Gotta give Bush credit: He made the exact right move at the exact right time. Ditching Rumsfeld, the single most visible symbol of the Iraq debacle short of Bush himself, was perfectly timed. Had he dumped Rummy shortly before the election, it would have been seen as a desperation move. I suppose there’s a possibility that it might have changed the outcome, which has been seen as a voter repudiation of the war. But I don’t think it’s a sizable chance, and probably would have been seen as a case of “too little, too late.” In this instance, though, it managed to grab headlines from the Democratic triumph back to the White House. Bush has snared the spin cycle before the election dust has settled. He did the right thing in getting rid of an advisor who has given him nothing but bad advice and been a PR catastrophe on more than one occasion, and he did it at a time when his support base is at an all-time moral low. He has sent a definite message: He’s not going to be spending the next two years with more of the same and staying the course, steering the remainder of his presidency into irrelevancy.
With a smartening-up Bush and a newly energized Democratic majority, let’s see if the government finally gets on the right track.
PAD
• 
Just saw a commerical for the Republicans, trying to distance themselves from their extremist image lately. Barn door. Horse hitching ride to Memphis.
Thank you for finally admitting your moral cretinism. Your sheltering of racism is not so dismaying when you dismiss your own credibility. This seems appropriate considering your denial of plainly observable facts.
Ðámņ, Bill Myers, he’s got you. If you agree that you’re a moral cretin, well, you’re a moral cretin. And if you deny that you’re a moral cretin…you’re admitting that you’re a moral cretin! Booyah!
Mike has managed to do what such great thinkers as Aristotle, Plato, Kierkegaard, and Sartre were never able to achieve; create the iron-clad argument. I tip my hat to you sir! Please don’t waste you time with us! The Harvard Debate Team needs your gifts! Go, go, for the good of the city!
“Go, go, for the good of the city!”
No, Bill, don’t send him away. I want to see what he’s going to do next. I’m hoping for balloon animals, or maybe a trick with a rabbit.
…then Bill Myers is dismissing his own credibility, yes. I am no more responsible for that than I am for the wind or the rain.
If summaries of the truth are modular enough for your children to challange you with some day — perhaps that hate crime laws make as much sense as cop-killer laws — then it doesn’t matter where they are established. If this bothers you, I’m not going to insist you stay here.
James Burke did a documentary series in the 1980s called “The Day The Universe Changed” about the history of the evolution of our understanding of the universe. He predicted that the networking of computers would accelerate the overturning of our paradigms, as increasingly open media accessibility (like the printing press) leads to huge upheavals in understanding (like the Reformation).
If having your understanding of the universe challenged constantly until the day you die annoys you, you should get off the internet immediately.
Mike, are you the creator of Hi and Lois? Because you are making me laugh.
GODWIN’S LAW ENACTED AT FEDERAL LEVEL
Senate and House Leaders Pass Emergency Legislation to Prevent More Deaths From Boredom
Washington, D.C.
Nov. 19, 2006
By Bill Myers
During a late-night emergency session, Congressional representatives voted nearly unanimously to enact “Godwin’s Law,” making it a federal crime to mention Nazis, Adolf Hitler, or genocide in blog threads where Nazis are not the thread topic.
In a stunning display of bi-partisanship, the measure passed in the House of Representatives by a margin of 435 to 5, and in the Senate by a margin of 98 to 2.
The legislation was drafted in response to 327 boredom-related deaths related to an interminable thread running in the Official Site of Peter David, Writer of Stuff. The thread’s topic was the replacement of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, but a poster known as “Mike” soon turned it into a referendum on the definition of “genocide.”
“This madman, this horrible creature, this guy ‘Mike,’ he and others of his ilk had to be stopped,” said Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, who co-sponsored the legislation with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY.
The ACLU has vowed to challenge the law on constitutional grounds. Sen. Clinton responded by calling the organization “a bunch of free-speech Nazis.”
“others of his ilk”
Does he even have an ilk?
I can see it now.
“Ilk.
It does a deranged mind good.”
Or even better:
“Hershey’s chocolate ilk. For those too busy for Sesame Street brought by the letter M or checking their own reasonability.”
