The Crowbar

Ahh, the fantabulous Markos Zuniga of DailyKos has indulged in fantasy once more. This time Zuniga wonders aloud, “Where would conservatives go?” His fantasy consists of this scenario:  if conservatives were like the fringe reality-challenged liberals who promised to move to Canada when Bush won, which countries would they move to? Zuniga believes that if conservatives were like the out-of-touch fringe liberals, they would flee to Iran, Russia, Singapore and Dubai. He indulges in his fantasy even though, through his own admission, conservatives are have never declared such intentions. Through his words Zuniga does give us insight to his broken concept of conservatives, which I compiled: Conservatives:

• love Theocracy
• also  want an Oligarchy as a form of government
• desire a police force that regularly assaults members of the populace who do not hold to proper moral standards
• are warmongers who wish to engage in war above all else
• are imperialists who desire an empire
• believe in “unfettered” capitalism
• would throw all gay people in jail
• are all white and racist against Asians
• are all wealthy enough to live in an Arab emirate
• enjoy oppressive religion

Sit back and marvel for a moment. That’s what fringe liberals like Zuniga really think conservatives are like. Is there really any hope of communicating with people like this? I think not.

Juan Cole of Informed Comment discovered an interesting report from Guardian TV.

A Guardian Television report suggests that 75% of the 80,000 Afghan army troops are regular marijuana users. Many are alleged to be village juvenile delinquents who were kicked out. Discipline and tactical know-how is limited. They are facing old-time guerrillas like the Hizb-i Islami of Gulbadin Hikmatyar. Will 4,000 additional US trainers, promised by President Obama on Friday, be enough?

At least they’re in a good mood.

Our friendly friend Digby is upset that Notsocialist Overlord-of-All-Big-Corporations Obama didn’t also fire Chrysler CEO Richard Nardelli. Nardelli has deeply offended Digby in the following ways:

• He was compensated $210 Million after resigning as Home Depot CEO
• He donated $16,200 to Republican Thomas Suozzi’s New York gubenatorial campaign
• NY GOP operative Roger Stone helped bring down Elliot Spitzer (Digby implies Stone is somehow protecting Nardelli)

Digby thinks that Obama should “make an example” of Nardelli, “ the poster boy for worthless, overcompensated losers.” So very kind of her.

Speaking of populism, Christy Hardin Smith over at Firedoglake is up in banadaged arms about health care. She is specifically upset that the government isn’t footing the the entire health care bill for everyone in the nation.  Smith has a message for us all, that “half-assed health insurance doesn’t work.” I suppose that means that Whole-Assed insurance would work? Isn’t that the angelic Notsocialism that leftist bloggers keep telling us about, Christy? Smith builds her argument in favor of socialized medicine entirely with anecdotal accounts of people having difficulty with the existing health care system. Making people pay for their own care is Evil Capitalist talk.

In what universe does it make sense that the people who most need regular medical care are the ones least likely to get it?

That would be in the Socialized Medicine Universe.

Going a bit populist. Rob Scorcia stood up for himself after years of being bullied and ended up being convicted of assault and having to serve a one year jail term.

 When their cars were then egged again, Scorcia finally snapped. “I just felt I was backed into a corner,” he explains, an earnest kid living a nightmare he can’t believe. “Every authority figure I turned to in my life couldn’t solve the problem for me. I was seriously in fear of him harming my life or someone in my family. Looking back, I didn’t feel I had a lot of options.” So Scorcia did what he admits was the “dumbest thing” he’s ever done. On June 18, 2006, the 18-year-old grabbed a pellet gun and went with a friend to try to scare away the guy who has terrorized his life. At the sight of the weapon, the bully fell to his knees. “I want you to leave me and my family alone,” Scorcia told him. A few hours later, he was under arrest for using an imitation handgun in the commission of a robbery.                     

His parents should set up a legal fund, at the very least.

Amazing post by mayfly at Feministing.

This post was inspired by an obnoxious beat down I got recently at another blog when I dared to refer to myself as a rape victim. Apparently there was nothing wrong with my post except for my “offensive” use of the word victim when referring to myself.  

The woman is extremely brave. 3:46PM UPDATE: Just for clarification, I was NOT raped. The purpose of this post is to highlight the courage of poster “mayfly” over at Feministing. I encourage everyone to read carefully before coming to conclusions.

Good news for Obama, zippy890 at Democratic Underground says this:

Instead of speaking in generalities about good-and-evil or the democratic transformation of an entire region, Obama laid out a clear and focused goal – “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” It may not be easy to reach that goal, but by delineating specific, limited objectives Obama gave the public definite criteria by which his strategy may be evaluated.

So, Obama won’t be judged by the number of American soldiers killed like Bush was? If there is another terrorist attack in the US, methinks Obama will be judged by that.

Amusing.  David Neiwert doesn’t like Jonah Goldberg’s assertion that Conservatives have a future.  Neiwert’s condescension:

Sure, we can acknowledge that most conservatives are in fact nice people. But they’re nice people who have nearly ruined the country. That’s an argument conservatives can’t really engage, though, without losing — because they’ve already lost it.

We’ve lost the argument? It was conservatives behaving like liberals plus liberals that got us into the financial mess. Conservatives must behave like conservatives if conservatism is to have a future.

John Aravosis at AMERICABlog is nervous. You have to read into the undertones, but it’s there. Feel the “put on my best face” stance in his writing. Aravosis dismisses the DOW’s immediate drop and claims that Obama really didn’t fire the GM CEO, “ he simply told him that in order to get more bailout money.” Just remember folks, it’s not socialism when the head of government can fire a CEO, it’s… um, er, uh… something else. Hey, can’t Castro do the same thing? But I guess that’s not socialism, either.