Traditional Catch-up shorters

Lots of little moments of stupid over the last couple days, which is to say Megan has posted in that time.

Chavismo unleashed: I should have had Hugo Chavez and Eliot Spitzer in the poll that just ended.

It's hard to see how either the sovereignty or the dignity of the Venezuelan people were afflicted by Colombia's incursion into Ecuador, but just like my old dog, if there's a fight, Chavez wants to be in the middle of it. Not that there isn't enough blame to go around; our pointless war on Colombian cocaine has empowered FARC by giving them cocaine revenue and the pride of standing up to El Norte, while exacerbating the tensions between Colombia and the virulently anti-US Chavez. Nor is the Colombian government one I would want to live under. But Chavez is the one sending troops to a border no one has threatened, and undoubtedly egging Ecuador on--and also, if Colombia is to be believed (a somewhat dubious proposition), funneling money to FARC.

In related news, Chavez is, personally, the cause of global warming, and the one who killed Megan's old dog. Everything that happens in Central or South America is the doing of Hugo Chavez, unless it's positive. It's like Megan didn't read what she quoted.

Madness is doing the same thing and expecting different results:

I was, like everyone else, stonkered by Chris Bertram's apparent belief that "what the capitalists and their lackeys really really hated about Soviet Russia was not its tyrannical nature but the fact that there was a whole chunk of the earth’s surface where they were no longer able to operate. Ditto Cuba, for a much smaller chunk." What is not to hate about a system that seems to come bundled with a viciously anti-democratic police state, stagnant-to-regressive economic development, and vast encroachments on human liberty? Of course I would like capitalism to operate in Cuba, because the Cubans and I would thereby be made better off. For that matter, I'd like to see it operating in Russia today.

Capitalism, btw, was not the root cause of those same bad things happening in, say, Chile or Africa or..... And those people who died in Chile's "reforms" were obviously made better off.
Nevermind that Megan didn't pay much attention in history class, else she might have learned how the West's harassment of the original Russian revolutionaries helped lead to the horrors to come. (Not caused, but contributed.)
I'd say Megan should read Shock Doctrine, but fuck her, she's a lost cause.

Memories of me: Megan, you are neither funny nor talented. If you were either, you might have had a career in writing. (No, corporate enabling and piss poor attempts at provoking your opponents do not count.)

Spelling counts:

Mental note: always submit plagiarized material to fact check for a good once over.

If, in fact, The Atlantic still has fact checkers on staff, Megan has never made use of them. She "fact checks" via Wikipedia.
Yes, I know there's an easy joke to be made about Megan being a plagiarist off that quote, but she clearly doesn't do that. When people plagiarize, they copy good work.

Social security really is in trouble: Megan, darling, I don't care what you say. If you don't provide proof for your claims, I take you less seriously than the Ghost Hunters on SciFi. At least they seem like decent people.

Your primary liveblogging:

7:01: Vermont goes to Obama. Hippies like Obama--who could have guessed?.

My Mom's side of the family is from Vermont. Yes, there are hippies in Burlington. The rest of the state is basically New Hampshire, only less ornery. They do not like the hippies. As always, Megan doesn't have a damn clue what she's talking about.

9:09: Best line of the night so far is from The Economist: "Fox News is also reporting the impending Bush endorsement. Tough break for Mr McCain, but I guess it's best to get bad news out of the way early in the campaign. " That's weapons-grade snark.

No, it's a piss poor one liner. Megan is probably a Dane Cook fan, too.

Back with Part 2 later today.