Tag Archives: Not Europe

Bowling for Cubberley (Free Music Inside!)

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Usually, it’s impossible to argue with people who make comparisons between the incumbent US administration and various past totalitarian systems, particularly when the argument turns to a comparison between George W Bush and the Austrian guy with the Charlie Chaplin moustache. Whatever you think of George W Bush and his administration – still a mystery to many people in the US as well as abroad – he’s no Hitler, and the US are still a largely liberal democracy – albeit a deeply divided and angst-ridden one with a progressively eroding system of common values.


A regular guy from Texas.Though I hope to the contrary, I believe the weeks following the US Presidential election will become a much bigger electoral and legal debacle than most commentators are willing to admit now. In the end, this election might well become a testament of the principal current American weakness – deep social and partisan divisions, if not outright hatred between the camps. American politics now appears to consist predominantly of conceptually empty labels – very soon even rituals of Patriotism may be exposed as nothing more than a band aid for a mentally and spiritually ailing nation.
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The Economist endorses Kerry

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The incompetent or the incoherent?

It’s hard not to giggle. The Economist is probably the most prestigious name in the business press in the US. The editors’ backhanded compliments to Bush don’t cover a contempt for his bungling, even as they support his efforts point by point.

[A]s Mr Bush has often said, there is a need in life for accountability. He has refused to impose it himself, and so voters should, in our view, impose it on him, given a viable alternative. John Kerry, for all the doubts about him, would be in a better position to carry on with America’s great tasks.

With Kerry, all they can seem to find to say about him that’s nice is that he’s a “fiscal conservative” and that he’s not in debt to the radical right. Fair enough, I suppose, but I recall them saying the same sorts of things about Bush in 2000.

Still, America has only had one CEO president: George W. Bush. To see the flagship of the business press toss him overboard is a real indictment, both of him and of the ideology he represents.

Update: Didn’t notice this til just now either:

Public Opinion Poll Indicates Iraqis Favor Kerry over Bush in U.S. Presidential Race (via Abu Aardvark)

It’s getting harder to suppress the giggling.

Hobbits among us

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It seems the big science news today is the discovery of a new species of homind in a dig on Flores Island in Indonesia. Homo floresiensis, who apparently was about a metre tall apparently lived as recently as 13,000 years ago – much more recently than any known homnid other than humans, and there is already speculation that they survived much more recently. It seems that some people on Flores still tell stories of little people who lived in caves at the time of the arrival of the Dutch 400 years ago. This leads one to speculate that the less well expored areas of Flores, and perhaps other islands in eastern Indonesia, may still hold pockets of little people.

BBC is already calling them “hobbits”.
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Buffy as a metaphor for Bush

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Readers of AFOE may know that I am a fan of the now defunct American TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which is why I couldn’t possibly resist linking to this:

In other words, Season 7 of Buffy always struck me as a fairly explicit critique of Bush’s foreign policy (even if dullards on the right missed it), and a foreshadowing of a superior Kerryist alternative. Even Willow’s tentative embrace of her own power and overcoming of her own fears about how she might use her power for evil echoes the European (and especially German) struggle with the past; as in Season Four (Adam) and Season Five (Glory), Buffy can only defeat evil when working closely with a self-confident and allied Willow.

From Abu Aardvark.

Scary Reading.

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For all its amazing sensoric and analytical abilities, more often than not the human mind is simply overwhelmed with the world’s complexity, confused by its uncertainty. Philosophers have dreamed of an easy life without the pain inflicted by their insatiable urge to reflect, to question everything, to leave no stone unturned.

Of course, no philosopher is needed to understand that such a tendency is not necessarily helpful when it comes to making decisions. A good decision today is usually preferable to an optimal one at some unspecified time in the future. However, the opposite – confidence to decide appropriately that is not founded on facts – is at least as bad, and probably worse. Balancing reflection and decisiveness based on intuition or ideological determination is above all important for political leadership.

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Talking Points. I have a plan.

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Alright gentle readers, the last Kerry-Bush exchange of talking points has begun. And at this point I would like to mention that I, too, have a plan – and I will even talk about its specificties: I will try to occasionally update this post with my impressions – as this is what really matters ;). Nick Barlow is blogging the event over on his nicely redesigned blog “What you can get away with“.
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Nudity.

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Since I actually stayed up to watch the debate between US president and Senator John Kerry, I have decided to share my favorite line.

“I just know how this world works.”

I leave it up to you who stated that… you’re right: the nude guy.

Kerry was no Jed Bartlet tonight, but I think it is hard to claim that Bush had any substantial message simply because he managed to drop a foreign leader’s name here and there and insisted adamantly that not mentioning mistakes is the smart thing to do, in order not to hurt the feelings of those who are busy dealing with their consequences in Falludja. Actually, that was the answer he gave to almost every question.

By the way, does anyone beside me find it even remotely strange that three German channels broadcast this debate live while only two at a time broadcast the debates between Chancellor Schroeder and his challenger Edmund Stoiber in 2002?

Update by David:

I liveblogged the whole thing over at Europundit. Short version: Kerry won.

Ivan, ho!

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Hurricane Ivan is drawing a bead on the area where I grew up – Mobile, Alabama from age four to eight and Baton Rouge, Louisiana from eight until I went off to university. Mom’s headed north to cousins’ in Vicksburg, Mississippi. True to form, Dad, stepmom and co. are staying put.

Ninety miles inland, where Baton Rouge stands, is probably far enough that the storm will have weakened considerably, and I don’t expect too much damage.
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