Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Most of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor were refloated and repaired -- hence the "2 battleships" figure.

Midway is one of those few historical turning points where a few small events could really have made a big difference. I'm not knocking our navy at all to say that we got very lucky there. If they had spotted us first . . . .

Island undefended,
American fleet unready;
Torpedoes or bombs?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
Not everyone in life gets to approach decisions with the freedom you have. Sometimes, life fucks over groups of people, dependant upon who they have allowed to take control of their sphere. Lots of unwarlike Japanese got incinerated only because they allowed militaristic nutjobs to run their country.

Life is hard.

[shudder]

Originally posted by bilmore
I think that the concept - the aspiration - of the UN is useful and worthy of respect. Nations should have an ever-present and always-open forum in which to communicate. But the UN hasn't done this well, and it has done too many other things that have been affirmatively bad, whether because a good idea was botched, or a bad impulse was followed.

It will never work as a world government. It will never be given power over the sovereignity of nations. And, without some drastic restructuring, it will never amount to more than a soapbox for countries, people, and ideas that would be ignored or ridiculed elsewhere.

Bolton would be absolutely perfect as our representative in that body.

So, send a clown to the circus? I think you're discounting a lot of the good work the UN has done on humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, but I'm not going to say it hasn't fucked things up in the past or that it should be a candidate for "world government." I'm not sure anyone at the UN is taking that position either, though I could be wrong.

As a forum for communication, why has it failed? The airing of views that other people find ridiculous is not necessarily a pointless exercise where millions of people subscribe to the "ridiculous" point of view and might just be inclined to start shooting over it.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by ironweed
I think you're discounting a lot of the good work the UN has done on humanitarian and peacekeeping missions . . .

I am, regarding the humanitarian stuff, but not unfairly. What the public started hearing during the tsunami relief effort - that the UN primarily moves in while others are giving and delivering aid, has meetings, issues press releases, and then asks for more funding - has been fairly typical of the UN effort for quite some time. I say this based on anecdotal stuff from friends in NGO's, and government relief operations, almost all of whom hold the UN relief people in no small contempt (and most of whom, to head this response off, are fairly hard-core Dems.) I know people in the military who have interacted with UN functions, and they, too, seem to lack love and respect for the UN. You have to wonder, at least, when the people who actually deal with the org dislike it so uniformly. The best thing they do, actually, is PR about themselves.

(ETA - I didn't say it failed at the communications forum idea - it just hasn't done that well. Its rather antiquated rules concerning membership, representation in its various arms and committees, and its whole power distribution (which fails to match reality these days) has led to a lack of any real discourse beyond the shouting of slogans back and forth. I think that its mission calls for something more than that.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by bilmore
I am, regarding the humanitarian stuff, but not unfairly. What the public started hearing during the tsunami relief effort - that the UN primarily moves in while others are giving and delivering aid, has meetings, issues press releases, and then asks for more funding - has been fairly typical of the UN effort for quite some time. I say this based on anecdotal stuff from friends in NGO's, and government relief operations, almost all of whom hold the UN relief people in no small contempt (and most of whom, to head this response off, are fairly hard-core Dems.) I know people in the military who have interacted with UN functions, and they, too, seem to lack love and respect for the UN. You have to wonder, at least, when the people who actually deal with the org dislike it so uniformly. The best thing they do, actually, is PR about themselves.

I've heard similar stuff about the UN's higher-profile efforts, but much better things about the work of the specialized agencies, which have been instrumental in dealing with epidemics and disasters.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by bilmore
It will never work as a world government. It will never be given power over the sovereignity of nations.

Well, yeah. (Duh.)

And, without some drastic restructuring, it will never amount to more than a soapbox for countries, people, and ideas that would be ignored or ridiculed elsewhere.

I agree that on any given day there's a tremendous amount of nonsense emanating from the UN. The world needs a soapbox, though, because otherwise there's nowhere else to play. The nonsense bothers me too, but it doesn't lead me to support a guy whose articulated idea of constructive diplomacy is blowing out 10 floors of the building.

Bolton would be absolutely perfect as our representative in that body.

I agree, he should be confirmed as the embodiment of Bush's attitudes toward the UN. The Dems should get out the way here, and focus on buying popcorn and sodas to watch the first assault trial arising from Bolton's execution of the Bush Deux Redux style of nicer diplomacy by sticking the Italian Diplomat's head in a toilet bowl on the 48th floor.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I agree, he should be confirmed as the embodiment of Bush's attitudes toward the UN. The Dems should get out the way here, and focus on buying popcorn and sodas to watch the first assault trial arising from Bolton's execution of the Bush Deux Redux style of nicer diplomacy by sticking the Italian Diplomat's head in a toilet bowl on the 48th floor.

2. DeLay in '08!

[bilmore]

" Bolton is not of the "U.S. out of the U.N., and U.N. out of the U.S." persuasion. He believes that the United States should lead the body, rather than be led by it. Bolton was our point man in seeing to it that the infamous "Zionism is Racism" General Assembly resolution was overturned.

He thinks the United Nations has been useful at times. The Security Council helped negotiate and monitor a truce between Iran and Iraq in the late 1980s. The United Nations supervised free elections in Namibia, and provided monitors as Soviet troops departed Afghanistan and Cubans left Angola. The first Gulf War, Bolton argues, was the only historical example of the Security Council behaving as the United Nations' founders envisioned. That vigorous reversal of blunt aggression was possible only because of American leadership.

But Bolton's approach to the United Nations, which was also the approach of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, is anathema to U.S. liberals. During the confirmation hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer played a tape of Bolton's frank description of the United Nations' top-heavy bureaucracy. "There are 38 floors to the U.N. building in New York. If you lost 10 of them, it wouldn't make a bit of difference," Bolton is heard to say.

