Lileks is scared of the Amercan Taliban.  

Somehow one scrawny misguided scuzzball has scared another.

Apparently Mr Lileks has all the answers.   Never mind he probably supported other groups of insurgents, such as the El Salvador death squads, the Contras.  This one poor misguided fella, he's got to hang.  Let's gloss over that he hasn't actually killed anybody, just maybe had the intent to do so.  Not provable before any court of law, but hey, Bush and cronies can make up the law as they go along.  And add signing statements modifying new laws.  

This poor dweeb had weird parents, was confused, got mixed up with a bad crowd, and joined that group of smelly twits called the Taliban.  Poorly educated, poorly trained, wanting to hit the opposition, and maybe, just maybe, some of the targets could have been Americans.  If possible occasional intent to kill was convictable, we'd all be behind bars.    

Never mind we supplied, trained and funded the Taliban.    The onus is on every young fella to not get carried away with nationalism or religion and end up rooting for the "wrong" side.     And if you do, too bad for you, Lileks can rule from the bench, guilty, hang em high.

"Pro-life" Lileks

The sheer imbecility of Mr Lileks is in fine form here.

In this screed, he's all hot and bothered about some random comments by some unknown British legislator.    Mr. Lileks comes out courageously on the side of more babies.    Never mind that his parents had just two, and he has just one.   Personal counterexamples never slow down Mr. Leeks screeds.

In the end all he can muster for arguments are (1) The strawman of a totally depopulated Britain, and (2) We're preventing new Motzarts from being born.. and (3) It's good to have more people in order to put out fires.    Never mind that (1) there is no risk of, and (2) Overpopulation lowers the chances that individuals can fully develop their talents and (3) overpopulation inevitably leads to mass misery, starvation, and wars.  Never mind that every industrialized country has already passed the demographic transition.  Never mind that China is a huge success story, having used strong incentives to limit family size, and incidentally prevented several wars and famines.   Mr. Leeks doesn't let the fate of billions affect his very selective view of the facts.

   

It's infuriating that Mr. Leeks lives on acres of land in a large mansion,  meanwhile he dooms the rest of the world to crowd into hovels.     I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit just writing that.

Style over substance

One marvels at the sheer superficiality of Mr. Leeks.    In this latest screed, he suggests that Obama's press secretary is a poor choice, since he does things like act human and try to tell the truth even when it hurts.   Compared to the previous guys and gals that had all the smoothness and sincerity of the guy in the plaid jacket at Phil's Yard of Used Cars.  You may recall a few less than noble moments during the Bush years:

(1) Ari Fleischer.  A master of obfuscation.  When asked "does Israel have nuclear weapons?" he replied "I don't personally know that."   He's such an enigma that various observers can't figure out-- is he a total dummy, or an accomplished actor, or a sociopath, or what.  For more on Ari, thse folks have a good profile: .  See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/692890/posts.

 Folks may differ, but I think most would rather have the little rough around the edges than someone with Ari's attributes.

(2) Scott McClellan.   This guy came out and admitted in print that the Bush administration directed him to lie about the Plame affair.    And worse, Scott was hardly ever characterized as doing a slick job of it.  So, no morals and not even good at being bad.

(3) Dana Perino.  Women always have to work harder than men.  Same in this job too-- Dana was an accomplished liar, and she didn't even blush when uttering the most ridiculous fabrications.  She bald-faced lied to HElen Thomas about torture.  Too many other examples to mention.  "Ari lies" gets only 35,000 hits, but "Perino lies" tops 53,000.   A dubious accomplishment.

So while Robert Gibbs may not be as smooth as his predecessors, one suspects the majority of Americans would rather have a person that is identifiably human and moral, rather than the preceding gang of accomplished prevaricators and apparent sociopaths.

Snooty by proxy

JL's fingers musta got tired, but he can be snooty by proxy.

This screed is a sterling example of the common technique of assuming the conclusion. They mention their assumption and conclusion as a throw-away line, nice touch: "Why have we no high art today, like Mozart?"

Then you follow this with a survey of past music and art, a 3-page B- essay for ArtHist 3001.

Not a bit of reflection or diversity, like maybe in 100 years we will have a better perspective of the various delights of Mozart, Borodin, Prokoffief, Williams, Dylan, and Yanni? Or that maybe it's net progress to have more choice if somewhat lower peak "quality". Or music available to anyone instead of just the upper crust. Little details like this so mess with a simplistic attitude of maximum snootyness.

James Lileks starring as Chicken Little

Every now and then we get a clear snapshot of how basically clueless a certain JL is. Today's newsflash from him is illuminating.

He's pointing out to us that North Korea may be up to something.

Some folks that have been following the news for a while may suspect this is nothing new.

A quick Googling of "North Korea threatens..." shows a steady 480,000 or so hits per year. Every year from 2000 to 2008. They've been threatening to do this or that, pretty steadily all along. You see when you don't have any cards to play, all you can do is bluff. Bluffing is cheap and easy and free of any consequences. So they've been regularly putting out growly press releases. Year after year.

