John Bolton Scares Me, And He Should Scare You

For years, my Republican friends have been telling me how brilliant former U.S ambassador to the U.N John Bolton is, and I've just never seen any evidence of it. Bolton's talking points are no different than Sean Hannity's, and I believe that Hannity's ignorance is so powerful that it will someday fuel our cars. Ambassador Bolton is the perfect intellectual for talk radio and cable news, which is to say that he isn't an intellectual at all.



Over the last five years, most serious people have come to the conclusion that the United States cannot fight multiple large-scale land wars as the military is currently constituted, yet Mr. Bolton asserts that America isn't fighting enough of them every chance he gets. Were it up to him, U.S forces would also be battling in Iran and North Korea, on top of the escalation in Afghanistan and Bolton's wish to keep a large number of troops in Iraq. Taken individually, you could make a weak case for each of those suggestions. Taken together, you begin to look like a psychopath.



The Ambassador knows this, and never discusses his worldview as a whole, because even he must recognize that it's insane. Instead, he issues missives about individual operations like the one he published today in The Daily Beast.



Bolton's supporters compare the Long War on Terror, or whatever it's being called this week, to World War II. However, the analogy couldn't be more inapt. Between 1942 and '45, the United States had a military draft and eventually sixteen million men were deployed to Europe and the Pacific. America was also a full wartime economy during those years, easily the closest that country has ever come to socialism.



The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has proved that the United States can barely keep even 200,000 soldiers in the field for any length of time without the military starting to fracture. Administrative procedures like "stop-loss" were resorted to because a volunteer force was inadequate to the task. And instead of debating how these wars would be paid for, as was the case in the 1940s, Washington has passed three significant tax cuts during the last ten years.



The United States was fighting two of it's largest wars since Vietnam at the same time, yet only one half of one percent of the population is asked to sacrifice anything at all, even though terrorism is supposed to be an "existential threat." If you've ever wondered why I'm not all that serious about the War on Terror, it's because the United States itself isn't.



As Richard Clarke details in his book Your Government Failed You, the Joints Chiefs of Staff designed it to be this way in 1973, although they couldn't have anticipated the consequences. The Chiefs knew that America could never again fight a long term war like Vietnam if the population was unable and unwilling to support the effort at the beginning of it, particularly in the absence of the draft.



They also knew that the politicians would continue proposing wars without knowing fully what the military was capable of over the course of a long conflict. So, in a very clever move, they removed the supply and support duties from the regular Army and made them the responsibility of the Reserves and the National Guard. That would not affect small wars, like Panama or Grenada, or short ones, like Operation Desert Storm.



However, if it appeared that another war like Vietnam was on the horizon, the president would have no other choice but to activate the Guard and Reserves, which would immediately make the disruption of war felt at home. The president and Congress would have to tell the American people the true length of the conflict, and its cost in blood and treasure. The reorganization plan, in theory, would have instilled some honesty into the political and policy class.



It worked for a long time, in fairness. Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and the first Bush refused to instigate large, long-term wars, such as the one Presidents Kennedy and Johnson committed to in Southeast Asia.



Unfortunately, that was undone by a revolution in U.S foreign policy during the Clinton and second Bush administrations. Clinton utilized the military as a peace-keeping and nation-building force in Eastern Europe that kept forces there for years at a time, albeit in a non-combat capacity. Instead of activating the Guard and Reserves, the Clinton Administration employed private contractors to provide those services, most famously Halliburton.



Then Bush retaliated against Afghanistan and invaded Iraq, and the use of contractors accelerated well beyond what even Clinton envisioned. But it quickly became clear that, in a shooting war, they weren't as effective as the career military and were considerably more expensive.



More importantly, they did little to slow or stop the breakage done to the professional military by the overreach of American foreign policy since 1993. But it did distract the American people at the beginning of the conflicts from the possibilty that they could be endless, only for the realization to hit them later, which profoundly damaged public support for both wars.



I have never seen Bolton address any of that when he calls for more and newer wars against more and more countries. He also seems to believe that these wars can be fought exclusively by air power, which most people know is silly.



A decade and a half's worth of bombing didn't remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, but ground forces did in three weeks. Most experts believe that bombing the Iranian nuclear program will only delay it, not eradicate it. Bombing in the former Yugoslavia only accelerated the the genocide there and, by the time ground troops were introduced to keep the peace, it was almost complete. Bombing alone never fully accomplishes policy objectives, unless you're bombing an unserious country, like Libya.



It is frequently ignored by everyone that Ambassador Bolton was never a serious part of the policy process in the Bush White House. It is well known that Secretary of State Condolezza Rice objected to his appointment furiously, and only agreed to support it publicly if she would be allowed to keep him on a very tight leash. That's why he never said anything as furiously crazy at the U.N as he regularly does today. For all practical purposes, Bolton was little more than a sop to the neoconservative wing of the GOP as the White House fought an internal battle over the prosecution of the war in Iraq.



Since leaving office, John Bolton has been on a mission to be even more Bush than Bush. Even before the election of Obama, Bolton was publicly calling on his former colleagues to attack both North Korea and Iran, even before the "surge" in Baghdad. There is no end to the number of wars that Bolton wants to commit the military to, but he doesn't seem to understand how the military works very well.



If John Bolton reminds me of anybody, it is Clinton's second secretary of state (but then U.N ambassador), Madeleine Albright, who once shocked then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell by saying "Why do we have this marvellous military if we can't use it?"



Not once have I ever heard anyone respond to Bolton's ridiculous proposals by saying "You and what army?" The volunteer military can barely fight the wars that they're already committed to. Where would you get the troops? You can't use troops from South Korea to invade Iran and expect them to continue defending South Korea or to invade North Korea. American troops are a finite resource, but Bolton's appetite for armed conflict is not.



Nor does he seem to understand very much about the economy and how it could withstand the huge burdens third and fourth major ground operations would impose on it. As a Republican in good standing, one can assume that Mr. Bolton wouldn't support the necessary shift to a wartime economy - which would involve dramatically higher taxes, along with wage and price controls and the rationing of consumer goods - particularly if they were imposed by a Democratic president and Congress. Instead, he would almost certainly finance his new wars with even more debt.



The Cold War policy of containment of the Soviet Union was predicated on the theory that the Russian economy could not support the grand ambitions of the Kremlin's foreign and military policy if those ambitions were challenged. After 40 years - from Truman through Reagan - that theory was proved to be correct and the Soviet Union finally disintegreated.



However, that is likely also true of the United States. Expanded military adventurism, as supported by the likes of Bolton, combined with America's entitlement culture and unnaturally low tax rates will eventually collapse the U.S economy and its position as a world power. To the best of my knowledge, Bolton has never addressed that, either.



Rarely have I seen anyone with such an undeserved reputation as a strategic thinker as John Bolton. When going to war is your first answer to everything, even though you clearly haven't thought of what that would entail or what the consequences would be, you really can't be called a thinker at all.



You can, however, be called a lot of other things.

Recall This!!: Rocco Rossi gets Populist, Stupid

The reason that I've said so many savage things about the Tea Party in the United States is that it is a primarily populist movement, and populism has always been cynical, stupid or both. It is predicated on the idea that life is simple and there are no problems that can't be solved by the people, if the politicians and bureaucrats would get out of the way.

And that idea is dangerous nonsense. As we saw during the first five years of the Iraq War, simple solutions are not only wrong much of the time, they can be disastrously wrong. A functioning democracy doesn't need "one of us", it needs someone better than us. As Jon Stewart once pointed out, we were swept away by the macarana, and can't be expected to be experts in much of anything.

Moreover, populism started out as a very liberal concept that should be alien to all but the dumbest conservatives. Yes, most of the original Populists were Republicans, but that was at a time when the GOP was quite a bit more liberal than the Southern Democrats who ruled the U.S through the Senate.

If you want a close look at what populism creates, look at California. It's debt-ridden and prone to constant political instability because Hiram Johnson created a system whereby everyone could vote on everything, regardless of how contradictory and mutually exclusive the things that they voted for actually were. When you vote for tax freezes and increased services, you wind up being California - a fact that's evident to everybody that isn't from California.

Being an adult who believes that you should suffer the consequences of your actions, I opposed the 2003 recall of Governor Gray Davis, although my loathing of the man was boundless. The GOP had nominated a dangerously dumb nobody to run against Davis just a year earlier, and the voters cooperated with Davis in crushing the Republicans like a beer can.

