Armed toddlers must be annihilated!

Encouraging words

From Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He "is an applied statistician and derivatives trader-turned-philosopher, and author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable."

America's primary export, it appears, is trial-and-error, and the innovative knowledge attained in such a way. Trial-and-error has error in it; and most top-down traditional rational and academic environments do not like the fallibility of "error" and the embarrassment of not quite knowing where they're going. The U.S. fosters entrepreneurs and creators, not exam-takers, bureaucrats or, worse, deluded economists. So the perceived weakness of the American pupil in conventional studies is where his or her very strength may lie. The American system of trial and error produces doers: Black Swan-hunting, dream-chasing entrepreneurs, with a tolerance for a certain class of risk-taking and for making plenty of small errors on the road to success or knowledge.

Putting the American worker out of work

Have they really thought through what they are doing? What will happen when nobody in the United States can afford their product? When the middle class has been strangled to death? That they are literally putting themselves out of work?

Via whig at Cannablog:

The term immigrant

Is not always hooked to the word illegal. But it is always tied to a face, a story, a passion, a drive. Via David Neiwert of Orcinus, take a look at the new faces of America.

Right-wingers declare anyone who is not gloating over Saddam's hanging

not an American, not patriotic, and obviously supports terrorism.

Larisa Alexandrovna at her blog At Largely explains to wingnuts why this logic is faulty:

"Let me help you by explaining that one can oppose executions without supporting the crimes committed of those executed. Wow, hard to digest? I know, inbreeding will shrink your brain, did you know that?

But more importantly, this fringe that is the "enemy within America" just so happens to include the Vatican (hardly left leaning) and a cadre of Conservative voices (also hardly left leaning) who have a myriad of reasons for opposing this execution.

Some people oppose the execution because it was based on a flawed trial. Think about it, Saddam Hussein was a monster, we all know this. So why is it that he was only convicted for 148 deaths dating over 25 years ago? Ask yourself that question. Because if signing a death sentence warns execution, then should President Bush not also stand trial?

Clearly there is a reason why other crimes were not brought up or allowed, at this administrations request, to be introduced.

But you don't want to know facts. You don't even want to know where Osama is (remember him, wanted dead or alive?). What you want is some sort of feeling that you matter and that you are a real American. Unfortunately, real Americans like you, are the reason Saddam came to power to begin with.

Those opposed to the execution are not mourning the death of Saddam. What they are mourning is the loss of our own national conscience. Some are, as I have pointed out, not happy with the farce of a trial in a country to which we are attempting to (so they say) export democracy. Some are not comfortable because of the timing, which just happens to be during a holy time in Muslim religion. Not that you would know this as xenophobes are busy only with flag waving and gay bashing."

The era of American unilateralism is over.

"And an era -- that of American unilateralism -- is over. If the commission has its way - and it undoubtedly will - then there will be an international conference on the situation in the Middle East. That includes talks between America and two countries that have so far remained taboo: Syria and Iran. Syria has at least two faces: that of Bashar al-Assad, the eye doctor with former residence in London who knows how the West thinks and maybe even thinks like the West himself; and that of the old regime, which thinks the loss of its sphere of influence in Lebanon would be an egregious mistake and diligently grants its full praise to al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas. It wouldn't be bad if it finally came to light, which of Syria's faces is the real face.

The era of allowing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to drag on is also over. Israel quickly made up for America's mistakes in Iraq with its invasion of Lebanon. The little king of Jordan recently remarked that without some special efforts to contain the conflicts in the region, then the world could soon be dealing with three wars there: Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.

And it is the end of the era of "we-are-not-leaving-Iraq-as-long-as-the-Iraqis-don't-want-us-to" rhetoric. There will be a phased retreat and a phased reduction of troops. The commission's package deal is almost as ingenious as it is treacherous: If the Iraqi government manages, slowly but surely, to put an end to the insurgency and the bloodletting on its own, then US troops will gradually pull out. If, on the other hand, there is no end to the murders and assassinations -- if the government proves helpless in the face of the growing civil war -- then the US will pull out sooner. There is no room for sentimentality anymore."

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