Hubris, Crow, and other tasty dishes.

Apparently, our beloved president was not a student of history. You cannot force the entire world to see things your way with out creating an empire. Which, as I recall, his other mouth (Donald Rumsfeld) has specifically denied.

Indeed the quote (direct from the horses mouth)

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld grew testy when a reporter from Al-Jazeera asked him if the Bush Administration was bent on empire building. "We don't seek empire," he snapped. "We're not imperialistic. We never have been. I can't imagine why you'd even ask the question."
June 2003,The progressive

Maybe they think we are stupid. That or the idiots that run this country believe they have wiped out the American spirit - you know - that independent, freethinking spirit that helped us found this country. The one that tells us that we don't need a king or an emperor, nor do we want one.

I don't know. It must be the historian in me. I would swear we have played this game before and it seems like every time we roll the dice we lose.

Every.
Time.

Almost every time we have tried country/ nation building, it has failed. Every time we have tried to force other people to view world events from the American Government’s point of view, we fail.

I don't think we need to kowtow to world opinion. I don't think you can run a country that way. We are not Europeans, Canadians, Chinese, Russian, or any other people in the world. We are Americans. We used to be respected as a fair and equitable world power. We were trusted to arbitrate fairly. Because it was believed that American had no interest in becoming Rome. I still believe that American people have no interest in building empire - but I'm probably wrong. They probably just accept whatever line or (il)logic that is fed to them by the powers that be.

I think I am nostalgic for an America I never knew. (Nor am I sure it ever really existed)

I want the isolationist America of yester-year. The America that was trusted to be fair and impartial in international affairs. The America that believed that the best way to help people was to actually HELP them, not just take over their country and enforce a new way of being on them.

Of course, with out our interventionist tendencies (post WWII) we would have never had one of the best TV shows ever written. Of course, I am speaking about M*A*S*H.

You win some, you lose some.

More in a bit, I need coffee.

EDIT 1/22/05 - A friend on LJ brings up a good point. Germany and Japan are examples of where we have participated in nation building where we were successful. I have amended my declaritive statements to reflect that. He said that "making any misleading statements about [nation building] negatively is just as bad as promoting the illusion that it's a flawless, brilliant endeavor." I do agree with his assesment.

Blogs as an addiction

So Livejournal's Colocation facility managed to lose power today and completly took LJ out. last I looked - it was even mentioned on Slashdot.

Freaky man.

End of an Era

Today, we lost one of the great alt-rock radio stations. At noon today (1/12/05) WFHS switched to a Spanish language channel "El Zol," broadcasting "a current hit blend of Caribbean and Central American dance music".

One could argue that WHFS effectively died in 1996 when they were bought by Infinity broadcasting. Since that point, the station had become progressively more bland and like DC101 (this is not a good thing). HFS used to be the only place you could hear The Cure, Depeche Mode, or electronic music before it was commoditized by Madonna. They played Too Much Joy, The Soup Dragons, Catherine Wheel, PIL, The Clash, Jeff Buckley, Tori Amos, Portishead, Orbital and a hundred other names I can't recall.

It was the soundtrack to my high school years and most of college (until I moved to Richmond - when I moved home after a year or so, the HFS I knew was already dying).

Ah well. To all things an end must come.

Oh and the last song they played before the switch?

The Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley. How apropos.

Consequences

Wow. I didn't think i'd ever see the day that an executive, much less 10 of them would ever accept a deal that required them to pay any portion of a settlement with their own (ill-gotten) money.

Fantastic.

Maybe this will encourage the asshats running these companies to remember that they were hired to do a job. Not to loot the company as their own personal piggy bank.

Power Hungry

An interesting article on the culture of outlet sharing that has popped up thanks to battery life sucking and people being more tied to their toys.

Don't get me wrong. I have an ipod and a laptop. My iPod gets something like 6 or 7 hours of battery life the way I use it (enough to get me through a day) and the same goes for my laptop - as long as I leave in the mornig with a full charge - I'm usually good for the whole day.

I think it is sort of an interesting socialogical development.

more in a bit, I need coffee. An interesting article on the culture of outlet sharing that has popped up thanks to battery life sucking and people being more tied to their toys.

Don't get me wrong. I have an iPod and a laptop. My iPod gets something like 6 or 7 hours of battery life the way I use it (enough to get me through a day) and the same goes for my laptop - as long as I leave in the morning with a full charge - I'm usually good for the whole day.

I think it is sort of an interesting sociological development. Much like Panera Bread Company offering free WiFi to its customers, a place offering electricity to its customers just seems to be a good deal for all involved. Around campus this is a common sight and the newer buildings have added more outlets and are WiFi.

More in a bit, I need coffee.

The Funeral Portrait

Sharon plays hardball with his own

How unusual. Ariel Sharon orders an evacuation of the west bank and tells the settlers that he will use force if necessary to remove them. You mean there might be a hope for peace in that part of the world?

Nahhh. It’ll never happen. Not that Sharon won't use force on the settlers. He will and won't lose any sleep over it. Someone on either side will take it upon them selves (and some how they will gain the ear of the people or at least the idiots in the media) to keep demanding more and more until they won't be satisfied with no less than everything.

Co-operation? Peace? Perish the thought.

"They say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."

I just want my kids to grow up in a world that is semi-sane.

More in a bit, I need coffee.

You can never go home again

According to the Washington Post Republicans in congress are trying to push through a relaxation of the ethics rules they supposedly uphold.

What the crap?

I know I shouldn't be surprised (and I'm not). I know that this is just them showing their true colors.

Ethics? Morals? Apparently, those are for people not involved in the delicate task of governing our country.

After all, we shouldn't want our leaders to be an example of what is best in America. Right? They are only human; they have the right to make a mistake. I mean, they answer to the same laws you and I do.

OH wait. The difference between them making a "mistake" and your or I making the same sort of mistake is we lose out job or go to jail. They get their buddies to change the rules so they can keep theirs.

Best quote from one of the Republicans that voted against this particular mockery -

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) called the planned ethics changes "a grave mistake."

"Those of us who were here in 1994 remember we gained our Republican majority in part because we argued that as public servants, we have a responsibility to the American people to maintain the highest standards of conduct," Shays said.

More in a bit, I think I'm going to head out for some coffee.

update.

I hope the new year found you in a good place (as opposed to curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor praying that you don't have alcohol poisoning from the 50 million shots you did with your friends)

I've been offline for a bit. My laptop died (for the fifth time in two years) and I have been working on projects that kept me away from the computer.

Apple computer made a very happy customer of me when I called in and explained what had happened to my laptop again. They offered to give me a brand new machine from the current line up with the one year warranty in place. So, they are replacing my 800 GHz G3 iBook with a new 1.2 GHz G4 iBook (more powerful than my desktop).

I'm pretty happy about this. Good things all around.

In other news,

I've been checking out some new music lately.

The Dresden Dolls gothy punk rock cabaret. Coin Operated Boy is playful and tickles my funny bone every time I hear it.

M83 According to pitchfork they are experimental/ dance. Sure. Why not. I dig it. Don’t ask me why, maybe it is the noisy guitars and interesting progressions. Just sayin'

Opeth Alright, so I don't have a clue what the guy is actually saying, but the guitar work is so good, I almost don't care. Almost. Call me odd, but I still want to know what the guy is saying even if I'm not gonna sing along to it. For all I know he might be reading out of a cookbook (like "How to Serve Man")

The Birthday Massacre Another band that I just dig. Although, as strange as it is, I might dig them more on headphones than played over my stereo.

There are a couple more, but I already mentioned Stavesacre and my abiding love for Switchblade Symphony.

More in a bit, I need coffee.