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omment on the news of the week since my academic research focused on events from a generation ago also i m curious about exum s comment that blogging forces him to provide instant reactions i think it s quite valuable to test your rapid judgment ability and see how it lines up with your conclusions later on what s the worst that can happen people know you ve changed your mind bottom line i only care about these secondary points because i have so much respect for exum s work and hope he continues contributing to the public debate cross posted at conventional folly 85 opinions add your opinion thursday november 26 2009 posted 3 08 pm by ariel david adesnik smear mayonnaise on conservatives matt labash of the weekly standard writes about his effort to have a zero carbon footprint it literally involved smearing mayonnaise on his face go read cross posted at conventional folly 11 opinions add your opinion posted 3 07 pm by ariel david adesnik obama on breast cancer david gregory pointed to this presidential declaration from july pres barack obama we are we ve been under the illusion that the more health care we get the healthier we become and it turns out that every study shows that the question is are you getting the right care are you getting the best care the high quality care rather than are you having a whole bunch of tests ordered that are unnecessary getting a bunch of treatments that are unnecessary staying in hospitals longer than maybe necessary all of which drives up your costs but doesn t make you better yet all of the liberals gregory spoke to last sunday were at extreme pains to insist that the new research will not involve any reduction in the number of mammograms suddenly science and evidence didn t seem very attractive what gives i thought conservatives were the ones who put ideology ahead of science cross posted at conventional folly 8 opinions add your opinion posted 3 03 pm by ariel david adesnik i m going rogue and make war on fish i d like to think i am one of very very few customers who bought both going rogue and eating animals as part of the same order from amazon what could be more inconsistent than buying an anti factory farming polemic and the autobiography of a woman who asserts that every animal has place right next to your mashed potatoes what will amazon now recommend for me books on cognitive dissonance anyhow some initial thoughts on both books i don t expect politicians to write fair and balanced books but there is a difference between an interesting book and a set self congratulatory of talking points like hillary s auto bio i don t mind a partisan book as long as it makes a good argument so what have i found in the first sixty pages of palin s memoir so far it s mostly about the peculiarities of alaska from the perspective of the lower 48 that s reasonably interesting in terms of arguments there isn t much yet but there is plenty of self congratulation that s annoying when it comes to eating animals i have to begin with a disclosure i was good friends with the author in high school and college although i ve barely seen him since early on foer admits that he knew what he expected to find when he started researching the meat industry it would be ugly so let me respond with my own confession i know what i expected to think of an entire book that dwells on the moral implications of eating animals it will be fatuous it will lecture the reader on animal suffering while downplaying human tragedy so far i feel sort of vindicated on page 33 foer tells us as i came to see war is precisely the right word to describe our relationship to fish it captures the technologies and techniques brought to bear against them and the spirit of domination foer has an extraordinary sense of humor but i don t sense any of it here best i can tell he s dead serious i hope that later in the book he asks whether a morally serious person can talk about a war on fish without trivializing actual wars like the ones in darfur afghanistan and iraq i confess i m not too optimistic on page 35 we learn that technologies of war have literally and systematically been applied to fishing so a pentagon research agency basically invented the internet will high minded liberals now boycott the blogosphere cross posted at conventional folly 12 opinions add your opinion posted 3 01 pm by ariel david adesnik blogger resigns from pentagon detainee post i first got to know phil carter as a blogger rather than an attorney a iraq war veteran or the director of the obama campaign s outreach to veterans until this week he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy or as the ny times put it official charged with closing guantanamo quits the times hints that carter s departure had to do with the failure meet the gitmo closure deadline mr carter s departure comes as the administration has acknowledged that it will not be able to close the prison by jan 22 the self imposed deadline mr obama announced immediately after taking office glenn greenwald argues that carter may have resigned because carter is a civil libertarian and obama has gone back on most of promises regarding detainees and why would i ever disagree with glenn greenwald kevin drum says he s also disappointed with obama on civil liberties but he wouldn t know whether that affected carter s decision i haven t spoken to phil since he started working at the pentagon but he s a talented guy and he ll land on his feet i should add that phil himself said he s resigning for personal reason s and even though that s a cliche it s true for him cross posted at conventional folly 28 opinions add your opinion posted 2 58 pm by ariel david adesnik bob reich agrees with liz cheney on national security i certainly didn t expect to hear this from the liberal super pundit and former secretary of labor this is from abc reich i agree with liz i think that that in preparation for this trip to china as in many others even the trip to europe to try to sell chicago as the olympics there needs to be more thought about the appearance of weakness or strength that may come out of the trip but i want to go back to george your point because i think the big issue over the next 10 years and the big contest is going to be between authoritarian capitalism a la china and democratic capitalism a la the united states and it s not clear to me that authoritarian capitalism is not going to win that is it there is so much efficiency the chinese say we re going to build 10 new universities we re going to build this we re going to build this and boom it happens i m hope reich remains an advocate if strength when it comes to other subjects but i part ways when it comes to his pessimism about free market capitalism and veneration of the chinese it reminds me of all those who praised japan s unstoppable engine of government led capitalism it s hard not to conclude that reich and those of his ilk simply can t resist the hope that more government control will prove to be the best thing for all of us cross posted at conventional folly 10 opinions add your opinion wednesday november 18 2009 posted 5 40 pm by ariel david adesnik when bush dithered on iraq jackson diehl after months of deliberation in 2006 no one accused george w bush of dithering so why does barack obama keep hearing the taunt as he deliberates about afghanistan and why do even some who sympathize with his dilemma find it hard to shake the feeling that this commander