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Back from Amsterdam. Whoa. Now that's an amazing place. Far and away the coolest city I've ever been to. Some of the highlights: the van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch Resistance Museum, the Anne Frank house, the Amsterdam Historical Museum, the coffee shops (especially Paradox, Abraxis and La Tertulia. The Bulldog is...well...an experience. The Bluebird is lame, contrary to what people will tell you. Dutch Flowers: meh.) I didn't realize that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice, and the canal tour: definitely worth doing. Muiden Castle: way worth the trip. The red light district: quite an experience and definitely worth checking out. Among other things, it's got some of the coolest architecture in the city. And, man, the public transportation system is fantastic!
We didn't get to do everything we wanted to, but we'll definitely be going back some day.
Back from Amsterdam. Whoa. Now that's an amazing place. Far and away the coolest city I've ever been to. Some of the highlights: the van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch Resistance Museum, the Anne Frank house, the Amsterdam Historical Museum, the coffee shops (especially Paradox, Abraxis and La Tertulia. The Bulldog is...well...an experience. The Bluebird is lame, contrary to what people will tell you. Dutch Flowers: meh.) I didn't realize that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice, and the canal tour: definitely worth doing. Muiden Castle: way worth the trip. The red light district: quite an experience and definitely worth checking out. Among other things, it's got some of the coolest architecture in the city. And, man, the public transportation system is fantastic!
We didn't get to do everything we wanted to, but we'll definitely be going back some day.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:56 PM
19 Comments:
Cheers. North Carolina in the Sweet Sixteen, Duke's out, Obama's exposed, and McCain's ahead in the polls. The republic survived your absence, and well.
But it's better for your return. We forgot to be hating on Bush there for a few weeks, and can get back to business now.
Though your heart seems to be in the right place, hoops-wise, surely you realize by now that your political judgment is completely out of whack? Or is it all just an act?
Here's a little test: if you're still defending Bush at this point, then your opinion about the upcoming election just doesn't count much.
Also: "exposed"? Jeez, man, really. Try to keep at least a little contact with reality, huh? Just a little?
Also, ya'll over on that side of the fence need to realize that criticizing policy is inequivalent to hate. It's not a tough distinction to latch onto, really...
Well, your critique of policy is a little too 2006 for me. I've given up. But if you ever get up the stones to take your act on the road, let me know.
http://patterico.com/2008/03/23/la-times-has-hit-piece-on-mccain-which-resurrects-the-old-canards-about-ties-between-saddam-and-al-qaeda/
Patrick is an acquaintance of mine, ex-megafirm attorney, now a prosecutor. He'll take good care of you. Unlike some bloghosts, he's a gentleman and looks out for his guests.
As for 2008 and "exposed," we shall see. Neither your vote nor mine will change, but I think others will. I don't think it's wise or even politically useful to call your own grandmother a racist, but as always, I could be wrong.
As for UNC, I shall root for them again this year, in honor of our mutual affection.
Your URL doesn't work, dude.
But as for having stones...weeelll...
(1) This betrays your misconception that this is about combat--hence that one (by which I mean you) should never, ever admit error. I, on the other hand, think it's about inquiry not combat.
(2) So, where you come from, the measure of one's stones is...something about arguing on the internet? Jeez, man. We've lived very different lives...
(3) So, are you trying to set me up for some kind of fight with one of your little conservative friends? Sheesh. Too easy.
(4) But, seriously, you DO understand why it isn't sensible for folks like me to weigh your opinions on elections very heavily, right? I mean you've been terribly wrong about Bush, and *even now* can't bring yourself to admit he's a bad president. Now, since the case of Bush is *very clear* and you get it terribly wrong, why should I trust your judgment in the far more difficult case of predicting which of the three candidates will be best? I mean, if you get the easiest possible case wrong...well, you see where I'm going with this, right?
(Of course, in cases where you offer arguments, those arguments can be evaluated on their own merits.)
But go Tar Heels! We've got that in common...
Actually, I just wanted to see how you function without being able to claim that no reasonable, sensible person can disagree with you. The king of the hill thing. You'd be on even ground with your interlocutors.
That's what I meant by stones. You'll see. Patrick is quite the gentleman, although I do not expect you to participate in his inquiry on even terms. But I'd pay to be surprised. Donation to the Obama campaign, the book of your choice, whatever.
