It's only fascism when conservatives want it, evidently.

Roger Pielke comments on Shearman & Smith's recent call for the replacement of democracy by some species of authoritarianism (technocracy, perhaps?) due to the looming threat of climate change. Jonah Goldberg also takes note, but it takes the Blogfather to come up with the proper bon mot.

Seriously, though, WTF? Where are all the soft libertarians and similarly-minded progressives who have been howling for the last seven years about the return of the National Security State? Evidently having cities blown up and losing the war against fascist Islam is of relatively little concern next to the threat of eventual climate change, which humanity has somehow managed to survive repeatedly without giving up what freedoms we'd managed to wrest from various kings & despots.

It's only fascism when conservatives want it, evidently.

Roger Pielke comments on Shearman & Smith's recent call for the replacement of democracy by some species of authoritarianism (technocracy, perhaps?) due to the looming threat of climate change. Jonah Goldberg also takes note, but it takes the Blogfather to come up with the proper bon mot.

Seriously, though, WTF? Where are all the soft libertarians and similarly-minded progressives who have been howling for the last seven years about the return of the National Security State? Evidently having cities blown up and losing the war against fascist Islam is of relatively little concern next to the threat of eventual climate change, which humanity has somehow managed to survive repeatedly without giving up what freedoms we'd managed to wrest from various kings & despots.

Prairie music

I'm enjoying the "country" channel I set up on Pandora tremendously. It's playing a bunch of singers and bands I'd never heard of who are good, playing a bunch of Son Volt tunes off Wide Swing Tremolo that make me want to buy it even more, and proving to me that I have Lone Justice and 'Til Tuesday hopelessly confused.

On the other hand, Steve Earle is definitely not my can of Lone Star. When you cover "Before They Make Me Run," you ought to stop and consider whether you can sing or play guitar better than Keith Richards. Earle's version is epic fail, since his voice is far worse than Keef's and he can't play the guitar near as well. OTOT, I'd pay good money to hear Adrian Belew cover that tune. He'd rock the house, I have no doubt.

Prairie music

I'm enjoying the "country" channel I set up on Pandora tremendously. It's playing a bunch of singers and bands I'd never heard of who are good, playing a bunch of Son Volt tunes off Wide Swing Tremolo that make me want to buy it even more, and proving to me that I have Lone Justice and 'Til Tuesday hopelessly confused.

On the other hand, Steve Earle is definitely not my can of Lone Star. When you cover "Before They Make Me Run," you ought to stop and consider whether you can sing or play guitar better than Keith Richards. Earle's version is epic fail, since his voice is far worse than Keef's and he can't play the guitar near as well. OTOT, I'd pay good money to hear Adrian Belew cover that tune. He'd rock the house, I have no doubt.

It's not my fault!

joel_rosenberg was talking about the twin scourges of BDS/CDS and in the comments we touched on the nutroots' & wingnuts' assassination conspiracy theories.

Which brought to mind the odd phone call I got from my ex when Paul Wellstone's plane went down. We'd been separated a while by then, but the papers hadn't ground their way through the courts yet, so there were occasional calls about this and that. On this occasion, she called me to pass on the news that Wellstone's plane had crashed. "I didn't do it," I replied. "That's not funny!" she snapped, and hung up.

Well, as a well-trained member of the VRWC, what else was I going to say?

It's not my fault!

joel_rosenberg was talking about the twin scourges of BDS/CDS and in the comments we touched on the nutroots' & wingnuts' assassination conspiracy theories.

Which brought to mind the odd phone call I got from my ex when Paul Wellstone's plane went down. We'd been separated a while by then, but the papers hadn't ground their way through the courts yet, so there were occasional calls about this and that. On this occasion, she called me to pass on the news that Wellstone's plane had crashed. "I didn't do it," I replied. "That's not funny!" she snapped, and hung up.

Well, as a well-trained member of the VRWC, what else was I going to say?