in chief lacks resolve one part of the answer is easy bush was renowned for summoning plenty of resolve and not enough critical thinking no one questioned that bush s heart was in his bid for victory in iraq not a few wondered whether he had weighed carefully enough whether dispatching 20 000 more american troops in early 2007 was a reasoned strategy or a reckless gamble obama s prolonged deliberation would be understandable if he were choosing between escalating or ending the war as bush was yet he narrowed his options many weeks ago and still has been unable to come to closure in the end it s not enough for a president to be seen as having thought through a decision to send more troops to war enemies allies and the country also need to be convinced that he believes in it read the whole thing cross posted at conventional folly 10 opinions add your opinion posted 5 31 pm by ariel david adesnik sherlock holmes is on the case andrew sullivan informs his readers that he is taking a brief pause to pore over sarah palin s new book since the dish has tried to be rigorous and careful in analyzing palin s unhinged grip on reality from the very beginning specifically her fantastic story of her fifth pregnancy we feel it s vital that we grapple with this new data as fairly and as rigorously as possible that takes time to get right and it is so complicated we simply cannot focus on anything else there is a possibility here of such a huge scandal that we would be crazy not to take our time either to debunk it or move it forward for further examination we have only one commitment to get this right please bear with us as we do the best we can perhaps sullivan co will finally solve the mystery of who trig s parents really are my hunch ann coulter and a polar bear cross posted at conventional folly 9 opinions add your opinion posted 5 29 pm by ariel david adesnik the netroots eat their own on monday think progress trashed liberal pundit mark shields for allegedly saying with regard to obama s patience on afghanistan it makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the white house who could say let s kick some tail and ask questions afterwards you know that s what we really need instead of any reflection kevin drum read tp s post and seconded the motion albeit with more circumspection and less vitriol but to his credit kevin read the comments on his post and apologized why the quote was accurate but if you watch the one minute clip embedded in tp s post it is more than obvious that shields is being sarcastic and mocking conservatives who criticize obama extra credit to kevin for admitting that he put up his post without even watching the clip now if you really want to see the netroots at their worst read the comment thread at the end of the original post on tp both the ignorance and the viciousness are disturbing according to comment 14 what we really need is gutless fat ssed scum like shields getting the beatdown of your life from the families of those who have paid the ultimate price in wars cheered on by your spineless unaccountable pontificating shields is nothing but another worthless piece of sh t in a long line of tough guy chickenhawks incidentally shields is a marine corps veteran and that comment is just par for the course not just one ugly comment i picked out to pass judgment on the netroots to their credit a handful of commenters insist that shields was being sarcastic others know so little about shields they call him conservative full disclosure there s plenty of insanity in the far right blogosphere as well but the attack on shields is so bizarre i thought it deserved a post cross posted at conventional folly 13 opinions add your opinion posted 5 25 pm by ariel david adesnik kristol admonishes conservatives from the weekly standard republicans need to point out that obama s economic policies aren t working but they need to resist appearing to relish bad news for the country on obama s watch when rising unemployment numbers come out there is occasionally an unseemly sense of celebration in the emails that come from various gop offices more in sorrow than in joy more in confirmation than in vindication that should be the republican mood as the news of obama s failures failures which damage the well being of americans and of america rolls in cross posted at conventional folly 29 opinions add your opinion posted 5 19 pm by ariel david adesnik yes dogs really do bite mailmen a dog warning card arrived with my mail today thanks to a new jersey branch of the national association of letter carriers you can see the form online the form provides invaluable advice such as do not deliver mail if you feel endangered by an animal for a better understanding of the threats faced by america s letter carriers i recommend the following passage from the postal employee s guide to safety august 2006 edition section ix d animals and insects 1 general rules you are not required to deliver mail when an animal threatens you use extra care in making deliveries when dogs or other animals are loose on your route neither antagonize nor attempt to pet dogs if a dog rushes toward you or takes you by surprise do not run retreat very slowly facing the dog keep your mail satchel between you and the dog as a first line of defense be careful not to stumble over objects as you retreat use dog repellent spray only if you are attacked spray it directly at the dog s eyes nose and mouth do not use dog repellent indiscriminately or when there is danger of spraying children or adults when delivering mail through a door slot keep your fingers out of the slot an animal may be on the other side yikes cross posted at conventional folly 11 opinions add your opinion posted 5 05 pm by ariel david adesnik clinton no long term stake in afghanistan ny times page 1 every time mr obama declares that the united states will not have an open ended military commitment in afghanistan he fuels a second concern of the powerful pakistani military and intelligence establishment which believes the united states commitment is fleeting it is a concern that some of them say justifies pakistan s continuing ties to the militants who fight american troops in afghanistan secretary of state hillary rodham clinton appeared to fuel this concern on sunday in her comments on the abc program this week saying we re not interested in staying in afghanistan we have no long term stake there we want that to be made very clear i was listening to the program and i was pretty surprised when hillary said that it sounded more like an improvisation than a well prepped talking point but it illustrates the confusion at the heart of obama s policy the white house wants to demonstrate resolve while being sure it has an off ramp for its commitment when delivering that kind of confused message even the best talkers will slip up cross posted at conventional folly 178 opinions add your opinion tuesday november 10 2009 posted 6 02 pm by ariel david adesnik a ham sandwich on yom kippur having a ham sandwich on the afternoon of yom kippur doesn t make you less jewish rabbi yitzchak schochet chairman of the rabbinical council of the united synagogue said recently i feel like this may be a license for mis behavior if you re interested in the context of rabbi schochet s remark click here cross posted at conventional folly 8 opinions add your opinion posted 5 51 pm by ariel david adesnik obama will cruise to 2012 re election no that s not a serious prediction my ...