Link.
No, I wasn't setting you up to argue with Patrick. He took the time to marshal facts and source material that I wanted you---and more importantly, your readership---to see, far more evidence than I'm able to post in a comments section.
It quite challenges [and to my mind, refutes] your standard---and after 5 years, perennial---Bush/Al Qaeda/Saddam rap, with evidence, not bluster.
And your latest challenge [again] to my bona fides obliges me to point out [again] that you're of the opinion that Carter was a good president and Reagan a bad one. That sort of thing flies without derision here, but I'm curious to see how it plays in a more neutral venue.
Actually, I think Bush blew it in the drifting Bremer years in Iraq. He also spent too much, although wartime spending is more excusable than trying to outbid Democrats.
But when phrases like "worst in history" are thrown about, that presupposes a knowledge of history, which is not always in evidence here.
For one thing, it's 2008, not 2006, and for another, how this all plays out is not yet known. History is not entirely written yet.
And I shall root for the North Carolinians, although I've taken a bit of a shine to the UCLAns of late.
Whatever.
Tom's going to be reborn as a slug for 500 lifetimes as a result of all of the time he's wasted in his and others' lives.
Tom: WS and others spent TWO HUNDRED POSTS carefully replying to every single one of your incredibly not-carefully, not-thought-out, flat out stupid posts, all for naught. It has become clear to EVERYONE else that you cannot admit when you're wrong, and that means it's just pointless for anyone to talk to you.
Until you understand this, why should anyone waste his or her time on you or your little friends who make use of similar methodology? It's just unnecessary torture.
Yeah, I like how Tom's one argument is that Carter/Reagan one. I'm absolutely up front about that stuff, and realize that it flies in the face of conventional wisdom and expert opinion. But, as I've noted many times, I could be wrong about it, and my standards are different than those of most. Carter was an unsuccessful president, and Reagan a successful one. But that was largely luck, and different than being a good or bad president. Carter put human rights front and center, and that gives him lots of good in my book. He inherited a terrible economy, and probably couldn't hvae done anything about it. He tried to make us energy independent (actually Nixon's idea, but he embraced it), which would have kept us out of the current debacle. He couldn't effect any of this largely b/c Washington wouldn't accept him. Would he have have succeeded under slightly different conditions? Perhaps. Heck, he might have won if George F. Will and company hadn't been involved with stolen debate briefs. I dunno. But I think he was a good guy with the right inclinations who had an unsuccessful presidency. That makes him a good president in my book. I'm no historian, and I am completely up front about the fact that I could be naive or confused here.
Reagan sold weapons to terrorists to fund other terrorists, committing impeachable offenses. He made reading the teleprompter the primary skill the president needs. He was likable and avuncular, and very, very lucky. He was also kind of a dope. But his presidency is thought of as a successful one, largely, I think, because he was lucky enough to have the USSR collapse on his watch (largely as a result of an Afghanistan policy instituted by the bad, terrible Jimmy Carter).
Now, Reagan DID have a certain way of cutting through stifling institutional crap in a human way when it came to his discussions with Gorbachev...and I have great admiration for that. And I think it mattered. So good on him for that.
Does this admittedly controversial position of mine undermine the authority of my judgments about candidates in the way that your (from my perspective) enduring, pervasive confusions about Bush undermine yours? I say no, but I could, of course, be wrong.
But Bush isn't like Carter. He's not a good but unlucky man. It's not that his smart policies ran into bad luck or resistance by Washington insiders. Rather, his policies have accomplished exactly what they were most likely to accomplish, and he's had virtually no opposition from anyone. It's all him. 9/11 gave him the keys to the car, and he ran it into a ditch on his own...even with almost the entire world saying "watch out! Ditch!" the whole time.
So, anyway, given that you don't (so far as I can tell) recognize/admit when utter, abject presidential failure stares you in the face, you really can't really get mad at me for taking your judgments with a grain of salt, can you? Back to the touchstone: at least I admit that Carter's presidency was a failure, despite the fact that I think that he was a good president. You can't even admit that Bush's is a failure.
