Category: The Dish

An eternal question for bloggers and opiners:

The lessons to draw here depends on whether you want credit or influence. If you want credit as an innovator then you should actually be pretty conservative. Become prestigious in a conservative way, until late in your career. Reject non-standard views but not explicitly; just ignore them so your quotes won’t bite you later. When the time is right, look around for ripe once-contrarian ideas and take one. Change the name and vary the methods and topics, grab the first few high profile resources, and trash the original contrarians as weirdos.

Or "excitable". Think Bruce Bartlett and Alan Greenspan.

The new euro coin adds insult to injury. 9 percent of Turks have a favorable view of the US. The West really needs some help dealing with one of the few secular Muslim countries on the planet.

The generals are trying to shut down the Internet:

"We had been getting information through mobile phones but these have been cut off. Then our reporters used cybercafes but the traffic has really slowed down in the last few hours. Some of the landlines we used have also been closed, so we cannot get in touch with our people."

Meanwhile, reports of several deaths are coming in. Nothing too awful yet. Remember that thousands died in 1988. There are reports of a potential crack in the military from a group calling itself the Public Patriot Army Association. Some first-person accounts:

"We, students came from Hledan and when we reached Strand road there were about 2000 to 3000 of us. The soldiers surrounded us from Hledan side and also from Bakara Road side. So, the students fled and scattered into residential areas. And the soldiers fired thrice and started beating people with batons. They chased the students up to Salin ground in Kyihmyindine. Two persons from the locality were hurt," a student protester told Mizzima.

"As I am talking to you, about 15 military trucks, one fire brigade truck, and about 20 police vehicles are all heading towards Hledan," added the student.

And here:

Now there are shootings in front of the Innwa tailoring shop. Soldiers are shooting and arresting too. It is at the junction of Anawrattha and Pansodan streets. It happened just now, but I did not see anybody getting hurt. The soldiers fired quite a lot of rounds. Now the protesters are heading towards Pazuntaung Township. The people are not scared. A lot of stones that the protesters threw at the soldiers could be seen scattered in front of the Innwa tailoring and on Pansodan traffic point. From the Pansoda flyover ten military trucks came down. The trucks were filled with arrested people.

Another grim photo posted on Burma Digest:

With the Dems caving again in the debate last night, Wall Street’s defense stocks soar. Here’s a glimpse into what Bush has wrought: in the Aznar chat, he spoke of the cost of the Iraq war as being $50 billion. So far, the man has spent close to a trillion dollars on two wars in six years. Next year alone, Bush is asking for $180 billion – more than three times what he believed five years ago Iraq would cost in total.

The problem with the president:

"The only thing that worries me is your optimism," Aznar said.
"I’m optimistic because I believe I’m right," Bush replied.

Notice that Bush has no concept that even if he’s right, bad things could ensue. There is no cost-benefit analysis here, no weighing of options, no thinking through of unintended consequences, no understanding of the inherent tragedy of human affairs. Bush might be the least temperamentally conservative president in the White House since Wilson.

He does, apparently, know what the meaning of torture is, at least in private. El Pais has the president complaining about pre-war diplomacy to former prime minister Aznar:

This is like Chinese water torture. We have to put an end to it.

Er, that’s Chinese enhanced interrogation techniques, Mr President. Keep your Orwellianisms straight.

Dont’ tell Blank Slaters, but there’s a correlation.

He’s uninvited from their debate – because of his opposition to foreign aid for Israel. But he’s against almost all foreign aid, guys! Including for the Saudis. Still: it’s interesting that almost all the GOP candidates found time to debate with this tiny minority. But not blacks or Hispanics or gays. Hmmm.

I slammed the leather/dildo version of Leonardo here. Dan Savage throws me a punch. Rod Dreher has a cow.

The final tally: