I had long since poured malt liquor on the ground in remembrance of Old Man Murray, the scathingly funny videogames website which pulled all of its content from the web about a year ago. But they're back!

With no new content! But I can read the old stuff again!

The Lighter Side of... The Corner

I was just watching "The Great Muppet Caper" (last day of the semester) and discovered an overlooked moment of Muppet insight. The gang have just caught jewel thief Charles Grodin red-handed and sweet, earnest Kermit asks, "Why did you do it?" Grodin shrugs and says, "Because I'm a villain." Plain and simple, no "root cause" nonsense. I'll remember that line every time someone tries to tell me we should be more concerned about why "they" hate us.

via alicublog. Giggle!

UPDATE: I'm sorry, it's hypocritical to make fun, considering that I've taken my position on human cloning from the "Arise, Serpentor, Arise" GI Joe miniseries. It is my firm opinion that onsssse, I wassss a man. Sssss.*

* This is one of the rare positions on which Karl Rove and I are in complete agreement.

Jim Henley:

If your overriding priority were to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet as fast as possible - the US plans to use the money to fun Iraqi reconstruction - the logical thing would be to turn to the people who best know Iraq's physical plant and systems, the Iraqis themselves (check) and . . . the French, Russian and Chinese companies who were already doing business in Iraq and know its infrastructure.

But if you put a higher priority on punishing France, Russia and China (and possibly rewarding your own industries), you wouldn't. And that's where we are - making decisions on Iraq's key revenue source for it, based on the imperatives of American geopolitics rather than what makes sense for Iraq economically. And that's about as pure an example of "imperialism" as you'll find.

Republicans, who pride themselves on being frugal with taxpayers' money, were bigger spenders than Democrats in state legislatures over the past five years, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

State legislatures controlled by Republicans increased spending an average of 6.54% per year from 1997 to 2002, compared with 6.17% for legislatures run by Democrats. State spending rose slowest -- 6% annually -- when legislatures were split, and each party controlled one chamber. Inflation averaged 2.55% annually 1997-2002.

Link. We can't say this enough: IF YOU WANT SMALL GOVERNMENT, DON'T VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN.

Via Daily Kos and CalPundit.

Max is at his best talking about the tax cuts that are going into committee, here and here. They're a pretty easy target; it's not like anyone can defend them with a straight face. (See Jacob Levy, "Worst. Tax cut. Ever.", or Bruce Bartlett, "It is not at all clear what this victory accomplishes except to allow some White Houses staffers to keep their jobs.") Still, he hits some body blows.

It's well known that the cost of the bill is obscured by multiple phase-ins and phase-outs, even ones, as noted in the previous post, that defeat the purpose of the bill. It is worth noting that the family-oriented tax cuts -- the Child Tax Credit and the marriage penalty fix -- phase out after 2006, while the rate decreases for very high income persons do not. The priorities are clear.

and

The aim of Republicans is to boost investment, capital formation, and long-term economic growth. That's their story, anyway. No little disbelief attaches to the idea that lower taxes on dividends will be helpful in this endeavor. Let's make believe this is true too. So why does the Senate bill a) delay the full dividend exclusion a year; b) provide a disincentive for firms to buy plant and equipment; and c) phase out after three years?

(b) requires a bit of explanation. Under present law, a firm that uses a dollar of profits to buy plant and equipment pays tax on this dollar (after taking out whatever it can depreciate for that year). There is some capital gain to owners of the firm, itself benefitting from lighter tax treatment. If the same firm uses the dollar to pay dividends, it is taxable to individuals. If the latter tax is now reduced or eliminated, there is less incentive for the firm than before to buy plant and equipment. This raises the question you hear from some Wall Street types, "Why should I buy stock in a firm that has no good use for its own money?"

(my emphasis)

You can't say I never said anything nice about the Bush Administration: Flat Stanley's White House Visit is pretty freakin' adorable.








If the images don't work, I blame Blogger, or possibly affirmative action.

NewsMax is selling a deck of cards that represents Saddam's "Deck of Weasels."

You’ll laugh out loud looking at the faces of the world’s greatest weasels – each wearing the beret of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard – now dubbed "Saddam’s Weasel Brigade."

Under each photo is each Weasel’s quote revealing his anti-American, pro-Saddam ranting!

I wrote out this whole fake ad for it, but in the end, I didn't want to post it; it seemed too strident and not very funny. I'm just amazed that I'm supposed to recoil with disgust and amused superiority at quotes like this:

Walter Cronkite: "I have not changed my mind one iota. We should not be in Iraq without United Nations support"
Katie Couric: "So, they haven't been able to confirm reports he (Saddam) was taken to Tikrit, and then Mosul, and then hopefully to Syria."
Janeane Garofalo: "You know what is good about these Dixie Chicks burnings or bashings? It's a wonderful way for really stupid people to hook up. They meet, they throw some things on the fire, they talk about Vin Diesel, they tell stories about who their favorite Fox anchor is, they exchange phone numbers and in some cases has led to marriages."

