The media failure matters more than the Dem failure, because we expect the Dems to play politics in a way that we don't quite expect of the media.
I often wonder if our bizarre interactions with Iran are fueled by worries that if we don't do something stupid like invade a consulate, Israel will do something stupid like invade Tehran.
At the end of the day, Israel does what we tell it to--we are its guarantor against a slow demographic death. No way do they take a shot at Iran without our (or some part of our government's) approval.
Israel does what we tell it to
I'm not entirely certain it isn't vice versa.
"Meddling."
I've always wanted to know what exactly is meant by this. I know that the more feverish allege everything from arms supplies to money to IED-manufacture training to Revolutionary Guard embeds, but they allege these sorts of things mostly randomly, as far as I can tell, and in dark, vague tones. I mean, high-level Iraqi officials have gone to Teheran for talks. This is, I would think, a good thing, but perhaps it also counts as "meddling."
It's like WMD-redux. By the time Bush and Powell put the actual case on the table, most of the bullet-points had already been revealed as bullshit.
It's all part of the culture of exceptionalism. When *you* [the US] do X it's OK, when anyone else does X it's utterly unacceptable.
4: To the extent that's true, it's because we're in the weird position of not having much to worry about as regards national security. If Iran had the old USSR backing them, we'd have reason to worry, and we might well have told the Israelis to shut up and take it (whatever "it" might be).
If Iran had the old USSR backing them, we'd have reason to worry, and we might well have told the Israelis to shut up and take it (whatever "it" might be).
The new Russia may still be backing them.
There is the theory that this is all about blocking long-term closed deals between Russia and China and the oil supplying nations, which would have the effect of effectively taking oil off the world market, etc. I don't know enough to know how plausible those theories are.
I don't think it's "all about" that, but I suspect it's factored in.
Crap, I didn't want to be drawn into this, but I'm toying with the idea of accusing Ogged of a kind of American exceptionalism* by demanding that we live up to moral norms while expecting other states to live up to (only) rational norms. We meddle in Iraq for the sake of our interests; Iranians meddle in Iraq to undermine our interests and to promote theirs; we meddle with Iran in order to further our interests in part by warning them off. We might be making bad instrumental judgments, but it's not clear that, were those judgments true, our case for meddling would be worse than their case for meddling.
*Sweet, more comment jujitsu.
Those theories look a lot like wishful thinking.
"This shit is fucking crazy. They can't be that fucking crazy. Therefore, there must be some non-crazy reason behind it all. All hail our Machiavellian overlords"
Hey people, read DA's great new post on a related subject.
We meddle in Iraq for the sake of our interests
For some definitions of "our," I guess.
Yeah, but FL, when their meddling is "[allegations] from arms supplies to money to IED-manufacture training to Revolutionary Guard embeds" and our meddling is "attacking their consulate," the cases that need to be made for them are a bit different.
Labs, I give outraged Iranians that argument pretty regularly, but even someone generally sympathetic to the "only rational norms" school doesn't typically argue (publically) that all moral norms are off the table--we make allowances for some perfidy, but not for actions that kill hundreds of thousands, or threaten to embroil millions in a regional conflict, etc.
13: Also, I think we start with the assumption that states have the types of interests and that the intensity of concern and action "allowed" vary with the interest. So US interests in Mexico and Canada as political units are comparable to Iranian interests in Iraq as a political unit. If you're willing to separate out Great Powers, that goes to hell, esp. where we're the only Great Power.
Ogged, I think that could be accounted for by appeal to what's genuinely in our interests rather than what we falsely judge to be in our interests. One way of putting this is to say that your original point is, partly, that meddling with Iran and firing shots across the bow is not in American interests, even if it satisfies a misguided sense of outrage. We plan, and Allah plans, but Allah is the best of planners.
Of course you could make a consistent amoral theory of international relations; that's realism, right? But when people actually act that way, I think we say, rightly, that they're bad people (not to mention the fact that they're often acting in contravention of international law).
What is 'exceptionalism' supposed to mean? I can understand the idea that if X does something that's against our interests, we call X's actions bad, but if we do the same thing to someone else, we call that good policy. But isn't that the position of most governments?
