Boaz funny!

There is a school of "date coaching" that emphasized guys being "cocky and funny" to stimulate attraction from women. Apparently it is much more effective than being subservient (read, polite and courteous and empathetic) and shy. The line of analysis goes something like this -- arrogant/cocky men are filled with testosterone. Funny men, who can pair their humor to cockiness, are self confident in a less offensive way, meaning they can defuse a woman's hesitancy.

On the other hand, when trying to get a date with an attractive woman, a guy who goes out of his way to be nice is marked as subservient and submissive -- bot a good way to stimulate interest; and the finer the woman, the more competition the man has for her affections, and hence the more he has to lose by being perceived as wimpy.

Still, there is a funny thing about the short-term strategy of cocky, arrogant and funny men. In a while, there has to be an emotional connection that goes beyond the short-term. If the hitter cannot make the shift from caveman to reasonably empathetic partner the sense of satisfaction with the relationship begins to dissipate and with it the woman's sense of fulfillment.

CC -- Chris = Christine?

What? Dubya worry???

Dubya is already in vacation mode. He and Laura are busy decorating the new Library, and trying to boot their last remaining single daughter out of the house. Oh, and they're charting out their round the world vacations between Paraguay, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, too.

BB, some polls have it a close EV race, with McCain winning the most EVs. If Lieberman helped lock Florida and pushed Connecticut to the Red column, then it might be a strategy well worth McCain's consideration. IMHO.

Great going neocons, AIPAC, Shrubby, Shady, Rummy, and Condi!! Great going, Congress!

Back in 2002, it was clear that Bin Laden was winning the "hearts and minds" propaganda war against Bush and Cheney. As, SECDEF Gates recently pointed out, "How has one man in a cave managed to outcommunicate the world's greatest communication society?"

U.S. officials have also acknowledged their inability to counter al-Qaeda's ideological arguments, despite a multibillion-dollar investment in public diplomacy and covert propaganda. Duh!

Look back to the post-World War I era in what is now Iraq. Winston Churchill then called the UK's exercise of Post-Ottoman control in Iraq as "miserable, wasteful, sporadic warfare".

See:

Rove seems to be at it again, spinning with his allies to get a hawkish neocon-loving GOP into the WH. Acts of War against Iran are about to roll into place.

As we sit, Congress is about to pass resoultions in the House (H.Con.Res.362) and the Senate (resolutions, virtually drafted for them by the Neocon-loving AIPAC) that authores a "blockade" of Iran to inspect Iran-bound shipping. Not only would this blockade be violation of UN rules, it is tantamont to an act of war under established international law.

Just imagine the consequences! -- Overflights over Iran, their aircraft and boats and NATO/US aircraft and shipps playing recurrinmg games of "chicken" in Gulf, ... and then ... a provocation. ... Viola! Another "incident"! "McCain the Hawk" comes running on stage with his hawkish song calling for us to "Bomb, bomb, Iran!"

(And this was scripted for us by the outsourced contractors working for Cheney's AEI.)

I already wrote my Senators and Congressman to stop the authorization to blockade Iran. NATO and the USA already have enough on their plate for the next 7 months and Shrub and Shady already have enough power to unilaterally begin WWIII if they wanted to. No sense making the slope to all-war all-the-time even slipperier.

This is dangerous and sets the US on a slippery slope to war with Iran. I cannot believe that no one has discussed H.Con.Res.362 on the retort sooner.

You may be surprised at the answer; there are already over 169 cosponsors of H.Con.Res. 362.

This resolution demands that the president initiate an international effort to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to prevent it from importing gasoline and to subject all cargo entering or leaving Iran to stringent inspection requirements.

For such a blockade to be imposed without United Nations authority (which the resolution does not call for) would be considered an act of war. Some congressional sources say the House could vote on the resolution as early as this week.

