Saturday, September 21, 2002

Red vs. Blue:

While we can't vouch for the statistics, Alas, a blog has two maps you might be interested in. Red vs. blue states as determined by the 2000 election, and states with high and low suicide rates. We suspect that states with lower rates have more suicide-prevention programs, and that accounts for most of the difference. However, politics is politics, and maybe liberals should "wave the bloody shirt" once in a while - if only to blunt the persistent mendacity coming from the right.


Oh, waiter!

The fly in your soup, the pee in the pool, that dog-eared page in a book.

Why does Andrew Sullivan continue to appear in thoughtful journals? He's recently been added to Salon's stable of writers, and as The Rittenhouse Review notes, has managed to get his anti-New York Times views into the New Republic. This latter item is particularly galling, since Sullivan is completely wrong about the Times' reporter - as Ted Barlow demonstrated.

Why is the New Republic publishing this sort of material? Was Steven Glass unavailable?

Andy has been called many things: unscrupulous, hypocritical, unpleasant, and rude.

We'll just confine ourselves to saying that he's acting like Andew Sullivan.

But he'll probably say that's getting really low.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: According to Ted Barlow, Andrew Sullivan did not write TNR's Notebook entry. Uggabugga regrets the error.


Friday, September 20, 2002

Proposed resolution sent to Congress by the White House:

We note the following items from the text:
Whereas Congress in 1998 concluded that Iraq was then in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations and thereby threatened the vital interests of the United States and international peace and security...

Whereas Iraq remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations ... thereby continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States and international peace and security;

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population, including the Kurdish peoples, thereby threatening international peace and security in the region...



Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the high risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, ...

Whereas Iraq is in material breach of its disarmament and other obligations ... to cease repression of its civilian population that threatens international peace and security ... and to cease threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq ..."


Now, therefore, be it...
Is this the new standard? If nations attack other nations based on the threat they pose - and not in response to hostile activity (military or covert) - there will be plenty of wars in the future.


Thursday, September 19, 2002

Words from the (not too distant) past:

MR. LEHRER: ... 600,000 people died in Rwanda in 1994. There was no U.S. intervention. There was no intervention from outside world. Was that a mistake not to intervene?

GOV. BUSH: I think the administration did the right thing in that case. I do.              ... that's a case where we need to -- you know, use our influence to have countries in Africa come together and help deal with the situation. The administration ... made the right decision on training Nigerian troops for situations just such as this, in Rwanda And -- and so I thought they made the right decision not to send U.S. troops into Rwanda


Wednesday, September 18, 2002

The president speaks!

There has been some commentary following Bush's apparent failure to recall the familiar expression: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

This brings to mind the whole set of malapropisms by the President - commonly referred to as Bushisms. These Bushisms haven't been analyzed in any thorough manner, so we decided to take a look at the current set, and see if there was a pattern. There is. An apparent failure to translate thoughts into coherent speech, which manifests itself in several distinct ways: Using a noun, verb, or adjective which is opposite that of the President's intention. Errors of tense and number (especially singular vs. plural), and plenty of repetitions and tautologies. This is particularly notable when Bush is dealing with complex sentences (anything over and above a simple subject-verb-object). Bush's failure to communicate basic ideas is the result of sloppy thinking - or worse.

If you are interested in how the Bushisms stack up, we invite you to take a look at the following table.

Sometime later we shall present a detailed analysis of how Bush's thoughts get (mis)translated into error-laden speech. While plenty of folks chuckle at the Presidents verbal stumbling, we think that it's more serious. It appears that Bush's inability to handle complex thoughts may have led him over time to forsake rationalistic approaches, and instead, make decisions based on his feelings. This may explain why he disdains nuance (as he's said), and why he has simple solutions for everything. E.g.
  • Tax cuts always help.
  • Good people will make any controversial program (like drilling in ANWR) come out all right.
  • American military power is benevolent. (Again, Americans are "good people").
  • Evil is the reason for misfortunes.
  • ...and so on...


    Monday, September 16, 2002

    This may be our 15 minutes of fame:

    It looks as if the chart (below) exploring the possibilities following an invasion of Iraq is getting lots of attention (thanks MWO!). So we'd like to take a moment to thank webloggers who have given uggabugga some traffic and favorable reviews. First on the list is the esteemed Ted Barlow, followed closely by Eschaton, MaxSpeak, The Sideshow, The Rittenhouse Review, SullyWatch, Shadow of the Hegemon, and BusyBusyBusy. Also, we should mention, which is a fantastic resource for stories you're otherwise likely to miss.

    Thank you all.  (and it's not just thanks-for-the-links, these sites are excellent in and of themselves)

    NOTE: We currently don't have a blogroll, mainly because when this site was started, we picked an extremely simple template (but one that suits our "wide open" style; we love maps, tables, and diagrams). A blogroll may be added later.


    Sunday, September 15, 2002

    Somebody has come up with a solution to Florida's election problems:

    Check out this image.