Democrats could say something like "You can't seriously blame Iran for pursuing its own interests in the context of a war that you never should have started to begin with, you fucking dumbass. This is your fault, not the Iranians', not the liberal media's, not ours. I hope you die. I hope you fucking die."
22: Sure. Exceptionalism is really just a term for self centeredness.
It is a sign of how self centered the US is that we have to have a special word for our self centeredness.
I'd settle for either rational or moral at this point. "Both" seems out of reach.
Ogged, I'm not pushing for realism; I'm pushing you to either (a) go realist in your evaluation of both US and Iranian action or (b) go "moralist" in your evaluations across the board. Isn't Iranian action in Iraq bad, on non-realist grounds? I don't know much about it, so I could be wrong, but it seems that unless you want to say it falls below a threshold of perfidy, you're committed to the condemnation.
Rob I've seen Japanese exceptionalism, Swedish exceptionalism, and even Indiana exceptionalism.
To me the question is whether Bush intends to start a war with Iran, and it seems that he does. Once that intention is decided on, everything is interpreted differently. Raiding the consulate was probably a normal wartime act. (Not sure).
24: Okay. I was just wondering if it meant anything more specific or characteristic of the U.S. rather than 'our guys are freedom fighters, their guys are terrorists.'
Isn't Iranian action in Iraq bad, on non-realist grounds?
I think the factor that they share a pretty long border makes their actions less bad. Iranian action in Israel, on the other hand, is terrible.
Didn't I already sign up for the threshold of perfidy position?
Isn't at least part of the Iran-Iraq border still less-than-perfectly defined?
whether Bush intends to start a war with Iran
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I just watched the speech 'cause I was out last night, and I heard "And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century" and shuddered.
3: Not if they feel pushed to deal a fast demographic death to others.
re: 22
Obviously all nations favour their interests above others, but the political culture in the US seems to go further than that into a particular extreme and pernicious form of it.
There is something specific and special about US exceptionalism. Even liberal Americans with anti-war views will still, generally, when scratched, subscribe to it under the surface.
It looks, to an outsider, a lot like 19th century colonialist rhetoric. 19th century Europeans thought it was obviously right and just that they act in ways that we now see as morally pernicious because they were -- in their view -- good, and wise, and just people and their actions were, pretty much by definition, the right ones.
It comes down, often explicitly, to the idea that it is OK that the US does X because it is being done *by* the US, and the US is [insert adjectives of choice]* and therefore this is OK. Whereas if others do it, they are not [adjectives of choice] and therefore it is bad.
It's rather more than just self-interest or the favouring of one's own interests above that of others. US justifications for their actions, even to themselves, are very rarely cast in terms of self-interest. It's quite a specific rhetorical style.
It's obviously a matter of degree -- Blair, for example, is quite fond of very similar rhetoric. But it does look exceptional to a lot of outsiders, I think.
* Where the [adjectives of choice] vary depending on who you are talking to. They usually involve things like 'democracy' [maybe even world's greatest democracy, or oldest democracy or some other such thing] and 'world's only superpower' or 'largest economy in the world' or 'most powerful military force the world has ever known' and so on, and so on.
O: You said that there was some threshold of malfeasance below which we sort of take it for granted that nations will go with their interests, above which we expect them to pay attention to moral considerations, but you hadn't indicated that the Iranian actions in Iraq were below that threshold.
If the Democrats were serious about stopping Bush's war machine, they'd make a secret deal with the Chinese and Japanese to stop rolling over our bonds. This might be hard to pull off, since it would totally tank the world economy, but just as in most global warming scenarios, the US's comparative advantage would likely remain intact.
Didn't I already sign up for the threshold of perfidy position?
I thought you signed up for the Viennese oyster position.
re: 32
And that quote illustrates exactly what I am talking about.
A British politician who even dared to say something like 'Britons have always done [heroic or idealistic thing]' would be laughed out of the room.
The idea that it's YOUR fucking job to carry out that struggle [whatever it might be] is a fairly widespread rhetorical trope in US political speech making. When less-crazy people like Clinton did it, it was a bit annoying, when Bush does it, it's frightening.