Elections are actions that, just like any other, have consequences. And if you not only elect Davis, but reelect him, you should suffer the consequences of that choice for his full term. All the recall did was allow Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was physically terrified of running a full year-long campaign and declined to do so in 2003, to have a much easier three-month recall race that he almost couldn't lose. It was opportunistic in the extreme.

And the last place candidate in Toronto's mayoral campaign, Rocco Rossi, just announced that he supports recalls here.

Citing the need to restore trust between angry voters and City Hall, Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi threw a curve into the mayor’s race today by announcing he would allow Toronto voters to recall their mayor and members of city council if they fail to live up to their promises.

“The contract that exists between voters and politicians cannot depend on trust alone,” said Rossi. “It must come with rights as well, including the right of recall.”

(...)

“It’s easier to return a broken blender in this town than it is to recall a rogue politician. And that’s not right,” Rossi told reporters. “Under the current system, voters cast their ballot and hope for the best. It’s a four-year blank cheque. And all too often voters are disappointed. […] Public service becomes a career and not a calling.”

Rossi announced that when he is mayor, citizens will enjoy the “Three Rs”: Respect, Results and Recall. “Every Toronto voter has the right to be treated respectfully by their mayor and councillor. Every Toronto voter has the right to results. They have the right to measure performance against promise, and results against expectations.”

(...)

“Many Toronto politicians have grown used to having a four-year blank cheque to do whatever they please,” said Rossi. “The party’s over. The slogan of my campaign is Take Back City Hall. And Taking Back City Hall starts with the right to Take Back Your Vote.”

That might be the silliest fucking thing I've ever heard, and it's more than enough for me to take back every nice thing I've ever said about Rocco. If he supports this, there's no I would support him or encourage anyone else to. Allowing for recalls will change the political atmosphere in this city from one of anger and frustration to almost total anarchy.

First, a recall provision would mean that we would have never-ending campaigns. As soon as one election is over, the winner would have to keep raising money and building an organization to fend off any potential recall petitions. Moreover, those petitions would be endless. As a matter of fact, Democrats started talking about recalling Schwarzenegger before he was even sworn in after Davis was recalled. Just because the petitions aren't often successful doesn't mean that they don't exist. They do. Ronald Reagan had to beat back no fewer than thirteen of them during his eight years as governor.

Recalls would also exaggerate the importance of the extremes in any political coalition, since the extremes are the most likely place for a recall movement to start, as is the case in California. Let's say that Rob Ford was elected and suddenly realized that his economic platform wouldn't work. If he changed course, as one would hope that he would if he knew that his previous position was wrong, someone to Ford's right would be encouraged to start a recall against him. To avoid that, he would have to constantly play to his right, which is not where the base of his support would be if he won.

Third, there already is a mechanism to remove a corrupt or criminal office holder in most democratic jurisdictions. That would be impeachment or some variant thereof. In Canada, you're almost automatically removed as soon as you're convicted of a crime. If you just don't like your representative - and I don't like very many of them at all - wait until the next election, you big pussy.

Fourth, who would be able to start a recall petition, who would coordinate it, and how would they be funded? In almost any circumstance a recall effort would be an independent expenditure, and that would bump up against campaign finance laws at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

Fifth, it would upend the way that elections are run. You wouldn't have to work your way up anymore and groom yourself for a long, tough campaign. Instead, you can start a recall movement and position yourself as the saviour. No muss, no fuss. Unfortunately, that would create even more amateurish politicians than we already have.

If nothing else, I applaud Rocco for admitting that he can't do this on his own. The powers of Council are laid out in the City of Toronto Act, which is provincial legislation. Where Mr. Rossi is either lying or hallucinating is in thinking that Queen's Park would allow the recall process to exist anywhere in Ontario, because there would be immediate and legitimate pressure to have the legislature apply it to themselves. And few politicians are as given to surrendering their own power as Rocco Rossi says that he is.

Except that he's really not. This is a pose, because he knows that the Queen's Park would never amend the City of Toronto Act to allow recalls. This is Rocco dressing himself up as a populist and grabbing on to an issue that he most likely suspects that Rob Ford's voters will strongly support.

Rossi is positioning himself to be the number two choice with Ford supporters in the event that Ford collapses. It's pretty clever and awfully cynical. Could it work? I doubt it, but I think that this is just the first move in the reinvention of Rocco Rossi as a populist asshole.

“Insert Vague Response on Policy”

Can you seriously support the claim that Rob Ford can run an entire city - over the objections of a Council that will do everything it can to stop him - when Ford doesn't seem able to manage his own campaign's communications department? Inquiring minds need to know - like me!

You see, much of the conservative blogosphere - many of whom are my friends - are Ford supporters that have been trying build the narrative that the Goddamned Liberal Media is persecuting their guy and is responsible for everything that happens to him.

The only problem with that narrative is that it's nonsense. Ford has been tripping over his own dick from the moment he was born. I'm surprised that his wife doesn't make him wear a helmet whenever he leaves the house, lest he further damage his noggin.

Then there's the small matter of Ford's using City Council letterhead to solicit donations for his dopey football charity, for which he has been unanimously reprimanded by the city's Integrity Commissioner and Council. My friends don't think that it's a big deal when Rob does it, but it's a very big deal indeed when, say, Charlie Rangel does.

My basic point is that each and every time Ford finds himself immersed in scandal, an almost daily occurrence over the last decade, it's by his own doing. And I predict that he'll have at least four more scandals between now and October 25th.

But few stories are as gloriously entertaining as this one;

Looking for a vague response from Rob Ford? Try emailing him.

Such was the reply Cathie Besso received after sending the mayoral frontrunner an email asking him what he plans to do about bike lanes in the city.

She received a form letter, first thanking the Beach resident for passing along her concerns.

But what struck her as odd was the second paragraph, written in bold.

“Insert vague response on policy,” it read.

Look, I understand politics better than most folks, and I get the necessity of vagueness, particularly during a campaign. I also understand that there are few alternatives to sending form letters in response to voter inquiries. Most campaigns and political offices (the Star isn't clear whether the Ford letter came from his campaign or his City Hall office, which are supposed to be two separate entities) are too busy to write personal responses to everyone.

But is simple proofreading too much to ask? Is it unreasonable to expect that you would appoint just one person on your staff to look over any outgoing correspondence and make sure that it doesn't reinforce the perception that you're, y'know, an idiot?

This story couldn't be more insignificant in the broad picture of Rob Ford's ability to fuck up even the simplest of tasks, the stories of which are legion. But it does highlight the fact that he's reckless, careless, and not especially bright.

I don't care what the polls say, there's no way this guy's gonna win.

Another Republican Meme Exposed as Bullshit

I think I might be the only person alive who remembers the summer of 2001. That August, the two biggest stories in the media (because the blogosphere didn't exist in any real way then) was people getting eaten by sharks and whether or not Congressman Gary Condit murdered his intern. After September 11, we didn't hear very much about sharks or Gary Condit at all.

The summer is the time of year for people to pretend that ridiculous shit is somehow something other than ridiculous. While I actually like watching people get consumed with nonsense, it can actually be dangerous, particularly if the idiots doing it like pretending that they're "constitutionalists."

Erik Erickson, the proprietor of redstate.com and a CNN talking head is such an idiot. Being the biggest of Republican bloggers is always a pretty good indication that you're a tool, and you don't get much bigger than Erikson.

The Cordoba House-Park 51 story is this summer's Shark Week, so people who enjoy whipping the stupid masses into a frenzy have been all over it. Red State is willingly riding the train that certifiable lunatics like Pamela Geller are driving. In doing so, they're openly exposing their dishonesty about everything they profess to believe.

Constitutionalists, of which I consider myself one, believe that constitutions mean exactly what they say, and nothing more. The United States Constitution is silent about whether "sensitivity" is predicate for pressuring someone to abandon their rights to religious freedom and private property. I've heard more talk about "sensitivity" from Republicans in the last three weeks than I have in the last thirty years. These assholes aren't just acting like liberals, they're starting to sound like liberals, too.

Once and for all, if a public pressure is used to make someone surrender their rights, they aren't really rights at all. And if this were any issue than a mosque that isn't a mosque and isn't actually at Ground Zero, they would all be taking exactly the opposite position than they are now. The hypocrisy is nothing less than breathtaking.

