I did it

Turned in my thesis today. Holy fuck. Ready for that weekend party that is Renn Fayre.

Oh the Joy.

It's hard to be a baseball writer in April

From the Arizona Republic

A week ago, the Diamondbacks' season was fit to be crumpled up into a neat little ball and tossed into the wastebasket.

They couldn't pitch, they could barely hit, their bullpen was an oil fire waiting to happen and it seemed like they only used their gloves to keep their hands warm.

It all looks like a distant memory after three straight convincing victories, including Tuesday night's easy 10-1 rout over the Chicago Cubs in front of 33,781 at Bank One Ballpark.

Just for a little perspective on the issue, there are 142 games left in the season.

Jews first-Germans second

In my Third Reich class, I came upon this memo written by Himmler discussing the final solution:

I believe that Jews in this country are a fifth column. . . . The vast majority of Jews in this country are very obviously loyal, not to the Germany, but to their Jewry. And I'm worried that when the time comes for them to stand up and be counted, the reason they are here is to take over our culture and eventually take over our country.

Interesting, but this really demonstrates the standard line of reasoning in political anti-semitism in Germany at the time.

Except for one thing, I lied. This wasn't Himmler writing about Jews in Germany, this was conservative radio host Jay Severin talking about Muslims in America. (via Roger Ailes who has more)

Racist, hate-filled rhetoric doesn't really change after 60 years, does it?

Postscript: Is this Nazi comparison fair? I'd say it is. The term "fifth column" referring to Muslims in America is exactly the same line used by anti-semitic Germans to explain their loss in World War I, that there was a fifth column of German Jews working against them. Then it's a simple switch of words here and there and we're done.

Observation

Yesterday, in a slow moment in one of my classes, I checked and confirmed my suspicion that, having studied math in college for the past 4 years, I now know the entire Greek alphabet, but don't know the order. I know that alpha, beta, gamma, delta and epsilon are the first five letters, and omega is the last, but no clue as to the order between those.

Quick thought on Iraq

I'm sick of these people always talking about the anti-war movement as being traitors. If people had listened to those traitors we wouldn't be in this impossible situation in Iraq.

I've heard that over a hundred soldiers have died in Iraq since mid-March, and some huge amount more injured. This is almost a year after "Mission Accomplished" and three months after Saddam's capture and it looks like the war is just beginning. The US Army is seemingly not trained at all to handle occupying a country where we're not wanted, and lying to ourselves by saying "we're not occupying Iraq, we're freeing Iraq" isn't going to stop the insurgency.

Awesome music you should listen to

I have been really getting into Blonde Redhead lately. They are a very cool, very experimental band. So I thought in my capacity as a blogger, I'd introduce some of my readers to them. So, uh, here's an mp3 of In Particular which is the only of their songs I could find online. It's not my favorite song off of Melody of Certain Damaged Lions, but it's pretty good. Enjoy.

Busy once again

Thesis is due very soon. And I'm on a strict schedule to edit mine and get it printed up on Thursday. Then it's Renn Fayre, so probably light posting until next week.

Sadly, this is real



Stand Up and Holla? Stand Up and Holla? Yeesh.

(Via August)

And over there with the cute animals . . .

While all my attention has been to BD's injury in Doonesbury, Darby Conley also deals with injured soldiers in Iraq this week. I thought today's Get Fuzzy was particularly good:



I like the focus of these Get Fuzzy comics, where Conley is just oh-so subtly showing what a bum wrap returning soldiers are getting. It's a rather annoying hypocritical thing we're getting right now. Where people say "Support our troops" with one hand while treating the wounded and dead like so much dog meat with the other.

Livin' your life

Go read this post by S-Train. Now.

On Academia and Gender Roles

When academia is at its best, it becomes a great center for dispelling social myths that contradict reality. The academic system of peer-review and intellectual rigor creates an atmosphere where new ideas can be explored even if social conventions might prejudice one to be hostile to such ideas.