Adoption of this resolution would pave the way for such a war and bypass diplomacy. Sensing that the threat of war has once again increased, IAEA Head El Baradei warned yesterday that he would resign if any country attacked Iran.

The immediate effect would be a further increase in oil prices - with gas prices in the US incing closer to $5/gallon and beyond.

"Just days after the bill was originally introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Gary Ackerman (D-New York), AIPAC put out a memo detailing its support for the intentions of the legislation. The memo does not specifically mention the proposed legislation, but contains almost identical language."

Some coincidence, huh! What is this, Israel and Saudi Arabia are dictating US foreign policy? No wonder it is schizo!

Too pessimistic! Sure, if you're GW Bush you think the world is your frontier, and you literally think of colonial expansion on the military front and of neo-colonial expansion on the corporate front. But if you're any kind of intellectual, you think as the world as a great big contest for ideas, creativity, and equal opportunity. It will be a long time before the frontier of free ideas, and equal opportunity is closed by the widespread consensus that those frontiers are closed.

Shirts, they weren't great friends, and Kerry realized a little too late just who Edwards was looking out for. Why didn't he endorse his pal Edwards this time around during the primaries?

If ever there was a slam against a candidate, it's when your former head of ticket quickly endorses another guy as Kerry did early in the campaign.

correction:

(2) "I agree that Joe and John are a better fit than Barack and Chuck. I think Obama should consider Hagel for a position in his cabinet but not put him on the ticket."

A. Just like Bill Clinton quieted a lot of the GOP anti-Clinton crowd by selecting the moderate GOP Senator from Maine, Bill Cohen, to be his second SECDEF, the idea of putting a respected moderate GOP in the Obama cabinet makes some sense. Sure, Hagel *could* be a good pick for SECDEF, but if Obama gets elected, Obama'll be operating from a position of political strength, so he won't need to make that LARGE a concession to bipartisanship right away. Instead, Dept. of Agriculture or Dept. of Energy policy might require a bipartisan hand, and Hagel could bridge either category of policy fairly well, since he's a moderate from an Ag (and biofuel/solar and wind power) state. So SEC AG or SEC Energy might work for Hagel. (Another idea might be to put Hagel at Homeland Defense in charge of reorganizing the Dept., which is a pretty unwieldy FEMA + USCG + Immigration aggregation.)

But if the bipartisanship of including GOPs in a DEM ticket is to carry any weight with potential voters, Obama needs to build a pre-election kitchen cabinet of visible and prominent advisers to campaign with him as soon as possible, otherwise the only ones influenced by a bi-partisan cabinet pick will be insiders who are already in Congress or lobbying close by.

Gal -- Interesting questions.

(1) "do you think Leibermann would help McCain with independents?"

A. I think Obama has to be careful not to paint himself too far from the center, or, if McCain picks a conservative DEM like Joe, or a blank slate with money, then McCain starts to gather moderate votes. (Someone said it here, McCain isn't loved by the right-wing GOPS, but they think they can work with him ahead of a so-called "liberal" DEM POTUS candidate. What I think Joe really brings aboard is the pro-Israel wing, and if he is selected, McCain has to calculate how many GOPS and right-wingers he will disaffect vs. how much more $$ he will bring in from AIPAC and the pro-Israel millionaires in the country.

(2) "I agree that Joe and John are a better fit than Barack and Chuck. I think Obama should consider Hagel for a position in his cabinet but not put him on the ticket."