On Thursday, Mr, Erikson came right out and said what I've believed all along, that Republicans want to make Cordoba House a political issue, which is very different than the heretofore popular meme that "this isn't about the government stopping the mosque." I was always pretty sure that they were lying about that and, thanks to RedState, I know they are.

Go get your congress critter on video. Ask if he agrees with John Boehner that Barack Obama should ask for Tim Geithner and Larry Summers’ resignations.

Oh, and if you get your congressman to take a position on the Ground Zero Mosque, you just might get bonus points and maybe an extra prize!

Why exactly would you give a shit what a congressman or candidate thinks about Park 51 unless you actually expect them to do something about it in office? I haven't heard anyone ask that question of those bloggers, and it's pretty important, because the answer would tend to reveal lot about their fidelity to both the Constitution and conservative principles.

Rick Lazio is currently running campaign ads on stopping the alleged "Ground Zero Mosque", which certainly implies that he would use his office as governor to halt it's construction. On the other hand, Lazio is genetically programmed to lose elections, so his chances of becoming governor of New York in November are actually worse than mine are.

If the government tries to stop Cordoba House from being built in the absence of some crime, it will be in direct violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. There's no debating that. Moreover, Governor Patterson's idea of a "land swap" that Republicans, Fox News and most bloggers are so enthusiastic about would be found by any court in the land as being a violation of the First Amendment's Establishment clause.

It's possible that people like Erik Erickson are dumb enough not to know that, but I don't think they are. They're either willingly abandoning the very principles that supposedly make them conservatives in the first place, or they're dishonestly demagoguing Muslims as a campaign tactic and insisting that Republican candidates do the same.

Either way, they're a fucking embarrassment.

Heidi Montag is Dishonest and Delusional

I can't say that I've wanted to sodomize many decapitated corpses in my life but, for a few brief months, I was willing to make an exception for Heidi Montag. Unfortunately, she's such a worthless waste of fucking skin that she had to ruin even that for me. To say that I resent this is a monumental understatement.



I'm blessed to be old enough to have gone through most of my life not knowing who Ms. Montag and her bizarrely asexual husband, Spencer Pratt were. Not being a a maven of scripted "reality" TV, I have never seen The Hills, and that seemed to make everyone happy. I wouldn't go go so far as to say that it was a beautiful life, but it was enough for me.



All that I really knew about Ms. Montag and Mr. Pratt was that they were vapid television personalities who were rewarded far beyond their actual worth, and whose support for John McCain's presidential campaign embarrassed me even more than even John McCain and Sarah Pailn already had.



Whenever I saw Heidi, I struck by how obnoxiously ordinary the woman was. As a connoisseur of women, I can tell you that that I've had about a dozen regular commenters over the years that I would I would step on Heidi's face to have sex with. However, the Goddamned Liberal Media insisted that that she was something other than someone other than a treadmill to run over on my way to more fetching women, which undermined my faith in the human condition itself.



Is that brutal and wrong? Surely it is. But as Donald Rumsfeld said, "it is what it is." To paraphrase the second-longest tenured secretary of defense, you don't think with the penis you want, you think with the penis you have. Am I ashamed of that? Not really, but I encourage your delusion that I'm a better man than I really am.



Then, almost out of the blue, things had changed. Heidi had twelve serious and painful plastic surgeries, which made her among the most fascinating people alive today. Her breaks exploded with a new and wonderful fakeness that couldn't be ignored by any rational man, and her back was scooped in a way that made her previously ordinary ass look delectable. Her rather unfortunate skull remained, but a man can't ask for everything, now can he. All in all, the transformation was a hearty testament to the miracles of modern medicine.



Almost immediately thereafter, Montag petitioned the courts to end her entirely contrived reality show marriage. And then the story broke that her ex-husband is shopping a fuck tape featuring Heidi both before and after her Frankenstein-like transformation. Included for your viewing pleasure is a lesbo tryst with Playboy playmate Karissa Shannon, because if there's one thing everyone should see before we die, it's Heidi Montag eating out a playmate's ass as Spencer Pratt operates the camera, weeping and masturbating furiously.



Heidi is pretending to be outraged at the pending release of the tape, and not doing a particularly good job of it. For that matter, so is Karissa Shannon.



Of course, this is the most contrived scandal in human history, one that's built entirely on a bedrock of lying and other tomfoolery. You see, if you don't want your fuck tape to be sold in the United States, it isn't. Not only is the unauthourized release of such material a serious tort, there are federal criminal laws that cover such an eventuality, as What Would Tyler Durden Do reminds us.



USC 2257 makes it virtually impossible for celebrities to be outraged over the release of their private moments for fun and profit. If you don't sign the release and provide documentation proving your age, your fuck tape never sees the light of day. Period. Steve Hirsch and the folks at Vivid aren't stupid, and probably aren't inclined to spend 10 years in the federal pokey, just so you can see Hedi Montag fucking ... especially before her plastic surgery. Montag's shame, like the rest of her, is entirely manufactured.



Now Heidi is upping ante in her bid to convince me that she's history's greatest monster. She's openly musing about having her transcendental DDD breast implants removed because of some ridiculous desire to "live an everyday life."

This means that she's either deliriously dumb or blindingly dishonest. Women don't get big, fake jugs to live an everyday life, and the assertion that they do is spectacularly silly. They do it so men will love them, which we almost always do. Most people toil, save and sacrifice to buy a house. Huge faux cans is the single most effective way of circumventing that nonsense, all of which is even less fun than it sounds.

An "everyday life", as just about everyone reading this knows, is a giant pain in the ass and best avoided. Having your tight little body surgically enhanced is the perfect way of avoiding that. You and your awesome new cans will enjoy a very nice home for free, and all you'll have to do is get sodomized regularly and occasionally have one of your girlfriends come over to help you polish the knob of the poor bastard that made it all possible. Why in the fuck would Heidi Montag want an "everyday life" when she currently enjoys the perfect life? Her argument is so surreal that it's actually making me dizzy, and just after I got rid of my fainting couch.

Sure, I'm almost certain that she's lying. But there's also the possibility that she isn't. Women do things that confound and anger rational people all the time. Some actually refuse to get giant new jugs or have their friends help them blow me. It's an outrage that I don't think I'll ever understand, but it is what it is.

In that case, I don't think that the government has any option but to deport Heidi Montag to Iran and have her stoned to death. The mullahs might be reluctant to take her, but that's nothing a few hundred grams of weapons-grade uranium can't fix.

Ultimately, that's why you folks read me so regularly. I have all the answers to life's problems.

Twenty Years Ago

Twenty years ago yesterday, the world lost the most remarkable guitar player of my lifetime, the great Stevie Ray Vaughan,, died. Listening to that man play is one of the most fundamentally beautiful things you'll ever hear. If you don't love him, I damn near believe that you're committing a sin.

If you know anything about he guitar, you know just how hard Stevie made it for himself to play as magically as he did. the action - or the height between the strings and the fretboard - of his Stratocasters was remarkably high, and he used the heaviest gauge strings known to man. His guitars were set up in way that no ordinary human could play like that. Most rock guitarists play with very light strings - .009's mostly (Vaughan used .012's) - and incredibly low action.

Most guitarists sacrifice tone for playability, because your fingers are only so strong. In rock n' roll music, speed is generally accepted as being more important than tone and perfect pitch, which isn't true of most genres of music, where guitar is an accompanying - a mostly rhythmic -instrument.

Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar was set up more like a stand up bass, but he played with the speed and melody far surpassing most players who took the convential, easy way of doing things,. But he was better - and better sounding - than anyone other than Eric Clapton. If anything is better than sex, it's listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan play the guitar. Hearing him play is like hearing Ray Charles sing, and that brought tears to my eyes. And to think that he did all of it spaced out on cocaine and whiskey fot 90% career. He was only clean for the last wo years of his life.

On the night he died twenty years ago in a helicopter crash; he played with Clapton, Robert Cray, B.B King and Buddy Guy. I'd seen everybody on that bill at least once - and Buddy Guy's case, five times - but I had never seen Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Throughout the eighties, Vaughan played in Toronto nearly three times a year. And I always had an excuse not to go out and see him for tickect prices that were, compared to today, almost impossibly cheap. The clip posted above is from his first show at Toronto's El Mocambo Club, which I would've gone to, were I not thirteen years old.

I missed seeing magic when I could. You shouldn't. You might never see it again.