This is important because once a myth has saturated a culture, it doesn't go away easily. It's easy to get annoyed at people who hold onto their mythology no matter how much it contradicts logic and reason, but this is a fundamental part of human nature. No matter how much one closely holds empiricism and logic, people will always hold certain things to be self-evidently true without question, and when one of these things turns out to be false, it's hard to let go. Think about how you felt when you first learned that historical evidence suggests that, yes, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg did give away nuclear secrets to the Soviets and were in fact guilty of treason, not the poor innocent railroaded victims that they were believed to be. Or if you never heard this before, think about how you're feeling right now.

But there's a downside to academia too, in that it can help to perpetuate ill-founded myths by acting as a sounding off board for eventually regrettable ideas. The most egregious example of this that I can think of is the flourish of racial studies in German univerities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that helped give rise to Nazi ideology. But this bit of academic work doesn't have that much bearing anymore, as on the whole, contemporary western society doesn't accept such a racist form of social science.

But what has bearing in contemporary society is the aspect of gender roles, that the male and female gender have fundamental characteristics that are itemizable and immutable. As an illustration, see this post by Amsterdam Ampersand from a few months ago in which he posts a list of male and female characteristics from a magazine article from 1844. (I do hope Amp kept that article, it could prove to be a valuable historical document!)

There's an interesting history to this categorization of gender characteristics. For a long long time (as in since the time of Aristotle) the prevailing gender model was that there was one gender, and to be male was to be the idealized form of that gender. Sometime in the early nineteenth century though, a new gender model started being used, one in which there are two opposite genders with inherent characteristics. Once this concept starting becoming mainstream, it contributed to a resurgence in overt homophobia, as homosexuals were seen to either act in opposition to their gender or remain somewhere in between male and female. It also helped to contribute to overarching social mysogyny, since although theorists stated there is no superior gender, it relegated the more desirable gender role to men, making them the leaders and captains, while women were to look after the family.

Of course this idea sounds familiar, because it persists. Although I'm unaware of any self-respecting academic who studies the dichotomy of the genders as it was studies, similar sentiments are often sited in mainstream discussion without question of its truth. The damage is done. The myth is firmly established in the mass social conscious. It can be removed, but it won't be easy.

Less Stressed Raznor Update

For the first time in I don't know how long, I find myself with very little work that I have to do right now. I'm in the process of proofreading my thesis, but that's not so hard, and I have until Monday for that. I don't have any assignments for tomorrow, just some research for a term paper in my Third Reich class that isn't due for a couple weeks yet. So I finally have the chance to write one of my patented, Raznor deep thought analysis posts. Look for one soon.

One more toon, and that's all, I swear

Pat Oliphant's latest is just too perfect:

Doonesbury



I'm swelling up here. Trudeau's amazing. His characters get under your skin. I'm so fucking thrilled that BD survived. I love BD.

My God, what an incredible strip.

Why College Republicans don't gain much momentum

20 years ago, Berke Breathed illustrated the reason:

Stressed out Reedie Raznor Thesis Update

Ha ha. I've finished writing my thesis. Now I just have to print it up and proofread it and revise is and so on between now and 9 days from now. Ha ha ha!

Update: Looking over my printed out thesis, on page three, on the third line of the first syntactic proof, I was missing a right parenthesis. Ahh, mathematical logic and it's heavy notation.

Wal-Mart is evil!!

Via Kevin Drum, read this post over at Respectful of Otters. There's really nothing I can excerpt, and it's a short read. Read it. Now.

Yeah, I sure trust these allegations

Via Atrios, this little snippet:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A man who served in the same Navy unit as Sen. John Kerry denounced on Tuesday charges the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee made as an antiwar protester that he and other U.S. troops committed atrocities in Vietnam.

"I saw some war heroes ... John Kerry is not a war hero," said John O'Neill, a Houston lawyer who joined the Navy's Coastal Division 11 two months after the future senator left Vietnam. "He couldn't tie the shoes of some of the people in Coastal Division 11."

Wait, in case you missed that, let me repeat that last paragraph, with the relevant line emphasized:

"I saw some war heroes ... John Kerry is not a war hero," said John O'Neill, a Houston lawyer who joined the Navy's Coastal Division 11 two months after the future senator left Vietnam. "He couldn't tie the shoes of some of the people in Coastal Division 11."

