a picture of Ben Lee and Claire Danes breaking up!)"

Discourse on Method

All bloggers should be required to read this incredibly mature post from Josh Marshall.

I don't write about everything I think. I don't write just to say that X is good or Y is bad. I write when I feel I have something I can add to a discussion, and only then.

This applies, by the way, to lots of righty accusations (and pre-war lefty accusations) that if you don't denounce all tragedies everywhere all the time, then you're just an opportunist (w/r/t Abu Ghraib or gassing the Kurds or pick your tragedy).

I don't think I follow this 'only write when you've got something new to say' dictum often enough (or much at all, really). What Marshall calls "vociferous me-too-ism" is half of what most bloggers do, I'm afraid. (InstaPundit is an egregious violator, here - it seems like half of his posts are just links, quotes, and something like "heh" or "sounds right to me." Atrios comes to mind, here, too.) I'm going to try to do less of that, here.

Shit, is this a case in point??? Maybe the problem is that it's hard to know what your audience is reading. Even Marshall points to articles, presumably because they're things that we might not have seen. I know some of the people who read this read TPM religiously, but I guess not all of you do. So I'm justified, here? Eh, well...

I saw a band named after the experiment before I knew what it was...

Saletan has a probing and fascinating explanation of why Abu Ghraib is not the Stanford Prison Experiment. In fact, as it turns out, even the Stanford Prison Experiment isn't the Stanford Prison Experiment on Saletan's analysis. That is, the conclusions of the experiment simply don't follow. Fascinating stuff, especially if you are (like me) torn pretty thoroughly down the middle about human liberty and responsibility.

Some Dems' bitterness notwithstanding, our nominee is doing pretty darn good.

A few non-political comments

I just made this for dinner, and it was incredible. And incredibly easy, if you have all the ingredients. Highly recommended. We just had it with rice, but I think it could've been better with bread and a salad, as per the suggestions of the person who submitted the recipe. Dig in.

I also watched the 10 minute preview for this summer's big blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow and it looked awesome. I am VERY excited about it.

Finally, also on the food front, allow me to recommend tres leches cake, a delicious dessert made with cake soaked in three kinds of cream (hence the name). The Chronicle here in town has done several write-ups on it. I had my first piece the other day, from the Fiesta supermarket down the road, and it was awesome. Tonight I got some Haagen-Dasz (sp?) Tres Leches ice cream. Tried a bite so far, and it's not as good as the cake itself, but pretty good.

Oh, and "Strange Fruit" sung by Nina Simone = awesome.

Emo's

This just in, from America's Finest News Source™:

"Bathroom Too Disgusting To Shit In
AUSTIN, TX—The men's bathroom at area rock club Emo's was declared too repulsive for the emptying of concertgoer Max Risdy's bowels Saturday night. 'The floor was covered with water, there was toilet paper and garbage everywhere, and it smelled disgusting,' Risdy said, wincing at the memory Monday. 'It was really not the kind of place you want to leave a big pile of digested food matter after squeezing it through your rectum from the depths of your bowels.' Risdy added that the area near the music venue's stage was too loud and crowded."

True.

The Washington Post nails the Bushies in today's editorial! Good for them.

According to Rolling Stone.com the Drive-By Truckers have made a cover version of Tom Petty's song "Rebels" that will air during King of the Hill on May 16! Ha!