If you're curious about why I hate music, look at the videos below, consider what we lost twenty years ago, and haven't come anywhere close to replacing.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was a genius. I don't think we'll see his like again.







One more from the ElMo in TO. If you don't have this video, you should buy it immediately.
There isn't a wasted note in the entire show.

Thanks to, of all people, John Mayer, who plays amazingly like Stevie Ray when he wants to plays at all.

Alan Simpson Doesn't Give a Shit What You Think: The Attack of the 310 Million Tits

I've always loved former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, and for much more than the truly awesome jugs on his great, great, great grand-daughter, Jessica. I love him because he was the funniest senator in recent American history that wasn't Bob Dole.

My main reason for respecting and adoring the man as I do, however, is that he never gave much of a shit what you peons thought about much of anything. There are few higher qualities in a republic than that.

Most people -and Republicans in particular, when Republicans aren't, y'know, in power - forget that the United States is not a democracy, it's a republic. In a republic, you elect representatives to make decisions for you, because you're either too busy or too stupid to make them for yourselves.

Edmund Burke made the point best at his Speech To The Electors Of Bristol At The Conclusion Of The Poll on November 3, 1774 when he said;

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs—and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure—no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Goddamned right! No functional adult can represent the democratic wishes of a people that are incapable of holding a consistent position on Britney Spears from one week to the next, and when devious scumbags like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner suggest that they can, you should know that they're fucking lying.

The American people are, by and large, powerfully ignorant and want mutually exclusive things; like a robust, free-market economy, with a high-tech military and the end of the welfare state, so long as it isn't their welfare that's being ended. A people that want the capability to end life on earth, but don't trust the government to deliver your mail shouldn't be trusted to decide anything at all because they might be dangerously dumb. Or they might think that there are two different governments: one that targets missiles, and one that spends billions of dollars on bridges that service 50 people.

Senator Simpson seemed to always understand that. He appeared to know that if the people thought he went too far astray of his wishes, they'd shitcan him. And they never did. Mostly because he was almost always right about the issues. So he didn't really have care about what his constituents thought about "the issues" on a day-to-day basis.

Now that he's out of office, he cares even less, which makes him immeasurably more fun.

Take his position as co-chairman on President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Friggin' cowardly Republicans like John McCain demanded that Obama appoint one to deal with the debt, but voted it down in the Senate when it looked like its recommendation would have to face an up-or-down vote in Congress without amendments.

Social Security, alongside Medicare and national defense, is one of the three ticking time bombs that is going to fiscally blow the United States up in the very near future. The country can't can't afford any of them at their current rate of growth.

The Pentagon budget is the easiest to downsize. If you reform American foreign policy so that it the United States isn't the final arbiter of every dispute in the world, you don't need a very large army at all. That's what Washington, who knew something about fighting wars, called for in his Farewell Address and the founders were nearly unanimous about. However, if Americans want to police all the world's regions and, say, disarm giant countries like Iran; the military is far, far too small. You need a much bigger budget and a draft for that.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are far more devious, in that they are legislative entitlements. The problem with entitlement programs is that, well, folks think that they're entitled to them, whether the country can afford it or not.

The problem is, as it is with most issues, is demographics. Look at the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. It doesn't matter what Jerusalem is willing to concede, the Arab birth rate eventually solves the problem itself. Sooner or later, the Arabs are so going to demographically overwhelm the Israelis that they'll just have to say "let's vote". and Israel will either have to cede to their demands or cease to be a democracy.

The same is true of American - and most Western - social programs. There are a lot more old people than there used to be, and they have nothing else to do but vote.

When Social Security was created, it was the perfect Ponzi scheme. In 1936, the retirement age was set at 64, but life expectancy was only 62. If you lived to collect benefits, you didn't for very long. Also, there were about a dozen people in the work force for every one collecting benefits. In the very near future there will be fewer than two people in the workforce for every recipient that will be expected to support the largest generation of retirees in human history, mostly because Medicare and Medicaid allows them to live so long.

While we're here, let's discuss the canard that people have actually paid for their Social Security benefits, okay? Even after President Reagan actually doubled the payroll tax to "save" Social Security in 1983, most retirees still receive everything they paid into the system within two years, but live for almost ten beyond retirement. And that was before the Boomers were entitled to their lucre.

As you might have guessed, that's deficit spending, and Social Security is expected to pay out more in benefits than it receives in taxes as soon as 2016. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid combined have $57 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, based on current tax revenue and projected expenditures.

Which is where Al Simpson comes in. As co-chair of the Obama Commission, he's getting oldseters pissing in his cornflakes on a fairly regular basis, mostly by e-mail.

Some crazy bitch from the Older Women's League, which no one has ever heard of, sent Senator Simpson a nasty gram this week that, so far as I know, no one has actually seen. But Simpson's sure was. It reads as follows;

Dear Ms. Carson,

Someone was good enough to forward me your column of “Enough with the Pink Panthers Bit” of April 27,2010.

Some of what you say is true. Much is not – but that’s nothing new about public life for me! I have news for you too, my friend. There may be no group called the Pink Panthers working to protect Social Security but I sure as hell am! I’ve spent many years in public life trying to stabilize that system while people like you babble
into the vapors about “disgusting attempts at ageism and sexism” and all the rest of that crap.

Now hold on tight, because you won’t like what I’m sending you. You may obviously be aware that the Social Security system is “in trouble.” If you don’t agree with that, then there is no need to read any further. But I wish to share with you the presentation by Stephen C. Goss, Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration on May 12, 2010 to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. If you think the statistics on poverty for seniors are alarming – then you need to read this little pamphlet to know what is really alarming.

If we can’t get a handle on this system and make it sustainable and assure long term solvency, and make some changes that are “minor” at the present time and will become “major” as each year passes, then take a look at the chart on Page 6 which I hope you are able to discern if you are any good at reading graphs – or anything that
might challenge your biases and prejudices.

Anyway, have a look at it and if you should choose, you might communicate with me. If you have some better suggestions about how to stabilize Social Security instead of just babbling into the vapors, let me know. And yes, I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know ‘em too. It’s the same with any system in America. We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!

Al,

And you know what? Al is absolutely fucking right!

Don't get me wrong, it started out as a hell of a scam. In 1935, FDR instituted a new payroll tax that would pay a minimum income to citizens over 65. It was a great idea that was made even greater by the fact that American life expectancy at the time was 62. The program was even more popular by the time the baby boomers had fully entered the work force and there were fourteen or so people paying into the system for every person collecting benefits. Soon, there will be fewer than two.

The chief suckler happened to be the federal government itself. Had Social Security been managed properly, the surpluses from the program's first five decades could have been used to pay benefits for at least another generation. But the payroll taxes that were supposed to be funding Social Security instead went into general revenue, where they were spent on the things like wars, tax cuts and all of the other dopey shit that successive American governments have done to stay popular.

But don't worry. Every time Congress raided Social Security, they left a nifty I.O.U, which is practically worthless in the face of a $13 trillion dollar national debt. The sheer size of the United States' debt is going to make Treasury bills almost worthless in the very near future.

Of course, one should never forget that Social Security is the single biggest welfare program in human history. The idea that you "invest" into is a farce when you consider that you collect everything you paid into the system within the first two years of collecting benefits, once you adjust for inflation. That being the case, current seniors are getting about $15, 000 in free government money a year for upwards of twenty years.

Most Republicans, being Republicans, want to give some or all of your Social Security money to Wall Street, which is so mind-alteringly stupid that the idea should be scheduled as a narcotic and outlawed. Wall Street's shenanigans in the fall of 2008 decimated the average 401 (k) plan, in some cases wiping out two-thirds of their value.

The most recent plan, under the second President Bush, said that it would only allow Social Security investment into "preferred" stocks, chosen by Washington. This would even further pervert the stock market, in that it would identify companies that were not only too big to fail, but companies that could not be allowed to fail under any circumstances. Privatizing Social Security is only a good idea if you thought that the Troubled Assest Relief Program and Ben Bernanke's other hi jinks weren't quite extensive enough, because it would someday necessitate bailouts that would dwarf even those.

Given my druthers, I'd abolish Social Security outright. Firstly, because I don't think that government is equipped to be involved in the retirement planning business. Secondly, because the whole program is now such an ungodly fucking fucking mess because democracy was allowed to get involved in it, leaving it broke. However, I understand that that's politically impossible. Anyone who seriously proposed that would immediately become Rodney King, faced with 310 million angry members of the LAPD.