But more to the point: you know where I stand on this, and you come here of your own free will...so how come the incredulity from you? Sometime I wonder whether you think that if you just say 'no it ain't' enough times I'll come over to your side. But if you think that my position on Carter and Reagan shows that my judgment is unreliable, why the heck read this blog? It's almost always possible to spin and obfuscate until black looks white...or at least a little gray...especially for someone like a philosopher who knows all the tricks. There are lots of people who are well-meaning but confused and/or dishonest...you waste your time trying to reason with them. So if that's me in your book, then seriously, man, you are totally wasting your time around here! My confusion/dishonesty is so deeply entrenched, if that's true, that I can't be corrected and probably shouldn't be listened to, even as an articulater of the bad, confused view. Seriously, life is short--there must be *somebody* who's confused in a more fruitful and intriguing way that yours truly...
I don't impeach your credibility with your views of Carter and Reagan, WS. I point them out when you attempt to impeach my credibility, seemingly at every turn lately.
Respond to what I wrote, or don't respond at all. But when you stoop to ad hom instead of substance, I'll point it out.
And my challenge for charity to see you perform away from your home crowd stands. And no Mystic, Patrick isn't "my little friend." You are WS' "little friend."
Patterico is a gentleman of substance and accomplishment, and wrote a comprehensive piece in rebuttal to the usual Bush/Saddam/Al Qaeda nonsense.
Plus, he's polite, and engages those who disagree with him on substance alone. Your time would be better served trying out your thoughts away from the mob, and taking potshots at me.
Ooh, you have really been CRANKY since I got back!
I learned long ago that you can rarely be reasoned with, Tom. You've become little more than a troll. You come in and drop some smoke bomb (or stink bomb), forcing me to choose between letting the drivel stand unopposed or wasting my time responding. But, as we learned the hard way in the epic 200 comment democracy/christianity exchange, you never, ever, ever admit you are wrong, no matter what. Even when the Mystic went back carefully and documented exactly what you had said, and exactly why it was wrong. Even when I tried to get you to see--not that you were wrong--but only that you had changed your position. So what, I ask is the point?
I don't usually ad hominem you. And here I merely ask, hopping up a level, since I know that you won't respond rationally to actual arguments: why do you think it's worth my time to keep trying to talk sense to you? You've got your position and, so far as I can tell, it isn't responsive to facts. What's worse, *your* dogmatism taunts the demons of dogmatism in my that I thought I had banished long ago. So it's bad all the way around.
The case about Bush's lies about Saddam and al Qaeda is basically closed. The evidence has been in for a long, long time. I know that folks on your side want to keep trying to find new ways to spin it, but eventually one has to decide that a case is closed. It's ALWAYS possible to write yet another apology...and, who knows? In the fullness of time, it might turn out that there's something that we missed...that there's some complicated way in which it was all a big misunderstanding. But it ain't likely. I've read a hundred right-wing essays that claimed to prove it, and they were all sophistry. So when, I ask you, has my obligation to inquire into the matter and keep an open mind been discharged?
I don't know why or when you transformed into a full-blown troll, but it seems to have happened. Which is too bad.
Egad. Just found the Paterico piece. You've GOT to be kidding, right?
The Patterico piece quotes Lee hamilton, the 9/11 Commission and the recent Pentagon report, which you built a whole post on based on the misleading newspaper headline
http://philosoraptor.blogspot.com/2008/03/pentagon-no-significant-link-between.html
and which documents Saddam's numerous links to Islamic terrorism, including al-Zawahiri's group, which merged with al-Qaeda.
But I expected you would wave away Patterico's piece in toto, altho I'd hoped to be surprisedto the contrary. The case is "closed" because even the Bush administration has given up trying to refute the lies the reality-based community tells each other, over and over.
And if I were merely a troll, I'd enjoy the attention. I don't and wish you'd stop.
As for Mystic "documenting" my errors in equally lengthy posts, he merely rehashed your allegations, and did no original thinking. It must be nice to have a "little friend."
Again, I'd contribute to the charity of your choice to see you attempt to disabuse Patterico of his "errors" with intelligent counterarguments, if you have any.
It would have taken less time than you spent unloading on me.
The point, though is that even when you're errors are made as clear to you as they could possibly be, you are either incapable of recognizing them or you refuse to acknowledge them. And yet you'll go on and on and on and on and on...
Patterico's already been shredded in his own comments section...though he was attacking a straw man anyway.