I'm not terribly surprised that NewsMax thinks that not voting for invading Iraq = pro-Saddam:

Jean Chretien: "Refused to join U.S., Britain and Australia. He's more French than Canadian, our Canadian friends insist"
Vincente Fox: "Encouraged appeasement demonstrations against his 'pal' President Bush."

But honestly, I'm just about speechless at these two:

Hans Blix: "The Inspector Clouseau of the United Nations"
Kim Jong-Il: "Helped take heat off Saddam by issuing threats against U.S. benefactor"

Sometimes I wonder if the lack of Iraqi WMD means that I'll ever, ever, ever, ever see a conservative apologize for the bullshit they heaped on Hans Blix:

The whole thing is a charade, and everyone knows it. Soon, even Hans Blix will figure it out.

BLIX SAYS IRAQIS IN VIOLATION: A day late, and a dollar short, as usual.

HANS BLIX THINKS GLOBAL WARMING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WAR, which perhaps explains his lackadaisical approach to his job.

This looks like another Blix embarrassment, following upon the Scuds that weren't supposed to be there. (Glenn later noted the story in question was probably false)

HANS BLIX, ON THE JOB.

The Deck of Weasels. You'll have to see it to believe it. Sweet Jesus, even then you might not believe it.

Ana Marie Cox has a super-fun quiz for the back of the placemats at wherever Brad DeLong takes his freakishly intelligent mutant children.

The challenge: Can you tell which spin points are from Ari Fleicher, and which are from Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf? It's even harder than you might think.

UPDATE: Ana Marie Cox also has the funniest nickname I've seen today: "Adam 'Have I mentioned I used to live in Paris' Gopnick"

Jeff Taylor at Hit and Run has a good question:

Excuse me for interrupting the victory laps over aircraft carriers, but shouldn't Tom Ridge have raised the terror threat level to orange right about now? We've got seven dead Americans in Saudi Arabia from a daring attack by al Qaeda, staged just hours before Colin Powell was due to be in country. More attacks may be in the works.

The last time we went orange in March it was in expectation, in part, that U.S. action in Iraq would spur ad hoc attacks at home and/or on American interests abroad. Now we have the reality of a serious, well-planned attack and nada. The color-codes always seemed like a cheap propaganda device, now it is hard to see what other purpose they might have.

And a good response in the comments:

Reading this board (and conservative ones -like NRO online) its amazing how many "small government conservatives" think the government started telling the truth all the time once their guy stepped into the white house.

Quiddity Quack has a stunning table of stories relating to Iraq that have turned out to be false or misleading, with copious links to the stories disputing them. In many cases, they are stories that were directly peddled by the administration.

I'm especially interested in the case of George Galloway, the British anti-war MP who was accused of taking bribes from the Ba'athist government in exchange for his opposition to the war. If it was true, he ought to be in jail. But it apparently isn't true; the documents that support the accusation are apparently obvious forgeries, with multiple misspellings, the wrong title for Saddam's son Qusay, and a signature that doesn't resemble Galloway's.

In the words of A Mighty Wind, "Hey, wha happened?"

UPDATE: Andrew Northrup, in the comments, points out that there's plenty of reason to doubt the Mirror report that says that Galloway was framed.

I know I’m late to the pig-pile, but what hope do you have of changing the mind of someone who would write something like this?

But going down the line, it's probably true that, advocacy-wise, lefty bloggers make the most of their limited traffic by being very party line on Bush and most domestic issues. The "righties" aren't. About the only things they've been consistent on is France and Saddam, and both issues are declining in importance. While the liberal bloggers tend to be good liberals, the conservative bloggers don't tend to be good conservatives [That's because they're libertarians! -ed.]. Tacitus always seems somehow apologetic about linking to FR; the Left isn't similarly concerned about linking to DU or quoting it authoritatively.

- I could point out that it’s no crime not to read left-wing blogs. However, if you’re going to engage in widespread characterizations of them, you should probably try to convey the impression that you’ve seen one or two. Patrick shoots any hope of credibility right out of the gate; I can’t think of the last time I saw a liberal blog link to Democratic Underground. (The only reason that I know what “DU” is is that righty blogs often use it the way we use Free Republic, as a showcase of stupid, over-the-line liberals. Same with Indymedia.) And this sentence:

“The four top lefty bloggers focus pretty exclusively on political or Administration news”

is just silly. If I started an idle observation about right-wing blogs by saying “I wonder why it was that right-wing blogs defended Trent Lott so strenuously,” you’d say, “This guy doesn’t read right-wing blogs. Why should I listen to his criticisms?” You shouldn’t.

