The Grand Old Post

I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was 12 years old in 1994 and watched the results with my parents and saw Democrat after Democrat go down and wondered “Why are they losing?” This is the first time in my political life that my side has won.

“As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron, orc or troll or beast spell-enslaved, ran hither and thither mindless; and some slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope.”

–JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

PS: Via Catherine Andrews

Why are the french so eager to eat horses?
–Tucker Carlson

The losers will cry, because that is what happens when you are personally rejected by so many people.
–Chris Matthews

Retaliation

A while ago, I was having a discussion with a friend about legitimate uses of international power. We referenced the recent WTO decision against the US prohibiting offshore internet gambling from Antigua. Now the US is ostensibly a foe to online gambling but in reality, they are generally trying to create a protectionist racket where American companies have an advantage. A little low but that’s economics. So anyhow, the WTO ruled for Antigua and against the US and that was an example of international pressures a small state can use to bear on a large one. The counter to that was the US isn’t going to follow the ruling thus affirming the “might makes right” school of international politics.

Oh yeah?

Apparently, Antigua is discussing how to retaliate. Trade sanctions hurt Antigua more than the US–so one discussion is to refuse to enforce copyright restrictions. That’s right, make Antigua a haven for file-sharing. That would cause one hell of an uproar I’d think. I have to say that regardless of your position on copyrights, using enforcement as a weapon in trade disputes is pretty hard-nosed geopolitics.

“The Craziest Goddamn Thing I’ve Ever Heard”

Or so says Matt Yglesias. I think I have to agree with him even if it’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s in the top 5 though. Here’s the money graph:

“At this point, I think I need to bring up what one might call the Craziest Goddamn Thing I’ve Heard In a Long Time. This story came to me last week from an anonymous individual who I would say is in a position to know about such things. According to this person, the DOD has (naturally) been doing some analysis on airstrikes against Iran. The upshot of the analysis was that conventional bombardment would degrade the Iranian nuclear program by about 50 percent. By contrast, if the arsenal included small nuclear weapons, we could get up to about 80 percent destroying. In response to this, persons inside the Office of the Vice President took the view that we could use the nukes — in other words, launch an unprovoked nuclear first strike against Iran — and then simply deny that we’d done so. Detectable radiation in the area of the bombed sites would be attributed to the fact that they were, after all, nuclear facilities we’d just hit.”

Such a comforting thought…. and you know that at least 25% of the people would support it. You need to think about getting out when you’re hoping your country doesn’t launch a nuclear surprise attack.