Whiskey Fire

Why Don't You Just Drive Away

In the world where things like human beings dying and being tortured in the course of senseless wars matters, the recent Wikileaks documents release is accompanied by headlines like "A Grim Portrait of Civilian Deaths in Iraq."

In Glenn Reynold's squalid little world, however, what the documents show is that the war was even more glorious than one he'd always masturbated to, and will be good news for Republicans! This is because, apparently:

so far the two biggest scoops from the latest document dump are that the infamous Lancet study was bogus, and that WMDs were found in Iraq in quantity.

Both assertions are ridiculous. The "Infamous Lancet study" is not "infamous" at all. Here it is, and here's the Wikipedia article about it (for crying out loud). Here is a roundup of the major ways in which hacks and wingnuts embarrassed themselves in "critiquing" it.

But you don't even need to immerse yourself in the statistical back-and-forth. Insty and the Insty-class hacks he's linking to are being perfect shits, relying as they are on this sentence in the Christian Science Monitor:

The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq (over six years). These include 66,081 “civilians,” 23,984 “enemy” insurgents, 15,196 “host nation” (Iraqi government forces), and 3,771 “friendly” (coalition) forces. Some 60 percent of the total is civilian deaths.

It is preposterous to claim based on this that the Lancet study is "debunked," because this total is a passive count, and not an estimate, like the Lancet study. That is, the documents are direct reports of actual reported deaths. (The WL documents by the way probably explain why after the Lancet study came out Bush became reluctant to talk about death totals, though a year before he was glibly tossing around numbers like 30,000.)

The reason why you'd want an estimate for deaths in a war zone is fairly obvious, at least for an honest person willing to spend perhaps a minute thinking about it, but just to be clear, well, it is astonishingly hackish to pretend that official American sources found every corpse. To be clear: all we have now is a new lower bound. That is, unless you are a completely amoral cretin willing to spout disingenuous twaddle about dead people, what the WL docs give is is a new minimum number of deaths.

You don't need to know any math to understand this. Just a shred of what used to be called "intellectual honesty." Hell, you don't even need a conscience to understand this. But it helps.

As for the second assertion, it is, perhaps astonishingly, even more shitheaded. From Wired, a Shocking article:

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

Omigoodness. First, to go no farther, if one result of the Iraq war was to make (possibly Iranian) agitiators more aware of how to make WMDs... good one! But not to worry, actually. Because these "WMDs" are material known to exist, as in the case of "a 'chemical weapons' complex" where “One of the bunkers has been tampered with.” Everything else is leftover mustard from the Iraq-Iran war, usually in the form of leaky munitions.

In other words, junk. Nasty stuff, but... junk. And if I recall correctly, in the Runup to War one of the Central Claims was not "there is a lot of disused nasty stuff lying around the country that even if it was all collected in one place would not really be a threat." Cap'n Ed tries valiantly to spin this as anything other than bullshit, but, well... it was buried junk. He ultimately sighs, his head in a mist, two stones in his fist, and an impotent worm on his thigh, and concludes that it coulda been great, but as far as these "revelations" go, they're an awfully limp causus belli:

In the end, there were no good options.

Maybe, but there were sure as hell less dishonest ones. 

MAS. With the Lancet study especially, it's important to remember that the "libertarian" Glenn Reynolds is deliberately spouting jingoistic pro-war nonsense propaganda. He is about as loathesome as exists.

Everything new

by flory    

I'm a bit more optimistic than Atrios that the banksters won't steamroll the entire judicial system by foreclosing on homes to which they don't have clear legal title. Even a wingnut heavy judiciary is going to be pretty protective of due process requirements.

But having to go back and clean up the documentation tracking legal ownership on the mortgage notes is really the minor issue here, as Nocera points out in the linked article. The real danger lies in the pooling agreements the banks signed onto when they sold off and securitzed the underlying mortgages:

they are saying that Bank of America was servicing loans in these bonds that the bank knew violated the underwriting standards that the investors had been led to believe the bank was conforming to. What’s more, they said, the bank had never come clean about all the bad loans, as it was required to do. Therefore, say the investors, the bank has a contractual obligation to buy back the bad loans.

In other words, the banks lied through their teeth, assuring the investors that these were properly underwritten loans, when they knew exactly what kind of toxic shit they were selling. Chances are good the banks are going to lose these lawsuits. Not only are they pretty obviously wrong from a legal standpoint, but they're not fighting against Joe and Jane Homeowner. They're fighting the New York Fed and the biggest bond funds in the country.

