Gold, World Of Warcraft Power

Damn, I was hoping I’d be the first…

The Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 authorized the President to do two things:

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

Regardless of the conditions in 2002, the state of Iraq is clearly no longer a threat to the United States. Certainly no one believes there is any further need for the U. S. to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions. These two things have been resolved; the war is over.

On March 19, 2003, President Bush announced the U. S. invasion of Iraq with these words:

My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

Despite numerous subsequent attempts by the administration to recast the invasion as having some other mission, these three goals were the purpose of the invasion: “to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger”. All of these goals have been either accomplished or shown to have been unnecessary. The war is over.

The war is clearly over, it’s the occupation that’s still being fucked up.

So your idea of a book review should be “There are 456 pages, encompassing 256,398 words and 35,000 paragraphs. There are 34,967 commas, 22,712 periods, five colons and one semi-colon. Also three ellipses. I believe you’ll find those numbers are accurate.”

Well, there was that famous Spin magazine review of Jewel’s book of poetry.

Jewel’s collection of poetry has her picture on the front, back, and spine. Inside, the poems are set in a font called Fairfield. It’s a bookish and professional-looking font. Yet it remains friendly, with well-defined (but never excessive) serifs and excellent readability. It’s sort of like the agreeable chardonnay of typefaces. The stem of the lower-case y seems a little frail, but fear not – the j and p are sturdy enough in that regard. The verses themselves tend to start at the top of the page, with the title, and then continue on down. Available on CD: very shiny.

http://www.metafilter.com/38191/Now-thats-a-pan#809682

Regarding the Iraq War and the question posed to me when I started questioning things more seriously, “Who profits?”. Here’s just one example, (Retired) General “Rifle” Mike DeLong, the short Google results version:

First, his bio. Note that he has written a book (icing on the cake, baby) and was one of the principle planners of the Iraq War. What? You noticed The Shaw Group and that he joined them in 2003? What happened with Shaw after this? Oh yeah, they got a lucrative deal in , let’s see, Baghdad.

This is just the first example I decided to look up, and this is just what I found on Google. Imagine the rest. Not even mentioning my more personal gripe about the fact that the waterfront around St. Pete (Florida’s) Pass-a-Grille Beach area has all been privatized by land development, one of the multi-million $$$ homes being owned by (guess who?) DeLong! Not for sale like one of his other multi-million $$$ homes near CENTCOM in S. Tampa.

Oh, damn me for questioning things.

The fact is, the NYT review is biased

Wow. You mean book reviews shouldn’t reflect an opinion?

So your idea of a book review should be “There are 456 pages, encompassing 256,398 words and 35,000 paragraphs. There are 34,967 commas, 22,712 periods, five colons and one semi-colon. Also three ellipses. I believe you’ll find those numbers are accurate.”

There’s a ringing endorsement any author would love to have on his blurb…

“The reason that Iraq is hardly ever on the news is that America won. The press doesn’t want you to see that; they want every war to be Vietnam.” –Robotguy

And now Bush is vetoing another pay raise. And people wonder why I’m so cynical (you guys ever get that?….LOL).

On the up-side, I figured out how to bold something. Now I want to learn quoting people. Arky–I feel you on that one. Yeah, interesting news take back there, eh?

I dunno- been wondering that myself. Hope the eds is OK

Oh good, Crusade talk again. That’ll go over well. When do we get to burn down Istanbul (was Constantinople)?

We’ll remove our troops the very same day that very last drop of oil is pumped out of there.

Silly people.

VICTORY means keeping Troops in Iraq forever.
Removing troops means DEFEAT.

That will be the calculus of it for people like Noonan until the day they die.

Gee, Mr. Noonan, you sound like that’s a bad thing. Don’t ya believe in Capitalism? Making sure a business provides the best product or service might involve some sort of, I dunno, regulation. Such talk is dangerous for a true disciple of Reagan. You DO love Reagan, don’t ya Mr. Noonan?

I like my Benedictine in a tall glass over ice, with a splash of Pluto Water and a sprig of mint.

Yah, well, a sniper might eventually be traced back to the ISI, but if it was the *sunroof* that killed her, then all we can do is blame the lousy automotive industry’s design flaws, knowhutamean? Having Arlen “I Roll Over for All Repubs” Spector and Patrick “Absolutely the Dumbest Member of the Family” Kennedy on hand for the kill just proves that the ISI is now getting their Secret Spycraft Tips from old episodes of the X-Files, which still gives them a considerable technological lead over the SooperJeenyuses our own Oval Office Occupants has on call.

Also, to return to the original topic, Noonan’s trope on how “we” already “won” in Iraq is almost certainly intended as a prequel to the Repub’s planned 2009 “We had Iraq in the palm of our hand, but then the Demon-crats took the election away from us, so it’s NOT OUR FAULT!!!!11!!”. Mark Noonan is to the Republican Party as a fruitfly is to the human genome — a very simple organism showing the common DNA heritage writ small. So it looks like even the hardcore Rethugs are planning for the withdrawal of American forces, which in their world means finding somebody else to take the blame for their crimes.

These are familiar words, eerily reminiscent of the “adrelaline-soaked” clichés of John F. Kennedy as he railed against Soviet expansion around the globe. But I dare not call them fascist. That would be unfair.

At Haus LœdedHösen: “Moooooom! Is this a good review of my book?”

Nonononono, it’s nutBARS, as per the late, unlamented AnnieAnal.