Go back and read this cartoon from April, 2003. Then read this Think Progress post from today.

Then go buy my damn book, if you haven’t yet.

Your heart just has to break to see these Shiite children in Lebanon smiling and writing “messages” on the rockets that soon will devastate Israeli homes. What kind of sick society produces little girls who exult in the infliction of pain against people they’ve never met?

And look at the woman in the background, presumably their mother—clearly she approves! Sadly, until the Arabs let go of their culture of incitement and rage, I’m afraid there’s no concession Israel can ever make that will bring peace with these people.

What’s that?

Those aren’t Lebanese girls writing on Hezbollah rockets, but Israeli girls writing on Israeli shells?

Oh.

Never mind.

(Via via.)

The influence I (and most everyone else) can have on the ever-greater catastrophe in the mideast is minimal. So why do so many people feel compelled to learn as much as possible about what’s happening? For myself, I’ve decided it’s so that in 2009 when terrorists set off the atomic device ten blocks from my house, I can—just before I turn into a puff of water vapor—shout “I understand EXACTLY why this is happening!”

Anyway:

1. Dennis Perrin imagines what would happen if Israel were Lebanon and Lebanon were Israel.

2. Jonathan Versen, who grew up partly in Beirut, says: “The Middle East is not a dream someone else is having”

3. Billmon reads the accidental transcript of Bush and Blair talking in Russia and thinks:

This is fascinating as well as terrifying. It suggests that Bush and his faithful water carrier both really believe their own bullshit…it’s hard not to be impressed with the level of delusion picked up by that treacherous microphone.

4. Chris Floyd: “…since we do live in a world dominated by vicious (not to say vacuous) sectarian folderol, we should at least try to deal with the actual reality in front of us, not the heat mirages thrown off by warring sects.”

5. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb points out some boring old facts:

The prisoners Hizbullah wants released are hostages who were taken on Lebanese soil. In the successful prisoner exchange in 2004, Israel held on to three Lebanese detainees as bargaining chips and to keep the battle front with Hizbullah open. These detentions have become a cause celebre in Lebanon.

6. Egypt’s Mahmoud Sabit sez: “In a Fragile Situation, Engage Hamas”

The world may be going to hell in a handbasket, but until we actually arrive I still have my usual deadlines — complicated this week by my new friend the contractor, who’s going to be spending a few days underfoot. So probably not much from me here for a couple of days. Co-bloggers are welcome to step up to the plate, if so inclined.

James Byrd had it bad, but at least he wasn’t a rich white man who died of natural causes :

“I am glad to have known Ken Lay and glad that he was willing to reach down and touch people like me,” said the Rev. William Lawson, pastor emeritus of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. “Ken was a rich and powerful man, and he could have limited his association to people who were likewise rich and powerful.”
. . .
Lawson likened Lay to James Byrd, a black man who was dragged to death in a racially motivated murder near Jasper eight years ago.

“Ken Lay was neither black nor poor, as James Byrd was, but I’m angry because Ken was the victim of a lynching,” said Lawson, who predicted that history will vindicate Lay.

For those of you who might be making the same mistaken comparison as Rev. Lawson, here’s a couple of pictures that might clear things up for you :



On the left is a photo of Kenneth Lay in handcuffs being led to the courtroom where he was being given his constitutional right to a fair trial for crimes he was alleged to have committed. On the right is a pair of black corpses hanging from a tree surrounded by a crowd of racist white people who seem to have viewed their senseless murders as little more than an excuse for a social gathering. Kenneth Lay died at his Aspen vacation home after having a heart attack. James Byrd died on a Jasper, Texas road after being dragged from a pickup truck until his head and right arm were ripped off.

You know the funniest part about Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and the likelihood of a much wider war in the mideast? Of course, it’s hard to choose because there’s so much funny about it. But I think the top contender clearly is that, before the invasion of Iraq, the people pushing war kept telling us how “the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad.”

In other words, invading Iraq would show the dirty Arabs—who only understand force—that we and Israel couldn’t be pushed around. Then the Palestinians would knuckle under in the West Bank and Gaza and we’d all live happily ever after.

One excellent example from a September, 2002 issue of the New Republic can be found here. As you’d expect, it’s written by Martin “I Have Literally Never Been Correct About Anything In My Entire Life” Peretz:

The road to Jerusalem more likely leads through Baghdad than the reverse. Once the Palestinians see that the United States will no longer tolerate their hero Saddam Hussein, depressed though they may be, they may also come finally to grasp that Israel is here to stay and that accommodating to this reality is the one thing that can bring them the generous peace they require.

You could go on citing things like this until the sun explodes. So I’ll just provide one more, from the website of a New York Republican activist. This deserves a Special Jury Prize for having been written in October, 2004:

Indeed the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad. Without Saddam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved under Bush’s second term. And peace can begin to spread in the region, backed by 3 Democracies.

Right on! Furthermore, with people as wise and informed as this in charge of our foreign policy, I see nothing but even greater success ahead!

ALSO: Be sure to read Dennis Perrin’s exegesis of the current embarrassing performance of liberal radio.

(Update: both posters have sold since I wrote this post, and the referenced announcement has been deleted.)

As you can see from the announcement above, I’m putting one more set of the NSA satire posters up for auction. (As noted above, this is the last time I’ll be making these available, so if you want either or both, bid early and often.) The reserve price for each poster is set at what its predecessor went for in the last auction. I’ve also put up a slightly higher Buy It Now price on each in case anybody’s too impatient to wait for the end of the auction.

And that’s where it gets interesting.

