Zbigniew Brzezinski rewrites history

Until de Gaulle came to power, the government was getting all the time the same kind of advice we now are hearing about the situation in Iraq. It may get better. Yes, three years have been wasted, but maybe we can go on for another three years. And we’re going to do better; we’re going to control Algiers.

[snip]

And then a man came along, de Gaulle, who instead of listening to the same degree of timid consensus — “Gee, we are stuck, but we don’t know what to do, so let’s continue being stuck and maybe we’ll win” — he realized that this is a wrong war.


Brzezinski, is right about Iraq, but his history is seriously twisted. His version of France and Algeria is exactly like writing "Until Nixon came to power, the government was getting all the time the same kind of advice we now are hearing about the situation in Iraq. It may get better. [snip].

And then a man came along, Nixon, who instead of listening to the same degree of timid consensus — “Gee, we are stuck, but we don’t know what to do, so let’s continue being stuck and maybe we’ll win” — he realized that this is a wrong war.

Like Nixon, de Gaulle was in power for about half of the war. He came to power (in a rather less regular way which was not his fault*) at a time when most other politicians were much more nearly convinced that it was time to leave. In the end, he came around too (really has a way of getting real on you).

From the old Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Gaulle#1958.E2.80.941962:_Founding_of_the_Fifth_Republic

" In December, de Gaulle was elected President by the parliament with 78% of the vote, and inaugurated in January 1959.

[huge snip]

In March 1962 de Gaulle arranged a cease-fire in Algeria and a referendum supported independence, finally accomplished on 3 July 1962."

Brzezinski's "then this man came along" ignores over three (3) years of war and death under de Gaulle (hmmm do I read three years in Brzezinski's bit). He is rewriting history. Interestingly, there is no possible advantage gained by his distortion. de Gaulle is hardly popular among those Americans who have to be convinced we should leave Iraq.

I assume he is simply honestly ignorant (no surprise).


*The odd way de Gaulle came to power is that a prime minister was elected who wanted to get out of Algeria. Various generals attempted a coup. Extremely powerful executive President de Gaulle was a compromise between following the constitution and a military dictatorship.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "11/21/2006 11:57:00 PM":

Hi people
I do not know what to give for Christmas of the to friends, advise something ....


Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "11/21/2006 11:57:00 PM":

De Gaulle seized power in a popular coup engineered by the French of Algeria to whom he had promised (via General Massu, who was later retired just as he was contemplating a coup) he would put up a real fight Algeria, and he did for a while, torturing and killing hundreds of thousands to show his good will, then he threw the towel in, and was forever considered a traitor by the French of Algeria, as well as by types like Le Pen...

Anonymous doesn't know what to get people for Christmas but he (or she) seems to dislike De Gaulle even more than I do. Has bad taste in music though

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "11/21/2006 11:57:00 PM":

Hello. Good day
Who listens to what music?
I Love songs Justin Timberlake and Paris Hilton

Past Time for a Primary Challenge

Look I too think Duke Cunningham does not belong on the floor of the house, but there is no reason Democrats have to put up with someone like Jim Moran in Northern Northern Virginia.


Via David Kurtz but why is some guy in Missouri writing about a congressman elected from (partly) inside the beltway ?

Professor Barnett coronates himself Dean of the "Leave No Congressman Behind education plan".

McJoan is very pleased that Dean Barnett recognises that Kos is an asset to the Democratic party.

I am very amused by the Dean's interesting approach to the English Language.

FAQ - Republican Congressional Leadership
Posted by: Dean Barnett at 4:23 PM

[snip]


5) Back on topic – how disastrous were the Republican leadership choices?

Eh. It would have been nice to have seen a new Newt Gingrich coronated, but I’m not sure there’s such a being in the Republican caucus. Besides, the congressional leadership just won’t be all that important over the next couple of years.

6) Now you tell me, after I waste a week of my life on conference calls with these guys who seem to think “book larnin’” is beneath them. Why’s that?

[snip]

7) But how about legislation? Won’t the lack of leadership hurt us there?

Well, we’ll probably cut-and-run on the minimum wage, but other than that I don’t see any Democratic boondoggles that will pass with a veto-proof majority. So all in all, it should be two years of stasis in Congress, which incidentally will beat the hell out of the last four years. (See “prescription drug benefits” for more details.)

[snip]

9) What’s been the reaction in the blogosphere about the same Republican congressional leaders being re-signed for the 110th congress?