- I could quote this comment by SamAm, which is exactly right:

This is bullshit, obvious bullshit. Patrick is as partisan and toe-the-line as anyone on the right side of the blogosphere. I hate, hate, hate these "objective" comparisons between right and left (Barone did it with Hard and Soft America, David Brooks does it in most of his articles) where positive values are plucked out of thin air and linked with the right (independence, hard work, and true patriotism, respectively) and other, negative values are linked with the left (party line, poor work ethic, wishy-washy patriotism). Christ, it is just so much self-flattering, chin-stroking, self-esteem bullshit. "Insty" says Patrick, I think the right is much more independent than the left." The good professor paused for a moment, got a far-away look in his eye, and said "Yes, yes, of course the right is more free-thinking." I mean, no shit, you flatter him, he links to you, on the subject of, drumroll please; not being part of a unified organizational hierarchy. Freethinking and massive amounts of hyperlinks don't go together. This is independence by consensus, so-called radicalism by committe, and all so much pathetic teethsucking.

- I could point out that on the biggest issue of the day, the war on Iraq, the top liberal blogs most certainly didn’t march in lockstep. Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, and Matthew Yglesias all spent months arguing in favor of the war. I didn't see a similar level of disagreement among the top conservative blogs. In fact, when Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan, passionate supporters of the war, dared to question Bush's carrier landing, they were deluged with angry email. This must be some kind of reverse-psychology attempt to look for converts, because all right-thinking people know that liberals are the ones that punish heretics.

- I could point out that everyone has the tendency to see people who agree with them as wise, honest, and clear-thinking, at the same time that they see people who disagree with them as deluded automatons. Patrick, did you ever notice how much smarter Christopher Hitchens sounds when he agrees with you? Or Michael Totten? or Mickey Kaus? Funny, that.

Star Trek fans think this way about Star Wars fans. Ska fans think this way about punk fans. Insane Clown Posse fans think this way about Eminem fans. And (gasp!) a lot of liberals think this way about conservatives! To feel this way is normal. To post it to your blog, and act like you’ve discovered a major character flaw in people you don’t like in the first place, demonstrates little more than a charming lack of self-awareness. Patrick, you can at least take comfort in the fact that you are not alone.

I could make any of these arguments. But what’s the point? I might as well print the lyrics to Night Ranger’s Sister Christian, for all the hope I have of persuading Patrick Ruffini, Andrew Sullivan, or Glenn Reynolds. Guys, this one's for you. You’re motoring.

Sister Christian, oh the time has come
And you know that you're the only one to say, OK
Where you goin', what you looking for
You know those boys don't want to play no more with you
It's true

{Refrain}
You're motoring
What's your price for flight
In finding Mister Right
You'll be all right tonight

Babe, you know you're growing up so fast
And momma's worrying that you won't last to say, let's play
Sister Christian, there's so much in life
Don't you give it up before your time is due
It's true, it's true, yeah

You're motoring
What's your price for flight
You've got him in your sights
And driving through the night

{Refrain thrice}

Sister Christian, oh the time has come
And you know that you're the only one to say, OK
But you're motoring
Yeah, motoring

Beloved punk icon and blogger Dr. Frank has a self-released EP of home recordings/ demos of some of the songs he's been playing on his solo tour. You may have already heard Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy, but there's more where that came from, for only $8.

I’ve talked about my admiration for the Mr. T Experience before, but it’s been a while. When I was in college and grad school, playing in a band and seeing about a thousand horrible punk/ ska bands, the Mr. T Experience was about as good as it got. Dr. Frank has got a real gift for making guitar rock sound fresh, and I don't think that I could point to a lyricist who's better at doing clever and poignant at the same time. From "I'd Do Anything For You":

I'm trying to think of more things within my means
like maybe I could bore my way into your dreams
elaborate gestures that impressed you so you'd want to be mine
if I knew what they were I'd do them all the time

I'd do anything I could
but I can never think of anything that good
and I think it's pretty clear
that we'll just wind up sitting here
so try to be a realist sit down and write me a list of some
and I'll make sure that everything gets done

In a sane world, Dr. Frank would be too busy counting his money and shining his bling-bling to write a thoughtful pro-war blog. In this world, he isn't. Remember- self-released means that all the profits go right to Dr. Frank*, instead of those fat cats** at Lookout! Records.

* I assume.
** Said cats might not actually be fat.