I get the sinking feeling that just about any plan of attack on Iran the Wingnut-o-sphere puts forth will retroactively be called the “Hey, Y’all, Watch This” plan of international relations.

“Hey, man, that doesn’t seem like a good idea, specially as drunk as we are.”

“Naw, man, it’ll be cool. Trust me.”

“Last time you said that, we had to get Uncle Joel’s bulldozer and pull your truck out of the bottom.”

“Aw, man, that was last time. This time, I’ve got it figured out.”

Actual convorsation between me and my cousin, circa 1989.

I may be crazy, but I swear I’m getting that same vibe from every pro-bomb-the-shit-out-of-Iran argument I hear.

At which point, your logic has become so circular that you and your buddy both get the spins something awful, you barf on each other, no one punches anyone and you stagger out of the bar, arms around one another, alternately cursing and hiccuping.

Sounds like fun. I think I’ll be there around 1:30 am tonight, minus the circular logic.

Iran said today that Israel will be annihalated.

So should we wait until they can actually make good on that before we make sure they can’t?

But whatever the scale, it’s when people in that state operate vehicles, surgical instruments, heavy machinery or deadly weapons that tragedies can occur.

Unfortunately, people in that state are right now operating our governmental apparatus.

Is it time to hang the sign in the White House that says “You must be THIS tall to use the Oval Office”?

Excellent, Tavis. The Deacon graphic is hilarious as well 🙂

So should we wait until they can actually make good on that before we make sure they can’t?

No, *we* shouldn’t. Now go do your bit and enlist and leave the tactical discussions for the adults.

,,,go on now…scoot!

“Don’t waste too much time, though, because you’ll never quite shake that wearing-somebody-else’s-glasses feeling.”

Bah! That’s nothing. He’s an amateur…

Yes, we must protect poor defenseless Israel.

There certainly are risks associated with pounding nails through my balls, but these risks stem mostly from the fact that my testes are reproductive organs.

Thus, citing these risks tends to underscore how much we have to fear from allowing our balls to run our lives.

Jillian, I’m thinking the sign should say “you must be smarter than this sign to use the Oval Office”

Eliminates most if not all of the Bush regime in one swell foop.

In any case, as I’ve tried to explain in the past, we have only two options — tolerate a nuclear Iran or take military action to prevent that outcome.

Someone should please point this goon to this post in which is detailed the incredible dismantling by his goddam heroes of what was a perfectly viable third option — engagement and diplomacy.

Fuckwad.

Well Mal de Mar, I’m way too little to be anything other than a head for those nutbars to chop off, but I do thank God for the men who enlist to keep our country safe from crazy psychos like Mr. Iranian President.

Funny, this is more or less the same ‘justification’ (er, one of the many ‘justifications’, I should say) used for Iraq. Actually, taken far enough, it ‘justifies’ our ‘glassing’ of any nation that owns a weapon or any kind, or that could even so much as blow an overly-forceful kiss in our direction (John Bolton being a kiss-magnet, hubba hubba, we oughta duck–INCOMING!)

Were this an argument deployed in good faith (that rarest of right-wing rarities!), we’d also have to conclude that anyone and everyone else is equally justified in bombing the snot out of us. After all, with all our threats and the biggest military in the known universe, we’re a much more concrete threat to, say, Iran, than Iran could **ever** be to us, which, taking the argument in good faith, would mean they’re **more** entitled to bomb the snot out of us than vice versa (which perhaps entitles us more, which then entitles them more, etc.).

That’s right, folks: Beleive it or not, a PowerTool has made an argument that’s objectively pro-terror-attacks!!1!1 Why does he hate America?

keep our country safe from crazy psychos like Mr. Iranian President

So, Annie, how many countries has the current Ahmadinejad administration invaded?

Just asking. I also suppose you find it unreasonable that many Iranian civilians are wondering how they’re going to protect themselves against the crazy psycho American President who doesn’t have to wait five years to have a bomb.

