Sunday, October 22, 2006

It's Getting Better All The Time

The Beatles

It's getting better all the time
I used to get mad at my school (no I can't complain)
The teachers that taught me weren't cool (no I can't complain)
You're holding me down
Turning me round
filling me up with your rules

I've got to admit it's getting better
a little better all the time (it can't get no worse)
I have to admit it's getting better
it's getting better since you've been mine

Me used to be angry young man
Me hiding me head in the sand
You gave me the word
I finally heard
I'm doing the best that I can

I've got to admit it's getting better
a little better all the time (it can't get no worse)
I have to admit it's getting better
it's getting better since you've been mine
getting so much better all the time

It's getting better all the time
better, better, better
It's getting better all the time
better, better, better

I used to be cruel to my woman I beat her
and kept her apart from the things that she loved
Man, I was mean but I'm changing my scene
and I'm doing the best that I can

I admit it's getting better
a little better all the time (it can't get no worse)
Yes, admit it's getting better
it's getting better since you've been mine
getting so much better all the time

It's getting better all the time
better, better, better
It's getting better all the time
better, better, better
Getting so much better all the time

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Surrender

Cheap Trick

Mother told me, yes, she told me I'd meet girls like you.
She also told me, "Stay away, you'll never know what you'll catch."
Just the other day I heard a soldier falling off some Indonesian junk that's going round.

Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.

Father says, "Your mother's right, she's really up on things."
"Before we married, Mommy served in the WACS in the Philippines."
Now, I had heard the WACS recruited old maids for the war.
But mommy isn't one of those, I've known her all these years.

Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.

Whatever happened to all this season's losers of the year?
Ev'ry time I got to thinking, where'd they disappear?
Then I woke up, Mom and Dad are rolling on the couch.
Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out.

Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.

Away.
Away.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

655,000

655,000 excess deaths since the illegal invasion of Iraq.

(Go to the story--the hyperlink is to a pdf.)

Antonius says it far better than I can.

Please pray for Buffy

Monday, October 09, 2006

How to Avert North Korea Nuclear Crisis

Kim Jong-il has a penchant for kidnapping Japanese movie stars and forcing them to appear in his films.

I say we render Tom Cruise and send him to North Korea in exchange for the cessation of nuclear weapons production. Hopefully, it will take a while for Kim Jong-il to notice that Cruise is only a B-level star.

North Korea!!

Joshua Micah Marshall:

Hawks and Bush sycophants will claim that North Korea is an outlaw regime. And no one should romanticize or ignore the fact that it is one of the most repressive regimes in the world with a history of belligerence, terrorist bombing, missile proliferation and a lot else. They'll also claim that the North Koreans were breaking the spirit if not the letter of the 1994 agreement by pursuing a covert uranium enrichment program. And that's probably true too.

But facts are stubborn things.

The bomb-grade plutonium that was on ice from 1994 to 2002 is now actual bombs. Try as you might it is difficult to imagine a policy -- any policy -- which would have yielded a worse result than the one we will face Monday morning.

Talking tough is great if you can make it stick and back it up; it is always and necessarily cleaner and less compromising than sitting down and dealing with bad actors. Talking tough and then folding your cards doesn't just show weakness it invites contempt. And that is what we have here.

The rest.

Glenn Greenwald:

Independent of all of that, we have plainly created an incentive system where every rational leader -- not crazed, Hitleresque, world-domination-seeking leaders -- but every rational leader, would assess that it is in his country's interest to acquire a nuclear capability. Of the three "axis of evil" members, the one which was, by far, the weakest militarily was the one we invaded and shattered. But with the strongest of the three, North Korea, we have proceeded very gingerly, issuing plainly empty threats and bellicose rhetoric but doing little else.

The message we have sent with our foreign policy is clear -- if you are a militarily weak nation, we may invade you or bomb you at will, but if you arm yourselves or, better still, acquire nuclear capability, we will not. That has become the incentive scheme produced by having the world's only superpower announce to the world that it has the right to preemptively invade other countries.

The rest.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Predictions, and Analysis of Mets-Cards

Tigers sweep A's, 4-0

Mets beat Cards in 5

Tigers win World Series over the Mets in 7

I think this team is a LOT better than the 2000 Mets, and even though I have never liked Valentine personally, I think he did a brilliant job of managing them that year and had them play over their heads. This team is not playing over their heads, though I think Willie is managing every bit as brilliantly as Valentine. The Mets are a MUCH better team than the Cardinals, and I think the overall balance of their offense will make up for the instability of their starting pitching. This is I think true regardless of whether or not they play six or seven games. The Mets did after all win 14 more games than the Cardinals. That DOES mean something.

But that's why I think they will lose to the Tigers. The Tigers had as good a season as the Mets did and their starting pitching is good and healthy.

Mets Sweep!!

See you at Shea for the NLCS on Wednesday!

Let's go Mets!!

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Alyosha on Torture

Asked by his brother Ivan, in The Brothers Karamazov, which I am currently rereading:

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."

"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.