Triumphant in her belief that she had caught Bolton out, Boxer declared: "You have nothing but disdain for the United Nations. You can dance around it, you can run away from it, you can put perfume on it, but the bottom line is the bottom line." Sen. Joseph Biden wondered aloud why Bolton even wanted the job.

Bolton was placid during his grilling -- though why so few Republicans chose to attend the hearing is anybody's guess. Perhaps sensing that substantive policy differences with Bolton would not be enough to sink his nomination -- he is, after all, supposed to represent President Bush at the United Nations, not President Kerry -- the Democrats switched tactics. This is a well-worn pattern by now. We saw it with Robert Bork, and then with Clarence Thomas and countless others. It is the find dirt game. Or perhaps the invent dirt game.

It has now reached truly hilarious depths. It seems, don't say this too loud, that Bolton has been known to yell at subordinates, particularly those who lie to him. This intelligence has led Democratic senators -- and two very limp Republicans, George Voinovich and Chuck Hagel -- to conclude that Bolton lacks the proper "temperament" for a high-ranking position in the U.S. government. Can anyone say this with a straight face?

Here's the real bottom line: Republicans have permitted this to happen. If the president had backed Bolton more forthrightly; if Republican senators had supported him during his hearing; and if two Republicans had not bid for The New York Times' approval, this could not have happened."

It's the new, R-lite, no-balls party.

[Sidd Finch]

Article in today's NYT says gay groups are upset with Microsoft, which has long been a strong proponent of gay rights in the workplace, for suddenly reversing itself and opposing a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. The article suggests that Microsoft was influenced by a church group that had threatened a nationwide boycott of Microsoft products.

My question: How the hell does anyone boycott Microsoft products?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by bilmore
Stuff about Bolton.

Serious question: Why do you think Powell has not spoken in support of Bolton?

[Gattigap]

Hey, this is fun!

Cohen:

"[F]or reasons having to do with caution, prudence and a debilitating sense of fair play, I have until now withheld my first -- and only -- impression of John Bolton, probably destined to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: He's nuts.

I recognize that, as a diagnosis, the word leaves something to be desired. But it is nevertheless the impression I took away back in June 2003 when Bolton went to Cernobbio, Italy, to talk to the Council for the United States and Italy. Afterward he took questions. Some of them were about weapons of mass destruction, which, you may remember, the Bush administration had claimed would be found in abundance in Iraq but which by then had not materialized.

The literal facts did not in the least give Bolton pause. Weapons of mass destruction would be found, he insisted. Where? When? How come they had not yet been discovered? The questions were insistent, but they were coming, please remember, from Italians, whose government was one of the few in the world to actively support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Bolton bristled. I have never seen such a performance by an American diplomat. He was dismissive. He was angry. He clearly thought the questioners had no right, no standing, no justification and no earthly reason to question the United States of America. The Bush administration had said that Iraq was lousy with WMD and Iraq therefore was lousy with WMD. Just you wait.

This kind of ferocious certainty is commendable in pit bulls and other fighting animals, but it is something of a problem in a diplomat. We now have been told, though, that Bolton's Italian aria was not unique and that the anger I sensed in the man has been felt by others. (I went over to speak to him afterward, but he was such a mass of scowling anger that I beat a retreat.) Others have testified to how he berated subordinates and how, to quote Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), he "needs anger management." From what I saw, a bucket of cold water should always be kept at hand.

The rap against Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador is that he has maximum contempt for that organization. He once went so far as to flatly declare that "there is no United Nations," just an international community that occasionally "can be led by the only real power left in the world -- and that's the United States." He has expressed these sorts of feelings numerous times over the years -- so much so that it is not clear whether he has been rewarded with this appointment or punished with it. "

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Article in today's NYT says gay groups are upset with Microsoft, which has long been a strong proponent of gay rights in the workplace, for suddenly reversing itself and opposing a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. The article suggests that Microsoft was influenced by a church group that had threatened a nationwide boycott of Microsoft products.

My question: How the hell does anyone boycott Microsoft products?

Easy. Remember merely using the internet is reason to suspect a Judge, surely the rest of us don't need it.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Article in today's NYT says gay groups are upset with Microsoft, which has long been a strong proponent of gay rights in the workplace, for suddenly reversing itself and opposing a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. The article suggests that Microsoft was influenced by a church group that had threatened a nationwide boycott of Microsoft products.

My question: How the hell does anyone boycott Microsoft products?

Ameriblog had something about that yesterday.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Serious question: Why do you think Powell has not spoken in support of Bolton?

Powell has made it pretty clear, to those reading between the lines, that he is lobbying against Bolton.

Mona Charen can blame the Bolton thing on "liberals," but if that was the source of opposition to him, he would have been confirmed already. Bolton's problem is that he is a bull in a china shop. Condi Rice doesn't like him, and successfully prevented having him installed as her No. 2. Bolton is Cheney's man. The fight over his nomination is now a fight between moderate Republicans like Powell and the Cheney types.


eta:

I'm trying to figure out where I read the Powell thing -- it may have been Steve Clemons' blog, which has been all over the Bolton thing for a long time.

eata:

A-ha. It was Josh, describing articles in the NYT and WaPo.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Serious question: Why do you think Powell has not spoken in support of Bolton?

I think Powell is horrified by Bush's philosophies and feelings re: the UN, and recognizes that Bolton and Bush are very much alike in that regard. Plus, Powell and Bolton regularly clashed - loudly, I guess - in the past on State matters. I don't think they like each other at all. Finally, Powell has apparently been quietly working the Senate to kill off Bolton.