Unfortunately, winning can also mean losing:

If the foreclosure lawyers start winning a lot of cases, if judges halt foreclosures on a widespread basis, if investors start to extract billions upon billions of dollars from the banks — and if banks become seriously weakened as a result — we’ll be right back where we were two years ago. The banks will need to be saved for the good of the economy. The taxpayers will have to come to the rescue. That’s an appalling prospect too.

 TARP II anyone?

The question is, will the tone-deaf Obama administration try to pass another trillion dollar bank bailout without some pretty heavy regulatory trade-offs? A majority of the country already thinks TARP I was an Obama bailout, rather than Chimpy's.  Passing a TARP II without really sticking it to the banksters would be political suicide. Especially since all of this would likely be playing out right about the 2012 campaign season.

Anyway you look at it, the worst of the bankster-created economic problems may very well be ahead of us. I wish I had more faith that Helicopter Ben, Little Timmy Geithner and the rest of the Obama economic team will be willing to put the interests of the taxpayers, and the future of the country, ahead of the interests of their bankster buddies.

BANNED IN DC!

It is proving difficult to write about the Juan Williams affair, because it is difficult to contemplate Juan Williams for very long without wishing for something more interesting to contemplate, such as a freshly painted wall slowly becoming dry, or else a slice of unbuttered toast, or an unmowed lawn, or an unread David Broder column.

Not much more Fun is the right-wing freakout over the Williams firing, as we've seen this circus before.

It's quite the spectacle the first time you witness the conservative hordes spreading their knobby, pasty wings and taking to the savage skies of the Internets to the accompaniment of a million kazoos blaring Ride of the Valkyies amid billowing clouds of Cheeto dust. But then you realize they put on this show every five minutes or so, or oftener, over pretty much everything. ("Obama blows nose, uses a Kleenex -- or was it the American flag!!!!!") And it gets old.

Because you always know where it's going.

The comedy of wingnuts complaining over a media figure getting fired for Wrongthink is pretty great, as this is, uh, all they do. "Free speech" means "acceptable on Fox."

Freedom of Screech.*

Unsurprising as well is the "oh yeah, well then Nina Totenberg" guff, which is, surprisingly for someone of Stephen Hayes's caliber, surprisingly weak.

There was a joke there. Surprise!

Over the past month, in her regular appearances on “Inside Washington,” she has: criticized a ruling of the Roberts Court as scandalous; claimed that Michelle Obama gives people “warm and fuzzy” feelings; called Bill Clinton “the most gifted politician I’ve ever seen;” and lamented that the Democratic Party is diverse enough to include moderates that want to extend all Bush tax cuts.

As for the first, about the Roberts Court, it's nice to see a wingnut admitting that the Roberts Court is essentially an outpost of the Republican Party, and that not liking the Citizens United decision means not liking the GOP.

As for the second, apparently, saying people liking Michelle Obama = fireable, saying she is Stokely Carmichael in a dress = free speech. And the third, admitting that Bill Clinton has political skills is partisan? And the fourth, you know who else wants the Bush tax cuts to expire? Osama bin Laden. Besides that, being a Supreme Court reporter really should have a direct impact on your opinions about tax policy, because that just makes sense.

As does the idea that Inside Washington and The O'Reilly Factor are the same thing.

And that Jon Stewart never criticizes the Obama administration.

These assholes were content for years with working the refs. But they always wanted the whole ballgame.

Totenberg is going to get axed within the week, and won't have nearly Williams' multimillion parachute. Also on the block are Terry Gross and the Car Talk Guys, to be replaced by Sean Hannity reruns. And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will get defunded anyway.

That is just how it works in our Republic.

*"Freedom of Screech" is a trademark of WhiskeyFire LLC, Inc., all rights reserved. KMRIA.

The New Drunk Drivers

Shorter Wingnuttia: We must destroy free speech in order to save it.

Especially When It Makes Us Laugh

Hot FUCKING dog!

Now can we get Cokie Roberts to call Allah a pimp or something? I mean, now that we know just exactly what it finally takes to get a smug airhead axed from NPR?

MORE. An example of the Fun Jokes you miss if you don't subscribe to my Twitter Feed, when I, er, remember I have one:

My kids will miss Juan Williams, wondering why Daddy is not yelling "GET THIS PISSY ASSHAT TWERP OFF MY RADIO" anymore. End of an era.