That being the case, there has to be fundamental reform of Social Security, and I think Senator Simpson knows this. That's why his not seeking office is instrumental in actually being serious about it, because no realistic proposal is going to be popular with anybody.

Here are mine;

First, the retirement age is going to have to go up. When FDR passed Social Security, the retirement age was set where your average worker had a pretty good chance of being dead. That's no longer true, and hasn't been for some time. Just raising the retirement age to seventy will probably save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next generation or so.

Second, increase the payroll tax. The current regime was designed for a given number of workers contributing for every recipient, and that's been out of whack for at least twenty years. The Boomers are going to throw it further out of balance, particularly given the outsourcing of middle-class manufacturing jobs over the last thirty years. An increasingly service-oriented economy cannot long sustain a program like Social Security at current contribution levels.

Third, means-test benefits. If you live in, say, Idaho and make a hundred thousand a year, it can be reasonably be expected that you can finance your own retirement. Social Security was initially universal because of the real possibility of class warfare during the Great Depression that no longer exists.

Fourth, lift the cap on taxable income. Social Security's single biggest challenge is revenue, and there's no bigger source of it than incomes over $100,000 a year. Once you get away from the idea that Social Security is an investment, and recognize it for the wealth-redistribution program that it really is, that becomes more politically realistic to do.

Fifth - and probably most important - take the money way from the president and Congress! The "democratic process" that allowed successive administrations and Congresses to piss away the money as it came in is exactly why the system is where it is now. Budget surpluses are politically impossible to maintain in a democracy, especially in the American variety thereof, where the constant and insane demand for tax cuts, social programs, and new and exciting wars eats away money faster than it can be generated.

That will require giving the Social Security Administration complete independence from the political process, much like the Federal Reserve enjoys. It might even be possible to merge Social Security into the Fed, although I'll admit that I haven't really thought out the wisdom of doing that. But I do know that infusing democracy into Social Security money has bankrupted the system, and the illusion of solvency has only been maintained by Treasury bills and the mounting national debt.

I'll be the first one to admit that some of my ideas are ultra-conservative, far to the right of what even Paul Ryan is proposing; and some are uber-liberal. But they all recognize the very demanding laws of mathematics, which is what is demanded in a time of crisis.

I don't know that Senator Simpson would agree with anything that I'm suggesting, and I know that a lobbyist scumbag like Ms. Carson won't agree with any of them. But I do know that only someone as independently-minded and free of retarded dogma as Alan Simpson can do anything like what I'm suggesting.

I hope that he tells more folks to go fuck themselves in the very near future,

What You're Not Hearing About the Latest Rob Ford Polling Data

I'm endlessly entertained by enthusiasm the Canadian "conservative" blogosphere has for Toronto councillor Rob Ford's campaign for mayor. Seriously, I haven't seen less seriousness out of people that I otherwise respect since I've started blogging.

I've maintained from the beginning that Ford's economic ideas are silly enough to almost qualify as Bush economics, which has crippled conservatism in the United States. Moreover, I have a very hard time taking a "law and order" candidate that has been criminally charged four times and convicted twice seriously.

And Ford's 1999 Florida arrest isn't about, as some of my friends will tell you, about "a puff of pot." It's about a foreign national, just a year away from running from office, holding a controlled substance in a foreign country and state which is famous for their tough drug laws. Oh, and then lying about it when asked by a reporter, when almost anyone else on the planet would know that if the reporter asked the question, he must already know the answer.

Ford is either monumentally arrogant, or epically stupid. There really is no third option. And I'm not precluding the idea that he's actually both. I've studied Big Time Politics for most of my life, and I can tell you that it's almost impossible to win an election when you're monumentally arrogant and epically stupid. You might be able to squeak by if you're one or the other, but almost never both.

And I think that a poll that most of my friends are highlighting proves it. If you follow the Canadian conservative blogosphere at all, I'm, pretty sure that you've already seen part of it.

A new poll by Ipsos-Reid commissioned by NewsTalk 1010 and Global News puts Ford at 32%, more than 10% ahead of his nearest rival, former deputy premier George Smitherman, who has 21% of the vote.

The poll was conducted over the weekend, after a week where Ford was battered by his opponents for comments he made on immigration, his previously undisclosed 1999 DUI charge and the integrity commissioner's report slamming him for violating the city's code of conduct by raising funds for his football foundation.

Behind Ford and Smitherman, Sarah Thomson is in third place with 10%.

She's followed by Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone with 9%.

Rocco Rossi is at the bottom of the top five mayoral candidates with just 7%.

The poll indicates a huge number of Torontonians, 21%, are still undecided.

Wow, that sounds prety impressive, huh? If I was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, I'd be touting that poll myself. Having said that, 21% undecided is awfully high. You don't see those kind of numbers in the last two months of very many elections.

But here's the part of the poll that you're not seeing on the blogs.

But media reports indicate while Mayor David Miller isn't seeking a third term, he is polling well.

If Miller were in the race, the poll indicates he would be the frontrunner.

You can see the numbers here. And they're more than a little important to my analysis, which couldn't be more correct.

What out-of-towners need to know is that David Miller has been an unmitigated disaster of a mayor. He couldn't be more wrong about everything if he was actually born that way.

When he announced last September that he wouldn't be running for a third term, he was polling at about 19% approval, which is about three points lower than your average child molester does. After all, pedophiles have candy, video games and all manner of things that bring out the kid in everyone. More scientifically, George W. Bush's polling bottomed out at about 24%, and 16% believe that O.J didn't murder those folks on Brentwood back in 1994.

As of today, a hypothetical Miller reelection campaign beats Ford by about seven points. Seven points in any election is humiliating, but from an a guy who was polling at just 19% eleven months ago? That defies my linguistic skill to properly explain.

When the story leaked last month that John Tory was doing private polling about a possible late entry into the race, pretty much the same thing happened. But Miller? A guy who bottomed out because he couldn't convince one-in-five voters that he wasn't actually a dangerous moron?

In all honesty, I'd be horrified and amazed if Miller came out of nowhere to run again, and I would never vote for him. In no way am I endorsing a return of His Blondness, even though it would definitely derail Ford and maybe save Canadian conservatism.

A lot of my commenters and most other conservative blogs are rallying around Ford - even though they mostly admit that he'd be inconsequential - because of the Toronto's weak mayor's office - at best, and a dangerously embarrassing disaster at worst.

That begs an important question. Toronto represents a third of Ontario's ridings and nearly a tenth of Canada's. That being the case, how does Stephen Harper, Tim Hudak, or pretty much anyone form a governing majority when the governing face of Toronto conservatism is Rob Fucking Ford? How does any serious person intellectually defend that? I couldn't, and wouldn't even try to.

Ford is being categorically, bestially beaten by two guys who aren't running. I could understand him losing to one center-right candidate who has twice ruled out running, but losing by seven points to the admitted socialist who is most commonly known as "The Problem?"

There's only one way to explain that; Rob's support is a mile wide and an inch deep ... if that.

The Least Shocking Story Ever: Payola Hits the Blogosphere

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that no one in big time politics or journalism would come near me with a ten-foot pole, let alone give me money to write posts favourable to them. This is because I'm not what you would call a "people person", and I rarely write "favorably" about much of anything. Besides, you folks seem to enjoy my bile.

Oh, and there's all the writing I do about pussy. "Serious People" tend to be turned off by that, although I do know that I'm read in various parliamentary offices and at least one major newsroom. Probably primarily for the pussy stuff. God knows that I never see my political views reflected anywhere outside of my own blog, although Skippy-san at Far East Cynic comes very close.

Look, I know exactly how to go about becoming a gigantic political blogger. It really isn't that hard, if any of you are interested.

Firstly, you pick a side and you stick with it; regardless of your personal feelings, or what you can physical feel is wrong, stupid, or actually repulsive. You never criticize your own team. You do, however, go after the other team relentlessly, no matter how boneheaded, wrong, hypocritical or immoral those attacks might be.

Secondly, you build a theme and stick with it. Just like in politics, never deviate from the main message. Coordination with other bloggers and "wired-in" party people is always helpful in that regard. Once you join a "pack", bigger bloggers in the pack will start to link to you, until you eventually become a bigger blogger yourself.

