Our Children Are Being Ravaged... Burn Down the McDonalds

It occurred to me this morning that the war on Southwest Islamistan has proven nicely that even the hippies were only acting in their own self interest.

But it's ok. Activism is still going strong. The UC students walked out this week over the tragic loss of the rugby team. They reported that they liked it outside on a nice day without class.

Let's Have A War! And Maybe Another One, Too!

We're sure McArdle fans have seen the ginandtacos item wherein Mlle. McA.'s firm beliefs vis-a-vis the invasion & continuing occupation of Iraq are deservedly mocked.

Settling for scraps, I went to the source, & noted this bit that no one else I've read has yet mentioned.

Thus, Eric Alterman is enabled to claim that the cost to the US taxpayer will be over $2t, even though most of the larger costs cited by Galbraith aren't going to be borne by Americans either directly or indirectly, but by Iraqi oil.⁶ That's the oil that will be able to flow freely for the first time in ten years because of this war -- and the revenue from which will flow to the Iraqi people for the first time in a decade.

The footnote:

⁶ Am I suggesting that the Iraqis should pay for occupation expenses? Nope. We can afford it, and there's something repellent about making impoverished Iraqis pay for a war foisted on them by an evil dictator. But most of that $2t, if it is any sort of a real number, will be stuff for Iraqis: roads, schools, hospitals, government buildings, power plants and sewers and all the good stuff that lets us live like citizens of the 21st century. That stuff should come out of Iraqi oil revenues.

Our emphases. She knows from "real" numbers, doesn't she? And how's all that "get the oil money to the Iraqi people" worked out, seven yrs. into the occupation? More electricity, to run all the "good stuff?" Well, no.

What a horrid, awful, fucking bitch. From what dark, disturbed part of her ugly mind did something like: "there's something repellent about making impoverished Iraqis pay for a war foisted on them by an evil dictator" come? Foisted on them? Or is she referring to Bush when she types "evil dictator?" The "foisting" was done by people like her, stenographers for the unelected gov't. of the usurper Bush.

Elements of Style©: How could a graduate of Podunk State Normal School, let alone an English major from Penn, type "stuff" twice, & "good stuff" once, in any context, let alone in two sentences?

And an outro from DougJ at Balloon Juice:

Doubt this will make it into Conor Friedersdorf’s li'l round-up of mistaken Iraq War predictions.

Probably not. Fuck Friedersdorf, & the horse he rode in on. Remember this?

Tell us, Friedersdork (He really shouldn't type under his own name.) how's that True/Slant site where you used to type working out for ya? We still exist. You got fucked by a corporation. Learned anything yet?

If he's still on the "under your own name" thing (What possible difference does it make? Malignant Bouffant isn't anyone else's name, & it bloody well is my own name.) he can shoot me a fucking email, we'll meet somewhere, & just before I cram his teeth down his throat, I'll let him know what my legal name is, & who's a "coward."

(Really, what is he talking about? Should I reveal my legal name, address, 'phone # & other contact info to prove something? Something along the lines of how many hateful lunatics read McArdle & would try something physical if they knew where to find me? What's your address, Conor, if that's your own name? It isn't, of course, it's his parents name for him, & like the pathetic sheep he is, he accepts it, along w/ the conventional wisdom he swallows whole. Asswipe.)

Back to Not Being Back

I dunno about you guys, but I'm sick of brad sullying this place up with this new character he's created, Megan McArdle. C'mon, how can we possibly believe she exists? A woman who claims expertise in economics with no formal training in it and who can't even use a calculator? A professional writer that doesn't proofread? And she's six-four? ANNNND her name is fucking Megan McArdle? Shit, I've seen more believable characters in a Marvel comic.

No one is buying it, brad.

Let's go on to something more believable. Someone on Facebook says that this is terribly exciting. Sure.

Now, I've become far too fatalistically apathetic to read long articles filled with the gory details of the bombs bought with my money and dropped on foreigner's heads, but I managed to get far enough in this one to read this fine excursion into political philosophy from our soi-dissant intellectual compatriots over at The New Republic:

Nation-building is a painstakingly slow enterprise. At least some Pakistanis are playing a double game. NATO forces continue to kill non-combatants, despite universal acknowledgment that doing so alienates the people whose affections we are desperate to win.

Because if there's one thing years of war have taught us about the middle east it's that everyone would love America if only their bombs were somehow more accurate. Oh, and they have to be "liberal" bombs.

And if any of you fuckers refute my arguments with facts from the rest of the article, or tell me that The New Republic doesn't call itself liberal or some shit, I'm gonna make you listen to more of brad's "Megan McArdle: The Magical Made-Up Mathematicians Meandering Market Based Solution." I hear the next chapter involves a love interest.

Things That Make You Go Bullshit

Uhhhh....

Shahzad tried to detonate a car bomb in a Nissan Pathfinder on May 1, but the device fizzled and caused no injuries. But if the bomb had been detonated properly, it could have "killed in the thousands on the high end" and in the "hundreds on the low end," according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Wait, so, an attack that destroys two of the largest buildings in the entire country completely kills only 3000, and we're supposed to believe that a fucking car bomb at a busy intersection is going to kill 1/3 of that?

That must've been one hell of an M-80....