Yeah, (running with a theme, er, thee, here,)
Ike’s ilk has DEFINATELY curdled.
What is the punishment for violating the now enabled Godwin’s Law? Running around with your silly knees bent advancing behavior? Your opponents unclogging their noses at your aunties and calling you a silly thing? Or are you forced to build your castle in a swamp?
Okay, serious time here. What does everyone think of Rangel’s reattempt to introduce the draft as a war deterrent?
Looking through the one article I saw, I think his idea isn’t bad, IE, if there was a draft in place the people in DC would choose their wars more carefully rather than have their kids shipped off. I can’t help but think of that one scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 where Micheal Moore was asking all the Congress people if their kids were serving. But, instead of doing this, which could clearly backfire in everyone’s face, why not just make it harder to go to war? Not that it’s easy now, but reinstating a draft could really blow up in your face. Or am I just reading this article wrong?
It’s showboating. It can’t pass. Rangel’s idea to institute the draft to deter war is not illogical but since the draft will not be reinstated (due to the simple but undeniable fact that it will not get anywhere near enough votes to pass) makes the whole thing an exercise in futility and potentially a good talking point for Republicans (“look what happens when Democrats get in charge!”). So really, what will it accomplish?
Getting busted for taking that Borat/Cheney story seriously still bugs the šhìŧ out of you, Bill Myers, doesn’t it?
You used to allow the definition of genocide to include black people. It’s funny how that would be prohibited by your law, since the nazis didn’t have access to African victims. Your law would prohibit even Peter from describing the killings in Africa as genocide.
What’s next for you, making it illegal to say the confederacy fought to preserve slavery?
Wasn’t that Adlai Stevenson campaign slogan? If he spelled “definitely” correctly, he might have won.
Having one’s spelling ability mocked by Mike is like having one’s sanity mocked by…well, Mike.
Now make like my pants and split.
Well:
Bill Mulligan, am I now so formidable that you’re afraid to criticize me under your own name? All to deny “ANY racially motivated murder” matches the plain wording of “Killing members of [a national, ethnical, racial or religious group]” in the definition of genocide? Pitiful.
1. you’re asking me to leave, which only Bill Mulligan has done so far,
2. you only need 18 minutes to reply with Bill Mulligan’s insults,
3. and — since I haven’t mocked anyone’s sanity — you also have Bill Mulligan’s habit of mischaracterizing what I say.
Your powers of deduction are exceptional. I can’t imagine why you to waste them here when there are so many crimes going unsolved at this very moment.
Your beef against me is your denial “ANY racially motivated murder” matches the plain wording of “Killing members of [a national, ethnical, racial or religious group]” is plainly wrong. Why should I enable your racism by leaving?
As Edmund Burke has been credited for saying: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
I do not know if I should laugh or cry because of your ignorance. I shall laugh. Haha
One last post before I crash for tonight. If the Republicans DO react like Bill predicts, and I have too easy a time imagining it happening, the Democrats need to loudly point out the illogic in that arguement. To do otherwise would be to lose credibility and/or support with the country. It would be like giving in to Mike, instead of just letting him carry on with his ubiquitous genocide references and understanding that any arguements you could make would just be wasted typing.
“It would be like giving in to Mike, instead of just letting him carry on with his ubiquitous genocide references and understanding that any arguements you could make would just be wasted typing.”
Arguments? I can barely understand what he’s talking about anymore. It starts to feel like when someone tries to tell you something when you’re still half asleep, or a message of the speakers of a department store or a station, that you didn’t hear just right.
Micha, if you read him out loud with some Brian Eno in the background it takes on a kind of New Wave jazz.
Sean– good points but theres a bit of just desserts in the Republicans hanging the draft anchor around the necks of the democrats–it was just a few years ago that Democrats were breathlessly predicting that Bush had a secret plan to reinstitute the draft> Never happened, as we know, and it would be a bit trouibling to have it reinstituted by some of the same folks who made it a campaign issue. But this is irrevelevent–it isn’t going to happen. I doubt there are 10 senators who would end their careers by signing on. The American people are not going to be impressed by any arguments about how this will make war less likely. They will see one thing–the draft.