The reactions that I’ve read and that have come in my inbox have ranged from panic to outrage to outraged panic. Doesn’t seem like anyone is very happy today.

10) And yet you’re not on the verge of despair?

Not at all. Despair was last week with the election results, the shameful timing of the Rumsfeld firing and the Gates naming. The dye was cast then. There’s nothing that could have happened in the Republican leadership conference that could have put lipstick on this pig of a month.

Besides, I’m very excited about my Leave No Congressman Behind education plan.

I'd say the dye that was cast last week was indigo.

Now I hope that it is the height of absurdity for me, Robert Waldmann,to comment on the Dean's spelllin in a post which announces his crownation as Dean of the Leave No Congressman Behind education program. As loyal reader of this blog knows, I think our purpose is to reach the nadir of idiocy, and my commenting on someone elses speling is as close as I have gotten.

I am honestly impressed that someone who thinks very highly of Newt Gingrich recognises that gridlock will be an improvement over the Republican assault on the US treasury.

Billmon is Optimistic. We're screwed.

I don't know. But if Jim Webb and I are now on the roughly same side on the big issues of the day -- the war, globalization, corporate power, economic fairness, social justice -- it tells you something has fundamentally changed in American politics. It may not be a realignment (a political system this polluted and decrepit may not be capable of such a thing) but when Senators from Virginia start talking like Walter Reuther, it sure the hell isn't business as usual.

This is the guy who generally gives US Democracy a 50/50 chance of surviving the year.

As Billmon writes this has "left me with a profound case of political vertigo."

Milton Friedman an Encominium

I never understood why Friedman considered the quantity theory of money to be the belly button of the universe. I agree with Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong (who tend to know what they are talking about) that monetarism was actually a very minor aspect of Friedman's contribution to economics.

He was brilliant (it is strange and painful to use the past tense). His contributions include the accelerationist critque of the Phillips curve (independently made by Phelps who just won a nobel prize for that), the permanent income hypothesis, the description of what a "peso problem" is, the serious observation of the need to look at prices which are actually paid not list prices etc etc etc.

He was often brilliant. He obtained his god-like status for some economist (and demonic mystique to the others) because he bet his reputation on a hotly contested prediction again and again and again and won each time. Might have been a long long string of luck, but, personally I doubt it.

Friedman was three things, an economist who was strangely brilliant (or maybe he sold his soul to the devil), a monetarist fanatic with a fetish for MV=pY, and a libertarian pro-market extremist out there with Hayek and Rand. I see these three Friedman's as separate (I want to admire the first and ignore the other two).

Friedman saw a connection. The only one I see is that he reliably opposed a Keynsian consensus which I don't even remember. He is so influential that, in the UK, "monetarist" is used to mean "pro-market" or maybe "indifferent to the needs of the poor."

In many fields, it is difficult (to put it mildly) to find intelligent thoughtful intellectually serious conservatives. Economics is not one of those fields. Many brilliant thoughtful economists are free market fanatics. However, even with such competitors for the crown of the profession's leading opponent of state intervention in the market, Friedman clearly stood head and shoulders above the others.
He was a genius and (perhaps because) he could explain all of his thoughts to ordinary people.

update: I get a link from a libertarian site (didn't you guys notice that I wanted to ignore Friedman's free market fanatacism).

Chickenhawk George Bush finally in Vietnam

I doubt he noticed that the flags don't look quite like the on they posted at www.whitehouse.gov

This comment is too good to bury with the post.


Kynn has left a new comment on your post "11/10/2006 10:13:00 AM":

Not a typo -- Russ Dove has very poor spelling skills, which is ironic for someone who claims to judge others' English ability.

As for voting, Arizona allows convicted felons to vote again once they have served their time. Dove told me that he voted in the election, and he had an "i voted!" sticker, so it seems that he probably did vote.

Wowwwww. noww i am in a week posishun to komment on sumwun ho laiks to judge others' English ability and has purr speling skils beins such a one myself. But, I mean like wowwwwwwwww that is one awesome catch Kynn.

Now as to the state of Arizona, it seems that "Must not be a convicted felony, unless your civil rights have been restored" is not only ungrammatic but also misleading (perhaps deliberately so) if it is SOP to restore civil rights to felons who have done their time.