Do you notice anything wrong here. One more time just in case:

a Houston lawyer who joined the Navy's Coastal Division 11 two months after the future senator left Vietnam

I mean, Jeebus, and this is aired by CNN? Can we stop with the allegations that CNN is pro-Democrat?

Turn on those bullshit detectors

I've read a few posts today about allegations that before the Bush press conference reporters had to turn in questions to the White House for pre-approva. Which would be a horrible partisan travesty, and certainly not beyond what we'd expect from this Bush Administration, but is it true?

Well, fortunately we have Josh Marshall who asked a couple of his friends who work with the White House Press Corps, and got this response:

In the words of one of them: "It's complete ---------. As in 'I can't believe that he was quoted accurately' ---------. Occasionally, before background briefings, White House aides will canvass reporters to ask what we're interested in on that day (but "the Middle East" is plenty answer for them). But I have never, ever heard of submitting questions in writing, orally, by email, or any other way before a presidential press conference. Not under Ari, not under Scott."

So there you go. Nothing you can do about this but tip you're hat and admit that these particular allegations are false. There's plenty of real horrible things the Bush Administration does without getting caught up in the falsehoods.

[sidenote: possibly the only thing that saved me from blogging about this earlier, and thus being embarrassed when I read Marshall's post just now was that I was working on thesis. Almost done with that, by the way, thanks for asking. It's all coming along]

Letters, I get letters

Just got this in my e-mail, and thought it was hilarious, so I'll reprint it here:

I think your readers would probably be interested in what we're doing.
Billionaires for Bush or Kerry is a bipartisan grassroots campaign
dedicated to getting either one of our candidates into office.

Our Platform in a Nutshell:
The American Democratic system works as well today as it did when the
electoral structure was laid out by the founding fathers. In fact,
Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John
Quincy Adams all ran as "Democratic-Republicans", this party originating
today's Democratic and Republican parties. Not since Zachary Taylor in
1848 has the Electoral College voted a third-party (Whig, in this case)
candidate into the White House.

Since then, Americans have enjoyed their freedom to elect either a
Democrat or a Republican for president. This year's presidential
election is no different, and Billionaires for Bush or Kerry is
projecting our 36th consecutive Republicrat victory.

We are estimating our candidates will win 94.9% of the votes, and 100%
of the electoral votes. While we're thankful for your ongoing support,
our success has really been due to the American electoral process
itself.

Feel free to check visit us online:
http://www.billionairesforbushorkerry.org.

Thank you
John Barry
Founder, Billionaires for Bush or Kerry
john@billionairesforbushorkerry.org

Oh my god

Doonesbury today:



Any fan of the comic knows that Trudeau isn't beyond killing some of his loved characters, Andy, Lacy Davenport's husband, then Lacy Davenport herself. But my God, could BD suffer a similar fate? He's been with us since the beginning. And I mean very beginning:



I guess we'll see.

(Oh and still busy with thesising, so more light posting)

. . . I've been wondering with the recent uprisings in Iraq if Trudeau would do anything with BD there. I wasn't expecting anything this serious. You gotta give Trudeau much respect. He's amazing.

New Get Your War On!!

Here:



There's more. Go read them. Gooooo!!

Wow, not much posting as of late

And none for a while yet. I've got a thesis due in two weeks, so I'm really going to have to buckle down.

Ahhhh, doesum president have the sniffles

Not quite the face of leadership here, is it. But a bitchin' tie.



Via Atrios.

Some good news for the Donald Rumsfeld

It's almost Secretary's Day!



From The Onion. Of course.

Raznor Grad School Update

All is right in the world of Raznor. I just got accepted into UC, San Diego, which was my top choice of what was left, after Berkeley rejected me. So, bearing unforeseen consequences between now and September, I'll be in San Diego come fall!

Oh joy.