Virtually EVERY draft eleigiable kid will be against it–even those who plan to volunteer. Why not? It will mean far fewer perks. The army won’t need to sweeten the pot any more. And the kids who don’t want to be in the army will be against it for obvious reasons. Add their parents, those who don’t like the idea for any other reason, and the military guys (who say they prefer the all volunteer army) and this begins to look a lot less like a proposal and a lot more like a stunt.
Anyway, that’s how I see it. I guess the coming weeks will see if this has any traction.
Less than two weeks after the election and the Democrats are already playing russian roulette with a round in every single f’in chamber…
And the claim that re-instating the draft would reduce wars? Excuse me? President George Retard Bush will just use a draft as a “mandate from the people” to invade even more sovreign nations since he now has a pool of 10’s of millions of victims to kidnap and force into service….
I can understand where the guy’s coming from, makes it different when it’s your kid and all, but seriously, better ways to drive that point home. Or are people in Washington really THAT dense? Should we worry about a large singularity forming on the eastern seaboard?
One of the problems with being in the Washington elements for too long is that you begin to think it’s the way regular people think. Losing touch with one’s constituents is a pretty common thing.
I’ve never been a huge term limits fan but I think there’s a good argument to be made. It would certainly cut down on the cult of seniority that keeps putting mediocrities from safe districts in charge.
Has anyone else had the impression that Mike’s doing an eloquent (comparably) version of “your mother” in every post?
Re: the draft. Apparantly, this isn’t the first time this guy has proposed something like this. He gets re-elected, so clearly his constituents don’t hold it against him. Personally, I think a draft is unconstitutional, history notwithstanding. More than that, it’s morally abhorrant…conscripting people into a military and forcing them to enter situation where they need to kill, and are likely to be killed. It’s the worst aspect of government possible.
I don’t think it would have stopped the invasion of Iraq. Especially with Bush at the helm. If his history stands for anything, it’s that those with money, power, and connections can still serve the military, yet at no other risk than their own incompetance or recklessness. Every single representatives conscripted child that wanted to would have been assigned to domestic posts, or posts outside of Iraq.
…
You heard it here, folks: there is no virtue in challenging racism.
Like this, Sean Scullion?
As with Bill Myers, dismissing your own credibility makes your sheltering racism less dismaying, if that is the virtue of your continued challenge of me.
Also, ubiquitous means widespread at the same time, like “Comic Book Guy” posting to defend racism with Bill Mulligan and Micha. The meanings of persistent and ubiquitous are not interchangeable.
Your posts have become more redundant and annoying then the last three “Highlander” movies.
“Like this, Sean Scullion?
Yes, you semantic whiz kid, the phrases match.”
NO, you radioactive waste of protoplasm. Yet again, you cherry pick only those phrases that further your arguement. As I initially said when I typed that, THERE’S MORE TO IT THAN THAT ONE PHRASE.
Comic Book Guy: Couldn’t they have stuck with the initial premise of the first Highlander? IE, There can be only one?
I don’t get it…All I said was that Mike’s basic response to everything was “your mother,” using more words. And suddenly I’m saying there’s no virtue in challenging racism? I don’t even understand Mike’s often quoted denial/racially motivated killing/whatever quote. And not understanding it, I’ve never addressed it. How’d I get caught up in all that?
Highlander…if only there really was only one…and the TV series. Or most of it.
Posted by: Zombie Bobb Alfred at November 20, 2006 11:37 AM
How’d I get caught up in all that?
Like Mt. Everest — you were there.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 20, 2006 06:35 AM
I guess the coming weeks will see if this has any traction.
It won’t. This isn’t the first time Rangel has floated this idea. It’s a non-starter.
Although, given how badly the wars are going in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the growing possibility of threats from North Korea and Iran, the day may soon come when we’ll have to seriously discuss reinstating the draft. The Republicans want to believe we can wage wars “on the cheap,” but war is NEVER cheap — not in terms of resources, and certainly not in terms of precious lives.
Nobody is safe from his Lennie-like obsessiveness.
Sean, you should follow your own advice and not argue with Mike.
For me he has become like daredevil motorcycle jumper — a logical Evil Kanivel (spl?).
