Saturday, September 26, 2009

Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran

As soon as the hoopla started, I knew it was bullshit, and lo, as usual, I was right on. Bush league psych-out shit. Laughable!

Posted by IOZ at 2:38 PM | email »
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21 comments:

Anonymous said...

You won't be laughing when Iran nukes Pittsburgh, and they want to, trust me, I know.

5:21 PM
Anonymous said...

well, ackerman seems to be backtracking, but you are still right. total b.s.

btw, gareth porter two weekends ago reported in counterpunch that forged documents are popping up about iran's nukes (a la iraq and the niger yellow cake).

5:46 PM
NutellaonToast said...

We are all duly impressed by your ability to predict the west's overreaction and paranoia regarding Iran's advancement of its nuclear activities. You definitely are The Jesus.

6:03 PM
The Promiscuous Reader said...

But then, in fairness, if you assume that government figures lie (and this applies not only to Teh Obama but to all governments, as I. F. Stone always said), you have at least a 105% chance of being right. That's been scientifically proven.

7:37 PM
tm_mush said...

When the new Iranian president dictator made the statement that as soon as they had nuclear capabilities they were going to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, we should have responded to his declaration of war with a cruise missle up his ass that very night.

9:16 PM
Anonymous said...

Way to go mahn-swah. Right up ther with Katie Vandenheuval, the Socialist Workers Party, the LaRouchies, Alex Cockburn, a few other assorted (small m)marxists, David Le-Duke, and, of course, all the houlacast deniers and a few flat earthers thrown in for good measure.

Sadly I agre with you. We live in strange times indeed.

10:44 PM
Enron said...

I wonder what the correlation of this is to the petrol bourse.

4:50 AM
drip said...

Akerman says he's wrong, citing this. But, your point is still valid. The hoopla is laughable, Bush league, psych-out shit.

FWIW, Akerman and Greenwald get their facts right in the end and that's why reading them, even when they have disagreeable conclusions, can be enlightening.

7:47 AM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...

Greenwald gets facts "right"?

Ummm... nope. What Greenwald does correctly is tell us how little Greenwald knows of politics and the various machinations, subterfuges, long-cons, short-cons, Spanish Prisoner tricks, 3-card Monte games, Crying Games, etc that rest within the sphere of Politics.

Greenwald is notable for his self-promotion and his ability to emulate Markos Moulitsas Zuniga in finding somnambulist fanboys and fangirls.

12:04 PM
Michael Dawson said...

There's a lot more Bush in this guy than that:

"The rules that all nations must follow."

Ha!

12:42 PM
drip said...

Greenwald makes little sense of politics and the various machinations, subterfuges, long-cons, short-cons, Spanish Prisoner tricks, 3-card Monte games, Crying Games, etc that rest within the sphere of Politics which is why his conclusions are often disagreeable, but his facts are right, or he fixes them if he gets them wrong.

12:46 PM
Kafka said...

I can't find any fault with the Greenwald article linked to by IOZ. This story is his sweet spot and he does a good job pulling the relevant facts together into a cogent argument.

I accept Oxtrot's criticism that Greenwald often misses the wheels within wheels of politics-- but in this article he goes into the motivations of interested parties (without going too far afield). If he is self promoting, again he didn't show it in this article. Only one of his 21 links was self referential- although he could have linked to many more of his articles with justification. He also refrained from fighting old battles with AIPAC and others.

He started Unclaimed Territory in 2005- it is possible that he's getting better at what he does and has learned some lessons along the way.

6:13 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...

I would submit to yourselves that

1) what Greenwald does correctly on the facts sheet is something anyone could do correctly;

2) the "arguments" he crafts are where he falls down because he's politically naive, extremely so -- and therefore even if, as Kafka suggests, he is improving his game, he's still a pine-riding skill-less no-talent whose fanbase keeps him on the team while his actual skills and play warrant dismissal or demotion to water-boy status; and

3) therefore if one wants a lawyerly insight on any of the issues of national politics, one could do worlds better than Greenwald... worlds... hell, even the helium-filled noggins of Orin Kerr & Co (The Volokh Conspiracy) are better legal analysts than Greenwald, and Kerr's Kids are mere apologists for empire!

11:53 AM
Kafka said...

Oxtrot- a little harsh, but I won't quibble with any of it.

1:24 PM
SteveB said...

Fuckin' Greenwald. What has he ever done? It's not like he's got the analytical skills to cut right to the heart of the Serena Williams controversy like Mr. Charles F. Oxtrot has done.

2:07 PM
drip said...

I could care less about Greenwald's lawyering, or Kerr's or Obama's if it comes to that and I can come up with my own analysis, thank you very much. I also agree that what Greenwald does with respect to facts is something anyone could do correctly. But as easy as it is to collect and record facts, its something that few do as well as Greenwald (easy though it may be) and fewer still take as seriously. Whilst others tell me what stoopid is floating around in their heads today, Greenwald (and Ackerman) are doing research and getting their facts right, which I appreciate. Ignoring their analysis is a small price to pay to review the work that others find too easy to bother doing. Sort of the way I appreciate Matthew Barney more than Ayn Rand. But, its a blawg right?

3:14 PM
slmc said...

For the record, despite hosting a few seriously moronic lawyers and stat guys (who invited the Freakanomics dude?), Balkinization is a better law blog than Volokh Consipracy - if only to see Sandy Levinson complain about every form of constitutional interpretation, in every possible direction, all the time. He's a curmudgeonly old legal radical who holds totally unreasonable ideas, just like a law professor should.

9:49 PM
Anonymous said...

drip - Rand at least would have had the good sense to end Cremaster 3 with the controlled demolition of the Chrysler Building, which would have made sitting through the previous three hours of self-indulgent wankery almost, but not quite, worth it. Still, Barney's work offers telling clues to explain the current situation: Iran is strategically important because it's situated atop the world's largest Vaseline aquifer, long-coveted by the Military-Occult-Gibberish Complex.

1:10 PM
drip said...

I shudder at the thought of a Matthew Barney remake of The Fountainhead. My apologies to all for the bad visuals. But calling Matthew Barney self indulgent in a paragraph in which Ayn Rand is mentioned is like the stove in the Brady Bunch's kitchen calling the refrigerator avocado.

4:01 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...

You're almost funny, Steve. You reference an amusing, joking entry as if it's my serious take on things. I don't suppose you read any other entries at my anything-goes blog, did you? You have any comments on the more serious entries, Steve?

No, I didn't think so. More crap from the ironically Elitist Non-Thinking Steve B... Pwog-Weasel Deluxe!

Say, Steve... would you like to arrange a political or legal debate between me and La Greenwald? I'd love to witness your tears of agony as I dressed down the pretentious fraud of Wee Glennie.

1:03 PM
Anonymous said...

drip - You say avocaydo, I say avocado. Still apples to oranges, but at least Rand indulged herself at the cost of a typewriter, some paper, maybe some stamps, Barney at the cost of the GDP of Micronesia. Next week on "Who's More Obnoxious?": Dan Brown vs. Michael Bay.

3:38 PM

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