LGF Quiz

This is fun. Take this quiz Little Green Footballs or Late German Fascists, to see if you can differentiate between words of Hitler and his ilk in regards to jews and other untermenschen or if it's a comment on Little Green Footballs regarding Palestinians. I did well, 12 out of 14, but mostly because I'm taking a class on the Third Reich (as you notice by my Third Reich Humor series) and therefore am able to recognize many of these quotations. For instance, I knew straight-off that this quote:

"...we would have a powerful new weapon at our disposal... [if they]... could be sterilized so that they could be used as laborers but be prevented from reproduction...."

Was specifically about what to do about the half-Jews in regard to the final solution. (in 1941 the order came out that half-Jews would be treated as full-Jews in regard to the final solution, unless they had children with a German spouse, which caused a bit of a stir among Nazi officials, see The Wannsee Conference if you wish to know more about that)

. . . . via Billmon whose comments are worth a read.

Third Reich Humor Part VI - Meta-humor and Other Fun

I really don't have the time or energy to relegate tons of background historical information, so I thought I'd just give you a couple of fun jokes that don't require a few paragraphs of explanation:

Two men in a streetcar are making strange hand movements under their coats. "Hey, look at those two, " says a passenger to his companion. "What are they up to?" "Oh, I know them, they're deaf mutes; and they're telling political jokes."

However much he tried, Hitler's barber couldn't prevent the strand of hair from falling over the Führer's forehead, making him resemble a waiter. "My hair is hard to manage," said Hitler. The barber replied:"There's a good remedy for that, my Führer. Just allow freedom of the press again, and you'll see how your hair stands on end!"

WTF?

I subscribe to Ucomics "My Comics Page" and get old Bloom County comics. But correct me if I'm wrong (I don't have any Bloom County books here to check) but I think they censored the punchline for this one:

Kerry Veep found!

It's fucking Bill Clinton with a beard!



From this week's Photoshop Phriday at Something Awful.

Hilarious

Via Kevin Drum this e-mail exchange is hilarious. As Kevin said, be sure you read the entire thing, the punchline is well worth it!

Ads on top

It's interesting seeing what ads pop up on the top of these blogspot sites and trying to figure out why they're doing it. Basically, I think it searches for keywords in the blog and posts appropriate ads based on those keywords. But it's imperfect, in that if I post anti-Bush stuff over and over again, I'll end up with pro-Bush ads.

But now, last I looked, with my series on Third Reich Humor, the ads are for military antiques and the like. Interesting.

A picture truly is worth a thousand words

Check out the pictures at the bottom of this post by Kevin Drum. Feel free to read the post as well.

Third Reich Humor Part V - That wacky Hess!

Hess was the Gruppenfuhrer, Hitler's deputy, who in a bureaucratic organization would be Hitler's second in command. But the Nazi party didn't organize itself as a bureaucratic organization, and others could get above Hess by going directly to Hitler. Thus Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels and Goring all in practice had more power than Hess. Hitler didn't really like Hess that much, but liked his position as a buffer zone between him and the rest of Germany in most matters.

So that's Hess, now let's talk about Britain. In Mein Kampf, Hitler described the British as closest in race to Aryans, and therefore Germany's most natural ally. (I mean Italians and Japanese? Not quite the ideal allies for white supremacists) So it baffled Hitler when Britain decided to fight them, when it was his plan that Germany would take over the continent and England would reign over the seas. He blamed these actions on the Jews' influence on Churchill's cabinet, and was hoping that Churchill would eventually come around. This is why historians believe the Battle of Dunkirk didn't turn into an utter bloodbath, and the Germans decided to turn their attention from the Battle of Britain to the Eastern front when the Royal Air Force was reduced down to five planes from the fighting.

Which brings us back to Hess. In 1941, as Germany was about to begin its attack against Russia, Hess flew a plane alone into London in order to speak with Churchill and convince him to join in Germany's fight. His plan didn't work, however, and he spent the remainder of his life in various prisons in London and Berlin.

So now, jokes about Hess:

After his flight to England, Hess was introduced to Churchill, who asked, "So you're the insane man?" To which Hess replied, "Oh no, just his deputy."

After Munich, "Capital of the Movement," Nuremberg, "City of the Reich Party Rally," Graz, "City of the People's Rising," Augsburg, from where Hess took off to flee to England, became "City of the Unexpected Promotion."