Time for some culture

Reading this reference to Shakespeare "Once More Into the Breach!
The “breach” being the President’s ass, his head being what’s going in “once more.”"
(via Brad) I recalled an English translation of the last line of the 21st canto of the Divine Commedy "and he made a bugle of his breach." and thought it was time to consider the strange link between war, warriors, the heart of darkness and the place where the sun doesn't shine.

Hence Culture Time

History

What do Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Richard the Lionhearted, Frederick the Great and Ernst Rohm have in common ?

Literature

A guy asks much younger guys for something

"Once more into the breach dear friends"

Henry V by William Shakespeare (not Mark Foley)

God's plan is explained

ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.

Io vidi già cavalier muover campo,
e cominciare stormo e far lor mostra,
e talvolta partir per loro scampo;

corridor vidi per la terra vostra,
o Aretini, e vidi gir gualdane,
fedir torneamenti e correr giostra;

quando con trombe, e quando con campane,
con tamburi e con cenni di castella,
e con cose nostrali e con istrane;

né già con sì diversa cennamella
cavalier vidi muover né pedoni,
né nave a segno di terra o di stella.

L'inferno Cantos 21 and 22 by Dante Alighieri
(not Ted Hagard).

The English translation of the first line of the quote (last line of canto 21) which was clearly an embarassed effort to Bowdlerize Dante (the correct tranlsation of "culo" is "ass" as confirmed by a laureata of the scuola normale superiore).
The unfortunate translater may have had good reason to believe that he knew better than Dante what was and was not appropriate, but he should have remembered his Shakespeare.

Finally the supreme expression of this literature, the telos towards which Dante and Shakespeare were drawn is, of course, Keyboard Kommando Komics

I assure the alarmed reader that I am absolutely not homophobic and I even have an open ... mind about S&M. I just wish those guys would work out their fantasies with consenting adults.

update: The poor man explains (with a further kultural reference)

Basically, this is why when people whine about “civility,” I photoshop talking assholes on their foreheads. I’m trying to drag down the level of political discourse in this country - I’m really, really trying - but it’s like farting in the Augean stables.

I laugh out loud. My 9 year old daughter asked why I laughed. I said because I just read something funny written by Andrew Northrup. She asks if that is anyone important. I reply, very important and run to the hamper to put on my order of the Shrill t-shirt, which is slighly smelly but remains my most prized possession.

Robert's Stochastic Thoughts Reader DWS writes


> Quoting Robert Waldmann :
>
> > .... but they don't even keep track of the ratio of hot low cap
> > stock tips to penis enlargement advertisements

I got one spam item not long ago with the
all-purpose subject line "watch it grow !"

(think that one was a stock tip, actually)...
- Hide quoted text -

DWS

Robert adds

Look like some spammer just figured out how to trick the gmail spam filter. I trust google will figure out how to block them (it) tomorrow. La lotta continua.

To me, the desire to be President of the United States in itself means you're a psychopath who should never be President of the United States. Unfortunately, of course, this desire is a job requirement. You have to be Catholic to be Pope, and you have to be dangerous and sick to be president.

Via Glenn Greenwald

Jonathan Schwarz is going on my hotlist (even though he is a Yalie).

and how about this

Will our efforts be Mayagüez sized? Or bigger, like Grenada? Given all the humiliation America's foreign policy cadre will (believe themselves to) experience, it's quite possible it will be larger still. Watch out, Mars.

That's Nice

HARTFORD, Conn. - Democrat Joe Courtney's victory over Republican Rep. Rob Simmons in their U.S. House contest was confirmed Tuesday [snip]

Recounts showed that Courtney won by 91 votes instead of the 167-vote margin counted on election night, according to results tabulated by town clerks and reported to The Associated Press. Nearly 250,000 votes were cast.

Both parties monitored the recount and confirmed that Courtney had the final edge, although their figures differed. Republicans said their count showed Courtney winning by 96 votes, while Democrats had the margin at 93.

I like the result, but the really wonderful part is the fact that the Republican's calculate that they lost by 3 more votes than the Democrats and 5 more than the town clerks. This shows that there are still honest Republicans (at least in New England).

Beyond 1984

Emanuele Millemaci explained to me that lo stato Italiano is following me.

Big Brother only watched Winston Smith when he was at home. Now they can follow you if you have your cell phone on.

Modern cellular technology would have ruined the book. Since there would have been no hope of hiding, Smith and Julia* would never have tried anything.

don't try to call me. I'm keeping my cell phone off.