Today Mike is going to jump from an argument about hate crime, over a stack of dictionaries, three aligators, modern history of genocides, a joke from Monty Python, a tiger, an ironic statement by Sean, a bunch of random letters resulting from Bill Mulligan knocking his head against his keyboard, 100 zombies, 4 prostitutes, a reference by Alfred I’m not famiiliar with, and many other things, to reach the conclusion that we’re all racists.
Mike, I know this is a strawman, you’ve never mentioned a tiger.
“I don’t even understand Mike’s often quoted denial/racially motivated killing/whatever quote.”
Nobody does.
“How’d I get caught up in all that?”
It’s like a Japanese horror movie. You replied.
The cosmology of the Highlander universe was never clear. I thought an interesting idea would have been if all the immortals were fragments of a deity slowly coming together. The two other movies were bad partially because after there was only one, there wasn’t much else to do (+ bad acting, script and direction). The first movie was also pretty bad, bad the idea of immortals can offer interesting stories, as demonstrated in the series.
Micha, speaking as someone whose people came from the Highlands, (somewhere there’s a picture of me in a kilt, much to my horror)(and everyone else’s, I’m sure) I have to say while the series worked, it should’ve been done as a prequel. In fact, i thought it was until Joe mentioned Connor’s killing Kurgan to Duncan in the second season. Oh, well. But enough people must’ve looked past this so the show went on for so long and spawned a spin off.
Btw, I have both a broadsword and a katana. The katana is nice for exercises and showing off, but I still like my broad for the satisfying weight and the ability to cleave stuff in a satisfying way.
The Highlander series was not really strong on continuity with relation to the movie. The basic idea of having a guy who was like the hero of the movie in almost every respect except the first name, and who was somehow related to him, was a little silly.
Personaly I felt that except for the basic idea of immortals fighting each other for centuries with swords, the movie wasn’t very good. Christof Lambertt is a terrible actor. the basic idea was much more suited for a series. So it is no surprise that people were willing to let any continuity problems with the movies slide.
Not that the series was so great either. But it had enough Charisma to sustain itself. Still, it would have been nice if somebody have tried to go beyond the basic idea in a smart, interesting way.
Highlander’s been an interesting franchise that suceeded despite a premise that had a built-in endpoint, supposedly reached in the first film. And each movie that’s come out has really shown a casual disregard for maintaining internal integrity when it comes to plot. Despite that, it’s limped along fairly well.
I’ve often wondered how much of Lambert’s acting performance was due to his skill (or lack thereof, depending on your opinion), and how much on his language issues. He speaks pretty decent English, but I think French is his main language.
Adrian Paul was clearly chosen to reach a broader, American audience, and I have it on pretty good authority that he’s a big reason why the TV series has a good draw amongst women. You have to appreciate a series about immortal swordsmen that actually does kill off major characters, even when you hate to see them go.
Lambertt just looks so perfect for these parts that you just wish he were a better actor. He was pretty good in Greystroke, I thought, and maybe Tarzan is the pwerfect character for someone who’s acting gifts are not of the verbal variety.
For that matter the director Russell Mulcahy always seemed like someone who should have gone on to better things.
“Btw, I have both a broadsword and a katana. The katana is nice for exercises and showing off, but I still like my broad for the satisfying weight and the ability to cleave stuff in a satisfying way.”
Is katana the Japanese sword?
It was always a little strange how they matched the swords in the duels in the series.
The series had enough appeal to continue despite not being very sophisticated: the basic immortal idea, duels, good looking men and women, historical flashbacks, reasonably good stories.
The sequel movies were quite bad. I suppose the fourth drew some appeal from the series, but 2 and 3 were pretty embarassing. It’s strange that they continued after 2. I believe the appeal of the basic idea was the main reason.
“Highlander’s been an interesting franchise that suceeded despite a premise that had a built-in endpoint, supposedly reached in the first film.”
I don’t think they realized the potential of the franchise until after the movie came out. That’s why both movies and series seem messy, not planned, as if they were making it up as they were going alon, and not putting much effort in it.
Lambertt seems mostly to appear and 2nd grade movies or worse. I’ve come to associate him with such movies.
