Bipartisan

The problem with Donald Rumsfeld, if you accept the Democratic view of him, was that he did not commit enough troops to Iraq to win the war.

So now the Democrats oppose Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq.

That's awesome...

..ly stupid.

Wikipedia is a joke

And it's not funny. Yes, I have a bee in my bonnet about Wikipedia. Why? Well, where do I begin...

Anyone can edit it. Think really hard about this, or, in the alternative, just let the intuitive insanity of that hit you. Any moron can, with a few mouse clicks, post anything at all he wants. Many such morons do. You may think that the truth will win out, that the "good" editors will gang up on the vandals and expend more energy fixing mistakes and improving articles than the vandals spend wrecking them.

Well, you sure are naive! For one thing, the "good" (i.e. pathologically energetic) editors are often precisely the problem. Someone with an ideological axe to grind and a modicum of cleverness can spin falsehood so that it takes a great deal of energy (and often research) to prove his biased statements are just that. The kind of person who does this quite literally has nothing better to do with his time than spend hours every day telling you why the Gulag really wasn't that bad, and if you try to refute him simply, you're in for a treat. He will ask you to cite every. single. thing. you say. Why this standard does not apply reciprocally is unclear to me, but even when I am in the mood to be civil and meticulous, my careful edits have earned me universal scorn, whereas the careless propaganda gets praise and support.

And that's when I'm feeling in a civil mood. When I unleash the full power of my resentment, hatred, arrogance, and intelligence, I have no chance. Sadly, citing oneself as the authority on everything fails to work, even when accurate.

When even the intellectual elites cannot get their facts straight (I had a Yale Law alumna tell a class that Larry Summers thinks women are stupid), why are we putting our faith in the plebs?

Hell in a handbasket for the lose!

Aristos

I never thought my parents were poor. Then I went to law school.

Let me explain.

My parents are firmly lodged in what great generalizers like to call the "middle class." We have been comfortably off, one bedroom for each child, one for the parents, and a spare for the computer, for thirteen years now. We have three motor vehicles. We have a pet beagle. I always thought that my parents were pretty well off.

Law school taught me otherwise.

My parents cannot afford to pay my truly epic tuition, and at my age, I see no reason those two generous people should be giving my anything more anyway. They raised me, even when I was a petulant brat, fed me, largely paid for my undergraduate education, and now I think it's time to give them a break. But even borrowing substantial funds from the federal government and private lenders, what can I do? I can live simply, drink Natty Ice, and eat ramen.

But my classmates? They seem to own vehicles that even my parents could not afford. They are younger than I, mind you, and I am sure they did not purchase these vehicles themselves. They go clubbing. They have "nice" clothes.

I resent people. All of them. But my fellow 1L's, with a few exceptions, are the most spoiled, vacuous, and worthless people I am ever likely to meet. Intellectual incompetence and lots of undeserved money are, apparently, at least equal to merit in bringing the possessor success.

Fun!

Disgust

NBC is saying that the Saddam execution video is a "PR disaster" for us.

I suppose a PR coup is when you slowly cut the head off an innocent man because you are too cowardly to fight a stand-up fight.

That, really, is what we need to become.