Third, you never write about anything other than politics. Sure, there are a couple of exceptions to this, but they tend to prove the rule. Dan Riehl made his name with missing blondes, and the Ace of Spades HQ is pretty much the spiritual father of my blogging style. But he's nowhere near as graphic as I am, nor should he be.

If you want to be a big blogger, look at what I do, and do the exact opposite. You should be just fine, although there is a certain amount of soul-selling involved. I'm not going to lie to you about that. But you just might make yourself some money. Not a lot, but some.

Okay, some more than others.

Katie Couric once described bloggers as journalists who gnaw at new information “like piranhas in a pool.” But increasingly, many bloggers are also secretly feeding on cash from political campaigns, in a form of partisan payola that erases the line between journalism and paid endorsement.

“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.”

In California, where former eBay executive Meg Whitman beat businessman Steve Poizner in a bitterly fought primary battle in the campaign for governor, it sometimes seemed as if there was a bidding war for bloggers.

One pro-Poizner blogger, Aaron Park, was discovered to be a paid consultant to the Poizner campaign while writing for Red County, a conservative blog about California politics. Red County founder Chip Hanlon threw Park off the site upon discovering his affiliation, which had not been disclosed.

Poizner’s campaign was shocked to learn of the arrangement, apparently coordinated by an off-the-reservation consultant. For Park, though, it was business as usual. In November 2009, for instance, he approached the campaign of another California office-seeker — Chuck DeVore, who was then running for Senate — with an offer to blog for money.

“I can be retained at a quite reasonable rate or for ‘projects,’” Park wrote in an e-mail to campaign officials. In an interview, Park defended himself by claiming, “nobody has any doubt which candidates I’m supporting,” and noting that his blog specifies which candidates he “endorses.”

But while Red County’s Hanlon expressed outrage at Park’s pay-for-blogging scheme, questions arose about his own editorial independence when it emerged that Red County itself had been taking money from the Whitman campaign.

In December of 2009, Red County received $20,000 from the Meg Whitman campaign, which has sent the site $15,000 a month since then.

The money is ostensibly for advertising, yet by conventional measures the numbers don’t add up. According to Quantcast, Red County reaches around 125,000 unique viewers per month. Two new media industry experts confirmed that, given such a readership, Whitman’s ad purchase is “ridiculously” expensive, surpassing the going market rate for such ads by 1,000 percent or more.

Oh. Who knew? Okay, I did, although I had no idea that it was actually that widespread. But I have heard things over the last few years that made this among the most unsurprising stories I've commented on in a long time.

I sort of doubt that those kind of ad payoffs occur in Canada very much. I think that my country's bloggers - in every political party - are paid directly and in secret, if only because the U.S has far stricter campaign finance laws and reporting requirements. Canada's a political backwater, which means that you can get away with quite a bit more. Maybe the funniest story I know of is a Canadian blogger who was paid by an American lobbying company to write about U.S elections.

Would I do it? If you've read me for any length of time, I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. I already have a job that I utterly despise, and I don't think that I could tolerate another one. If I could survive a week essentially taking dictation from some party hack, I'd be surprised.

I routinely write 1,500 word posts because I want you to know what I think and why I think it. Could I secretly do that on behalf of somebody else? Probably, but I don't want to. I do this because it's fun for me and it sharpens my own thinking. The second it stops doing either is when I stop doing it entirely. And I'm tempted to quit a lot already. There are days when this is a giant pain in the ass, and those days are a lot more frequent than they used to be.

Although there aren't a lot of you out there reading this, I get the feeling that most of you actually trust me, even if you don't often agree with me. And more than a few of you have said exceptionally nice things about me in public when you didn't have to.

I primarily do this for myself, but I also do it for the people who have been here for months or years. I've made friends doing it, and it's also gotten me laid plenty. I don't think that I could trade that in for a paycheque, especially if that meant having my fun thing taken away from me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not condeming anyone who actually does do pay-for-play blogging. They have bills to pay, just like everybody else. If you can make a living sitting at your home computer in your frilly unmentionables, more power to you.

But I like the independence of doing this for fun. And it wouldn't be fun without that independence. That's why I've never had a PayPal button or taken advertising or asked for much of anything from you, other than solicited for a few charities that I felt strongly about. Yes, my girlfriend added an Amazon widget on the blog this weekend that I hope you make your purchases through because I would at least like all of this work to get me a free book from time to time.

Anyhow, those are my two cents. Now go buy a book.

How Rob Ford Hurts Conservatism

Hardly a day goes by now without the Toronto mayoral candidate embarrassing himself and everyone around him. All things being equal, that's perhaps the only interesting aspect of the campaign to replace David Miller's titanic reign of error. I'd be lying to you if I said that I wasn't enjoying watching the spectacle. Moreover, I love that everything I predict about him proves to be true within days or weeks. It makes me look smart and therefore, deeply sexy.

A number of my commenters and bloggers that I'm friendly with are supporters of Rob Ford's, although I have no idea why. I'm of the opinion that he can't win and, in the unlikely event that he did, he would set back the conservative cause in this city by decades.

Most of my commenters and friends have said that the story of Ford's Florida arrest, which he initially denied, is really no big deal. That might be the most dishonest thing that I've ever heard. If a more liberal candidate, like George Smitherman or Joe Pantalone, had Mr. Ford's criminal history and lied about it, I'm sure that they would consider it a very big deal, indeed. The idea of a "law and order" candidate with an arrest record like his is nothing short of laughable.

And it's going to hurt, if history is indication.

Some of you might remember the 2000 presidential election in the U.S. As that campaign entered it's final weekend, George W. Bush was leading Al Gore by three or four points. Then, on the last Friday afternoon of the campaign, a Democratic operative in Maine revealed that Bush had been arrested for drunk driving in Kennebunkport in 1976.

Bush ended up losing the popular vote by half a million ballots, dropping a four point lead in as many days. Had the Bush's arrest report been leaked earlier in the week, the Florida recount would almost certainly have been unnecessary and Al Gore would have been president.

Yes, I know that Rob Ford leading in the polls by as many as nine points. As I've said before, I don't place much stock in those polls. I certainly believe that they're accurate, but I don't think that they indicate anything other than a widespread disgust with the options presented before us.

We're also still more than two months away from Election Day, and I don't think that Ford's parade of humiliating revelations is anywhere near finished. I'm sure that he'll unleash at least three new scandals before this is over, mostly because he hasn't disappointed me so far. As people get nearer to making their final decision, I predict that the majority will settle on someone other than Mr. Ford.

But what if I'm wrong? It doesn't happen very often on political matters, but I'm not entirely discounting the possibility that it could. What happens if Rob Ford actually defies the laws of both politics and logic, and becomes the next mayor of Toronto?

I think that it will be disastrous to the city's gradual move to the center, let alone the center-right.

Toronto is a very, very liberal city. Think San Francisco squared, and you have a pretty good idea where this town is politically. But after decades of high spending and fiscal mismanagement, the municipal electorate is shifting ever rightward, if only on economics. That frustration is largely responsible for why Ford is the frontrunner right now. Even otherwise liberal candidates, like Smitherman and Rocco Rossi, are running as "fiscal conservatives. "

However, Mr. Ford would be to this city's emerging conservative movement what President Bush was to it's broader American counterpart.

In 2000, the GOP had decided advantages on precisely two issues: taxation and national security, but Bush didn't win on them. Instead, he won by poaching traditionally Democratic issues, such as health care and education. Republicans like to pretend otherwise, but Bush actually campaigned on things like No Child Left Behind, the Patients Bill of Rights and Medicare Part D, all of which constituted truly terrifying levels of spending.

The problem was that Bush remained committed to an supply-side economic nightmare in the face of all of his new spending. He pushed for, passed, and signed trillions of dollars in tax cuts as he doubled department budgets, the effects of which were compounded by the two wars his administration prosecuted in the wake of 9/11. The resulting deceits were far and away the highest in American history.

In his last year in office, President Bush passed a stimulus plan of his own: a $152 billion tax refund and increases in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac guarantees. On top of that, he actively worked to pass the $700 billion TARP bill (which cost nearly as much as President Obama's 2009 stimulus bill) and pushed the Federal Reserve to guarantee untold trillions in private financial sector debt.

I don't think that very much of the Obama agenda would be politically possible without the precedent of Bush's fiscal irresponsibility to fall back. Bush, after all, made the truly awesome spending of the Reagan era seem quaint, and that laid the political groundwork for the Obama administration's spending.