Isn't Iranian action in Iraq bad
Depends on what the actions actually are. And I don't take the Wolf!Wolf! administration's word on any of it.
you hadn't indicated that the Iranian actions in Iraq were below that threshold
I have to spell everything out for you, don't I?
Natargacam, it may interest you to know that one of the common media synonyms for "US President" is "Leader of the free world".
38: But a British politician could have said that (and probably did) at the hight of the British Empire.
America only looks exceptionally exceptionalist because the US is the only imperial power. Any other empire as big would talk the same way.
you hadn't indicated that the Iranian actions in Iraq were below that threshold
Nobody will tell us what the supposed Iranian actions in Iraq are! They're "meddling"; what the fuck does that mean? It probably amounts to six aluminum tubes, a rumor about yellowcake, a bunch of blurry photos of trucks, two turntables and a microphone, given this administration's record.
re: 41
Yeah, precisely.
That sort of shit pisses people right off. Even people otherwise inclined not to view the US as the source of all evil.
See, this is the point where I start feeling the urge to travel around the country, punching Bush voters in the back of the head.
re: 42
I already said that it looks just like 19th century colonial rhetoric. That was my point.
It was self-serving bollocks then -- when uttered by Gladstone or whoever -- and it's self-serving bollocks now.
I'm tired of you Brits telling us colonialists how to act, McG.
O: just wanted to make that explicit. Then I can go on at ponderous length about how you don't care about American GIs killed by IEDs made of Iranian explosives, and this, in turn, will let me sleep easier when you're herded off to the camps.
IEDs made of Iranian explosives
Whatever the truth of that may be, the only proof I have of this is George W. Bush's word on the matter, and that currency has been utterly devalued.
God, this week has been fucking horrible. Yesterday, oh by the way, we're bombing Somalia, let's send more troops to Iraq last night, and today, this? If we keep this rate up, we'll be bombing Tehran by week's end.
You know what'll suck most about the camps? All those fucking Sunnis.
All those fucking Sunnis.
Seriously, they're like rabbits.
Ogged, do you have a gloss on the main cultural differences between sunni and shia? Like, are you in for a hilarious intra-Islamic comedy of manners? Maybe I can sell the rights for this.
I don't, actually. I wonder if I even know any Sunnis (outside the dudes at the falafel place). But I will kill them for the greater glory of Ali.
I have responded to this post at greater length at my own little blog.
I thought the stereotype was that Shias were all mystical and emotionally volatile, e.g., self-flagellation, as well as into idolatry and the shirk generally. But this might not be completely fair.
Shias were all mystical and emotionally volatile, e.g., self-flagellation, as well as into idolatry and the shirk generally
Yes, that's true, but I don't what the Sunni stereotypes are.
I don't what the Sunni stereotypes are.
Poor swimmers, but can hold their breath for long, long stretches.
46: Yeah, I think we agree most points here, and shouldn't be arguing.
OK, brass tacks. The Democrats are talking about a free vote in both houses. Is that enough (not morally, of course it's not, but enough to stop them starting World War III)?
sorry, only read down to comment 20 or so, so I hope I'm not repeating anyone, but, my knee-jerk reaction to Ogged's observation is that it lacks an important distinction. Bush & Co. believe that Iran is interfering in their actions that they travelled halfway accross the globe in order to realize. Of course they don't want to allow that. If Iran worked with US goals, or at least alongside, or did something that didn't conflict with US goals, then it would be obviously wrong, in the way Ogged is describing, to bomb their consolate. But since they're, I guess, working against what we've put so much effort (however futile) into, it seems to make sense to tell them to bugger out.
By "makes sense" you mean in an emotional sort of way, not a rational or real politik way. Like when you build a really elaborate stick to poke your sister with, it's all the more annoying when she takes it away and breaks it.
"Democrats are talking about a free vote in both houses. Is that enough (not morally, of course it's not, but enough to stop them starting World War III)?"
Possibly, not certainly. Ut will become a game of chicken, and Bush will play the game to the hilt.
