Left Rudder

If it’s Wednesday, it’s time to see what the purple-prosed gasbag is up to.

Today, it’s a weird attack on Eric Alterman. And a sweet love letter to Ann Althouse.

We are treated (again) to spectral deconstructions of the fascist-communist conundrum. Godwin’s Law is (tangentially) invoked. People make themselves look silly.

Plainly, Neptunus is the Emily Litella of the US Navy.

….there’s Conservapedia!

…is probably 2LT Chris Cross (what a moniker).

2LT Cross has decided the folks behind An Appeal for Redress are in violation of the law.

Perhaps, 2LT Cross will prefer charges against An Appeal for Redress.

Perhaps the Cleveland Browns will go undefeated next year.

Caught an interesting interview on The Bob Edwards Show this AM. Edwards interviewed Harry Brunius, author of Better For All The World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity.

Brunius tells the story of eugenics in the US and the attempt to eliminate so-called “undesirable” traits in the population, usually via forced sterilization. Such “undesirable” characteristics included epilepsy, genetic disorders, and mixed races. The US eugenics movement reached its pinnacle in the 1920s and 30s.

The US eugenics experience became the model for Nazi Germany’s eugenics program.

Better For All The World

Red Dragon Tattoo, Fountains of Wayne, Utopia Parkway
Sound and Vision, David Bowie, Low
Sleep, My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade
Why Aye Man, Mark Knopfler, The Ragpicker’s Dream
Yellow Moon (Live), The Neville Brothers, Live from Planet Earth
The Story of Yo La Tengo, Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
Eleanor Rigby/Julia, The Beatles, Love
In A Big Country, Moe, Dither
I Try, Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
Boomtown, Greg Brown, The Post Game

Scooter Koenig aka SMASH aka The Indepundit has decided we’re winning in Iraq.

Of course, Scooter is prone to such assertions. Back in 2005, Scooter declared victory.
Also, here.

In 2004, Scooter told us ‘we’re winning.’

Obviously, Scooter subscribes to the notion that if he says it enough–maybe it will come true.

There exists a purple-prosed gasbag who would cite both Jean-Francois Revel and Mark Steyn in his attempts to vilify Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). Amazing.

Revel was a hero to the extreme rightwing; in his 1982 book, How Democracies Perish, he tried mightily to make the case that the soft, decadent and liberal West could not hope to preserve democracy against the cold, disciplined, and determined ‘enemy at the gate.’ Revel cites France in WWII and Vichy France, in particular. He then tried to apply it to the Cold War.

Big mistake. In point of fact, Revel’s thesis was deader than a doornail before his book had a chance to hit the bargain bins at Books-A-Million. The Soviet Union imploded about 5 years after Revel’s masterwork.

Does this fact stop Neptunus Laevus? Hell, no. He then goes on to cite Mark Steyn, high school dropout, disk jockey, musical theater columnist and, of course, the new rightwing Kissinger. Who can forget how correct Steyn was shortly after the invasion of Iraq?

This war is over. The only question now is whether a new provisional government is installed before the BBC and The New York Times have finished running their exhaustive series on What Went Wrong with the Pentagon’s Failed War Plan. . . .

[T]hese are the death throes: the regime was decapitated two weeks ago, and what we’ve witnessed is the last random thrashing of the snake’s body. . . .

[F]or everyone other than media naysayers, it’s the Anglo-Aussie-American side who are the geniuses. Rumsfeld’s view that one shouldn’t do it with once-a-decade force, but with a lighter, faster touch has been vindicated, with interesting implications for other members of the axis of evil and its reserve league.

Wow.

But somehow, some way, John Murtha is to blame according to Neptunus Laevus. What that way is–isn’t exactly clear. Neptunus Laevus tends to run low on the hot air after citing his ideological heroes. In the end, Neptunus Laevus castigates Murtha for not appreciating the threat that is posed. But not a word of George W.’s role in this mess is spoken.

Also left unspoken by Neptunus Laevus is why he believes there exists such a threat to the world posed by Muslims. And why this threat must be addressed via force. After all, the great threat of the Soviet Union was eliminated by deterrence and the power of our freedoms. Neptunus Laevus rejects what has worked in favor of that which has not.

The two leading satellite radio content providers have agreed to merge. This could be pretty good for us XM subscribers.

Of course, it has to pass FCC scrutiny. Unfortunately, the FCC is–as are so many federal agencies–headed by a typical Bush political hack named Kevin Martin. Martin is said to not favor any merger between XM and Sirius.

恭喜發財

In Howard Kurtz’s belated valentine to Michelle Malkin, he portrays the racist Malkin as misunderstood.  That her book , In Defense of Internment, merely "riled" her detractors.

Let’s be clear, Howard.

The book attempted to justify the internment of American citizens on the basis of their race.  An excellent rebuttal of Malkin’s fractured history was made by UNC law professor Eric Muller and University of Quebec history professor Greg Robinson.

Let’s also not forget Malkin was the driving force behind the debunked story of a troubled OU student committing suicide with a homemade bomb.  Malkin flacked the story the student was a Jihadist terrorists.