If you were online Tuesday night, and paying attention, you would have seen that these auctions went up at about 9:30 pm EST, and ended early through Buy it Now about two hours later. I had my doubts, when I saw this the next morning — the buyer had zero feedback and was using a yahoo email account. And had the unlikely name “Mike Nike.” But I went ahead and sent an invoice and waited.

No response.

Logged into eBay today and noticed that Mike Nike was “no longer a registered user.” Which made things easier for me — I was able to cancel out the auctions and relist them with a minimum of hassle as a result. I figured the buyer was either (a) a Republican fucking with me, or (b) somebody who had a few too many drinks on Tuesday night and woke up Wednesday morning with Buy it Nowers remorse.

Then I got an email from Mike Nike, with the subject line “Answer my questions and email me your full name and address and you mobile number.”

I agreed to pay the amount you want as buy it now any additional money for the shipping and handling. Here will go i am using this opportunity to inform you that the amount that will be on the moneyorder will more than your item fees.I don”t realy know the exact amount that will be.Because it will be issue by my client.and the reason of the over payment is that.the amount on the moneyorder has been signed already.And it is more than your item fees.so once you receive it.you must deduct your item fees and westernunion the balance money to my client manager in africa.the item is going to africa also the shipping and westernunion address will come with the payment.

There will be no problem about the shipment.I want you to responsible for it.also make sure you deduct ur item fees and westernunion any aditional money on the m/o once you receive it.and email me ur phone# asap today.
Below are the questions i have for you.

1)is the item in good condition?

2)is any westernunion location where you to send the balance money arround you?

3)can you make sure you get the m/o cash at ur bank the sameday you receive it?

4)can you allow me to send DHL for the pick up and complet the transaction the day you receive the
moneyorder?

If yes too all my questions.kindly email me back asap today so that the moneyorder can be send

…and suddenly it all made sense — I was dealing with a low-grade variation of the classic Nigerian email scam.

So consider this a public service announcement, especially you eBay users — I don’t know if this is already a commonly-known scam, but my guess is, as fewer and fewer people are willing to help “transfer fifty billion dollars out of my country,” we’ll see more penny ante stuff like this.

Oh, and by the way — on this auction, Buy it Now only works if you pay via Paypal immediately. Sorry, Mike Nike.

I guess there’s a one percent chance the terrorists might target the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton, Illinois, or the Old MacDonald Petting Zoo in Woodville, Alabama. Therefore we must act as if it is a certainty!

I’ve been reading Suskind’s new book, the title of which refers to the doctrine Cheney adopted after 9/11 — essentially that if there’s a one percent chance that someone might do something terrible, the administration must act as if it is a certainty.

It takes a little while for the horror of that to sink in, but when you really think about it, it effectively means that this country has been governed by complete madmen for the past five years. Life is all about making reasonable decisions based on probable odds. In retrospect, it’s what I was trying to say in this cartoon, back in January of 2003. If there was a one percent chance that the moon might crash into the earth someday, we would, as rational people, respond differently than if the odds were at one hundred percent, or even fifty percent. We would monitor the problem, consider options. We would not make it the single most pressing issue of the day.

You would have to be literally insane to suggest blowing up the moon immediately because there was a one percent chance that it might crash into the earth someday.

But as Suskind tells it, this is what the entire Iraq War has been about. All the tragedy, all the blood spilled, all the ensuing chaos — all because there was a one percent chance that Saddam might help terrorists someday.

(Note to Atrios readers: scroll down this entry for the news from New Haven).

A Washington Post columnist gets it:

Well. I don’t blog; I columnize. But count me with the bloggers on this one. No great mystery enshrouds the challenge to Lieberman, nor is the campaign of his challenger, Ned Lamont, a jihad of crazed nit-pickers. Lieberman has simply and rightly been caught up in the fundamental dynamics of Politics 2006, in which Democrats are doing their damnedest to unseat all the president’s enablers in this year’s elections. As well, Lieberman’s broader politics are at odds with those of his fellow Northeastern Democrats. He is not being opposed because he doesn’t reflect the views of his Democratic constituents 100 percent of the time. He is being opposed because he leads causes many of them find repugnant.

As early as December 2001 Lieberman signed a letter to President Bush asking him to make Saddam Hussein’s Iraq our next stop in the war against terrorism. As recently as last month, he opposed two Democratic resolutions to scale back our involvement in the war. And just last week Lieberman characterized the progress of the war as “a lot better” than it was a year ago, adding, “They’re on the way to building a free and independent Iraq.”

So, why the surprise if Connecticut voters, listening to Lieberman and looking at his record, conclude that they cannot trust his judgment on the single most important issue of the day? That’s not mandating purity; it’s opting for a senator who pays more attention to the war on the ground than to the war in his head.

* * *

Lieberman’s ultimate problem isn’t fanatical bloggers, any more than Lyndon Johnson’s was crazy, antiwar Democrats. His problem is that Bush, and the war that both he and Bush have championed, is speeding the ongoing realignment of the Northeast. His problem, dear colleagues, is Connecticut.

In other Lieberman news, from the New Haven Register:

“We are seeing an increased number of unaffiliated voters switching to Democratic to vote in the primary,” Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said Tuesday.

Several registrars of voters in the New Haven area agreed, saying they are even getting some calls from Republicans asking if they can still change their registrations in time to vote in the Democratic primary.

Looks like Joe’s core constituency is trying to rally behind him. Fortunately, they’re too late:

The answer to that question is no; the deadline for switching from one party to another was May 8.

The four most overpaid White House staffers.