I haven't read much commentary yet--it's early here and I have to do some actual work--but isn't the idea of sending out more U.S. troops to patrol aggressively and try to maintain order much bigger news than the smallish increase in the total number of troops in Iraq? That looks a little bit more like counterinsurgency tactics than what we've been doing, but it's also pretty much guaranteed to get a lot more people killed and wounded. And it's not going to work, so they're going to get killed and wounded for nothing.
This map posted by Steve Gilliard is worth considering.
now that i've read the thread, it seems my comment basically imitated Labs. I hope that doesn't make me gay.
basically imitated Labs
though not as eloquenty.
This is wonderful in its silliness; from Andy McArthy at the Corner:
With that in mind, the raid on the Iranian consulate in Iraq's Kurdish region has to be welcome news. We would certainly regard that as an act of war if the tables were turned. (In reality, it is of course a measured, overdue response to serial acts of war by the mullahs.) It'll be interesting to see how Ahmadinejad & Co., who like to bray about a world without America being achievable, react.
In reality, it is of course a measured, overdue response to serial acts of war by the mullahs.
But, given their position, this would of course appear to them to be actually true. Now, I don't like this war, and I don't trust Bush; but it dosen't strike me as unlikely that Iran would be trying to help put down the Sunni insurgency.
Given that the US can barely, if at all, be construed as acting in its own interests in Iraq, it's kinda hard to say that Iran is concretely acting against said interests. But, if it is the case that they're making things over there significantly more difficult for us, then it's in our interest not to let that go on.
Another concern is Saudi Arabia. I'm not entirely sure, but I get the feeling the more Iran intervenes, the more pressure there is on the Saudis to intervene on the other side. I don't think we want that to happen, which would be another reason to tell the Iranians to fuck off.
The Saudis spend an enormous amount on their military, but I think it's a big make-work employment project. The first Gulf War was supposed to be for their sake, but they only contributed 50,000 troops and as many as 30,000 of them never saw battle. They spend 10% of the GDP on the military and have 200,000 active troops now.
So I don't expect them to do much in Iraq.
Saudi intervention in the region tends to be financial.
65: Nobody answered the Englishman.
No, unlike England or another Parliamentary system, Congress has little to no practical power to stop Bush from starting WWIII. There are a lot of people in the blogosphere attempting to come up with plans and scenarios, legal & quesi-legal, from the lawyers at Balkinization to the mad monk of the Weblog, but with little hope. Impeachment is several factors more difiicult than a vote of no condfidence, and would take at minimum an year.
We might look to our military, but they are in an untenable position in a losing war. There is an necessary irrationality in the military, that makes things like Normandy and Okinawa possible. Once having accepted a misiion, you do not look back The generals will be the last to quit, and may astonish us in what they are willing to do to win.
America is without hope, beyond redemption, utterly damned.
Hey, what's that dark cloud that has suddenly blotted out the sun--oh look, McManus is here!
78: Outside every silver lining there is Bob?
I don't think "Outside" is the preposition you want.
77: are you wearing black eyeliner?
It's rational for Iran to meddle. It's rational for us to get annoyed that Iran is meddling. It still is damn stupid to invade a consulate; it isn't technically an act of war, but I don't think that's going to matter to Iran, nor would it matter to us.
(Vaguely apropos: Whenever my daughter walks by my computer and the Unfogged home page is on the screen, she says "That's a web site about Bob." It's sort of a running joke with us now.)
He is feeling pretty chipper, the sick fuck. Yesterday I was all down about Andrew and others like him going to Iraq but the last 24 hours were bad enough to bury that guy and bring out the Dark Half, the one that thinks Munich is a comedy. The Kubrick fan.
I hate him.
Since the Iranian revolution gave radical Shiites a power base, they have been exporting terror. Support for Hezbollah is not only directed against Israel, but Sunnis as well. The House of Saud are wahabbist, a radical Sunni sect. Given that both have substantial oil revenues, the power struggle between Sunni and Shiite has gone golobal, with the US in the middle fighting against both. Just as the Thirty Years war didn't really have a winner in the sense that there are both Catholics and Protestants in the world, so too this fight to be the "voice of Islam" will not have any winners, just losers.
We could maybe sit them all down and make them sign the Treaty of Westphalia? Probably wouldn't do any good, but it'd be a charming photo op.
