(no subject)

According to a message in my inbox this morning I've just won the UK Lottery. Hey, go figure. Apparently they're doing an international one and I'm the big winner. I've got to say for a spam it's pretty thorough, they've even included little gifs of the lucky winning numbers (21,32,41,42,43,46 and of course 17). I was very sad that it wasn't, you know, the numbers as it would've been quite charming given that there's Lost tonight. I also got my first Nigerian bank scam spam this week as well, I need to discipline my spam filter a bit, clearly.

I'd forgotten how much fun I have at dance class and was reminded last night, I spent the entire evening laughing and smiling. It's just so damn much fun, and it felt great to be able to move again after two weeks of near inactivity. Also picked up the DVD of photos that R- put together for us from DDF. It's a lot of fun and Aelf is going to love it, he does some seriously loving close ups of her costume that will make her squee. Sadly I tended to get cut out of a lot of shots because of my placement (generally way in the back) or because I ended up on the wrong side. But what I could see looked pretty good, and I love the way my costume for that one photographs.

T- and I had a chance to chat and catch up which was delightful, I just adore her. She also mentioned that apparently the video game symphony Video Games Live will be in town apparently November 5th and it sounds like a fun event to me. It's at the Civic Auditorium and balcony seats in the $20 range appear to remain available. I've got a recital to go to until 5 that day, but should be able to run home, shower and eat in plenty of time to make it to this. Would anybody be interested? If you need more info on the show itself just go here, I've been reading very good reviews about it, though.

And before I forget again I'd meant to mention my favorite reaction so far to my new vanity plates. tamago commented that she was amused by the juxtaposition of the Snape-ish plates and the "Powered by Jamba Juice" plate frame. I'd said I should get something more appropriately dignified for them but she disagreed and mused aloud, "If you get a Liberal Arts degree you're supposed to be well prepared to ask the question, 'Would you like fries with that?'. Perhaps with an Advanced Potions degree the question becomes, 'Would you like a boost with that?'" The mental image of a young Severus Snape grimly concocting Jamba Juice is one that continues to amuse me.

BTW, last night's DS interview between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly was such a hoot. Big Bill showed us once again why he's the biggest gaping asshole on television while Jon wittily, but with the restraint of a saint, skewered him mercilessly. My favorite moment, "You're right, we do add insult to injury...but *you're* adding the injury."

Like fine, fine wine

This post from Republic of Dogs is a must read. What, you don't believe me? Ye of little faith. Well just check out a few samples below, if they don't make you click nothing will:

But if, as I suspect, he is talking about the conflict-averse, iPod-wearing metrosexual MBA’s from Planet Starbucks, who think podcasting is activism and believe that changing paradigms is the same as changing the world – the same blowhards who populate the various low-level positions in the Democratic Party apparatus - then I’m going to go ahead and say what the fuck ever to that.

[...]

And here we meet Straw Man #2: Ideology vs. Pragmatism! This is perhaps the biggest and steamiest load of hork that has ever spurted up from the dyspeptic GI tract of the so-called New Democrats, only to be endlessly swirled around in the collective mouth of the Democratic Party like a fine wine, only with chunks.

There hasn’t been much seriously theoretical or idiological thinking in general circulation in our party for decades. Most Democrats, including progressives, are deeply pragmatic, but there’s pragmatism and then there’s pragmatism. Kos, it seems, thinks that political pragmatism consists of advocating whatever policy sounds pretty darn good to folks. I would argue that the better form of political pragmatism, the one that actually represents the larger Pragmatist tradition in American political philosophy, consists of advocating policies that we have good reason to believe will work, and then present our fellow citizens with reasonable arguments to persuade them to support our proposed policies. But I guess I should just save that talk for Old School Activist back at the commune.

Go read the rest, you won't regret it.

Of percentages and probabilities

Tristero takes exception with the latest Matt Yglesias post on why he originally supported the Iraq war and responds thusly:

But the truth is that Makiya was a hopeless optimist. The goals of Bush/Iraq were impossible to achieve. Only in an abstruse, technically mathematical sense was there a probability of success. Why was Bush/Iraq utterly impossible?

Because nothing is certain. Again, please hear me out:

The success of Bush/Iraq depended, with absolute certainty, that just about everything the neocons predicted would, in fact actually, happen. An unbiased study of the full range of opinions and research on foreign affairs -one not skewed to the right and the far right, one not skewed towards naive optimism - would make it abundantly clear that at best, less than 1/3 of the neocons' predictions about the course of the war could ever possibly come true. That fact, based on a genuine understanding of uncertainty,exponentially increased the odds that the alternative scenario, an unmitigated disaster, would occur.

The actual odds of success were closer to .00000000000000005% than 5%. That was patently obvious to anyone who was doing research that wasn't biased.

But part of the marketing of the "new product" was to turn the notion of doubt on its head. We, who knew how utterly beyond reason a successful outcome was - because we understood the full extent of the sheer improbability of Perle/Wolfowitz's scenarios, which depended on a near-absolute certain unfolding of events - were accused of not taking into account how uncertain things are in the real world!

Bush/Iraq should never have been taken seriously, anymore than Curtis Lemay's suggestion to use nuclear bombs in Vietnam or during the Missile Crisis should have been taken seriously.

[...]

Not all arguments are worth the status of intellectual consideration. Bush/Iraq was one of them, even though a former John Hopkins professor like Wolfowitz and the president of the United States thought otherwise.

Bush/Iraq was no more realistic than the arguments for a UFO behind the Hale/Bopp comet and it should have been treated accordingly. Again, not recognizing that immediately was your mistake and that is what you need to come to grips with. Not the morality of the war, but the extent to which you and so many of your colleagues were bamboozled and provided Bush with an opening to tap into American mythologies.

(no subject)

Kneel Before Zod in 2008

Good gawd, y'all

Holy crap!

According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and "has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA officer tells me:

"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."

Alan Wolf died about a year and a half ago of cancer. He served as chief of the CIA's Near East Division as well as the European Division, and was also CIA chief of station in Rome after Clarridge. According to my source, "he and Clarridge and Ledeen were all very close and also close to Chalabi." The former CIA officer says Wolf "was Clarridge's Agency godfather. Significantly, both Clarridge and Wolf also spent considerable time in the Africa division, so they both had the Africa and Rome connection and both were close to Ledeen, closing the loop."

via Rising Hegemon