Two friends meet in the concentration camp. "Why are you here?" asks the one. "On the 5 of May I said, ' Hess is crazy.' And you?" "On the 15 of the May, I said, 'Hess isn't crazy.'"

The deputy of the Führer is the only one who succeeded in invading England.

And since this will be the last post on this till monday, one more to help you get through the weekend:

Definition of the nations: one Italian: patriot; two Italians: demonstration; three Italians: defeatism. One Frenchman: esprit; two Frenchmen: love; three Frenchmen: revolution. One German: poet; two Germans: organization; three Germans: war.

George W Bush buckles down and gets the job done!

I mean, oops:

This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.

Via Josh Marshall

Yep still busy

Thesis is due in 3 weeks. 3 weeks, so posting is once again slow. I'll still maintain daily updates with Third Reich Humor, but I decided to do this weekdayly, ie, none over the weekend, so after tomorrow, I pick up again on monday. With other random postings over the weekend if the muse moves me.

Third Reich Humor Part IV - Power abusing homosexuals

Just two jokes today, but needs some back story. Rohm (the "oh" is pronounced like "oo" in "look". There's an umlaut, but I don't know how to add one in html) was the leader of the SA, the NSDAP's paramilitary organization, going into the 1920's. When the Nazis took over the German government in 1933, the SA went wild. Political dissidents were gathered up and thrown into makeshift concentration camp (I believe by 1934 there were upwards of 7000 such camps in the country, they used basements of schoolhouses or whatever they could find to force people into). However it became apparent that the SA was out of control, and to appease the public, as well as the Conservative Party officials in power, and to ensure a simple transfer of power when Hindenburg died and Hitler would become Reichspresidente, Hitler had Himmler's SS purge Rohm and all his top officials.

One more thing, it was a pretty open secret that Rohm was a homosexual, even though official Nazi policy regarding homosexuals was about as tolerant as they were with Jews and Slovaks. When the SS killed Rohm, it was in the middle of one of Rohm's parties that included many virile, patriotic young men in many orgies. Hitler pronounced that he didn't know that Rohm was homosexual, but this was the subject of quite a few jokes in itself, that sadly I don't have. But there are the following:

What is the German ideal? As blond as Hitler, as tall as Goebbels, slim as Goring, and chaste as Rohm.

and:

After the Rohm purge, a new paragraph has been added to the constitution: "The Chancellor both appoints and shoots his ministers in person."

Third Reich Humor Part III - Fun with acronyms

Today, I'll list a few redone acronyms with a little context for each one.

First, most people know NSDAP is the National Socialist German Worker's Party, or the Nazis.

One thing, when the Nazis first came into power, and started imprisoning ranking left wing party officials, Nazi officials treated it like a spoils of war thing, where they'd take all the nice offices that were once held by Communists, Socialists and Social Democrats, which leads us to our first acronym:

NSDAP: Na, suchst du auch Postchen? (You too want a nice little office?)

Second, the Nazis were extremely militaristic (obviously) and early on were very careful not to anger the military. When the SA started seizing veteran political dissidents, this angered the military, and was one of the reasons that Hitler had Rohm and his ranking SA officers killed. So this brings us to out second acronym:

NSDAP: Nur solange die Armee pariert.(Only as long as the army tolerates it.)

The NSBO was the Nationalsozialistische Betriebsorganization, a left-wing Nazi union that lost its power after the Rohm purge. Now to our third acronym:

NSBO: Noch sind die Bonzen oben (The bosses are still on top.)

The BDM, or Bund deutscher Madel, or young German maidens League of German Maidens, was the female equivalent to the Hitler Youth, that was designed to teach young German women to be good German women, ie mothers, homemakers, and so on. But in the process they brought these young women away from their families to retreats, and they'd take advantage of that. And the organization developed quite a - er -reputation. Which brings us to our final two acronyms:

BDM: Bald deutsche Mutter (Soon a German mother)

BDM: Bubi, druck mich (Baby, squeeze me)

And so long as we're on the subject of the BDM and their reputation, there is one final joke for today's post:

A young teacher wanted to earn his National Socialist spurs and assigned this essay topic: Would Werther have committed suicide if he had been in the Hitler Youth? After that, a competitive female teacher gave her girls this assignment: Would the Maid of Orleans have remained a virgin, if she had been in the Bund deutscher Madel?