American Exceptionalism ..wiki
And some of the stuff way above irritated me. American Exceptionalism is way different from any other nation's exceptionalism. An exceptional exceptionalism, with irrational roots in millenialism and some actual historical basis. The nation cannot ever be understood without taking it into account. I just didn't want to seem to be lecturing, so I didn't say anything.
Faustian? I forget who I am sometimes. I also often forget my irony tags.
You know what would be really fun? A war between Iran and Saudi Arabia! I'd love to be standing in the middle of that one!
89- Get ready for it. If Iraq becomes a puppet state of either one or the other you can count on it, but probably not right away. But after the oil fields start running dry, the religious reason for war will mask the economic one. Or at least that is what my Magic Eight Ball said.
89 - What if the question is whether you'd rather be standing in the middle of not one or not be standing in the middle of one?
American Exceptionalism is way different from any other nation's exceptionalism.
Fuck Yeah!
Cala 82: It was basically intended as an act of war. There isn't really much Iran can do immediately, but we were stating our intending of maybe attacking them eventually.
I akways have thought that Bush would escalate if he found himself losing. This isn't about the US any more, it's about George W. Bush.
86: We're not fighting against the Saudis -- up until recently anyway, we were fighting for them. We owe them too much money to turn them down. No American can make Cheney to jump, but the Saudis can.
Ja, ja, McManus, your exceptionalism is bigger than everyone else's exceptionalism
Unless the US intervened (which is probably a safe assumption), Iran's military capabilities are well beyond those of Saudi Arabia.
Japanese exceptionalism was huge up until late 1945. It's more modest now, but Japanese believe that outlanders just aren't able to understand them.
You heard me right. They believe that they're inscrutable.
But after the oil fields start running dry, the religious reason for war will mask the economic one.
Once the oil fields run dry, no one outside of the region will care. At this point, the sad truth is that it will end up being the US's job to midwife Iran emergence as a regional power. Gawd, we're morons.
93:"Ja, ja, McManus, your exceptionalism is bigger than everyone else's exceptionalism"
I am also a Texan. Nuff said.
Two things. First, I think Labs is being silly by asserting that one's political opinions must be either consistently moral or consistently realist. It's not an academic argument; realistically, there are different reasons to object to or endorse different things, and I don't see a problem with switching premises as long as the various bases of the arguments are clear. Fuzzyheaded it may be, but there you go.
Second, I don't think you can equate Iran's meddling with America's meddling on either moral or practical grounds. For better or worse, not only is Iran *way* more affected by whatever happens in Iraq (which is both a moral and a practical excuse for meddling), it's also screamingly obvious that they actually understand what the fuck is going on much, much better than we do. So on both the realist and the moralist grounds, we haven't got a leg to stand on.
Not that that's made any difference to the administration so far.
You heard me right. They believe that they're inscrutable.
They also go out of their way to do weird things, like invent Hello Kitty, just to confuse the outlanders, right?
I really think that the point is being missed. The consulate raid was a deliberate provocation. It may have been intended to make the Iranians think that we are going to attack them militarily, in which case it could be a bluff, or it may just be one early part of the intended attack. I think that Bush is at the place in the process where it's pointless to pay attention to the Ps and Qs, because of the real possibility that something much bigger will make us forget the consulate raid fairly soon. (And if nothing bigger happens, then this is a realtively small matter and easily patched up -- or as far as that goes, easily forgotten.)
97: as in `Texas --- almost big enough to be a Canadian province' , right?
100: That is pretty much what I'm wondering -- if this was a message saying "We consider ourselves now at war with Iran." What's puzzling me is that I don't see who we'd send a message like that to, if you see what I mean. What good does it do us to make the Iranians think we're about to attack?
The NYT on the impending Iranian/Saudi conflict:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/world/middleeast/22saudi.html?ex=1324443600&en=1f751353ba56eaa7&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
104: To goad them into doing something plausibly aggressive, so that we can shake our heads sadly and express regret that we have no option but to commence high-altitude bombing of Iranian infrastructure.
