Matthew Hogan: December 2006 Archives

« November 2006 | January 2007 »

December 28, 2006

Whatever You Do, Don't Mention the War!

With apologies to Basil Fawlty. But holding your tongue may be commercially wise. I found this company exactly how they expected, by mistyping "gmail.com". Instead I landed on their own "gamil.com". They seem to make interesting products of novel design for ordinary uses. Here's relevant part: they note on this page that their name means "beautiful", but they don't note the language in which it means that (at least in one key dialect). I wonder why? Kind of shows how things are or have been these days.

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: US Politics

December 22, 2006

Wish I'd written this: More on Iraq & Neocons & Liberal Hawks

Paul Campos explains the idiocy of the Iraq intervention very very well. In some sense, I did write it, though less pithily. Anyway, cue blockquote:

[Thus, according to the theory, regional] transformation merely requires sufficiently courageous and steadfast political leaders, who understand that evil will be defeated and a new age of human flourishing will emerge, as long as they maintain the will to lead the world into the golden future they have glimpsed. Anyone who thinks this is an exaggerated description of the Bush administration's view of foreign policy should go back and read the president's second inaugural address. It should be unnecessary to point out that every aspect of this view is, from the standpoint of classic conservative political theory, completely insane.

Continue reading "Wish I'd written this: More on Iraq & Neocons & Liberal Hawks"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 07:42 PM | Comments (7)
Filed Under: US Politics

December 21, 2006

Christmas, for Heathens

With the Aqoul readership an eclectic mess largely of various Mideast backgrounds, many being of locally-prevalent faiths or having apostasized therefrom, I thought I'd give some background on the Christmas holiday. Especially as it takes place among us Americans. There should be enough detail here to help you in the many trivia contests you'll being doing to pass your inevitable time in eternal hellfire.

Continue reading "Christmas, for Heathens"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 06:14 PM | Comments (12)
Filed Under: American Culture , Humor Attempts , MENA Culture , Religion

December 17, 2006

Peace and Prosperity are just too boring

Gene Healy taps into the kind of political power-worship that exists among both righties and lefties, in this interesting evaluation of the evaluation of American presidents.

History may prove kinder to President Bush than the voters were on November 7. That, however, says less about the value of Bush's contributions than it does about the perverse conception of presidential greatness shared by historians who rank the presidents. . . . Such perennial rankings, based on surveys of historians and political scientists, tend to heavily favor imperial presidents. The winners in the game are the nation builders and war leaders. The losers are the presidential bores, the ones who "never did anything" other than preside over peace and prosperity without screwing it up.

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 11:17 PM | Comments (5)
Filed Under: US Politics

December 07, 2006

D.C. area event on Iran policy

D.C.-area folks with a US-Iran interest might want to attend, next Monday morning, a CATO Institute forum on Iran policy (details below break). Movers and shakers and insiders on the wonk-level will be there, and it is free with (I think) a free lunch. The event coincides with a new CATO paper by Justin Logan on the subject, which concludes that "the United States should begin taking steps immediately to prepare for a policy of deterrence should an Iranian bomb come online in the future. As undesirable as such a situation would be, it appears less costly than striking Iran [militarily]."

Continue reading "D.C. area event on Iran policy"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 03:57 PM | Comments (4)
Filed Under: Egghead Stuff

December 01, 2006

Blind, Blinder, Blinders: Tracing US-Iraq Foolishness

A nice essay discussing the bizarre thinking on Iraq and the self-destructive post-invasion actions done by the US Administration can be found at the New York Review of Books, in the course of a review of several books reconstructing the developments. Some stuff:

[Bremer] had had nothing to do with the meager and inadequate planning the Pentagon had done for "the postwar" and indeed had had only a few days' preparation before being flown to Baghdad. He apparently never saw the extensive plans the State Department had drawn up for the postwar period. And as would become evident as the occupation wore on and he became more independent of the Pentagon civilians, he had no particular qualifications to make and implement decisions of such magnitude, decisions that would certainly prolong the American occupation and would ultimately do much to doom it.

Thanks again, via Jim Henley.

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)
Filed Under: US Politics