A. Just like Bill Clinton quieted a lot of the GOP anti-Clinton crowd by selecting moderate he moderate GOP senator from Maine, Bill Cohen, to be his second SECDEF, the idea of putting a respected moderate GOP in the Obama cabinet makes some sense. Hagel could be a good pick for SECDEF, but if Obama gets elected, he'll be operating from a position of political strength right away, so he won't need to make that large a concession to bipartisanship. Instead, Agriculture and/or Energy policy might require a bipartisan hand, and Hagel could bridge either category of policy fairly well, since he's a moderate from an Ag (and biofuel/solar and wind power) state. So SEC AG or SEC Energy might work for Hagel. (Another idea might be to put Hagel in charge of reorganizing Homeland Defense, which is a pretty unwieldy FEMA + USCG + Immigration aggregation.) But if the bipartisanship of including GOPs in a DEM ticket is to carry any weight with potential voters, Obama needs to build a pre-election kitchen cabinet of visible and prominent advisers to campaign with him as soon as possible, otherwise the only ones influenced by a bi=partisan cabinet pick will be insiders who are already in Congress or lobbying close by.

That would be a very circular contest. Hagel is very smart on military affairs, but considerably more conservative than Obama on social issues; but he might pull in a few Midwestern states. Lieberman might pull in some large pockets of wealth and potentially pockets of influence within California, Florida and Connecticut. It just doesn't seem as "natural" a friendly pairing for Obama and Hagel to join forces as it would for Joe and John.

A lot of GOPs bolted the GOP in 2006, Expect McSame in 2008???

potential

John McCain is talking to Joe Lieberman about Joe's being McCain's VP. If you think about it, it could be a very interesting pick, leading to a possibility that California could be in play for McCain and virtually giving McCain a lock on Florida and Connecticut.

And since Hillary triangulated her way into losing the DEM nomination, a lot of the moderate DEMs could be persuaded that their interests are in line with a moderate White House. This is a potentional coup for McCain.

If all coastal areas were to get cleaned up of plastics and oil and other schmutz, wonder what would be the cost?

There is a place in Baja California (27.815408,-114.786567) where the peninsula juts into the Pacific and it is a beachcombers paradise of sorts. Nearly everything dropped off from the west coast of the USA, from tampon inserters to fishing net floats to kid's beachballs, drifts ashore there. (For Californian's who want to try a closer place, Bahia Salada near Colonet in BCN is almost the same.)

And all along the bays of the East Coast of the US, from Providence's Industrial coastline to Staten Island's South Beach to Norfolk, VA, the junk along the shores is notorious.

A solution -- not going to pe popular? Tax all consumer plastics, including those handy 6 pack holders, for the environmental impact AND clean-up/recycling costs incurred by the public at large. Incorporate a nationwide recycling initiative to get all plastics transferred from the general trash into the recycling stream or toxic waste processing stream.

Goat -- Didn't have time to get to it last night and this week, my inbox is about to topple over. I may try it out after dinner. Will get back then. Don't be surprised if I get screwy #'s, though. My background is in not as engineering and science oriented as yours.

Goat -- thanks for the link to the Drake Equation.

Normally, I think the Economist is one of the finest pithy analytic magazines on current events around. Jenkins used to be its editor, so one would expect the same characteristics to mark his writings. But no ...

The thesis is an important one to put on the table, and someone has to be the idea's advocate. Too bad we have Jenkin's unrefuted and weak aanalysis.

If I were to check off possible reasons for exiting most of Afghanistan, it would be for the following reasons:

1. We're making some costly mistakes in sme of the provinces.
2. It's expensive in terms of manpower and logistics.
3, What is our reason for fighting whoever it is we're fighting? Until we know that for sure, we should regroup.

The Afghan partnership to the Bush Cheney GWOT is the silenter war, and one with more international help. It was the "Just War" after 9/11 and was declared such by clerics around the world, including the Pope. And President Karzai is a bright and courageous man who truly seems to want to eliminate warlordism and corruption.

But more than the original moral precept being legitimate for fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, there is a cost benefit analysis to look at. What's the effort to support democracy in Afghanistan costing the US and NATO financially, militarily and in terms of "soft power"? And what are we getting from this effort in the long run?

Seems that our view, and NATOs ought to rightly consider the long term costs and benefits of our involvement and that our mission and operations there ought to be shaped accordingly.