 

A Picture from the House of Meat

You don't say.

At a candidate forum here last week, Representative Baron P. Hill, a threatened Democratic incumbent in a largely conservative southern Indiana district, was endeavoring to explain his unpopular vote for the House cap-and-trade energy bill.

It will create jobs in Indiana, reduce foreign oil imports and address global warming, Mr. Hill said at a debate with Todd Young, a novice Republican candidate who is supported by an array of Indiana Tea Party groups and is a climate change skeptic.

“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we have to do something about it.”

Stone the blasphemer -- he said Jehovah.

A rain of boos showered Mr. Hill, including a hearty growl from Norman Dennison, a 50-year-old electrician and founder of the Corydon Tea Party.

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize."

Fuck the Earth, the Lord saith, on the radio.

Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country.

And the comedy punchline?

“This so-called climate science is just ridiculous,” said Kelly Khuri, founder of the Clark County Tea Party Patriots. “I think it’s all cyclical.”

“Carbon regulation, cap and trade, it’s all just a money-control avenue,” Ms. Khuri added. “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.”

And the tragedy punchline?

Whatever the party composition of the next Congress, cap and trade is likely dead for the foreseeable future. If dozens of new Republican climate skeptics are swept into Congress, the prospects for assertive federal action to control global warming gases, including regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency, will grow dimmer than they already are.

Sigh.

Perhaps the United States of America may even still yet come to a point where we have a political culture evolved enough to handle climate change.

By that point however we will have also evolved sufficiently to possess gills. So it will all work out!

God bless science.

(Oh wait whoops can we still believe in evolution? Or is that still a Liberal plot? Let me know as I am working hard on the gill-evolving. This process involves pouring a lot of Jameson's down my neck. Seems to not be doing any harm, anyhow.)

Below: The Übermenschen of Tomorrow... TODAY!

Cheek

Astounding.

Nearly 20 years after Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Justice Thomas’s wife has called Ms. Hill, seeking an apology.

In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband’s former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.

“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”

Ms. Thomas went on: “So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.”

And that's not even the most astonishing thing. This is:

In a statement conveyed through a publicist, Ms. Thomas confirmed leaving the message, which she portrayed as a peacemaking gesture. She did not explain its timing.

“I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago,” she said. “That offer still stands. I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”

No offense...? "Hello bitch liar. Jesus says forgive, so you're free to grovel to me and my man about being a total bitch liar. Hugs!"

Ms. Thomas has, to use the technical jargon, lost her shit. Not to play psychologist on the Internets or anything, but this is the Jerry Springer-class behavior of someone who's way up a river in Egypt, paddleless, sensing the crocodiles circling in.

Thoughtful Conservatives, naturally, are blaming Anita Hill for this "silliness." Because trying desperately to muddy up the distinction between "being an asshole" and "being thoughtful" is the essence of "being an American Conservative Thinker."

BLOG-RELATED UPDATE. Posters and commenters at WF have complete freedom of expression, though I will ban or fuck with wingnut posters if it amuses me. That's pretty much the entirety of the posting policy here. That said, I personally do think "whore" as a word is sexistly freighted. For a lot of reasons. Besides, "whatever gives soullite conniptions" usually works out pretty well as something to shoot for.

HILARITY UPDATE. Don't miss this:

“Mrs. Thomas’s supporters said she plays an important role as a bridge between grass-roots Tea Party activists and establishment Republicans in Washington,” the Times reported.

Wow, what a fortunate break for those plucky total outsider grassroots Tea Party Activists that they managed somehow to score such an "in." The odds against this ever happening, why, they must be almost incalculable.

 

Fantastically Fine Things

I don't know why, but I watched the New York State Gubernatorial Debate, which featured one guy trying to look reasonable, one guy trying really fucking hard to look reasonable, and five other people trying really fucking hard to make the first two guys look crazy.

Cuomo seemed sufficiently not crazy, I suppose, but maybe someone should have pointed out that he is trying to become the guy in charge of New York State, apparently of his own free will. Fucking lunatic.

Crystal blue persuasion

by flory

I'm sure this is all about deadbeats wanting to walk away from their mortgage. Isn't that the wingnut party line?

Maybe the bank will foreclose?

Freedom!

Freedom in the new tea-party America: the right of GOP candidates to have their private security imprison reporters for asking tough questions at a public event on public property.