posted at 7:45 PM by Sid the Fish
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One of Josh Marshall's co-bloggers, TPM reader DK, observes Israel's ignominious retreat in Lebanon and points out

The last time I recall the U.S. seeming this ineffectual was following Jimmy Carter's failed attempt to rescue the American hostages in Tehran in 1980.

Holy shit. I just realized that George W. Bush combines the worst of Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter all in one spectacularly incompetent and venal package. Amazing.

(PS: I was wrong before. Sorry.)

posted at 6:02 PM by Sid the Fish
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posted at 5:07 PM by Sid the Fish
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Sitting in an airport a few minutes ago, as we watched the insanity unfold in Lebanon courtesy of CNN, I was shocked to hear a deep thinker next to us proclaim: “This is the end times. It’s unfolding exactly as the Book of Revelation says it will.”

Uh-huh.

Back here on Planet Earth, I prefer to think that a whole bunch of crazy people with horrifying weapons are listening to voices in their head and acting in a completely crazy way.

Boy, are they going to be shocked when the Rapture comes and the souls are taken up to Heaven and they’re left behind here, standing on the rubble.

The collective “Oh shit” should be amusing.

posted at 9:36 PM by Sid the Fish
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Psychopath.

…make that an opportunistic psychopath.

posted at 11:14 AM by Sid the Fish
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Thanks to Roy Edroso, I now understand Jonah Goldberg's brain:

Sometimes I try to imagine what it's like inside that rat's-nest Goldberg calls a brain. Through the centuries artists have had a hard time representing the processes of the human mind, but for Goldberg a loud recording of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" regularly punctuated by Kool-Aid Man yelling "Oh, yeah!" should just about cover it.

posted at 10:49 AM by Sid the Fish
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Arthur Silber reflects on The Impossibility of Discussing Anything at All these days. As is usually the case with Arthur, it’s a long essay, filled with enormously important insights and thoroughly depressing. We are, as Arthur correctly notes, “beoming the Stupidest Country on Earth.” Our so-called political discourse now consists of people trying to yell louder and smear more viciously so that voices of dissent will just shut the fuck up.

You really should, as they say, read the whole thing. But if you can’t or won’t, then at least read the ending, which I reprint here as a public service:

For now, I will leave you with one very simple idea, one I often express to friends these days. Even though I write long essays about current events, history and other subjects, as I contemplate the growing devastation around the world, I have one thought above all others. I often feel that I simply want to say to everyone: Look, we can talk about anything you want. We'll talk for as long as it takes. We'll work it out, even if takes years. But, please, for God's sake:

STOP KILLING PEOPLE.

That's all. That's everything.

If I said “Amen,” it would be thoroughly ironic. But you’d have to read the whole thing to understand why.

posted at 8:02 AM by Sid the Fish
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