By 2006, the Republican Party's reputation on both national security and fiscal responsibility were in tatters, but they also made traditionally liberal spending in education and health care more politically centrist. By doing that, they essentially invited Democratic majorities in Congress and practically invented the raison d'etre of the Obama candidacy. Barack Obama, the most liberal president in American history, was made possible by the Republican mainstreaming of liberal spending and budgetary practices.

An even cursory look at Rob Ford's platform shows that he's essentially a Bush Republican. He barely cuts a nickle for every dollar in his promised new spending in police, transportation and social services.

Although his website doesn't say so, Ford has promised massive subway expansion that even he acknowledges that he can't pay for, and knows that the federal and provincial governments won't subsidize. He proposes to get around this by having the city give away "air rights" to the ground above the proposed lines to condominium developers.

The only problem with that is the ground above the non-existent subways lines is already owned by businesses and home-owners, not the city. Although he doesn't say so, the Ford plan would involve invoking eminent domain on a scale that would cost more than the subways themselves. Given fair market property values in Toronto, that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Moreover, the city would have to spend tens of billions of dollars more in road, sewer and hydro development to service those condos.

Ford is also advocating giant cuts in services in taxes and fees, which would subsequently deprive the city of a fortune in revenue. He thinks that this can be paid for by cutting the number of city councillors; and cutting back on gardening at Nathan Phillips Square, which costs about 70 grand a year. Cutting city council, which city council would never vote to do, might save a few million dollars a year if it were passed, which it won't be.

Cutting in half the number of council seats, and the office budgets of councillors would have consequences that would tend to benefit people like Ford at the expense of everyone else. It would create far larger wards that would be incredibly more expensive to run in. Since current municipal and provincal campaign finance laws make it almost impossible for candidates to receive donations from corporations or unions, only independently wealthy candidates - like Rob Ford - would be able to run. And once elected, you would have to have a lot of Daddy's money just to meet your office expenses.

By the way, it is almost certain that Ford's brother, Doug, is going to run for Rob's seat. Is that one of the wards that can be expected to be dissolved? Somehow, I don't think it will be.

Almost all of Rob Ford's proposals are a better indication that he drinks too much than even his drunk driving arrest and his unfortunate confrontation at the Air Canada Centre in 2006 do. This guy just isn't serious, and everyone with a passing acquaintance with mathematics should already know that.

In the unlikely event that Ford gets elected and manages to enact his platform, he'll bankrupt the city of Toronto in about twenty minutes. And there is virtually no political appetite for anyone who lives outside of area code 416 to bail us out. If he does what he says that he's going to do, we're screwed.

Rob Ford's failure as a mayor will have disastrous consequences for this city's emerging conservative plurality. Just as the failure of Bush Republicanism made Nancy Pelosi speaker and Barack Obama president, a Ford catastrophe will elect a mayor and city council far to the left to the one that we have now under David Miller.

Toronto is facing ruinous challenges, mostly arising from the fact that it is populated by about three times as many people than it was designed to handle. Ford is right about that. But cutting taxes and increasing spending isn't going to address any of those problems. Instead, it will just destroy the budget in ways that I can't even comprehend, and I've given it some thought.

He will, however, ruin conservatism in this city for a least a generation, and maybe forever. Rob Ford is going to utterly discredit an otherwise fine governing philiosphy because he's nothing approaching serious about much of anything.

The "N-Word", Retards and Rights

I think I've used the fabled "N-word" maybe three times in my seven and a half years of blogging, and always while quoting someone else in a way that the use of the word couldn't be avoided. I could be wrong about that, but I seriously doubt it.

It's just not a word a cotton to because I know what the word means and what it was designed to do, which is to dehumanize black folks. I also know that if I was black and heard a bunch of white people throwing that word around, I'd give serious thought to beheading a few of them.

The fact that blacks use the word in conversation among themselves and in popular entertainment is beside the point. The history of the word and white people's usage of it suggests that no good can come of us saying it. And remember, I'm a guy who uses words like "cocksucker" and "motherfucker" as often as I can, if only because I find them to be comforting.

Having used that word only very sparingly in my life, I was actually kind of impressed that Dr. Laura Schlessinger managed to use it eleven times in five minutes on her dopey radio show last week. I didn't think that it was grammatically possible to use it so many times and still form coherent sentences.

After the wholly predictable outrage from everyone who isn't actually a moron, Dr. Schlessinger - whose degree really only qualifies her to be a gym teacher - arose from her fainting couch and declared to Larry King that she was quitting her show.

"The reason is I want to regain my first amendment rights. I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, and attack sponsors.

I consider myself something of a student of the U.S Constitution, and I can honestly tell you that I've never seen an enumerated right entitling one to a nationally syndicated radio show. That's because there isn't one. Radio, as you may know, is broadcast over public airwaves, with licenses to use them granted by the federal government.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled - most famously in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) - that the government can regulate content without violating the First Amendment. And that's something that people like Dr. Laura regularly applaud when Bono says "fuck" at the Golden Globes.

The First Amendment begins with the words "Congress shall make no law." Since Congress hasn't passed any legislation regarding Dr. Laura's unfortunate tirade, the First Amendment is inapplicable, as any halfway honest high school senior would admit. I should think that very few of you could go to work, use the "n-word" nearly a dozen times in five minutes, and still expect to be employed at the end of the day.

Everything in the preceding three paragraphs should sound familiar to Republican and conservative bloggers and commentators, since they are precisely the arguments that they deploy whenever Janet Jackson's titty pops out during the Super Bowl. I was honestly unaware of the "One of Us" exception to that argument until this week. I had no idea that alleged conservatives could say whatever they wanted without employment or social consequences. It turns out that I didn't understand that "coarsening the culture" is something that only liberals do.

Here's a thought that I'm sure hasn't occurred to many Republicans, if you believe that a word coarsens the culture, and you use it eleven times in five minutes, you're coarsening the culture, too.

Which is where Sarah Palin comes in, determined to prove that she's even more ignorant or dishonest than I had previously thought. First, she took to her Twitter account and declared that;

Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America!

Palin had also implored Schlessinger, "Don't retreat, reload"; which I assume to mean that the former governor knows that there are any number of racial slurs out there yet to be broadcast.

That left most observers understandably confused. Should America really "b thankful 4" a voice that uses the "N-word" 11 times in five minutes? Also, when did Palin start spelling like Prince?

Fortunately, clarification was on the way, via Sarah's government-in-exile Facebook page. Unfortunately, what she wrote there was some of the most logically incomprehensible jibberish in the History of the English Speaking Peoples.

Does anyone seriously believe that Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a racist? Anyone, I mean, who isn’t already accusing all conservatives, Republicans, Tea Party Americans, etc., etc., etc. of being racists?

Adversaries who have been trying to silence Dr. Laura for years seized on her recent use of the n-word on her show as she subsequently suggested that rap “artists” and other creative types like those producing HBO shows who regularly use the n-word could be questioned for doing so. Her intention in discussing the issue with a caller seeking advice was not to be hateful or bigoted. Though she did not mean to insult the caller, she did, and she apologized for it. Still, those who oppose her seized upon her mistake in using the word (though she didn’t call anyone the derogatory term) to paint her as something that she’s not. I can understand how she could feel “shackled” by those who would parse a single word out of decades of on-air commentary. I understand what she meant when she declared that she was “taking back my First Amendment rights” by turning to a new venue that will not allow others the ability to silence her by going after her stations, sponsors, and supporters.

I'm not at all sure that whether Dr. Laura or not is a racist is even relevant. If you're going to be one of those politicians or commentators that bemoans "the coarsening of the culture," it behoves you to admit that using a word like Schlessinger used doesn't help your cause. It would also be helpful to admit that this decided lack of outrage wouldn't exist if it were, say, Keith Olbermann who used Dr. Laura's exact words.

I also love the line of defense employed by both Palin and the mouth-breathing Republican blogosphere. Since Schlessinger didn't call anyone specific the "n-word", it's okay. Is that the new standard in the so-called "culture wars?" I really want to be clear on this. If Ice T starts a show called "The Bitches and Hos Hour"- but leaves the bitches and hos in question nameless - will we be spared the fake outrage of Laura Schlessinger, Sarah Palin and every Republican blogger on the goddamned planet?

