Goatstein posted:

Stymie posted:

*a shitload of mustache jokes*

quote:

The sudden outbreak of peace in Iraq has made me realize, among other things, one incontestable fact: I have no business holding a pen, at least with intent to write.

I know, you’re thinking I’m going too far. I haven’t always been wrong about everything. I recently made some sense on global warming and what we needed to do about it, for instance.

But to have been so completely and fundamentally wrong about so huge a disaster as what we have done to Iraq — and ourselves — is outrageous enough to prove that people like me have no business posing as wise men, and, more importantly, that The New York Times has no business continuing to provide me with a national platform.

In any case, I have made a decision: as of today, I will no longer write in this or any other newspaper. I will immediately desist from writing any more books about how it’s time for everyone to climb on board the globalization high-speed monorail to the future. I will keep my opinions to myself. (My wife suggested that I try not to even form opinions, but I think she might have another agenda.)

Baffled? I don’t blame you. So I’ll cite some facts to support my decision — a practice, I must admit, I have too seldom followed.

Let’s start with the invasion itself. I was pretty much all for it. Mind you, I was not one of the pundits, reporters, or public figures who said that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. I knew better — but I said it didn’t matter!

Back in February of 2003, I wrote in this space: “Saddam does not threaten us today. He can be deterred. Taking him out is a war of choice — but it’s a legitimate choice.” In other words, we should invade a sovereign state and replace its government in order to remake the world more to our liking.

Now the simple fact is, an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state is a war crime, even when linked to grand ideas of the future of mankind. In fact, that’s exactly what Hitler did, for exactly the same reasons. The Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal called it the “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

What was I thinking? And more importantly, why didn’t anyone stop me?

But wait, it gets worse. Having expressed how acceptable it was to commit Hitler’s signature crime, I then applauded the invasion of Iraq as an “audacious roll of the dice.” It should have occurred to me that this gamble would be unspeakably painful for an untold number of Iraqis who had done nothing to us — in other words, any of them.

Soon, when it became obvious that my pipe dreams for a peaceful and democratic subject nation were just that, I decided to say it was too soon to tell how things would turn out in Iraq, but that we would definitely know in six months to a year. I said this pretty much every six months for five years. And The Times just kept giving me more and more column-inches.

I’m not trying to beat myself up here. I’ve done that plenty already, believe me — and my wife has done the rest! But I have one question: why are newspapers like The New York Times letting people like me make fools of themselves, mislead the American people, and, worst of all, give their wives a lifetime of ammunition?

To err is human, but to print, reprint, and re-reprint error-mad humans like me is a criminally moronic editorial policy.

Nor, of course, is it only me. Just consider who populates the opinion pages of America’s top newspapers. Bill Kristol, who was actually hired by The Times long after being proven wrong on Iraq. Charles Krauthammer. Robert Novak. Mona Charen. Fred Barnes. The list goes on and on of officially-approved wise men (and a woman or two) who never once doubted that Iraq had vast stockpiles of W.M.D.s. And that’s just in newspapers.

We were all wrong again and again — and the consequences were devastating. Can anyone tell me why any of us should ever be asked, let alone paid, for our opinions ever again? Or, for that matter, why Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz should be allowed behind any sort of desk whatsoever as long as they live?

Peace in Iraq will undoubtedly have many far-reaching consequences. As promised, I’m not going to speculate publicly about what they might be.

Except one. As of today, I’m putting down my pen, to take up a screwdriver. I am going to retrain as an engineer and spend the rest of my life working to build non-carbon-based energy technologies. And I’m going to spend a lot of time washing my hands.

Home! posted:

his mustache is the only substantial thing about him

Home! posted:

his mustache is the only substantial thing about him

Thinkmeats posted:

Apple has long been the Dr Norton of the computer industry, quarantining the virus of bigness and keeping everyone clean with their less-is-more mentality, one of downsizing and rightsizing and capsizing the overbloated supertanker of the computer industry into a spreading spill of portable commerce. An Apple a day keeps the doctor spill spreading.

Megajesus posted:

if you hooked up every person with a BA to a special machine that could translate their thoughts through a special timidity filter into a printing press you could generate thousands of friedman books daily.

Police Academy 6 posted:

If history has shown us one thing, it's that compromise works best. So when it comes to the current conflict in Israel, let me be the first to float the question: why can't Hamas and Israel just get along? A potential compromise could work like this: Hamas would stop launching rockets into Israel, while Israel would agree to stay out of Gaza. It might sound like a crazy idea, but maybe it's just crazy enough that it could work.

Goatstein posted:

When living through a recession one quickly realizes one must tighten ones' belt. And this is true for America: We must tighten our grain belt, our Rust Belt, and yes, even our Bible Belt if we are going to get through this, and keep a downturn from becoming a turndown.

MRI chalk posted:

The way the bailout bill is running now, we've got the Crips vs the Bloods, and the Crips have the majority in congress, sure, but the Bloods have got organization. And you can bet that unless we get capital flow to the banks to reinvest in investment, the LAPD is going to sweep in and pretty soon it'll be West Side Story - but this time, the only Jet is the one attached to your pension.

DUMBocrat posted:

tom friedman could probably be replaced by dave barry and no one would notice

cargo cult posted:

I had stopped for spot of Thai food in Frankfurt while traveling with the CEO of Infosys, an Indian company when I realized that the world is like an open source Internet Browser high on peyote driving a Lexus in the 9th inning of the world series at Fenway park above fiber optic cables laid at the bottom of the ocean using greentech solar panels with flatware paradigm oysters.

marty4286 posted:

If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that afternoon golfing with Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Industrial Group, near the Mumbai campus of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

"I gotta take a piss," he told me at the 7th hole where we had a great view of a McDonald's billboard. Then he pointed to some beggar children looking into the course from behind a chain-link fence and yelled at his caddy, "Get those pieces of poo poo out of here."

A-ha!, I finally understood what he was telling me. The current global economic crisis was merely a natural buildup of urine in the bladder, and we had to play 11 more holes before we hit a home run to the finish line and have our release so we could be comfortable again.

Goatstein posted:

and quickly began the long march up the short airport connector.

DUMBocrat posted:

tom friedman could probably be replaced by dave barry and no one would notice

this allusion meant posted:

Well Suck. On. This.