Three is a magic number

I was shocked Sunday morning to discover that the United States had entered its third concurrent war. Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya. Yeah, we're only "protecting the no-fly zone" but we and the British bombed the shit out of Tripoli on Sunday.

This puts me in a strange place. If Afghanistan is the "good war" then Libya must be a "great war" (although if Bill Kristol thinks it's a good idea then you know it must be an absolutely terrible idea). Mohammar Quadaffwhateverthehellthespellingisy is obviously insane, power-hungry, and hasn't learned the lesson of Egypt. Not that he has much in common with the situation with Egypt - he sees himself as more African than Middle-eastern these days. But he's the only world leader who has committed an act of active terrorism against the West. Read that again. While other people have committed terrorist acts, he's the only one leading a country. And they crashed a plane in Scotland.

I whole-heartedly supported the protestors in Egypt, and I support the protestors in Libya as well. I would be happy to see this come to a resolution swiftly. But this is fucking nuts. We're already stretched to the breaking point with Iraq and Afghanistan, and we're getting drawn into Libya now too. Face it, they have oil so we're going in. Come on, we took Libya off the terrorism list in the most recent Bush Error so that we'd have access to it. Libya has struck at America before and it wouldn't shock me to see them do it again.

So this puts me, a die-hard liberal, in the position of agreeing with Ron Paul on something. We as a nation can't afford this. It does nothing to enhance the security of our nation, and in fact makes us even worse off given Quadaffyducky's tendency to do go in unpredictable directions. This could be very very bad for us. Allow me to give you a parallel from history - the Roman Empire.

Caligula was an Emperor of excesses. He did whatever the hell he felt like and up until the moment of his death wasn't actively opposed at all. He was followed by Claudius - who was seen as a puppet but was in truth a smart man behind a stammer and a clubbed foot. Despite committing to some real reforms he was the only Emperor of Rome to conquer England - continuing the war policies of his insane predecessor and the people who supported him - even though it was an overreach. Upon his death he was followed by Nero, and we all know how that went (or at least you all know if that's still taught in history classes - given the state of education in this country these days who knows…) Rome burned and the Empire shrank and eventually died out. Technically, it didn't die until the late 1800s, but the power it once heralded had by then been gone for 1700 years.

It can be argued that President Drunken Chimp was Caligula. We don't assassinate our leaders these days, but face it, he did whatever the hell he wanted and got away with it. What I'm worried about is that Obama is our Claudius. He's smart, gives one hell of a speech, but his actions don't match up to his rhetoric. He talks a liberal game and has instituted some reforms but he's a centrist at heart and has governed as such. Things are better than they were 2 years ago but the policies of his predecessor that he's continuing are an overreach. Like Claudius 2,000 years ago he is continuing many of the policies of the ruler directly before him and overreaching the capacity of the country to do so.

We're stretched thin and being run in part by people who want to stretch us even thinner, and Obama seems to lack the backbone to stem the tide. What we're doing in Libya isn't a "good war", it's a gamble. If we were interested in "good wars" we'd be in Sudan or someplace where we could make a humanitarian difference. Instead we're banking on getting access to that oil. How has that worked so far in our two other wars? What did you pay to gas up your car this past week?

And Nero is next.

Cheap shots:

I'm not making this up, and this isn't hyperbole. Rep. Don Young of Alaska is a traitor.

Oh, the difference a single word makes.

Why so much of the reporting we see in the U.S. about Japan is so terrible.

And here is where it is good.

Nah - it's because they're just mean sons of bitches.

Wouldn't that be, "Supreme Bitch"?

To quote Dr. Cox from "Scrubs": "Wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong. You're wrong"

Um, What The Florida?

I met this man once, after he left public life. He was trying to catch a cab but he took the time to say hello and talk a moment. He will be missed.

Beck vs. Beck.

for those of you already sick and nauseated by Rebecca Black, it could be worse.

I want to see this built.

More terrorism.

Doesn't this seem less like patronage and more like incest?

Alas, this is not parody. They're serious - and fucking delusional.

This is a bad idea.

Lock the doors, batten the hatches, board up the windows, and hide the tiger blood.

Cue the music.

And because I love you, Blind Melon