That’s nNot even to get into the amazingly vast hypocrisy of this whole pseudo-crisis… or the right’s penchant for taking as gospel any transparently political thing Mideast leaders say to pacify the extremist voting blocs, and discount everything else as lie… but then again the modern American right, for all their talk of faith, never seem to practice good faith in anything they do. The claim to worship the Word of God, but they really worship the Word of Machiavelli…

Using the drunk guy in the bar trying to pick a fight with the big mustache gut metaphor to relate the US was brilliant. We are in no position to get into a pissing contest with Iran let alone anyone else at this time. It’s just really sad that Bush can’t even use the excuse anymore that he was drunk. At least he would have a fall back position on this insanity that he has lead us to…besides, whatever happened to the “we are not nation buildersâ€? Bush? And I don’t want the answer to be that this is a post 9/11 world. That’s a BS excuse to allow Cheney and Rumsfield to run amuck with our soldiers, resources and good name of the US for their own personal war. The 70’s didn’t treat them well enough and the 80’s they didn’t get to spill any blood. So in this new century they are making up for being out of power in the 90’s with war after war.

Man, I’d be sick even without the swirling thingie.

If it spun counter-clockwise would it look like his head was swelling instead of shrinking?

I’m thinking the sign should say “you must be smarter than this sign to use the Oval Office”

winner! that is some serious funny.

Israel can take care of themselves- they hit Iraq’s nuclear development program way back when (and might have permenantly derailed it…), no intervention from us required. If they want to strike first, that’s their business, and it saves us the trouble of Iranian retaliation against our troops in Iraq. It’s the Israelis’ fight if they choose to see it that way, not ours- they don’t need a baby sitter, they also have The Bomb, after all.

Hey, did someone turn off the Mirengoff-O-Tron? It’s not spinning any more. Too many complaints from mothers of sick commenters?

“Iran said today that Israel will be annihalated.

Not having heard the speech myself, I am left to wonder if the ruler of Iran said
1) “Israel will be annihilated.”
2) “We (Arabs, Muslims, what have you) must band together and annihilate Israel.”
3) “I will annihilate Israel if the US attacks me.”
4) “I will annihilate Israel on Thursday, in the Library, with the lead pipe.”

… or any of a hundred different statements, each with its own context and meaning (and that’s not even taking into the account the nuances of translation.)

“So should we wait until they can actually make good on that before we make sure they can’t?”

Aside from not actually parsing correctly in the dialects of English I am familiar with, this statement makes several assumptions:

1) The statement was a threat (see above).
2) The threat was heartfelt and sincere (as opposed to saber rattling and bluster).
3) The people of Iran stand behind their leader when he makes this threat.
4)Israel is not capable of defending itself against this threat.
5) The United States has the right to stop this threat.
6) The US has the ability to stop this threat.
7) It is a good idea for the US to intervene and stop this threat. (i.e., a greater number of people involved will benefit than will suffer.)

This is a far too complicated matter to be decided by bumber sticker argumentation. Many people will die, most of them innocent (side effect casualties in the kind of strikes we’re talking about here will be enormous). An entire region will be destabilized, perhaps for multiple generations. The world’s supply of oil will be disrupted. Economies could collapse. Religious wars on a scale not seen since the Crusades could erupt.

“Shouldn’t we do something about Iran?” I don’t know. I don’t have the knowledge, the experience, or the background to make that kine of judgement. Neither do you. I’m pretty darn sure no one in the Bush administration does either, based on what I know of their bios (Businessmen? Nope. Sovet Russia experts? please. There’s no evidence they’ve ever consulted even one person who FUCKING SPEAKS ARABIC!).

This isn’t a football game where one team wins and the other team loses and then they all pat each other on the butt and go drink beer with the hot busty cheerleaders. It is easily possible to “win this one for the Gipper!” and still lose everything–including Israel.

If you are honestly that naive, annie, it’s time you realized that some situations have no easy answer, that black-white Golden Age comic book morality doesn’t work in the reality-based community, that sometimes you have to endure a little madness to prevent an even greater madness from destroying your very being.

On the other hand, if you’re just being disingenuous, then shut the fuck up until you are willing to put your own butt in danger for your glib sloganeering.

Well, Dorothy, it seems our dear annie has something of a fascination with the Nuclear device and, you know, waging (un)holy and semi-genocidal war against brown people in foreign countries.
Been reading far too much Calvin, dear- our species may be inbornly bad as hell, but killing them for no reason other than that isn’t a terribly Jesus-like thing to be doing.

That might be the best blog I’ve ever visited, GuinnessGuy.