All I'm asking for is just a little intellectual consistency, which seems to be in short supply wherever Governor Palin comes from. After all, this is the same woman who demanded White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's firing for using the word retard in a private conversation.

Dr. Laura did not call anyone or any group of people the n-word. Curiously, the same criers over this issue didn’t utter a word when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel called a group protesting the Obama Administration’s actions, “f***ing retards.” When this presidential spokesman uttered this term I commented that the President would be better off not including Emmanuel in his circle of advisers, and my opinion was based not just on the crude and disrespectful term Emmanuel used to label people, but because he too often gives the President very poor advice. I was called intolerant and narrow-minded by many on the Left for commenting on that issue. Many of these same Leftists are now spinning the Dr. Laura issue into something it is not. As usual, their hypocrisy and double standard applications are glaring.

"Hypocrisy and double standard applications" are important to Palin, particularly since she employs them so often herself. Remember, the Emanuel quote printed by the Washington Post was from a private conversation and the source was unattributed. Less than a week later, Rush Limbaugh used the word "retard" prominently on his nationally broadcast radio show, and that was excused by Palin as "satire."

Hey, it's the "One of Us exception" again! Am I the only one that's starting to see a pattern here?

Rob Ford Gets Arrested a Lot, Is Forgetful

Remember all those times that I've said that Toronto mayoral hopeful Rob Ford can't get out of bed in the morning without tripping over his own dick? Remember how I also said that by Election Day in October, he'd probably humiliate himself about fourteen times?

I'm pretty good, huh?

Okay, maybe I'm not all that great. But I am a student of the human condition, and Ford is the most predictable of characters. He's a fat kid who was handed a ton of money and a political career by his daddy and consequently thinks that he's a gorgeous, self-made man who's earned everything he's got. People like that tend to embarrass themselves with some regularity because they have no idea how life really works.

Well, it's been an eventful week in the Decline and Fall of Rob Ford.

It started out innocently enough, with the candidate opining that Toronto could really do without any more immigrants. Which, when you think about it, is an odd position, considering that immigration is a wholly federal responsibility. Furthermore, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants mobility rights to anyone in the country, meaning that you can't exclude them from a given province, territory or city. Even if they're "working like dogs" to "take over."

That's not to say that he's necessarily wrong. This city was never designed to handle the number of people who live here. Toronto is decades behind in infrastructure investment. But when he suggests that limiting immigration is the answer, he's proving that he's either running for the wrong office, or that he might be a moron. When you hear statements like Ford's, take them for what they are: populist nonsense from someone who never had to bother learning anything about anything.

That would constitute an awful week for most politicians, but not our Rob. Oh, no. He had to pony up to a foreign arrest that he had previously denied.

When asked by reporters from the Toronto Sun if he had been criminally charged in Florida, Ford vehemently denied the possibility: “No, to answer your question. I’m dead serious. When I say ‘no’ I mean never. No question. Now I’m getting offended. No means no.”

Only after concrete evidence in the form of court records was produced did the city councilor admit he had been convicted of drunk driving, as well as a conviction for assault when he was 18.

His past convictions in and of themselves are no reason to withdraw from politics, but two things make them deeply troubling.

Wait a second. What the fuck? Let's all hold hands and read that last sentence together, shall we?

His past convictions in and of themselves are no reason to withdraw from politics, but two things make them deeply troubling.

That's how I know that I'm getting old. I actually remember a time when there were few better reasons to withdraw from politics than a criminal conviction. And Ford's got two of them! Jesus Creeping God, that Rob's lucky that Toronto is the liberal place that it is. Where else would you read that sentence, outside of the official media of a revolutionary republic in the Middle East or Africa?

But let's continue with Andrew Steele at the Globe and Mail has to say. I'll bet that it's funny.

The first is the pattern of poor judgment Mr. Ford has shown again and again.

From demanding Toronto bar immigrants fleeing violent persecution to his confrontations with reporters, Ford’s knee-jerk responses to every situation make Sarah Palin look like Mahatma Gandhi.

The second is Ford’s repeated habit of denying the truth when confronted.

In 2006, the city councilor dismissed allegations he got drunk at a Maple Leafs game and verbally abused a Durham couple before being escorted out by security. Only after reporters began digging did Ford change his story and admit the truth.

Once is a mistake. Twice is a habit. Mr. Ford’s habit is to lie when confronted with an unfortunate fact.

Mr. Steele just hasn't been paying attention has he? Ford's entire campaign is a lie in the face of unfortunate facts. He's actually promising to cut taxes and fees, while broadly increasing investment and social spending by billions of dollars, which is weaponized nonsense. Anyone who votes for a platform like that is guilty of wishful thinking and a profound ignorance of mathematics, at best.

No, the most troubling thing about Rob Ford's criminal history - other than the fact that it is exists at all - is that he had to call a press conference yesterday morning and state that he had been arrested and charged three times. Which, when you come to think of it, is twice more than Paul Bernardo was.

And his explanation about initially denying the marijuana charge strains even the credulity of the fully retarded.

The Etobicoke councillor summoned reporters to the offices of his family business at 9 a.m. Thursday to explain a local newspaper story that said Mr. Ford beat the marijuana possession charge -- something he initially denied to the newspaper.

“I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it right now,” he is quoted as saying in the Toronto Sun. “You think I’m BSing you but I’m not. It completely, totally slipped my mind.”

That's right, he forgot. Simple mistake, right? Happens to the best of us. No BSing to be found at Ford for Mayor, by Gum!

Not exactly. You and I have seen Midnight Express, and you can bet your ass that Rob has, too. Getting arrested in a foreign country for drugs is not something that a traditional gentleman tends to "forget." That's the kind of experience that rational adults tend to respond to by becoming pants-shittingly scared in ways that change your life.

And in Florida? Those crazed bastards will jail you for centuries just because your lawn isn't cut short enough. Nobody suffered a prison gang-rape in Midnight Express, but those kind of high-jinks go on all the time in the Florida penal system. I'm reasonably certain that that's the first thing you think of when you see those cop-lights and you're holding weed.

What kind of a fucking life have you been leading if getting busted with dope in Florida "slipped your mind"? More importantly, can I be your friend? It sounds like you really know how to have a good time. Come to think of it, why didn't Rob just send Dieter Doneit-Henderson to Miami back in June?

Of course, I'm sure that any number of the Ford faithful are going to write this up as a "youthful indiscretion." But in 1999, Ford was thirty years old and was but a year away from winning his seat on Toronto City Council.

You know how many times I had been arrested for drunk driving and drug possession in Florida and assault at home by the time I was thirty? None is how fucking many! And if I had been, I sure as hell wouldn't have the balls to run for office less than a year later. the most obscene part is that I actually have to go through an Ontario Provincial Police criminal background check each and every year to hold my job. Moreover, I get to pay eighty bucks out of my own pocket for the privilege .

Personally, my favorite part of the press conference was his stressing that he "does not have a criminal record." Somehow, "Three Arrests, Four Charges, No Criminal Record" strikes me as a less than ideal campaign slogan, although it would look fantastic on a bumper sticker.

Don't worry, though. The Ford campaign has a really solid rehabilitation strategy to overcome this. They're going to stop talking to the Toronto Star. Which is a brilliant idea, when you think about it. The Star isn't just the highest circulation newspaper in the city that Rob wants to lead, it's the highest circulation paper in the entire country. And Canada has two national newspapers. But that's okay, I'm sure that the Star won't be too vindictive.

Ordinarily, cutting off a news outlet's access to a campaign isn't smart because it denies you the opportunity to respond to stories in the pipeline, or to get your spin in those stories before they're published. The current Ford strategy is such a horrible mistake that I can't remember of the last time a successful politician actually did it. Worse, making public declaration that the paper is cut off gives said paper the excuse to not even seek a comment on the story, which in itself is a heads-up that the story is coming.

And that's very bad when all of the worst things that have been said about a candidate have a nasty history of being proven true. That's very, very bad.

The best part is that Ford is too arrogant and too stupid to get out of the mayoral race now, and maybe save his council seat. That means that it'll only be a couple of days before the Star runs a story about a dozen hookers buried in Rob's yard; which he'll initially deny, before holding a press conference to admit that it was only nine whores, and that he killed them in self-defense. If we're really lucky, he'll close by saying "Vote Quimby!"

I almost hate to admit it, but Rob Ford is a dream come true to a fatalist like me. I might just vote for him, after all.