Rangel’s idea to institute the draft to deter war is pretty weak and not very well thought out (besides its snowball’s chance in hëll of passing). We had the draft before and we still ended up getting into an eventually unpopular war started from p!$$-poor thinking and based partly on a lie to get popular support to go in.
The draft didn’t stop the Tonkin foolishness, dimwitted political thinking or the privileged and connected from figuring out ways to spare their children from service in Vietnam while others went into harms way or became criminals. It won’t stop similar actions in the future.
Rangel is only doing four things here. He’s grabbing press time for himself, he’s adding future ammo to the Republicans for the next election cycle’s planning and attack ads, he’s looking stupid and he’s wasting everybody’s time.
_________________________________________________________________________
Zombie Bobb Alfred,
“I don’t get it…”
Because you don’t speak the same language. You’ve grown up speaking Zombie, but you’re trying to comprehend Dementiaese without it be your native language and without ever having had a lesson. Besides, it’s a language that you’re best left not learning anyhow. Count your blessing that you can’t figure it out. It’ll be a sad day for your family when you can.
_______________________________________________________________________
“The two other movies were bad partially…”
Well, the second film sucked because they made a film that had jack all to do with the first (or any other) film in the series, plugged the lead characters from the first into it and claimed that it was a sequel. Aliens? On evil overlord from another world? Earth as an exiles’ battlefield?
The fourth film sucked because it rewrote the first film, had many plot points that made no sense whatsoever and had ads and trailers that included plot points, scenes and ideas that were never in the film in any way, shape or form. That was the first and only film that I’ve ever demanded a refund on my ticket over. Not (just) because it was bad, but because it wasn’t even close to being the movie that was advertised.
“I have to say while the series worked, it should’ve been done as a prequel.”
Yeah, I had the same thought the first time I heard news of the then in production series. I thought that a series based on a group of immortals (not all together in each episode or even ever) and their battles through history could be pretty cool. You could bounce around history telling really cool stories (kind of like the Casca novels) with the different immortals and playing with events in history. It would have been kind of like the Highlander flashbacks were if they were actually the whole show.
“I don’t think they realized the potential of the franchise until after the movie came out.”
Or they didn’t realize that some stories just don’t need to keep going.
“”I don’t think they realized the potential of the franchise until after the movie came out.”
Or they didn’t realize that some stories just don’t need to keep going.”
I don’t know. The first movie was interesting in so far that it was a story about immortals, but the final battle and its outcome were rather disappointing. A series about a society of immortals was more satisfying, although it also could have been done better.
Fom the reports that I’ve read, the whole reason for the second movie(Highlander:The Acid Trip) was to make the first, the producers had to be roped into a series by the distributors. The problem with the series, I thought, was there wasn’t one central opposition for Duncan. And Lambert got the role mostly because of his build and his odd mishmash of accents, which Davis and Panzer thought would lend itself to the idea that he’d been everywhere, done everything.
I know way too much of this stuff.
Posted by: Jerry C at November 20, 2006 06:26 PM
Rangel is only doing four things here. He’s grabbing press time for himself, he’s adding future ammo to the Republicans for the next election cycle’s planning and attack ads, he’s looking stupid and he’s wasting everybody’s time.
All things that Rangel excels at.
Apparently the Highlander movies made a lot of money everywhere but here. I wondered why they kept making them when each and every one bombed here.
So Sean, here’s the geek question of the day–given a group of fighters equally well trained in their craft, which swordsman would win? katana vs broadsword vs rapier etc?
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 20, 2006 07:32 PM
So Sean, here’s the geek question of the day–given a group of fighters equally well trained in their craft, which swordsman would win? katana vs broadsword vs rapier etc?
Indiana Jones. He’d just shoot their sorry áššëš.
Bill, Rangel’s a pretty sharp cookie…I disagree with him way more than I agree with him but there’s no denying he’s shrewd. I doubt he’d be pushing this if he didn’t think it would benefit him. How it does that I’m less sure. It will certainly get hiom lots of face time on TV but he’s usually so good for a soundbite that I don’t think that’s ever been a problem–he certainly has a standing invite on Fox News.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 20, 2006 07:34 PM
Bill, Rangel’s a pretty sharp cookie…I disagree with him way more than I agree with him but there’s no denying he’s shrewd. I doubt he’d be pushing this if he didn’t think it would benefit him. How it does that I’m less sure. It will certainly get hiom lots of face time on TV but he’s usually so good for a soundbite that I don’t think that’s ever been a problem–he certainly has a standing invite on Fox News.