Raznor Awesome List Update

I'm not willing to close the voting just yet. So here's how it stands, once again you, the Raznor reader, click comments and vote on your top 5 Vietnam songs. A first place vote gives 5 points, a fifth place 1 point. If more than one song for a place in voting they get points split evenly, for instance giving two top songs without any preference for first place will give both songs 4.5 points, and so on.

For my original list of nominees see this post. But people have voted for songs that I didn't list and that's entirely cool. Here's how the voting stands so far, so vote. Vote like the wind. (unless you've already voted in which case, yay you)

Arlo Guthrie - "Alice's Restaurant" - 13 pts
Phil Ochs -"I Ain't Marching Anymore" - 10 pts
Credence Clearwater Revival - "Fortunate Son" - 9 pt
Country Joe and the Fish - "The Feels Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" - 7 pt
Marvin Gaye - "What's Going On" - 5 pts
Randy Newman - "Political Science" - 5 pts
Cat Stevens - "Peace Train" - 3 pts
Buffalo Springfield - "For What It's Worth" - 3 pts
John Lennon - "Give Peace a Chance" - 3 pts

Things are bad in Iraq

Now, apparently, the Shia's have started fighting us as well. I really can't say anything better than Juan Cole at this time. His site is invaluable for commentary on Iraq.

Third Reich Humor Part II

After yesterday's rather dark and slightly sad joke, I thought I'd do another about Nazi oppression, but this time with fluffy animals, so less dark.

Remember, these were jokes that circulated the populace during the Third Reich. Hence historically significant.

Anyway, here goes:

One day countless rabbits appear at the Belgian border and ask for political asylum. "The Gestapo has declared all giraffes enemies of the state." "But you aren't giraffes." "We know, but try to tell that to the Gestapo!"

Only 12 hours . . .

Until first pitch of opening day for the Diamondbacks. It seems that their rotation this year is Johnson, Webb and then three doses of pain and stress on the part of D-backs fans. Hooray.

Why do conservatives hate freedom?

I'd usually be willing to blow off this insane article with the same level of ironic humor that Jesse does, but not today. Last night, for my Third Reich Class, I watched Die Weisse Rose (that's The White Rose for you non-German speakers). What this film is about is a true story of a group of student activists who spread pamphlets about the University of Munich in 1943calling attention to German war crimes and the insane depravity of the Nazi party. For this, they were charged with "gross slander of the Fuehrer" and beheaded.

The movie really affected me. So that now I read something like this from a freedom-hating wingnut:

There needs to be a law passed where any person who disrespects the "Office of the Presidency" by making false accusations and spreading deliberate rumors about the president, should be charged with a felony or at the very least a high misdemeanor.

and I can't just blow it off, and say "My, aren't those right wing nuts insane." This will never get passed into law, as Jesse notes, but it's still just absolutely disgusting. There's no other way to put this, Kaye Grogan hates freedom. She hates freedom of speech and will do what she can to eliminate it. Her article is nothing less than advocacy for tyranny and oppression of those who think differently than her. The fact that this sort of insane rambling is published somewhere, by a somewhat respectable organization (as opposed to some fringe cult) does not reflect well on this country.

Update: Since writing this, I finished reading Jesse's quite hilarious post on the whole thing, and feel a bit more sober. So I strongly recommend you head to Pandagon and read his post. Still, it gets so frustrating when the level of discourse consists of reminding right wingnuts that jailing political opponents is called "tyrranny".

I also, once again, strongly recommend watching Die Weisse Rose. Sometime next month I'll do a quick review of all the films we're watching for my Third Reich class, they are quite good.

Third Reich Humor Part I

I decided I'd introduce my long alluded-to Third Reich political jokes in daily installments, one at a time, whatever's funny, or whatever seems appropriate to the news of the moment. So consider my comments on Kathleen Parker's essay sort of a preface.