*thanks Arwen

Below I Praise an Article in the Washington Post
but this is ridiculous.

Caught in the Web
More People Say Heavy Internet Use Is Disrupting Their Lives, and Medical Experts Are Paying Attention
by January W. Payne

Sure I surf a lot, but I'm not addicted. I can quit any time I want to.

I just don't want to.

Hey who are you to snear. You are addicted to "the real world" whatever that is (can't find it with google must not exist).

Uh Oh

A Very Good Article in the Washington Post Written by John Fortier of the American Enterprise Institute.

Wonders will never cease. The article notes that the principle intra party shift due to the November 7 election is that there is now only one Republican reprentative representing New England and that New York is so dominated by the Democrats that "After Tuesday, if you get into a car in Manhattan and drive north out of the city, you would have to go nearly 200 miles until you reached territory represented by Republicans."

Fortier looks at districts by Presidential vote "Before Tuesday's elections there were eighteen House Republicans who represented districts that John Kerry had won in 2004. Ten of those eighteen lost." and looks at ideology "Among the House seats that changed hands, nine out of the twenty most liberal House Republicans lost, using the rankings of political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal (voteview.com). And nineteen seats that changed hands had been held by Republicans in the more liberal half of their caucus."

The article is substantive and to the point. It shows the utter idiocy of the more recent of these two magazine covers. The center is definitely not the place to be.

All in all, this one article in the Washington Post reaches the level one would expect of a much more serious news source such as www.washingtonmonthly.com

To me, the amazing thing is that I am amazed. I really think that the article by John Fortier is the exception that proves the rule. I really honestly don't know why there are so few articles like this one in daily newspapers. It is by no means too technical for Washington Post readers and contains much more information than, say, an average weeks worth of op eds. Also, since the claims are supported by data (indeed they simply summarize data) they are, for what they are worth, definitely true. Most analyses of the elections do not come close to this standard.

Why not ? What is the problem ?

And as for Joe Klein, why doesn't he stick to fiction ... uhm let me rephrase that, why is his fiction published in a news magazine ?

update: Real Clear Politics jumps the shark

via Kos

Jay Cost writes "This is the Democrats' major limitation this year. They just have relatively few Republican-held districts, about 15, where Kerry beat Bush in 2004."

recall "Before Tuesday's elections there were eighteen House Republicans who represented districts that John Kerry had won in 2004." Now 18 is, indeed, about 15, but why couldn't Cost have done the calculation ? Too much work ? It would take me a while, but he should know where to get the info in a minute.

update 2: My mistake. It would take me about a minute too.
Here is presidential vote by district
via Wikipedia via my very first google search (also first link on which I clicked after googling).

Elapsed time around one minute.

Maybe the problem is the Cost (polidata wants money). Also the House makes me look up members by district clicking on states one by one. Sooo much work maybe it would be quicker to google and it would certainly be quicker to just pull a number out of my hat.

Well beyond Parody

Over at Daily Kos Kynn Bartlett describes voter intimidation in Tucson Arizona.
He followed up a MALDEF press release

In the morning on voting day, two men -- anti-immigrant crusader Russ Dove and his cameraman -- showed up at precinct 49 in Tucson, at the Iglesia Bautista church, 4502 S. 12th St. Their plan: To harass and intimidate Spanish-speaking voters by using an "English-only" petition to screen for "illegal immigrants" trying to vote, videotape them, and post their likenesses on the Internet. Roy Warden also came, armed with a gun -- as he usually does -- and the trio started approaching a small number of people. MALDEF monitors were there, to observe the effect of Arizona's new requirement for ID to vote, and observed the attempted intimidation tactics.

Russ Dove's idea is that voters are required to speak English because the ability to speak English is required for naturalization. Mr Dove is apparently not aware that there are US born US citizens who do not speak English. I guess he has heard of Puerto Rico, but I don't know if he doesn't know that the principle language used in Puerto Rico s Spanish or if he doesn't know that Puerto Ricans are US citizens who are perfectly free to move to the mainland and vote whenever they want to. Also there are US born US citizens on the mainland who speak only Spanish. Only an idiot could honestly believe that all US citizens speak English. Also English fluency is not always required for naturalization as explained by Kynn in his post.

The part I like best (which could easily be a Kynn typo) is this

But back to Russ Dove's plan.