It's funny, though, that the right wing, which spent so much time hyperbolically, breathlessly exaggerating everything in the vicinity of the Iraq war, including the links b/w Iraq and AQ, is now shocked--shocked!--that anyone ever got the idea that they thought there was something significant there! Now they're back-pedaling frantically, trying to minimize it all.
Patterico's point is almost dowright funny--no one *high in the administration* ever *explicitly* asserted *that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11*.
Which is, of course and as usual, completely irrelevant in the context of my post, which asserted no such thing.
And, so, for the ten thousandth time I've wasted time tracking down one of your links and responding to points about something that wasn't even relevant to what I wrote, all the time putting up with condescension.
Awesome. Perhaps responding to such BS is not the most intelligent course of action...
WS, I must say, honestly, that since I stopped responding to the BS that manages to find its way into the comments section... in fact, since I stopped reading the comments section at all but for perhaps once a week at most, I must say I feel my mental health has improved greatly.
One of the most applicable things I've learned from Buddhism is that one's mind is a very absorbant thing. I never really thought anything of meditation until I read some of the reasoning for it, which is that one's environment greatly impacts the way one's mind functions and it helps to sit down and focus on modifying your thought patterns so that they produce better situations. For instance, if you swear a lot, you may begin to think in nastier terms, and that may have a detrimental effect on how you perceive the world, warping it more towards the disgusting and angry, away from objectivity. That's just an example, but applied to the current situation: if you spend a lot of your time wading through BS, you may find that it really starts to have a detrimental impact on your mind - moreso than you might think, as it not only affects your objectivity in argument, but also emotionally.
Anyway, point is - your brain is a lot like a sponge. If you don't want to feel like shit, don't put your brain in any. If you find that you have done it, don't acclimate to it - get your brain out of it and spend time wringing it out, scrubbing it clean, and drying it out. You'll be glad you did.
Just some information for your consideration. I tried it, it worked, feels nice!
Interesting, Mystic. I didn't know Buddhism taught smug. If so, you've definitely found your thing.
WS, you do about a post a week on the origins of the Iraq war. I do not believe your narrative---that of your "reality-based" fellows--- is the true one, as it ignores that al-Qaeda is Arabic for "base," or "foundation."
9-11 was intended to announce and precipitate the beginning of a decentralized worldwide Islamist revolution. The numerous ties that Patterico documents, and more importantly the latest Pentagon report, between Saddam and Islamist groups all over the world is quite relevant [and effective, in my view] in refuting your thesis that the response to 9-11 should have been restricted to Afghanistan and al-Qaeda.
For me, Saddam's payments to the families of suicide bombers was enough reason to whack his ass, so your diatribes have always been lost on me.
Oh, my.
Buddhism for Journalists. And for the officers of the USS Caine.
Perhaps you're onto something, Mystic. Perhaps the best thing you can do is smugly self-abnegate, disappear back into your cave, and put the world out of your misery. Say hi to Nirvana for the rest of us.
See, I always listen to and learn from you, man, even if the converse is not true. "Virtuous circle," what an interesting concept. You're my guru, even if I'm not yours.
Yet while this sort of thing still goes on, journalists have paid less attention to Iraq over the past year as the "surge" has succeeded in reducing violence. If the Harvard study is right, we may be looking at a virtuous circle: Less violence means less media coverage, which in turn means less violence.
Perhaps one day we'll wake up to discover that America won the war in Iraq months earlier, but no one noticed because the reporters were all busy with other things."
I agree, Mystic, and I keep resolving to stay away...but, damn, the comments section here used to be so good! Great interactions, give-and-take...but no longer.
Another Buddhist friend of mine once told me that I don't pick my interlocutors well, and end up wasting lots of time trying to reason with people who aren't seriously interested in actual inquiry. Wise man.
Ridicule is psychologically rewarding when reason has failed.
There comes a time when ad tominem attacks, say, using ridicule, are the only rational course, when ceaseless evidence of that TVD has no credibility nor any ability beyond high school forensics makes further efforts obviously fruitless.
The funny thing may be that we're his best friends. Well, not me of course. He reminds me of various boys I've known who needed and never got the gentle hazing of an older brother or friend to teach them how to behave socially. Too late now, I fear...
Well, I made a point about al-Qaeda's purpose and self-defined role. Yet you prefer to talk about me. In the third person. Not Buddhist at all.
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