To me the question is whether Bush intends to start a war with Iran, and it seems that he does
No seems about it. He told everybody on the planet that Iran was part of the Axis of Evil and he went to war already with one member. The administration has told everybody and their dog they intend to go to war with Iran. Shit, they told the Hindus and I don't know why the Hindus would even care.
They're going to war with Iran, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. All this stuff about surges and Iranian provocations [*] is part of the snowjob for rationalizing what they want to do anyways. No complex theories of geopolitical motivations needed: they just don't fucking like Iran.
What baffles me is that ya'll were all in a tizzy about that guy saying he thought the Bushies would nuke the Iranians back in September or October. Now, suddenly it's 'if'. (Of course, it was intended that D's get into a tizzy about an October surprise. That was the point of all the trial balloons.)
And the D's are going to let this get through Congress. They like pointless foreign escapades too! They just like to put more lipstick on the same pig.
m, this might be interesting if it wasn't a forgone conclusion
106 - That's my feeling, as well. Nothing would get public opinion back on the side of the war faster than something that looked like overt Iranian aggression.
Nothing would get public opinion back on the side of the war faster than something that looked like overt Iranian aggression.
And what's better, actual US aggression against Iran would be great for inflaming Iranian public opinion against the US, thus making Iranian aggression more likely, more deadly and more shocking to the US voters! It's win-win!
This is all so depressing. This must be what it felt like to be an Italian in about 1938 ...
Hey, but enjoy those punctual trains.
It'd be great if the Iranians stayed calm. I'm worried that nobody's calling the shots over there. I know Khameini is still alive, but how do they decide what to do?
"Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.
The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country."
It irritates me that so many beltway insiders don't quite know if we are in WWIV or not.
They also go out of their way to do weird things, like invent Hello Kitty, just to confuse the outlanders, right?
Japan exists mostly to make the U.S. look normal.
From the Clemons link, a bit of the Senate transcript:
SEN. BIDEN: Secretary Rice, do you believe the president has the constitutional authority to pursue across the border into Iraq (sic/Iran) or Syria, the networks in those countries?
SEC. RICE: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think I would not like to speculate on the president's constitutional authority or to try and say anything that certainly would abridge his constitutional authority, which is broad as commander in chief.
I do think that everyone will understand that -- the American people and I assume the Congress expect the president to do what is necessary to protect our forces. That's not a good sign.
Arr! The Rice quote continues until "to protect our forces." The editorial apostrophe is mine.
115:Josh Marshall ...who isn't letting me cut-and-paste. Dang you, Josh.
"part of something much bigger" and "something's up" are in there
Be afraid. Be very afraid. And don't screw people with weird wire-like hairs on their backs either.
115: You should be scared, JM. The government is in the hands of messianic lunatics, who are now worried that they only have two years to get their plans underway.
I'm going to predict that there won't be an attack on Iran.
No one's predicting anything. Bush has made multiple threatening gestures, but maybe he's been bluffing.
Once you've concluded that someone's neither competent nor rational, his behavior becomes hard to read. There are people who pretend to be crazy to get their way, but some of them really are crazy too, sort of like Andy Kaufman.
Iran and Syria are the new Laos and Cambodia. I'd love for you to be correct, Michael, and I hope your prediction pans out. But I suspect Bush will ended up attacking one or the other or both, just to show the Democratic Congress that he can. It's been his pattern all along, and there's no reason to think he'll stop.
i'll admit that I am worried that I'm still too much of an optimist, but for awhile now, Bush just hasn't seemed to have the gumption he'd need to pull something like that off.
Bush will ended up attacking one or the other or both, just to show the Democratic Congress that he can
That, but also an even simpler thought process:
The current situation is unacceptable.
Therefore we must do something different.
Attacking Iran and Syria is something different.
Therefore we must attack Iran and Syria.
I hesitate to interpret Michael, but Josh Micah Marshall and Steve Clemons, two pretty centrist guys, believe that there's something major in the air. And it can only be bad.
Since some of the UK readers have been on this thread, I'll use this venue to ask, is this for real? Open prisons for murder convicts? Releasing their pictures if they escape violates their human rights? WTF?
126. it's a spectacular run-down of ways in which Bush has been wrong.
