Yup, the older I get, the more I appreciate the fact that most libertarians over the age of 18 are too lazy, or unambitious, or whatever-the-excuse-of-the-week-is, to actually commit most of the stuff they talk about accomplishing. Because, after all, one Alan Greenspan is probably as much libertarianism as the national economy can survive (assuming we survive the aftereffects of that little objectivist’s evil dreams). Bad enough we have to listen to their ever-various & never-changing Unified Theories of Everything, without having to clean up any more of the disasters that follow the rare instances where they actual implement some of their Dorkschemes.

Glenn with powers almost doglike

C’mon, it’s nothing next to the shame of Extreme.

Those nice, idealistic anarchists better not come crying to us when they trigger the revolution and, all of a sudden, militias and anarchists are duking it out in the streets with AKs. It will be like 1980′s Lebanon. Wee! Of course, Israel was the instigator there.

I think we’re off track. This was supposed to be about the Glenndroid.

Promises mean everything when youre little
And the worlds so big
I just dont understand how
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes
Tell me everything is wonderful now

–Everclear

Like other socialists, libertarian socialists believe that objects should be held communally and controlled democratically; the only exception being personal possessions. Whereas “private property” grants an individual exclusive control over a thing whether it is in use or not, “possession” grants no rights to things that are not in use. A property title grants owners the right to withhold their property from others, or, if they desire, to require payment from those who wish to use it. “Possession,” on the other hand, is not compatible with this form of “exploitation” or “extortion”. Possession amounts to the right to use, rather than own, for oneself.
————————————–
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

I own am a 39 year-old anime fan.

That reminds me…. Oh goodie, Death Note 25 is out!

You’re a lonely little girl.
But your mommy and daddy don’t care.
The things they say just hurt your heart.
It’s too late now for them to start
To understand the way you feel
The world for them is too unreal
So you’re a lonely lonely lonely little girl.
All your children are poor unfortunate victims of lies you believe.
A plague upon your ignorance that keeps the young from the truth they deserve.

FZ — 1968.

Re: the Iraq war in general

(also see this post)

Ever since the months prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there have been a few reports in the newspapers that the Central Intelligence Agency was casting aspersions on the intelligence the White House was relying on to justify the war. The CIA has never given a position on whether the war is needed or justified or said that Bush is wrong to go to war. But doesn’t it seem much more likely that the CIA is an extremely right wing organization than a left wing one? After all, even if the people working for them and at least a lot of the leadership really wanted a war for their own reasons, there are a lot of reasons for them to not want to tie their credibility to what they know is faulty information. They and their personnel, present and former, could use other means of promoting the Iraq war, and still be motivated to make the statements in the media. If the CIA got behind faulty information, they would have to make a choice between whether they would be involved in scamming the American people and the world once the military had invaded Iraq and no weapons were found- so: 1) Imagine the incredible difficulties involved in pulling off a hoax that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. Imagine all the people you would have to be able to show the weapons to- the inspectors from the UN / the international community, the American press, statesmen, etc. Then imagine the difficulties of substantiating that story to people who would examine it- the lack of witnesses to a production plant that made the weapons or to transportation operations or storage of the weapons during Hussein’s regime of them. 2) If the story fell apart upon inspection or the CIA tried not to hoax it at all, imagine the loss of credibility they would suffer. The CIA, it is safe to bet, does not want to be known to the American people as a group that lies to them to send them to war. Even within the CIA there could be disagreement among people about how involved they should be in promoting the war or the neo-con agenda more broadly, so the CIA would have to worry about lying to and managing its own people after trying so hard to get them to trust their superiors in the agency, and perhaps there simply might be too many people in the agency who knew enough about what was going on in Iraq to know if someone was deceiving people to promote this war.

So there is a lot of reason to be cautious against being seen as endorsing what they knew was false intelligence even if they were very strong supporters of going to war.

I’ve turned the corner on the lesser professor because I ooze empathy from every pore (and, yes, it does get messy sometimes), and I actually just feel bad for her. Yes, she filters everything through the prism of herself, which is why she’s so anti-woman and explains the 911/security thing, and why she pushes everyone’s buttons so much. But these debates that are not about any real issue (*cough*whether that mosque was actually destroyed or not*cough*) just get so fucking tedious. Can we stop now?

P.S. Bettencourt, that might be AssRocket you’re thinking of.