And given that lately they're begging for food and oil, and their one nuclear test was a fizzle, and their tiny fearless leader hasn't been seen in months, they don't seem to have a lot of economic, political, or military oomph recently. But their PR department is still fully staffed and can still rehash and re-release old press releases.

Absolutely nothing new.

But JL somehow knows more than me or you or Google or even the CIA. Hmmmm.....

And about those press releases, a little reading past the headlines reveals that the NK's are not being all that aggresively bellicose. In all three stories the NK's threw a fit, yes, but in each case it was due to something the South did first. In the nuclear inspection tiff, the South has done only about 50% of wwhat it promised, wile the North has by one reckoning done 8 of 11 items. I might send out a pointed press release too if the other guy was 30% behind on his obligations. In the second story the Northern Loonballs were complaining about leaflets being balooned over ther border. One suspects if Canada was ballooning in leaflets about the wonders f being a British Commonwealth, a few Montana ranchers might get a bit huffy. n Same with the third item.

Not that I support the worlds most humorless regime. However it might be nice if Mr. JL thought a bit more about how we could prevent these incidents instead of just wringing his hands about the latest flare-up of a political tug of war that has been going on for fifty-five years.

BTW one interesting side-note I've heard is that all those folks that signed up for the duration of the Korean War are not off the hook yet. No official peace was signed, just a truce.
Officially it's not settled, just in a lull.

Commies

Today Lileks is puzzled

In the link you'll see hm (figuratively) scratching his head. Colored folk and "Commies"?


Time to enlighten:

• The union was surprised, they asked other organizations for help in setting up this meeting, but they were rebuffed by the Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis, the Elks, the VFW, the Odd Fellows, the Masons, the White People's Movement, the KKK and the rest of the folks in power.
  
• Funny, but the union had no qualms about having not one, but TWO distinguished persons of color speak.
• And in 1947 we were just two years since we were allied with Oceania, oops, no, the USSR. Not everybody was so quick to forget which country did the majority of the work defeating the Fascists.
  
• Co-marketing with the Commies did not seem so bad from their point of view. Not that the average working man nor their unions had any deep illusions about the commies. Unions in the USA never seemed to be quite so dumb as to push the commie agenda. Especially in Minnesota, it was commie-light, more like Swedish socialism than boot-to-the-head Stalinism.
• JL, as a member of at least one union that has saved his job perhaps more than once, he should maybe cut the unions a little slack. The smear by awfully weak association card was played recently with rather weak results. Better give this tactic a rest.

Today's twists from James Lileks

The big three automakers are all close to bankruptcy. The polar icecaps are shrinking. And what does Lileks find to worked up about? A few people in Omaha may be gathering to praise Obama.

A quote: "REAGAN, BACK FROM THE DEAD, EATS BIN LADEN AND CRAPS TAX CUT"

Apparently JL thinks Reagan has Arab-eating and tax cutting creds. Let's see:

• Reagan sent a few Marines to Lebanon, then pulled out immediately when things got hairy.
• Reagan sent arms to the muhadjadeen, including, hmmm, Bin Laden.
• Reagan sent nerve gas technology to Iraq, last categorized as "a wacko Arab country".

• As for "tax cuts", a few of us remember paying MUCH HIGHER taxes under Reagan.
• For instance he cut lots of tax deductions, like the investment tax credit.
• "Tax cuts" for the top 10% went from 17% to 26%. A tax hike, and a big one.
  
• And he instituted the Earned Incomne Tax Credit, not only not a tax cut for the wealthy, but free money for the very poor.
  
• After the first round of tax cuts, he more than undid them starting in 1983, with $150 billion in corporate tax increases, the largest ever in history.
• Paul Krugman, Nobelite wrote: " In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people."

So much for the Reagan legacy.

And next, JL is a bit behind the curve. Many other Repubs have already done a 180 degree turn-- Bachmann praising Obama, et al. Now JL comes in a bit late, backpedalling:

"... this reminds the right that no one was ever this happy about Bush, even when the love was at its zenith. No one put him with George, Abe and Frank before he took office. Really, he was just The Next Guy, a caretaker in a post-history world. "

So let's get this right. Somehow it was patriotic to Country to not say anything for eight friggin' years while this dimbulb screwed up everything he touched? Many folks would consider it unpatriotic and cowardly to run cover for this guy at the expense of our country. So NOW that it's safe you speak your mind. How can anyone every trust a single word you say in the future when you've revealed you've been dissembling for eight years?

Next, this gem:

There are rumors of new Executive Decrees,

Nope, not quite. Not an expansion of executive power. Just the revocation of many of Bush's executive decrees which increased the govt's dominion over us. Like blocking stem cell research. Like tapping American's conversations. Like following Teddy Roosevelt's plan to protect Utah parklands. You know, a republican plan of yore.

Will executive unilateralism remain a bad thing, a threat to our rights, or suddenly gain favor with old critics?

Again JL, this is an undoing of past executive unilateralisms, not more. Better think up a new bogeyman, this one's knackered.