oh, man, tired

So we spent the weekend in DC, where we were hosted by the perfectly lovely Ignatz menage (Mr. Sam is the blogger, currently on hiatus, who spearheaded the blogstorm that helped to save us from lifetime tenure for a particularly hideous candidate for the federal judiciary, as well as the lawyer who backed off that asshole who was trying to sue Atrios), brunched with the equally lovely Surfdom team, then went off to Baltimore where we whacked corrected crabs with mallets in company with the Otters.

We also managed a successful handoff of a great deal of yarn to Marilee, who makes baby blankets for homeless shelters (and got a whole bunch of terrific crochet cotton from both her and Jill in return).

The home team (HM and entourage) thoroughly enjoyed itself and hopes to sleep until at least Tuesday if at all possible.

I'm sort of relieved about President Reagan. I'm sure it's been an agonizing time for his family and most likely for him as well.

remember irony?

Remember before irony died, when people started blogs and this guy called himself "Instapundit" and it caught on because of the irony implicit in announcing you were a pundit just because you said you were and how it really wasn't all that different than becoming a Pundit because someone or another decided to put you on TV or in the paper and you could just as easily be every bit as qualified as they were except that they had a forum and the "validation" of celebrity?

I miss irony. I thought I heard the stone roll away, but it may have been my imagination because lots of other people seem not to have noticed it.

On a completely different subject and upon reflection, I have decided that I have nothing in particular to say about the current controversy in the blogosphere over whether blogs written by women are unserious since not as many blogs link to them.

Did I mention that I miss irony?

awwwwww,

Cute little baby Kuffner person with fit-to-bust daddy who supports the wrong New York baseball team.

Congratulations. Make the most of these few precious days of her comparative immobility. It does not last.

Have a snort.

Christopher Hitchens begins his takedown of Reagan's legacy with this note:

Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for "freedom." (The word is "svoboda"; it's quite well attested in Russian literature.)

Um.

Hitchens is, however, a fervent supporter of the man who said this:

The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur.

Snopes says this is an urban legend because Blair subsequently denied it.

Barked twice, perhaps.

Is anyone planning an intervention here?

the lurching return of Alex Penelas

So our boy Alex is running for the Senate, and Mr. Gore is not all that happy about it. This likely has to do with the fact that Mr. Penelas is arguably the single individual most responsible for putting Mr. Bush in the White House who was not actually Maureen Dowd or a member of the Gore campaign team from the Washington Post (hang your head, Dana Milbank)

Both Graham and Nelson have said they will not endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary but that they felt compelled to come to Penelas' defense in light of Gore's remarks.

"This slash-and-burn politics has gotten us to the point that it is causing gridlock in America," Nelson said.

Several Democrats spoke on Penelas' behalf after Gore issued a statement to The Miami Herald published on Sunday praising one of Penelas' two main rivals, Rep. Peter Deutsch.

The statement added: "One of the other candidates in this race became in 2000 the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with during the campaign anywhere in America." A Gore aide confirmed he was not referring to Betty Castor, who has led in recent polls.

A spokeswoman for Gore declined comment Monday on Graham and Nelson's reaction.

Some Democrats criticized Penelas for failing to actively support Gore during the final months of the 2000 election. George W. Bush won the White House after winning Florida by a mere 537 votes following a 36-day recount in some counties that was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"This is Gore and Deutsch using the politics of yesterday Ñ slash and burn," Penelas said.

Message discipline comes a little late to you Democrats on the panhandle.

Now, while I did at one point endorse Penelas for Lt. Gov (see here for why), allow me to repeat what I had to say about him at the time:

Alex Penelas sucks. I want that to be clear from the getout. Like unto the singularity at the roiling heart of the cosmic Hoover does Alex Penelas suck. When Alex Penelas announced that Miami-Dade was seceding from the union during the Elian mess, then did he suck. When his fingerprints were all over the decision to stop the Miami-Dade recount that helped Jeb Bush steal the country for his brother, suckage was there then. When he threw a fundraiser to help the Republicans keep control of the House in June, (nominally, he's a Democrat, did I mention?) the giant slorking sound from the south was sign and outward symbol of the transcendant suckiness of Alex Penelas, and verily he did suck.

To sum up: Alex Penelas is a boil upon the distended buttock of the body politic.

If there were ever a chance to lose Alex Penelas from national politics, this is it. If he comes back, let the little prick come back and take a Republican seat (or hop the fence and start competing with other politicians who share the cuban origins which seem to be his only political asset). He's campaigning for the Zell seat. We need this?

the Reagan legacy

Apparently we owe boneheaded unilateralism to President Reagan, at least according to Ken Adelman

My first epiphany came early in his administration, when we gathered in a formal National Security Council meeting in the Cabinet Room. Secretary of State Alexander Haig opened by lamenting that the Law of the Sea Treaty was something we didn't like but had to accept, since it had emerged over the previous decade through a 150-nation negotiation.

Mr. Haig then proceeded to recite 13 or so options for modifying the treaty -- some with several sub-options.

Such detail, to put it mildly, was not the president's strong suit. He looked increasingly puzzled and finally interrupted. "Uh, Al," he asked quietly, "isn't this what the whole thing was all about?"

"Huh?" The secretary of state couldn't fathom what the president meant. None of us could. So Mr. Haig asked him.

Well, Mr. Reagan shrugged, wasn't not going along with something that is "really stupid" just because 150 nations had done so what the whole thing was all about -- our running, our winning, our governing? A stunned Mr. Haig folded up his briefing book and promised to find out how to stop the treaty altogether.

That set the tone for the first Reagan administration.

An epiphany, of course, is something that happens right before Christmas.

Ken Adelman was a U.N. ambassador and arms-control director in the 1980s, accompanying President Reagan on his superpower summits with Mikhail Gorbachev. He now serves on the Defense Policy Board, and co-hosts www.TechCentralStation.com

I'll just bet he's grateful.

deplore, anyone?

This is a list of blogs linking, in ads or editorial, to the store on Cafe Press which sells this lovely item.



In case you're following along at home, that would be explicitly inciting the death by violence of american citizens ('cause I know any group too delicate to live in the same world as Gary Trudeau ain't making satire, right?).

Usual suspects? Web nannies? Discourse referees?

Chirp.

link via The Poor Man