I think it benefits him by appealing to the people who elected him. Rangel’s district encompasses Upper Manhattan and includes such neighborhoods as Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, and part of the Upper West Side. These are areas heavily populated by minorities, to whom the white majority has given plenty of reason to feel oppressed.
I think you’re correct that he’s shrewd and this is a political position that probably benefits him in the short term. But it benefits neither the Democratic party nor the public at large. It’s showboating at the expense of having a substantive conversation about Iraq.
Rangel, in my view, excels at showboating. It’s what he does when he goes at it with the Republican operatives disguised as reporters on Faux News. They take one irrationally extreme position, he takes the opposite, and they go at it.
Shrewd? I’ll grant you that. But worthwhile? Nope.
“–given a group of fighters equally well trained in their craft, which swordsman would win? katana vs broadsword vs rapier etc?”
To paraprhase (or badly quote from memory) Jet Li’s Fearless:
All forms are equal. None is better or worse then the others. It is the in the gifts of the fighters themselves that the fight will be won or lost on.
He said it about Martial Arts, but I’ve always found that to be true of weapon skills as well. Even the Chinese Spear, long now a greatly feared close range weapon, can be beaten by a skilled swordsman. It just takes one hëll of a truckload and a half of skill to do it. I’ve only ever seen it done twice in competitions.
___________________________________________
“–he certainly has a standing invite on Fox News.”
Yeah, Fox News wants to give one of the more goofy voices from the left all the air time they can spare. Big surprise.
Also reminds me of the Wheel of Time (I forget which book) where the head sword trainer of the White Tower reminds his students of the story of the greatest swordsman to ever live, who only ever lost one fight. To a farmer with a quarterstaff.
-Rex Hondo-
The definition of genocide gave no exceptions to “Killing members of [a national, ethnical, racial or religious group].” I’m not the one trying to contract the definition. You are.
From my last post before Bobb referred to me:
Which prompted Bobb to intervene:
It looks like you are denying “ANY racially motivated murder” matches the plain wording of “Killing members of [a national, ethnical, racial or religious group]” in the definition of genocide. This is how you involved yourself in this.
Lennie Small reserved for himself the privilege of a predator. He insisted on petting things until they died.
You are denying “ANY racially motivated murder” matches the plain wording of “Killing members of [a national, ethnical, racial or religious group].” The only virtue of overlooking the plainly worded definition is to shelter racism. You, too, are reserving for yourself the privilege of a predator.
I’m not asking anyone to take my word for anything. I am merely making an observation.
Consider how the subject arrived in this thread:
Your denial was relevant in establishing Bill Myers’s hypocrisy of accusing me of a denial he has never witnessed. And then you returned to your role of defensive white guy, being the next person to cite my observation. I have the moral ground, only leaving you the option of begging me to leave. Pitiful.
Harrison Ford with dysentery notwithstanding, I’d have to reluctantly go with a katana. A rapier makes a great piercing weapon, but not much for slicing. Some of them, like the ones Pavallacini described, didn’t have much of a cutting edge at all sometimes, kind of like fighting with a big toothpick. Some of the ones Capoferro talked about actually did have some cutting edge, but still, they’re more piercing. (If I confused those two, sorry, I’m going off memory here and I’ve been awake since 2:30 this morning.) The problem with a broadsword, as Jerry and occasionally my shoulder muscles will attest to, is that it’s HEAVY. Comparing a broadsword to a katana is like comparing an axe to a Ginsu. A katana is just capable of more finesse, whereas a broadsword is capable of more hack your opponent into large bite size chunks. Any sword can be effective if used right, but the trouble would come in their interactions, I think. Katanas, epees and rapiers are much more stylized in their use, whereas broads and Claymores are hit as hard as you can as much as you can until the guy drops.
Bill Myers, did you ever get that attachment?
Sean: Yes, I got the attachment, but I haven’t had to watch it yet. I’ve been scrambling to catch up on a bunch of things today. I’ll be in touch.