He asked for people who agree with him to fill out an online application form to watch the polling places:

1) FILL OUT THE FORM BELOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS
1-A) I WILL CONTACT YOU TO DISCUSS PRECINCT ASSIAGNMENT
2) PRINT OUT 2(TWO) COPIES OF YOUR PRECINCT ASSIAGNMENT

Russ Dove also wrote "No speak English - No Vote! ".
I for wun am reel gladd he didn't say "can't spel kant voute" cause I wuld be in truble tooo.

Since Dove is a convicted felon, he can't vote in Arizona so he is probably jelous of non English speaking US citizens who can.

I quote the web page of the Arizona Secretary of State

Q: What are the qualifications to register to vote?

Answer:

* Must be a Citizen of the United States of America
* Must be a resident of Arizona
* Must be 18 years of age or more on or before the day of the next regular
General Election
* Must not be a convicted felony, unless
your civil rights have been restored
* Must not been adjudicated incompetent

Wholly fuc we need some more immigrants, so that there will be some people in the USA who can write English korektly.

Roy Warden has left a new comment on your post "11/10/2006 10:13:00 AM":

Listen up, Pendejos and the Left Wing.

Your days in the sun and a "free ride" are over. The Gringos who are watching me Burn Mexican Flags and listening to my speech are waking up.

If you are illegal, sometime en la noche I will find you. I will turn you in to La Migra and you will be gone, "poof!", just like that.

Beware Cinco Cosas: La Noche, La Chupacabra, La Migra, The American Rule of Law, and Warden, the Notorious Mexican Flag Burner.

Illegal aliens, eschuame. Beware la noche. We are coming for you and you are going back to Mexico.

http://www.wardenburnsmexicanflags.com

I am sooo scared Roy. By the way, how did you know that I spent 3 hours in Tijujana in 1975 ?

update:

Kynn has left a new comment on your post "11/10/2006 10:13:00 AM":

Not a typo -- Russ Dove has very poor spelling skills, which is ironic for someone who claims to judge others' English ability.

As for voting, Arizona allows convicted felons to vote again once they have served their time. Dove told me that he voted in the election, and he had an "i voted!" sticker, so it seems that he probably did vote.

Wowwwww. noww i am in a week posishun to komment on sumwun ho laiks to judge others' English ability and has purr speling skils beins such a one myself. But, I mean like wowwwwwwwww that is one awesome catch Kynn.

Now as to the state of Arizona, it seems that "Must not be a convicted felony, unless your civil rights have been restored" is not only ungrammatic but also misleading (perhaps deliberately so) if it is SOP to restore civil rights to felons who have done their time.

District the Thirteenth Part II

You have got to be kidding me. The race to replace the dread Rep. Katharine Harris (you know the one who stole the 2000 election for Bush) is in a recount.

Democrat Christine Jennings lost to Republican Vern Buchanan by 368 votes

that's hundreds of votes (with an h) just like old times.

No more pregnant chads of course, they used touch screen voting machines, but confused voters complain that the butterfly ballot has made it into the digital age

A review of Sarasota County voting results shows that

[snip]

More than 18,000 voters who showed up at the polls voted in other races but not the Buchanan-Jennings race.

many voters say the unusual undervote was caused by badly designed touch-screen ballots, which they say hid the race or made it hard to verify if they had cast their vote.

More than 120 Sarasota County voters contacted the Herald-Tribune to report such problems, almost all regarding the Jennings-Buchanan race.

Needless to say, Sarasota County is a Democratic strong hold. If the 18,000 missing votes had split the way counted votes did, Jennings would have won.

Ewing *owns* Dallas. Not J.R. but Darlene

Dallas County still calls its historic courthouse Old Red, but on Tuesday it went "blue."

[snip] Democrats retook the courthouse in a similar, surprising sweep.

"We didn't expect it, but it's fun," Democratic Party Chair Darlene Ewing

The world's most august deliberative body has no Talent at all.

as the Jackie Gleason (whose talent I am not questioning said) "how sweet it is".

Licenced to Thrill

It is currently Webb by 0.07% which is now my most favorite fairly small number in the whole world (or at least Italy and Virginia).

Also the WAPO has McCaskill ahead which would ... result in a hypothetical possibility which depends on many precincts in Missouri, absentee ballots and lots and lots of lawyers.

Got to take 90 minute breaks from looking at election results more often.