It turns out that Hitler didn’t, contra wingnut lore, charm his way to power with dazzling speeches. I’m not sure if I am going to believe these excellent pieces of facts and evidence until I have a chance to cross-reference them with Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.
Excellent Links
Two More Quick Takes
Greg Sargent seems to be at odds with his paper:
A number of readers have asked me for my reaction to the resignation of Dave Weigel, who until today was the author of the blog Right Now, which covered the conservative movement for The Post. And since the liberal blogosphere, which is one of the subjects of my blog, is strongly criticizing the Post over this, I thought I should say something.
To me, the core question is this: Did The Post ask or pressure Weigel to resign?
If so, it would mean the paper was caving to conservative pressure to remove him, for offenses that are arguably less serious than ones committed by other media figures who continue to enjoy employment throughout the industry. For those who haven’t followed the controversy, Weigel was caught disparaging prominent members of the movement he covers in private e-mails.
Here’s the comment that Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti is giving to me and other reporters: “Dave offered his resignation and we accepted it.”
The fact that they accepted it says everything you need to know about the Washington Post. Marc Ambinder:
Weigel is best described as an anti-denialist. He hates stupid people and stupid human tricks and stupid political consultants. He’s developed a natural rapport with conservatives because he says what he thinks. I was a member of the now defunct Journolist group. I’m also a voracious consumer of Dave Weigel’s tweets. And I can tell you that nothing he wrote on the list was more outre than what he Tweeted.
Hating stupid people is probably not a good thing if you work for Fred Hiatt.
BTW- a word of praise where it is due- I think Ambinder has been pumping out some really solid and interesting stuff lately. His pieces have been interesting and at times perceptive, and worth a read. Anyone else noticed this, or am I getting too much sun again this summer?
You Know Who Else Ran a Nation and Liked Dogs?
Cute piece in the Washington Post with a 36 picture spread about all the dogs our Congressmen take to work. There is a dog named Maya who looks a lot like Lily in there, although my favorite picture is Kent Conrand in the elevator carrying his pup.
Speaking of dogs, it appears that as long as I have Rosie, my days of sleeping in past 6 are over. Looks like I am going to have to crate train her or I will never get to sleep in again (although I usually wake up around 6:30 to 7 anyway).
Also, I have noticed a distinct difference in the attitudes of Lily and Rosie. Lily is content to just spend time near me. Rosie, on the other hand, has very firm ideas about how I should be spending my time. Not surprisingly, they all involve her. Since I found her the other day, I don’t recall her being more than three feet away from me. I also had forgotten about the intensity of a Jack Russell stare, which can bore through human flesh. “Why aren’t we doing fun things? Why aren’t we doing fun things? Why aren’t we doing fun things? Why aren’t we doing fun things?” I’m so screwed.
Also, amusingly, someone is too pudgy to jump up on the bed. It is about 3 feet off the ground, and Lily can stand at the base and jump up no problem, but Rosie has to get a running start and barely makes it. What this means is that if I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I have to turn the light on and pick Rosie up and put her back in bed before I can go back to sleep, since she inevitably jumped down thinking I was going to do something fascinating like throw a ball or hand out treats or go for a walk.
You Know Who Else Ran a Nation and Liked Dogs?Post + Comments (68)
Early Morning Open Thread
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Because “All pet posts, all the time” is beginning to sound better and better…
Have I mentioned recently that I really really love GoComics.com? For $12 a year, I get to read Rubes and Ballard Street and Doonesbury and Non Sequitor every morning, as well as some of my favorite editorial cartoonists (Danziger, Rall, Toles), and I never run the risk of accidentally stumbling over a Mallard Fillmore strip to spoil the mood. Web life self-segregation, fvck yeah!
At least we’re supposed to get some sun this weekend. We’ve had exactly 3 sunny days in the entire month of June, and my tomatoes are lush with blossoms but they won’t set fruit. How do your gardens grow?
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The Oil Drum
If you’re looking for a more detailed discussion of BP’s oil collection plans, or an explanation of why flow may be increasing as more oil comes up the well (due to erosion), the Oil Drum is the only place I’ve found with that kind of detail.
They also do good analysis. For example, this report on renewable energy includes this graph of the world’s energy production, by source, for the last 20 40 years (click to enlarge).
That red arrow is pointing to the almost invisible line showing the contribution that wind, solar and geothermal make to overall energy production.
On the Other Hand, I’d Pay to See This
One final note, I’ve seen a lot of Tea Party folks taking exception to the charge that they are in anyway motivated by racism. Fair enough. I would humbly suggest that when you embrace political leaders who claim that the president “favors the black person,” or when your keynote speaker claims that “literacy tests” would have prevented an Obama election, you should not be surprised that your membership comes to the mall toting signs that claim Obama is supporting “White slavery.”
I would pay cash money to watch TNC debate Welch, Gillespie, and the rest of the pasty white apologists at Reason barfing up lengthy pieces about how unfair it is to call the teabaggers racist.
Why Is This Not Obvious?
Larison dissects some more idiotic analysis of Turkey’s reaction to the flotilla:
More recently, the strong reaction in Turkey to the Israeli interception of a convoy organized by Turkish groups with aid for Gaza underlines the possibility that Turkey is moving decisively away from its longtime partnership with the United States. ~Walter Russell Mead
It seems fair to say that Mead has completely misread the situation. Why has there been a “strong reaction” to the raid on the aid flotilla? It isn’t because Turkey is “moving decisively away from its longtime partnership with the United States,” and it isn’t even because the AKP government is bent on undermining the relationship with Israel. There has been a strong reaction because eight Turkish citizens were killed on a Turkish-flagged civilian ship in international waters by the armed forces of its ostensible ally while on a basically peaceful aid mission. Name me a government that would not have a strong reaction to such an episode. For that matter, the aid mission was an effort to breach an inhumane blockade that probably cannot be legally justified. If partnering with the U.S. means ignoring gross, violent provocations against its citizens, no democratic government in the world would be able to maintain such a partnership for very long.
The contortions we have to go through to justify what can not be justified is just insane. Turkey isn’t acting irrationally- she just had a bunch of her civilians killed by an ally who refuses to apologize, refuses to investigate, and is now leading a PR effort to trash them. This isn’t rocket surgery.
Although I can name one government that would not have a strong reaction to her citizens being killed or having their eyes shot out by canisters of tear gas. The United States. We’re totally cool with it. They had it coming. I bet they even had granite countertops.