As a reminder, these aren't just jokes about the Third Reich, these were political jokes circulated among the population during the Third Reich. It was sort of dangerous to spread these jokes, but for the most part officials didn't care about political jokes, so long as people weren't doing anything more directly rebellious.

I thought I'd start with this one. This one was submitted to a compilation by a German soldier after the war as a way of proving that, yes, German citizens during the war did know what atrocities were being committed in Poland. It is one of the funniest and one of the saddest things I've ever read. So here goes:

Jewish victims were to be shot by the Gestapo. The commanding SS officer was in a good mood and went up to a Jew, snarling, "Actually, you look like an Aryan. I want to give you a chance. One of my eyes is glass, but it isn't easy to tell which. If you guess correctly, I'll let you go." Without hesitation, the Jew answered: "The left eye." "How did you know?" asked the officer. "It has such a humane expression," replied the Jew.

Two Great Ted Rall comics

First, a concise summary of Richard Clarke:



And a more sober reflection on Iraq:

We shouldn't commit genocide, but gosh that would sure be swell

Via Atrios, this column by Kathleen Parker goes beyond sickening:

I suppose it would be considered lacking in nuance to nuke the Sunni Triangle.

But so goes the unanimous vote around my household - and I'm betting millions of others - in the aftermath of what forevermore will be remembered simply as "Fallujah."

Wouldn't it be lovely were justice so available and so simple? If we were but creatures like those zoo animals we witnessed gleefully jumping up and down after stomping, dragging, dismembering and hanging the charred remains of American civilians whose only crime was to try to help them

But my favorite part is this (emphasis added):

Moreover, we've seen the sort of chaos we'd be leaving other Iraqis - the good, decent Iraqi people who trusted us once again - to face alone. We have no choice but to stay the course and fulfill our commitment. That said, it would be nice if the international community would step up to the plate and insist on justice. This isn't just America's war, but America's response to a war that was brought to us.

I'm reminded of one of the Third Reich jokes I've been hinted at:

Overheard in an air raid shelter: "If only we hadn't started this war that was forced upon us."

I mean, my god, is she that ignorant? Probably so.

Update: Check out Echidne's take on this. It's definitely worth the read.

Read this

Max Speak commenting on Instahack. Check it out.

Busy as hell

So I have a thesis due in 27 days. In case you were wondering why posting has been slow. There you go.

Damn. I'll see about adding stuff. I still want to do that post on the Nazi political jokes and add a blogroll. I'll get it done.

Yay a comic

Doonesbury's been really good this week, but todays is particularly funny, even if it is an old one:

Bill O'Reilly advocates genocide

Via Atrios:

O'REILLY: I don't care about the - colonel, I don't care about the people of Fallujah. You're not going to win their hearts and minds. They're going to kill you to the very end. They've proven that. So let's knock this place down.

COWAN: Let's get out of the way and let Iraqis knock it down, so we don't lose any more American lives.

O'REILLY: I don't believe - I absolutely don't believe they can do it. General, how do you see it?

VALLELY: Well, we've got to do it together. We've go to do it quickly. We've got to sanitize that whole city. And keep in mind, Bill, you set an example when you go in there to do that. And when do you that, you get respect. And that's why you go to be tough.

O'REILLY: All right, general, is there any.

VALLELY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) clean it up.

O'REILLY: .you know it, the colonel knows it. The colonel and I are disagreeing on the tactics, but we know what the final solution should be. Why hasn't the U.S. command done this? And why do they continue to absorb the level of terror that is coming out of -- this isn't a big town. We're not talking about Cincinnati here. Right? It's not a big town?

Right, 'cause nothing spreads democracy like killing everyone in a town.

Look, I won't say that what happened in Fallujah wasn't a brutal horrible thing, but advocate, O'Reilly seems to, just going in and slaughtering everyone is, well, horrible and brutal to a much greater degree.

What O'Reilly is advocating is what the Nazis did to the villages of Lidice and Lezasky after Heydrich was assassinated, a brutal and horrible warcrime. And yes, Nazi analogies are apt here. O'Reilly even goes so far as to call it a final solution.

Good Tom Toles toon