111: Wait, if we embrace fascism we can have reliable public transit?
Hmmm.
Well, if there's one thing that would *vastly* improve this country, it would be reliable public transit....
See, that's why I asked.
But if it were...?
domination & submission fantasies belong in the bedroom, B.
But we're lucky enough to be blessed with incompetent fascists. They can start wars and hurt people, but that's about as far as it goes. Oh, and they're pretty good at marketing. "George and Dick's Shit Sandwiches: Now With More Shit!" The lines are shorter than they used to be, but they're still there.
137: But fantasies about reliable public transit belong in the congress, M.
139. preach it.
I have the coolest little bug in my bathroom. It's like a tiny praying mantis.
re: 128
Yeah, it's real.
What's strange about open prisons for convicted murderers? Generally they'd spend years and years in a high security prison and then, as they near the end of their sentence, be moved to progressively less secure facilities. Spending time in an open prison, near the end of their sentence, and possibly even having a day job and leaving the prison during working hours, would be fairly standard as part of the rehabilitation process.
Better that than just dumping them on the streets, completely unprepared, at the end of their sentence.
The Guardian had a very good weekly column by Erwin James [not his real name, afaik] up until recently. James was a convicted murdered and his column covered the period over the last few years of his sentence when he was moving from secure prisons to open prisons and finally to release. It's fairly standard (and sensible, imho) practice to spend time in an open prison.
Plus, most murderers probably aren't much of a threat to "the public." They're a threat to their friends, family, and circle of acquaintances. The story says nothing about what the men's crimes were; for all we know they killed their wives, or someone who was blackmailing them, or some rival drug dealer--none of which make them a threat to the public. The only reason to release the photos would be to whip up hysteria and vouyeristic sensation, really.
Generally they'd spend years and years in a high security prison and then, as they near the end of their sentence, be moved to progressively less secure facilities.
Ah, that makes more sense.
The only reason to release the photos would be to whip up hysteria and vouyeristic sensation, really.
Or, you know, to catch them. People calling in tips and stuff.
As a contrast, some cities in the U.S. post who's in the jail online, with pics and all. No, I'm not endorsing this, and yes, this is in Texas.
145: Wow that's surprising (well, maybe not for Texas). Any idea what offence "MAN DEL CS PG 1 >=400 GR DRUG FREE ZONE" is?
I'm guessing the dude got caught with drugs somewhere with an increased penalty, like near a school.
I was figuring as much but wondering about the MAN DEL CS PG stuff was. I guess it's probably drug-specific or something.
Anyway, the point is that people in Texas are still crazy.
Bed.
They're a threat to their friends, family, and circle of acquaintances.
That's okay then. Those sorts of people may be "the public" but we don't need them for much of anything, right? The problem is really just a little lack of impulse control.
wondering about the MAN DEL CS PG stuff was
Manufacture/Delivery of Controlled Substance, Program 1, Over 400 Grams
Thus speaks a man who has been there.
As I've explained before, the best way to avoid becoming the victim of murder or rape is to avoid your family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances and hang around entirely with strangers.
Not your best epigramatic work, old man.
Well, if there's one thing that would *vastly* improve this country, it would be reliable public transit....
country s/b county
The only reason to release the photos would be to whip up hysteria and vouyeristic sensation, really.
Or, you know, to catch them. People calling in tips and stuff.
Yeah, that. The article wasn't really clear, but I got the sense that the difficulty with releasing the photos has something to do with the open prison concept. Or maybe it's libel laws or something.
Or maybe I'm overestimating how useful it is to have people calling in tips.
I'd imagine people calling in tips is less than useful, most of the time. Keeping in touch with these people's friends, family and acquaintances -- who already know what they look like -- is more useful, I'd imagine.
If they'd been dangerous killers bent on destruction, their faces would have been everywhere.
I think Spencer Ackerman just heeded your call:
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2454.html
149: Yes, that was exactly my point.
Just returned from a pleasant, subdued lunch with the linguist we like to call "Teofilo".
Aw crap, I was meaning to post that on Ben's German-language thread.
They're all talking about music on that thread, so I'll use this one to note that I too enjoyed that lunch.