Without giving Scientology any credit at all, there is a faint possibility that if life exists/esisted/or will ever exist in multiple places in the practically eternal expanses of the Universe, that "life" could have taken many forms and could have developed randomly or (for the more credulous among us) with help or intervention at various places and at various times.

Why should all life develop at the same time as in other unrelated locations> Perhaps advanced life existed somewhere in the Universe long before the Earth was populated by dinosaurs? And possibly that life form, like the dinosaurs, is now extinct.

As my Mom used to say whenever she didn't have the time to delve into a touchy thought, "Anything's possible."

coat should be "cost"

Pretty stupid move. Like the quip, "You're likeable ... enough." to Sen. Clinton, which came across as arrogant and condescending and coat Obama some votes, this new "seal" does nothing to help his cause or his campaign. The sooner ditched, the better!

Bella, ja ich sprecht ein bissen Deutsche. But it was a typo (pretty typically with my having eight thumbs and 2 pinkies).

Yes, Turner, the USA is for sale, and if sovereign capital from the Mideast gets its way, it will buy up a LOT of US assets.

It is truly a sad story. Rhodesia was one of the most prosperous nations in all of Africa in 1960s & 70s. Uganda wasn't far behind. Great progress in 40 years, eh? Guess Mugabe would blame it all on the Brits and the West.

There is nothing wrong with a teacher's personal faith being kept personal, but in physically abusing students, marking them with a sign of his faith, and ignoring the generally accepted education standards to preach what his faith tells him really makes this freshwater guy a criminal.

These ideologues are all the same and very dangerous. If he were living in Weimar Germany, I am afraid he would have been one of the radicals running to support that kooky Austrian with he tiny mustache. If he were born Muslim, I bet he'd be a supporter of that head chopper from Kandahar.

Where was the media when 35 articles of impeachment were presented to Congress? How can there be a groundswell of public if the public is kept in the dark?

Bani -- It may be that the "crimes" committed were aided and abetted by a complicit Congress, which when the taps were put into effect was GOP dominated. Constitutionally, if the Executive Branch does and the Legislature does not rebuke, you are left only with the SCOTUS to call the activities into line. Immoral acts can still be "legal" and the architect of this grand opportunity leads right down Mass Ave. to he man living in the Naval Observatory mansion. You guessed it -- Dick Shady.

Correction:

4. Wolfowitz's private *infidelities* and GWB's selecting of Colin Powell as SECSTATE were the two kinks in the plan that Cheney had not fully counted on.

According to "Just War Theory", as outlined by St. Augustine: (1) Acts of war should be directed towards enemy combatants, and not towards non-combatants caught in circumstances they did not create. The prohibited acts include bombing civilian residential areas that include no military target and committing acts of terrorism or reprisal against ordinary civilians. (2) Force used must be proportional to the wrong endured, and to the possible good that may come. The more disproportional the number of collateral civilian deaths, the more suspect will be the sincerity of a belligerent nation's claim to justness of a war it fights. (3) An attack or action must be intended to help in the military defeat of the enemy, it must be an attack on a military objective, and the harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. This principle is meant to limit excessive and unnecessary death and destruction.

These thoughts were written in the 4th C. A.D., when North Africa was a stronghold of Christian philosophical wisdom and cosmopolitan intellectual thought.

Er, now that I'm a bit more awake, maybe I can type without too many mangled paragraphs and sentences:

Ah, things aren't so bad. Jan. 20, 2009 is less than 215 days away. How much worse could things get in that time?

Spud -- Thanks for the link to Johnny Cash & Linda Ronstadt. Johnny sure looked like he just won a prize at the county fair, and Linda looks like a prize worth winning. Just how long ago was it when that video was filmed? 1975? If only I knew then what I know now!

It has been an INTERESTING AND WILD transition from Carter, to Reagan, to Bush I to Clinton and then Bush Cheney. Wow! Cheney is suspected of more than undercutting the career of one covert agent and one covert WMD program -- big time!

g2g -- funny!