Dorothy,

You of course have by now read the story on Iran saying Israel will be annihilated. On the other had if you’re being a smartass, shut the fuck up until you are willing to use the internet for research and not flaming.

Travis,

Thanks!!

ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD!

Hindrocket: Still the King

Although the other goobers at Powerline have certainly had their moments, John Hinderaker demonstrates today why he is still the final authority on all things wingnutty: Here is why I think so many liberals are anxious for President Bush to…

Hindrocket: Still the King

While the other goobers at Powerline have had their moments of greatness, John Hinderaker today demonstrates again why he is still the final authority on all things wingnutty: Here is why I think so many liberals are anxious for President…

If you really want hilarity, check out her link on the frontpage \”How to be a good christian wife\”.

I honestly thought it was a parody until I saw the comments.

Excerpt:
1. …always make sure you are showered and dressed with your hair fixed and your make-up on. ALWAYS serve fresh orange juice. Only whores use frozen.

2. DO NOT sit down at breakfast. Your Husband will be trying to read the morning paper and the sound of your chair scraping on the floor will be a distraction to him as you get up and down to fetch him more biscuits or find his briefcase for him.

Yeah, seriously.

Sorry that last one was me, I\’m still in gary mode apparently.

annieangel=shoelimpy=troll

Don’t bother. It’s banned from lots of places for being a clueless moron and hijacking threads. I think they still let it post on Eschaton for the amusement factor alone.

I’m not Shoelimpy. Shoe is my boyfriend.

Neither of us are trolls. But you’re a moron.

Tsk!

Do you kiss your brother with that mouth?

Well, technically, my dear, I’m afraid you do most certainly fall into the “disruptive troll” and possibly the “attention-seeking troll” archtypes as catalogued on wikipedia, though I won’t speculate on your motives.
Alternative viewpoints aren’t necessarily a problem (at least for me, anyway…), but those who insist that holders of said other viewpoints are “evil”, “lazy”, et.al. here or elsewhere have a rather hard time contributing positive things to a discussion and, in my experiance, make for rather poor debate partners.
Now, it certainly doesn’t make you “evil”, nor am I even willing to claim absolutely “wrong” in any cosmic sense (stupid Cartesian influence…), but it does mean that you don’t contribute a whole ton to the discussion.

How have I been disruptive??

I haven’t. Grow up, stop trolling me.

Disruptive, to wit, from wiki:

Inflammatory messages, including racist, sexist, classist or otherwise needlessly hateful comments.
Opinionated statements: Posting messages expressing their own opinions as generally accepted facts without offering any proof or analysis.

And under “attention seeking”:
Intentionally posting an outrageous argument, deliberately constructed around a fundamental but obfuscated flaw or error. Often the poster will become defensive when the argument is refuted, and may continue the thread through the use of further flawed arguments; this is referred to as “feeding” the troll.
Politically contentious messages: “Everyone knows that all Republicans/Democrats are evil.”
The last, in your case, is religious, though as I said, it would require your motivation be something that I can neither prove nor care to dwell on.
And, incidentally, counter-accusations of trolling are traditionally considered trollish behavior, just fyi.

So if a troll calls me a troll with no proof, which you still have not provided, it is trolling to point out that the trollee is being trolled?

Maybe to a troll it is…but then again, aren’t you the one who originally posted the link to my article?

You are the troll master.

Oh, great googly-moogly!

Could it be that the angelic one has slipped a couple of drops of I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I into the chalice?

Sadly, Yes.

Proof? Hay-soos H. Christos, are you retarded!!??
“Troll” is a subjective label based off of community consensus after taking certain non-quantitative factors (like if the poster is a shrill, foolish, and ultimatly repetitive well of anti-thought) into account.
It’s not goddamn case of “evidence=condition”, like harlotry is, for example.
That’s pretty cut and dry- if one apparently cohabitates and commit venereal acts with a person you are not married to that will lead to the non-subjective label which refers to that type of behavior. See the differance?

On the second point, posting a link to the material of a potential troll-poster which provides context to that person’s worldview and to assist in the refutation of said blatantly idiotic standard to the gathered spectators (however few they may be) is hardly trollish, and is indeed standard practice here at S,N!

http://highschoolmusical.worldispnetwork.com/