"I'm GGG and I approve this message."

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Our long history in the waterboarding business. The bit about the mad commander and search and destroy mission hints a little at Heart of Darkness. Anyway:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...fa_fact_kramer

That was an excellent article. But in that same issue, a big ass-sucking piece about Louis Auchinschloss and how fascinating it is to grow up as a pampered, patrician East Side snob. Then something that Salman Rushdie crapped out after a bad meal. But I keep coming back, like Spanky to The Economist.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by ironweed
That was an excellent article. But in that same issue, a big ass-sucking piece about Louis Auchinschloss and how fascinating it is to grow up as a pampered, patrician East Side snob. Then something that Salman Rushdie crapped out after a bad meal. But I keep coming back, like Spanky to The Economist.

Hey, it beats Vanity Fair writing 20 pages about some shitbag Hollywood producer no one cares about next to an investigative piece about the Iraq war. I'll never give up VF because I like Wolff and Hitchens, but somebody needs to euthanize Dominick Dunne. What a fucking useless decrepit starfucker.

And hearing a socially ambitious prick like Graydon Carter harrumph about the evil GOP month to month makes Jann Wenner's cries about class disparity seem tasteful. There's a line from "Holiday in Cambodia" that covers people like them. I think you know it, and it is a bit rude, so I won't bother quoting.

Try Matt Tiabbi's stuff. He's a great left leaning moderate sort-of-libertarian/sort-of-strident Democrat who writes really funny pieces. "Spanking the Donkey" is really funny.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This story is almost certainly overblown, but it should leave conservatives (e.g.) more comfortable with an Obama presidency.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This story is almost certainly overblown, but it should leave conservatives (e.g.) more comfortable with an Obama presidency.

I love the empty "e.g." there.

While that particular club seems to be getting smaller, I don't think it's quite made the near-null set the way libertarians (e.g., Ron Paul) have, let alone the null set.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This story is almost certainly overblown, but it should leave conservatives (e.g.) more comfortable with an Obama presidency.

Yet he rails against NAFTA? I think not.*

* Bush also had some stellar, fiscally conservative economic advisors during his campaign. I suspect Rove et al. pushed them out.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Try Matt Taibbi's stuff.

His review of Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat achieves hitherto unimaginable levels of awesomeness. Here's a taste:

• On an ideological level, Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit. If its literary peculiarities could somehow be removed from the equation, The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we're not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we're not in Kansas anymore.) That's the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that's all there is.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Yet he rails against NAFTA? I think not.*

* Bush also had some stellar, fiscally conservative economic advisors during his campaign. I suspect Rove et al. pushed them out.

More comfortable than they were before they read it.

Could a Democrat win the primary without making unhappy noises about NAFTA? I doubt it. Clinton is married to Mr. NAFTA and she's doing it too.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
More comfortable than they were before they read it.

Could a Democrat win the primary without making unhappy noises about NAFTA? I doubt it. Clinton is married to Mr. NAFTA and she's doing it too.

Well, I still don't see it. So he's economically knowledgable? Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama are both smart people, and I'm sure they both understand economic fundamentals pretty well. Doesn't mean they'll implement them.

As I think about it (and I suspect Spanky has long been there), free trade (which is described as NAFTA) may be the same sort of signaling issue as abortion. It's not just the issue itself, but that it signals a broader perspective. With abortion it's fundamental liberties. With free trade it's fundamental economics. The justifications for free trade are to me so basic (and the costs of stifling trade so significant) that opposing it calls into question a candidate's entire economic platform.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Well, I still don't see it. So he's economically knowledgable? Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama are both smart people, and I'm sure they both understand economic fundamentals pretty well. Doesn't mean they'll implement them.

As I think about it (and I suspect Spanky has long been there), free trade (which is described as NAFTA) may be the same sort of signaling issue as abortion. It's not just the issue itself, but that it signals a broader perspective. With abortion it's fundamental liberties. With free trade it's fundamental economics. The justifications for free trade are to me so basic (and the costs of stifling trade so significant) that opposing it calls into question a candidate's entire economic platform.

The guy's piling up union endorsements. He's got to give them something for the favor.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
His review of Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat achieves hitherto unimaginable levels of awesomeness. Here's a taste:

• On an ideological level, Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit. If its literary peculiarities could somehow be removed from the equation, The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we're not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we're not in Kansas anymore.) That's the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that's all there is.

Spanking the Donkey reads like that for 300 pages. Taibbi's articles in Rolling Stone are pretty much the highlight of the magazine these days. His stuff is like reading Parliament of Whores over and over, and though he leans left ideologically, I find him pretty even handed in his criticisms.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Well, I still don't see it. So he's economically knowledgable? Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama are both smart people, and I'm sure they both understand economic fundamentals pretty well. Doesn't mean they'll implement them.

As I think about it (and I suspect Spanky has long been there), free trade (which is described as NAFTA) may be the same sort of signaling issue as abortion. It's not just the issue itself, but that it signals a broader perspective. With abortion it's fundamental liberties. With free trade it's fundamental economics. The justifications for free trade are to me so basic (and the costs of stifling trade so significant) that opposing it calls into question a candidate's entire economic platform.

Don't overthink this. Expressing irritation about NAFTA in Ohio, in itself, tells us no more about a candidate's worldview than does the candidates love, LOVE! for ethanol in Iowa.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Spanking the Donkey reads like that for 300 pages. Taibbi's articles in Rolling Stone are pretty much the highlight of the magazine these days. His stuff is like reading Parliament of Whores over and over, and though he leans left ideologically, I find him pretty even handed in his criticisms.

He's earned himself a chair in Bill Maher's show this season as a roving reporter or something.

I like Taibbi. He's funny and seems pretty smart. But watching the guy on TV -- my God, he's almost as smug as Maher.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
The justifications for free trade are to me so basic (and the costs of stifling trade so significant) that opposing it calls into question a candidate's entire economic platform.

His campaign site says "Obama believes that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs." I don't think you can conclude that he opposes free trade.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by bling trade
Hilary is so desparate. I doubt leaking pictures of Obama in traditional Kenyan dress will impact him at all; she's over. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7263783.stm

At least she's not as desperate as Tina Fey was on SNL, ripping everyone for not voting for Hillary. Hey Tina, you're a comedian, and a damn good one. Write your sitcom and entertain me, monkey. On the politics, shut the fuck up.

And take George Clooney with you.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I don't think you can conclude that he opposes free trade.

Fair enough. But the alternative is to conclude he's cynically pandering to segments of the electorate. Which makes me wonder which of his statements are pandering and which are genuine.